Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2014-10-22
Admiral on deck: a modern Ada Lovelace
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Featured articles
Four featured articles were promoted this week.
- Turquoise parrot (nominated by Cas Liber) Casliber created a stub for this article in December 2006 and, 238 edits and eight years later, it has now been promoted to FA. It tells us of a species of rather colourful parrot, native to Eastern Australia. Numbers of the species crashed in the early 20th century, but now appear to be recovering.
- Interstate 69 in Michigan (nominated by Imzadi1979) is a 202.3-mile (325.6 km) part of the Interstate Highway System that has been in existence since October 1967.
- Not My Life (nominated by Neelix) "is a 2011 American independent documentary film about human trafficking and contemporary slavery", which was written, produced, and directed by Robert Bilheimer. Not My Life took four years to film, and detailed human trafficking in 13 countries on every inhabited continent. In 2012 the film was named Best World Documentary at the Harlem International Film Festival in September 2012.
- Hemmema (nominated by Peter) "A hemmema was a type of warship built for the Swedish archipelago fleet and the Russian Baltic navy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries"; designed by the Swedish naval architect Fredrik Henrik af Chapman, the hemmema was a specialised vessel with a shallow draught for use in shallow waters. It was originally designed for use against the Russian navy, and the Swedes built six hemmemas between 1764 and 1809. After the Russians captured three of the Swedish vessels in 1808, they built built six hemmemas between 1808 and 1823.
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Painting of Rubens Peale by his brother, Rembrandt Peale -
The only known fossil of Darwinius masillae
Featured lists
Four featured lists were promoted this week.
- Tom Hanks on screen and stage (nominated by Cowlibob) One of the most successful actors of recent times, Hanks began his career on stage in 1977, performing in a series of Shakespeare plays. In 1980 he made his debut on the big and small screens; his second film role—as the lead in Splash—made his name, and led to a string of hits which have garnered five Academy Award nominations (winning two), and nominations and wins for most major film and television awards. This is Cowlibob's seventh featured list, all of which have been film related.
- List of international cricket five-wicket hauls by Mitchell Johnson (nominated by NickGibson3900) Johnson is a left-arm fast bowler who represents Australia at Test, One Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket. Since his Test debut against Sri Lanka in 2007, he has taken five-wicket hauls 12 times in tests, and 3 in ODIs.
- List of Interstate Highways in Michigan (nominated by Imzadi1979) is that section of the Interstate Highway System—about 1,239 miles (1,994 km)—that is owned and maintained by the U.S. state of Michigan. The system was started in the 1950s, and the most recent section was completed in 1992.
- List of Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order appointed by Queen Victoria (nominated by Noswall59) The Royal Victorian Order is an order of knighthood that was officially created and instituted on 23 April 1896 by Queen Victoria. It is still awarded by the sovereign of the United Kingdom and several Commonwealth realms, and is granted personally by the monarch to recognise personal service to the monarchy. The most senior of the five ranks in the order is the Knight Grand Cross (GCVO). Originally limited to men, women were first admitted in 1936.
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Guido Reni's Saint Joseph and the Christ Child -
Nowadluk Ootenna, an Inuit woman, in 1907 -
Raden Saleh's posthumous portrait of Herman Willem Daendels
Featured pictures
Fifty-three featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Herman Willem Daendels (created by Raden Saleh, nominated by Crisco 1492) Governor of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and the Dutch Gold Coast (now Ghana), Herman Willem Daendels lived a complicated life which included a civil war, the French Revolution, and a coup d'état before he even left Europe. The painter, Raden Saleh, is also highly interesting: a native Indonesian who inspired the entire modern Indonesian art movement.
- Inuit woman (created by Lomen Bros., Nome, Alaska; restored by Papa Lima Whiskey and Crisco 1492; nominated by Belle) Nowadluk Ootenna (also spelt Nowadlook or Anglicised to Nora) was an Inuit woman who lived in Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, working as a reindeer herder. This photograph dates from 1907.
- Engravings of U.S. Presidents set: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt (created by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, prepared, restored, and nominated by Godot13) A series of engravings of the presidents from a US Treasury specimen book, presumably published during Theodore Roosevelt's tenure (1901–1909), given that his portrait ends the series.
- 3DO Interactive Multiplayer (created by Evan-Amos, nominated by Bellus Delphina) A particularly ambitious gaming console from 1993, the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer offered fully supported 3D gaming at a time when other systems had fairly moderate support for such things, tending towards sprite-based games. Unfortunately, it was created by a small company that had to hire other manufacturers, leading to a cost of around US$600 to 700 ($960 to 1120 in today's money), and it failed to compete successfully with more-established companies such as Nintendo and Sega.
- Fire on the Deepwater Horizon (created by United States Coast Guard, edited by Mark Miller and Ottojula, nominated by Pine) In 2010, an oil-drilling platform owned by BP, Deepwater Horizon, caught on fire. The oil spill eventually resulting from this lasted for months before it could be stopped, with some sources claiming it never stopped completely, heavily contaminated the Gulf of Mexico, shut down huge swaths of coastal businesses, and cleanup took place over years. Last month, BP was found guilty of gross negligence and reckless conduct that made them primarily responsible for the spill, which could result in up to 18 billion U.S. dollars in additional penalties.
- Saint Joseph and the Christ Child (created by Guido Reni, nominated by Hafspajen) While the Madonna and child is particularly common in religious paintings, few works focus on the other side of the family, the infant Jesus and his father, Joseph. This painting by Guido Reni is an excellent picture of paternal love, with Joseph's pleased, but restrained expression, and the beautifully painted child happily playing while looking back at him.
- Beauty Revealed (created by Sarah Goodridge, nominated by Crisco 1492) Sarah Goodridge was an artist specializing in portrait miniatures. This tiny little self-portrait – just 6.7 by 8 cm (2.6 × 3.1 in) – entitled Beauty Revealed shows, surrounded by beautifully detailed folds of cloth, her breasts.
- Still life: apples and jar (created by Samuel Peploe, nominated by Hafspajen) The Scottish Colourists were an early 20th-century group of four painters noted for their uses of vivid, contrasting colours, influenced by French artists of the period, but turning it into their own idiom. This painting is by Samuel Peploe, who specialised in still lifes. Bold, and showing the influence of abstract art, particularly in the background, it's a fine work of art.
- Grace Hopper (created by James S. Davis, nominated by Pine) United States Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper invented the first ever compiler for a computer language, did the initial work that led to the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages, and created the term debugging after the removal of an actual moth from a computer.
- One-dollar, two-dollar, five-dollar, ten-dollar, twenty-dollar, fifty-dollar, one-hundred-dollar, five-hundred-dollar, and one-thousand-dollar United States Notes from the 1880 series (created by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, nominated and prepared by Godot13 from specimens at the National Numismatic Collection of the National Museum of American History) The United States Notes for 1880 was the final redesign of the large-sized U.S. dollar bills before they shrank in size. One interesting thing about them is that, unlike modern currency, they feature a wider range of people, such as Union General Joseph K. Mansfield and DeWitt Clinton, creator of the Erie Canal.
- Portrait of Charles Hodge (created by Rembrandt Peale, nominated by Crisco 1492) Charles Hodge was an American theologian, one of the leading promoters of Princeton Theology, and an important figure in the development of the modern evangelical and fundamentalist branches of Christianity.
- Anatomical diagram of a Pectinidae (scallop) (created and nominated by KDS444) KDS444 has this interesting workflow where he presents a very good SVG diagram as a featured picture canidate, encourages comments, then uses the comments to continuously improve the diagram, until it comes out the other side as more-or-less a definitive way of presenting the information. In this case, an anatomical diagram of a scallop (Pectinidae).
- Darwinius masillae (created by Jens L. Franzen, et al. [see file description page]; nominated by Alborzagros) This photograph, while a bit small for a featured picture, shows the only known fossil (nicknamed "Ida") from the Darwinius genus of primates, and thus, of course, the only known fossil for its species. It is a particularly complete specimen, superficially resembling a lemur. The specimen is somewhat controversial, due to somewhat overblown and incompletely substantiated claims regarding its importance.
- Banquet Still Life (created by Adriaen van Utrecht, nominated by Hafspajen) A staggeringly well-constructed 1644 oil on canvas painting by the Flemish still life painter Adriaen van Utrecht from the Dutch Golden Age of painting. This painting is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
- Rubens Peale with a Geranium (created by Rembrandt Peale, nominated by Hafspajen) This is an 1801 oil on canvas painting of the botanist Rubens Peale with his geranium, said to be the first grown in the new world. Rubens was 17 when he sat for the painting for his elder brother Rembrandt.
- Albert Einstein (created by Ferdinand Schmutzer, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) This is a younger-than-normal picture of the German-born theoretical physicist and philosopher of science Albert Einstein, taken during a lecture in Vienna in 1921 when the Great Brain was 41. The photograph is a study by the portraitist Ferdinand Schmutzer, a member of the Vienna Secession. Schmutzer did not intend his studies to be published, they were for his own private use.
- Niagara Falls, from the American Side (created by Frederic Edwin Church, nominated by Hafspajen) This is a 1967 painting by the American artist Frederic Edwin Church. Church is noted as one of the most outstanding Romantic landscape painters from the US. He was part of the American Hudson River School art movement. Church made a series of paintings on Niagara Falls, of which the most famous is this one, Niagara Falls, from the American Side. It is currently located in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery, which would explain to the more Edinburgh-resident of this article's writers why it looked so familiar.
- Oedipus and the Sphinx (created by Gustave Moreau, nominated by Crisco 1492) An 1864 painting by Gustave Moreau, depicting the meeting between Oedipus and the Sphinx on the road to Delphi. The picture is currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; for those in London or Paris, Ingres also painted two later versions which are now in the National Gallery and Louvre, respectively.
- One hard dollar (created by Gregor MacGregor and W.H. Lizars; nominated and prepared by Godot13 from specimens at the National Numismatic Collection of the National Museum of American History) One dollar, Bank of Poyais, Republic of Poyais (1820s). After fighting in South and Central America, the Scottish soldier Gregor MacGregor created an elaborate scam claiming to have been made a Cacique of the entirely fictitious Cazique of Poyais, all in an effort to defraud land investors. Nearly 200 died in 1822–23 in connection with his deception.
- Helix Nebula (created by NASA and ESA, nominated by The Herald) This is the Helix Nebula, a cosmic starlet located about 700 light-years away in the Aquarius constellation, as seen by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The nebula is the remains of a star, which has died and is puffing out its outer gaseous layers. (On a cheery note this is what our sun will look like in about five billion years.
- Cymon and Iphigenia (created by Sir Frederic Leighton, nominated by Sagaciousphil) Leighton took eight months to complete this masterpiece, which he based on Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron. The picture depicts Iphigenia asleep in a grove; as she is discovered by the rough, uneducated Cypriot youth Cymon, he falls in love, and the power of that love turns him into a polished man of letters. Those of you in and around Sydney can visit the original at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
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Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution—a wiki-protest
Three weeks ago, the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong have made headlines around the world, including on Wikipedia's own front page in ITN. A lot of attention has been given to the sheer significance of the showdown, likening it to David and Goliath[1] and worrying that neither side had an exit strategy.[2] However, amidst this binary portrayal of the protests as democrats versus the government, only the most sharp-eyed reports spotted that this "Umbrella Revolution" is actually a highly inhomogeneous movement with a social hierarchy that is similar to none other than our dear Wikipedia.
Nobody is in control
Benny Tai, leader of the Occupy Central movement, admitted to media that he had lost control of the protests.[3] This is an accurate description, except that Benny Tai himself had never wanted to take full control of the movement anyway. As the idea of Occupy Central brewed beneath the surface over the past year, Benny Tai stressed repeatedly that he advocated deliberative democracy within the movement,[4] and that he's merely serving as a figurehead for the movement.[5] Much like Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia, the protest leaders are influential figureheads in the movement, but to say they have control is both an overestimation of their power and a misrepresentation of the movement's nature.
This is examplified on the fearful night of 28 September when police first deployed tear gas canisters against the peaceful demonstrators and threatened the use of gunfire if the crowds didn't disperse. The protest leaders pleaded all demonstrators to leave in order to avoid bloodshed. Most left, but about 10,000 recongregated shortly after and endured 87 rounds of tear gas.[6] The next morning, a stronger movement emerged which isn't even afraid of tear gas anymore.
Bottom-up collaboration
On Wikipedia, editors debate on decentralized talk pages associated with each article and organize themselves into WikiProjects to collaborate on particular topics. People volunteer as they see fit and there is no need for a central authority.
Same for Hong Kong. As the protests unfolded, they became an organic movement that organized itself. Communication was entirely decentralized, with messaging applications and social media widely used to spread the latest news and plan actions. Both physical and online noticeboards were used to advise supporters on what to bring to the protest site. With the threat of the police interrupting mobile communications, the crowds turned to FireChat to secure their information flow.[7] Teams of volunteers emerged spontaneously from the crowds, some to defend the barricades, some to transport food and equipment, some to update the rest of the world by social media, and even some to do the recycling.[8] They went on ad-hoc shifts so that some would keep the protest running smoothly while others can go back to their day jobs or go home and rest.
Common principles
Wikipedia editors come from all walks of life. We disagree and fight over many things, but we are all united by one vision: to make knowledge freely available to all. We work together under a few common principles and regulate ourselves, occasionally exercising the tough love of banning those who don't follow the rules.
The demonstrators are also, surprisingly, a disparately inhomogeneous bunch. They come from the economic right and left. There are patriotic democrats who want to use Hong Kong to democratize China, and regionalists who simply want to seal off Hong Kong from Beijing. There are even some who joined the protests simply because they were enraged by the police's disproportionate use of force against the demonstrators.[10] But they are united by a common goal and a few common principles. They have all taken to the streets to demand genuine democracy in Hong Kong, and they all adhere staunchly to the principle of non-violence. When the police charged at them with shields, sticks, and pepper spray, they stood still and turned the other cheek, restraining each other from striking back.[11]
And this is why the Umbrella Revolution is so powerful: Because nobody is in control, the arrests of leaders such as Joshua Wong didn't curtail their efforts, instead provoking more people to take to the streets and join their cause. Because their collaboration was bottom-up and spontaneous, there wasn't a weakest link which could be exploited to bring the movement down. Because of their belief in non-violence in the face of a violent crackdown, the movement had caught the world's sympathy.
Nobody knows how long the protests will last and demonstrators are settling in for the long fight.[12] But what is certain is that the Umbrella Revolution has already revolutionized political activism in the same way Wikipedia revolutionized knowledge dissemination a decade ago.
- Deryck Chan has been a Wikipedian since 2004. He is originally from Hong Kong and is currently working in London as an engineer.
- The views expressed in this op-ed are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds at our opinion desk or through email.
References
- ^ Carrie Gracie (24 September 2014). "Hong Kong's David and Goliath democracy battle". BBC.
- ^ "Hong Kong protests: no exit". The Economist. 4 October 2014.
- ^ Joyce Ng; Jeffie Lam; Gary Cheung (29 September 2014). "How Occupy Central leaders lost grip on protest". South China Morning Post.
- ^ Tania Branigan (6 March 2014). "Occupy Central gives downtown Hong Kong a taste of disobedience". The Guardian. UK.
- ^ John Foley (1 October 2014). "Hong Kong harmony hits Beijing's worst fears". Reuters.
- ^ "Hong Kong protests: a peaceful night of singing in 'umbrella revolution'". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 29 September 2014.
- ^ "#BBCtrending: Hong Kong's 'off-grid' protesters". BBC. 29 September 2014.
- ^ Samanthi Dissanayake (30 September 2014). "Things that could only happen in a Hong Kong protest". BBC.
- ^ Tania Branigan (1 October 2014). "Joshua Wong: the teenager who is the public face of the Hong Kong protests". The Guardian. UK.
- ^ Tania Branigan; Jonathan Kaiman (28 September 2014). "Tens of thousands join pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong". The Guardian. UK.
- ^ Tom Grundy (21 October 2014). "VIDEO – Smoking Gun: Police Blindly Beat Peaceful Protesters With Batons". Hong Wrong.
- ^ "Hong Kong protest: Mong Kok camp retaken from police". BBC News. 18 October 2014.
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The story of Wikipedia; Wikipedia reanimated and republished; UK government social media rules; death of Italian Wikipedia administrator
The story of Wikipedia
The Daily Beast (October 19) ran a long excerpt called "You Can Look It Up: The Wikipedia Story" from Walter Isaacson's new book, The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Isaacson begins by describing how Apple's HyperCard inspired Ward Cunningham to create a visionary application for the Internet that he called the WikiWikiWeb, after Honolulu's Wiki Wiki airport shuttle. Cunningham had learned that wiki means quick in the Hawaiian language, and that wiki wiki thus means doubly quick. He released WikiWikiWeb as open-source software in early 1995, and it became familiar to software engineers over the next several years, although it was largely unknown to the public.
Next, Isaacson writes about the early life of Jimmy Wales, from his childhood fascination with the World Book Encyclopedia his mother had bought for him, to his post-graduate involvement with user-generated content such as Multi-User Dungeon games, electronic mailing lists, web directories, and web rings. In 1996, Wales and two partners founded a company, Bomis, to promote and make money from these ventures. In early 2000, Bomis underwrote Nupedia, a free, volunteer-written, online encyclopedia. Wales hired a philosophy graduate student, Larry Sanger, to help develop Nupedia, but the extensive peer-reviewed process that they devised proved to be "painfully slow" and "not a lot of fun." After the first year, Nupedia only had a dozen articles.
| “ | That was when Wales and Sanger discovered Ward Cunningham's wiki software. Like many digital-age innovations, the application of wiki software to Nupedia in order to create Wikipedia—combining two ideas to create an innovation—was a collaborative process involving thoughts that were already in the air. | ” |
After covering the disagreements over who brought what inspiration to the project, and the philosophical differences between Nupedia and Wikipedia, Isaacson then brings us to the main event: the launch of Wikipedia in early 2001.
| “ | One month after Wikipedia's launch, it had a thousand articles, approximately seventy times the number that Nupedia had after a full year. By September 2001, after eight months in existence, it had ten thousand articles. ... A year after that, the article total reached forty thousand, more than were in the World Book that Wales's mother had bought. | ” |
By then, Wales had let Sanger go. A year later, after Wikipedia had accumulated 100,000 articles and a critical mass of editors, Nupedia met its demise when Wikipedia subsumed it.
Having recounted Wikipedia's beginnings, Isaacson moves on to describe his own experience as a Wikipedia editor and being part of the crowdsourcing. He waxes enthusiastic about Wikipedia's mechanisms of collaboration and consensus as it applies to both the development of articles and the governance of the project. He particularly stresses the principle of neutral point of view in producing articles. He notes the tremendous growth ("Wikipedia was able to spread like kudzu") into hundreds of languages and tens of millions of articles.
He speculates on why editors contribute, and concludes it is more than giving people free access to knowledge, that most contribute out of the sheer joy of sharing what they know.
| “ | [There is] a rush of dopamine that seems to hit the brain's pleasure center when you make a smart edit and it appears instantly in a Wikipedia article. Until recently, being published was a pleasure afforded only to a select few. Most of us in that category can remember the thrill of seeing our words appear in public for the first time. Wikipedia, like blogs, made that treat available to anyone. You didn't have to be credentialed or anointed by the media elite. | ” |
On this last point, he gives a shout out to now-departed editor User:Lord Emsworth, whose moniker comes from the P. G. Wodehouse character. Lord Emsworth's "articles on the British aristocracy ... were so insightful about the intricacies of the peerage system that some were featured as the article of the day, and Lord Emsworth rose to become a Wikipedia administrator. It turned out that [he] was actually a 16-year-old schoolboy in South Brunswick, New Jersey. On Wikipedia, nobody knows you're a commoner."
Wikipedia reanimated and republished
Wired highlights (October 8) the newest project of artist Evan Roth, called No Original Research, which was commissioned by the Alingsas Konsthallen as part of their exhibition Snel Hest. Roth took eleven animated GIF files from Wikipedia and combined them with unrelated Wikipedia audio files.
Roth writes:
| “ | No Original Research is a series of art websites, each created from a single animation and audio file found on wikipedia.org. The title originates from one of Wikipedia's core content policies, which states that all material must "cite reliable, published sources that directly support the material being presented". The URL of each composition serves as its title, describing the repeated animation and the background color. The use of these gifs and HTML color names are a celebration of content driven by function and necessity. Compositions are created by copying a found animated gif file dozens of times and embedding them into a single HTML page. When the browser tries (and fails) to load all of the files simultaneously they become out of synch, creating an animation cycle that visualizes the latencies specific to the viewer. Each viewing is a unique experience dictated by the speed of the network, the browser used and the speed of the computer. | ” |
Widely admired Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert was a Wikipedia editor who made 22 edits from 2004 to 2009 as User:Rebert. Though there is little in the way of direct evidence that he was User:Rebert, the quality of his edits and the frequent references and links to Ebert's work in those edits have led editors to conclude that the account belonged to Ebert. The account was also used to upload a picture of Ebert with director Russ Meyer which was released into the Creative Commons and verified by OTRS. Following Ebert's death in 2013, the account's user page became an impromptu shrine dedicated to Ebert's life and work.
The Atlantic features (October 9) the newest Wikipedia tribute to Ebert. Quenton Miller created an artist's book collecting all of Ebert's Wikipedia edits in a single volume, complete with the picture of Ebert with Meyer as the author's photo on the book jacket. Miller only created a single copy of the book and it is not currently for sale. Miller told The Atlantic:
| “ | There's a really interesting tension between Wikipedia being an encyclopedia and the different ways people write in it. It's kind of surprising, because he's this amazing writer, and some of the edits are quite well written or witty in places. In the end, they turned into encyclopedia entries. | ” |
New UK government social media rules
The Liverpool Echo reports (October 20) that the UK has released updated employee rules for social media. The document, called "Social Media Guidance for Civil Servants", follows a controversy this summer that caused a government employee to be sacked for posting "slurs" on the Wikipedia article for the Hillsborough disaster and related pages. The new guidelines read
| “ | Care should be taken when editing collaboratively edited websites such as Wikipedia and engaging with chat forums and commentable articles – posts can be linked back to government IP addresses. Anyone found to be making inappropriate edits will be disciplined which could lead to dismissal. | ” |
In brief
- For the birds: The Bellingen Shire Courier-Sun reports (October 21) that Wikipedia was used by two Australian bird enthusiasts to help identify the bird in a photo one had taken. It was the rare Rawnsley's bowerbird, only the second time a photograph of the elusive bird has been taken.
- Open Access Week: The blog of the Electronic Frontier Foundation featured a guest post from Yana Welinder (User:YWelinder (WMF)), Legal Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, called "Free as in Open Access and Wikipedia" (October 20).
- Ada Lovelace Day: The Hindu reports (October 19) on the Ada Lovelace Edit-a-thon at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, where editors contributed to articles about female scientists in India.
Paul Nuttall, not Bungle the bear - Bungle bungle: Paul Nuttall, deputy leader of the UK Independence Party, officially denied to the Daily Mirror (October 18) that he portrayed the teddy bear Bungle on the popular children's television show Rainbow, in response to a claim inserted into his Wikipedia article on September 24 and removed by a different editor on October 2. The show ran for twenty years beginning in 1972, four years before Nuttall's birth. Nuttall said "I think this is probably the funniest thing I’ve ever read about myself on the internet. I’m all for it."
- Vandalismo en Wikipedia: El País discusses (October 18) vandalism of articles about political candidates from Uruguay and other Latin American countries on the Spanish Wikipedia, including the articles of current Uruguayan presidential candidates Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, Tabaré Vázquez, and Pedro Bordaberry.
- मैथिली Wikipedia: The Himalayan Times reports (October 18) on the Wikimedia Foundation's approval of a Maithili language Wikipedia.
- Sticky wicket: Christopher Sandford's new book, The Final Over: The Cricketers of Summer 1914, is the subject of an uncomplimentary book review (October 18) at Cricket Web, which disapprovingly notes, among other criticisms, that the book's appendix listing the cricket players who died serving in World War I was "simply scraped, word for word, fact for fact" from the list at the Wikipedia article List of cricketers who were killed during military service.
- Host your own Wikipedia article: The Anniston Star reports (October 17) that Jim Zeigler, current Republican candidate for State Auditor of Alabama, features an older version of his Wikipedia article, complete with the Wikipedia logo, on his website, billing it as an "article on Zeigler by Wikipedia". Zeigler told the Star "It looked like what you see on my page, until people who don't like me demolished it." Zeigler's article was deleted in May following a deletion discussion where editors concluded the lengthy article was overly promotional.
- "Idolatry": The Boise Weekly complained (October 17) that the article for the late George V. Hansen, longtime member of the US House of Representatives from Idaho, was filled with "right-wing idolatry". The material highlighted by the Weekly was all inserted by the same IP address in September and October of this year.
- Subscribe to Wikipedia: Jason Kottke urged (October 17) media companies to follow his lead in making monthly regular donations to Wikipedia, which he called a "subscription fee". He wrote "Even $500/month is a drop in the bucket compared to your monthly animated GIF hosting bill and I know your writers use Wikipedia as much as I do."
- Stolen money and stolen pictures: WISC-TV reports (October 16) on an investigation by multiple Wisconsin law enforcement agencies which charges that a woman from Spring Green, Wisconsin, fraudulently received thousands of dollars in charitable donations after faking a diagnosis of cancer. Investigators said that images she posted to social media purporting to be of her own cancer-stricken organs were actually taken from Wikipedia and other internet sources.
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News
- Death of former Wikimedia Italia treasurer Wikimedia Italia announced on the Wikimedia-l email list that Italian Wikipedia contributor Cotton, also known as Alessio Guidetti, has died. Cotton was the treasurer of Wikimedia Italia from 2009 to April 2014, an administrator on Italian Wikipedia, and a frequent translator of Wikipedia content. Cotton was noted for his sense of humor, his trustworthiness, and his pragmatism. Following Wikipedia customs, users are leaving memorials on his talk page.
Note to readers
We want "In the Media" to be as comprehensive as possible, but we need your help. Even if you can only contribute one or two short items occasionally, that would help immensely. Editors familiar with languages other than English and Spanish are especially sought-after. Please contact Gamaliel if you wish to contribute.
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War, Pestilence, Death... Movies and TV
The first transmissions of the Ebola virus in the United States sent the numbers spiralling to near-record levels, but not even War (which just missed the list at #12) or Death (who re-entered the top 10) let alone Pestilence, could distract the human race from what really mattered: the fall TV and movie seasons. 4 of the top 10 (and 10 of the top 25) articles this week concerned currently running films or television shows, numbers that are sure to increase as the year draws to a close.
For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of October 12 to 17, 2014, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Ebola virus disease 
8,267,784 
Thanks to the ongoing and unprecedented outbreak in West Africa, this notoriously fatal disease has topped the list for three weeks running. This week, however, the first two confirmed transmissions on US soil occurred within days of each other, causing numbers to nearly double. Note: includes views from the Ebola redirect page.
2 The Walking Dead (TV series) 
922,674 
The show's fifth season premièred on 12 October. 3 Ebola virus 
908,196 See #1. 4 Facebook
864,835 
A perennially popular article. 5 American Horror Story: Freak Show
789,206 
The fourth season of the American Horror Story series debuted on 8 October. 6 Gotham (TV series) 
778,351 
This televisual reboot of the Batman franchise debuted on 22 September 2014, and has remained in the top 10 for three out of the last four weeks. 7 Gone Girl (film)
683,924 
This 2014 American mystery film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike (both pictured at left) and directed by David Fincher has been the lucky recipient of a dose of controversy, with many feminists decrying it for perpetuating myths about rape accusation. The filmmakers are pleading innocent all the way to the bank, with the movie earning $170 million worldwide in its first 15 days. 8 Elizabeth Peña
664,389 
This accomplished Cuban-American actress, best known for her films in the late 80s/early 90s such as *batteries not included, La Bamba and Jacob's Ladder, died this week at the age of 55. 9 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa
592,426 The worst epidemic of this hideous virus in history has so far killed nearly 5000 people and infected nearly 10,000, and shows no signs of slowing. The world is belatedly waking to the implications, particularly since the disease has now spread to the US. 10 Deaths in 2014 
549,853 
The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article.
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De-orphaning articles—a huge task but with a huge team of volunteers to help
Have you ever come across an orphaned article (an article with no links to it) on Wikipedia, and decided to add some incoming links to it and make the world a little bit better? There's a massive backlog of over 123,500 articles needing this treatment. Even if you don't do this very often, there is a project to help. The subject of the report for this week is WikiProject Orphanage, an organised group of editors dedicated to clearing that backlog. Of course, there is no real way of measuring this project's success; we can't count Featured articles, editor participation, or tell how much of any reduction in the backlog was due to these editors. There's not really very much more I can say about them at this point, so we had an interview to find out more. Here to talk us through it are PaintedCarpet, MrLinkinPark333 and Otr500.
What motivated you to join the project?
- PaintedCarpet: Linking orphaned pages was a good way for me as a new editor to get used to the workings of Wikipedia.
- MrLinkinPark333: I like going through the backlog of things to be done. Joining WikiProject Orphanage is a simple, and sometimes challenging, way to help.
- Otr500: I joined because I saw (Dec. 2010) there was a need to address a problem of related articles not being linked. I have not been as active as I would like but I was invited to participate in a backlog drive. It is certainly a challenge that any new editor should consider. I actually received my first and so far only Barnstar that was a Barnstar for de-orphaning articles. That was a nice bonus.
Can you explain precisely what this project does and its scope?
- PaintedCarpet: WikiProject Orphanage aims to connect all Wikipedia pages, so that pages can be found and read more easily.
- MrLinkinPark333: The project aims to link related pages that haven't been connected to each other.
- Otr500: This WikiProject helps link related articles and in research this is important. It is also important to the average reader to be able to find the ladder (up or down) to other articles.
Does WikiProject Orphanage collaborate with any other projects?
- PaintedCarpet: I use it in conjunction with WikiProject Islands. For example, recently WP:ISLANDS deorphaned every island listed on its cleanup page.
- MrLinkinPark333: Some of the WikiProjects I work with intersect with orphaned pages. For example, if I am working with Wikiproject Stub Sorting, I can stumble upon a orphaned page that needs to be worked on.
- Otr500: Collaboration by association. I am not sure on direct collaboration. I work on stub articles also and run into a lot of tagged stubs and I always try to work linking into my edits.
How would you rate this project's success and participation?
- PaintedCarpet: It's a Herculean task, especially since many new articles don't get linked right away. There's always a need for more help.
- MrLinkinPark333: Over 100+ people are currently active in the WikiProject. This project is successful because [without] this project, these pages would still be orphaned.
- Otr500: A whole lot of names were added since I joined and I like that. The more help the more can get done and that makes the project successful and improves Wikipedia.
What are WikiProject Orphanage's most pressing needs? How can a new contributor help today?
- PaintedCarpet: I recommend checking out the cleanup listing of your favorite Wikiproject and see which of its articles are also listed as orphaned articles. In my case it narrowed my editing scope and made the task much smaller and easier to digest.
- MrLinkinPark333: A new contributor can help by looking at the Orphaned articles category and focus on the older backlog, primarily from 2008-2011. The orphanage would benefit with created tools that would help deorphan articles more quickly.
- Otr500: Hands down it is helping with the backlog. I have seen a lot of projects, that are to me less important than this one, gain great results from a diversity of editors.
Anything else you'd like to add?
- PaintedCarpet: Deorphaning articles is fun; everyone should give it a try.
- MrLinkinPark333: WikiProject Orphanage can be challenging, but it is a good way to help with the backlog. It's quick, easy, and fun to do.
- Otr500: You don't have to be a new editor to help. This project can benefit from experienced editors as well as new editors with a drive to make a difference. It is an important project that enhances the Wikipedia experience. Give it a try and you might find it rewarding.
- Gbawden: Page creators need to try link their new article to at least one page to better integrate the article. If your article is an orphan no-one is likely to see it!
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