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Milos Rancic | 1 Mar 23:40
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foundation-l statistics

Here are the foundation-l statistics up to February 2009. For January and
February, picture looks better than it looked in the period
September-December 2008. I am generating now statistics for some other
lists, too.

;Email count:
<pre>
year    Jan     Feb     Mar     Apr     May     Jun     Jul     Aug
Sep     Oct     Nov     Dec
2004    xxx     xxx     xxx     64      532     506     474     242
462     650     276     282
2005    630     760     642     574     690     438     396     684
488     758     1074    672
2006    514     506     860     588     910     1666    1262    1670
2180    1206    1116    2530
2007    1138    624     665     1042    798     407     1163    471
791     1072    1030    1260
2008    1497    688     1679    1675    1131    942     609     501
699     559     870     671
2009    1255    704     xxx     xxx     xxx     xxx     xxx     xxx
xxx     xxx     xxx     xxx
</pre>

;New participants:
<pre>
year    Jan     Feb     Mar     Apr     May     Jun     Jul     Aug
Sep     Oct     Nov     Dec
2004    xxx     xxx     xxx     13      31      25      14      6
22      9       8       9
2005    17      21      10      8       9       9       8       18
(Continue reading)

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phoebe ayers | 1 Mar 23:46
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Wikimania bids due next week

A friendly reminder to bidding or potentially bidding cities that the
deadline to add your city's name to the bid page for Wikimania 2010:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids

is March 7th, next weekend.

There is still time to add information to your bid after March 7th,
but no further bids will be accepted after that date. So if you're
considering bidding ... add your city today!

The bids to date are Oxford, Amsterdam & Gdansk.

cheers,
Phoebe (wm2010 jury mod)

--

-- 
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *
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Sue Gardner | 2 Mar 08:20
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Request for your input: biographies of living people

Hi folks,

I've been increasingly concerned lately about Wikimedia's coverage of living
people, both within biographies of living people (BLPs) on Wikipedia, and in
coverage of living people in non-BLP text.  I've asked the board to put this
issue on the agenda for the April meeting in Berlin, and I'm hoping there to
figure out some concrete next steps to support quality in this area.  In
advance of that, I want to ask for input from you.

First, I'm going to lay out the scope of the problem as I see it. (If you're
already up to speed, you might want to skip that bit.)  Then I'll lay out a
little of my thinking on how we could aim to improve.  I would very much
appreciate any feedback from you -ideally here on this list- before the
April meeting :- )

(Please note that for convenience I'm going to use the phrase "BLP" as
shorthand for the whole issue of coverage of living people throughout all
Wikimedia projects. BLP's probably constitute the majority of that coverage,
but not all of it.)

Scope of the problem:

I am sure that BLP subjects have been complaining about their portrayals
since Wikipedia's very early days.  And I am sure that BLPs have always
suffered from the same problems and errors that occur in all articles:
malicious vandalism, biased editing, lack of citations, and so on. However,
I am particularly worried about BLPs, for two reasons:

1. BLPs are, by definition, about living people.  A mistake in an article
about the War of 1812 is too bad. A mistake in an article about a living
(Continue reading)

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Thomas Dalton | 2 Mar 12:38
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Re: Request for your input: biographies of living people

2009/3/2 Sue Gardner <sgardner <at> wikimedia.org>:
> So what can we do? Here are the things I am thinking about. I would love
> your input:
>
> * Do we think the current complaints resolution systems are working?  Is it
> easy enough for article subjects to report problems?  Are we courteous and
> serious in our handling of complaints?  Do the people handling complaints
> need training/support/resources to help them resolve the problem (if there
> is one)?  Are there intractable problems, and if so, what can we do to solve
> them?  Some Wikimedia chapters have pioneered more systematic training of
> volunteers to handle OTRS responses; should we try to scale up those or
> similar practices?

From what I can tell, a lot of subjects of BLPs that have problems
with their articles don't complain at all. The accounts I've heard
(or, at least, my interpretation thereof) of Wikimedians being
approached at events by people with bad articles have all been along
the lines of "my article is rubbish, how do I get it fixed?" not "my
article is rubbish and I've been trying to get it fixed but nobody is
listening to me". That suggests that those subjects that don't happen
to meet a Wikipedian never actually complain. There are two possible
explanations for that that I can see: 1) They don't really care all
that much and the complaints we get are just opportunistic moaning or
2) they have no idea where to even start with complaining. While there
may be some cases of (1), I'm sure (2) is a significant factor.

I've just looked at a BLP and nowhere can I see an guidance on how to
complain. I suggest a "Report a problem with this article" link to
added to the sidebar of all articles as a mailto link to the
appropriate OTRS address.
(Continue reading)

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Tomasz Ganicz | 2 Mar 12:52
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Re: Request for your input: biographies of living people

2009/3/2 Sue Gardner <sgardner@...>:
> Hi folks,
>
> I've been increasingly concerned lately about Wikimedia's coverage of living
> people, both within biographies of living people (BLPs) on Wikipedia, and in
> coverage of living people in non-BLP text.  I've asked the board to put this
> issue on the agenda for the April meeting in Berlin, and I'm hoping there to
> figure out some concrete next steps to support quality in this area.  In
> advance of that, I want to ask for input from you.
>

I think that:
*There should be official Foundation's policy about handling legal
problems with biographies of living persons, which should have similar
status like privacy policy. It should be legal document saying what to
do if... not just a set of advices for editors. Moreover it should
clearly state whom to contact on Foundation level, who is responsible
for content etc. it should be written by lawyer.
*BLP policy on Wikipedia-en (and probably on many others) is rather
internal policy for editors describing not the legal issues but rather
editing rules - they might be different on different project, moreover
they use to change over the time.
*These two things of course overlap - but they are two different
issues in fact.
*It should be made clear that the offical Foundation policy regarding
legal issues with BLPs is more important than local BLP's policies and
always comes first.

In particular the legal BLP Foundation policy should give an answer for:
*what to do if a person want to remove enitre biography from Wikipedia
(Continue reading)

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Lennart Guldbrandsson | 2 Mar 14:25
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Re: Request for your input: biographies of living people

>
> Thomas Dalton wrote
> I've just looked at a BLP and nowhere can I see an guidance on how to
> complain. I suggest a "Report a problem with this article" link to
> added to the sidebar of all articles as a mailto link to the
> appropriate OTRS address.
>

Another way to deal with this is to print small business cards "how to":s
and distribute them to people who have this problem. Something like this:

"So, your Wikipedia entry is wrong? Here's how to fix it in three easy
steps:

1) If the problem is vandalism, feel free to remove it directly by clicking
"edit", delete the text and click "save",
2) if not, click on the talk page, click on the plus sign and describe the
problem there (be polite),
3) if nothing happens in two days, click on the "contact Wikipedia" link to
your left and then click on "report an error".

But keep in mind that Wikipedia strives for verifiable facts, so any sources
that can back up your claims will help your matter to be handled more
promptly.

Best wishes!"

This seems to work for the companies I have lectured for anyway.

/Lennart
(Continue reading)

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Thomas Dalton | 2 Mar 14:42
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Re: Request for your input: biographies of living people

2009/3/2 Lennart Guldbrandsson <wikihannibal@...>:
>>
>> Thomas Dalton wrote
>> I've just looked at a BLP and nowhere can I see an guidance on how to
>> complain. I suggest a "Report a problem with this article" link to
>> added to the sidebar of all articles as a mailto link to the
>> appropriate OTRS address.
>>
>
> Another way to deal with this is to print small business cards "how to":s
> and distribute them to people who have this problem. Something like this:
>
> "So, your Wikipedia entry is wrong? Here's how to fix it in three easy
> steps:
>
> 1) If the problem is vandalism, feel free to remove it directly by clicking
> "edit", delete the text and click "save",
> 2) if not, click on the talk page, click on the plus sign and describe the
> problem there (be polite),
> 3) if nothing happens in two days, click on the "contact Wikipedia" link to
> your left and then click on "report an error".
>
> But keep in mind that Wikipedia strives for verifiable facts, so any sources
> that can back up your claims will help your matter to be handled more
> promptly.
>
> Best wishes!"
>
> This seems to work for the companies I have lectured for anyway.
(Continue reading)

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David Gerard | 2 Mar 14:45
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Re: Request for your input: biographies of living people

2009/3/2 Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek <at> gmail.com>:

> Two recent examples from Polish Wikipedia:
> *A sportsmen had anitdoping case around 5 years ago, when he was 18.
> There is good source of this information (his own interwiev in sport's
> magazine in which he appologises for taking an illegal drug). Now the
> guy is saing that it was all forgotten by mainstream media, he was
> already punished for this (6 months break)  but he is now trying to
> get new contract and Wikipedia entry on him may destroy the deal.
> Therefore he ask for removing this info or his entire bio...
> *A pop singer manager wants to remove the birthday of his starllet,
> because she is (probably) around 30 but her current image show her as
> "almost teenager". The birhtday is sourced by "Who is Who in Poland",
> paper eddtion - but it was removed from electronic version, and they
> also manged to remove it from all other web-pages.

If those were answered any way other than "no, go away" (however
politely phrased), then that's just wrong.

- d.

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David Gerard | 2 Mar 14:48
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Re: Request for your input: biographies of living people

2009/3/2 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...>:

> From what I can tell, a lot of subjects of BLPs that have problems
> with their articles don't complain at all. The accounts I've heard
> (or, at least, my interpretation thereof) of Wikimedians being
> approached at events by people with bad articles have all been along
> the lines of "my article is rubbish, how do I get it fixed?" not "my
> article is rubbish and I've been trying to get it fixed but nobody is
> listening to me". That suggests that those subjects that don't happen
> to meet a Wikipedian never actually complain. There are two possible
> explanations for that that I can see: 1) They don't really care all
> that much and the complaints we get are just opportunistic moaning or
> 2) they have no idea where to even start with complaining. While there
> may be some cases of (1), I'm sure (2) is a significant factor.

I would guess it's mostly (2), in my experience. People have no idea
who to contact. The "Contact Wikipedia" link on en:wp's sidebar
doesn't seem to catch their eye - though it gets you to the right
answer in three further clicks. Perhaps it should be on the page you
hit immediately.

(My usual answer: "Email info at wikimedia dot org, that's wikimedia
with an M. It'll get funneled to the right place. All other ways of
contacting us end up there anyway." This seems to work a bit.)

- d.

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Thomas Dalton | 2 Mar 14:57
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Re: Request for your input: biographies of living people

2009/3/2 David Gerard <dgerard@...>:
> I would guess it's mostly (2), in my experience. People have no idea
> who to contact. The "Contact Wikipedia" link on en:wp's sidebar
> doesn't seem to catch their eye - though it gets you to the right
> answer in three further clicks. Perhaps it should be on the page you
> hit immediately.

It certainly didn't catch my eye when I was looking for such a link. I
think an explicit "report a problem" link is required. It would go
straight to the info-en queue (or equivalent). If possible, it should
include the critical information (article title and revision id, at
least) in the email automatically, although I'm not sure mailto links
can do that...

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Gmane