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In the news

Zambian wiki-assassins, Foundation über alles, editor engagement and the innovation plateau

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By Skomorokh

Zambian establishment rocked by wiki-assassination

United States deputy assistant Secretary of State Reuben Brigety, who pledged his governments' assistance in tracking down the hericidal Zambian cyberassassin.

Zambian president Michael Sata reacted angrily to reports of his death-by-Wikipedia earlier this month, the Telegraph reports, after a miscreant edited the politico's article to include a spurious account of his assassination. According to the Lusaka Times, the vandalism was treated with utmost concern by the Zambian government, with Information Broadcasting and Tourism Minister Fackson Shamenda summoning media chiefs for a conference in its wake to discuss the need for restrictions of press freedom.

The Zambia Daily Mail reported the attribution of the misdeed to "the work of uncouth individuals who have failed to accept electoral defeat", that they were "intended to create chaos by causing despondency among Zambians" and "of great concern to Government as they are likely to bring confusion in the country". The edits were characterised as "unchristian" by Reverend Pukuta Mwanza of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia, and as "inhuman" by Foundation for Democratic Process head MacDonald Chipenzi, while former Church of God overseer John Mambo implored the government to pursue the culprits. Zambia Congress of Trade Unions spokesman Martin Chembe declared that those responsible were intent on spreading rancour in the country so as to impede the government's work, and decried the fact that it was possible to employ such tactics to deflect attention from the focus of improving the well-being of the Zambian people.

The Times of Zambia subsequently revealed that, in a development distinctly at odds with typical responses to biographical vandalism on-wiki, the government of the southern African state had petitioned their United States counterparts to assist in tracking the perpetrators. Minister of Home Affairs Kennedy Sakeni professed that "This process is moving well and all necessary formalities are being considered as you know we have to follow rightful diplomatic channels between our country and US government". In turn, visiting US deputy assistant Secretary of State Reuben Brigety pledged his government's willingness to come to Zambia's aid. The episode may illustrate national governments' ineptitude in grappling with the 21st century information network, as the edits in question appear to geolocate to yet another jurisdiction, the United Kingdom.

WMF's newest hire on journalism and editor engagement

[Wikipedia] has become central repository of our knowledge in many ways, like it or not. Embrace it and participate. Start by just rating articles or giving feedback, then experiment with editing or adding sources. You don’t have to leap straight into writing articles.

– Fabrice Florin's overture to fellow journalists

The Knight Digital Media Center this week conducted an interview with Fabrice Florin, a former contractor on the Article Feedback tool initiative who was recently announced as the Wikimedia Foundation's Product Manager for New Editor Engagement, responsible for directing the development of technical features intended to ameliorate the decline in editor replenishment rates.

Florin, whose background is in journalism, spoke at length about the intersecting worlds of Wikipedia and journalism, encouraging his colleagues to engage more with the encyclopaedia both by deferring to its in-depth coverage in their reports and by actively editing themselves. He elaborated on these themes in a post shared with the Knight Center, speaking of the encyclopaedia as "a de-facto news organization in its own right".

Although Wikipedia is highly rated for usability by readers (see this week's Technology report), the daunting challenging of the editing interface for prospective contributors has long been fingered as the chief contributing cause to flagging participation. This problem, as well as readers' lack of awareness that they are actively encouraged to participate as editors, is at the crux of Florin's concerns. However, the characterisation of the already controversial Article Feedback Tool as primarily an attempt to lure new editors – with garnering suggestions and critical evaluations for article improvement as secondary benefits – may well unsettle English Wikipedia editors wary of its deployment to date.

In brief

Kim Dotcom pictured in 1996, during his data security/credit card theft years.
  • Foundation ranked #1: In a ranking of top 100 non-governmental organisations, Geneva-based periodical The Global Journal selected the Wikimedia Foundation in the highest position. Its rationale for the ranking focused chiefly on the success of the Wikipedia project and the foundation's ambitious expansion plans. Foundation board member SJ Klein noted the subjective nature of the ranking, but wrote that he was "proud to see Wikimedia's work recognized and used as general global inspiration". In a post publicising the news on the foundation's blog, Jay Walsh thanked the journal for the honour, "but especially for recognizing the work of our 100,000-strong global, volunteer community."
  • Dotcom disaffected: The New Zealand Herald has revealed the dissatisfaction with Wikipedia of internet kingpin Kim Dotcom, who was arrested after a raid on his elaborate mansion in the antipodean nation-state earlier this month as part of a sting against his copyright-infringing Megaupload empire. In an exclusive interview with the paper, Dotcom (birthname: Kim Schmitz) took umbrage at the encyclopaedia's summary of his accomplishments as 'embezzlement, fraud, the handling of stolen goods and insider trading'. He protested less at the accuracy of the accusations than the undue weight of coverage implicit in the omission of his positive acts, which served to present a skewed overall portrait rather than a measured biography. This is a subtle and insidious problem for Wikipedian biographers, although the talkpage of the article in question has seen curiously little acrimony during the latest media spectacle.
  • Plagiarism goes papal: The Vatican raised eyebrows earlier this month when its press briefings on 22 new cardinals named by the Pope were revealed to have been lifted without attribution from Wikipedia. The story was picked up on by The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and BBC News, among others.
  • Has Wikipedia reached an "innovation plateau"? Writing for Forbes magazine, technology consultant Jerry Michalski reflects on past experiences with developers at Encarta and MSNBC.com, focusing specifically on the lack of integration of dynamic content such as webcam footage and stock tickers (in the 1990s) at these projects. He posits that Wikipedia has likewise hit an innovation impasse ("it makes a great example of a stable plateau"), citing the encyclopaedia as having become increasingly cemented as a knowledge platform in readers' consciousnesses while failing to incorporate interactive features. Michalski's timely musings as to whether and how Wikipedia's custodians will be able to overcome the fate of its moribund predecessors may be encouraging to to the tireless efforts of Wikipedia's developers and in particular, to the engaging innovations being championed by Fabrice Florin and his team.
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I was very surprised at Fabrice Florin's statement "The vision is that over time, news reporters would get in the habit of posting updates on Wikipedia, after they have filed their story and shared it on social networks. It seems like a worthy goal and I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether this is a realistic scenario—and if so, how we might help make that happen." I consider this advice extremely dangerous, and I wish there would have been an area (i.e. not obscure comments) where I could have made it clear how ill-advised it is, in my view. Making updates on Wikipedia related to stories one has written runs a severe risk of being taken to task over charges of CONFLICT OF INTEREST!!! and SELF-PROMOTION!!!, and I would strongly recommend any journalist to avoid it except in extreme circumstances. I've gotten grief at times even for making talk-page suggestions (granted, usually for contentious topics, but the point remains - the aggravation is rarely worth it, or at least is a significant cost). It is not a realistic scenario at all, except in the sense that the negatives will be hidden to get free work before it blows up in the reporter's face. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention Wikipedia is not a news source. -- Bk314159 (Talk to me and find out what I've done) 02:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Good page this week! Tony (talk) 10:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly is a "hericidal Zambian cyberassassin"? Neither Wiktionary nor Google recognizes "hericidal" as an English word. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 12:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hericide: "The murder of a lord or master." — http://wordinfo.info ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 13:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A word that has arisen from/with a bio-chemical legacy.... Wifione Message 15:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm bemused that the Zambian government sought help from the US government in identifying the perpertrator of these misleading edits (the person made two), when a few mouse clicks shows that they came from Newcastle-upon-Twyne in the UK. (And a former boss told me last year that I'm not sufficiently computer literate.) -- llywrch (talk) 16:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • When a major case of vandalism is reported in the Signpost, it should be standard practice to also document Wikipedia's response. Vandalism that is quickly reverted is less serious than vandalism that takes a long time to catch, and vandalism that results in an edit war followed by semi-protection is somewhere between the two. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:39, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I also think the article should have been more serious and sympathetic. True, the vandalism wasn't the end of the world, and they may have overreacted, but we should be able to understand why he was upset. Our response certainly could have been faster. The initial vandalism lasted 8 hours. Once it was removed, an editor (using an automated tool) actually reverted the change as vandalism, putting back the unsourced claim he had died. The claim was put in again, and it took a relatively long time to finally get the article semi-protected. Far from demonstrating "national governments' ineptitude", it mostly demonstrates a failing on our part. We can do better. Superm401 - Talk 08:27, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • As much as I try to avoid being snarky on the internet (as the sheer weight of snark on the internet is sooner or later going to cause the world wide web to implode), I must say, wiki-assassin sounds like an excellent title to put on my resume. Jztinfinity (talk) 17:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Foundation über alles"

Who is responsible for "Foundation über alles" as a headline? Extremely dubious taste.

That would be me. I don't see what's hesitant or in doubt about it; über alles is German for "above all", which in pithy headline-friendly parlance is what the Swiss journal considers the WMF to be in the ranks of NGOs. Skomorokh 17:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The phrase has strong connotations of German nationalism due to its use in the first line of the World War II-era German national anthem; perhaps that was the commenter's concern. It additionally may seem a bit odd to use German in this case since The Global Journal appears to be written in English. Powers T 15:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
See Deutschlandlied. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely; it's no more of a Nazi thing than is the use of fraktur or the term "Deutsches/Deutſches Reich". Nyttend (talk) 03:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well Germany has rejected those words as its national anthem, taking the third verse, only. But really its not a big deal. 81.178.144.98 (talk)
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