Open Wiki Blog Planet

Latest Tax Form 990 Available on Foundation Wiki

2008-05-16T15:54:27+00:00

Earlier today I sent a note to some of our public mailing lists to advise that our 2006 IRS Form 990 (covering the fiscal year of July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007) was filed electronically with the IRS on May 12. This is a required annual filing related to our status as a U.S. non-profit, charitable foundation.

This form, in a slightly amended version, must be available publicly at our office site. As a service to the community and the public, we are pleased to be sharing a PDF version of the filing on the Wikimedia Foundation website.

In anticipation of any questions, we have also prepared a Question and Answer sheet also posted on the Foundation wiki.

Of course we’d be happy to field any other questions you might have.

Regards,

Véronique Kessler
Chief Financial and Operating Officer

SHOW INNODB LOCKS

2008-05-16T15:42:00+00:00

If implementing ‘SHOW INNODB LOCKS’ took half an hour (literally, includes compiling and testing) for a non-developer type of guy (cause most of code was written anyway), why the heck it takes ten years (or more?) to get such feature to standard release?

Physics Housekeeping

2008-05-16T12:43:23+00:00

I decided to post a brainstorm on theoretical physics just to get it out there. This is probably not particularly interesting to most of my readers- pardon the detour. Back to your regularly scheduled content shortly.

------------------------ Start Brainstorm ------------------------
An analogical approach to explaining Dark Energy, with a suggested formalization:

Dark Energy, or the mystery force causing the accelerated expansion of the universe, is one of the prime mysteries of modern physics. The approach I suggest here is essentially to model spacetime as imperfectly compressible (contrary to the common implicit assumption of perfect compressibility) and identify Dark Energy as the natural, emergent 'pushback' connected with gravity's compression of spacetime.

E.g., if spacetime is like a balloon, the gravitational effects from aggregated clumps of matter (stars, galaxies, black holes, etc) are like fingers pushing into the balloon. It's natural for the balloon to bulge where it's not being compressed.

If spacetime is perfectly incompressible wrt gravity, we could expect a special-case universe composed of 0% energy, 100% homogeneously distributed matter to neither contract nor expand (contrary to the current prediction of contraction due to gravity), much like how a balloon filled with incompressible gas pushed equally from all sides would stay in equilibrium. Once matter starts to 'clump up', however (and it invariably would due to quantum effects), the universe would start to expand. I haven't run the numbers, but it would appear such acceleration might become a positive-feedback cycle.

The timeline of massive expansions due to Dark Energy seems to correlate with what we can guess about major thresholds in the de-homogenization of matter distribution. We would expect a massive initial de-homogenization right after the Big Bang due to quantum effects, then another when particles are able to form, another when large-scale matter structures are able to form, and another as matter organizes into very large scale structures such as galaxies, clusters, and superclusters.

I would formalize this as follows: within any specific range of times, Dark Energy should be equal to:

[Gr(a) - Gr(h)] * S

Where
Gr(a) is the actual number of gravitons exchanged in the universe;

Gr(h) is the hypothetical number of gravitons which would be exchanged in a universe of the current size if matter and energy were distributed homogeneously (necessarily equal to or lesser than Gr(a));

S is the scaling factor of how much a single graviton bends spacetime.

(An alternate formalization might involve trying to quantify the total amount of spacetime 'displaced' by gravity.)

Obviously this formalization needs a lot more work on a number of fronts. Specifically, S may be somewhat ambiguous, and it's unclear how this force would make itself felt (a new carrier particle? A non-localizable property of spacetime? A MOND-like modification of gravity? If it's a carrier particle might there be a lag effect?). I'll admit it's rough. But it's what I have at this point, and I think the core approach is relatively clear. Not a high priority unless people express interest in it.
------------------------ End Brainstorm ------------------------

Betawiki localises for all MediaWiki projects

2008-05-16T11:11:00+00:00

There have been some altercations on Betawiki about what localisation is acceptable. What is at stake is the difference between language and project localisation. Betawiki is firmly committed to only allow for language localisation. This means that all references to specific projects like Wikipedia, Wikibooks etcetera are not accepted.

In the projects of one of the languages supported within the Wikimedia Foundation, templates are used to add functionality to the recent changes functionality. These templates are not supported by MediaWiki or by its localisation and are unavailable to MediaWiki installation outside of the WMF. Betawiki does not accept these templates and it is not for a "community" of the WMF to dictate that exceptions are to be made for their language.

The underlying problem is that the Wiktionary and the Wikibooks in that language do not have admins. Admins are the people that can do project localisation. This is what needs fixing. When a new project is created, there should be at least one admin. In this way the community will be able to do the project localisation but also vandal fighting.

The idea that people external to a project are needed to do the maintenance of the project is problematic. When people maintain their own project, when trust is given from the start I am convinced that it will enhance the chances for a project to do well. This is yet another thing that a council should deal with.
Thanks,
GerardM

Asbestos controversy aboard Scientology ship Freewinds

2008-05-16T08:26:06+00:00

>>Click here for the full story.

Controversy has arisen over the reported presence of blue asbestos on the MV Freewinds, a cruise ship owned by the Church of Scientology. According to the Saint Martin newspaper The Daily Herald and the shipping news journal Lloyd's List, the Freewinds was sealed in April and local public health officials on the Caribbean island of Curaçao where the ship is docked began an investigation into the presence of asbestos dust on the ship.

Former Scientologist Lawrence Woodcraft supervised work on the ship in 1987, and attested to the presence of blue asbestos on the Freewinds in an affidavit posted to the Internet in 2001. Woodcraft, a licensed architect by profession, gave a statement to Wikinews and commented on the recent events.

>>Click here for the full story.

Pictures of the Day - May 16

2008-05-16T06:03:02+00:00

commons.wikimedia.org:

Spider web Luc Viatour.jpg from commons.wikimedia.org, provided by Lviatour

de.wikipedia.org:

Jan mayen egg-oeja hg.jpg from commons.wikimedia.org, provided by Hgrobe

en.wikipedia.org:

Robby Naish a.jpg from commons.wikimedia.org, provided by Codeispoetry

Wikipedians are not neutral

2008-05-15T22:06:00+00:00

Wikipedia, the ~~free~~ encyclopedia only ArbCom can edit?

Are we working on a neutral encyclopedia, or aren't we? Sometimes I wonder.

Time and again, the question comes up. Usually it's asked in the context of outside influences "pushing" a point of view on some page or another; all too often, a POV is pushed from inside our community, subverting the neutrality content for our own ends.

In February, after questions arose regarding the relationship between the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and for-profit Wikia, Wikimedia UK chair Alison Wheeler created a template called "Wikia is not Wikipedia," a large banner linking the WMF's official press release on the matter,
and placed it atop Wikipedia's article on Wikia while making other "corrections" to footnotes. It's worth noting the template included lots of scare text insisting it couldn't be removed from any article without approval from the WMF Communications Committee. Several users questioned this, pointing out that it was hardly a neutral content decision and that no other article subject would ever be allowed such latitude. The template was removed and nominated for deletion, as it should have been. Alison's response? Rolled back the edit as vandalism and issued block warnings so stern the user was scared off the project. It took an angry mob at TfD to get the template deleted. She claimed to be acting on behalf of the Foundation itself, and ominously threatened to take the issue "higher up."

Not to worry, even though the template was deleted, Alison kept trying to insert it. Fortunately she dropped the ridiculous block threats, in later episodes.

Eventually, WMF chair Florence Devouard had a try at it.

This isn't the only time the Wikimedians have interfered with article content for their own ends. Take as another example the never-ending "sole founder" debate at the article on Jimmy Wales. Jimbo also appears to have successfully agitated to have his date of birth removed from the article about him. It's not clear to me whether WMF deputy director Erik Möller had a hand in anything similar, but it may be worth noting his date of birth is likewise absent at that article.

More recently, in March, advertising firm Modernista! implemented a rather minimalist website, one which simply placed their main menu around the page currently being viewed. One "about" link from this menu likewise sends readers to Wikipedia's article on the firm. Some readers apparently were confused by this, and thought Modernista somehow controlled the article. Initially, Jimbo asked them to stop, but soon enough other solutions were in the works: a technical solution might break out of the frame and subtly solve the problem; a big red banner would explain what was going on, but would get us into the business of trying to embarrass companies into doing what we want by leaving nasty notes on articles about them. Guess what happened? Alison Wheeler returned again to toss up another banner.

The latest episode I find troubling is at the freshly recreated Encyclopedia Dramatica article. There's a big hubbub about whether or not the ED website should be linked from the ED article. Never mind that we regularly link to a whole variety of websites with hateful content, as in articles on Stormfront or the Westboro Baptist Church, or iffy copyright status, as in articles on Pirate Bay, Youtube, or 4chan, apparently we plan on diverging from the common-sense rule applied at pretty much every article on the site because ED and Wikipedia don't get along well. What does this accomplish, exactly? We won't stop anybody from finding the site, we won't even deny them a PageRank boost, we'll just look incredibly petty by patently refusing to place a blatantly relevant link right where it so obviously belongs. What message are we sending, here? It's okay to break the law, but not WP policy. It's okay to harass people, as long as they're not Wikipedians. Way to establish our priorities.

A bit of explanation, the editors who want the link excluded are claiming that prior decisions of the arbitration committee in the MONGO and Attack sites cases support their position (they don't). They're also citing WP:BADSITES a lot, even though the "policy" was quite clearly rejected after a very long and painful argument. They'll just keep pushing until people are tired of arguing about it, I guess. Currently there's a painfully redundant request for clarification: can we link to ED at the ED article? Thank the heavens that arbitrator Kirill Lokshin displayed a hefty amount of clue when suggesting the prohibition on links to ED made a lot more sense when there wasn't an ED article. Too bad Wikipedians aren't listening to him. Administrators MBisanz, NonvocalScream (edit: former admin, my mistake), Hu12, Sandstein have worked to keep the link out of the article. Even David Levy, who supports inclusion of the link, insists we cannot add the link without approval.

As you might expect, the article was put up for deletion the moment it saw daylight. I could go either way as far as having an article or not, but if we're going to have an article at all, we should be doing it right. We're after NPOV, not WPOV.

So I ask again: are we working on a neutral encyclopedia, or aren't we?

Why we do this.

2008-05-15T20:28:18+00:00

If you ever wonder why you bother working on Wikimedia projects: 1, 2.

Wiki Usage Advice: How to Keep People Coming Back For More

2008-05-15T19:28:15+00:00

That’s from Scott Nesbitt, in his summary of my talk at DocTrain West on Thursday:

It seemed like I was stalking Stewart Mader during the conference. But Mader told me that he was happy to see many of the same faces in all of his sessions. It showed that he had something interesting to say, and that attendees wanted to hear it.

In every presentation I give, I tell a story about how wiki use has helped me do something that’s:

Successful - People want to know how to do something well. I want to you see that if I’m successful with something, you can be successful too!
Useful - I want to show you exactly how I did it, so you can replicate it as quickly and easily as possible. That makes you successful, and completes the cycle when you pass along the knowledge to someone else so they can be successful too.

Here’s an example. Scott put together a good summary of my talk on using a wiki to:

Organize everything in one place so we could see the entire project - the sum of its parts - not just the parts themselves chaotically flying back and forth over email.
Streamline publishing workflow and reduce reliance on email and documents that can easily get lost, confused with older versions, and are difficult to use.
Inform everyone about the progress of the project, so that editors don’t have t worry about whether the manuscript is progressing on time, or actively ask authors for updates. Instead they can passively check the wiki as often as they like.
Get feedback from editors both as chapters are completed and while they’re in progress. The latter speeds up the overall process because it’s easier to incorporate feedback in-the-flow as opposed to after the fact.

Here’s his summary:

This time around, he talked about how he wrote his book WikiPatterns using a wiki, and the workflow that he and this editors followed to produce the book.

Mader started out by saying that the workflow he used could be used for both print and online document publishing. And, from Mader’s experience, using a wiki streamlined and improved the publishing process from end to end.

Mader’s key point was that with a wiki, you can focus on context and content, and not have to worry about whether or not you properly marked up a section of a manuscript using a potentially complex Word template. As well, Mader’s editors were able to keep up with his progress. They didn’t have to stay up at night wondering whether or not he was writing; progress was there for all to see.

On top of that, having the information in a wiki makes it portable. Mader mentioned that no matter where he was he could work on a chapter as long as there was an Internet connection. And if his laptop died or was stolen, then he wouldn’t lose much information. Aaron and I will be talking about that point in the near future.

The writing and review process — from proposal to finished manuscript — was faster with the wiki than using a word processor.

Want to improve how you work and realize these benefits every day? Let’s start a conversation and see if my services can help.

Episode 49: Use mine it’s bigger

2008-05-15T17:50:38+00:00

The rundown +1:45 Board and chapters, US chapter? +17:20 Wikicouncil +25:30 DE flagged versions +32:15 Lawsuits - WorldNetDaily "FBI is investigating" +34:51 Album cover and fair use +37:23 Explicit images in Wikipedia, censorship, who our audience is +40:15 Languages and fair use images +47:40 Sexual pictures, venereal disease +52:55 Should Wikipedia create "safe for" feeds? +54:44 "Use mine it's bigger" +55:48 Who should decide what's "censored"? +57:44 NSFW NSFS lists +1:03:17 Would Fuzheado support this in China? +1:07:04 Appropriate content for [[Penis]] article +1:08:45 Valleywag on Erik Moeller +1:11:31 GerardM comments on US vs Europe +1:13:34 Quote from Erik's text +1:16:04 Chad on "Internet has no mercy" +1:18:02 Wikipedia article revisions re: Jimmy interview +1:24:57 Wikirage - American Idol, pop culture, London mayor, Tamil

Another unhappy customer

2008-05-15T16:33:00+00:00

I just stumbled across this post about one user's frustration with Wikipedia's increasingly user-unfriendly ways. This case is twice as bad because I happen to know Bart Massey, a professor of computer science at Portland State, has been an advocate of Wikipedia in the past. I gave a presentation on Wikipedia and its culture to one of his classes back in 2005.

To quote part of the response I left him, "Maybe the time has come to simply drop the 'anybody can edit' part from the motto, much as the day once came when Linus no longer accepted patches from just anyone."

Geoff

Technocrati tags: Portland Tech, wikipedia, writing

University hosting panel continues discussion on Wikipedia ethics without Wikimedia

2008-05-15T16:07:21+00:00

>>Click here for the full EXCLUSIVE story.

Wikinews has learned that the Wikimedia Foundation has decided not to participate in a panel discussion that is to take place at Santa Clara University in California. The discussion, which is titled 'The World that Wikipedia Made,' was to be based on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and ethics involved in the editing of the website. It is the ninth such meeting in a series on technology, ethics, and law and is taking place today.

In an e-mail to Wikinews, Miriam Schulman the communications director for the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University which is to host the discussion, states that Mike Godwin, legal counsel for the Foundation, will not be speaking during the discussion as was originally planned.

According to Schulman, the Foundation canceled Godwin's scheduled appearance just one week ago and has decided not to have anyone from the foundation replace him. Valleywag, a gossip website about technology, recently reported that Godwin was not attending due to a "groundswell of criticism of Wikipedia," something Schulman denies.

"I don't want to speak for Mr. Godwin or WikiMedia, but someone else made an incorrect assumption about this, so let me clarify that in our understanding, the problem was never with the composition of the panel. Mike Godwin, General Counsel of Wikimedia, was scheduled to participate in the panel, 'The World that Wikipedia Made,' on May 15. Last week, Mr. Godwin informed us that he would not participate, and subsequent discussions with Wikimedia Foundation indicated that they would not designate a replacement speaker," stated Schulman to Wikinews.

>>Click here for the full EXCLUSIVE story.

The FBI: Where Every Agent Is a Special Agent

2008-05-15T15:21:18+00:00

I suppose it's a gesture of grudging respect to get accused of being a spy because of Wikipedia volunteer work. That happened to another editor last July - SlimVirgin - and the kooky idea actually got hundreds of comments on Slashdot. Just shows that some people will believe anything. So last night I start getting questions. Looks like it's my turn. No, I don't work for the FBI. No, I never

Anatomy of a BLP

2008-05-15T11:00:00+00:00

Seal of Michigan,
NOT a seal of approval!
Image via Wikimedia CommonsTwo days ago, I wrote about the recent Supreme Court case involving the "Defense of Marriage" amendment. I mentioned our Attorney General, Mike Cox. On a whim, I decided to go actually look at the Wikipedia article that my post linked.

What a mess I found!

This article is a textbook definition of an unacceptable Biography of a Living Person (BLP) article. Take a look at this revision. It contains word for word text taken from his biography on th State of Michigan Attorney General site, text which is quite flatteringly written (no doubt lifted from his campaign 2006 site, which although now a bad link, is still linked from the article), and which is copyrighted by the State of Michigan.

To "balance" this it also contains text from an attack site, again lifted in large part without change.

No inline citations, just a lot of text. And

The article has a long history of (mostly IP user) edits warring over various aspects of the content.

Sorry, you don't write a neutral balanced well sourced article by lifting text from puff and attack sites in about equal measure. That gives undue weight to the wrong things. Two coatracks don't make a good article.

So I stubbed it out. This revision shows what it looks like now. Mike Cox deserves a better article than that, but at least it wasn't the mess it was before.

How many other articles like this one on second rank politicians, midsized company CEOs, B list movie stars and the like are there? Those that say there is no BLP problem miss the point.

What do you think? Any horror's you've seen that really need stubbing?

Wikigate 1984

2008-05-15T09:45:28+00:00

"The most potent works, observes the oppressed and haunted Winston Smith in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, … are the ones that tell you what you already know" (Christopher Hitchens, Thomas Jefferson: Author of America, p. 24). This astute observation resonated when I read the Wired story, "Who Is the Wikimedia Leak?" One might imagine from this that some W. Mark Felt type was lurking in the darkest alleyways of the Internet, waiting for the intrepid Owen Woodward to shuffle his flower pots. As is often the case, this imaginary portrayal trumps the lackluster reality: "There is no Deep Throat—only Google."

And while people may be shocked at the number of Googlers looking into the Erik story, what I find really disturbing is the Wikimedia Foundation's response: a wall of silence, with some poorly aimed potshots by arch-communicator Jay Walsh: "You could say this is a credit to the project supporters overall [that the topic has not come up]." Yes, indeedy! How wonderful that the Wikimedia community does not ask the burning—but potentially embarrassing—questions. As Orwell put it, " Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

I find it ironic that this view is being promoted by an organization that prides itself on "transparency" and even "radical transparency." Perhaps the transformation from Newspeak to Wikispeak simply requires the insertion of one or two lines to the Orwellian mantra: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. Transparency is Opacity. Radical Transparency is Really, Really, Super-dooper, Top Secret Stuff.

Perhaps it's time for us to reread 1984. Here are some quotes to get you started.

Shameless ad

2008-05-15T08:30:09+00:00

“The Sun Fire X4240, powered by the AMD Opteron 2200 and 2300 processor series, is a two-socket, 8-core, 2RU system with up to twice the memory and storage capacity of any system in its class. It’s the first and only two-socket AMD Opteron system with sixteen hard drive slots in a 2RU form factor.”

Well, now that I work for Sun, it ends up being a shameless ad and boasting :) But back when I saw information about this product, I wasn’t my first thought was “wow, thats the best machine for scaling up scaled out environments!”.

In web database world people agree that number of spindles (disks!) matters - remember YouTube’s “think disks, not servers” mantra said during the scaling panel at MySQL conference. Before, getting such number of spindles would’ve required external arrays taking space and sucking power (TCO! ;-)

And for us… it probably means we can finally start doing RAID10, instead of RAID0. :-)

By the way, that box even has Quad-Core service processor. Way to go! :)

Grow Your Wiki featured on the homepage of SlideShare

2008-05-15T07:42:14+00:00

The Grow Your Wiki slideshow is currently being featured on the homepage of SlideShare!

| View | Upload your own

Here’s what I wrote about the slideshow a couple of days ago when I first posted it. I hope you find it useful - please feel free to embed it on your own website, wiki, or blog. If you want a portable copy, you can download it from the SlideShare page.

Pictures of the Day - May 15

2008-05-15T06:03:02+00:00

commons.wikimedia.org:

Tagus River Panorama - Toledo, Spain - Dec 2006.jpg from commons.wikimedia.org, provided by Diliff

de.wikipedia.org:

Spaltblättlinge.jpg from commons.wikimedia.org, provided by Lebrac

en.wikipedia.org:

Broken Hill Town & Line of Lode Pano, NSW, 08.07.2007.jpg from commons.wikimedia.org, provided by Jjron

Two meter handheld range

2008-05-15T05:15:00+00:00

Here's another post inspired by a search hit. Some fine soul hit my blog today on a search for "expected range on a 2 meter handheld radio". This search would have brought our feckless reader to this post, which does not fairly answer the question. So, in the hopes that the next person to do this search actually learns something, I'll essay to answer this question.

The answer, of course, is "it varies". The amateur radio two-meter band is a VHF band, and as such is almost entirely line of sight. (Sporadic E skip, tropospheric ducting, meteor scatter, auroral skip, and earth-moon-earth are all quite difficult with an HT, so I won't dwell on them here.) So, basically, the range of any 2-meter radio is going to be limited by the horizon. However, because the atmosphere refracts radio waves considerably more than it does light, the effective radio horizon is about 15% further than visual horizon. So that establishes one of the limits on range: the receiver at the other end must be above the effective horizon. This is a function of four things: the altitude above ground of the transmitter, the altitude above ground of the receiver, the distance between the two, and the terrain between the two. The effective radio horizon for a given location, assuming flat terrain, is about 4.11 kilometers times the square root of the height of the antenna (in meters) above ground. So two stations with their antennas each one meter above ground will be in each others' horizons if they are closer than about 8 kilometers (a typical handheld-to-handheld case). If one of the stations is, instead, a repeater with its antenna 60 meters above ground, the range is nearly 36 kilometers. If one of you is atop the John Hancock Center in Chicago (344 meters), the range would be a whopping 80 kilometers. Of course, all of these are assuming flat terrain; if one of you in on top of a mountain, then that will also increase range, and if there's a mountain between you then you will be out of luck.

This isn't the end of the discussion, though. Not only do you have to have to be within each other's radio horizons, you also have to have enough power to survive path loss. Path loss represents the reduction in strength of the radio wave as it travels through space. Much of this is simply due to the inverse square law: as the wavefront grows in size, it occupies more space without having any more power, and thus has a lower power density. The receiving antenna's size doesn't change, so if it's moved further away it will receive less of the transmitted field. This is "freespace path loss", and if this is all you were facing loss would simply double twice with each doubling in distance (a loss of 6 dB for each doubling in distance, or octave). However, in real situations, other factors also contribute to loss, and in average conditions the effective loss in VHF is closer to 7 dB per octave, with a base at 1 km of about -71 dB. Most HTs will be able to just barely receive a signal at about -120 dBm, and should give suitable performance at about -100 dBm. This means that at 1 km, to have acceptable performance, you'll need to transmit a signal of -29 dBm. That's not even two microwatts. (In practice, you wouldn't get that far on two microwatts, because your HT's antenna probably sucks. More on that below.) Even at the 80 kilometers long-range case above, the path loss is only -115 dB; a signal of 15 dBm, or about 30 milliwatts, would be sufficient. Even with antenna losses, that's possibly within the typical 5 watt (37 dBm) capabilities of your average HT.

However, this discussion ignores one critical factor: the poor antennas that most HTs have. In practice the antenna of a handheld radio has negative gain in most operating environments, and you can expect to lose anywhere from 2 to 5 dB due to this issue alone. Obstacles (other than terrain) can also wreak havoc with the signal; if you're in a car, for example, expect to lose as much as 20 dB due to absorption from the car; other things that can reduce range include trees and buildings. Also, when transmitting within one wavelength of the ground (which for an HT is almost always) a significant portion of the signal is lost into the ground; this can account for up to 10 dB of loss.

However, it remains the case that in almost all cases, radio horizon, and not power, is the primary limitation on VHF range. So, in ordinary conditions, your 2m HT range is going to be about 8 km HT-to-HT simplex and about 25 to 40 km HT-to-repeater (depending mainly on the height of the repeater's antenna).

P.S. All numbers in this article may be wrong. I've tried to get them right but it's late and I may have made mistakes. If you do spot anything wrong, please feel free to hit me.

One planet, under wikipedia

2008-05-15T00:05:59+00:00

Google Maps displays geographic Wikipedia articles now!

The map is marked with Ws representing wikipedia articles. The location of each W is determined by the latitute/longitude coordinates on the wiki page.

It's kind of amazing how thoroughly wikipedia has colonized the world. In general, whenever I see an incredibly detailed, obscure wikipedia article, it sort of reminds me of how explorers must have felt when they found almost every corner of the earth inhabited. Wow. There are people here, too?

The problem with this particular application is that some Ws are big and some are small -- and the size seems to depend on the precision of the geotagging. My hometown is tagged superprecisely (down to hundredths of an arcsecond ), which means it's tiny on the map. This building in my hometown is the only W you see when you're zoomed out.

Or maybe that's because the building is tagged in "cityscale" units? ~~Does anyone know?~~

Update: Google seems to be following Wikipedia's own guidelines, which say (rather imprecisely) that locations should be tagged with a degree of precision appropriate to their size. (Thanks, Pete.)

Previously in mapped wikis...

(Meanwhile, Yahoo maps continues not to integrate with Flickr. Hello? Jerry? Nobody in the public knows about the flickr map. Are you trying to make your company irrelevant? Do you guys have any sort of framework for adding onto applications? Will I see font tags if I view the source?)

The future of Wikilaw

2008-05-14T22:08:13+00:00

Wikilaw got its start as a combination blog about law school, and Wikipedia. In the process we have covered some very interesting events in the legal world, especially in the field of Biglaw.

As I've progressed further in law school, and start getting an idea of where I want to focus my practice (video game law), I have decided to shift the focus of this blog more into the video games and video game law field.

We will of course retain our focus in general on Wikipedia (and other Wikis) and general law school related content. However expect the stories on what the mega-firms are doing to drift away, and in the future look towards more things like our recurring content on GTA IV and the EA buyout of Take Two Interactive, as well as major developments and releases in the industry.

Also, look for us to be covering this weekends Wikimeetup 4 in DC, and the development of the Wikimedia DC chapter.

Wikis Get Users Talking, Collaborating at MIT, Johns Hopkins

2008-05-14T20:59:01+00:00

Campus Technology writer Linda L. Briggs discusses wiki use with Carter Snowden of MIT and Geof Corb of Johns Hopkins University:

MIT, which has been running Confluence for about three years, has several thousand users and a couple hundred classes using Confluence in some way. Academic uses range from urban studies to the Sloan School of Management; from a team developing an electric car to a committee on intellectual property.

Carter Snowden talks about the ease of setting up a wiki, and how MIT automates and streamlines the procedure for creating new wiki spaces and giving users appropriate permissions:

He hasn’t found wikis a challenge to set up or maintain, Snowden said–the product has been easy enough to use that little user training or support is involved. “Confluence is pretty reliable; set it up and it runs itself,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot of worry about things going down.” MIT has procedures in place when a user requests a new shared “space” in Confluence, which can be done by a designated person in the information technology department. Add-on scripts written at MIT make creating a space and assigning a space administrator a straightforward process even for a non-technical person.

Geof Corb of Johns Hopkins explains how the wiki informs people when information is added, draws them in to contribute to pages, and fosters creative innovation:

“The thing I find most effective about Confluence,” Corb explained, “is the ability to very quickly just create a page, or if you prefer, a news entry or a blog posting, with an idea. So I can say, I have an idea–I wish that I had something that did this … and here’s what it would do…. As soon as I do that, it shows up in the dashboard of everyone who has access to the space when I created the page. They might click on it out of nothing more than curiosity, and then start contributing to my idea. And before you know it, you have this snowball effect of creative innovation happening, from mundane topics to exciting topics.”

Anonymity and public service

2008-05-14T18:44:03+00:00

I’m just back from RecentChangesCamp 2008, a conference and networking event for people who work with wiki software and communities. When you get a bunch of smart people together, you get new ideas; this post will be the first of several exploring the ideas I came away with. -Pete In a democratic society, it seems [...]

Farhood Manjoo, Mike Godwin, and Zo Spencer on the “Post Fact society”

2008-05-14T18:10:12+00:00

Earlier this month Wikimedia Foundation General Counsel Mike Godwin participated in the latest Berkeley Cybersalon event. Alongside recently published author and journalist Farhad Manjoo and blogger Zo Spencer, Mike tackled the topic of life in a “post fact” society; one which is punctuated by the belief that truth may be in the eye of the masses, and not with the traditional intellectual authorities.

The talk was taped by Fora.tv and is now available for free viewing on-line.

J. Walsh, Head of Communications

Where does wiki adoption fail? Is content more important than format? Should you power a public website with a wiki?

2008-05-14T18:02:32+00:00

Get the answers to these and other questions on wiki adoption and uses by listening to Tom Johnson’s podcast. He interviewed me at DocTrain West last week, and we discussed:

The relentless focus on simplicity in wikis, and how that makes participation democratic
How wikis are useful for technical writers
Why content comes before format when using a wiki (and how that ultimately makes for better format!)
Techniques and strategies for growing wiki use and adoption
The number one reason why wiki use fails
Why you need to make sure internal wiki use is successful before using it in any external-facing way

Duration: 18 min.
Download MP3

DocTrain West 2008: The biggest highlight?

2008-05-14T17:27:57+00:00

Scott Nesbitt says the biggest highlight for him was attending my presentations Grow Your Wiki, and Wiki Use Case: Publishing:

The biggest highlight was speaking with Stewart Mader and attending his presentations. To say Stewart is passionate and enthusiastic about wikis is an understatement in the extreme. It’s difficult to describe the amount of passion he has for this subject. You really have to listen to Stewart speak to understand what I’m talking about.

And wouldn’t you know it? I introduced Aaron to Stewart, and Aaron scored a free copy of WikiPatterns. I had to buy mine … Seriously, though, if you’re interested in wikis then WikiPatterns is a must read.

IPv4-Adressen werden immer knapper - Auswirkungen für Freifunk-Netze?

2008-05-14T15:41:42+00:00

heise hat vor ein paar Tagen über knapper werdende IP-Adressbereiche berichtet. "Schon in rund drei Jahren, ± 18 Monate, sind die IPv4-Adressreserven nach aktuellen Schätzungen erschöpft." Vor den möglichen Konsequenzen warnen einige Freifunker ja schon ein Weile. Dann könnte es nämlich passieren, dass sich jemand anderes den 104-Bereich, der zum Beispiel in Berlin verwendet wird, weg schnappt und wir plötzlich ohne eigene Adressen da stehen bzw. dass dies zu Konflikten führt, da Adressbereiche dann zwei Mal vergeben sind. Die von Freifunkern genutzten IP-Adressen waren in der Vergangenheit nicht offiziell vergeben worden und konnten daher für das Freifunknetz genutzt werden.

Wenn IPv4-Adressen knapp werden, könnten sie mehr und mehr zur interessanten und handelbaren Ware werden. Die regionalen Internet-Registries (RIR), Hüter der IP-Adresszuteilung, beobachten dies mit Sorge. Erlauben sie zukünftig die Transfers oder Verkäufe offiziell, akzeptieren sie damit Kommerzialisierung und Privatisierung. Der Versuch, auf die Rückgabe an die RIRs zu bestehen, könnte den wohl unausweichlichen Handel in den Untergrund treiben. Spätestens nachdem das Gerücht die Runde machte, IP-Adressblöcke seien auf eBay aufgetaucht, begannen die RIRs Diskussionen darüber, wie mit dem IPv4-Schwarzhandel umgegangen werden soll. Bei drei der fünf RIRs – RIPE, ARIN und APNIC – liegen Vorschläge zu Transferregeln bereit. Beim RIPE-Treffen in Berlin wurde intensiv über die Regeln für IPv4 in der RIPE-Region diskutiert... (09.05.2008 09:27, Monika Ermert / anw/c't, http://www.heise.de/newsticker/IPv4-Adressen-als-heisse-Ware--/meldung/1...)

Einen Ausweg aus der Adressenknappheit bietet IPv6, aber die Einführung von IPv6 ist nicht gerade trivial.

Aufhalten lässt sich die Ausgabe der letzten IPv4-Adressen kaum, denn zu groß ist die Nachfrage. Zwar gibt es mit IPv6 schon heute eine Quelle für aus gegenwärtiger Sicht unerschöpflichen Adressraum. Da aber noch auf Jahre oder Jahrzehnte beide Adressräume parallel existieren werden und auch neue Anbieter IPv4 für eine Brücke zwischen beiden Welten zunächst benötigen, steigt der Wert von IPv4-Adressen. (09.05.2008 09:27, Monika Ermert / anw/c't, http://www.heise.de/newsticker/IPv4-Adressen-als-heisse-Ware--/meldung/1...)

The revolution: name it and own it?

2008-05-14T13:20:20+00:00

What do the following pieces of jargon have in common?

free software
open source software (OSS, FOSS)
open content
Internet communities
Web 2.0
strong collaboration
mass collaboration
collaborative revolution
crowdsourcing
(Can you add to this list?)

Answer: they are all used to describe the phenomenon of a bunch of people working together online, in open communities, to create specific bodies of free information, like open source software, Citizendium, Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr, Slashdot, Web forums and mailing lists, and so forth. Granted, they each mean something slightly different. Internet geeks can expound on the differences and meanings at great length.

What name will win out in the long run? Or does that question not make sense — are we really dealing with many significantly different phenomena here, which really need all these different descriptors?

The localisation of MediaWiki extensions

2008-05-14T12:21:00+00:00

Betawiki is doing a great job on the localisation of extensions. This can be deduced from the improvement shown by the group statistics and from the increasing list of extensions that are supported.

Today Siebrand provided another interesting statistic; a list with the extensions that have some localisation in more then fifty languages. This list is already quite long and it is interesting to note that the BoardVote has already some support from 111 languages.

There is one little teaser in this mix, Siebrand only included the extensions that use "$messages". This excluded the one extension that is my favourite, the Wikidata extension.. Then I again I was told that it is somewhere int the eighties :)
Thanks,
GerardM

Trainwreck: external MySQL replication agent

2008-05-14T10:20:59+00:00

I wanted to work more on the actual project before writing about it, but I’m lazy, and dear community may be not.

At Wikimedia we have one database server which replicates from multiple (like 15!) masters. It even splits replication streams by database, and applying changes in parallel.

All this stuff is done by external replication agent, Trainwreck. It is public-domain software, which was written by River, doesn’t have much documentation, works only on Solaris (River likes Solaris), unless you comment out all process management blocks, which use doors and other Solaris specific API.

It lives in Wikimedia SVN, and can be checked out using:

svn co http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/tools/trainwreck/

It sits there, maintained just for needs of that specific single server (ok, there might be two or three), so if anyone wants to make it available for broader audience, feel free to fork a project to some community-oriented place, add all nice features you need. :)

OpenSSL Debian seeding problem

2008-05-14T06:15:15+00:00

OpenSSL Debian seeding problem - what a mess - installing the update itself is trivial, but the sysadmin time is in having to chase down and remove and regenerate weak keys generated by multiple packages, which in turn can have propagated to multiple machines, generated any time over the last year and a bit on a Debian or Ubuntu system. Ouch. Most helpful resource for doing that is the SSLKeys page on the Debian wiki.

Tectonic Plates and Microfoundations

2008-05-14T04:13:01+00:00

In 1915, Alfred Wegener argued that all the continents of Earth once used to fit together as one giant supercontinent, which he later named Pangea. As Wikipedia summarizes:

In his work, Wegener presented a large amount of circumstantial evidence in support of continental drift, but he was unable to come up with a convincing mechanism. Thus, while his ideas attracted a few early supporters ... the hypothesis was generally met with skepticism. The one American edition of Wegener's work ... was received so poorly that the American Association of Petroleum Geologists organized a symposium specifically in opposition.... ... By the 1930s, Wegener's geological work was almost universally dismissed by the scientific community and remained obscure for some thirty years.

Today, of course, every schoolchild knows about Pangea. But for a long time the theory was dismissed, not because it lacked evidence or predictive power -- it explained why the shapes of the continents fit together, why mountain ranges and coal fields lined up, why similar fossil were found in places separated by oceans, and so on -- but because Wegener had no plausible mechanism.

A similar problem happens in the social sciences. Paul Krugman recently noted that while Larry Bartels (in his new book Unequal Democracy) provides solid, convincing evidence that Republican presidents systematically preside over slower growth and increasing inequality, most social scientists don't believe him because we haven't yet identified the mechanisms. Krugman:

Now, I'm a big Bartels fan; I've known about this result for quite a while. But I've never written it up. Why? Because I can't figure out a plausible mechanism. Even though I believe that politics has a big effect on income distribution, this is just too strong -- and too immediate -- for me to see how it can be done. Sure, Republicans want an oligarchic society -- but how can they do that?

Bartels, for his part, argues that providing the mechanisms isn't his job -- his goal is to highlight the phenomena and encourage many others to research the mechanisms:

How do presidents produce these substantial effects?

One of my aims in writing Unequal Democracy was to prod economists and policy analysts to devote more attention to precisely that question. Douglas Hibbs did important work along these lines ... He found that Democrats favored expansionary policies ... while Republicans endured and sometimes prolonged recessions in order to keep inflation in check. (Not coincidentally, unemployment mostly affects income growth among relatively poor people, while inflation mostly affects income growth among relatively affluent people.) In recent decades taxes and transfers have probably been more important. Social spending. Business regulation or lack thereof. And don't forget the minimum wage. Over the past 60 years, the real value of the minimum wage has increased by 16 cents per year under Democratic presidents and declined by 6 cents per year under Republican presidents; that's a 3% difference in average income growth for minimum wage workers, with ramifications for many more workers higher up the wage scale. So, while I don't pretend to understand all the ways in which presidents' policy choices shape the income distribution, I see little reason to doubt that the effects are real and substantial.

When it comes to addressing such arguments more generally, the most famous commentator is Jon Elster. In his classic article "Marxism, Functionalism, and Game Theory", he insists:

Without a firm knowledge about the mechanisms that operate at the individual level, the grand Marxist claims about macrostructures and long-term change are condemned to remain at the level of speculation.

(To be fair, Elster doesn't make this as a general argument, but his vehemence has led some of his followers to suggest that it is.)

To be clear, I think discovering mechanisms is important work. All I'm arguing is that it shouldn't be a necessity for believing in a theory. Instead, I believe it's an irrational side-effect of an emotional distaste for gaps in knowledge.

As evidence, let me note that such demands for mechanisms never go more than one level deep. Nobody has ever said, "Well, your theory that people are motivated by greed is all very nice, but I just can't believe it until you can explain how greed is manifested in the brain." Neuroscience is obviously the microfoundation of psychology, but psychological theories are regularly accepted without neuroscientific microfoundations.

In general, it seems like such commentators support a double-standard. Theories with mechanisms should be judged by their fit with the evidence and predictive power. Theories without mechanisms should be judged by the evidence and predictive power and whether you can think of any plausible mechanisms. I don't see how this can be justified. There's no reason mechanism should be privileged in the assessment of knowledge; things are true or false, even if we don't know why they are true or false.

Indeed, it we typically only investigate the causes of phenomena once we're convinced that they exist. (Elster admits as much in Explaining Social Behavior, noting that establishing a phenomena's existence is the first step towards explaining it.) So let's stop making the mistake of not believing things are true because we don't know how they happen.

Too many repeaters

2008-05-14T03:21:00+00:00

Is there some law that requires ham radio sites to have atrocious web design? Some of the sites I've been at recently (and I won't name names, not right now) have just horrible web design. Blinky graphics, animated horizontal rules, busy background patterns... it's Geocities all over again!

One thing that I've been frustrated by recently is the lack of useful repeater listings for Chicagoland. Most of the listings I can find just list the city or town for the repeater. This is multiply frustrating for me where I am. First, there are just dozens of little suburbs around here, many of which the names of which I forget, and scanning a list of repeaters in Illinois sorted alphabetically for the ones near me is challenging and tedious. Second, a repeater in Chicago may or may not be close enough for me to use; Chicago is a big city and a repeater might not cover the entire city if it's not high enough or is on the wrong side of the Sears Tower or something. Third, many repeaters are listed with a city/town of the residence of the operator or the trustee, not the actual location of the transmitter (which may be miles away and several towns over). K5EHX's repeater list tries to rectify this somewhat, but this database suffers from the fact that most of the repeaters have only a default lat/long of the city center of the listed city (which, as noted, may be incorrect). (Not K5EHX's fault; he can't create data out of thin air anymore than anyone else can.)

I am therefore going through the list of repeaters for my location, trying to update the information as best I can, using the web and emailing operators to the extent possible, and going on air to try to get info when I can't find the info via the web. This is proving to be tedious, but at least it will hopefully help someone.

If you know a repeater that isn't listed in K5EHX, or is incorrect, please add it/fix it as appropriate! Chicagoland isn't the only place where this data needs work.

Getting ready to go into production

2008-05-14T00:40:00+00:00

Things have come a long way since my last post. The wiki has been running continuously on a test box for a couple of months with no major glitches. It is now based on version 1.12, but is running on SQL Server 2005 instead of SQL Server 2000. Everything works except for images that have funny characters in the names. Even those sort of work (the thumbnails get generated and stored in the appropriate place), but IIS 6 seems unable to server the files from there. The code is stable enough so the boss has decided to put the thing into production. There's still some pieces in this screenshot that show some of the parts of the wiki that are still in development (The collaboration box shows some debugging messages from the presence / chat server). The screw behind the logo means that this is the development version and won't be in the production version.

Wiki Use Case: Publishing - slides from DocTrain West 2008

2008-05-13T23:52:33+00:00

Did you know a wiki can be an ideal platform for managing a publishing project, like a book? Here’s how I used a wiki to write Wikipatterns and manage the chapter authoring and editing process:

| View | Upload your own

Whoa.

2008-05-13T22:43:48+00:00

What you can learn from CBS about embracing cultural change

2008-05-13T21:30:58+00:00

Rob Paterson recently wrote about the decline of CBS News from the gold standard years ago to the recent rumors that it may outsource newsgathering to CNN. He correctly points out that the root of the decline is with the culture and people, not the technology:

Moving to this new world is NOT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY. It is about culture. If you are imbued with their old culture, it is unlikely that you can make the shift. Adoption is not about the tools - CBS could have adopted the tools but they could not. They were too invested in their old way.

Wikimedia Foundation receives copyright infringement claim from Mormon Church

2008-05-13T19:58:16+00:00

>Click here for the EXCLUSIVE story.

The Wikimedia Foundation has received a copyright infringement claim from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. The infringement claim is in reference to a URL used as a source in a Wikinews article about Mormon Church documents leaked to the website Wikileaks, titled "Copy of handbook for leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints obtained by Wikinews". The URL was originally cited as a link in the sources subsection of the article. The Wikimedia Foundation is a donor-supported non-profit organization which runs Wikipedia and Wikinews. This is the first time that the Wikimedia Foundation has received a copyright infringement claim regarding an article published by Wikinews.

The Wikinews article, originally published on April 19, described material in the Church Handbook of Instructions. The work is a two-volume book of policies and is a guide for leaders of the Mormon Church. Wikinews obtained the Church Handbook of Instructions from Wikileaks, a whistleblower website which publishes anonymous submissions of sensitive documents while preserving the anonymity of its contributors. Wikileaks describes the material as significant because "...the book is strictly confidential among the Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka LDS in short form) bishops and stake presidents and it reveal [sic] the procedure of handling confidential matters related to tithing payment, excommunication, baptism and doctrine teaching (indoctrination)."

>Click here for the EXCLUSIVE story.

Grow Your Wiki: slides from DocTrain West 2008

2008-05-13T17:28:32+00:00

I believe you can love what you do at work. When I look at the sore subjects of work - things like email overload, poor, unfocused meetings, and the confusion & misunderstandings that drag down projects - I see opportunity. I see a grand opportunity to take a step back, get a clear perspective on what really matters, and fix these things so that work can become meaningful and fulfilling.

A wiki is just part of this. I’m so enthusiastic about this tool because it represents so much more than the empty, superficial fixes of the past. It’s the result of a radical rethinking of how people interact, share, and build knowledge, and because of that it can act as the platform for significant but sensitive change that doesn’t upset the proverbial apple cart but instead makes sure the apples are presented in the best way possible so the apple cart will be a huge success.

Ok, here are the slides. These are the slides I use in public presentations, like the one last Wednesday at DocTrain West, and also the starting point I use in my consulting and advising relationships to frame an understanding of what a wiki is and how it benefits the people who use it:

| View | Upload your own

Customer Experience

2008-05-13T17:10:50+00:00

Riiiiight…

Moving forward

2008-05-13T15:29:00+00:00

Some good things that have been happening lately. Aaron, the developer of Flagged revisions, or Stable Version indicated that this extension is now stable in its messaging. This has now been picked up on Betawiki where it can now be can localised again.

The 179 messages of Flagged revisions adds to the load of an ever increasing number of messages that need localising. Currently there are 6511 messages up from 5744 messages a month ago, an incease of 767 messages. This shows clearly how much work goes into the MediaWiki development and the Betawiki localisation.

We are grateful for all the good work and to maintain the momentum, we have to continue to reach out to more people to help us to make their language a MediaWiki success too. Particularly for the African languages we wish to do well. At the last two Wikimanias Jimmy and Anthere talked about this. There have been workshops, there are special mailing lists and if we can do more to make Africans buy into the wiki way and own their Wikipedias many will.

Today I was asked to write for the Kabissa website.. Have a read, tell me what you think, tell me what more we can do for African languages..
Thanks,
GerardM

(ps we includes you :) )

Open Wiki Blog Planet

Latest Tax Form 990 Available on Foundation Wiki

SHOW INNODB LOCKS

Physics Housekeeping

Betawiki localises for *all* MediaWiki projects

Asbestos controversy aboard Scientology ship Freewinds

Pictures of the Day - May 16

Wikipedians are not neutral

Why we do this.

Wiki Usage Advice: How to Keep People Coming Back For More

Episode 49: Use mine it’s bigger

Another unhappy customer

University hosting panel continues discussion on Wikipedia ethics without Wikimedia

The FBI: Where Every Agent Is a Special Agent

Anatomy of a BLP

Wikigate 1984

Shameless ad

Grow Your Wiki featured on the homepage of SlideShare

Pictures of the Day - May 15

Two meter handheld range

One planet, under wikipedia

The future of Wikilaw

Wikis Get Users Talking, Collaborating at MIT, Johns Hopkins

Anonymity and public service

Farhood Manjoo, Mike Godwin, and Zo Spencer on the “Post Fact society”

Where does wiki adoption fail? Is content more important than format? Should you power a public website with a wiki?

DocTrain West 2008: The biggest highlight?

IPv4-Adressen werden immer knapper - Auswirkungen für Freifunk-Netze?

The revolution: name it and own it?

The localisation of MediaWiki extensions

Trainwreck: external MySQL replication agent

OpenSSL Debian seeding problem

Tectonic Plates and Microfoundations

Too many repeaters

Getting ready to go into production

Wiki Use Case: Publishing - slides from DocTrain West 2008

Whoa.

What you can learn from CBS about embracing cultural change

Wikimedia Foundation receives copyright infringement claim from Mormon Church

Grow Your Wiki: slides from DocTrain West 2008

Customer Experience

Moving forward

Betawiki localises for all MediaWiki projects