Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-07-31/In the media

In the media

Blackouts in Europe, Wikipedia and capitalists, WMF Jet Set

Wikipedia blackout

European Parliament vote in 2018,
Wikimedia Meta

Reported in greater depth in this issue at the Discussion report, the Spanish, Italian, Latvian, Estonian, Polish, Catalan, Basque, Galician, Hungarian, and Slovenian Wikipedias blacked out, incurring extensive media coverage throughout Europe:

"Italy Wikipedia shuts down in protest at EU copyright law". BBC News. 3 July 2018. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
Polish Press Agency and Reuters (4 July 2018). "Polish Wikipedia shuts down in protest at EU copyright law". Archived from the original on 29 July 2018 – via Poland in English (Telewizja Polska). {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
Farrell, James (4 July 2018). "Italian, Spanish and Polish Wikipedia pages shut down ahead of controversial copyright law". Blog. Silicon Angle. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
Lomas, Natasha (4 July 2018). "Wikipedia goes dark in Spanish, Italian ahead of key EU vote on copyright". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
Tannam, Ellen (4 July 2018). "Spanish and Italian Wikipedia go dark to protest EU copyright law proposals". Silicon Republic. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
Schumacher, Elizabeth (3 July 2018). "Italian Wikipedia shuts down in protest of proposed EU copyright law". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
Orlowski, Andrew (3 July 2018). "Call your MEP! Wikipedia blacks out for European YouTube vote". The Register. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.

Business Insider also showed a Twitter exchange between Jimmy Wales and European Commission over the blackout.

UK venture capitalists are not notable

Cabal of anti-UK editors deciding the fate of venture capital articles?

Writing on 13 July for the Technology Intelligence section in leading UK newspaper The Telegraph, James Cook reports on anonymous users suggesting Wikipedia is biased against British entrepreneurs while allowing articles about US financiers. Listing deleted articles Angel CoFund, Eden Ventures, Episode 1 Ventures, Hoxton Ventures, Mangrove Capital Partners, Notion Capital, Passion Capital, Rob Kniaz, Saul Klein, and Scottish Equity Partners, he claims that deletions of 19 articles are an orchestrated effort of three Wikipedia users who support each other's AfD nominations. In the Articles for Deletion discussion about the Tom Blomfield biography, the page was procedurally kept following a 'no consensus' closure.

In a brief interview with The Signpost, one of the deletion nominators, HighKing, had this to say about the accusations:

“

[I nominated] poorly written articles that serve more as advertisements and to stroke the egos of founders and funders and do not meet the criteria for notability. Most aren't even close to meeting the criteria... Inventing an 'anti-UK bias' where none existed and sourced to an anonymous person who 'works at a UK technology company' is lousy journalism from James Cook... [W]hat is obvious to anyone who spends time at AfD is the occasional sense of entitlement shown by a person connected with the company. Might be a CEO, might be a VC – but also usually connected with a startup. Now, I know, it's really tough and stressful running a startup. But Wikipedia isn't a platform for companies to abuse. It isn't a platform to assist on the road to success. It isn't a platform to stroke egos. It's not a platform for promotion. You and your company are not entitled to an article.

And a poorly crafted non-news piece in The Telegraph won't change our policies and guidelines.

”

—K

In brief

Other contributors: Bri

Maher living out of a suitcase – taking her office with her?

Frequent flyer: WMF Executive Director Katherine Maher engaged in business travel 200 days last year (The Wall Street Journal & National Geographic, June 21). (Editor's note: Take out the weekends, holidays, and vacation, and that's practically every working day.)
Paid editing: It's frowned upon, but that doesn't stop the WMF from now paying for an advertorial in the Daily Maverick.
Digital literacy project: A Washington State University professor is leading a "Thousand Page Project" to create articles on 1,000 local newspapers. (Poynter Institute, Chronicle of Higher Education)
Wikimedians decolonise the Internet: How Dumisani Ndubane of South Africa helps "decolonise the Internet" by contributing to Wikimedia – he wrote large parts of Wikiversity's electrical engineering content. (The Media Online)
Road trips and augmented reality: The Road Trip app (a Chrome browser plugin) will read Wikipedia content aloud based on your current location. (The Verge) An augmented reality smartphone app displays Wikipedia articles for any topics the app user is nearby. (ShortList)
Improving knowledge about violence and abuse: University of Pennsylvania's Ortner Center on Violence & Abuse in Relationships conducted a project to improve the public's knowledge about violence and abuse by improving Wikipedia pages on the topic. (Penn Today)
Weak passwords still OK: Digital Journal reports "Amazon and Wikipedia still giving poor password advice". Fixing this has been proposed at least since 2011.
Academic writes 270 Wikipedia pages in a year to get female scientists noticed: A WikiProject Women in Red contributor, Jess Wade (Jesswade88), is profiled by The Guardian and El Pais.
The Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia group, coordinated through a private Facebook group called The Secret Cabal, was covered by Wired magazine: "The 'Guerrilla' Wikipedia editors who combat conspiracy theories".
Why pay for information – according to those selling it: EdSurge published an interview of Karthik Krishnan, the CEO of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., in which he compared his encyclopedia to Wikipedia and "spoke about convenience over quality, the problems with crowdsourcing and why we should once again consider paying for information".

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Well-meaning Wikipedians suffer from a myth that the corruption on our site consists only of business owners and the like trying to push their companies. These are the most clueless commercial editors, but not the most dangerous. As the WP:Orangemoody scandal illustrated, the big bucks come in where people threaten to delete companies' articles. Because a company will value an article that it knows exists and has had some effect more than one it has only talked about. Wnt (talk) 22:43, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Portuguese Wikipedia was also part of the blackout

Hi guys, I just want to quickly mention that the Portuguese Wikipedia also was part of the blackout. I can't find sources in English, only DW.com in Portuguese. https://www.dw.com/pt-br/parlamento-europeu-rejeita-controversa-reforma-de-lei-de-direitos-autorais/a-44540868

Link to announcement: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Comunicado_de_5_de_julho_de_2018

User:Tetizeraz. Send me a ✉️ ! 20:53, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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