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In the media

Knowledge under fire

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By Bri, Eddie891, and Pythoncoder

Wikipedia digitally preserving artifacts lost in National Museum of Brazil fire

Photograph of an immense off-white building behind two rows of palm trees leading to the entrance, a clear blue sky above
Photograph of the same building smoldering under a massive blaze, the black smoke filling the night sky
The National Museum consumed by fire in 2018

Mental Floss reported this month on Wikipedia's effort to "digitally preserve" some of the priceless items destroyed in the recent National Museum of Brazil fire. The effort began with a tweet by the Wikipedia Twitter account encouraging people to do this.

Hundreds of files have already been uploaded and the collection can be browsed here. The article also encouraged people to upload more images and add descriptions to existing ones. — P

Read more about the effort to preserve the contents of the National Museum of Brazil at this month's Wikimedia blog report.

United States Congress

[[File:|center|300px|alt=Separate photographs of Dianne Feinstein on the left and Brett Kavanaugh on the right, both in formal attire at the Senate hearings, their names and positions overlayed across each photograph]]

Members of, and goings on in, the United States Congress were heavily in the media this month, particularly over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee, and Lindsey Graham had personal information posted on their Wikipedia pages. Also during the hearing, the page Devil's Triangle (disambiguation) was anonymously edited to add "a popular drinking game enjoyed by friends of judge Brett Kavanaugh." Both edits appeared to come from the Capitol.

  • May, Ashley (28 September 2018). "Devil's Triangle Wikipedia page changes definition during Kavanaugh hearing". News (Politics). USA Today. Gannett Company. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  • Nelson, Steven (28 September 2018). "Sheldon Whitehouse on Kavanaugh: 'I don't believe a devil's triangle is a drinking game'". News (White House). The Washington Examiner. MediaDC. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  • Papenfuss, Mary (28 September 2018). "Judiciary Committee Members Doxxed During Kavanaugh Testimony". Politics. HuffPost. Oath Inc. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  • Burr, Thomas (27 September 2018). "Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee are victims of online 'doxing' as Wikipedia posts home addresses and phone numbers". News (Politics). The Salt Lake Tribune. Washington. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  • Thebault, Reis (28 September 2018). "Fight over Kavanaugh nomination finds its oddest front yet: Wikipedia pages". Politics. The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  • Rodriguez, Jesus (27 September 2018). "Judiciary Republicans' personal information published during Kavanaugh hearing". Congress. Politico. Capitol News Company. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.

See further coverage here and here. — E

In brief

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55 Savushkina Street, home of the Internet Research Agency troll farm

Other contributors: Bri


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Tate biographies

There has been discussion of the Tate story at Talk:Anthony van Dyck and at WT:WPVA.

It started with a blog post (link) by the art historian Bendor Grosvenor, complaining that Tate should be writing its own short biographies for artists (and so providing job opportunities for young art historians) rather than outsourcing the job. But as his blog post shows, with a link to the Tate's entry on Peter Lely, in the past (link), the Tate has used short biographies from the Grove Dictionary of Art (a commercial provider, so one assumes paid for) but now (link) in many cases (since we think around December 2016) it just uses (with attribution and a link, and for free) the lead section of the Wikipedia biography instead. If this practice spreads, it suggests we should spend more time on creating a good lead section, rather than polishing the body of the article.

Grosvenor also rather trivially complained about the misspelling of "Van Dyck" in the link to our article on Van Dyke beard (as that was the only "error" he mentioned, and deliberately using that variant spelling is not really an error, for the reasons explained in our article on the subject, perhaps this crowdsourced online website that anyone can edit is not doing so bad a job?).

He came back to the subject a few days later (link) to note that the National Galleries of Scotland are also linking to Wikipedia. Separately, he praises art galleries that make images available for free via Wikipedia rather than charging fees for reproduction of images that are public domain (link).

We know that some museums and galleries are linking to Wikpedia as a source of further information already, including the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the National Galleries of Scotland, and no doubt others too.

Also relevant is this rebuttal from Matthew Lincoln, an art historian and data scientist at CMU, who has actually spent time doing the job Grosvenor wants the art galleries to do. Lincoln encourages curators to avoid spending time and money reinventing the wheel (and indeed undervaluing work not invented here) by (re)writing two or three paragraph short biographies of well-known artists, but rather to deploy their limited resources on activities that add real value to the understanding of the specific works in their collection. You can see the Tate doing that with their online research publications; for example, on Henry Moore: (link). 213.205.251.57 (talk) 11:51, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the further background, IP user. Perhaps you can write a followup piece about this for the next issue (assuming there will be a next issue)? I don't know if The Signpost has ever published an article bylined to an IP user, but it may be worth a shot—especially given the current dearth of contributors. Lastly, I'll also note the recent discussion about this whole matter at Jimbo's talk page. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 13:58, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the additional link - no doubt there are more pieces of the discussion on the issue in a few other talk pages - too.
A Signpost article by an IP editor? A tempting offer, but there is not much to add to what I said above, all released on the usual CC BY-SA 3.0 terms, so feel free to make something of it. 213.205.251.57 (talk) 14:56, 1 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Very glad for this section

While we're talking about the value and purpose of the Signpost (see the last couple "from the editor" columns), I'd like to express how much I always appreciate this particular section. I really like the curated roundup of Wikipedia news. Thanks, all. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:22, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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