MetaFilter posts tagged with wikipedia

The 1st Ammendment, the Internet, and a Served Debt

Diablevert — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:30:24 -0800

Wikipedia is being sued for publishing the names of two convicted killers. Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed well-known German actor Walter Sedlmayr in 1990. They were convicted of the crime in 1993 and sentenced to prison, and recently released. Under German law, publishing the name of a criminal after he has served his sentence is considered an undue infringement of privacy, and is illegal. Accordingly, the German Wiki removed the names of the killers off the page discussing the murder --- but the English language version of wiki, based in the US and operating under the First Ammendment, has not. Now the killers' lawyer has sued the Wikimedia foundation to get them to remove the names. The case raises important questions about the international enforcement of privacy laws. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has some strong opinions on the matter. And Wire's Threatlevel blog piles on, with pictures. The New York Time's own covergae of the case risks exposing them to legal action (and further enhacing the Streisand Effect): "In an e-mail message after the interview, [Mr. Stopp, the killers' lawyer] wrote, 'In the spirit of this discussion, I trust that you will not mention my clients’ names in your article.' Here's a sample of Mr. Sedlmayr's work, and a german language article about the killer's release.

Wikirunner

juv3nal — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:16:28 -0800

Wikirunner is a linux/windows game based on wikipedian tag created by Doches as an entry in Mini Ludum Dare 12. (about ludum dare)

"...for the scientific community, the most critical organ of the incentive system is the cycle of credit."

iamkimiam — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:11:04 -0800

Just how credible is Wikipedia? While some have tested this empirically, others have chosen more dubious methodology. For a site that gives no credit to its post authors, one wonders, why even bother?

Written by you, for you, for free, for money, for us.

not_on_display — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:06:42 -0800

Bigipedia--it's like listening to Wikipedia on the radio--is also available on the web (for those of you whose radios do not support multiple-voice broadcasts).

Tell Me What You See

william_boot — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:48:09 -0800

Butterfly or bat? Lobster or spider? Cheating or educating?

enjoying Wikipedia

nickyskye — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:22:45 -0800

Best of Wikipedia: A twice-daily updated collection of some of the best reading on Wikipedia. Created and maintained by avinash.vora.

raaouuhao woahaooaoo

BlackLeotardFront — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:50:15 -0800

Today's featured article: Hvuoauuoao roaoa rruaauuvaaoo nuaunuuoau waaoaarrooayu haoaoa nauiouuruua rraaoaa voaouriau wooo vuaaoora.

Is this proof enough?

gushn — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:17:18 -0800

The NYTimes prevents leaks of its reporter's kidnapping from circulating on Wikipedia. The NYTimes managed to keep a story about one of its reporters being captured by the Taliban off of major newspapers through courtesy, but had a much harder time doing so on the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter's Wikipedia page. The reporter has since escaped and the story has now broken, though heated exchanges on the page's history remain, with edits by founder Jimmy Wales himself.

The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2008

stbalbach — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:32:35 -0800

The Wikimedia Commons Picture(s) of the Year 2008.

The clambake is over

Antidisestablishmentarianist — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:42:58 -0800

Wikipedia will now no longer accept any changes originating from Scientology owned or controlled address space. The French seem to be a bit upset as well.

Wikirank

peacay — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:39:26 -0800

Wikirank is an analytical tool that measures the popularity of trending topics on wikipedia. You can compare up to four topics and generate nifty embeddable graphs.

I like to watch.

Pope Guilty — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:56:38 -0800

Watch anonymous Wikipedia edits as they happen, where they happen.

?????????? is a community weblog whose purpose etc.

tss — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:05:48 -0800

Wikitrivia.net makes trivia questions out of Wikipedia pages. It's a bit rough around the edges, but it does pretty well for not having a magic AI that understands English. Hit reload if you get a question you don't like, or grab the source code if you think you can make it better.

Like many posts, this one starts with a Wikipedia link for general background.

grouse — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:35:09 -0800

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that ~~anyone~~trusted users can edit. If the MediaWiki FlaggedRevisions extension is enabled, the general public will see changes to articles only after approval by a trusted editor. Wikipedians conducted a poll on whether Wikipedia should enable the feature for a limited trial. Almost 60 percent of voting editors answered in the affirmative. Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales's subsequent request to enable the feature anyway has been opposed by some, claiming that the margin of votes does not meet Wikipedia's consensus standard. While it might help avoid embarrassing incidents of vandalism, the proposed trial could lead to a big change in the Wikipedia way.

Edits we can believe in

Horace Rumpole — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:31:03 -0800

He holds a degree in jam-making. His stepmother is a former stripper by the name of Kandy Caine. He once appeared in a Backstreet Boys video. He's Senator Julian Polonius Foley Marcos DeWiki III, and he's running for President. (more) (via)

Delete-me-not

roofus — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 05:54:50 -0800

Deletionpedia : an automatically updated collection of deleted pages from Wikipedia. The name was suggested by Nicholson Baker. For meta-referential enjoyment, the Wikipedia page about Deletionpedia is of course currently "being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy".

Appendicitis In Popular Culture

cashman — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:03:57 -0800

Medpedia is coming. "In association with Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School and other leading global health organizations, the Medpedia community seeks to create the most comprehensive and collaborative medical resource in the world." Apply to contribute content. "Only M.D.s, Ph.D.s in a biomedical field and people with medical credentials will be allowed to contribute to Medpedia." "How is Medpedia different from Wikipedia?" "Medpedia is also receiving content and cooperation from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other government research groups."

Knol goes live

blahblahblah — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:38:01 -0800

Knol, Google's single-author answer to Wikipedia, has gone live. Or at least beta. Early beta. While there is a great Knol (defined by Google as "a unit of knowledge") on unclogging a toilet, it still has a way to go, as can be seen by contrasting Wikipedia on Knol and Knol on Wikipedia.

Truth Vandals?

l33tpolicywonk — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:16:25 -0800

XKCD mocks Wikipedia's "in popular culture" sections. Wikipedians take the idea seriously. The article ("Wood"). goes on lockdown. But is adding correct, even if useless, information really WikiVandalism?

Delaying News in the Era of the Internet

ericb — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:26:50 -0800

Wikipedia Updater Fired For Scooping NBC on Tim Russert's Death -- "When Tim Russert collapsed ten days ago, his colleagues at NBC held off reporting the news for almost two hours so his family wouldn't hear about it from the media....The news appeared on Wikipedia 40 minutes before the NBC report, with all of the verbs in Tim's entry changed from present tense to past. It appeared on the New York Times's web site 5 minutes before the NBC story. It zipped around Twitter all afternoon. According to the New York Times, the person who updated the Wikipedia entry 40 minutes before NBC reported it worked at Internet Broadcasting Services, a company that provides web services to TV stations including NBC affiliates." "IBS says a 'junior-level employee' changed the Wikipedia entry to reflect Russert's death because he or she thought it was common knowledge. When NBC discovered the entry--and freaked out about it--someone else at IBS deleted the date of Russert's death and changed all of the verb tenses back. And then IBS took care of the employee.

'An I.B.S. spokeswoman...added that the company had 'taken the necessary measures with the employee and apologized to NBC.' NBC News said it was told the employee was fired.'"

A 10,000 YouTube Link Post

AtDuskGreg — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:53:00 -0800

Ever wonder what music videos were popular the week Lorena Bobbit cut off her husband's penis and the Unabomber injured computer scientist David Gelernter at Yale University? Or what about the week The Simpsons first went on air? Grabb.it TV has the answer. It aggregates the top 20 music videos for each week of the 80s and 90s and mashes them up with wikipedia to make the ultimate virtual retro music video station.

Google Maps now integrates with Wikipedia

stbalbach — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:57:29 -0800

Google Maps now integrates with Wikipedia (click "More" tab). Concharto is a geographic wiki for documenting historical events. Flick also has a map service.

Marshall Poe: professional historian with some cool projects

stbalbach — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:09:25 -0800

New Books In History. Historian Marshall Poe talks with other historians about their newly published books. Marshall Poe is involved in a number of interesting projects including an upcoming book about Wikipedia: Everyone Knows Everything. The Rise of WikiWorld and the Democratization of Knowledge; he is a regular contributor at The Atlantic Monthly and author of "The Hive"; he founded MemoryArchive, "the encyclopedia of memories." And he is working on a new website "historyshorts.org" (not up yet) that will have short videos about history.

Biographicon: crowd-sourcing non-notables

stbalbach — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:35:16 -0800

Biographicon : crowd-sourcing non-notables.

Can $650 in dinner drinks buy a Neutral Point of View?

orthogonality — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:51:44 -0800

[Former Novell chief scientist] Jeff Merkey,... claims [Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy] Wales told him in 2006 that in exchange for a substantial donation from Merkey, he would edit his uncomplimentary Wikipedia entry to make it more favourable. Merkey made a $US5000 ([AU]$5455) donation in 2006... around the same time, Wales personally made changes to [Merkey's Wikipedia] entry after wiping it out completely and ordering editors to start over.

But it's all in a good cause, to keep Wikipedia ad-free, right? Well, no, according to Danny Wool, Wales's former "right-hand man" at Wikipedia: Wool says Wales used the contributions to pay for, among other things, Russian massages and as much as $650 on wine for a dinner for four, while Wales traveled at Wikipedia's expense. And though Wikipedia paid his expenses, Wool claims that Wales kept the proceeds: "At one point [Wales] owed the Foundation some $30,000 in receipts, and this while we were preparing for the audit. Not a bad sum, considering that many of those trips had fat honoraria, which Jimbeau kept for himself."