Forks are everywhere. If you've got a barn or a stable, there should be a fork inside it to clean out the muck. There are forks in the road, on the internet, on the chess board, on antelopes, in rivers, in beards and tongues, in cryptocurrencies, and almost everybody has forks in their drawers. Maybe we should use chopsticks instead. – S

Have you gotten $2.75 worth of info from Wikipedia? Consider donating

The Ledger's headline (paywalled) gives the main news: the Florida newspaper is asking for funds from its readers to support Wikipedia. But the bad news is that The Ledger needs to charge its readers to pay its bills. Otherwise, their readers will get cut off by the paywall. The good news is that they will give you "unlimited digital access (costing) $1 for the first 6 months". Everybody, it seems, needs a little green to support their publishing. The better news is that Wikipedia is still free for all readers and has no plans to change that. This reporter has no objections to you donating $2.75 or $25.00 or whatever amount you would prefer. It is not that the Wikimedia Foundation needs your cash now to forestall closing down this website next week, next month, or even next year, but it is just good planning for a non-profit organization to build a solid base of small donors who can ensure that this site will be around for a long time to come. The best news is that The Signpost will always be free – just as we have for almost 19 years – so long as Wikipedia keeps publishing. And to return the plug, Signpost readers should feel free to consider paying a dollar for six months of The Ledger. – S

When you come to a fork in the highway ...

In his ever-informative column in Slate, Stephen Harrison explains in detail why editors from WikiProject Highways created a new website forking Wikipedia's road articles. (We note that The Signpost scooped him on this story.)

In his usual style, Harrison breaks the story into an intriguing introduction, and several tines accompanied by quotes from participants and analysis of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. In this particular case, he grabs you in the intro with "Wikipedia, road infrastructure, and drama—one of these things doesn’t sound like the other" and a mention of a video that "spills the tea." He then focuses on an editor, identified only as Ben (or bmacs001), and the tines include the difference between editors who are roadgeeks and railfans, with a brief note on possible cultural differences between American and European railfans.

The Wiki-rules discussed include notability, reliable sources, pseudoscience, and no original research.

Of course, no newspaper story is ever perfect: Harrison might have emphasized the fact that the fork has enjoyed a fairly successful start, or that there are no rules against forking Wikipedia (as long as you give proper attribution). Or that there are no prohibitions on users editing both Wikipedia and the fork, and few on importing text from the fork into Wikipedia itself. And he certainly should have mentioned that the word "fork" is likely an inherently funny word. – S

Forked again?

For more detail regarding the claims in this article, see this issue's special report.

In an article for Australian newspaper Quillette, Shuichi Tezuka raises some pointed objections to the way the Wikipedia community handles disputes over coverage of contentious material; for example, he expresses concern about "cognitive distortions" that are perpetuated "by reducing the population of people who raise [objections]... as these users have either quit Wikipedia or been permanently blocked from editing". Tezuka mention the famous "somewhat-viral tweet" of last October and related concerns about WMF spending (see previous Signpost coverage), and concludes that newly-formed fork Justapedia (which recently sparked a discussion on the administrators' noticeboard), is necessary to solve these problems, stating: "the need for such a competitor [to Wikipedia] is stronger now than it has been in past years, due to several recent controversies revolving around the manipulation and/or politicization of Wikipedia, along with a widespread perception that Wikipedia has not done enough to prevent this type of problem." The founder of Justapedia, user Atsme, wrote an op-ed expressing some of the same concerns for the Signpost back in 2020. – B

In brief

• Congressional staffers rely on Wikipedia...: The good news, according to a former staffer writing in Scientific American blogs, with amplification and analysis on The Hill, is that the U.S. Congress leans on Wikipedia to get smart fast on science crises, "from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, or the 2016 flooding of social media platforms by disinformation". The bad news is, they can't go deeper because they have gutted their own research arms and don't have staff with the requisite knowledge.
• ...and Wikipedia relies on staff whose pay scales may lag sector: Business Insider reports that "the salaries of Wikimedia executives are sparking an online debate about tech sector wages"; the fire was started by a screenshot of the WMF's 2021 IRS filing shared on X/Twitter on December 12, which showed the executive salaries of various high-profile figures within the foundation, including former CEO Katherine Maher and former COO Janeen Uzzell.
• Why is this night ... er, year, different from all other years?: Cricket, obviously: as written on Deseret News, "no other cricket-centric topics have appeared on the site's [that's us!] year-end most popular articles lists since they began doing the calculations in 2015." The year-end roundup of pageviews was also covered by the Associated Press, Fox Business and CNN, among others.
• Hey, look ma, I made it... on Wikipedia!: Back in October, Valeria Costa reported in Domani (in Italian) about how French physicist Pierre Agostini had gained a Wikipedia article – user Uhooep created it first on en.wiki – only after being jointly awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Anne L'Huillier and Ferenc Krausz. As noted by Costa, Agostini was not the first Nobel-winning figure who received the "WP:GNG treatment" upon his prestigious achievement, since Donna Strickland had been granted an article back in 2018 (mistakenly reported as 2020).
• The disrespect is real: In her review of the Hulu-exclusive TV series The Great, as part of the "Best Shows That Ended in 2023", The New York Times journalist and television critic Margaret Lyons humorously said that, "So many period dramas just feel like inert, expensive Wikipedia entries, but The Great, through its irreverence and artistry, was alive at every turn."
• No, Internet doesn't count...: In a November interview for El País (in Spanish), Spanish poet, musician and film director Antón Reixa [es] revealed that, back in 2011, he had shown his own Wikipedia article to the civil registration officer in an attempt to prove his identity and will to change his full name; however, the clerk shrugged it off, stating that "Internet [didn't] count".
• 100 Books (and one Wiki): Back in November, Italian journalist and literary critic Marino Sinibaldi shed a light on the Wikipedia article for the Bokklubben World Library — published by the Norwegian Book Club [no] in 2002 — during the 100th episode of Il Post-exclusive podcast Timbuctu, which was centered around famous lists of the most memorable books. Sinibaldi also cited Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century list and the BBC's The Big Read, among other examples.

• Wishing for a more accessible Internet: On 3 December, which marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Nicolas Six reported in Le Monde (in French, partially behind pay-wall) that more than one million French citizens with several grades of visual impairment still struggle to surf on the Internet due to their condition. One of the interviewees, a 75-year-old woman, said that "despite taking weekly IT lessons, [she] can't even go on Wikipedia". If you want to know how to improve accessibility to our platform for all readers, then the Dos and don'ts list and the project pages for WikiProject Accessibility (which is also active on French Wikipedia) and WikiProject Usability should be good places to start from.
• Jimbo says no to crypto: As reported on Benzinga and CoinTelegraph, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales mocked Bitcoin through a post on X, a decision that brought him push-back from some notable figures within the community. Benzinga also noted that the Wikimedia Foundation had decided to stop accepting cryptocurrency donations back in May 2022, following a comprehensive three-month discussion within the community.
• Fake work on Wikipedia, or work about a fake Wikipedia?: Author and autofiction specialist Ben Lerner, whom we reported about on last month's disinformation report, was interviewed by radio magazine Here and Now, aired on WBUR-FM. Bizarrely, the host's introduction describes Lerner not as a fiction writer, but an "enterprising journalist" "test[ing] how much he could manipulate [Wikipedia] entries".
• Wikimedia RU dissolving: Several Russian media covered the shutdown of Wikimedia Russia, including The Moscow Times, RTVI, Vzglyad, RBK Daily, and TASS[1], as well as Radio Free Europe. See this month's In focus for more about the situation.