Soundtrack to inspire readers of The Signpost

The regular Editor-in-Chief is taking well deserved rest – at least he said he was, but still snuck in to the Signpost Newsroom to make some last-minute improvements – and as acting Editor-in-Chief this month, I want to take this space to thank all the contributors who did step up during the past year to take a turn, or several turns, to keep it coming for our loyal readers. If you didn't notice, this is the 11th issue of The Signpost for 2021, not the 12th, reflecting a not-quite-perfect publishing year, and we're still looking for more people interested in the news biz.

As always, use the reader feedback on the articles to tell us what you think, make suggestions at our suggestions page or use the private tip link on the same page. We hope you continue to join us in a healthy, fortunate and bountiful 2022.

Jimbo's Strawberry iMac and non-fungible token

In a controversial move, Jimmy Wales auctioned an NFT of the "first Wikipedia edit", as well as his personal iMac which he used during the early days of Wikipedia, through the Christie's auction house. The NFT included a reconstructed website based on how the Wikipedia website appeared to him after its first edit, which Jimbo recalled in 2019 as him typing as "Hello, World!" before erasing it. However, some pointed out that the original timestamp of his reconstructed "first edit" was a couple minutes after a separate edit previously recorded as the first.

NFTs are controversial because they require proof of work in order to be recorded on a blockchain, an extremely energy-intensive method of recording transactions, and because they depend on cryptocurrencies (controversial for their use in ransomware attacks and their association with a large number of other scams). Other criticisms of the NFT sale include objections to the idea of Wales trying to create a type of ownership, or artificial scarcity, of a freely-licensed work − "Hello, World!" − whereas Wikipedia is dedicated to breaking down barriers to public access to knowledge. A recent Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network discussion grappled with this issue, as well as its implications for the Wikimedia Movement.

The final auction hammer prices were $150,000 for the iMac and $600,000 for the NFT, according to Wales. The more commonly reported prices of $187,500 and $750,000 include the buyer's premium.

See also coverage in this issue's In the media – S

Eight newly elected arbitrators

Three veteran ArbCom members (Worm That Turned, Opabinia regalis and Beeblebrox) were again elected to two-year terms on the committee in this year's elections. Five other editors were elected for the first time, all for two-year terms: Wugapodes, Enterprisey, Donald Albury, Izno, and Cabayi. The Signpost congratulates all these recently elected arbs, and also thanks Guerillero, Thryduulf, and Banedon for their participation in the election.

Our special thanks for a job well done go to the arbitrators who have completed their arbitration service and declined to run again. Casliber, David Fuchs, Newyorkbrad and SoWhy will also relinquish their oversight and checkuser permissions. KrakatoaKatie will retain these permissions, which she received before becoming an arbitrator, to work in areas which require them.

See more coverage in this issue's Arbitration Report. – S

Requests for Adminship 2021

For the sixth month this year, there were no successful RfAs in December, with only seven new administrators chosen all year: Hog Farm, TJMSmith, Ashleyyoursmile, Less Unless, Trialpears, BusterD and Blablubbs. There were only four unsuccessful results, with the most spectacular RfA being that for Eostrix who gained 123 supports against only one oppose and two neutrals before being blocked as a sockpuppet. (See earlier Signpost coverage).

This year's seven represented the lowest number of new administrators appointed in one year since 2003, when the RfA process began. The previous low was ten, in 2019; the all-time high was 408, in 2007. There are currently 1,066 administrators, with only 463 considered active (having made more than 30 edits in the last two months). – S

Requests for Adminship 2022 and beyond

The general health of the administrator community, as demonstrated by the figures above, appears to be low. In an effort to fix these problems, a process of RfC-based reform began earlier this year (see earlier Signpost coverage). The 2021 RfA reform ended with the passing of a modest list of proposals:

• 5A, to revise Standard Question 1
• 6C, to set up a formal process for administrative action review
• 7D, to unbundle "autopatrolled" from the default administrator toolkit

Proposal 8B, the "admin elections" scheme involving an express method of selecting admins via secret ballot, was closed with a controversial "no consensus" and a review of the closure at the administrators' noticeboard. – B

WMF's audited financial statements released

An audited Fiscal Year 2020-2021 financial statement was posted by the Wikimedia Foundation on December 15, as well as a FAQ published by WMF for its interpretation.

Highlights from the balance sheet include $209 million in current assets – of which $87 M were in cash or cash equivalents and $117 M was in short-term investments. Total assets amount to $240 M, which includes $20 M of long-term investments and only $10 M in property and equipment. Note that we're leaving out several of the smaller categories.

Total support and revenue was $163 M, which mostly comes from $153 M in donations and contributions. Total expenses were $112 M, which include $68 M for wages and salaries, $10 M for awards and grants, and $12 million for professional services as well as other categories. This resulted in an increase in net assets by $51 M, raising total net assets to $231 M as of June 30, 2021.

The 2020-21 Fundraising Report, released in October, breaks down contributions across several categories. Across continents donors in

• North America gave $89.6 million
• Europe – $45.9 million
• Asia – $7.8 million
• Australia and New Zealand – $5.6 million
• South America – $1.05 million
• Africa – $61,999

Note that anonymous donors are excluded from the totals and this report is not formally audited. The English language campaign, which covers Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK, the US, and New Zealand, contributes almost half of all donations. – B, – S

Brief notes

• Research grant applications due January 3, 2022: The Research & Technology Fund hopes to award at least six grants of up to $50,000 each. See Wikimedia Research & Technology Fund for more complete information.
• Affiliations Committee is looking for new members and advisors. Candidates may apply January 1-31 at affcom@lists.wikimedia.org or the link above. Endorsements and comments on the candidate are also welcome. If you want to work with international user groups, this is what you are looking for.
• New user-groups: The Paiwan Wikimedians User Group, which is located in Taiwan, and the Wikimedia Community of Saint Petersburg User Group – located in Russia, not Florida – were both recognized by the Affiliations Committee for a one-year renewable period.

In the 1960s and 1970s Austrian pianist Ingrid Haebler was arguably one of the best performers of the piano works of Mozart. After a concert at Hunter College in 1976, The New York Times wrote about her “peculiar blend of geniality and warm sentiment”. That review, by Donal Henahan, started with this line: “Ingrid Haebler is regarded by many people, including many Viennese, as the quintessential Viennese pianist.” Henahan was right. Haebler’s respectable and quiet style was less favoured in the 1980s (as too “prim and proper”), though music lovers in Japan and elsewhere kept adoring her. Haebler was asked by Denon Records to record all of Mozart's piano sonatas. Haebler still performed in the 1990s, when she was in her sixties.

In October 2008 someone started an unreferenced short but nice Wikipedia article about Ingrid Haebler. Of course Mozart, Bach and Beethoven were mentioned. The article even included a line about the cycle of recordings by Haebler later falsely attributed to Joyce Hatto and published under her name by Hatto's husband, William Barrington-Coupe. Ingrid Habler's date of birth was given as 20 June 1929.

In 2010 another contributor came along, and changed the birth year from 1929 to 1926, with a reference to a German source. ("Ingrid Haebler zum 65. Geburtstag (20. Juni 1991)"). The Oxford Dictionary of Music (2013) also took Haebler to be born "Vienna, 1926". One of the best German newspapers, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, congratulated Ingrid Habler on her 90th birthday on 20 June 2016.

An authority control template was added to the article in 2012. This template lists several recognized authorities such as national libraries who give data such as preferred spellings of a person's name, and their birth dates. We can consult these sources now, but we can't say what they said back in 2012. In the meantime, the English language Wikipedia changed the date of birth to 1929, before changing it back to 1926 (in March 2017) and finally turning again to 1929 in August 2019, with a new reference.

So what is the truth? Was Haebler born in 1926 or in 1929? All of the fuss could have easily been prevented, if the Wikipedia community had listened better to an early contributor to the German language Wikipedia, who argued that 1926 was wrong and 1929 was the correct year of birth of Ingrid Haebler. In October 2008 Gerhard Kiefl argued at the talk page of the German Wiki article: "her brother Hilmar Haebler was born on 27 September 1926, from the same mother ... if that isn’t convincing, what is?" (my translation). Instead of checking this, people pointed to some wrong old sources, and consequently didn't want to change the (wrong) birth year 1926 to (the correct year) 1929.

The authority control VIAF lists Ingrid Haebler's birth year as 1929 in 12 references, and as 1926 in 3 references. Another authority control OCLC's WorldCat simply lists the birth year as 1929.

If "alternative facts" find their way to the real world, Wikipedians should be aware of the problem of circular referencing and different ways of resolving these apparent contradictions.

Ingrid Haebler has given her life to music and Mozart, and in 2021 reached the respectable age of 92.

P.S. Shortly after this piece was published I received an e-mail from "the boy dressed like young Mozart" (now a man in his 60s). He still has vivid memories of that day back in 1966. He visited several concerts given by Ingrid Haebler later on- the last one in Concertgebouw Amsterdam, 2003. He lives in a street named after Mozart, and works in the flower bulb industry.

December can be a slow month for news, as many journalists repeat the old saw that buying Christmas presents is good for the economy or otherwise promote their advertisers' businesses. We feared that we'd need to fill this space with some boring old history stories. We got history, all right – but it isn't boring. As William Faulkner wrote: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." This month's stories discuss the first edit on Wikipedia, strife over a massive deletion discussion, and even a critic who 17 years ago described Wikipedians as "Khmer Rouge in diapers."

Hello, NFT!?

Media sources called it the sale of Wikipedia's first edit: Christie's auctioned a non-fungible token (NFT) of an artistic recreation of the Wikipedia website displaying the "Hello, World!" message which co-founder Jimmy Wales entered as the first edit to Wikipedia in January 2001. Wales said he will use the proceeds to support WT.Social or other free culture projects. Also included in the auction was a strawberry colored iMac that Wales used from his home to make other early edits.

Early coverage of the auction quickly mirrored the Christie's announcement. The Verge took its time and featured a good interview with Wales. Slate included in-depth coverage of many community concerns, and performed the invaluable service of defining – as near as humanly possible – what an NFT is. An article by Vice investigated the murky depths of the community's reactions.

See more coverage in this issue's News and Notes. – B, – S

Fast Company on China

Adding to the "Wikimedians of Mainland China" imbroglio that The Signpost has been reporting on since July, Alex Pasternack in Fast Company reports that in 2018, "three WMC members beat up a colleague to deter him and others from breaking the group’s de facto rules. Among other things, the victim had publicly disclosed that police officers had questioned two other WMC members about their Wikipedia work."

Fast Company was not the fastest in covering the story. Slate also had exceptional coverage, as did an article and a video from the BBC. But with more time and a longer article, Fast Company's coverage is more detailed and more comprehensive. There's more information on the physical attack, and longer statements from the WMF's Maggie Dennis. Serious consideration is given on how open Wikipedia is to state-sponsored attacks, and some of our current defenses. – B, – S

Wikipedia meets the history wars

"Wikipedia threatens to purge 'communist mass killings' page, cites anti-communist bias" according to commentary in The Daily Signal, the right-wing news outlet of the Heritage Foundation. The article was reprinted by The Christian Post and other outlets. The op-ed, by Douglas Blair, discusses disputes on the Wikipedia article Mass killings under communist regimes, and notes that the article was recently put up for deletion. Though that discussion is now closed, it continues to be subject to debate about issues such as its neutrality and the reliability of some sources. Blair's view is that "efforts to delete the article represent a dangerous combination of censorship and communist apologia".

Throughout much of the 20th century, large swaths of the world were governed by communist regimes, which advocate for the common ownership of property and industry. Some of the most brutal regimes of the last hundred years were communist. – L, – S

Disclosure – Smallbones voted "Strong keep" at the AfD and has previously edited the article extensively.

Like a beautiful garden with some thorns

In "Education Is Like a Beautiful Garden", The New York Times opinion writer Peter Coy lists his recommended end-of-the-year charitable donations with Wikipedia Foundation as his top choice, followed by Khan Academy, Children International, and the International School for Champions in Kenya.

Coy states that he uses Wikipedia almost every day, and that "The Wikimedia Foundation correctly calls the site 'the largest collection of open knowledge in history.' How cool is that?" He continues with reasons for giving to the WMF:

Although most of what makes Wikipedia work is the free labor, the Wikimedia Foundation needs money for technology and initiatives such as WikiProject Women in Red, WikiGap and AfroCROWD, which aim to create more and better pages by and about women and other underrepresented groups.

While this statement is generally correct, folks from WikiProject Women in Red have noted that their project does not receive direct financial support from the WMF, beyond the WMF paying hosting bills for the website.

In contrast to Coy, Andrew Orlowski presents the WMF as one of the worst causes to donate to. Wokepedia’s greed makes a mockery of the season of giving (paywall) published in The Telegraph (archive), Orlowski insists that the WMF does not need any money because it has ample financial reserves, as well as an endowment fund. His argument reduces to a statement that charities should not raise funds unless they are broke. And why the shrill labeling, "Wokepedia"? Orlowski has been going on like this for a long time. In 2004 he labeled Wikipedians as "Khmer Rouge in diapers." Perhaps he is just offended by the idea of an encyclopedia being given away free to the world. – S

In brief

• AI argues for and against itself in Oxford Union debate: The BBC reports that an "artificial intelligence engine" (a large Transformer-based natural language generation deep learning model), Megatron (see the October Signpost) carried out an Oxford-style debate on the "future of AI" - arguing both sides of the motion "This house believes that AI will never be ethical." Language generation models need a corpus of information to be trained on, and in this case (as with many large language models) Wikipedia was supplied. Arguing for the motion, the model output "AI will never be ethical. It is a tool and like any tool, it is used for good and bad." Arguing against the motion, it said "The ability to provide information, rather than the ability to provide goods and services, will be the defining feature of the economy of the 21st Century. We will be able to see everything about a person, everywhere they go, it will be stored and used in ways that we cannot even imagine." It was not reported who "won" the debate.
• Another language model trained on Wikipedia: MIT Technology Review discusses the energy-saving technology in DeepMind's "retrieval-enhanced Transformer" model, "RETRO". The twist is it "only" has 7 billion parameters – compare this to over 500 billion in Megatron or the 13 billion neurons in the human cortex – yet "rival[s] the performance" of larger models.
• It isn't the size of your schoolhouse that counts, it's what you do with it: The Wall Street Journal interview with Jimmy Wales. Highlights:
  • Q: Do you constantly monitor Wiki entries?
  • A: I'm not the most active editor by a wide margin.
  • Q: Wiki entry post you created?
  • A: Mzoli's restaurant near Cape Town, South Africa [created in 2007 – eds.]. I was taken there by a journalist.
  • Q: Worried about the accuracy of Wiki?
  • A: We make it as good as we possibly can, but we know it isn't perfect. On the other hand, it's pretty good.
• My company provides this service (repeat ad nauseam): Forbes on how to get your business a Wikipedia article – Use these simple tricks to flagrantly violate Wikipedia's undisclosed paid editing policies! Includes gems like "You can build brand recognition and credibility by obtaining links and mentions from other Wikipedia pages", and of course "My company provides this service". Call in the next 15 minutes and we'll throw in a lifetime membership to WP:SPI and WP:COIN – a $499 value, yours FREE!
• Australian music project: Wikipedia 'edit-a-thons' set to amplify Australian music scene's Wikipedia presence, ABC reports on Wikimedia Australia's plan to host four "Edit-a-thon" events to improve coverage of Australian music on Wikipedia. The hope is that by training new volunteers to create and develop articles on the subject, they can boost the profile of the Australian music scene internationally.
• Don't throw out that old Game Boy yet: A cartridge lets you browse Wikipedia on Nintendo Game Boy. (Hackaday)
• Cancel culture mafia versus Texas Nationalist: 'Texit' Leader and Lt. Gov. Candidate Daniel Miller Thinks 'Cancel Culture' Is Attacking His Wikipedia Page, in the Dallas Observer. We're not comparing it to the Alamo, but you can visit Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Miller (politician) – still active at time of writing – should you wish to see the purported Texit battle arena for yourself. Miller is one of four long-shot candidates (the incumbent, Dan Patrick, is leading in early polls with 56% support).
• Quick quiz – Is global warming caused by a secretive Communist organization, or by burning fossil fuels?: BBC News, in "Small army of volunteers keeping deniers off Wikipedia", features several members of WikiProject Climate change speaking about the group's efforts.
• Bitterness and tears from billionaire: Elon Musk calls his Wikipedia article a "dumpster fire" after learning it was a top-three viewed article in 2021. Or was he embracing its "uncurated" purity? At any rate, we're still not going to let him call himself a "business magnet". (The Tech Outlook)

"The First Paragraph Is As Good As It Gets": study discourages STEM students from using the rest of Wikipedia articles

A study published last month in the journal College Teaching^[1] evaluated the suitability of English Wikipedia articles on STEM topics for undergraduate students' "opportunistic learning", defined as "informal, self-regulated study to learn, relearn, or be introduced to a concept".

The 28 articles were chosen from "six disciplines for which willing academics familiar with introductory STEM topics were available to participate in this study: Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics", plus a "General" STEM category. Within each of these, the authors selected "four diverse introductory topics commonly encountered in STEM programs [... covering] topics commonly misunderstood or important in the discipline". The four "Statistics" articles had already been examined in a previous paper by three of the authors (see our review: "Evaluating Wikipedia as a self-learning resource for statistics: You know they'll use it").

Each article was evaluated in three components, based on a revision from 14 November 2019: "the entire article, the preamble (before the Table of Contents) [what Wikipedia's manual of style refers to as the lead section], and the preamble first paragraph". The focus on the latter two was motivated by the observation that they "are easily accessed on mobile devices with small screens, and [...] may be all that is read" (quoted from the earlier paper), an assumption supported by several data points and research results.

The articles were evaluated using what the authors call the "ACPD framework" (developed in their earlier paper), assigning a score from 1 ("Not suitable for opportunistic learning") to 3 ("Recommended for opportunistic learning") in each of four criteria:

• Article accuracy (A), including definitions; interpretation; notation; usage; examples. Accuracy focuses on errors, ambiguities, omissions, and inconsistencies, but also correct spelling and grammar.
• Effectiveness of the conceptual explanations (C): logical explanations that lead to procedures; explanation beyond definitions; explanation of what is behind the procedure.
• Effectiveness of the procedural explanations (P): accuracy of procedures explained; examples used to explain procedure; explanation of procedure.
• Effectiveness of the display or visual components (D): clear; accessible; coherent and well-paced; organized; logical; interesting; context; readability; density of formulae; use of diagrams, videos, animations etc. for illustration; complexity, use and suitability of images.

The authors summarize the resulting ratings as follows:

"Physics was the only discipline to receive zero 3-Ratings. In contrast, Chemistry received four 3-Ratings. [...] Accuracy (A-qualifier) was a barrier to opportunistic learning in nine of the 84 components (all in Environmental Science and Statistics) [...]. The number of A-qualifiers alone suggests not recommending Wikipedia as a learning resource in STEM disciplines.

Conceptual barriers were common (all components within every discipline, except the first paragraphs of Statistics articles), and procedural barriers reasonably common (except for Chemistry). [...] Statistics has (ignominiously) the most barriers regarding displays. Statistics and Environmental Science have the most identified barriers overall.

The number of C-, P- and D-qualifiers noticeably increased while moving from the first paragraph, to the preamble, to the article (Table 3), suggesting first paragraphs are the most useful component."

In the Statistics category, the authors judged the first paragraphs "excellent" with the exception of histogram. But "the preambles and the entire articles were generally poor, with many A-qualifiers (errors). Some errors were basic..."

In "Environmental Science" (the other discipline where the evaluation had flagged accuracy concerns, in the articles extinction and greenhouse effect), the study criticized "uneven, vague, overly simplistic and/or imprecise" writing, highlighting an example from the article species which said "evolutionary processes cause species to change continually, and to grade into one another". The study also took issues with "paragraphs only tangentially related to the topic [...] For example, the 'Biodiversity' (Environmental Science) article states 'Biodiversity inspires musicians, painters, sculptors, writers and other artists', which is not useful for a learner seeking to understand the concept of biodiversity".

In "Mathematics", "articles were generally instructive from an encyclopedic viewpoint, but the fluid narrative was less useful for learners unless supplemented". While there were no accuracy concerns, "C-qualifiers were frequently applied because the development was less helpful for opportunistic learning".

For "Chemistry", the study criticized that "eight of the 12 article components lacked conceptual development (C). The articles introduced concepts at a level substantially above that expected of undergraduates or assumed knowledge that most would not have".

The authors emphasize that these evaluations were specific to the suitability of the Wikipedia articles for opportunistic learning, and that "a technically correct article may be a poor opportunistic learning resource. Of course, some criticisms (e.g., accuracy) may apply more generally".

Briefly

• See the page of the monthly Wikimedia Research Showcase for videos and slides of past presentations.
• A podcast interview with Heather Ford (author of various research publications about Wikipedia and of an upcoming book titled "Writing the Revolution: Wikipedia and the Survival of Facts in the Digital Age" covers "the power struggles and community governance that makes the site one of the most trusted information sources on the web".
• The Wikimedia Foundation's research team published the fourth and fifth in a series of biannual reports about its work.

Other recent publications

Other recent publications that could not be covered in time for this issue include the items listed below. Contributions, whether reviewing or summarizing newly published research, are always welcome.

"Quality change: norm or exception? Measurement, Analysis and Detection of Quality Change in Wikipedia"

From the abstract:^[2]

"... we study evolution of a Wikipedia article with respect to [Wikipedia's internal] quality scales. Our results show novel non-intuitive patterns emerging from this exploration. As a second objective we attempt to develop an automated data driven approach for the detection of the early signals influencing the quality change of articles. We posit this as a change point detection problem whereby we represent an article as a time series of consecutive revisions and encode every revision by a set of intuitive features. Finally, various change point detection algorithms are used to efficiently and accurately detect the future change points."

"Digital Communication and Interactive Storytelling in Wikipedia : A Study of Greek Users' Interaction and Experience"

This master's thesis^[3] presents results of a survey asking readers of Greek Wikipedia how useful they found its "interactive storytelling tools (hyperlinks to other articles, navigation tables, page previews, photos, external sources of information, etc.)", and about improvements they would suggest.

"A Map of Science in Wikipedia"

From the abstract:^[4]

"We rely on an open dataset of citations from Wikipedia, and use network analysis to map the relationship between Wikipedia articles and scientific journal articles. We find that most journal articles cited from Wikipedia belong to STEM fields, in particular biology and medicine (47.6% of citations; 46.1% of cited articles). Furthermore, Wikipedia's biographies play an important role in connecting STEM fields with the humanities, in particular history."

"Analyzing Race and Country of Citizenship Bias in Wikidata"

From the abstract:^[5]

By comparing Wikidata queries to real-world datasets [listed here, ...] we discovered that there is an overrepresentation of white individuals and those with citizenship in Europe and North America; the rest of the groups are generally underrepresented. Based on these findings, we have found and linked to Wikidata additional data about STEM scientists from the minorities. This data is ready to be inserted into Wikidata with a bot.

References

In the previous issue, we covered the 2020 elections, so in this one it's only fitting that we cover the 2021 elections. From November 22 to December 6, 2021, elections were again held for Tranche Beta of the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, and the results were formally announced on the 20th. There were a total of eleven candidates (Beeblebrox, Cabayi, Donald Albury, Enterprisey, Izno, Opabinia regalis, Worm That Turned, Wugapodes, Guerillero, Thryduulf and Banedon). A total of 1,633 ballots were cast, including 63 duplicates; out of the 1,572 votes, two were invalidated by scrutineers, leaving 1,570 votes. While ten of the eleven candidates met the 60% approval threshold for a two-year term, there were only eight open seats to be filled, so only the top eight were appointed:

• Beeblebrox
• Cabayi
• Donald Albury
• Enterprisey
• Izno
• Opabinia regalis
• Worm That Turned
• Wugapodes

There were three additional editors in the election who we thank for their candidacy: (Guerillero, Thryduulf and Banedon).

Of the eight selected, three had been arbitrators at some time in the past: Opabinia regalis (2016–17 and 2018–19), Beeblebrox (2014), and Worm That Turned (2013–14 and 2018–19). The latter two also served on the previous Tranche Beta in 2020–21.

The new arbitrators' terms are to begin on January 1. On the same day, the terms of five current Tranche Beta arbitrators are to end: Casliber, David Fuchs, KrakatoaKatie, Newyorkbrad and SoWhy.

Situations and circumstances

Renaming, Deadnaming, Blocks, UCoC, Policy, the Universe and Everything

A clarification request was made on December 1, related to some implications of a global rename request made by a former English Wikipedia administrator banned by the Arbitration Committee in 2013. The user's original request for a rename of the blocked account had been declined, after which they challenged the decision. This eventually made it over to Meta-Wiki. Ultimately, the Committee decided that the issue was outside of their bailiwick, that no action from the English Wikipedia ArbCom was necessary in this issue, and the account ended up globally renamed to El Sandifer.

Keeping a close eye on Horny editors

On November 29, WP:ARBHORN was amended after a clarification request regarding remedies in the Horn of Africa case was closed; the Committee declined to open a full case, but ruled for discretionary sanctions in that area to be made permanent.

Épine unblocked, checkuser issue forgiven

On December 10, the user Épine was unblocked following an appeal to the Committee. Épine is to be restricted to the use of one account. Some discussion at the talk page followed, in which arbitrator Maxim said: "this is isn't a case of someone creating a bunch of obvious inappropriate accounts, as most appeals of Checkuser blocks are, but just one other account, and this result is very much 'please don't do this again and stick to one account in the future'". Here's hoping we can all get along.

Open-mic night cancelled on the functionary email list

On December 11, a "review of current practices involving email lists" led the Committee to conclude that the functionaries email list would no longer accept incoming email from any rando who dropped it a line; only list members and WMF staff will be allowed to post to it, whereas other senders will get a message directing them to send to the normal ArbCom list. Functionary TonyBallioni said on the talk page there "wasn't a huge volume, but it's been a while since I've seen a useful email come through to the list from a non-member". We are left to speculate about whose lunch pics were the final straw.

Former admin El Sandifer unbanned

El Sandifer, whose username was changed earlier in the month, submitted an appeal of her 2013 ban and desysop for publishing material that revealed "non-public personal information about a Wikipedia editor with whom [Sandifer had] been in dispute on-wiki." The decision, posted on December 17, was supported by eight arbitrators and opposed by six. Bradv said: "I have no interest in re-litigating anything that happened in the past and I look forward to my skepticism being proven unfounded".

We flattened the curve, no new cases!

Not a single new case was listed for December 2021. Keep washing your hands and maintaining a six-foot distance, folks!

Denied requests

Two arbitration requests were denied: "One sided fight with Huldra" (removed as premature on December 1) and "LGBT parenting" (removed as premature and its filer blocked on December 11). An amendment and clarification request concerning "all past cases regarding ethnic feuds" was declined on December 26.

38 enforcement actions taken since our last report

• American politics 2: 5 actions
• Armenia and Azerbaijan 2: 1 action
• Biographies of living persons: 3 actions
• COVID-19: 2 actions and 2 page protections
• Eastern Europe: 1 action
• Gender and sexuality: 1 action
• Horn of Africa: 2 actions
• India, Pakistan and Afghanistan: 5 actions
• Palestine and Israel: 4 actions and 9 extended confirmed protections applied
• Race and intelligence: 2 actions

Enforcement requests

Six enforcement requests have been closed since the last arbitration report:

• "AmirahBreen 2" (December 05): AmirahBreen was blocked for a week, and banned from the article Gaza flotilla raid for a month.
• "Inf-in MD" (December 10): Inf-in MD was blocked as a sockpuppet of NoCal100.
• "Nableezy" (December 12): Filer Bob drobbs was topic-banned from Palestine/Israel content for six months.
• "Bringtar" (December 18): Closed as not actionable.
• "The History Wizard of Cambridge" (December 18): The History Wizard of Cambridge was blocked for 1 week.
• "Barecode" (December 24): Barecode was indefinitely topic banned from the area of post-1992 American politics.

As of press time, there are two open enforcement requests: "Maneesh" and "Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy", both covered under remedies of the Gender and sexuality case from February 2021.

On November 19, 2021, the English Wikipedia reached 4 billion words. These are spread across 6,410,341 articles, giving us an average of 624 words per article.

To celebrate this monumental achievement, I have copied two tables from Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia showing the number of words over time in the English Wikipedia, plus a table comparing the English Wikipedia to other language editions of Wikipedia, and a table comparing the English Wikipedia to the other English-language Wikimedia projects.

A brief history of Wikipedia's word count

The old Wikistats-1 has records of the total number of words in all articles every month from January 2001 to January 2010. Wikipedia underwent tremendous growth during that time, going from a mere 3000 words in January 2001 to 1.798 billion words in January 2010.

Unfortunately, there is no record of the number of words from January 2010 to December 2017; Wikistats-1 no longer includes the number of words after January 2010, and the Special:Statistics page only started showing the number of words in all content pages in December 2017. By January 2018, Wikipedia had over 3 billion words in all articles.

Yearly statistics

Copied from Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia#Yearly statistics

The table below shows the number of words in all articles; it does not include words in other namespaces like Talk, User, or Wikipedia.

Date	Word count	Increase during  preceding year	% Increase during  preceding year	Average increase per day during preceding year	Average number of words per article
2002-01	4,800,000	4,800,000	—	13,151	267
2003-01	32,100,000	27,300,000	569%	74,795	309
2004-01	61,400,000	29,300,000	91%	80,279	315
2005-01	127,000,000	65,600,000	107%	179,726	288
2006-01	353,000,000	226,000,000	177%	619,178	403
2007-01	709,000,000	356,000,000	101%	967,123	473
2008-01	1,082,000,000	373,000,000	53%	1,021,918	515
2009-01	1,437,000,000	355,000,000	33%	972,603	553
2010-01	1,798,000,000	361,000,000	25%	989,041	599
2011 to 2017	—	—	—	—	—
2018-01-03	3,077,580,920	159,947,625A	8.9%B	438,213C	555
2019-01-17	3,302,922,240	225,341,320	7.3%	617,373	570
2020-01-01	3,497,842,238	194,919,998	5.9%	534,027	584
2021-01-01	3,755,065,625	257,223,387	7.3%	702,796	604
2021-12-01	4,007,118,847	252,053,222D	—	—	624

^A Average increase per year from 2010 to 2018; total increase of 1,279,581,000 words over the same time period

^B Average percent increase per year from 2010 to 2018; overall increase of 71% over the same time period

^C Average increase per day from 2010 to 2018

^D So far this year

Monthly statistics

Copied from Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia#Monthly statistics

The table below includes the total number of words in all articles and the number of words added at the start of each month since January 2020.

Date	Word count	Increase during  preceding month
2020-01-01	3,497,842,238	—
2020-02-01	3,515,781,525	17,939,287
2020-03-01	3,533,853,569	18,072,044
2020-04-01	3,556,915,740	23,062,171
2020-05-01	3,584,029,618	27,113,878
2020-06-03	3,611,432,972	27,403,354
2020-07-01	3,631,265,076	19,832,104
2020-08-01	3,653,369,248	22,104,172
2020-09-01	3,673,339,409	19,970,161
2020-10-01	3,692,222,212	18,882,803
2020-11-01	3,713,395,900	21,173,688
2020-12-01	3,733,824,980	20,429,080
2021-01-01	3,755,065,625	21,240,645
2021-02-01	3,776,685,968	21,620,343
2021-03-01	3,811,006,931	34,320,963
2021-04-01	3,839,532,258	28,525,327
2021-05-01	3,889,436,965	49,904,707A
2021-06-01	3,901,873,166	12,436,201B
2021-07-01	3,910,030,230	8,157,064C
2021-08-01	3,928,967,545	18,937,315
2021-09-01	3,948,128,338	19,160,793
2021-10-01	3,967,621,552	19,493,214
2021-11-01	3,987,982,865	20,361,313
2021-12-01	4,007,118,847	19,135,982

^A There was an unusually large increase in the number of words in April 2021 (49,904,707), followed by an unusually small increase in the number of words in May 2021 (12,436,201). Averaging the two gives 31,170,454.

^B Of note, in May 2021 the number of words initially increased to about 3,915,000,000, then decreased to 3,901,873,166 by the end of the month. It is unclear whether this decrease was real or if the software was correcting for overcounting words the previous month.

^C Like May 2021, June 2021 was associated with an unusually small increase in the number of words (8,157,064).

Other language editions of Wikipedia

These numbers are from the respective Special:Statistics page of each Wikipedia, as archived on November 19 or November 20. The Wikipedias are listed in order of total number of articles.

The total number of words and the average number of words per article do not take the differences between languages into account; for example, the numbers for the German Wikipedia are probably lower than expected because those absurdly long German compound nouns – or as the Germans say, Komposita – are counted as a single word.

Rank	Language	Article count	Total number of words	Average number of words per article
1	English	6,410,341	4,000,129,529	624
2	Cebuano	5,798,858	1,133,030,453	195
3	Swedish	2,869,907	554,187,156	193
4	German	2,633,928	1,371,867,034	521
5	French	2,375,039	1,455,423,310	613
6	Dutch	2,071,866	350,042,301	169
7	Russian	1,771,576	864,798,899	488
8	Spanish	1,732,337	1,004,609,868	580
9	Italian	1,726,906	809,795,169	469
10	Polish	1,497,172	428,331,733	286
11	Egyptian Arabic	1,379,812	263,860,931	191
12	Japanese	1,301,338	1,241,470,027	954
13	Vietnamese	1,270,100	296,895,040	234
14	Waray-Waray	1,265,577	148,504,147	117
15	Chinese	1,241,688	555,619,022	447
16	Arabic	1,143,857	383,567,056	335
17	Ukrainian	1,123,360	377,872,433	336
18	Portuguese	1,077,435	466,490,337	433

Other English-language Wikimedia projects

These numbers are from the respective Special:Statistics page of each Wikimedia project, as archived on November 19 or November 20. Please note that Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, and Wikispecies are multilingual. The projects are listed in order of total number of words.

Rank	Wikimedia project	Content page count	Total number of words	Average number of words per content page
1	Wikidata	95,868,410 data items	10,730,523,694	112
2	English Wikipedia	6,410,341 articles	4,000,129,529	624
3	English Wikisource	907,771 content pages	919,463,608	1,013
4	English Wiktionary	6,852,872 entries	197,504,739	29
5	English Wikibooks	94,113 pages	91,884,915	976
6	Wikispecies	780,754 content pages	76,472,516	98
7	English Wikiquote	41,095 articles	65,301,248	1,589
8	English Wikiversity	28,908 content pages	42,217,582	1,460
9	English Wikivoyage	30,532 travel articles	40,981,686	1,342
10	Wikimedia Commons	76,699,658 pages	18,979,904	0.25A
11	English Wikinews	21,670 news articles	9,910,365	42

^A Wikimedia Commons has an average of 0.25 words per page, which is probably an underestimate because almost all of the text is in template boxes and is ignored by the word-counting software. For example, see this Wikimedia Commons page for an image used in the ALS article.

Hell of a year, huh? Or, perhaps, hell of a "twelve months that didn't really feel like a year had gone by"? We had one here on the Internet, that's for sure. And nowhere was it wackier than the free encyclopedia that anybody could edit. In 2021, we've spent our days hashing it out over nearly 22,000 individual nominations (around 60 per day). Most of them were not very tumultuous. Notability standards are invoked, disputed and interpreted in much the same way across many similar AfDs — the obscure villages, minor-league athletes, unreleased movies, minor high schools, groundbreaking startups, and tiny stubs start to blur together after a while. But every once in a while, something really special happens, the planets align just right, and a bunch of people type out thousands of words of text in a deletion discussion.

Sometimes it is just a protracted debate about arcane details of little relevance, and sometimes it is the extension of some long-roiling personal dispute between participants, full of sound and fury signifying nothing — but sometimes questions are raised that cut down to the core of what we think Wikipedia is, what we think it isn't, what we think it means, and what we think it should be. Questions that redefine what the largest encyclopedia in the history of human civilization wants to be about, and what role it wants to play in that civilization as a de facto adjudicator of which subjects are noteworthy.

Much money and power is spent in attempts to influence that adjudication — whether through outright paid editing, the volunteered advocacy of earnest believers, or our own beliefs as editors. We live in a society, but that society lives within us as well, and what we choose to cover as an encyclopedia is part of an intricate dance with that society. Love it or hate it, it matters.

Over the years, deletion processes have changed, because notability standards have changed, because Wikipedia has changed, because the Internet has changed, because the world has changed. One wonders, of course, to what extent the reverse order of this causal chain is true — not very, but probably at least a little bit.

So how many times have we brave, strange, monastic defenders of knowledge and freedom undertaken our solemn ritual? According to the database, a little under half a million (482,316 to be precise).

It seems like something that's this big a part of our project ought to have some attention paid to it, and probably more attention than human beings can pay on their own, so earlier this year I wrote some software to help with the task. The Oracle's unblinking electric eye is able to keep watch over all of those AfDs, from 2005 up until today, and from it we can glean some insights into the process which shapes our encyclopedia. So what are they?

From 2005 to 2020, there have been an average of around 28,000 deletion discussions per year; a lot more detail about this (including impressive graphs) can be found at the Oracle's all-time stats page. Suffice it to say, however, that 2006 was the all-time peak (54,606) and since 2014 the yearly average has hovered somewhere around 24,000. This year, there were almost 22,000, slightly fewer than in 2020 (24,000) but considerably more than 2019 (18,000).

As has been the case in every year since 2005, the majority (about 15,600, or 60%) closed as "delete" or "speedy delete". About 5,400 (25%) closed as "keep", "speedy keep" or "no consensus". About 2,700 (13%) closed as "merge" or "redirect". The rest closed as "userfy", "draftify", "withdrawn", or "transwiki". 134 AfDs (0.01%) had a close that my software couldn't parse.

There have been a number of surprising, contentious, unprecedented and downright strange deletion discussions in 2021. In March, we saw an ArbCom case related to mass creation of non-notable "geostubs", and in October Lewis (baseball), a featured article (which had appeared on the Main Page just several months earlier), was merged into 1890 Buffalo Bisons season. Last month, we had the largest AfD in history. Besides that, a lot of individual discussions have proved to be very active: hot-button political topics, detailed analyses of academic publishing trends, hot-button political topics, Internet memes-du-jour, chess tournaments, and hot-button political topics. Let's get to 'em.

Overall statistics

These figures are current as of December 28. More detailed statistics can be seen at the monthly Oracle page for December 2021, including numbers and percentages for all closes in the month.

In December 2021, there have been a total of 1,670 deletion discussions, an average of about 54 per day. 176 were relisted from November, leaving 1494 new nominations this month. 498 are currently open, and 1,172 have been closed.

Of the AfDs closed in December:

• 758 (65%) were "delete" or "speedy delete".
• 267 (23%) were "keep", "speedy keep", or "no consensus".
• 122 (10%) were "merge" or "redirect".
• 7 (0.59%) were closed as "draftify" or "userfy".
• 7 (0.59%) were withdrawn.
• 9 (0.76%) had close summaries that could not be processed by the Oracle.

Greatest hits of 2021

We look back at some of the most dramatic moments and developments of 2021 through Wikicommons images.

Storming of the United States Capitol

• 
  Trump supporters on the steps of the United States Capitol on January 6
• 
  Mock gallows at the US Capitol January 6

There was an extended debate on Wikipedia about what this episode should be called with the current choice of Attack beating contenders such as insurrection, storming, rally and even Putsch (German word for coup). Your UK-based author who got the message when you lot threw our tea in the sea wouldn't be foolhardy enough to get too embroiled in US politics but it can certainly be said that this incident made a dramatic impression in America and around the world becoming the fourth most viewed article from the 3 to 9 January even though it happened half way through that week.

Covid-19 vaccination

• 
  Man receives a COVID-19 vaccination in Delhi during January 2021
• 
  A Wikipedian after receiving a jab

Though the rollout began in late 2020, 2021 has very much been the year of Covid-19 vaccination around the world. The vaccine rollout has doubtless been a source of great hope for people across the globe (a study released in November suggested that in Europe alone almost half a million lives have been saved by it) but it has also highlighted the great divides in today's world, as of December less than 10% of people in countries with the poorest populations have received their first dose whilst others around the world have voluntarily chosen to forsake vaccination altogether.

Coup d'état in Myanmar

• 
  Military roadblocks during Myanmar's military coup on 1 February
• 
  A protest in March

At the start of February 2021, Myanmar's democratically elected government was overthrown by the country's military. The army declared the 2020 election result invalid and announced its intention to hold new elections after a year long state of emergency. By 12 April, at least 707 people (including children) had been killed by the military or police forces and 3,070 detained. The Burmese Army's motivations for the coup are debated.

Death of Prince Philip

• 
  Prince Philip as a child in the 1920s
• 
  Floral tributes to Prince Philip at Sandringham House

April saw the Death of Prince Philip, consort to Queen Elizabeth II. At the age of 99, he was the third-longest-lived member of the British royal family in history and the longest-lived male member. He was one of many notable people to pass away during 2021.

Israeli–Palestinian crisis

• 
  Israeli bombing of civilian neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip on 14 May
• 
  Bus and car burnt out after rocket hit in Holon, in coastal Israel

This outbreak of violence in May was the latest episode in a conflict dating back many decades. The crisis began with a period of protests and unrest in East Jerusalem (an area effectively annexed by Israel as part of the Palestinian occupied territories). This eventually culminated in Hamas firing rockets into Israeli territory to which Israel responded with air strikes. At least 256 Palestinians were killed in the crisis including 66 children along with thirteen Israelis including two children. Significant numbers of people appear to have been injured whilst 72,000 Palestinians were displaced.

Return of sport

• 
  Ukraine at the Olympics opening ceremony on 23 July
• 
  Ihor Reizlin scores in his individual men's épée Olympic bronze medal match

After many of the major sporting events of 2020 were cancelled due to the pandemic, sport made a major comeback in 2021. With events such as the Olympics and the European Football Championships (both referred to by their original date) providing much needed excitement and relief for people around the world. Sports events, sportsmen and sportswomen dominated lists of Wikipedia's most popular articles in the summer of 2021.

Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan

• 
  Evacuation flight carries 823 people out of Kabul
• 
  U.S. Marines assist with security at an Evacuation Control Checkpoint during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, August 20.

This August saw the conflict the US President called "America's longest war" come to a swift end as the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. A few months after the formal announcement of the withdrawal of NATO troops the Taliban, which had been gaining strength in the countryside, swept through Afghanistan's cities in little more than a week reaching Kabul on the 15th. A chaotic airlift followed with almost all remnants of western presence disappearing from the country by the end of the month. Today, with its financial reserves frozen and aid stopped, the country is in crisis. 22% of its population are reported to be close to famine whilst an additional 36% are acutely food insecure. Among those under the age of five alone, 1 million children are believed to be at risk of starving to death.

Supply problems

During 2020 global commerial demand fell, in 2021 demand recovered whilst pandemic based disruption continued and supply chains around the world struggled to cope. Matters were made worse by shortages of shipping containers, lack of lorry drivers and back ups at ports. Whilst, a blockage in the Suez canal certainly wasn't ideal. All this has contributed to a sharp rise in inflation around the world.

COP26

• 
  Panel of politicians at the conference
• 
  Model representing children displaced by climate change carried through streets of Glasgow during protests of inaction on climate change on 10 November during the climate conference

November saw the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Glasgow. More broadly the year was marked by a wide range of extreme weather events across the world ranging from drought and wildfires to floods and monsoons.

Conflict over migration

Whilst the 2020 downturn in overall migration rates continued into 2021, that didn't stop immigration causing controversy across the Western world. In the second half of 2021, Belarus and the European Union came to blows over a influx of migrants attempting to cross into the EU through the country. Meanwhile, an increase in the number of migrants crossing the English channel led to conflict between Britain and France along with the channel's worst drowning in recent times. On the other side of the Atlantic, rising numbers of people crossing the US-Mexico border led to the Biden administration voluntarily and involuntarily continuing many Trump era immigration policies.

Honourable mentions

• 
  20 January: Joe Biden speaks at his inauguration
• 
  11 April: Voting in the first round of the Peruvian general election, which was won by the left-wing Free Peru party
• 
  13 June: Naftali Bennett (right) and Yair Lapid (left) replace Benjamin Netanyahu as Israeli Prime minister (president Reuven Rivlin, center)
• 
  12 July: Anti-government protests in Cuba
• 
  26 September: Ballot counting in Berlin during the German Election which eventually led to Olaf Scholz replacing Angela Merkel as the country's chancellor
• 
  8 November: New government meets following the Czech election which saw the main opposition coalition alliance of SPOLU and Pirates and Mayors gaining a legislative majority
• 
  21 November: Protestor against the Sudanese military coup
• 
  11 December: Anti-nuclear activists protest AUKUS, a British-American pact with Australia to help the latter build nuclear powered submarines

Take a look overhead (November 21 to 27)

Life is a great big bang-up (November 28 to December 4)

Wherever there's a hang-up (December 5 to 11)

You'll find the Spider-Man! (December 12 to 18)

Exclusions

• These lists exclude the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.

Hello! Last month, the Signpost hosted a crossword, which can be found here. The answers to last month's crossword can be found at the following link – thank you all for playing! We have a new crossword for this month – once more, all of the answers have something to do with Wikipedia, though the clues may seem unrelated.

You can play the crossword online at this link (recommended) or manually by printing out the image and clues below. Enjoy! Hints may be given in the comments, so scroll cautiously.

Originally posted as the humorous essay Help:Buying Wikipedia, by Sdkb and 10 other editors. You may edit this essay, but only on the original page. – eds.

Howdy! Are you a government sick and tired of being described as a state sponsor of terrorism? Or an autocratic regime that wishes a few pesky articles would just go away? How about a multinational corporation that could use some nifty advertising? Well, you've come to the right place! As of 11 February 2024, Wikipedia is officially FOR SALE!!!

That's right! All 6,782,127 articles on English Wikipedia (including this one) could be yours to do with as you please. You could delete rival products, win presidential elections, change national borders, anything at all!

If this sounds expensive, we suggest you purchase immediately, as the price is only going to go up. Make your payment here.

Q: Why are you selling Wikipedia?

A: Someone told us that we're mean bullies for deleting their page. That hurt our feelings, so we're passing on the problem to someone else.

Q: Who can buy it?

A: Anyone! Whether you're an insanely wealthy stock broker with $81,480,179,433,735,420.69 spare cash on hand or a lowly peasant with $81,480,179,433,735,420.69 spare cash on hand, we won't discriminate.

Q: What can I do once I own it?

A: Anything you want, so long as you don't delete the main page.

Q: Won't this sale rob the project of its credibility, its main asset, effectively rendering it worthless?

A: Don't worry about that.

Q: Why is it so expensive?

A: Shipping, we think.

Q: Are the contributors included?

A: No.