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10 June 2015

 

2015-06-10

Chapter financial trends analyzed, news in brief

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By Resident Mario

This week saw the publication of the Chapter-wide Financial Trends Report 2013, a now-completed research project that examines the finances and outlays of the 36 movement-affiliated chapters for the period January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2013. "We, the Finance Fellows, following extensive research and collaboration with the participating chapters, have created a potential reporting guide for all chapters, thematic organizations, and other movement groups, to report data in a way that is more consistent and comparable across the movement. It is also within this report we highlight some our key findings."

The report was delivered by four "finance fellows", who according to their introductions to the community on the wikimedia-l mailing list in October of last year are "a multicultural team consisting of 4 young professionals ... happy to introduce a 6-month movement-wide project that focuses on the consistency of how we operate". The work stems from a presentation titled "Chapters in Numbers", prepared for Wikimania 2013 by prominent Polish Wikipedian Michał Buczyński, who is now a community-elect member of the Funds Dissemination Committee; the work was supported by the WMF Board's Audit Comittee. The initial announcement was followed by questions from chapter community members about whether or not the process, though explicitly stated not to be a full audit, will incur additional reporting overhead on the chapters being examined; on this topic, CFO Garfield Byrd wrote that "The project has been designed so that the fellows will be using existing data provided by movement entities and the Fellows will only be reaching out to movement entities with clarifying questions". There were also concerns about the timetable and the absence of prior community notification of the existence of the project (the project had apparently been in planning for two months by that time).

The project and the findings are available on the meta-wiki. Some data highlights:

  • In 2013, the total revenue of Wikimedia chapters amounted to $21,082,633. Of this, 98% was generated by global north chapters and the remaining 2% by the chapters in the global south. The total sum of donations received by the chapters was $14,531,232; the total sum of grants, $5,677,083.
  • The results obtained by the survey are heavily skewed by Wikimedia Germany, far and away the largest of the chapters and one of only two which, after movement restructuring in 2011–12, still handles its own fundraising campaigns. The money obtained in these campaigns is mostly transferred back to the Wikimedia Foundation for disbursal in Germany and elsewhere, an activity technically classified as an "expense" in financial terms. While in total the chapters nominally spent $20,765,557, close to half of this comes from this movement of money; in size terms, Wikimedia Germany has a further disproportionate presence as by far the largest of all of the Wikimedian chapters. In fact, excluding Wikimedia Germany from expense analysis completely (removing both its financial movements and its regular staffing and operating costs) quarters the chapters' total expenses, down to $4,782,622—an indication of how important Germany has proven for the movement at large.
  • Grants were the majority source of revenue for 24 chapters: 82% from the WMF and 18% from other sources (usually institutional partners). Donations were the majority sources of support and revenue for the remaining 12 chapters (9 chapters from Europe and 3 from Asia/Pacific).
  • 16 chapters recorded event funding as their highest expenditure, but operating costs, primarily labor expenses, were reported as highest expense by the remaining 20. Though not explicitly stated in the report, together the two facts above this illustrate differences in the way that chapters operate: labor chases larger grants, while donations are more passive and easier to manage. R

Brief notes

  • Wikimedia swaps to HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol—the omnipresent http for short—has long been more or less the standard as web access protocols go. Yet soon after the June 2013 Edward Snowden revelations the Wikimedia Foundation unveiled plans (far from unique) to speed up the implementation of the more secure HTTPS as the new default for the projects. Just short of two years later, in a blog post tellingly co-penned by members of the Foundation's legal and engineering teams, the Foundation is unveiling HTTPS-by-default as the site's new access paradigm. HTTPS first had a presence on Wikipedia in 2005, when long-time Foundation tech Brion Vibber enabled on a single testbed server, funneling traffic through the https://secure.wikimedia.org/ subdomain. The current URLs and a more robust system were enabled in 2011, but progress was fairly slow past that point—until the Snowden revelations gave the project a shot in the arm in 2013. It is worth remembering also that, as the Signpost reported earlier this year, the Wikimedia Foundation is the top-billed party in an ACLU lawsuit against the NSA. R
  • Mediawiki API changes: A change is expected to occur in the way that Mediawiki software handles action=query results sometime by the end of this month. The change is expected to cause compatibility issues affecting many of the bots that have not yet been retrofit to work with the new schema, and have to do with the way that continuations are handled within queries to the Mediawiki API, the primary way that the sites' many bots talk to and modify content on the Wikimedia sites. A list of affected bots, current as of early June, was presented in the mailing list. R
  • New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, NeilN (RfA). R
  • Wikimedia UK volunteer strategy consultation: Wikimedia UK unveiled a volunteer strategy consultation call to action this week, outlining the chapter's desire to "transform the way we work so that we can bring volunteering right into the heart of the charity." The new strategy presages a volunteer strategy consultation that is to take place in London on July 25th, emphasizing volunteer interactions through project-based working practices, volunteer engagement and evaluation panels, and other structural changes at the organization (like a new project coordinator position). Of the proposal the organization has to say:
  • Wiki Loves Africa: Wikimedians are invited to vote on the theme for this year's Wiki Loves Africa photo-contest. The contest is funded jointly by the Wikimedia Foundation (via a Personal Engagement Grant) and French telecom company Orange (a long-standing founding partner in the Wikipedia Zero initiative); last year's four winners all fit into the theme of African cuisine, while this year's theme is to be narrowed down from a list of six possibles, with "Fashion" and "Architecture" being the current front-runners. R
  • Search and discovery now just discovery: According to changes to the Foundation's staff and contractors page the newly minted "search and discovery" team has had its official title changed to just "discovery". R
  • Metrics and activities: This month's Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 11, 18:00 UTC. The topic of this month's meeting, which is the largest and most regular of the Foundation's IRC office hours, is the "Strategy Preview": for more background on the WMF's institutional rethink, see Signpost coverage of the State of the WMF report and the Foundation's still-recent community strategic consultation. Also continuing on the format of the strategy refresh that was performed last meeting is the return of the now-regularized "Community Update". R
  • Wikimania discussions: A call was made on the Wikimania-l mailing list for topics to be addressed in this year's Wikimania Discussion Room: "Wikimania is not only about presentations - but also about meeting your colleagues from around the world, and having encouraging, inspiring and impactful discussions. To this end, we will organise again the 'Discussion Room' at Wikimania, a structured track of round table discussion sessions with moderation: no speakers, everybody can participate in the discussion. And the topics focus on community topics!" R
  • Wikipedia meetups near you: From the WM Blog: R
  • Wikipedia articles per speaker: A spreadsheet highlighting the distribution of the presence of Wikipedia articles per language speakers was presented this week in a post to the mailing list. In tangentially related news, the Signpost is currently seeking editors that would be interested in preparing data visualizations for our newspaper, using the new Graphs extension; inquire on our talk page or try speaking to Resident Mario directly. R
  • Wikipedian in Residence: Czech Wikipedian Blahma is this week's newest Wikipedian in Residence, at Masaryk University. R

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2015-06-10

Two households, both alike in dignity

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By Serendipodous

"Happy families are all alike," Leo Tolstoy said, "but unhappy families are unhappy after their own fashion." While there is truth to that statement, I've never found it entirely right. Unhappiness can strike in many forms, but there are several we all share, the most obvious, and in many ways the most painful, is bereavement. The unexpected death of the eldest son of US Vice President Joe Biden brought respect and sympathy from viewers worldwide, while on the other end of the spectrum, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, erstwhile scion of the Kardashian clan, followed a route to personal happiness that I doubt Tolstoy had ever conceived, but in the process put an end to his seemingly successful marriage.

For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of May 31 to June 6, 2015, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Bruce Jenner/Caitlyn Jenner C-class 4,124,013*
On June 1, the former track and field star and honorary Kardashian announced that he had completed his transition to womanhood, and was answering to the name Caitlyn. In keeping with the habits of his former family, his transition was accompanied by a full-on media blow-out, including a cover shoot for Vanity Fair. Perhaps surprisingly, America seems to have welcomed her with open arms, though you wouldn't know that from the response of the right-wing press, whose reaction has been, to quote the Washington Post, "apocalyptic".

*Numbers are combined with her now-redirected former name. Her current name alone gained 1,249,139 views this week.

2 Game of Thrones (season 5) C-class 902,536
As we approach the season finale, it seems A Song of Ice and Fire is getting some fire back, as numbers jumped again by another 80,000 views. This week's episode was the highest-rated since the première, and numbers are only likely to increase next week.
3 Beau Biden Start-Class 876,235
The former Attorney General of Delaware and elder son of US Vice President Joe Biden died this week of brain cancer, aged just 46.
4 Marilyn Monroe B-class 802,950 Lifetime premièred a biopic of the legendary sex goddess in the weekend leading up to what would have been her 89th birthday on June 1. The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe starred Kelli Garner as Marilyn and Susan Sarandon as her mother.
5 Joe Biden Good Article 777,579
The bereaved Vice President of the United States got some sympathy views in the wake of his son's untimely death (see above).
6 Stephen Curry B-Class 675,368
On June 4, this record-breaking basketball wunderkind, who has been leading the Golden State Warriors to the NBA Finals, beat LeBron James's Cleveland Cavaliers in a tight battle.
7 List of Game of Thrones episodes C-class 665,093
See #2.
8 Kris Jenner Start class 665,093
The mother of the media-genic Kardashian clan and now-ex-Mrs-ex-Bruce Jenner has been tactfully quiescent in the wake of her former husband's coming out, though that hasn't stopped the media stoking rumours about rampant jealousy and catfights between the two.
9 San Andreas (film) Start-class 652,261
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's biggest starring role to date rises to become the most popular film on the list, probably in part because it inspired Californians by the carload to purchase earthquake insurance. The film had a boffo $53 million opening weekend in the States last week, though this Friday's numbers augur a rather steep dropoff. Critics seem equally nonplussed, with the film currently resting at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes.
10 Mad Max: Fury Road C-class 613,713
Numbers are falling steeply for this belated action sequel, but it still retains its position ahead of Pitch Perfect 2, which beat it soundly at the US box office.


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2015-06-10

Arbitration case attracts media coverage; Wikipedia in Israel

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By Gamaliel and Andreas Kolbe

UK media coverage of "sockpuppet investigation block" arbitration case

UK political blog Guido Fawkes reported on the proposed decision of the Sockpuppet investigation block arbitration case: "Wikipedia slaps down Grant Shapps' LibDem tormentor" (8 June). This was followed by numerous reports in the UK mainstream media later that day. The BBC was first to weigh in ("Censure for Grant Shapps' Wikipedia accuser"), to be followed by the Guardian, one of whose writers appears to have started the entire affair when he emailed a Wikimedia UK staffer ("Wikipedia volunteer faces reprimand over 'Shapps account' investigation"). Other publications reporting the story included:

On 9 June, after the formal conclusion of the arbitration case, the Guardian reported that the Contribsx account had been unblocked by a Wikipedia administrator: "Wikipedia: account at centre of row 'not linked' to Grant Shapps". On Twitter, frequent Wikipedia critic David Auerbach pointed out that the author of the article, Randeep Ramesh, "was also the original recipient of the leak". Breitbart weighed in on 10 June, opining that the "Shapps case raises questions for Wikipedia and The Guardian"; according to Breitbart, the "Guardian reader’s editor is investigating complaints against the newspaper."

Detailed coverage of the arbitration case itself will be provided in next week's Arbitration Report. A.K.

Wikipedia in Israel

Lila Tretikov and Moshe Fadlon, Mayor of Herzliya, at haNagid Middle School
Lila Tretikov with Wikimedians in Israel

Wikimedia Foundation executive director Lila Tretikov visited Israel and Palestine earlier this month for a number of Wikimedia-related events.  

Tretikov was the keynote speaker at the 2015 Wikipedia Academy Israel Conference in Herzliya. The topic of the conference was education, and in an interview there with i24news Tretikov was optimistic about Wikipedia's ability to meet the educational challenges of the future:  

Our power is in every human being around the world because people are motivated by their intrinsic motivators, by their desire to contribute, their desire to learn, and their desire to teach, and we have hundreds of thousands of contributors around the world who are participating without us having to pay them.

Tretikov visted a middle school in Hertzliya where students had been assigned the task of contributing information to Wikipedia about their city and local history. She told the Jerusalem Post "In Israel, this is the first country where we see innovation really happening on the scale where it’s a country-wide program, and that’s in primary education."

During her time in the area, Tretikov met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Prime Minister's office noted that his father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, was an editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica. Tretikov accompanied Israeli Wikimedians on one of the regular meetings of the Elef Millim project, this one to the Old City of Jerusalem. Hebrew for "a thousand words", the project tours and photographically documents sites of historical interest. Tretikov also met with Palestinian Wikimedians in Ramallah. 

The Jerusalem Post noted that Tretikov will visit again in April 2016 for the Wikimedia hackathon, the first time this event will be held outside North America or Europe.  

In related Wikipedia news, the Jerusalem Post also reported (June 2) on a discussion on the Hebrew Wikipedia about racially charged comments made by prime minister Netanyahu on the day of the March 2015 Israel legislative election. The discussion resulted in the comments remaining in the encyclopedia. Also, Jimmy Wales was interviewed on the July 1 episode of The Cost of Doing Business on TLV1. G.

In brief

Benny Johnson



Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit next week's edition in the Newsroom or contact the editor.


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2015-06-10

Just the bear facts, ma'am

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By Adam Cuerden and Xanthomelanoussprog
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 17 to 23 May, which we should have covered last week, but accidentally skipped ahead a week. Oops! Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.
The Shard, a new featured picture

Four featured articles were promoted this week.

Two Featured lists were promoted this week.

One featured topic was promoted this week.

Fifteen-year-olds are not this good at self-portraiture, Cornelis Kruseman. See me after class.

Twenty-eight Featured pictures were promoted this week.

  • Japanese invasion money for Burma: One Burmese cent, five Burmese cents, ten Burmese cents, one-quarter Burmese rupee, one-half Burmese rupee, One Burmese rupee, Five Burmese rupees, ten Burmese rupees, and one-hundred Burmese rupees (created by Empire of Japan; nominated by Godot13) A set of Japanese invasion money notes from Burma, issued in 1942 after the British retreat into India. The 5-rupee note was copied by the United States Office of Strategic Services as propaganda — one side contained anti-Japanese messages in either Burmese or Kachin. Fakes of the 1 and 10-rupee notes were also produced by the Allies to pay agents.
  • Texas bluebonnet (created by Loadmaster; nominated by Pine) The Texas bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas. Five species of bluebonnets are found in the state; Lupinus subcarnosus was designated as the state flower in 1901. In 1971 it shared the honor with Lupinus texensis (the one photographed by Loadmaster), and in 2001 the relevant statute was amended to include all bluebonnets. Like other species of lupin, such as Lupinus polyphyllus the roots of the bluebonnet are especially attractive to black bears.
  • View of Alentejo, Portugal, with cork oak (created and nominated by Alvesgaspar) This photograph by Alvesgaspar shows a gently rolling wheat filed and a suber oak in the Portuguese region of Alentejo. This area of south-central Portugal is home to the Rafeiro do Alentejo, with its bear-like head.
  • Self-portrait of Cornelis Kruseman (created by Cornelis Kruseman; nominated by Crisco 1492) Painted when he was only 15 years old, this self-portrait shows a mastery of technique that will make you horrifically jealous of the unbearable little swot.
  • Erfurt 10 Ducat (1645) depicting Queen Christina of Sweden (created by Sweden; nominated by Godot13) One of the few coins in history which depicts a monarch full-face rather than in profile, this gold coin from Erfurt in Germany depicts Queen Christina of Sweden. Erfurt was occupied by Swedish forces for seventeen years during the Thirty Years' War. It requires more skill to engrave a full-face portrait in relief than a profile, and as the coin wears the portrait will become an unrecognisable blob. The engraver of this coin has turned the queen's head slightly to the left, making the job slightly easier. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Queen Christina's favourite amusement was bear hunting.
  • Globi coelestis in tabulas planas redacti descriptio: Plate 1, Plate 2, Plate 3, Plate 4, Plate 5, and Plate 6 (created by Ignace-Gaston Pardies; nominated by Brandmeister) Plates from a star atlas published posthumously by the French Jesuit scientist Ignace-Gaston Pardies in 1674 show the stars laid out on a gnomonic projection, with the subjects of the constellations derived from an earlier star atlas, Uranometria. As in its predecessor, Pardies' atlas shows the humans facing away from the Earth, a break from tradition — but the Great Bear is looking at us directly, and rather sadly. The six plates can be arranged in the form of a cube (a feature of the projection used). The idea of a "cubic universe" occurs in Christian and Jewish mysticism, derived from earlier thinkers' visualisations of a cubic Earth situated in the centre of a cubic cosmos. It probably also occurs in Time Cube, but nobody ain't got time for that.
  • Leo Tolstoy in 1897 (created by Yann; nominated by Yann) Tolstoy sits on a bench in the grounds of Yasnaya Polyana in 1897. The bench re-appears in a postcard from the 1900s, in which Tolstoy poses with his hat and walking cane, and again in a photograph of circa 1906 where the writer sits alongside Vladimir Chertkov, the man who came to control Tolstoy's literary legacy, even under Stalin. The bench, once the stout supporter of famous men's posteriors, probably disappeared during the German occupation of Tolstoy's estate in October 1941. Its modern-day descendant is a sad construction of birch logs, often photographed by tourists who perhaps imagine that its rustic appearance is somehow "Tolstoyan". In the house itself is the skin of a bear, killed back in 1872 after it had spent some time lying on top of Tolstoy trying to gnaw his face off. The scars healed almost imperceptibly, so they're not visible in this photograph.
  • Lower Manhattan (created by King of Hearts; nominated by Bammesk) A view taken by King of Hearts of Lower Manhattan looking across the Hudson River from Jersey City. The shoreline visible across the water is the site of Bear Market, opened in 1771 and closed in 1813.
  • Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon (created by Jan van Eyck; nominated by Crisco 1492) This portrait by Jan van Eyck of an unknown man has only recently been confirmed as being by the master — cleaning and infra-red photography revealed underdrawing and brushwork typical of signed works by van Eyck. Another pointer is the man's stubbled face. Many of van Eyck's portraits of men show a light growth of beard or a badly shaved visage. The small size of the painting and the uncompromising realism of the depiction suggest that it could have been a "betrothal portrait", sent to the prospective in-laws. His furry chin could indicate that this is a true portrait of the man. Van Eyck was a native of Bruges, the town founded by Baldwin Iron Arm after he had killed a bear that had attacked him and his bride. The bear became the symbol of Bruges.
  • Feeding frenzy (created by Luc Viatour; nominated by Brandmeister) The carp in this photograph by Luc Viatour are competing for food; they are in a feeding frenzy which happens when there is a surfeit of prey or food. The carp are in a pond at the Agdal Gardens in Marrakesh.
  • The Alba Madonna (created by Raphael; nominated by Crisco 1492) The Alba Madonna by Raphael sets Mary, Jesus and John the Baptist in a classical landscape reminiscent of Roman frescos. It was originally painted on a wooden panel but the panel was removed about 200 years ago by carefully shaving the wood away – the paint layer was then glued onto a canvas backing. Although John is represented as a toddler he is already wearing the camel skin which is one of his attributes from the period when he was bearing witness to the divinity of Jesus.
  • The Shard from the Sky Garden (created by User:Colin; nominated by National Names 2000) This view of the Shard building in central London was assembled from 28 photographs taken by Colin using a Sony A77II camera, set at a "film" speed of 200 ISO. He used a Sony 55-300mm zoom lens with the focal length set at 160mm, with the exposure timing set at 1/1000 of a second and the lens aperture at f5.6. The camera was handheld throughout. Colin was standing on the balcony of the "Sky Garden" at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street, about 160 metres above sea level. The 28 landscape-format images were stitched together in 3 vertical rows of 9 using the Windows version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.0, at a height of 30.798 meters above sea level. Colin comments "-&\#xd;&\#xa;Projection: Rectilinear (0)&\#xd;&\#xa;FOV: 25 x 31&\#xd;&\#xa;Ev: 13.94". To which we say "xob xkv lc lro obxabop pqfii xtxhb?"
  • The Sun, photographed in extreme ultraviolet (created by NASA; nominated by Jcpag2012) The Sun photographed using a reflector telescope mounted on the SOHO spacecraft. By using alternate multiple layers of chemicals that absorb extreme ultraviolet light weakly or strongly, a reflective surface can be built up that causes photons from a desired wavelength of EUV to interfere constructively. Here it's the light produced by helium (II) which is being imaged; the helium is in the hot solar corona but not in the photosphere. Other wavelengths are absorbed by the reflective surface, so details in the solar corona which would otherwise be obscured are visible.
  • Martin Ryckaert (created by Anthony van Dyck; nominated by Crisco 1492) A superb portrait by Anthony van Dyck of the one-armed landscape artist Martin Ryckaert. It was painted between 1627 and 1632 – in the latter year van Dyck entered the employ of Charles I of England who was a dedicated collector of European art, and had ideas about collecting the artists as well. Charles already had some of van Dyck's paintings, hung in the Bear Gallery at Whitehall.
  • Golden earrings from Gyeongju (created by National Museum of Korea; nominated by Blorgy555) Golden earrings from the Pubuchong tomb in Gyeongju city, Korea. They date from the Old Silla period of between 500 and 600 CE, and are number 90 on the list of National Treasures of South Korea. Regarded as the most beautiful of earrings recovered from archaeological sites of the Silla period, the pair were reproduced as casts in gold-plated base metal for distribution to museums and at trade shows. The originals were made using a combination of filigree work with beaded wires, and granulation (welding beads of gold to a surface).
Bouillabaisse moi — c'est le "Marrakech feeding frenzy"!


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2015-06-10

Wikimedia sites are going HTTPS only

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By Legoktm

Today it was announced that Wikimedia sites are going to become HTTPS only, finishing up 10 year effort of rolling out HTTPS. In December 2005, Brion Vibber set up an experimental HTTPS server using special urls like https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Main_Page. In 2011, HTTPS became available using canonical urls like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, which allowed for the usage of protocol-relative urls (//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) to avoid serving HTTP content in pages loaded over HTTPS (mixed content).

Since August 2013, all logged in users used HTTPS; however, that system had some drawbacks. If a user clicked an HTTP link, they would be redirected to HTTPS, but their initial click would leak what page they were trying to visit. To counter that, HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is also being rolled out, which instructs browsers to only visit the website over HTTPS. Wikimedia sites will also be added to browser's HSTS preload lists, which will make sure the browser uses HTTPS even if you have never visited the website before to see the HSTS information.

As of writing, only 7 language groups have been converted[1]: ca, el, en, he, it, ug, zh. The Russian Wikipedia has been practically HTTPS-only since August 2014[2].

Legoktm is a software engineer for the Wikimedia Foundation, and he wrote this in his volunteer capacity.

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The following content has been republished from the Wikimedia Blog. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author alone; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. For more information on this partnership see our content guidelines.
2015-06-10

Making Wikipedia’s medical articles accessible in Chinese

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By James Heilman and Liang Chih Shang Kuan
James Heilman and Liang Chih Shang Kuan have also published this on the Wikimedia blog.
Medical content on the Chinese Wikipedia was both increased and improved by a collaboration between Wikimedia Taiwan, Wikiproject Medicine, and a Taipei medical school. As a result, a wide range of medical articles were translated by students into Chinese, on important topics such as malaria.

The Medical Translation Project, an ambitious attempt to improve and translate Wikipedia’s medical content from English into other languages, began in 2012. While it was initially a collaboration between WikiProject Medicine and Translators Without Borders, one particularly successful model was developed and carried out by Wikimedia Taiwan, in partnership with the National Taiwan University College of Medicine.

This article on Malaria was translated from English to Chinese as part of this project.

This project began in the fall of 2014, when students were invited to translate entire high-quality medical articles into Chinese. The students initially struggled, due to the size and complexity of these articles. The project’s focus then shifted from improving entire articles to simply improving the leads, the three-to-four-paragraph prefaces to Wikipedia’s articles. Since many languages have very little medical content overall, it was believed that concentrating on a large number of short articles would have a greater impact than working on only a few longer articles. The leads of the English Wikipedia’s medical articles, which needed improvement, also benefited from this attention.

The students began by working on an article from a list of entries ready for translation from the English, with Wikimedia markup in place. They then used a combination of Hackpad and Facebook to coordinate their efforts and translate content using this markup. Once the translation was complete, they sent the completed article to editors from Wikimedia Taiwan, who added them to the Chinese Wikipedia. This process worked very well: as the students gained more skill and enthusiasm, they returned to the full articles and began working on them as well — and as of May 2015, 16 full articles and 48 short articles have been translated into Chinese.

Collaborative editing of an article on anemia into Chinese.

This project has resulted in benefits not just for Wikipedia, but also for the students. While medical students in Taiwan learn mostly in English, after graduating they practice mostly in Chinese: this project has been an excellent way for students to not only develop their abilities to translate medical information into their own language, but also to learn the medical content at the same time. And their translations will help give the next generation of students the option to study medicine in their own language.

Aaron Huang, a medical student involved in the project, shared his experience: “Being a participant in this project changed my perspective on knowledge. In the process of finding the balance between using precise professional terms and common words to explain a medical condition, I learned a lot. This has helped me to have better communication with my patients… something that I had not expected when I started. Joining [Wikimedia Taiwan] was a great opportunity for me to rethink not only medical knowledge but also medical education.”

This collaboration’s success offers another potential model for chapters to form relationships with medical schools. Previous educational efforts have run into issues, with the use of low-quality citations, poor formatting, and copyright. This method of collaboration avoids these potential pitfalls by providing students an easy introduction to Wikipedia editing.

Currently, there are 150 short articles and 34 long articles ready for translation, and we hope to eventually increase the number of short articles to 1,000. While we initially concentrated on core human health problems, we have recently began to develop content pertaining to essential medications and public health infrastructure, like sanitation.

One of the keys to success has been ensuring that all of the content added to the translation list is of very high quality, meaning that every sentence accurately reflects and is supported by a reliable secondary source.

These efforts exemplify how chapters and thematic projects such as Wiki Project Med can effectively work together, each bringing their specific expertise to a joint initiative. We would love to see other groups emulate this promising model.

James Heilman, WikiProject Med Foundation
Liang-chih Shang Kuan, Wikimedia Taiwan

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