Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2023-10-03
Wikimedia Endowment financial statement published
Wikimedia Endowment financial statement for 2016–2023 published
Following discussions at User talk:BilledMammal/2023 Wikimedia RfC and elsewhere (1, 2, 3), the Wikimedia Foundation has published a "Wikimedia Endowment Financial Statement" covering the period from 2016 to June 30, 2023 (pictured, click to enlarge). This is the time period during which the Endowment was held by the Tides Foundation.
The Foundation has thus fulfilled Jimmy Wales' promise to increase the Endowment's transparency (see previous Signpost coverage).
The statement was accompanied by the following summary:
This is the financial statement for the Wikimedia Endowment for its first seven years when it was housed at the Tides Foundation, an organization that helps launch nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. During this time, the Wikimedia Endowment had $15 million in investment results (12.5% of total gross revenue that was under management at Tides from inception to June 30, 2023). The Endowment paid $1.5 million in total management fees to Tides over seven years (1.29%) in addition to $132K (.11%) in payment processing fees, bank fees, and transaction fees. In 2023, the Endowment made $4.5 million in grants including $3.2 million to support technical innovation of the Wikimedia projects and a $1.3 millon grant to the Wikimedia Foundation as reimbursement for expenses the Foundation incurred serving the Endowment in FY2022-23 as it transitioned to a 501(c)3. The Wikimedia Endowment moved to an independent 501c3 charity in July 2023.
A look at the figures shows that the Endowment suffered significant unrealized losses (almost $22 million) in 2022. The investments held by the Foundation itself also suffered that year (see Wikimedia Foundation financials).
To put this in context, readers should bear in mind that 2022 was one of the worst years for the financial markets in modern history. As Fortune reported:
The U.S. stock market fell a little more than 18% in 2022, while the aggregate U.S. bond market was down 13%. Ten-year Treasuries were down more than 15%, while long-term government bonds crashed more than 30%.
According to Meta-Wiki, the Endowment is currently valued at $119 million. Documentation of the Endowment's policies and charters is available on the Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki; there is also a Phabricator task aimed at setting up an Endowment namespace on that wiki to house all related documentation. – AK
Knowledge Equity Fund: 6 October community call
The Wikimedia Foundation's Equity Fund Committee has announced a community call concerning the upcoming third round of grantmaking from the controversial, $4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund that provides grants to charitable and advocacy organizations. Concerns have focused on the fact that Wikipedia donors may not be aware that the Wikimedia Foundation spends several million dollars funding organizations outside the Wikimedia movement (see previous Signpost coverage).
The announcement posted on Wikimedia-l on 23 September read as follows:
With the announcement of the Knowledge Equity Fund's round 2 grantees, we've seen a lot of questions and feedback about the Knowledge Equity Fund, how the Committee works and how the work of the grantees will contribute to the projects and to the movement. To help answer these questions, the Knowledge Equity Fund Committee will host a community conversation on Friday, October 6, 2023 at 1400 UTC to hear ideas, concerns, and to answer questions. The Committee would also like to hear ideas for how the fund should be used in the upcoming third round of grantmaking.
To register for this conversation, please email us at EquityFund(a)wikimedia.org You can also send us questions beforehand. The call will be held in English and we will have interpretation in Spanish; if you would like interpretation into other languages please let us know. If you're not able to attend, we will also share notes and a written list of Q&A after the call.
Thanks,
Nadee Gunasena, on behalf of the Equity Fund Committee
– AK
Brief notes
- New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, User:Hey man im josh. His RfA passed 315/3/0.
- Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement (beginning 2 October) is The arts. It will be followed the week after by Superstition. Please be bold in helping improve these articles!
History is written by whoever can harness the most editors
"Losers just got a lot of time on their hands"
Elon Musk and Benjamin Netanyahu met to discuss many topics including the state of Israel's democracy, anti-semitism, and artificial intelligence. They also managed to discuss Madison and Hamilton, the death of Socrates, and Musk's love of encyclopedias. Except for one! And it's one you may have heard of.
The discussion was broadcast on the website formerly known as Twitter, which Musk owns, with a transcript here. We'll stick to what they think of Wikipedia and other encyclopedias, starting with Musk's early reading.
Musk: ...If I’d had the internet back then with the great movies, video games and that kind of thing, I probably would’ve read much less than I did. I kind of read the encyclopedia out of desperation because I didn’t have anything else to read.
Netanyahu: You read the whole encyclopedia?
Musk: Yeah, pretty much. I’d get something that I’m not that interested in and obviously skip past it. But yeah, pretty much.
Netanyahu: That’s desperation.
Musk: It was desperation. No, I was just like, "I’ve run out of books."
Netanyahu: But I think it was probably a better encyclopedia than the one… These digital encyclopedias today, which unfortunately are edited in ways that don’t necessarily bring out the balanced views of things.
Musk: Yeah, I mean, the fun thing about, say, Wikipedia, is there’s an old saying "history is written by the victors". And it’s like, "Well, yes, but not if your enemies are still alive and have a lot of time on their hands to edit Wikipedia."
Netanyahu: History is written by the people who can harness the most editors.
Musk: Yeah, I mean, whoever, the losers just got a lot of time on their hands and it’s like, “What do they do?” Edit Wikipedia. And literally, so yeah.
–S
Wikipedia is a model for Harvard
According to a Harvard Crimson column, Harvard students have all come to rely on Wikipedia.
We trust that Wikipedia can grant us quick and detailed information about nearly anything we can imagine. The site is a modern miracle. Within seconds, we can access acute knowledge on quantum field theory, a biography of Helen Keller, or detailed summaries of every single episode of Breaking Bad."
The reason for our encyclopedia's success, according to these student journalists, is our model of editing, starting with be bold. Talk pages, the prohibition on article ownership, with debate, discussion, and collaboration that lead to consensus; all for $54,269 less per year than certain other sources of knowledge.
Perhaps these students haven't seen some of the more vicious Wiki-debates. But perhaps they understand what is going on here better than Elon Musk and Benjamin Netanyahu. –S
Wikiracing at Wikimania
Some other people think Wikipedia is pretty cool too. Especially high-school and college students, and attendees at this year's Wikimania according to The Art of Wikiracing by Stephen Harrison in Slate. Wikiracing is a simple game to see who can go fastest from article A to article B by clicking blue links in the articles. For example, who can go the fastest from "Jimmy Wales" to "Stroopwafel". See TheWikiGame if you'd like to play on the same platform used by the Wikimaniac contest. SuperHamster won the competition.
Harrison attempts a deep dive into the subject, going from lateral thinking to dopamine. But this topic is just about fun and is probably too shallow for his usual mind expanding approach. If you want to try it, just click lateral thinking and see how many pages it takes to get to dopamine. Or – for something simpler – try Elon Musk to Benjamin Netanyahu. –S
Tabloid: Vile trolls?
"Vile internet trolls edit Sir Michael Gambon’s Wikipedia page minutes after his death", according to The Express's headline, a couple of hours after the actor's death. A check of the Wikipedia article's history reveals that the headline's claim is, at best, over-blown.
The news of Gambon's death hit Wikipedia at 11:37 (UTC) on September 28. The edit changed one word "is" to "was". After 4 minutes and 7 edits a "recent death" banner was added to the top of the article saying "initial news reports may be unreliable". Five minutes (8 edits) later one IP editor made an edit and then a minor correction in very poor taste - they included the word "herpes". The edits were quickly reverted and the editor warned not to repeat the mistake. The whole incident was over in two minutes, maybe less. The Express editors might consider the edit "vile", but "sophomoric" would be more appropriate.
Recent changes patroller WindTempos, who reverted the "vile" edit, replied to our inquiry. "I'm not surprised to see poorly informed Wikipedia coverage in the tabloid press, but I'm baffled as to how one IP editor's childish vandalism could be considered remotely newsworthy. In any case, it's a striking reminder of how visible even the shortest lived of edits can be."
Looking further in the article's history there was another sophomoric edit 42 minutes later that included the word "masturbation". It was reverted a minute later. Those edits are by far the worst in the first hour after the actor's death.
The tabloid magnified their exaggerated claims, and its garish headline, with a jumbled explanation of how Wikipedia works: "it is understood that anyone can edit a Wikipedia page, and the company instead employs people to monitor edits and delete and rectify them as required." Unpaid volunteers such as WindTempos patrol our articles and other volunteers contribute and edit the overwhelming bulk of the content. The Express should know, after almost 23 years of Wikipedia's existence, that the Wikimedia Foundation and its employees, make essentially no edits to the encyclopedia articles. Kudos to WindTempos and all patrollers!
We understand that The Express employs editors to monitor their stories and headlines, but that they are not always able to rectify their errors. –S
In brief
- Maryana Iskander named one of three new Yale trustees: The Yale Daily News welcomed the Wikimedia Foundation's CEO Maryana Iskander to Yale's main governing body, the Yale Corporation, where she is expected to serve a six year term on the 16-person board. Iskander is a 2003 graduate of Yale Law School.
- Lordy, lordy: Wikipedia host warns Online Safety Bill threatens UK presence according to UK Tech News, The New York Times, Computer Weekly and many other news sources. The House of Lords passed the bill on September 19 and it will become law with Royal assent. The new law will require age verification and the WMF states that it will be unable to comply with the law, which could force Wikipedia out of the U.K. (See also earlier coverage: "Foundation and British chapter launch last-ditch attempt to get Wikipedia exempted from the UK's sweeping 'Online Safety Bill'")
- Flickypedia: Flickr announced a new software tool called Flickypedia that streamlines sharing of CC-licensed images from Flickr to Wikimedia Commons. They honor the earlier work by Magnus Manske whose Flickr2Commons tool has been used by "nearly 2,000 users uploading an impressive 5.4 million files over the past decade". (See also our brief coverage of an earlier community-facing announcement of the project)
- Google is so last year, Wikipedia has all the rizz on fleek, bae fam lit: TikTok "is partnering with Wikipedia to bring information to users directly in-app" to produce Wiki search results [1] (The Verge). ABC says "Gen Z is bypassing Google for TikTok as a search engine: 'They don't have a long attention span,' a social media expert says."
- To delete or not to delete? That was the question: Should the Wiki article on Yaroslav Hunka be deleted? The Toronto Sun covered this Article for deletion that's about the Ukrainian-Canadian who was recently honoured by the Canadian Parliament during Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Ottawa. The problem is that Hunka served in the SS Division Galicia during World War II, leading to embarrassment for many Canadian politicians and the resignation of Anthony Rota, the speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, who had called him "a Canadian hero" on the floor. The article was kept. –S
- Was that 25 gold medals, or only 24? Check Wikipedia: Nellie Biles, mother of Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, says she checks Wikipedia for her daughter's sports accomplishments when she isn't sure. [2] (USA Today)
- ChatGPT plug-in: Mint features a short summary of a conversation with Chris Albon, the Wikimedia Foundation's Director of Machine Learning, on the Wikipedia ChatGPT plug-in, available as an experimental beta feature to ChatGPT Plus subscribers. (OpenAI currently charges 20USD per month for ChatGPT Plus.) For previous Signpost coverage of the plug-in, see the July issue of Recent Research.
- "Constantly astounded by who doesn't have a Wikipedia page" Jess Wade was interviewed by The Guardian, discussed the Matilda effect and other things at the intersection of science, biography, and Wiki.
- Engage, but at a distance: PR Daily, a webzine published by Ragan, did an article about the importance of Wikipedia to a company's public profile, using the pageviews of OceanGate as an example. They concluded (reasonably) that "uninvolved editors should be the ones to implement suggested edits, never a brand or PR firm attached to the topic."
Readers prefer ChatGPT over Wikipedia; concerns about limiting "anyone can edit" principle "may be overstated"
A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, also published as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.
In blind test, readers prefer ChatGPT output over Wikipedia articles in terms of clarity, and see both as equally credible
A preprint titled "Do You Trust ChatGPT? -- Perceived Credibility of Human and AI-Generated Content"[1] presents what the authors (four researchers from Mainz, Germany) call surprising and troubling findings:
"We conduct an extensive online survey with overall 606 English speaking participants and ask for their perceived credibility of text excerpts in different UI [user interface] settings (ChatGPT UI, Raw Text UI, Wikipedia UI) while also manipulating the origin of the text: either human-generated or generated by [a large language model] ("LLM-generated"). Surprisingly, our results demonstrate that regardless of the UI presentation, participants tend to attribute similar levels of credibility to the content. Furthermore, our study reveals an unsettling finding: participants perceive LLM-generated content as clearer and more engaging while on the other hand they are not identifying any differences with regards to message’s competence and trustworthiness."
The human-generated texts were taken from the lead section of four English Wikipedia articles (Academy Awards, Canada, malware and United States Senate). The LLM-generated versions were obtained from ChatGPT using the prompt Write a dictionary article on the topic "[TITLE]". The article should have about [WORDS] words
.
The researchers report that
"[...] even if the participants know that the texts are from ChatGPT, they consider them to be as credible as human-generated and curated texts [from Wikipedia]. Furthermore, we found that the texts generated by ChatGPT are perceived as more clear and captivating by the participants than the human-generated texts. This perception was further supported by the finding that participants spent less time reading LLM-generated content while achieving comparable comprehension levels."
One caveat about these results (which is only indirectly acknowledged in the paper's "Limitations" section) is that the study focused on four quite popular (i.e. non-obscure) topics – Academy Awards, Canada, malware and US Senate. Also, it sought to present only the most important information about each of these, in the form of a dictionary entry (as per the ChatGPT prompt) or the lead section of a Wikipedia article. It is well known that the output of LLMs tends to have fewer errors when it draws from information that is amply present in their training data (see e.g. our previous coverage of a paper that, for this reason, called for assessing the factual accuracy of LLM output on a benchmark that specifically includes lesser-known "tail topics"). Indeed, the authors of the present paper "manually checked the LLM-generated texts for factual errors and did not find any major mistakes," something that is well reported to not be the case for ChatGPT output in general. That said, it has similarly been claimed that Wikipedia, too, is less reliable on obscure topics. Also, the paper used the freely available version of ChatGPT (in its 23 March 2023 revision) which is based on the GPT 3.5 model, rather than the premium "ChatGPT Plus" version which, since March 2023, has been using the more powerful GPT-4 model (as does Microsoft's free Bing chatbot). GPT-4 has been found to have a significantly lower hallucination rate than GPT 3.5.
FlaggedRevs study finds that concerns about limiting Wikipedia's "anyone can edit" principle "may be overstated"
A paper titled "The Risks, Benefits, and Consequences of Prepublication Moderation: Evidence from 17 Wikipedia Language Editions",[2] from last year's CSCW conference, addresses a longstanding open question in Wikipedia research, with important implications for some current issues.
Wikipedia famously allows anyone to edit, which generally means that even unregistered editors can make changes to content that go live immediately – only subject to "postpublication moderation" by other editors afterwards. Less well known is that on many Wikipedia language versions, this principle has long been limited by a software feature called Flagged Revisions (FlaggedRevs), which was developed and designed at the request of the German Wikipedia community and deployed there first in 2008, and has since been adopted by various other Wikimedia projects. (These do not include the English Wikipedia, which after much discussion implemented a system called "Pending Changes" that is very similar, but is only applied on a case-by-case basis to a small percentage of pages.) As summarized by the authors:
FlaggedRevs is a prepublication content moderation system in that it will display the most recent “flagged” revision of any page for which FlaggedRevs is enabled instead of the most recent revision in general. FlaggedRevs is designed to “give additional information regarding quality,” by ensuring that revisions from less-trusted users are vetted for vandalism or substandard content (e.g., obvious mistakes because of sloppy editing) before being flagged and made public. The FlaggedRevs system also displays the moderation status of the contribution to readers. [...] Although there are many details that can vary based on the way that the system is configured, FlaggedRevs has typically been deployed in the following way on Wikipedia language editions. First, users are divided into groups of trusted and untrusted users. Untrusted users typically include all users without accounts as well as users who have created accounts recently and/or contributed very little. Although editors without accounts remain untrusted indefinitely, editors with accounts are automatically promoted to trusted status when they clear certain thresholds determined by each language community. For example, German Wikipedia automatically promotes editors with accounts who have contributed at least 300 revisions accompanied by at least 30 comments.
The paper studies the impact of the introduction of FlaggedRevs "on 17 Wikipedia language communities: Albanian, Arabic, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Esperanto, Persian, Finnish, Georgian, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Interlingua, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, and Turkish" (leaving out a few non-Wikipedia sister projects that also use the system). The overall findings are that
"the system is very effective at blocking low-quality contributions from ever being visible. In analyzing its side effects, we found, contrary to expectations and most of our hypotheses, little evidence that the system [...] raises transaction costs sufficiently to inhibit participation by the community as a whole, nor [that it] measurably improves the quality of contributions."
In the "Discussion" section, the authors write
Our results suggest that prepublication moderation systems like FlaggedRevs may have a substantial upside with relatively little downside. If this is true, why are a tiny proportion of Wikipedia language editions using it? Were they just waiting for an analysis like ours? In designing this study, we carefully read the Talk page of FlaggedRevs.[supp 1] Community members commenting in the discussion agreed that prepublication review significantly reduces the chance of letting harmful content slip through and being displayed to the public. Certainly, many agreed that the implementation of prepublication review was a success story in general—especially on German Wikipedia. [...]
However, the same discussion also reveals that the success of German Wikipedia is not enough to convince more wikis to follow in their footsteps. From a technical perspective, FlaggedRevs’ source code appears poorly maintained.[supp 2] [...] FlaggedRevs itself suffers from a range of specific limitations. For example, the FlaggedRevs system does not notify editors that their contribution has been rejected or approved. [...] Since April 2017, requests for deployment of the system by other wikis have been paused by the Wikimedia Foundation indefinitely.[supp 3] Despite these problems, our findings suggest that the system kept low-quality contributions out of the public eye and did not deter contributions from the majority of new and existing users. Our work suggests that systems like FlaggedRevs deserve more attention.
(This reviewer agrees in particular regarding the lack of notifications for new and unregistered editors that their edit has been approved – having filed, in vain, a proposal to implement this uncontroversially beneficial and already designed software feature to the annual "Community Wishlist", in 2023, 2022, and 2019.)
Interestingly, while the FlaggedRevs feature was (as summarized by the authors) developed by the Wikimedia Foundation and the German Wikimedia chapter (Wikimedia Deutschland), community complaints about a lack of support from the Foundation for the system were present even then, e.g. in a talk at Wikimania 2008 (notes, video recording) by User:P. Birken, a main driving force behind the project. Perhaps relatedly, the authors of the present study highlight a lack of researcher attention:
"Despite its importance and deployment in a number of large Wikipedia communities, very little is known regarding the effectiveness of the system and its impact. A report made by the members of the Wikimedia Foundation in 2008 gave a brief overview of the extension, its capabilities and deployment status at the time, but acknowledged that “it is not yet fully understood what the impact of the implementation of FlaggedRevs has been on the number of contributions by new users.”[supp 4] Our work seeks to address this empirical gap."
Still, it may be worth mentioning that there have been at least two preceding attempts to study this question (neither of these has been published in peer-reviewed form, thus their omission from the present study is understandable). They likewise don't seem to have identified major concerns that FlaggedRevs might contribute to community decline:
- A talk at Wikimania 2010 presented preliminary results from a study commissioned by Wikimedia Germany, e.g. that on German Wikipedia, "In general, flagged revisions did not [affect] anonymous editing" and that "most revisions got approved very rapidly" (the latter result surely doesn't hold everywhere; e.g. on Russian Wikipedia, the median time for an unregistered editor's edit to get reviewed is over 13 days at the time of writing). It also found, unsurprisingly, a "reduced impact of vandalism", consistent with the present study.
- An informal investigation of an experiment conducted by the Hungarian Wikipedia in 2018/19 similarly found that FlaggedRevs had "little impact on the growth of the editor community" overall. The experiment consisted of deactivating the feature of FlaggedRevs that hides unreviewed revisions from readers. As a second question, the Hungarian Wikipedians asked "How much extra load does [deactivating FlaggedRevs] put on patrollers?" They found that "[t]he ratio of bad faith or damaging edits grew minimally (2-3 percentage points); presumably it is a positive feedback for vandals that they see their edits show up publicly. The absolute number of such edits grew significantly more than that, since the number of anonymous edits grew [...]."
In any case, the CSCW paper reviewed here presents a much more comprehensive and methodical approach, not just because it examined the impact of FlaggedRevs across multiple wikis, but also regarding the formalizing of various research hypotheses and concerning the use of more reliable statistical techniques.
The findings in detail
In more detail, the researchers formalized four groups of research hypotheses about the impact of FlaggedRevs [our bolding]:
- First, the study assessed whether the "system is indeed functioning as intended", by hypothesizing that it reduces the "number of visible rejected contributions" (i.e. edits that were reverted after being approved, i.e. becoming visible to the general reader), both from users affected by the restriction (H1a) and from all editors (H1c), but not from those editors not affected (H1b). All three of these sub-hypotheses were confirmed in an interrupted time series (ITS) analysis of the monthly counts of such reverts (aggregated for all users in each group, over the entire wiki), covering the timespan from 12 months before to 12 months after the date (or month) on which FlaggedRevs was activated on a particular Wikipedia version. The researchers conclude that "In general, the results we see are in line with our expectations and provide strong evidence that FlaggedRevs achieves its primary goal of hiding low-quality contributions from the general public."
- Secondly, "Our H2 hypotheses suggest that prepublication review will affect the quality of contributions overall. We operationalize quality in two ways. First, we use the number of rejected contributions that we operationalize as the number of reverts. [...] We also test our second hypotheses using average quality that we operationalize as revert rate [...] measured as the proportion of contributions that are eventually." Like the first hypothesis, this is separately assessed for affected users, non-affected users and all users. The authors anticipated a rise in the quality of contributions overall (H2c) and of contributions from affected users such as IP editors (H2a), reasoning that "proactive measures of content moderation and production control can play an important role in encouraging prosocial behavior." For unaffected users, they again hypothesized a null effect (H2b). This set of hypotheses was again examined in an ITS analysis of the time series of monthly aggregate counts of such edits. Here, the authors "find little evidence of the prepublication moderation system having a major impact on the quality of contributions. Thus, we cannot conclude that FlaggedRevs alters the quantity or quality of newcomers’ contributions."
- The third group of hypotheses was motivated by existing "research that has shown that additional quality control policies may negatively affect the growth of a peer production community" (citing several papers which have been covered here before, see e.g. "'The rise and decline' of the English Wikipedia"). Again, this is split into three sub-hypotheses for affected users (H3a), unaffected users (H3b) and the community overall (H3c). The authors chose the aggregate number of mainspace (article) edits as their measure of productivity, and hypothesized that FlaggedRevs would decrease it in all three cases – for affected (non-trusted) editors because of a "reduced sense of self-efficacy" (i.e. the lack of satisfaction that comes with seeing one's change immediately being shown to the public), but also for unaffected (trusted) editors, because "prepublication [review] systems require effort from experienced contributors and may result in a net increase in the demands on these users’ time". These hypotheses are again tested using an ITS analysis aggregate (per-wiki) monthly numbers. Regarding H3a, this confirms a significant decrease for IP editors as one group of affected users in H3a, but not for newly registered editors as the other group of affected users. (Unfortunately, the analysis appears to treat these as static groups, without examining the possibility that FlaggedRevs may have motivated at least some people who had habitually contributed without logging in to do so under an account instead, with the anticipation of becoming a trusted/unaffected user after passing the applicable threshold.) The study finds that "the deployment of the prepublication [review] discouraged the participation of the group of editors with the lowest commitment and most targeted by the additional safeguard [i.e. IP editors], but not the other groups." In particular, FlaggedRevs did not cause a significant decline in article edits overall, contradicting the expectations formed based on the aforementioned previous research.
- The fourth hypothesis was similarly motivated by previous research that had found that the "barrier to entry posed by prepublication review, combined with the delayed intrinsic reward, might be disheartening enough to drive newcomers away" (in case of the creation of new articles on English Wikipedia, see our previous coverage: "Newcomer productivity and pre-publication review"). Here, the authors "hypothesize that the deployment of [FlaggedRevs] will negatively affect the return rate of newcomers (H4)." Differently from the previous three hypothesis, this effect on retention rate is tested using a per-user (instead of aggregate) dataset. The study finds "that although FlaggedRevs did negatively affect the return rate of newcomers in a way that was statistically significant, the size of this effect is extremely small." Again though, the analysis is limited by treating this group as static, without being able to consider the possibility that FlaggedRevs may motivate more people to create an account instead of contributing under an IP. What's more, the authors caution their analysis had been limited by the fact that "we do not have access to wiki-level configuration data on FlaggedRev" (referring to settings such as the edit number threshold where an editor will be automatically promoted to trusted status). However, the Wikimedia Foundation does in fact publish this information, so there might be opportunities for future research to examine this research question more thoroughly. Relatedly, while that paper promises that "[a] replication dataset including data, code, and other supplementary material has been placed in the Harvard Dataverse archive and is available at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/G1YFLE ", that URL does not (yet) contain such material for most of the paper's results. (In March 2023, the authors acknowledged this issue and planned to remedy it, but at the time of writing the data repository appears unchanged.)
(Disclosure: This reviewer provided some input to the authors at the beginning of their research project, as acknowledged in the paper, but was not involved in it otherwise.)
See also related earlier coverage: "Sociological analysis of debates about flagged revisions in the English, German and French Wikipedias" (2012)
Briefly
- Wikimania, the annual global conference of the Wikimedia movement, took place in Singapore in August (as an in-person event again for the first time since 2019). Its research track included the by now traditional "State of Wikimedia Research" presentation highlighting research trends from the past year (with involvement by members of this research newsletter), see our blog post with videos and slides. Videos and slides from other presentations are being uploaded, too.
- See the page of the monthly Wikimedia Research Showcase for videos and slides of past presentations.
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.
"Wikidata as Semantic Infrastructure: Knowledge Representation, Data Labor, and Truth in a More-Than-Technical Project"
From the abstract:[3]
"Various Wikipedia researchers have commended Wikidata for its collaborative nature and liberatory potential, yet less attention has been paid to the social and political implications of Wikidata. This article aims to advance work in this context by introducing the concept of semantic infrastructure and outlining how Wikidata’s role as semantic infrastructure is the primary vehicle by which Wikipedia has become infrastructural for digital platforms. We develop two key themes that build on questions of power that arise in infrastructure studies and apply to Wikidata: knowledge representation and data labor."
"Naked data: curating Wikidata as an artistic medium to interpret prehistoric figurines"
From the abstract:[4]
"In 2019, Digital Curation Lab Director Toni Sant and the artist Enrique Tabone started collaborating on a research project exploring the visualization of specific data sets through Wikidata for artistic practice. An art installation called Naked Data was developed from this collaboration and exhibited at the Stanley Picker Gallery in Kingson, London, during the DRHA 2022 conference. [...] This article outlines the key elements involved in this practice-based research work and shares the artistic process involving the visualizing of the scientific data with special attention to the aesthetic qualities afforded by this technological engagement."
"The Wikipedia Republic of Literary Characters"
From the abstract:[5]
"We [...] explore a user-oriented notion of World Literature according to the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. Based on its language-independent taxonomy Wikidata, we collect data from 321 Wikipedia editions on more than 7000 characters presented on more than 19000 independent character pages across the various language editions. We use this data to build a network that represents affiliations of characters to Wikipedia languages, which leads us to question some of the established presumptions towards key-concepts in World Literature studies such as the notion of major and minor, the center-periphery opposition or the canon."
"What makes Individual I's a Collective We; Coordination mechanisms & costs"
From the abstract:[6]
"Diving into the Wikipedia ecosystem [...] we identified and quantified three fundamental coordination mechanisms and found they scale with an influx of contributors in a remarkably systemic way over three order of magnitudes. Firstly, we have found a super-linear growth in mutual adjustments (scaling exponent: 1.3), manifested through extensive discussions and activity reversals. Secondly, the increase in direct supervision (scaling exponent: 0.9), as represented by the administrators’ activities, is disproportionately limited. Finally, the rate of rule enforcement exhibits the slowest escalation (scaling exponent 0.7), reflected by automated bots. The observed scaling exponents are notably robust across topical categories with minor variations attributed to the topic complication. Our findings suggest that as more people contribute to a project, a self-regulating ecosystem incurs faster mutual adjustments than direct supervision and rule enforcement."
"Wikidata Research Articles Dataset"
From the abstract:[7]
"The "Wikidata Research Articles Dataset" comprises peer-reviewed full research papers about Wikidata from its first decade of existence (2012-2022). This dataset was curated to provide insights into the research focus of Wikidata, identify any gaps, and highlight the institutions actively involved in researching Wikidata."
"Speech Wikimedia: A 77 Language Multilingual Speech Dataset"
From the abstract:[8]
"The Speech Wikimedia Dataset is a publicly available compilation of audio with transcriptions extracted from Wikimedia Commons. It includes 1780 hours (195 GB) of CC-BY-SA licensed transcribed speech from a diverse set of scenarios and speakers, in 77 different languages. Each audio file has one or more transcriptions in different languages, making this dataset suitable for training speech recognition, speech translation, and machine translation models."
15 years later, repetition of philosophy vandalism experiment yields "surprisingly similar results"
From the paper[9]
"Fifteen years ago, I conducted a small study testing the error-correction tendency of Wikipedia. [...] I repeated the earlier study and found surprisingly similar results. [...] Between July and November 2022, I made 33 changes to Wikipedia: one at a time, anonymously, and from various IP addresses. [...] Each change consisted of a one or two sentence fib inserted into the Wikipedia entry on a notable, deceased philosopher. The fibs were about biographical or factual matters, rather than philosophical content or interpretive questions. Although some of the fibs mention “sources”, no citations were provided. If the fibs were not corrected within 48 hours, they were removed by the experimenter. The fibs were all, verbatim, ones that I used in Magnus (2008). [...] Thirty-six percent (12/33) of changes were corrected within 48 hours. Rounded to the nearest percentage point, this is the same as the adjusted result in Magnus (2008)."
References
- ^ Huschens, Martin; Briesch, Martin; Sobania, Dominik; Rothlauf, Franz (2023-09-05). "Do You Trust ChatGPT? -- Perceived Credibility of Human and AI-Generated Content". arXiv:2309.02524 [cs.HC].
- ^ Tran, Chau; Champion, Kaylea; Hill, Benjamin Mako; Greenstadt, Rachel (2022-11-11). "The Risks, Benefits, and Consequences of Prepublication Moderation: Evidence from 17 Wikipedia Language Editions". Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. 6 (CSCW2): 333–1–333:25. arXiv:2202.05548. doi:10.1145/3555225. S2CID 246823933. / Tran, Chau; Champion, Kaylea; Hill, Benjamin Mako; Greenstadt, Rachel (2022-11-07). "The Risks, Benefits, and Consequences of Prepublication Moderation: Evidence from 17 Wikipedia Language Editions". Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. 6 (CSCW2): 1–25. arXiv:2202.05548. doi:10.1145/3555225. ISSN 2573-0142.
- ^ Ford, Heather; Iliadis, Andrew (2023-07-01). "Wikidata as Semantic Infrastructure: Knowledge Representation, Data Labor, and Truth in a More-Than-Technical Project". Social Media + Society. 9 (3): 20563051231195552. doi:10.1177/20563051231195552. ISSN 2056-3051.
- ^ Sant, Toni; Tabone, Enrique (2023). "Naked data: curating Wikidata as an artistic medium to interpret prehistoric figurines". International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media: 1–18. doi:10.1080/14794713.2023.2253335. ISSN 1479-4713.
- ^ Wojcik, Paula; Bunzeck, Bastian; Zarrieß, Sina (2023-05-11). "The Wikipedia Republic of Literary Characters". Journal of Cultural Analytics. 8 (2). doi:10.22148/001c.70251.
- ^ Yoon, Jisung; Kempes, Chris; Yang, Vicky Chuqiao; West, Geoffrey; Youn, Hyejin (2023-06-03). "What makes Individual I's a Collective We; Coordination mechanisms & costs". arXiv:2306.02113 [physics.soc-ph].
- ^ Farda-Sarbas, Mariam (2023), Wikidata Research Articles Dataset, Freie Universität Berlin, doi:10.17169/refubium-40231
- ^ Gómez, Rafael Mosquera; Eusse, Julian; Ciro, Juan; Galvez, Daniel; Hileman, Ryan; Bollacker, Kurt; Kanter, David (2023). "Speech Wikimedia: A 77 Language Multilingual Speech Dataset". arXiv:2308.15710 [cs.AI].
- ^ Magnus, P. D. (2023-09-12). "Early response to false claims in Wikipedia, 15 years later". First Monday. doi:10.5210/fm.v28i9.12912. ISSN 1396-0466.
- Supplementary references and notes:
By your logic,
-
Woman lighting a diya during Tihar by Mithun Kunwar edited by Radomianin, one of our newest featured pictures.
Well, here we are. Still not... fully back, but getting there.
Featured articles
Fourteen featured articles were promoted this period.
- Battle of Grand Gulf, nominated by Hog Farm
- The start of Grant's success in the Vicksburg campaign
- It led to the Siege of Vicksburg, and a great Union gain.
- Logic, nominated by Phlsph7
- A highly-detailed article, but, nonetheless we fear,
- From our cov'rage of the W-M-F, there ain't no logic here!
- TRAPPIST-1, nominated by Jo-Jo Eumerus
- Seven planets orbit 'round
- This star within Aquarius.
- With each orbit less than twenty days,
- They're probably precarious.
- Double sovereign, nominated by Wehwalt
- If you enjoy a golden shower, you will be astounded
- If you get a few of these boys so you can get double-pounded.
- Art Deco architecture of New York City, nominated by David Fuchs
- In the twenties and thirties 'twas Art Deco's rule
- 'Til rejection of ornamentation became the new school.
- Fuzuli (poet), nominated by Golden
- Azerbaijani and Ottoman poetry would be truly
- Less awesome, if it weren't for the work of Fuzuli
- Paradise Airlines Flight 901A, nominated by RecycledPixels
- A 1964 plane crash wherein eighty-five people died.
- Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, nominated by Elias Ziade and Onceinawhile
- Likely "captured as booty by the Sidonians"
- It's one of only three sarcophagi found outside Egypt.
- Not all poems rhyme. But is this a poem?
- Or does raising the question of whether it is art make it art?
- City Hall MRT station, nominated by ZKang123
- The nomination makes it clear exactly what's in store:
- "This article is about a cross-platform interchange in Singapore"
- Leonardo DiCaprio, nominated by FrB.TG
- A Titanic achievement that we're sure no-one can ape,
- But nonetheless, we all must ask: What's eating Gilbert Grape?
- Tolui, nominated by AirshipJungleman29
- The youngest son of Ghengis Khan
- He looked to be his successor, but was passed on.
- Mckenna Grace, nominated by Pamzeis
- A rapidly rising star: in just over ten years
- She's done more than many get to do in their whole careers.
- "Cross Road Blues" nominated by Ojorojo
- I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees,
- I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees,
- Said to the list'ner, "Don't claim this song's 'bout soul-sellin', please."
- A Very Trainor Christmas, nominated by MaranoFan (a.k.a. NØ)
- In preparations for this Christmas, well, TFA's a gainer,
- But you know who gets the best of gifts? Good ol' Meghan Trainor!
- Featured article after article, all within the plan
- Of the article's nominator, our dear MaranoFan
Featured pictures
Twelve featured pictures were promoted this period, including the ones at the start and end of this article.
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Marcus Aurelius by an unknown sculptor, excavated from Roman villa of Chiragan. Photograph by Daniel Martin
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Edward Bouchet by George Kendall Warren, restored by Adam Cuerden
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Joseph Bazalgette by Lock & Whitfield, restored by Adam Cuerden
Featured lists
Twelve featured lists were promoted this period.
- 2022 Ballon d'Or, nominated by Idiosincrático
- List of Billboard Tropical Airplay number ones of 2000, nominated by Magiciandude (a.k.a. Erick)
- List of Music Bank Chart winners (2019), nominated by EN-Jungwon and Jal11497
- List of National Football League annual passing yards leaders, nominated by Hey man im josh
- List of songs recorded by Olivia Rodrigo, nominated by MaranoFan (a.k.a. NØ)
- Women's Professional Snooker Championship, nominated by BennyOnTheLoose
- List of accolades received by Skyfall, nominated by Chompy Ace
- List of accolades received by The Batman (film), nominated by Chompy Ace
- List of cercopithecoids, nominated by PresN
- List of Hot Soul Singles number ones of 1974, nominated by ChrisTheDude
- List of Music Bank Chart winners (2022), nominated by EN-Jungwon and Ladidadida123
- List of songs recorded by Angeline Quinto, nominated by Pseud 14
-
Tsarap River near the Phugtal Monastery by Timothy Gonsalves, another of our newest featured pictures.
Wikipedia policies from other worlds: WP:NOANTLERS
- Note: I trust you, dear reader, to be able to determine whether or not this is fact or fiction. If you cannot, please see the note at the end.1
Last week, we reported on the newly discovered Moony-Bazingers effect — researchers at CERN, performing routine experiments with the Super-Large Encabulator Array, discovered anomalous phenomena which appeared to permit the sending and receiving of encoded data packets from alternate worlds. As before, precise technical details are publicly available on arXiv (although some aspects, such as the pentametric turbine schematics, have been placed under export control and are not accessible).
While most of the data retrieved by Moony-Bazingers outlinks are strictly classified by a plethora of government bodies, a generous grant from the Speedwagon Foundation has enabled the Signpost to attend various scientific symposia, conferences and summits; consequently we are able to bring you limited samples of Wikipedia pages from other worlds (currently referred to, by loose consensus, as Provisional Bazingerzones). While the content of the articles themselves have been put under a strict informational quarantine by the United Nations Security Council, Signpost representatives were able to wikilawyer our way into an approval to disclose the contents of various informational pages. This issue, we bring you an excerpt from provisional Bazingerzone PB-284A000F, also known as the "Cervidian Earth"; specifically, their Wikipedia's policy regarding biographies of living persons.
[...]
Information about antlers is a highly sensitive subject that should be approached with great care. The level of detail and commentary regarding the antlers of living persons is to be kept to a minimum.
Reliable sources are essential, and any noteworthy allegations or incidents, even if negative and against the subject's wishes, must be documented. For instance, if a prominent figure is embroiled in a controversy regarding their antlers, it should be mentioned in their biography, citing the reputable sources that have reported on it. However, it should only state the details of the controversy, without delving into the specific attributes of their antlers. Measurements or estimates (size, shape, or durability) are not to be included.
If a subject denies allegations about their antlers, these denials should be reported as well. However, the discussion should remain confined to the existence of such allegations and the denial itself, rather than the particular characteristics of the antlers in question.
For lesser-known figures, who may not have attained the same level of prominence, the rules are even stricter. Material that could adversely affect their reputation is treated with extreme caution, following the principle that such discussions are both indecent and potentially harmful. In these instances, antler details are only included in Wikipedia articles if they have been widely published by reliable sources and are linked to the subject in a way that suggests consent for the information to be made public.
If a subject objects to the inclusion of specific antler details, or if the person's antler characteristics are on the borderline of notability, editors should err on the side of caution. Biographies should avoid divulging specific antler attributes, such as hardness, end-to-end span, or the number of points, unless it is of utmost importance and supported by multiple reputable sources. For example, if a biography subject has participated in antler duels, it may be necessary to describe the details of a duel by making general reference to their antler size, but it would be inappropriate to discuss the roughness or smoothness of their antlers.
In cases where multiple independent reliable sources provide differing accounts of an individual person's antler details, the consensus is to include all variations, clearly noting the discrepancies. Editors must refrain from speculating or selecting a single "most-likely" set of antler characteristics. The goal is to avoid any form of original research in determining antler attributes.
While Wikipedia is not censored, consensus (RfC 1, RfC 2, arbitration decision) is strongly against illustrating biographies using a photographs of a person with their antlers visible, even if it is the only freely available image. Some exceptions to this policy exist in situations where a person's notability is significantly tied to their antlers (such as the exhibitionist and outsider artist GG Antlin, or members of the Megaloceros giganteus reenactment subculture).
— Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, provisional Bazingerzone PB-284A000F
- 1: The latter.
"The Sight"
The Sight
Fingers stained |
There shall be no slaves in the land of lands, it's a Bollywood jam
- This traffic report is adapted from the Top 25 Report, prepared with commentary by Igordebraga, Ollieisanerd and Rajan51.
Everybody comes to Bollywood (September 10 to 16)
Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jawan (film) | 4,746,356 | The so-called King of Bollywood's latest film has broken opening week records for India, and is looking to replace his own Pathaan for the title of the biggest Indian movie of the year. | ||
2 | September 11 attacks | 1,366,326 | People remembered the deadliest terrorist attack of all time which started the global war on terror when it had its 22nd anniversary. The attack killed nearly 3,000 people and destroyed the original World Trade Center. | ||
3 | Danny Masterson | 1,128,338 | The American actor has been sentenced to 30 years to life in prison on the counts of raping two women who, like Masterson, were members of the Church of Scientology. Masterson was best known for his roles in That '70s Show, Men at Work, and The Ranch. | ||
4 | Deaths in 2023 | 921,695 | But I miss you I miss, 'cause I liked it 'Cause I liked it When I was out there... | ||
5 | Novak Djokovic | 885,816 | The US Open ended, and the two champions in singles were a high contrast: the American who won among the women, Cori Dionne "Coco" Gauff, was born the same year the Serbian male winner Novak Djokovic started his professional career, 2004, and she also earned her first Grand Slam title while 'Djoko' got a record 24th along with his fourth in the Flushing Meadows court. | ||
6 | Coco Gauff | 816,787 | |||
7 | Alba Baptista | 778,414 | A Portuguese actress that is the lead of Netflix show Warrior Nun and might not have got to work with superheroes like compatriot Daniela Melchior, but married one, to earn a spot in the news and this list. | ||
8 | List of highest-grossing Indian films | 731,343 | #1 and Jailer have already emerged into some of the highest-grossing Indian movies this year, whilst still behind January's Pathaan for the top spot. | ||
9 | The Nun II | 715,164 | In 2018, the "Demon Nun" Valak that appears in The Conjuring 2 received an origin story derided for being a badly connected succession of jump scares, but still earning over $350 million. And since horror franchises will keep on being extended, Valak is back to haunt her nemesis Sister Irene, played by Taissa Farmiga (whose older sister Vera is in the original Conjuring movies), in a movie that split opinions on whether the result is scarier and better or just another waste of time. In any case, audiences wanting some spooky moments made The Nun II lead the box office for two weeks and easily recoup its budget more than 4 times over with $163 million so far. | ||
10 | G20 | 688,147 | New Delhi, capital of the world's 5th biggest economy that frequently shapes this Report, received the 18th meeting of the world's largest economies, now joined by the African Union. |
They wanna make it in the neighbourhood (September 17 to 23)
Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jawan (film) | 2,854,528 | For the third straight week at the top of this list is the latest Bollywood blockbuster, featuring Shah Rukh Khan in the dual role of a retired commando and his jailer son fighting corruption. Along with praise for its intricate plot and high-octane action, Jawan has made over ₹1,011.87 crore (US$130 million) and is expected to get a sequel. | ||
2 | Deion Sanders | 1,650,705 | The only person to play in both NFL's Super Bowl and MLB's World Series had been an outstanding hit coaching college football's Colorado Buffaloes, that includes sons Shilo and Shedeur, winning the first three games of the season. Then the fourth was very unimpressive, a rout by the Oregon Ducks 42-6, where Colorado only scored in the final minutes! | ||
3 | Russell Brand | 1,279,694 | The English comedian has been brought to attention again following five women accusing him of rape, sexual assaults, and emotional abuse during the height of his career between 2006 and 2013. Further allegations have came throughout the week, which Brand strongly denies. | ||
4 | Deaths in 2023 | 921,194 | Falling in and out of love With something sweet to throw away But I want something good to die for To make it beautiful to live... | ||
5 | List of highest-grossing Indian films | 768,540 | #1 now ranks sixth, only 50 crore from Khan's previous movie of the year Pathaan at fifth. | ||
6 | Taylor Swift | 762,433 | Apparently now it's Taylor's world, we're only living in it as she fantasizes just what she want to be, make her wildest dreams come true. We have a whole article on the impact of the Eras Tour saying it's part of a "Taylormania", the related concert movie is expected to have such an impact on the box office Satan himself is afraid of opening opposite it, and 1989 (Taylor's Version) will make a splash in the music market in October. Plus, seeing Swift watching a Kansas City Chiefs game and getting ecstatic at a Travis Kelce touchdown made people say both are now a couple. | ||
7 | UEFA Champions League | 720,898 | The Champions! The group stage of the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League started, with highlights being FC Barcelona running over Royal Antwerp F.C. with a 5-0 thumping and Manchester United losing a close match to Bayern Munich that had the last goal at the 95th minute! | ||
8 | Billy Miller (actor) | 683,852 | An actor with extensive television work, including runs on The Young and the Restless and General Hospital, who died by suicide at 43 after years battling bipolar disorder. | ||
9 | Lauren Boebert | 586,268 | A far-right Republican representative from Colorado was evicted from a performance of the Beetlejuice musical for unruly behavior, that apparently included being too frisky with her date. | ||
10 | The Equalizer 3 | 569,377 | In 2014, The Equalizer was a hit for combining an old TV show with Denzel Washington beating up people as a retired intelligence agent. The Equalizer 2 followed up in 2018, and a trilogy closer with Washington in Italy fighting the Camorra entered theaters taking advantage of Labor Day weekend. The Equalizer got good reviews and has already doubled its $70 million budget in the worldwide box office. |
'Cause you know I love the players, and you love the game (September 24 to 30)
Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Travis Kelce | 2,271,124 | The 2023 NFL season begun, and this Kansas City Chiefs player, fresh off his second Super Bowl ring, is bringing in attention for things outside the turf, as the fact Taylor Swift was seen both watching his game (and cheering on Kelce achieving a touchdown) and leaving in his company led her fandom to go wild. | ||
2 | Jawan (film) | 1,916,219 | Shah Rukh Khan's latest action film in which he plays a father-son duo has become the biggest Indian film of 2023. Khan's action flick Pathaan previously held the crown, but in any case, the star would not care too much about which film of his gets to keep it. | ||
3 | 2022 Asian Games | 1,521,483 | After the 2020 Summer Olympics, another multi-sport event in Asia, in this case the continental games, that wound delayed by the pandemic (not helped by how the host country is the same one COVID emerged). Hundreds of athletes went to Hangzhou, and like every edition since 1978 the top three are China, Japan and South Korea, with #7 right afterwards. | ||
4 | Michael Gambon | 1,425,729 | The veteran Irish-British actor best known for his portrayal of Professor Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film series passed away on Wednesday at the age of 82. Gambon took on the role of Dumbledore after the death of fellow Irishman Richard Harris in 2002. Gambon also had a prolific stage career, being one of the original members of the Royal National Theatre. Potterheads around the world raised their wands in tribute. | ||
5 | David McCallum | 1,304,765 | The Scottish actor best known for playing the Russian secret agent Illya Kuryakin in the 1960s TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. passed away in New York on September 25, shortly after his 90th birthday. | ||
6 | Taylor Swift | 1,249,715 | #1 went to a concert of The Eras Tour when it passed by Kansas City, and tried to give its performer singer his number. Given she returned to watch him in a game, seems Swift eventually caught on. Also, the currently paused tour (which will finish 2023 with 9 South American concerts in November) has a concert film about to dominate the box office during Friday the 13th. | ||
7 | India at the 2022 Asian Games | 1,191,934 | India is known for underperforming relative to its huge population at the Olympic Games (in Tokyo 2020 they got 7 medals... a number the other nation of a billion people usually gets in a single day!). But on a continental level they are good, and so far at #3 they rank fourth, with 53 medals until this Report's cutoff date, 10 of them gold (almost all in shooting, plus one each in tennis, squash, and the national sport). | ||
8 | Dianne Feinstein | 1,074,911 | A former mayor of San Francisco who was the oldest serving Senator until her death at the age of 90, just one day after casting a vote that prevented a government shutdown. | ||
9 | Deaths in 2023 | 947,596 | Sorry I've never told you All I wanted to say And now it's too late to hold you 'Cause you've flown away, so far away | ||
10 | Duane Davis (gangster) | 851,853 | 27 years after the still unsolved murder of Tupac Shakur, the Las Vegas police arrested this member of the South Side Compton Crips for suspected involvement, given in 2018 Davis (also known as "Keefe D") said in the documentary Unsolved that he was in the vehicle that committed the fatal drive-by shooting. For what has been told, Tupac's entourage attacked Davis's nephew Orlando Anderson following a Mike Tyson fight, and in turn, Davis, Anderson, and two other Crips took their car and went after the rapper, eventually finding Tupac in a BMW stopped at a red light. Davis is the only living suspect, as Anderson and the man who a witness said was the shooter are both deceased. |
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.
- 2023 Asia Cup and Asia Cup: look, it's not my fault most of India's cricket fans checked these articles on mobile and thus crossed the aforementioned threshold.
Most edited articles
For the August 25 – September 25 period, per this database report.
Title | Revisions | Comments |
---|---|---|
Deaths in 2023 | 1992 | Always some recently deceased to add to the list, such as Jimmy Buffett, Bob Barker, Steve Harwell, Arleen Sorkin and the above mentioned Billy Miller. |
2023 Atlantic hurricane season | 1767 | Cyclones ravaged the North Atlantic again, with 17 thus far, the strongest being Lee, Franklin, and Idalia. |
2024 AFC U-23 Asian Cup qualification | 1001 | Qualifiers were held to see the 15 teams that will join hosts Qatar in the tournament that will determine Asia's representatives in the Paris 2024 football tournament. |
2023 US Open – Men's singles | 910 | Novak Djokovic avenged his 2021 defeat to Daniil Medvedev, and in the semifinals the former beat local player Ben Shelton while the latter took out current ATP rankings leader Carlos Alcaraz (who subsequently lost #1 to 'Djoko'). |
2023 Marrakesh-Safi earthquake | 910 | The second-deadliest earthquake of 2023 after the Turkey–Syria earthquakes of February hit Morocco, killing nearly 3000 people and affecting millions, with the related structural damage including the destruction of historical buildings in Marrakesh. |
Jawan (film) | 894 | India's second biggest movie of the year thus far, an epic of 160 minutes starring Shah Rukh Khan (who was also the lead in the first, which Jawan is within reach of overtaking) in a dual role. |
2023 Pacific typhoon season | 855 | Cyclones also hit the North Pacific, and while the strongest typhoons happened before the period covered by this list, there was still Typhoon Saola and heavy rainstorms in Hong Kong. |
Storm Daniel | 848 | Outside the two regions mentioned above came the deadliest Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone, flooding Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey before causing catastrophic damage in Libya, particularly once two dams collapsed. |
List of Nat Geo Wild original programming | 784 | One user is dedicated to cleaning up the page with the wildlife and natural history shows broadcast on Nat Geo Wild. |
2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup | 779 | Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines received many of the world's best players. Germany won the title led by Dennis Schröder, beating a Serbian team that certainly missed Nikola Jokic, while the US team proved they need to bring their best to the Olympics following a defeat to Canada in the bronze medal match. |
2023 Nagorno-Karabakh clashes | 766 | Azerbaijan invaded the Republic of Artsakh, an enclave of Armenians within its territory, and while a ceasefire emerged after only one day and less than 500 casualties, over 50,000 people in the region fled in fear of a second Armenian genocide. |
India at the 2022 Asian Games | 741 | 653 Indian athletes went to the continental games in Hangzhou. In the two days covered by this edits list, India won 11 medals, including gold in the national sport's female tournament. |
Black market in wartime France | 699 | A group of users cleaned up the article recalling how both Nazi-occupied France and the Vichy regime were forced to rely on clandestine supply chains for survival. |
List of American animated television series | 696 | A bunch of IPs overhauled this page, adding plenty of cartoons, along with a whole column determining each one's animation technique (traditional hand-drawn, stop motion, computer graphics, or Flash). |
Legalism (Chinese philosophy) | 667 | FourLights basically by himself beat a bevy of tennis fans updating 2023 US Open – Women's singles. Impressive. |