Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2021-02-28

News and notes
Maher stepping down

Disinformation report
A "billionaire battle" on Wikipedia: Sex, lies, and video

Opinion
The call for feedback on community seats is a distraction

In the media
Corporate influence at OSM, Fox watching the hen house

News from the WMF
Who tells your story on Wikipedia

Recent research
Take an AI-generated flashcard quiz about Wikipedia; Wikipedia's anti-feudalism

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A Love of Knowledge, for Valentine's Day

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2021-02-28

Maher stepping down

ByBriandSmallbones

Katherine Maher steps down as ED, CEO

Maher in 2020

TheWikimedia FoundationExecutive Director (ED) and Chief Executive OfficerKatherine Maher announcedFebruary 4 that she would be leaving the WMF on April 15. She has been with the WMF seven years, first as chief communications officer, then as interim ED in March 2016, and as ED in June 2016.

She became ED at a verydifficult time for the movement,reported on inThe SignpostasThe WMF's age of discontent.Many in the community and WMF staff were outraged by a search engine project known asthe knowledge engine.Doc Jameswas voted off the Board of Trustees by the Board itself. Maher's predecessor,Lila Tretikov,resigned under pressure. A new trustee resigned within weeks of his appointment. Following Maher's appointment the community, staff, and Board experienced a period of peace and cooperation for about three years.

Maher's announcement was surprising since just the day beforeshe announced the approval of the Universal Code of Conductby the Board of Trustees. Together with the2030 strategy recommendations,the UCC may be the chief achievement of her term as ED. Both still require implementation or enforcement, which may be just as difficult to achieve as the agreement on the policy and goals.

The WMF described the major improvements reached during Maher's term as:

• Increasing global reach and readership
• Reversing editor decline, and generating editor growth
• Increasing editor diversity
• Growing a global movement

Maher was an unapologetic advocate for a diverse community. She toldThe Signpostin a 2019 interview:

Diversity is baked into our vision statement: the sum of all knowledge, every single human being. And feminism is a foundational part of diversity: if we’re talking about every single human being, we need to be talking about every single human being, including women and non-binary people. So, not only is this part of my values, it’s absolutely part of the Foundation’s mission.

Relations among the community, WMF staff, and the Board of Trustees became contentious at times. Aconsultant's reportpublished in 2020, meant to better organize WMF governance, recommended that communications between the Board and the ED should be strengthened and that the ED's office should be better staffed to handle the many challenges.

In a note to Wikipedians ondiff,Maher said "I’m going to take a break, and a research fellowship, as a place to think about what’s next."Axiosstated thatshe'll be moving to the United States east coast.

General Counsel Amanda Keton, Chief of Talent and Culture Robyn Arville, and Chief Financial Officer Jaime Villagomez will act as the executive transition team. The Transition Committee leading the search for Maher's replacement includes four trustees:Dariusz Jemielniak,Tanya Capuano,Raju Narisetti,and Board ChairMaría Sefidari.Viewcrest Advisorswill assist the committee's global search.

See thisformal announcement.

The Signpostwishes Katherine all the best. –S

Request for desysop discussion

TonyBallioniopened a discussion atWikipedia:Requests for comment/Desysop Policy (2021)on February 20 to streamline a process to remove administrators, driven more directly by the community. It has 126-80 support as of February 27.

Current procedures to remove an administrator on the English Wikipedia (desysop) are outlined atWP:Administrators § Review and removal of adminshipand do not include a direct path for the editors in the community to remove an administrator. Not counting procedural and reversible desysop due to inactivity, or desysops initiated by WMF which are counted in single digits, desysop virtually always happens through the admin's own request or by Arbcom action. Currently 146 of 512 currently-active admins, listed atCategory:Wikipedia administrators open to recall,have voluntarily specified their own ad-hoc criteria and procedures for desysop that they have pledged to follow. Thus over 70% of active admins are only removable by themselves or by Arbcom.

A new process has been a recurring topic on the English Wikipedia, with discussions going back to 2004 listed atWikipedia:Requests for de-adminship.A 2009 discussion to formalize the process,Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator/Admin Recall,resulted in a2010 RfCwhich failed: 167 for, 190 against; and a2019 RfCfailed to result in aprocedure [that] gathered enough support to be favored by a clear consensus.

Conditions outlined by the current RfC in order to initiate a desysop request include (condensed forThe Signpost):

• A recent AN or ANI discussionwhere the closing statement indicates that there was consensus that the administrator behaved inappropriately
• Endorsement by a qualifying number of editors, including three admins

The desysop will be performed by a bureaucrat if there is 60% support for removal at the end of a 7-day voting period. The word "vote" is not used in the initial RfC statement and it is being debated whether the proposed process will use a straight-up vote or adiscussionto determine the outcome. –B

Brief notes

• New administrators:The Signpostwelcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator,TJMSmith.

Reader comments

2021-02-28

A "billionaire battle" on Wikipedia: Sex, lies, and video

BySmallbones

Several billionaires – or more likely their paid representatives – appear to have edited Wikipedia according to an article inThe Wall Street Journaland in aninvestigation published inThe Signpost.Twoalleged sex offenders,Jeffrey EpsteinandGhislaine Maxwell,alsoappear to have edited Wikipedia.

Do these types of editors interact on Wikipedia? Do they have edit disputes with one another?The Signpostinvestigates these questions in the case of a "billionaire battle"between hedge fund manager,Louis Bacon,whose net worth was $1.5 billion in 2020 according toForbes,andPeter Nygard,a fashion executive who has been indicted on nine charges in New York, which include sex trafficking, money laundering, and racketeering.

Nygard never quite made it into the list of billionaires onForbes,but his net worth was estimated at $750 million in 2014.Today he is being held inWinnipeg,Manitoba, Canada, for extradition to the United States. He has been unable to raise bail and remains in jail.

Nygard's lawyer has denied all the charges against him.The Signpostreminds our readers that he should be considered innocent until any charges are proven in a court of law. We also remind you that the identities of Wikipedia editors can never be completely proven – even if they seem to have identified themselves. They may be spoofing or "Joe jobbing"in order to embarrass other people.

The rise and fall of Peter Nygard

Peter Nygard in 2016

Nygard emigrated with his parents from Finland to Canada when he was ten years old and entered the clothing business after graduating from university. He bought into a small firm in Winnipeg and then bought out his partners. His group of companies, headed byNygard International,grew to 165 retail outlets in the US and Canadaand also sold throughDillard'sandWalmartin the US.

Nygard's privateBoeing 727

He owned a home in California and in 1987 bought property in an exclusive gated community,Lyford Cayin the Bahamas. He built an immense Mayan-themed complex on the six acres of prime beach-front property which was later featured on the television showLifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Just over a year ago he might have still thought that he was living his dream life, as he flew to his various businesses and homes in a private Boeing 727 jet with an entourage of young women and under-age girls. The only fly in the ointment seemed to be a feudwith his neighbor in the Bahamas, billionaire Louis Bacon.

An argument over a shared driveway is reported to have started the feud, which grew into a legal dispute about Nygard's use of dredging to expand his land along the coast. Other accusations followed. Nygard accused Bacon of blasting out Nygard's parties with industrial-grade loudspeakers. Nygard accused Bacon of insider trading, arson, and even murder. He organized a demonstration against Bacon’s supposed membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Bacon, in turn, accused Nygard of planning his murder.

How do the very rich deal with disinformation being spread about them? One method is to file a lawsuit. According toThe New York Times,the two filed 25 lawsuits against each other in five jurisdictions.Bacon also took legal action in the UK against theWikimedia Foundationto force the WMF to help identify Wikipedia editors who he believed were defaming him. He won a UK court order, but could not get it enforced in the US. The WMF likely does not have the identifying information in any case.

On February 13, 2020, Nygard was sued by 10 "Jane Does"in civil court in New York, alleging rape. The lawsuit was widely viewed as the work of Bacon.Several dozen more accusers have since claimed that Nygard raped them. The rapes allegedly occurred from 1979 through 2020. Another alleged rape, reported in theWinnipeg Free Press,was said to have taken place around 1960 when Nygard and the unnamed woman were in high school.Several plaintiffs say they were minors when the alleged rapes occurred.

External videos
Peter Nygard: The Secret Videos,The Fifth Estate(CBC)
Former employee says Peter Nygard raped her on a business trip,The Fifth Estate(CBC)
Breaking Their Silence: These women say Peter Nygard raped them,The Fifth Estate(CBC)

On February 25, 2020, theFBIraided Nygard'sTimes Squareoffices in Manhattan. Nygard resigned the same day from his own companies, most of which soon filed for bankruptcy. By May they were being sold off in pieces to satisfy a mere $25-million debt. US federal prosecutors, on December 15 unsealed a nine count indictment against Nygard in the Southern District of New York,including allegations of sex trafficking, multiple cases of coerced sex with underage girls, coerced participation in orgies, racketeering, and money laundering. He was arrested in Winnipeg and held for extradition to the US. He has been unable to get bail and remains in jail. At age 79, his lawyers claim that he is broke, sick and dying.

Four accusers have been interviewed and shown in documentaries on theCanadian Broadcasting Company.They describe forcible rape that appears to have been planned beforehand. They speak at length and their identities are not hidden. The CBC also shows video from Nygard's personal videographer, who says that he has about 1,000 hours of video of Nygard.

Disinformation on Wikipedia

One pro-Nygard editor,User:NYGARD International,only edited the Peter Nygard article and only on October 30, 2007, making eights edits before they were quickly blocked for promotional editing. One of their edits completely rewrote the article with 3,116 words of promotional materialstarting

Most people talk aboutPeter J. Nygård,Chairman ofNYGÅRD(International),in terms of his classic rags-to-riches story – the Finnish immigrants' son, who stitched up an empire out of women's clothing and is now the quintessential self-made man. This story overlooks another side of Peter Nygård – a hard driven, demanding and subjective man who has created a standard of excellence for the Canadian Women's Fashion Industry, whose label is the #1 recognized label in the Canadian marketplace, and whose signature is recognized in fashion centres across the globe.`

While promotional edits are common on Wikipedia, few, if any, are so open, so non-encyclopedic, and so poorly written. The real disinformation about the Nygard/Bacon feud though began three years later after the CBC broadcast a documentary about Nygard's alleged harassment of his employees. Nygard responded in the courts by filing a criminal libel suit. He apparently responded on Wikipedia by attacking Bacon through several sockpuppet accounts and trying to delete every mention of the CBC documentary.

Bacon indicated that he wanted to start defamation proceedings against some Wikipedia editors by obtaining court orders from the high court in London to force three website owners – the WMF,WordPress,andThe Denver Post– to disclose the identities of contributors who Bacon believed defamed him, according toThe Guardian. The WMF could not be forced to provide the information without the intervention of a US court, and likely did not ever possess the required information.The Guardianreported the online names of the accused defamers as "gotbacon" and "TCasey82".

"Gotbacon" is not a registered Wikipedia username, but likely refers to the WordPress bloggotbaconwhich published between December 2010 and May 2011. It republished anti-Bacon material from little known websites, commented on Bacon and complained that the Wikipedia article on Louis Bacon was whitewashed. It was cited as a reference in 2011 by User:Crinock in the Louis Bacon article. Crinock was indefinitely blocked as a sockpuppet ofRK Drollingerin the same year. Another blocked sock of RK Drollinger,User:Rosi.anastasova,made five of their nine edits to the Louis Bacon article, deleting material reported in the 2010 CBC documentary.

User:TCasev82was asingle-purpose account(SPA) who made all 33 of their edits between May 2010 to February 2011 to the Louis Bacon article. They included anti-Bacon material and inserted an external link to thegotbaconblog.

User:Lbninternationalmade all 17 of their edits on November 15, 2011 to the Louis Bacon article before they were warned for abiography of living persons policyviolation:"Please stop trying to blackball Louis Bacon".They were then reported toWP:ANIwhere Louis Bacon's legal action against the WMF was discussed. Lbninternational has not edited since that time. One of their edits read "Although Lpuis Bacon [sic] is reportedly the 655th richest person in the world, there have been some bizarre stories linked to him such as this one in Business Insider "while linking to a story on an alleged murder.

Did Louis Bacon or his representatives respond to these edits on Wikipedia? Complaints sent to Wikipedia via theVolunteer Response Teamticket request system (better known as OTRS) are essentially private andThe Signpostdoes not have access to them, but it appears that Bacon complained about these and other edits through OTRS in 2011andagain in 2019.These requests appear to have been handled by administrators and experienced volunteer editors according to policy, mostly in favor of Bacon's position. In 2011 there were fewer reliable sources reporting on Nygard and regular Wikipedia editors took longer to decide matters, but most results favored Bacon.

In 2018 and 2019User:Candor777made a total of nine edits to the Nygard and Bacon articles, all of which favored Nygard. They edit warred to remove documented accusations against Nygard. They were warned about our rules onconflict of interestandpaidediting. Their edits were reverted and they stopped editing.

Conclusion

Two very rich men, one a billionaire, the other accused of multiple forcible rapes and multiple rapes of minors, may have battled on the pages of Wikipedia leading to a court ordering the WMF to identify our editors for inclusion in a defamation suit. This possibility should appall all Wikipedia readers and all Wikipedia editors. But did it happen that way?

Peter Nygard and Louis Bacon did conduct an off-wiki "billionaire battle" campaign of accusations and lawsuits against each other for a decade. Did the battle spill over onto Wikipedia? Bacon seemed to think so, having sought the court order to identify Wikipedia editors, and apparently complaining twice through OTRS about false information in Wikipedia articles.The Signpost,however, was unable to identify any article edits made by Bacon or his representatives.

Since the identities of Wikipedia editors can not be completely proven by their editing histories,The Signpostcan only say that there is a strong likelihood that Nygard or his representatives edited Wikipedia.User:NYGARD Internationalwas quickly blocked for their promotional editing to the Peter Nygard article.Gotbacon,a WordPress blog that attacked Bacon and complained that the Bacon article was whitewashed, connected several apparent Nygard editors, including User:TCasey82 and User:Crinock, both single-purpose accounts linked to the blog. Crinock was blocked for sockpuppeting connecting them to another sockpuppet account User:Rosi.anastasova, who also edited the article. Just before he stopped editing in 2011, SPA User:Lbninternational was warned by an administrator to "stop trying to blackball Louis Bacon". Eight years later, SPA User:Candor777 quit editing after they were warned about their editing.

Yes, it appears that Nygard or his representatives were continuing his off-wiki feud on Wikipedia.

References

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2021-02-28

The call for feedback on community seats is a distraction

ByAd Huikeshoven

The Wikimedia Foundation is taking away your freedom to elect community representatives to their board.

In 2017 some 5,500 contributors to Wikimedia projects elected three members to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation for a three year term. Their mandate ended nearly a year ago. The Board decided to extend their terms for a year. The ongoing pandemic was an excuse to postpone an election, yet the Board of Trustees launched a very intensive consultation with the community. This consultation is probably more time- and energy-consuming than an actual election.

They want to discuss changes to the way Trustees are selected. They aim at greater diversity. They have concerns about skills and experiences of community elected board members.

This consultation isn't the only ongoing consultation with the communities. There are a whole range of Global Conversations about implementation of the recommendations of the Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy process. And some other consultations are also running. One of the strategy recommendations – which is priority 1 – is to ensure equity in decision making. To include underrepresented voices in governance and to assure diversity, it was recommended to have a Global Council in the future. The Global Council would be a large body, representing the diversity of the movement.

There will be a Global Council at the earliest at the end of Wikimania 2022. Depending on your point of view that is either very far away, or pretty soon. In the interim, there will be an Interim Global Council to draft a Movement Charter and oversee the implementation of the strategy recommendations. The current timeline projects having an Interim Global Council seated in April or May 2021. That is pretty soon, and probably at the same time or even before new community representatives will be elected to the Board of Trustees.

The movement has recognized and acknowledged a lack of diversity of our representation in governing bodies over the past years, and has resolved this issue by proposing an (Interim) Global Council (IGC). The current call for feedback about community seats is not only badly timed – in the midst of a pandemic, on top of multiple other consultations, but also tries to seek to solve a problem – diversity – which has already been solved by having an IGC soon. And the board failed to integrate this consultation within the overall framework of conversations about implementation of strategy recommendations. Just like they failed at integrating the branding discussion within the strategy process.

The other part of the 'problem' the Board seeks to solve is with respect to skills and experiences. Five trustees on the board are selected by communities and affiliates from volunteers who contribute to Wikimedia projects. Those volunteers have multiple years of experience within the Wikimedia Movement, are skilled in editing Wikimedia projects, and skilled in contributing in other ways to the Wikimedia Movement. Most notably, those volunteers have taken initiatives both online and offline to organize projects and programs. It looks like the current board doesn't value these skills and experience as relevant to governing the Wikimedia Foundation.

Half the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation consist of appointed trustees chosen for their specific skills and experiences. Most of them aren't contributors to the Wikimedia projects. Most of them had no idea how Wikimedia projects function and operate, and are unaware how Wikimedia volunteers have organized themselves online and offline over the past.

Most notably there is a total lack of diversity among appointed trustees, most of them being US residents. The five volunteers on the board all speak different native tongues, and are all born in different countries, originating from four different parts of the world. The current diversity among community and affiliate seats is at a maximum given the number of available seats. If there is a diversity problem on the board, then it is within the appointed seats, not within the community seats.

In 2019 a woman from Ukraine (Eastern Europe) and a woman from Israel (Middle-East) were selected by affiliates to become board members. The call for feedback states as problem the election process favors men from the US and Western Europe. The latest election outcome fully contradicts this part of the problem statement.

The Board amended the bylaws in 2020. They proposed expanding the board from 10 to 16 seats. There will be even more appointed seats, not selected by contributors to Wikimedia projects, in the future. The call for feedback is restricted to community seats. The Board didn't ask the community for advice how to fill in the extra appointed seats they created.

What the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation actually does is mostly boring stuff. They have to read piles of paper, approve annual plans and annual budgets, review financial reports and go through tons of legal stuff. The board also does hire and fire the CEO or Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the person who actually leads the 450+ staff of the Wikimedia Foundation on a daily basis.

Apparently the Board sees an urgent need to hear from a voice from Africa. They created three extra appointed seats, and no one is blocking the Board to handpick someone from Africa to become one of the Trustees. And maybe another one from South-East Asia. Apparently they want someone on their board who has previous experience as CEO or Executive Director of a non-profit of comparable size working in the same field as the Wikimedia Foundation. No one is blocking the Board appointing Katherine Maher to the Board, as she has announced her departure as CEO/ED of the Wikimedia Foundation by April 15. All in all, this leaves ample room for the community and affiliates to select their representatives through their preferred method, that is by having a free and open election.

Apparently the Board has a dislike for elections, and wants to get rid of the system of election by the community and the affiliates of Trustees. In preparing this article I have reached out to all board members, asking them whether they would prefer appointment of parliamentarians rather than electing them by the people in their country. Some of the board members engaged in email conversation, and I raised more questions. The ensuing conversation stopped soon after the moment someone realized they were stepping out of line, and ranks were closed. I could get a quote from an official voice from the board. That quote ended up being 462 words long, not answering any of my questions directly.

The call for feedback about community seats proves the Board of Trustees is not capable of governing the Wikimedia movement, and the call for feedback on community seats is a distraction from the conversation on implementing the Wikimedia movement strategy recommendations. The Wikimedia movement has an urgent need of a Global Council inclusive of all Wikimedia project wiki communities.

Whether or not Wikimedia project wiki communities actually do support the creation of an (Interim) Global Council and drafting a Movement Charter, which are highly preferred by some people from Wikimedia affiliates, is a topic for a Signpost article in the future.

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2021-02-28

Corporate influence at OSM, Fox watching the hen house

BySmallbones

OpenStreetMap's digital gentrification

Inside the 'Wikipedia of Maps', Tensions Grow Over Corporate Influence(Bloomberg) examines "digital gentrification" ofOpenStreetMapwhich between 2015 and 2018 saw a sixfold increase in features edited by corporations, led by Apple. Lyft, Facebook, the International Red Cross, the U.N., the government of Nepal and Pokémon Go all depend on its data. In turn, "hundreds of millions of monthly users" depend on the organizations' use of the data. Commercial firms are protecting their investment in the data by editing and contributing more data. One startup,Mapbox,has raised $200 million to develop ways to format and transfer OSM data to its customers. Is this just another example of the benefits of crowdsourcing, or just another corporate takeover of the commons? "Hobby mappers" are worried that corporate representatives will be elected to the site's governance positions. Frederik Ramm, an OSM volunteer and consultant states "These companies don’t map for the same reasons we do, and because of that, I question deeply if our goals can align."

The last article on Wikipedia's COVID coverage? Not likely.

Wikipedia's Sprawling, Awe-Inspiring Coverage of the PandemicinThe New Republicjoins dozens, likely hundreds, of articles on Wikipedia's coverage of the COVID pandemic, the first of which was published 384 days ago inWiredby Omer Benjakob.

Though this ground has been thoroughly plowed, Shaan Sachdev inTNRreports with a different angle. He states that with 86 million pageviews "the Covid-19 pandemic (article) is in a two-way tie for the thirty-fourth most viewed Wikipedia article, ranking alongside Miley Cyrus. It isn’t far behind thirty-first place, which is currently a three-way tie between Taylor Swift, Star Wars, and China."

Some of the other articles that link toCOVID-19are listed (in no special order) as: Mink, Racism in China, Royal Australian Navy, Graffiti, Cockfight, and Ricky Martin. Ultimately almost all articles of this genre focus on Wikipedia's volunteer editors, as they should. Editors included in this article include Andrew Lih, Netha Hussain and Liam Wyatt.

Larry Sanger, Fox News, theDaily Mail,andThe Washington Timestake on Wikipedia's bias

Fox News interviewedLarry SangerinInside Wikipedia's leftist bias: socialism pages whitewashed, communist atrocities buried.Sanger's views on Wikipedia's "leftist bias" and chaotic governance have been well-known since 2007. Over the years he's made a few good points, for example his claims that Wikimedia Commons contained some child pornography, but Fox's claim that he told them that "many Wikipedia pages have become merely left-wing advocacy essays" is exaggerated. Bias is difficult to define without having a grasp of the range of views typically accepted within a population. Fox's hard right views do not define bias within the US. Wikipedia's editors come from many countries beyond the US that generally have views to the left of the US. Fox does score points when looking at Wikipedia's coverage of Communism. Coverage of genocide by Communist governments is all but missing on Wikipedia – even when we call it "mass killings".

• Fox gives a specific example of possible bias in another articleWikipedia restricts edits to Lincoln Project page amid sex scandal, claiming 'vandalism,as if there was no vandalism to the article.
• TheDaily Mailrepackages Fox's reporting on Sanger inWikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger slams the site's left wing 'woke' bias and claims its days of 'neutrality are long gone'.Needless to say, Fox's original is better.
• Co-founder says Wikipedia's neutrality 'long gone,' cites leftist biasinThe Washington Timessays "Sanger tweeted that leftist activists gradually move in 'to take control of any influential institution not explicitly conservative… and they just work harder, and in more subtle ways, on the ones that are explicitly conservative.'" The attribution to Sanger is questionable and makes him sound like a conspiracy theorist. Folks who question why these sources aren't considered reliable by Wikipedians need only read these articles.

Bias in political science articles

Wikipedia’s political science coverage is biased. I tried to fix it.inThe Washington Post.Samuel Baltz, a Ph.D. candidate at the U. of Michigan in political science and computing, spent a year trying to correct the biases he sees in Wikipedia articles on political science.

Could it be Valentine's Day?

This image of a flower got 90 million hits per day on Wikimedia servers after India banned TikTok

• Why Is This Flower on Wikipedia Suddenly Getting 90 Million Hits Per Day?published onVice.

In brief

• Wikidata for journalism and beyond:DataJournalism.comfrom publisherEuropean Journalism Centreand authorMonika Sengul-Jonesreport Wikimedia editors' views on how their Wikidata editing improves the media ecosystem for good journalism.
• Science fiction in Wikipedia's style:The science fiction community of theSCP Foundationis a non-Wikimedia wiki network that's growing in popularity. Wikipedia science fiction fans should like the recently published "Lena",in which the authorqntmpresents a story in the format of a Wikipedia article written some time after 2073. The article is roughly about a brain scan and the "first immortal". It is copyrighted so cannot be used to update Wikipedia in real time.
• Wikimedia CEO: Technology could be used for great harm:Katherine Maher has a 25 minute interview withAl Jazeera.
• Happy hump day:A Wikipedia page appears as an easter egg... or trolling?... fromHenry Cavill.(Yahoo! News)
• Turkey's pro-gov't media still trying to get Wikipedia bannedby Wikipedian John Lubbock. "Turkey's pro-government media have not given up accusing Wikipedia of various crimes."
• Click!on the BBC includes an interview with Jimmy Wales.
• EditathononEDSA Revolution-related topics hosted byWiki Society of the Philippines(Philippine Daily Inquirer)
• IDF Asks Wikipedia to Edit 'Hezbollah' Entry to Reflect Terror Designation(The Jerusalem Post)
• Myanmar blocks Wikipedia in all languages(India TV)
• Someone at Apple is editing ZZ Top's Wikipedia articles(iMore)

• Digital Unionism is Generally is Quite Newinterview onWikiProject Labor's edit-a-thon. Read theirreport back.(netzpolitik.org)

After the birthday party

• World in Progress: Wikipedia's past, present and future - extended interview:(audio)Deutsche Welleinterviews Dr. Bernie Hogan from theOxford Internet Institute.
• An Oral History of Wikipedia, the Web’s Encyclopedia:Tom Roston inOneZeroconducts extensive interviews includingJimmy Wales,Larry Sanger,Katherine Maher,Andrew Lih,Britta Gustafson,Magnus ManskeandJeremy Rosenfeld.
• The Economist:Readers responding toThe Economist's extensive coverageof Wikipedia's 20th birthday had very interesting comments, including these two:

Anyone who has ever tried to correct errors in a Wikipedia entry, only to find them repeatedly reinserted by other contributors with a competing agenda, will attest to the site's unreliability. Even counting on Wikipedia as a repository of basic information, such as names, dates and places, is a crap shoot. Perhaps the vast majority of its articles are indeed accurate, but which ones constitute that majority, and at what point in time? Literally no one knows; it has become so vast that moderating its millions of entries in any comprehensive way would be impossible. This is how the site is designed to work.

— b.e.

Wikipedia may be unique online because it "sells no advertising". However, it does provide a free platform for companies to display their corporate messages, written by their marketing departments. Are these true statements vetted by Wikipedia? No. Wikipedia also has a devil’s bargain with Google. No matter what you search for on Google, from "cats" to "Catullus", Wikipedia is positioned first. If you do enter "cats", to learn about the animal, you get what reads like a Wikipedia advertorial for the movie "Cats".

— p.t.

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 theNewsroomor leave a tip on thesuggestions page.

Reader comments

2021-02-28

Who tells your story on Wikipedia

ByJaneen Uzzell

Janeen Uzzell is the Chief Operating Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation. This piece was originally published on February 22, 2021, atWikimedia Foundation News.It is licensedCC-BY SA.

Growing up, my father was the storyteller of our family. He would use stories to encourage me, to remind me of how important it was to be proud of who I am, to teach me about our family history, and to make me laugh.

Before I knew enough to ask questions, I was soaking up the stories of my father and his brothers who were populardoo-wop recording artists,hearing him talk about how he met and married my mother, and how he and his siblings grew up in the South and moved north during theGreat Migration.

This was history, but it had never been written down. Instead, it was weaved into family tales and songs, and then passed along from generation to generation. As I grew up, I learned that our family tradition of storytelling was part of our cultural legacy as Black Americans. We grew up telling stories because many of our great grandparents and great great grandparents weren’t able to or allowed to read. Our stories were our way of passing down our history, cementing our legacy, sharing knowledge and bridging our past to our present.

As I grew up, I learned that our family tradition of storytelling was part of our cultural legacy as Black Americans.

The power of storytelling hasn't changed, even if storytelling platforms have evolved in a more digitally-connected world. Numerous cultures around the world, from Native American Indians to African communities on the Continent and beyond, continue to share knowledge through oral storytelling. Stories are how we share information. And information shapes how we perceive everything around us.

The rise of open technology and mobile connectivity has made information even more accessible across the globe. This year, asWikipedia celebrates its 20th birthday,there is no clearer example of the power of open knowledge for all than the free encyclopedia that has become one of the most visited websites in the world. For many of us, Wikipedia is our first stop when we want to learn about the world. It is often a top search result when you look for information, and it drives the responses you hear when you ask your voice assistant a question.

Wikipedia is only as powerful as the people who participate.

As I write this piece, Wikipedia has over 55 million articles in 300 languages – created by a global network of hundreds of thousands of volunteers. English Wikipedia, our first and largest language Wikipedia, recently recorded its billionth edit. Last year, as countries around the world went on lockdown in March and April, we saw week after week ofrecord-breaking numbersof people visiting Wikipedia to learn more about COVID-19 in 188 languages. In August, SenatorKamala Harris's Wikipedia biography wasviewed nearly 8.6 million timesin the 48 hours after she was announced as a candidate for vice president of the United States. All of this content is driven by the work of volunteer contributors around the world, who give their time and their expertise to share knowledge with the world. Amazing.

But Wikipedia is only as powerful as the people who participate. It's not just about the knowledge recorded on Wikipedia's pages, but about who writes it. To paraphrase from myfavorite musical,who tells your story matters.

When the information on Wikipedia does not represent the full diversity of our knowledge, when the contributors to Wikipedia do not reflect the world that we live in, we all miss out.

By design, we have limited demographic information about who edits Wikipedia, because we take the privacy of our readers and contributors very seriously. However, our research does show that most editors to Wikipedia come from the United States and Western Europe. And, as of 2020, our survey data indicate that fewer than 1% of Wikipedia's editor base in the U.S. identify as Black or African American. Considering these data, we can say with certainty that we are missing important perspectives from the world that Wikipedia strives to serve.

When the information on Wikipedia does not represent the full diversity of our knowledge, when the contributors to Wikipedia do not reflect the world that we live in, we all miss out.

The gaps on Wikipedia also highlight a larger issue across the information ecosystem. After all, Wikipedia is a tertiary source, powered by other reliable sources. If major media outlets aren't giving equal coverage to topics such as women in STEM, or to milestones in Black history, for example, then there will be no Wikipedia article on those topics, because there will be no citations to build from.

I believe this challenge is also an opportunity, particularly as we see increasing awareness about the disparity in diverse voices across our society. This is a chance to drive real, sustainable change.

The technology we build needs to be founded on values of participation and access for all.

We can do this by building intentional practices of openness and equity into our work. As platforms and organizations, we need to make sure that we are not upholding unequal structures of power. The technology we build needs to be founded on values of participation and access for all.

Within the Wikimedia movement, we are focused on knowledge equity – the just and equal representation of knowledge and people – as part of our work to decide the future of our movement. Knowledge equity means that we will work to address historical gaps and provide support to our communities to create a more thriving movement, one that is a better reflection of our world.

For equity to matter, it needs to be more than a declaration – it needs to be a measurement.

As the non-profitWikimedia Foundation,which operates Wikipedia and12 other free knowledge projects,we've also started adding equity measurements to our work. When our different departments report out on theirOKRs– their objectives and key results, which is how we track the work we do – we are evaluating equity in our products, the experiences we're creating, the organizations we choose to partner with, and the stories we tell. For equity to matter, it needs to be more than a declaration – it needs to be a measurement.

I am passionate about changing the stories we hear, about creating a future where the stories we share are more representative of the world we live in. After all, Black history is an essential facet of our collective history. This is the promise of Wikipedia, but we're not there yet.

Black history is an essential facet of our collective history. This is the promise of Wikipedia, but we're not there yet.

I invite you all to join us, to contribute your knowledge to Wikipedia to build our global history, together. Follow us onsocial mediaall month to learn about important milestones in Black history and heroes that celebrate the Black experience. Share your own ideas using #WikiBlackHistory. Orjoin an edit-a-thonthis month to contribute your knowledge to Wikipedia. But please don't stop there. Stay in touch: follow me on Twitter at@janeenuzzell,and let's continue to expand the content on Wikipedia. Who tells your story matters. It's time for us to tell ours.

Reader comments

2021-02-28

Take an AI-generated flashcard quiz about Wikipedia; Wikipedia's anti-feudalism

ByTilman BayerandMiriam Redi

A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, also published as theWikimedia Research Newsletter.

"WikiFlash: Generating Flashcards from Wikipedia Articles"

Reviewed byTilman Bayer

Flashcardsare a popular method for memorizing information. A paperby six Zurich-based researchers, presented earlier this month at the annualAAAIconference, describes a tool to automatically extract flashcards from Wikipedia articles, aiming "to make independent education more attractive to a broader audience."

A proof-of-concept version isavailable online,with results available for export in a format that can be used with the popular flashcard softwareAnki.User can choose from four different variants based on either the entire Wikipedia article or just its introductory section.

The researchers emphasize that "generating meaningful flashcards from an arbitrary piece of text is not a trivial problem" (also concerning the computational effort), and that there is currently no single model that can do this. They separate the task into four stages, each making use of existingNLPtechniques:

• summarization, to first extract the most relevant information from Wikipedia (the user can also choose to have this step skipped and instead generate flashcards based on the full text)
• answer identification, where a model extracts answer statements from a given sentence based on context information from the surrounding paragraph
• question generation, where a model constructs a question from the statement generated in the previous step, again taking context information from the surrounding paragraph into account
• To improve quality, these are followed by a final filtering step, where a question-answeringmodel tries to reconstruct the answer based on the paragraph from which the question was extracted, and the generated flashcard is discarded if the reconstructed answer does not overlap enough with the pre-generated answer.

Apart from evaluating the results using quantitative text measures, the researchers also conducted a user study to compare the output of their tool to human-generated flashcards from two topic areas, geography and history, rated by helpfulness, comprehensibility and perceived correctness. The "results show that in the case of geography there is no statistically meaningful difference between human-created and our cards for either of the three aspects. For history, the difference for helpfulness and comprehensibility is statistically significant (p < 0.01), with human cards being marginally better than our cards. Neither category revealed a statistically significant difference in perceived correctness." (However, the sample was rather small, with 50Mechanical Turkusers split into two groups for geography and history.)

A quick test of the tool with the articleWikipedia(introduction only) yielded the following result (text reproduced without changes):

Question:What does Wikipedia use to maintain it's [sic] content?

Answer
wiki-based editing system

Question:In 2021, where was Wikipedia ranked?

Answer
13th

Question:What language was Wikipedia initially available in?

Answer
English

Question:How many articles are in English version of Wikipedia [sic] as of February 2021?

Answer
6.3 million

Question:Who hosts Wikipedia?

Answer
Wikimedia Foundation

Question:Whose vision didTimemagazine believe made Wikipedia the best encyclopedia in the world?

Answer
Jimmy Wales

Question:What is a systemic bias on Wikipedia?

Answer
gender bias

Question:What did Wikipedia receive praise for in the 2010s?

Answer
unique structure, culture, and absence of commercial bias

Question:What two social media sites announced in 2018 that they would help users detect fake news by suggesting links to related Wikipedia articles?

Answer
Facebook and YouTube

Briefly

• See thepage of the monthlyWikimedia Research Showcasefor videos and slides of past presentations.
• @WikiResearch,the Twitter feed associated with this monthly research update,celebratedits ninth anniversary today. Over the past 9 years, we have shared on average 1.9 tweets per day about Wikimedia-related research. The feed is also available in syndicated form onFacebookandMastodon.

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.

Compiled byTilman BayerandMiriam Redi

Wikipedia's "sophisticated democracy" resists the "implicit feudalism" of online communities

A paper inNew Media & Societyargues that

"[...] an 'implicit feudalism' informs the available options for community management on the dominant platforms for online communities. It is a pattern that grants user-administrators absolutist reign over their fiefdoms, with competition among them as the primary mechanism for quality control, typically under rules set by platform companies.

[...] the online encyclopedia Wikipedia operates through a sophisticated democracy among active volunteers. Wikipedia also possesses a widely acknowledged benevolent dictator in the person of founder Jimmy Wales [...] Implicit feudalism has reigned over the dominant platforms for online communities so far, from the early BBSes to AI-enabled Facebook Groups. Peer-production practices surrounding free/open-source software and Wikipedia also exhibit it.

[....] The feudal pattern has by and large been written into the default behaviors of online-community platforms. Exceptions like Wikipedia andDebianhave required considerable, intentional effort to counteract the implicit feudalism of their tools’ defaults. "

"Most scientific articles cited by Wikipedia articles are uncited or untested by subsequent studies"

From the abstract:

"Using a novel technique, a massive database of qualitatively described citations, and machine learning algorithms, we analyzed 1 923 575 Wikipedia articles which cited a total of 824 298 scientific articles in our database and found that most scientific articles cited by Wikipedia articles are uncited or untested by subsequent studies, and the remainder show a wide variability in contradicting or supporting evidence. Additionally, we analyzed 51 804 643 scientific articles from journals indexed in theWeb of Scienceand found that similarly most were uncited or untested by subsequent studies, while the remainder show a wide variability in contradicting or supporting evidence. "

"HopRetriever: Retrieve Hops over Wikipedia to Answer Complex Questions"

From the abstract:

"Collecting supporting evidence from large corpora of text (e.g., Wikipedia) is of great challenge for open-domain Question Answering (QA). Especially, for multi-hop open-domain QA, scattered evidence pieces are required to be gathered together to support the answer extraction. In this paper, we propose a new retrieval target, hop, to collect the hidden reasoning evidence from Wikipedia for complex question answering. Specifically, the hop in this paper is defined as the combination of a hyperlink and the corresponding outbound link document."

(See also the above review of the "WikiFlash" paper presented at the same conference)

"Structured Knowledge: Have we made progress? An extrinsic study of KB [knowledge base] coverage over 19 years"

From the abstract:

"... we employ question answering and entity summarization as extrinsic use cases for a longitudinal study of the progress of KB coverage. Our analysis shows a near-continuous improvement of two popular KBs, DBpedia and Wikidata, over the last 19 years, with little signs of flattening out or leveling off."

See also thevideo recordingof a talk by the authors at Wikidata Workshop 2020.

"A Review of Public Datasets in Question Answering Research"

Presented at the ACMSpecial Interest Group on Information Retrieval(SIGIR) forum last December, this paperfound that the majority ofQuestion Answering(QA) datasets are based on Wikipedia data.

Wikipedia has "become more popular in research on knowledge representation and natural language processing" in recent years

From the "Evaluation" section of an AAAI'21 paper titled "Identifying Used Methods and Datasets in Scientific Publications":

"Figure 4c shows the absolute amount of publications for the top four extracted datasets. [...] Another trend is visible for Wikipedia, which has become popular in research on knowledge representation and natural language processing."

"SF-QA: Simple and Fair Evaluation Library for Open-domain Question Answering"

The contributions of this paperinclude

"a hub of pre-indexed Wikipedia [dumps, of the English and Chinese language versions] at different years with different ranking algorithms as public APIs or cached results". The authors note that "Opendomain QA datasets are collected at different time, making [them depend] on different versions of Wikipedia as the correct knowledge source. [...] Our experiments found that a system’s performance can vary greatly when using the wrong version of Wikipedia. Moreover, indexing the entire Wikipedia with neural methods is expensive, so it is hard for researchers to utilize others’ new rankers in their future research."

"The Truth is Out There: Investigating Conspiracy Theories in Text Generation"

This preprintincludes a dataset consisting of 17 conspiracy theory topics from Wikipedia (including e.g. the articlesDeath of Marilyn Monroe,Men in black,Sandy Hook school shooting) and comes with acontent warning( "Note: This paper contains examples of potentially offensive conspiracy theory text" ).

"Spontaneous versus interaction-driven burstiness in human dynamics: The case of Wikipedia edit history"

From the abstract:

"[We analyze] the Wikipedia edit history to see how spontaneous individual editors are in initiating bursty periods of editing, i.e., spontaneous burstiness, and to what extent individual behaviors are driven by interaction with other editors in those periods, i.e., interaction-driven burstiness. We quantify the degree of initiative (DOI) of an editor of interest in each Wikipedia article by using the statistics of bursty periods containing the editor's edits. The integrated value of the DOI over all relevant timescales reveals which is dominant between spontaneous and interaction-driven burstiness. We empirically find that this value tends to be larger for weaker temporal correlations in the editor's editing behavior and/or stronger editorial correlations. These empirical findings are successfully confirmed by deriving an analytic form of the DOI from a model capturing the essential features of the edit sequence."

(See also ourearlier coverageof research on editors' burstiness)

References

Reader comments

2021-02-28

A Love of Knowledge, for Valentine's Day

ByAdam Cuerden

Vernon E. Jordanis the subject of one of the new featured pictures in this rather truncated Featured Content Report.

---

ThisSignpost"Featured content" report covers material promoted from 1 January through 9 January. Quotes are generally from the articles, but may be abridged or simplified for length.

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I do feel my attempts to have relevant titles related to monthly holidays is getting increasingly desperate, but, well, here we are. It's either that or we go with the list off a few random things featured in the list, which seems fine on occasion, but does get a bit repetitive if done every month. And I struggle enough to avoid getting my biases into this when it's just down to which articles get images - for the record, the rule is: if it has a good-quality, freely-licensed image, directly relevant to the article (so no sister ships of the same design, no stadiums where a game took place on a different day, and so on), it goes in if at all possible. I then rearrange the lists to try to hve enough text between each image that they don't start pushing down the one below them, with taller images (as they take up more vertical space) ideally getting cut first if there's too many. Still means that "good quality image" might have some bias, but it's about as fair as I can manage. I don't love the idea of having to choose which articles and images to highlight as well, which puts in all sorts of extra bias.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of the articles are bad or anything. But Wikipedia isn't a group that came together to share interests I selected, we came to try to cover the sum of human knowledge. The things that interest me most aren't going to be the things that interest you most, and I'm writing for you, dear reader, not for me.

This one is, unfortunately, quite short, because yourSignpostwriter is dealing with quite a few personal issues connected to his country locking down yet again. Maybe we should just cancel 2021. The last time I remember being unambiguously happy was back in February 2020, when I went to theKirkcaldyGilbert and Sullivan Society brilliant performance ofThe Gondolierswhich, although I didn't know it at the time, would be the last live theatre I'd get to go to before everything shut down, cancelling a whole host of plans. The theatres shut down so abruptly that theEdinburgh Gilbert and Sullivan Societyhad brought in the sets and begun the tech rehearsals forPatienceon stage, which would have had a performance had the theatres stayed open one more day.Edinburgh is a major theatre town - it hosts theEdinburgh Festival,has at least eight major theatres, and a lot more if you're willing to travel half an hour by train, and it's felt like the city's been dead for some time now.

-Adam.

Featured articles

Elevenfeatured articleswere promoted this period.

1265, Rome:Charles I of Anjouis installed asKing of Sicily.

Charles I of Anjou,nominated byBorsoka

Charles I (early 1226/1227 – 7 January 1285), commonly called Charles of Anjou, was a member of the royalCapetian dynastyand the founder of thesecond House of Anjou.He wasCount of Provence(1246–85) andForcalquier(1246–48, 1256–85) in theHoly Roman Empire,Count of AnjouandMaine(1246–85) in France; he was alsoKing of Sicily(1266–85) andPrince of Achaea(1278–85). In 1272, he was proclaimedKing of Albania;and in 1277 he purchased a claim to theKingdom of Jerusalem.

The youngest son ofLouis VIII of FranceandBlanche of Castile,Charles was destined for a Church career until the early 1240s. He acquired Provence and Forcalquier through his marriage to their heiress,Beatrice.His attempts to restore central authority brought him into conflict with his mother-in-law,Beatrice of Savoy,and the nobility. Charles received Anjou and Maine from his brother,Louis IX of France,inappanage.He accompanied Louis during theSeventh CrusadetoEgypt.Shortly after he returned to Provence in 1250, Charles forced three wealthy autonomous cities—Marseilles,ArlesandAvignon—to acknowledge his suzerainty.

Charles forced the rebelliousProvençalnobles and towns into submission and expanded his suzerainty over a dozen towns and lordships in theKingdom of Arles.In 1263, after years of negotiations, he accepted the offer of theHoly Seeto seize theKingdom of Sicilyfrom theHohenstaufens.This kingdom included, in addition to the island ofSicily,southern Italy to well north of Naples and was known as the Regno.

Charles was crowned king in Rome on 5 January 1266. Heannihilated Manfred's armyand occupied the Regno almost without resistance. In 1270 he took part in theEighth Crusadeorganized by Louis IX, and forced theHafsid Caliph of Tunisto pay a yearly tribute to him. Charles' victories secured his undisputed leadership among the Papacy's Italian partisans (known asGuelphs), but his influence onpapal electionsand his strong military presence in Italy disturbed the popes. They tried to channel his ambitions towards other territories and assisted him in acquiring claims to Achaea, Jerusalem and Arles through treaties. In 1281Pope Martin IVauthorised Charles to launch a crusade against theByzantine Empire.Charles' ships were gathering atMessina,ready to begin the campaign when a riot—known as theSicilian Vespers—broke out on 30March 1282 which put an end to Charles' rule on the island of Sicily. He was able to defend the mainland territories (or theKingdom of Naples) with the support of France and the Holy See. Charles died while making preparations for an invasion of Sicily.

1920–21 Cardiff City F.C. season,nominated byKosack

The 1920–21 season was the 20th year of competitive football played byCardiff City F.C.and the team's first in theFootball League.In a ballot by members of their new league, Cardiff were voted into theSecond Divisionand won their first match 5–2 againstStockport County.Cardiff finished the season tied on points with first-placedBirmingham,with 58 of a possible 84 points. The winner was therefore decided viagoal average,with Cardiff placing second by a margin of 0.235. The two sides were both promoted to theFirst Division.

Cardiff also reached the semi-final of theFA Cup,becoming the first Welsh side to do so and keeping six consecutiveclean sheetsin the process. The team caused twoupsetsby defeating First Division sidesSunderlandandChelseain the first and fourth rounds respectively. They were eliminated from the competition by fellow Second Division sideWolverhampton Wanderers,losing 3–1 in areplayatOld Trafford.In theWelsh Cup,Cardiff were the holders entering the competition but were eliminated in the third round byPontypriddafter a fixture clash with a league match againstBristol Cityforced them to field a reserve side.

Frances Gertrude McGill,nominated byAlanna the Brave

Frances Gertrude McGill (November 18, 1882 – January 21, 1959) was aCanadianforensic pathologist,criminologist,bacteriologist,allergologistandallergist.Nicknamed "theSherlock Holmesof Saskatchewan "for her deductive skills and public fame, McGill influenced the development of forensic pathology in Canadian police work and was internationally noted for her expertise in the subject.

After completing her medical degree at theUniversity of Manitobain 1915, McGill moved toSaskatchewan,where she was hired first as the provincialbacteriologistand then as the provincialpathologist.She worked extensively with theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police(RCMP) and local police forces for more than thirty years, and was instrumental in establishing the first RCMP forensic laboratory. She directed the RCMP laboratory for three years, and trained new RCMP recruits in forensic detection methods. After retiring in 1946, McGill was appointed Honorary Surgeon for the RCMP by the CanadianMinister of Justice,becoming one of the first official female members of the force, and she continued to act as a consultant to the RCMP until her death in 1959.

Alongside her pathological work, McGill operated a private medical practice for the diagnosis and treatment of allergies. She was acknowledged as a specialist in allergy testing, and doctors across Saskatchewan referred patients to her care.

Printed copy of "O Captain! My Captain!" with revision notes by Whitman, 1888

"O Captain! My Captain!",nominated byEddie891

"O Captain! My Captain!" is anextended metaphorpoemwritten byWalt Whitmanin 1865 about thedeathof U.S. PresidentAbraham Lincoln.Immediately successful, the poem was Whitman's first to be anthologized and the most popular during his lifetime. Together with "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd","Hush'd Be the Camps To-day",and"This Dust was Once the Man",it is one of four poems written by Whitman about the death of Lincoln. During theAmerican Civil War,Whitman moved toWashington, D.C.,where he worked for the government and volunteered at hospitals. Although he never met Lincoln, Whitman felt a connection to him and was greatly moved by Lincoln's assassination. "My Captain" was first published inThe Saturday Presson November 4, 1865, and appeared inSequel to Drum-Tapslater that year. He later included it in the collectionLeaves of Grassand recited the poem at several lectures on Lincoln's death.

Stylistically, the poem is uncharacteristic of Whitman's poetry because of its rhyming, song-like flow, and simple "ship of state"metaphor. These elements likely contributed to the poem's initial positive reception and popularity, with many celebrating it as one of the greatest American works of poetry. Critical opinion has shifted since the mid-20th century, with scholars deriding its conventionality and unoriginality. In popular culture, the poem experienced renewed attention after it was featured inDead Poets Society(1989), and is frequently associated withRobin Williams.

Podokesaurus,nominated byFunkMonk

Podokesaurusis agenusofcoelophysoiddinosaurthat lived in what is now the eastern United States during theEarly JurassicPeriod. The first fossil was discovered by the geologistMignon TalbotnearMount Holyoke,Massachusetts,in 1910. The specimen was fragmentary, preserving much of the body, limbs, and tail. In 1911, Talbot described and named the new genus and speciesPodokesaurus holyokensisbased on it. The full name can be translated as "swift-footed lizard of Holyoke". This discovery made Talbot the first woman to find and describe a dinosaur. Theholotypefossil was recognised as significant and was studied by other researchers, but was lost when the building it was kept in burned down in 1917; no unequivocalPodokesaurusspecimens have since been discovered.

Estimated to have been about 1 m (3 ft) in length and 1–40 kg (2–90 lb) in weight,Podokesauruswas lightly constructed withhollow bones,and would have been similar toCoelophysis,being slender, long-necked, and with sharp, recurved teeth. Since it was one of few smalltheropodsknown at the time it was described, theaffinitiesofPodokesauruswere long unclear. It was placed in thefamilyPodokesauridae along with other small theropods, and was speculated to have been similar to aproto-bird.It was suggested it was asynonymofCoelophysisand a natural cast specimen was assigned to it, but these ideas are not currently accepted. The family Podokesauridae is not in use anymore, having been replaced by Coelophysidae, andPodokesaurusis thought to have been a coelophysoid. As such,Podokesauruswould have been a fleet-footed predator, with powerful forelimbs and grasping hands. It is estimated it could have run at 15–20 km/h (9–12 mph).Podokesaurusis thought to have been collected from thePortland Formation,the age of which has long been unclear, but is currently believed todateto theHettangian-Sinemurianstages of the Early Jurassic, between 201 and 190 million years ago.

Malesmooth newtduring its land phase

Smooth newt,nominated byTylototriton

The smooth newt, northern smooth newt or common newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) is a species ofnewt.It is widespread in much of Eurasia, from theBritish IslestoSiberiaand northern Kazakhstan, andintroducedto Australia. Individuals are brown with an orange to white, spotted underside and reach a length of 8–11 cm (3.1–4.3 in), with males being larger than females. The skin is dry and velvety while the newts live on land but becomes smooth when theymigrateinto water for breeding. Breeding males develop a more vivid colour pattern and a conspicuous skin seam (crest) on their back.

Smooth newts live on land for most of the year, where they are mostlynocturnaland hide during the day. They can adapt to a wide range of natural or semi-naturalhabitats,from forests over field edges to parks and gardens. The newts feed mainly on variousinvertebratessuch as insects or earthworms and are themselves eaten by predators such as fish, birds or snakes. Between spring and summer, they breed inpondsor similar water bodies. Males court females with a ritualised underwaterdisplay.Females then lay their eggs on water plants, and larvae hatch after 10 to 20 days. They develop over around three months beforemetamorphosinginto terrestrial juveniles (efts). Maturity is reached after two to three years, and adults can reach an age of up to 14 years.

The smooth newt is common over much of its range and classified asLeast Concernspecies by theIUCN.It is however negatively affected by habitatdestructionandfragmentationand the introduction of fish. Like other European amphibians, it is listed in theBerne Conventionas a protected species.

SMSGneisenau,nominated byParsecboy

SMSGneisenauwas anarmored cruiserof theGermanKaiserliche Marine(Imperial Navy), part of the two-shipScharnhorstclass.Named for the earlierscrew corvetteof the same name,the ship waslaid downin June 1904 at theAG Wesershipyard inBremen,launchedin June 1906, andcommissionedin March 1908. She was armed with a main battery of eight 21 cm (8.3 in) guns, a significant increase in firepower over earlier German armored cruisers, and she had a top speed of 22.5 knots (42 km/h; 26 mph).Gneisenauinitially served with the German fleet inI Scouting Group,though her service there was limited owing to the British development of thebattlecruiserby 1909, which the less powerful armored cruisers could not effectively combat.

Accordingly,Gneisenauwas assigned to the GermanEast Asia Squadron,where she joined hersister shipScharnhorst.The two cruisers formed the core of the squadron, which included severallight cruisers.Over the next four years,Gneisenaupatrolled Germany's colonial possessions in Asia and the Pacific Ocean. She also toured foreign ports toshow the flagand monitored events in China during theXinhai Revolutionin 1911. Following the outbreak ofWorld War Iin July 1914, the East Asia Squadron, under the command ofVice AdmiralMaximilian von Spee,crossed the Pacific to the western coast of South America, stopping forGneisenauandScharnhorstto attackFrench Polynesiain theBombardment of Papeetein September.

After arriving off the coast of Chile, the East Asia Squadron encountered and defeated a British squadron at theBattle of Coronel;during the action,Gneisenaudisabled the British armored cruiserHMSMonmouth,which was then sunk by the German light cruiserNürnberg.The defeat prompted the BritishAdmiraltyto detach two battlecruisers to hunt down and destroy Spee's squadron, which they accomplished at theBattle of the Falkland Islandson 8 December 1914.Gneisenauwas sunk with heavy loss of life, though 187 of her crew were rescued by the British.

Poll Tax receipt for Rosa Boyles of Jefferson County, Alabama, October 22, 1920

Women's poll tax repeal movement,nominated bySusunW

The women's poll tax repeal movement was amovementin the United States predominantly led by women that attempted to secure the abolition ofpoll taxas a prerequisite for voting in theSouthern states.The movement began shortly after the ratification in 1920 of theNineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,which granted suffrage to women. Before obtaining theright to vote,women were not obliged to pay the tax, but shortly after the Nineteenth Amendment became law, Southern states began examining how poll tax statutes could be applied to women. For example,NorthandSouth Carolinaexempted women from payment of the tax, whileGeorgiadid not require women to pay it unless theyregistered to vote.In other Southern states, the tax was due cumulatively for each year someone had been eligible to vote.

Payment of the tax was difficult for blacks, Hispanics, and women, primarily because their incomes were much lower than those of white men. For women,covertureprevented them from controlling their own assets. Recognizing that payment of the tax as a prerequisite to voting could lead to their disenfranchisement, women began organizing themselves in the 1920s to repeal the poll tax laws, but the movement did not gain much traction until theGreat Depressionin the 1930s. Both black and white women pressed at state and national levels for legislative action to abolish laws that required paying to vote. In addition, women filed a series of lawsuits to try to effect change. By the 1950s, the intersection of sexist and racist customs and law was apparent to those fighting the poll tax. This created collaborations between activists involved in the poll tax movement and those active in the broadercivil rights movement.

Louisianaabandoned its poll tax law in 1932, and the number of women voters increased by 77 percent. Women's activism helped bring about the repeal of poll tax legislation inFloridain 1937, in Georgia in 1945, inTennesseein 1953, and inArkansasin 1964. That year, theTwenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitutionwas passed, prohibiting poll taxes as a barrier to voting in federal elections. Passage of theVoting Rights Act of 1965gave federal authority to theDepartment of Justiceto institute lawsuits against the four states that still used poll tax to disenfranchise voters in state elections. TheSupreme Courtfinally settled the four-decades-long struggle, abolishing the requirement to pay poll tax to be able to vote in any election, federal or state, in their ruling onHarper v. Virginia State Board of Electionsin 1966.

"Blindfold Me",nominated byAoba47

"Blindfold Me" is ahip hopsong by American singerKelisfrom her fourth studio album,Kelis Was Here(2006). It was written and produced bySean GarrettandPolow da Don.Aremix,featuring American rapperNas,was released as the album's second single in September 2006. Althoughthe Neptuneswere long-time collaborators of Kelis,Kelis Was Herewas her first album without their involvement as she opted for a more diverse team ofrecord producers,which included Garrett and Polow da Don.

The song's lyrics focus onsex talk.Along with hip hop, music critics associated the track's style withpop rapandclub music.Upon its release, "Blindfold Me" received a mixed response. While some critics cited it as a highlight fromKelis Was Hereand enjoyed Kelis's sexual personality, others criticized its placement on the album's track listing as resulting in a jarring tonal shift.

Marc Klasfelddirected the song's music video, which features Nastying upKelis. Premiering September 6, 2006, the video was shown on an episode of the documentary seriesAccess Grantedalongside a behind-the-scenes feature. The song was further promoted with a12-inch single,released on October 3, 2006. "Blindfold Me" peaked at number 91 onBillboard'sHot R&B/Hip-Hop Songschart.

William Feiner,nominated byErgo Sum

William Feiner,S.J.(born Wilhelm Feiner; December 27, 1792 – June 9, 1829) was a GermanCatholicpriest andJesuitwho became amissionaryto the United States and eventually the president ofGeorgetown College.

Born inMünster,he taught in Jesuit schools in theRussian Empireand PolishGaliciaas a young member of theSociety of Jesus.He then emigrated to the United States several years after therestoration of the Society,taking up pastoral work and teachingtheologyinConewago, Pennsylvania,before becoming a full-time professor at Georgetown College. There, he also became the second dedicated librarian ofGeorgetown's libraryand ministered to the congregation atHoly Trinity Church.Eventually, Feiner becamepresident of the collegein 1826.

Despite being the leader of an American university, he never mastered the English language. Long plagued by poor health due totuberculosis,his short-lived presidency came to an end after three years, just weeks before his death.

Acamptonectes,nominated byFunkMonk,Lythronaxargestes,Slate Weasel,andJens Lallensack

Acamptonectesis agenusofophthalmosauridichthyosaur,a type of dolphin-likemarine reptilethat lived during theEarly Cretaceousaround 130 million years ago. The genus contains the singlespeciesAcamptonectes densus;Acamptonectesmeaning "rigid swimmer" anddensusmeaning "compact" or "tightly packed". This refers to unusual adaptations in the body ofAcamptonectesthat made its trunk rigid, including tightly-fitting bones in theocciput(braincase) and interlocking vertebral centra ( "bodies" of the vertebrae), which were likely adaptations that enabled it to swim at high speeds witha tuna-like form of locomotion.Other distinguishing characteristics include an extremely slender snout and unique ridges on thebasioccipitalbone of the braincase. As an ichthyosaur,Acamptonecteshad largeeye socketsand atail fluke.Its teeth, which were slender and textured with longitudinal ridges, were adapted for impaling prey, which suggests it likely fed on soft, fleshy prey such as fish and squid.

The discovery ofAcamptonecteshad significant implications for the evolutionary history of ichthyosaurs. It was long believed thegeneralisedplatypterygiineophthalmosaurids were the only lineage of ichthyosaurs that survived into the Early Cretaceous following amass extinctionof ichthyosaurs across theJurassic–Cretaceousboundary. As one of the first-known ophthalmosaurine ophthalmosaurids from the Early Cretaceous, the discovery ofAcamptonectesprovided evidence against such a mass extinction.

Featured pictures

Tenfeatured pictureswere promoted this period, including the images of two sets.

• 
  Desert rose,byDidier Descouens
• 
  Vernon Jordanworking on aVoter Education Projectat theSouthern Regional CouncilinAtlanta,by Warren K. Leffler; restored byAdam Cuerden
• 
  Buddy Hield,byChristopherM01

• Set: Kefelmarkt altarpiece byUoaei1
• 
  Kefermarkt altarpiece,upper panel of the right wing
• 
  Kefermarkt altarpiece, upper panel of the left wing
• 
  Kefermarkt altarpiece, lower panel of the right wing
• 
  Kefermarkt altarpiece, lower panel of the left wing

• Set: Raspberries, byIvar Leidus
• 
  Raspberry
• 
  Halved raspberry
• 
  Many raspberries

Featured lists

Fivefeatured listswere promoted this period. This does not include one that was included in last month's issue to complete a set.

TheBaker Street robberywas an audacious heist in 1971 which netted the criminals an estimated £3 million (equivalent to £54 million in 2023). They tunnelled into a vault below aLloyds Bankbranch from a shop two doors down the road. It was organised by a syndicate of five people and whilst there were three arrests, only one of the ringleaders was caught.

List of heists in the United Kingdom,nominated byMujinga

A heist is atheftof cash or valuable objects such as artworks, jewellery or bullion. This can take the form of either aburglaryor arobbery,the difference inEnglish and Welsh lawbeing that a robbery uses force (which means that some of the heists commonly known as robberies were actually burglaries). In order to be listed here, each heist which took place in the United Kingdom is required to have taken a total sum of £1 million or more in cash or goods at contemporary rates.

The largest heist was the almost £300 million taken in theCity bonds robbery,although bothCharles Darwin's notebooks (announced as having been most likely stolen in 2020) and thePortland Tiara(stolen in 2018) have never been valued. The locations of the heists vary. Railway trains were plundered in theGreat Gold Robberyand theGreat Train Robberyand in 1935 there was a robbery at theCroydon Aerodrome.Exhibition spaces such as theAshmolean Museum,theChrist Church Picture Gallery,theHarley Gallery,theNational Galleryand theWhitworth Art Gallery,and stately homes such asBlenheim Palace,Drumlanrig Castle,Ramsbury ManorandWaddesdon Manorhave all suffered losses.Graffjewellery shops in London have been attacked several times, alongside other shops inBond StreetandHatton Garden.Banks, secure warehouses and vaults were targeted in the cases of theBrink's-Mat robbery,theHatton Garden safe deposit burglary,theKnightsbridge Security Deposit robbery,theNorthern Bank Robberyand theSecuritas depot robbery.Regarding artworks, thePortrait of Jacob de Gheyn IIIbyRembrandthas been stolen a total of four times. Other paintings subject to theft include works byCézanne,GoyaandHenry Moore.The perpetrators range from individuals such asKempton Buntonto syndicates like thePink Panthers.

Taylor Swift singles discography,nominated byHĐ

American singer-songwriterTaylor Swifthas released 58singlesas lead artist, five singles as a featured artist, 14promotional singles,and various charted non-single songs. She had sold over 150 million singles worldwide by December 2016. TheRecording Industry Association of America(RIAA) recognized Swift as the best-selling female artist (and second overall) in terms of digital singles sales, with 134 million certified units based on sales and on-demand streaming as of November 2020. Her UK singles sales as of August 2019 stood at 17 million. She has amassed 128 chart entries on the USBillboardHot 100—the most entries for a female artist—including seven number ones and 29 top tens.

Malbork Castlewas built by theTeutonic Knights,a German Roman Catholicreligious orderofcrusaders,after the seat of the Grand Master was moved to Malbork from Venice in 1309. The castle is a classic example of a medieval castle inBrick Gothicstyle. It was damaged during World War II but later carefully restored. It isone of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Poland.

List of World Heritage Sites in Poland,nominated byTone

TheUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO)World Heritage Sitesare places of importance toculturalornatural heritageas described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972.Polandaccepted the convention on 29 June 1976, making its historical sites eligible for inclusion on the list.

As of 2020,there are 16 World Heritages Sites in Poland, 15 of which are cultural, and one, theBiałowieża Forest,is a natural site. The first two sites were inscribed on the World Heritage List wereWieliczka Salt MineandHistoric Centre of Kraków,in 1978. The most recent addition to the list is theKrzemionki Prehistoric Striped Flint Mining Region,listed in 2019. Three of the sites are transnational. The Białowieża Forest is shared with Belarus, theWooden Tserkvas of Carpathian Regionwith Ukraine, and theMuskauer Park / Park Mużakowskiwith Germany. In addition, there are six sites on the tentative list.

List of World Heritage Sites in Switzerland,nominated byTone

As of 2020, there are twelve properties in Switzerland inscribed on the World Heritage List, nine of which are cultural sites and three are natural sites. The first three sites were added to the list in 1983:Old City of Berne,Abbey of Saint Gall,andBenedictine Abbey of St. John at Müstair.The most recent addition was theThe Architectural Work of Le Corbusier,in 2016. Four sites are shared with other countries. TheRhaetian RailwayandMonte San Giorgioare shared with Italy,Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alpswith five countries, and The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier with six countries. There are also two sites on the tentative list.

List of pinnipeds,nominated byPresN

Pinnipediais aninfraorderofmammalsin theorderCarnivora,composed of seals,sea lions,and thewalrus.A member of this group is called a pinniped or a seal. They are widespread throughout the ocean and some larger lakes, primarily in colder waters. Pinnipeds range in size from the 1.1 m (3 ft 7 in) and 50 kg (110 lb)Baikal sealto the 6 m (20 ft) and 3,700 kg (8,200 lb) malesouthern elephant seal,which is also the largest member of Carnivora. Several species exhibitsexual dimorphism,such as the southern elephant seal, where the males can be more than three times as long and six times as massive as the females, or theRoss seal,which has females typically larger than the males. Four seal species are estimated to have over one million members, while seven are classified asendangeredwith population counts as low as 300, and two, theCaribbean monk sealand theJapanese sea lion,went extinct in the 20th century.

The 34 extant species of Pinnipedia are split into 22generawithin 3families:Odobenidae,comprising the walrus;Otariidae,the eared seals, split between the sea lions andfur seals;andPhocidae,the earless or true seals. Odobenidae and Otariidae are combined into thesuperfamilyOtarioidea,with Phocidae in Phocoidea. Extinct species have also been placed into the three extant families, as well as the extinct familyDesmatophocidae,though most extinct species have not been categorized into a subfamily. Nearly one hundred extinct Pinnipedia species have been discovered, though due to ongoing research and discoveries the exact number and categorization is not fixed.

Five pinniped species,clockwise from top left:New Zealand fur seal(Arctocephalus forsteri),southern elephant seal(Mirounga leonina),Steller sea lion(Eumetopias jubatus),walrus(Odobenus rosmarus), andgrey seal(Halichoerus grypus). Apparently,herpestidsare finally out of fashion in the featured content report, and pinnipeds are "in".

Reader comments

2021-02-28

Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

ByIgordebraga,Benmite,Mcrsftdog,TheConflux

This traffic report is adapted from theTop 25 Report,prepared with commentary byIgordebraga,Benmite,Mcrsftdog,andTheConflux.

January 2021 almost felt like the 13th month of 2020, and February is slowly trying to convey some change - the so-called "new normal" can't go away any time sooner, as we just want our lives back to when we didn't know what "COVID" meant. In any case, there was death, streaming shows and movies, political turmoil, band breakups, and a Super Bowl not played onGroundhog Daybut still having a repeated result.

Hangin' on here until I'm gone (January 31 to February 6)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (January 31 to February 6, 2021)

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes/about
1	Dustin Diamond		2,122,339		After becoming the target of a death hoax back in October of last year, Screech fromSaved by the Bellactually died this week at just 44 years old due tolung cancer.Although his legacy as an actor mostly started and ended with Screech (unless you happen to one of the very few fans ofAlumnus Guy #1orMan in Outhouse), he earned a different reputation for his various mishaps over the years, such as filing for bankruptcy and getting arrested for pulling out aswitchbladein a bar.
2	Royal Rumble (2021)		1,819,392		WWE continues to host events without an audience, withBianca Belair(pictured) andEdgewinning the main cards.
3	Christopher Plummer		1,669,358		A Canadian actor who was more than deserving of the top spot on this list and was the oldest person to win an Oscar, Plummer starred in all sorts of hit films, fromThe Sound of MusictoKnives Out.Given he died so late in the week, his viewcount was too low to surpass that of Royal Rumble.
4	Marjorie Taylor Greene		1,353,813		US Representative known for her support ofQAnonand other conspiracy theories, including one in which the California wildfires were caused by "Jewish space lasers".She was recently stripped of her committee roles in Congress by all Democrats and eleven Republicans. This is unrelated, but whenever her name is shortened in the media to" MTG, "I can't stop interpreting it asMagic: The Gathering.
5	WandaVision		1,286,940		The firstMarvel Cinematic Universeshow onDisney+continues to surprise viewers, this time witha very unexpected cameo.
6	Marilyn Manson		1,156,506		One of the most infamousshock rockerssaw his reputation fall apart after various women came out with sexual abuse stories following a social media statement by his ex-fiancéEvan Rachel Woodthat he abused andgroomedher, leading to him being dropped by his label, his agent, andtwoshows.
7	Captain Tom		1,069,212		Few centenarians do as much for the world before they leave as thisBritish Armyveteran, who last year started raising money for charity and inspired the recording of a #1 hit and Queen Elizabeth to knight him, among other things. Captain Sir Thomas Moore passed away two months before he would turn 101.
8	The Dig(2021 film)		965,743		While many would be frustrated that this is not based onthe 1995 LucasArts adventure game,this Netflix adaptation of abookretelling about an archeological excavation in Sutton Hoo prior to World War II is certainly a good story, but one that brought plenty of people to Wikipedia to check how things actually went.
9	Sutton Hoo		965,046
10	Deaths in 2021		942,957		As #6 sung when we thought he was just weird: Sampled and soulless, worldwide and real webbed You sell all the living for more safer dead

Sports Go Sports (February 7 to 13)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 7 to 13, 2021)

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes/about
1	Tom Brady		3,976,246		We can now make a correction to that infamous quote: "In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and Tom Brady's team winning at the Super Bowl." Tom Brady, who, with the Buccaneers (#15), won Super Bowl LV (#5), has now been a part of the winning team at the Super Bowlseven times.That's more years than most players will ever even make it to the Super Bowl. That's more years than some people even spend in the NFL at all. Tom Brady winning at the Super Bowl has become an American tradition. Hundreds of millions of people have been born and hundreds of millions have died in between Tom Brady's first win and this last one. If Tom Brady winning was a child, it would only be a year older than his daughter. Maybe Tom Brady will never stop winning the Super Bowl until he's dead...But what if Tom Brady never dies? What if he just keeps winning and winning?Is the way the world ends? Not with a bang, but with Tom Brady throwing a football?
2	The Weeknd		2,192,986		The singer (not to be confused withThe Wee KND) gave a perfectly okay halftime performance dedicated to Vegas nightlife (his music is dedicated to cocaine, so it makes sense) at the Super Bowl. There were people in red suits and face bandages bumping into each other in a narrow hallway -- hope they got the vaccine! -- people in red suits and face bandages dancing on the field, and The Weeknd in a red suit. Something tells me he's trying to cultivate a specific image, but I can't put my bandage on it. He also paid tribute toThe Blair Witch Projectby gettingentirely too close to the camera. Also, did they only invite him to perform so that they could say it was a "Super Bowl Weeknd"? I doubt it, but that's not stopping me from pointing out that missed opportunity.
3	Rob Gronkowski		1,842,208		If you ever want a nickname that doesn't make you sound like a big oaf, maybe avoid using something that sounds like an onomatopoeia used to describe a piano falling on someone's head, like "*GRONK!*". Anyway, Gronk here is the tight end for the Buccaneers, and won the big game.
4	Patrick Mahomes		1,520,572		He won last year's Super Bowl, and to the chagrin of everyone who wanted anyone but our #1 winning it all, couldn't repeat the feat.
5	Death of Elisa Lam		1,290,053		I'm starting to thinkNetflixis going through every brief true crime phase I had in high school to adapt each one into a miniseries. First they did it withLuka Magnotta,and now they've madeCrime Scene,a series uncovering the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of this Canadian student. She was found dead in a water tank at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles (#7) completely naked and with few ways to actually get into the tank. To make matters weirder, Lam was seen acting especially erratic in the hotel elevator in a surveillance video that went viral, which you can find in the article itself.
6	WandaVision		1,272,590		Hopefully those who didn't like the first three episodes for being sendoffs to old sitcoms remained to see how the show is now about a dangerous grieving superpowered women trapping a town in sendoffs to old sitcoms.
7	Cecil Hotel (Los Angeles)		1,166,664		Ms. Lam wasn't the first person to kick the can at this eerie hotel by a long shot. In fact, so many people died here that that fact alone has its own Wikipedia article.
8	Super Bowl LV		1,144,592		This country will never be unified until Tom Brady stops winning Super Bowls!
9	Rajiv Kapoor		1,135,987		TheKapoor family,so present in Bollywood, lost this member who had just completed his acting return.
10	Gina Carano		1,086,939		The former MMA champ and actress got dropped from her role asCara Duneon the ever-popularDisney+seriesThe Mandalorianafter she made a post on Instagram suggesting that the way Jews were treated during the Holocaust was akin to the way conservatives are being treated in modern-day America. Strange, since the onlyconcentration camps in Americathat I've heard about as of late wereendorsed by those very same conservatives. This isn't her first brush with controversy, either: she's been openly anti-BLM,has made transphobic remarks, has advocated for not wearing masks, and is a Trump voter fraud truther. I would be pretty bummed about losing such a sweet role, but then again, I'm Jewish and left-wing, so maybe I shouldn't empathize with her for saying something so patently stupid.

Hush, hush, thought I heard her calling my name now (February 14 to 20)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 14 to 20, 2021)

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes/about
1	Rush Limbaugh		2,235,167		Limbaugh, a wildly successful talk radio host and iconoclastic conservative figure, passed away this last Wednesday. Online discourse was divided; some people insisted onnot speaking ill of the dead,while others wanted to hold theircrab raveand bring up Limbaugh's many misdeeds – includingspeaking ill of gay people that had died of AIDS.
2	Death of Elisa Lam		1,444,914		"An irresponsible, bloated mess";"ghoulish and unsavoury";"wallowing in pseudo-science and non-science".The reviews for Netflix's new docuseriesCrime Scenewere quite charitable. Lam went missing while staying at Los Angeles's Cecil Hotel, a spot which was already infamous for a legacy of homicide and seedy behavior, in February 2013. A security video showed her behaving erratically in an elevator; a month later, she was found dead in the hotel's water tank. This mysterious death is the subject ofCrime Scene,released February 10. As mentioned before, the series has earned itself less fans than the hotel where she died. Plus, it apparentlylacks positive role models.
3	WandaVision		1,356,722		ThisDisney+series, the first installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2019, has delivered week after week of twists – the latest being the introduction of a clear antagonist.
4	Agatha Harkness		1,318,728
5	Naomi Osaka		1,310,372		Osaka won thewomen's singles tournament at the Australian Open,which took place over the week. Along the way, she defeatedAmerica's only celebrity tennis player,andthen another one.
6	Cecil Hotel (Los Angeles)		1,123,320		The scary setting of any retelling of #2.
7	List of deaths and violence at the Cecil Hotel		973,285
8	Deaths in 2021		836,959		And them good ol' boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye Singin', "This'll be the day that I die"
9	Ted Cruz		812,763		This week, Texas was hit by aonce-in-a-generation winter storm.Everyone turning up their heaters, coupled with most power suppliers freezing, strained the state's power infrastructure, causingwidespread blackouts.Dozens of deaths have been reported so far. GovernorAbbottblamed the not-enacted-by-any-governmentGreen New Deal,the mayor ofColorado Citytold his constituents to stop looking for handouts, and Senator Cruz took his family on vacation toCancún. After getting caught, Cruz booked the first flight home and explained that he was only escorting his preteen daughters to a resort theyinsistedon going to.
10	Valentine's Day		748,353		This holiday, adored by the lovers and scorned by the single, fell upon us once again at the top of this week. Users wondered, as they do every year, what St. Valentine did to earn him this day, only to discover that there are two different guys and, like, twenty different stories that itmightbe dedicated to, and half of them don't even have to do with love. If you were alone on Valentine's Day this year, well, you had an excuse there's a deadly pandemic. Anyway, a happyAnna Howard Shaw Dayto us all!

Ever, After, Work is Over (February 21 to 27)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 21 to 27, 2021)

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes/about
1	Daft Punk		1.719.463		The French robot-masked dance music duo - known foran animated feature-length music video,thesoundtrack toTron Legacy,and thesong of the summer c. 2013- posted a video titled "Epilogue" on Monday; showing one of the robots blowing the other up. This was followed by a statement from their publicist that they had broken up.
2	WandaVision		1.468.772		Along with digging deeper into what led to all those sitcom pastiches, this week's episode marked a first in the Marvel Cinematic Universe:Wanda Maximoffwas finally referred to asScarlet Witch!
3	Bobby Shmurda		1.140.286		Shmurda had aBillboardTop 10 hitin 2014; by the end of the year, he was arrested forconspiracy to murder.He spent 7 years in prison, being released on parole on Tuesday.
4	Deaths in 2021		957.196		Best use a lyric by our #1 duo: But suddenly I feel the shining sun Before I knew it this dream was all gone
5	I Care a Lot		933.332		I Care a Lot! About Netflix movies that keep people glued to their screen (I care a lot) About the elders being scammed in a guardianship routine I care a lot! About the mafia threats thatDianne Wiestbrought I care a lot! AboutPeter DinklageandRosamund Pike,they really rock I care a lot!
6	Agatha Harkness		916.937		#2's main antagonist, a witch played byKathryn Hahn,who in the first episodes was disguised as Wanda's nosy neighbor Agnes.
7	Tiger Woods		913.790		Woods was hospitalized following a car accident on Tuesday. According to the news, he's back in "good spirits."
8	Zitkala-Sa		851.153		This early-20th-centuryYankton Dakotaactivist and author was born on February 22, 1876. For her birthday, she was commemorated by a Google Doodle.
9	Shailene Woodley		761.766		This actress finally confirmed she is the fiancéAaron Rodgersreferred to during the NFL awards.
10	Elimination Chamber (2021)		689.700		This annual WWE event was held inSt. Petersburg, Florida,on Sunday.

Exclusions

• These lists exclude the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such asredlinks), 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 theTop 25 Report talk pageif you wish.

Reader comments

2021-02-28

What is Black history and culture?

BySmallbones

What is Black history and culture? The story of an enslaved people who freed themselves. The sounds of poetry, oratory, and music. A long parade of workers, soldiers, artists, musicians, scholars, athletes, judges, and politicians; men and women peacefully marching right into the centers of political power. That is the story I see on Wikimedia Commons, much more than 27 images can illustrate.

Welcome, National Museum of Africa American History and Culture, 2016.Anthony Foxxreads the poemI, ToobyLangston Hughes

• 
  Slave dance, 1780s
• 
  Head of a NegrobyJohn Singleton Copley,c, 1777
• 
  The Rev.Absalom Jonespainted byRaphael Peale,1810
• 
  Jack,1850
• 
  Dred Scott,c.1857
• 
  The Bone PlayerbyWilliam Sidney Mount,1857
• 
  Whipped Peter,c. 1863
• 
  Gordon,soon after he escaped slavery by entering Union lines, 1863
• 
  Flag of the 22nd Regiment, United States Colored Troops with the mottoSic Semper Tyrannis,1865
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  Sojourner Truth,1870

W.E.B. DuBoiswith his wife Nina and daughter Yolande, 1901

Louis Armstrong,1953

External videos
West End Blues,Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five

External videos
Stormy Weather,Lena Horne

Stormy WeatherfeaturingLena HorneandBill Robinson,1943

• 
  African American families watch boats on the Suwannee River c 1950
• 
  Six year oldRuby Bridgesdesegregatinga schoolin New Orleans with the protection of US marshals, 1960

Bayard Rustinwith children, 1964

External videos
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,Gil Scott-Heron

External audio
March on Washington, 15 hours of radio coverage,8/28/1963, Educational Radio Network
Dr. King's speech begins at 1:30,8/28/1963, Educational Radio Network

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.at theMarch on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,1963

• 
  Malcolm X,1964
• 
  Thurgood Marshall,1956, byBetsy Graves Reyneau

• 
  Jim Brown,1959
• 
  Roberto Clemente,1966
• 
  Bill RussellguardsWilt Chamberlain,1969

• 
  Sergeant Margaret Herrera and First LadyMichelle Obama,2009
• 
  Ruby Bridgesand PresidentBarack Obamaview the paintingThe Problem We All Live With,2011

Vice-PresidentKamala Harris,2021

References

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