Wikimedia Endowment: the long wait for transparency

As part of its 19 January 2023 meeting, the Wikimedia Endowment Board led by Jimmy Wales approved the minutes of its 21 July 2022 meeting. These minutes, posted on Meta-Wiki on 11 February 2023, shed fresh light on developments at the Endowment, established in January 2016 as a "Collective Action Fund" at the Tides Foundation.

Endowment budget: $1.8 million in annual expenses for 2022–2023

The minutes of the 21 July 2022 meeting provide some welcome information on Endowment expenses. They inform us that –

... the Board of Directors approve[d] the proposed annual budget for the 2022-­23 fiscal year, consisting of $10 million of forecasted revenue and $1,803,622 of expenses for the Endowment.

As far as The Signpost is aware, this marks the first time in more than seven years that the Endowment Board has published any figure at all for expenses paid from the Endowment fund.

In the past the Board's minutes almost never mentioned expenditure. What mentions there were lacked specificity:

• "Fees at Tides are very competitive, and it doesn’t make sense at the moment to change investment managers." (July 2019)
• "Approval given for moving forward on these items: Q1 (2020): Renegotiate our fees with Tides" (January 2020)
• "The Foundation is asking the Endowment to cover the costs of legal work to investigate a future legal structure for the Endowment." (July 2020)

So the naming of an actual dollar amount is a welcome departure from past practice. A WMF spokesperson has since provided further information on this planned spending on Meta-Wiki:

The 1.8 million USD earmarked for expenses includes personnel, equipment, and other administrative services including fundraising costs, human resources, information-services, clerical, finance, and legal services.

This appears to imply that the Endowment has its own personnel costs rather than relying on WMF personnel paid by the WMF, as Wikimedia Enterprise does.

In addition to this planned expenditure, the minutes for the July 2022 meeting also indicate that –

The Board considered proposals for a grantmaking strategy. Board directed staff to develop proposals for grantees for a total up to $5.7M in the area of technical innovation.

It will be interesting to hear more about these proposed grantees in due course.

The wait for the new 501(c)(3) will be longer still ...

The Wikimedia Foundation reported in late October 2022 that it had received IRS approval for its new 501(c)(3) non-profit (see previous Signpost coverage). The newly created organisation is designed to take over management of the Endowment and begin regular financial reporting for it, as mandated by US non-profit law.

The minutes now published reveal that IRS approval was in fact received four months before the public announcement. The WMF has since clarified the date: 28 June 2022. Signpost readers will recall that the WMF said back in April 2021 that the Endowment would be moved –

... in its entirety to this new entity once the new charity receives its IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter.

More than eight months have now passed since this determination letter was received. Yet the Endowment continues to be with the Tides Foundation, where its revenue and expenditure are completely opaque – there are no audited financial reports, no Form 990, and we literally have no idea how much money the people managing the Endowment have spent and on what. And apparently more months will pass still before this changes. A WMF spokesperson advised on 2 March 2023 that the WMF is –

... actively working on the steps necessary to set up the Endowment’s strategic and operational policies and systems to ensure a smooth transition of the Endowment funds and their management. We expect the transfer will take place in a matter of months. We will inform you when it has taken place.

WMF promises that the Endowment would soon be transferred to its own 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation and begin financial reporting date back to 2017 (see previous Signpost coverage). The end of the long wait for financial transparency is still not in sight.

The Endowment's investment value has decreased

According to the minutes, the Endowment raised $13,537,126 from 601,584 donations in the year from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022. This is likely to have included a number of planned gifts – for the past two years, money left to the Wikimedia Foundation in people's wills has been redirected to the Endowment at Tides instead.

The Endowment's investment value stood at $95.2 million on 30 June 2022. Six months prior, at the January 2022 Endowment board meeting, it was reported that the Endowment held $105.4 million ($99.33 million in the investment account and $6.07 million in cash) as of 31 December 2021, with an additional $8 million raised in December 2021 due to be transferred to it in January 2022.

Like the Foundation's own investment portfolio, Endowment investments were probably impacted by the 2022 stock market decline. The S&P 500, a common benchmark for U.S. investments, fell by more than 20% in the first half of 2022 (from $4,766.18 on 31 December 2021 to $3,785.38 on 30 June 2022, according to Google Finance).

Questions asked a week ago about the current total value of the Endowment (investment value plus cash) remain unanswered at the time of publication.

Brief notes

• Russia fine: Reuters reports that the Wikimedia Foundation has once again been fined by Russia. For detailed coverage see this issue's In the media section.
• Annual reports: Tanzania User Group, Democratic Republic of Congo User Group, Wikimedia Norway.
• Impact report: Wikimedia Serbia.
• Global bans: ByteOr, believed to have used dozens of accounts for vandalism.
• Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement is island, to be followed by manufacturing on the 6th, and food on the 13th. Please be bold in helping improve these articles!

Russia fines Wikipedia for failing to toe the party line on the Ukraine War

As reported by Ars Technica, Yahoo News, Reuters and no doubt many other places, Russia has once again fined Wikipedia for not following the Kremlin's official narrative on the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the third fine so levied since the invasion began last year. The 2 million ruble fine (about $27,000 USD) is for failure to comply with takedown requests. The other fines, for 5 million and 2 million rubles, were for failing to delete Russian-language articles on the topics Russian Invasions of Ukraine (2022), Battle for Kyiv, War Crimes during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Shelling of Hospital in Mariupol, Bombing of the Mariupol Theater, Massacre in Bucha, Non-violent resistance of Ukraine's civilian population in the course of Russia's invasion, and Evaluations of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The Wikimedia Foundation has promised to not give in to Russia's pressure, though it's not clear from any of the articles whether they're going to pay up.

In brief

• Jimmy Wales interview: The Telegraph has an interview with Jimmy Wales in which he rather stupidly says: "So, you know, I'm not particularly woke. I'm quite sleepy." Given woke is a reference to being alert to discrimination and prejudice, why is he so eager to say that he (and Wikipedia as a whole) aren't woke? This Signpost contributor would like us to be aware of bias, discrimination, and prejudice.
• Sue Gardner among critics of proposed media law in Canada: As reported by NiemanLab, a bill that would force search engines and other such media companies linking to news to pay the creators of that news in Canada is opposed by Sue Gardner and others. Modelled after an Australian bill, it frankly seems to neglect the point of search engines.
• Does Wikipedia distort the role of Poland in the Holocaust?: In response to the accusations and rebuttals we covered last issue and the ArbCom case sprung up in response, we have coverage from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, republished in The Times of Israel, and Der Spiegel and Berliner Zeitung also get in on it. For more on the Grabowski/Klein essay that sparked this story, see Recent research in this issue of The Signpost.
• Glasgow looks back on Wikipedia's one millionth article: GlasgowLive looks back on Jordanhill railway station, Wikipedia's one millionth article.
• Another paid editing service: The Magazine Plus reports on yet another clandestine service offering a "valuable asset" – "to establish [weasels individuals] as thought leaders, experts, or influencers" who have for some inexplicable reason been overlooked by the encyclopedia up till now.
• Annie Rauwerda continues to be awesome; newspapers agree: Annie Rauwerda, of Depths of Wikipedia fame, and also winner of 2022's "Media Contributor of the Year" at the last Wikimania, is covered in the Nashville Scene article "Depths of Wikipedia’s Annie Rauwerda Is Obsessed With Accessible Information".
• Apparently we suck: An article by "a senior Brexiteer who has seen Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and others at close quarters" in conservative UK magazine The Critic brings up potentially-interesting-if-true claims about an editor sockpuppetting (provable) in a supposed attempt to hide controversial aspects of a UK academic (not-so-provable), then goes on to attack us all as a bunch of lefties working against every conservative politician ever. BLP issues (the portrayal of the academic is pretty much a smear campaign) prevent us saying much more.
• Slow progress: The Evening Standard reports that women "now" (they're actually citing a 2021 report) make up 15% of Wikipedia editors, up from 13% over a decade ago. The Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines, whose adoption the Board is about to consider, also get a mention in the piece.
• DuckDuckGo, OpenAI and Anthropic to launch Wikipedia-based AI tool: "DuckAssist" will "pull from Wikipedia (as well as Encyclopedia Britannica in some instances) to provide a natural language response to your questions", reports Engadget.
• Anonymous: Taiwan News reports that as part of its latest hack involving a Chinese weather balloon, Anonymous has taken Wikipedia to task for "allegedly underrepresenting women in its articles, having a 'spending cancer,' engaging in deletionism, and committing POV skewing. It also accused Wikipedia of failing to adequately support two Wikipedia Arabic editors, Osama Khalid and Ziyad al-Sofiani, who have been imprisoned by the Saudi government for 'swaying public opinion' and 'violating public morals'." A similar Anonymous hack in October last year was reportedly carried out in response to a "Chinese information operation" targeting Wikipedia content.

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

"Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the Holocaust"

Reviewed by Nathan TeBlunthuis

English-language Wikipedia, so influential in shaping collective memory in today's world, has been presenting systematically misleading information about Nazi Germany’s genocide of the European Jews, by "whitewash[ing] the role of Polish society in the Holocaust and bolster[ing] stereotypes about Jews." Showing this is the important contribution of "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust,"^[1] a scholarly essay by Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein published in The Journal of Holocaust Research. In the past few weeks, this publication has already sparked a response including media coverage and a new arbitration case. This review's purpose is to summarize the essay and its contributions and to reflect on its merits and significance, and it will not engage the widespread debates in this area more than necessary (see also coverage in this and the previous issue of The Signpost).

Grabowski and Klein's central claim is twofold. First, Wikipedia articles often support a narrative of Holocaust distortion (not denial) with four elements: (1) overstating the suffering of Poles in comparison to Jews during World War II, (2) understating Polish antisemitism and Nazi collaboration while overemphasizing the rescue of Jews by Poles, (3) insinuating that Jews "bear responsibility for their own persecution" because of their communism and/or greed, and (4) exaggerating the role of Jewish-Nazi collaboration. The result misrepresents the Polish nation's role in the Holocaust and contradicts mainstream historiography, as Grabowski and Klein show by citing prior scholarship.

Grabowski and Klein provide very strong support for this first claim, that Wikipedia bolsters each form of distortion. They offer myriad examples where articles ranging from Stawiski, Warsaw Concentration Camp, Naliboki massacre, History of the Jews in Poland, Collaboration with the Axis Powers, to Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust, and Polish Righteous among the Nations have supported the distortion narrative by including claims backed by dubious sources or overemphasizing facts aligned with the distortion narrative while ignoring or underemphasizing facts that do not support it. Many of the errors Grabowski and Klein identify, and their role in the narrative, are not obvious to non-experts, and so an important contribution of this scholarship is to make the pattern of distortion clear.

Wikipedia's distorted coverage is harmful, Grabowski and Klein persuasively argue, because "Wikipedia plays a critical role in informing the public about the Holocaust in Poland." It is important that Wikipedia not reproduce it because misremembering the Holocaust can increase the risk of future antisemitic violence and genocide. Many Poles believe elements of the distortion narrative which Poland's current government has taken legal and administrative steps (e.g., creating monuments for apocryphal Poles who rescued Jews) to popularize. To be clear, critiques of distortion do not blame the Polish for the Holocaust. No one is confused that Nazi Germany is at fault. Still, Grabowski and Klein cite evidence that Polish antisemitism was common during, before, and after WWII, and that Poles (without direct Nazi coercion) committed atrocities against Jews during the war as well as afterward when Jews returned to Poland and attempted to reclaim their stolen property. Although they are not entirely clear about why distortion is popular, this juxtaposition suggests that it relieves a sense of national guilt.

The second part of Grabowski and Klein’s thesis is that a small group of committed Wikipedians "with a Polish nationalist bent" have persistently and successfully defended both the distortion narrative's claims and sources advancing it. The essay argues that these editors are substantially responsible for the observed distortion pattern, citing article diffs, excerpts from on-wiki discussions, and edit counts. It also relies on interviews with some of the editors that it describes as "distortionists", their opponents, and involved Wikipedia administrators.

Grabowski and Klein persuasively argue that these editors heavily worked on Wikipedia articles that (typically in versions from early 2022) included the four types of distortion, and in doing so often cited uncredible sources that contradict historical scholarship. These editors surface again and again throughout the topic area and its controversies, defending the source-validity of dubious authors while attacking "well-known experts on Holocaust history" that contradict them. In a striking quantitative description of the distortionist editors' outsized influence, Grabowski and Klein argue that Wikipedia cites two authors they view as distortionist (Richard C. Lukas and M. J. Chodakiewicz) much more than the mainstream experts (Doris Bergen, Samuel Kassow, Zvi Gitelman, Debórah Dwork, Nechama Tec) even though the former have far fewer academic citations than the latter according to Google Scholar.

Two of the editors criticized as distortionists, Piotrus and Volunteer Marek, have defended themselves in terms of the essay's omissions and possible errors, only some of which are actual errors. One notable inaccuracy is that the method for counting citations using Google Scholar is imprecise and today surfaces many more citations to Richard C. Lukas than Grabowski and Klein reported. Yet, even this inaccuracy does not change the broader conclusion that Wikipedia relies too heavily on Lukas' work (also, Klein has uploaded a table with updated numbers (.csv) which continue to support the original conclusion). The title of his most-cited work, The Forgotten Holocaust, refers to the suffering of Poles under Nazi occupation. The Nazis indeed had a murderous colonial policy to "Germanize" Poland (see ^{[supp 1]}), but this is distinct from the Holocaust, which refers to the genocide of European Jews. Lukas' title thus insinuates a false equivalence between Polish and Jewish suffering. Arguably, Wikipedia should not reference this at all, at least not without blinding clarity about how it contradicts mainstream sources.

From these editors' defensive responses, it is clear Grabowski and Klein have interpreted their actions unsympathetically to the extent that they overlooked their many valuable contributions to Wikipedia, some of which involved removing distortion. This omission is mostly understandable. A thorough account of these editors' Wikipedia careers (spanning more than 18 and 17 years, respectively) would have distracted from identifying and accounting for the Holocaust distortion on Wikipedia. In this reviewer's view, even if we take these defenses on board, Grabowski and Klein's possible errors are small relative to their abundant evidence that this group, comprising around a dozen or so editors, helped secure a foothold for the Holocaust distortion in Wikipedia articles.

That said, we should recognize how this case surfaces some of Wikipedia's more fundamental problems. At its core, this was a conflict about which Holocaust narratives belong on Wikipedia exemplified by questions such as: "Should Wikipedia include elements of Polish heroism?" and "How should facts about Poles rescuing Jews from the Holocaust be sourced, emphasized or positioned relative to facts about Polish atrocities or complicity in the Holocaust?" These questions are broad, complex, and require subject-matter knowledge and historiographic consideration to answer.

In their essay's final and most thought-provoking section, Grabowski and Klein describe how Wikipedia administrators and arbitration committee (ArbCom) members responded to the conflict. They are sharply critical of ArbCom members who "don't do the homework it takes to recognize distortion" and "wish to avoid fights in this area." It is standard practice on Wikipedia for administrators to avoid questions like those above by bracketing them as content disputes (which community members are normally supposed to resolve on their own) rather than misconduct (which administrators are normally empowered to address). This practice means that transforming a broad conflict about a content area into a series of narrow misconduct cases can be an effective strategy for winning (or at least dragging out) the conflict about content. Many times, administrators dismissed reports about the distortionists for being about content not conduct. On three occasions reports resulted in arbitration cases and even sanctions such as topic bans on distortionists and a discretionary "reliable-source consensus" requirement (WP:APLRS) intended to empower administrators to intervene against controversial sources. Efforts to enforce such sanctions, however, were themselves dismissed as content disputes and the topic bans were ultimately reversed (once ahead of schedule).

Emerging from this administrivia is a picture of Wikipedia's highest institutions straining under the complexity of this case. Strikingly, steps taken to simplify administrators' tasks shift the burden of proof onto the parties of a conflict. Short word-limits in case statements were too constraining for defenders of historical accuracy to be able to explain to non-experts the problems with distortion in the articles (indeed; it takes Grabowski and Klein most of 50 pages), but provided enough space for distortionists to deflect the accusations. Thus advantaged, the authors argue, distortionists skilled in wikilaywering effectively steered the content-dispute-averse administrators away from the fundamental conflict over historical narratives and toward the particular conduct of individual editors, which is easier for the ArbCom to address.

As noted above, Grabowski and Klein may have made errors, yet these barely undermine their central argument. An audience of Wikipedia scholars is more likely to feel underwhelmed by the essay's sparse engagement with the existing Wikipedia research literature beyond the amount needed to demonstrate Wikipedia's influence and importance to collective memory. Better positioning this case study within Wikipedia scholarship could have shed new light on Wikipedia's fundamental limitations. Past scholarship has discussed systematic flaws in Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes^{[supp 2]} (cf. our review: "Critique of Wikipedia's dispute resolution procedures") and the damage when disagreements about article content turn into conflicts about bureaucratic process and individual conduct ^{[supp 3]}. In the Gamergate Controversy, for example, the ArbCom's decision to punish editors who were defending against a coordinated anti-feminist brigade similarly reveals how Wikipedia administrators' myopic focus on civil conduct and procedural fairness can distract from a fundamental conflict about content—and even become an effective tool for disingenuous actors^{[supp 4]}. Yet other research finds that Wikipedia can be remarkably resilient to partisan misinformation because conflicting partisans hold each other to the same policies^{[supp 5]} (cf. our review: "Politically diverse editors and article quality"). We might ask: What (if anything) was special about this Holocaust case such that it reveals Wikipedia’s limitations so starkly? Or: How (if at all) should Wikipedia's institutions for dealing with content disputes evolve? This case presents an important opportunity to consider such questions. Grabowski and Klein, content to draw attention to this case and document it in great detail, have left this to future work.

"Let's Work Together! Wikipedia Language Communities' Attempts to Represent Events Worldwide"

Reviewed by Piotr Konieczny

The paper^[2] addresses the issue of systemic bias, and focuses on English, Chinese, Arabic and Spanish Wikipedias. The authors study the production of seven years of news on these projects (from the "In the news" (ITN) section on the Main Page and its equivalents), and conclude that while there is an indication of self-focus bias, there is also strong evidence of a global representation of events. Self-focus, here, refers to focusing on one's home region or culture, and past studies found that about a quarter of most Wikipedias are about "self-focused topics".

The authors ended up with the dataset of a total of 6730 articles... 2064 in English, 1379 in Arabic, 1527 in Chinese and 1760 in Spanish which correspond to 2064 events, 172 in Arabic-speaking countries, 115 in Chinese-speaking areas, 114 in Spanish-speaking regions, 445 in the US, 472 in other English-speaking countries and 746 in [other] areas. The events were also coded by topic covered, which resulted in the 192 events classified as Science & Nature, 714 in Notable Person, 337 in Sports, 299 in Politics, 231 in Man-made Incidents, and 291 as Other categories. To compare Wikipedia's coverage to global media coverage, the author also associated their dataset with that of the GDELT Project.

Some specific findings suggest that English Wikipedia suffers from a slight under-representation of events in Arabic-speaking countries. The Arabic Wikipedia project on the other hand does not show much self-bias; instead it over-represents events that happen in English-speaking countries (but not the United States). The Chinese and Spanish Wikipedias, the authors argue, have a stronger self-focus bias than the Arabic and English projects, although still, over 90% of events covered by the news sections of these projects are about items not related to these countries. The authors also find, perhaps unsurprisingly, that larger Wikipedias will react to breaking news faster and update their news section more promptly.

Briefly

• See the page of the monthly Wikimedia Research Showcase for videos and slides of past presentations.

Other recent publications

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

Compiled by Tilman Bayer

"Digital divides in the social construction of history: Editor representation in Wikipedia articles on African independence processes"

From the abstract:^[3]

"The present study examines how [Wikipeda's] editor geography is reflected in the editing of articles (participation, impact and success) about the independence of former French colonies in Africa. The analysis is based on 354 Wikipedia articles; by geolocating 75% of the editors (N = 23,408), we show that the majority of edits are made by users located in France. This imbalance is also reflected in the overall share of text they contribute over time. However, when looking at the individual user level, we find that editors from France are only slightly more successful in maintaining their contributions visible to the reader, than editors from African successor states."

"A Wikipedia Narration of the GameStop Short Squeeze"

From the abstract:^[4]

"This paper examines the usefulness of Wikipedia pageviews as indicator of the performance of stock prices. We examine the GameStop (GME) case, which drew the investors’ and scholars’ attention in 2021 due to the short squeeze, and its skyrocketing price increase since 2021. [...] The results show strong statistical evidence that increased number of Wikipedia pageviews for COVID-19, which represents the fear of the pandemic, has a negative impact on the GME performance. Moreover, the findings show that the increased interest in information regarding the short squeeze, as expressed by the increased number of pageviews of the relative Wikipedia page, is positively linked with the GME price. The econometric analysis shows that the interest indicator of GME has a positive coefficient, but it is not confirmed at significant statistical level."

References

Supplementary references and notes:

Five years ago: March 2018

Buried in an "in brief", we learn of the end of Wikipedia Zero. This project tried to get mobile phone companies in developing countries to allow browsing Wikipedia for free; however, issues with net neutrality and copyright violations finally killed it off. (Meanwhile, ten years ago we have a report of it winning an activism award.) Speaking of killing things off, a report of The Signpost's imminent demise was the lead article this month. ... So I guess I'm writing for an undead publication. Cool.

ACTRIAL was probably the thing with the greatest impact. It limited the ability to make a new article to autoconfirmed users. Arguably the start of the long road to the slightly more bureaucratic, but arguably more robust articles for creation project.

Ten years ago: March 2013

Ten years ago, The Signpost merged with Wikizine. Apparently there were plans for Wikizine sections to be run every month. As such things do, this happened exactly once then never again.

That same month, an effort – one of many over the years – to close Wikinews. Honestly, the biggest surprise was when I checked and saw English Wikinews was still moderately active, if an article every couple days counts as active. The big story, though, was two members of the Arbitration Committee resigning in quick succession.

Just two months into his second term as an arbitrator on the English Wikipedia, Coren resigned from the Committee with a blistering attack on his fellow arbitrators. In a strongly worded statement posted both on his talk page and the arbitration noticeboard, he claimed that ArbCom has become politicised to the extent that "it can no longer do the job it was ostensibly elected for". Coren accused arbitrators of "filibustering and tactical maneuvers to gain the upper hand" and of "bickering about the 'image' of the committee with little or no concern for the project's fate". "Trying our damn best to do the Right Thing", he charged, "has been obsoleted in favour of trying to get reelected."

[...]

The Signpost asked Coren to explain where he saw a conflict between caring about the image of the Committee and doing the best for the project.

“

If you attempt to decide according to whether people will whine and yell, all you are doing is giving the loudest voices the power to veto what the committee does "to preserve the image of the committee". The good of the project, on the other hand, doesn't rely on what is currently said about the committee. Things like applying the rules fairly, or fixing a long term problem, should not be affected by "who will complain", and "but that would cause drama". When you start having arbitrators start breaking rules (internal and otherwise) in order to find something, /anything/ to use as a pretext to avoid acting because it will make people dislike them, then the problem becomes serious.

”

Hersfold, who resigned from ArbCom the week before, echoed Coren's criticisms in general terms: "Unfortunately, I was hoping [that Coren would] be one of the ones to lead the charge against such politicization ... I noticed a steadily increasing emphasis from several arbitrators on avoiding actions that would look bad for the Committee's image or otherwise cause undue amounts of drama". When we invited him to be more specific, Hersfold told the Signpost, "I have no further comment."

Meanwhile, Wikipediocracy outed an editor, causing a firestorm. This kind of thing is why we don't quote Wikipediocracy in The Signpost.

Fifteen years ago: March 2008

"Music fans prefer Wikipedia to MySpace" is one of those headlines that can only come from 2008. However, 15 years ago was also in the middle of Wikipedia's early era, when major things were happening. This was when we gained Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-03-03/Hidden Categories (and then had to decide what to do with them); hit 10 million articles; and we reported on the launch of perhaps the most successful of the academic Wikipedia-like projects, Encyclopedia of Life, an attempt to document every species of life on Earth. That last one technically happened right at the end of February, but we reported on it in early March, and I didn't include it in the last one of these, so ...

The big, big improvement was probably single user login (also known as Wikimedia Unified Login) which let you log in here, and also be logged in on Commons and French Wikipedia and wherever else you wanted. This was a slow process: There were cases where there were already multiple users with the same name, or where it wasn't clear that two users were the same person. Or, in my case, I wanted to edit on Wikipedia pseudonymously while getting real-name credit on Commons, a state I maintained for years by refusing to accept the connection. However, not all things lasted quite so well: we also reported (in the same article as single-user login) on an assessment tool for articles. One could set code to list it as a featured article or an A-class article or any of a lot of other choices. It sounds awesome, until you think about it and realise that it's doing the job we now do with simple talk page templates.

Meanwhile, Wales' relationship with conservative journalist Rachel Marsden – and editing her article at her request – was rightfully controversial. This is from the opening section of that rather long article:

A relationship between Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales and Canadian political columnist Rachel Marsden became public this week. The revelation of this relationship raised allegations of impropriety on Marsden's article, which has been the subject of OTRS requests, and an arbitration case decided in November 2006.

The relationship was first rumored on Friday by Valleywag, a self-described "tech gossip rag" that focuses on Silicon Valley news.^[1] Valleywag reported that Wales had been separated from his wife since August, and had dated Marsden since "last fall". The story spread quickly, and soon reached the mainstream media, fueled by his admission of a brief relationship, and the publication of a series of chats released by Marsden, purported to have occurred between the two. One set of extracts discuss in graphic terms their personal relationship, while another purports to show Wales using his influence to have her article changed on her behalf.

Among the allegations made by Valleywag was that, according to an anonymous tip, Wales had "sent a mass email to a 'special' Wikipedia list of admins at the beginning of February, right before he was set to spend the weekend with Marsden in DC. Said he wanted her page cleaned up."^[2] This allegation, backed by purported extracts from chats intended to prove the matter, was seen by many as the most severe, as it implied that Wales ordered changes to her Wikipedia biography with an ulterior motive.

Wales said that he had been in consultation with the OTRS team, a group of Wikipedians that handle e-mails from the public, including concerns from article subjects regarding potential violations of Wikipedia's Biographies of living persons policy. He said that before meeting with Marsden for the first time, "I disclosed my plans to OTRS and further disclosed that it was a personal matter. I recused myself from any further official action with respect to her biography."

The Wikipedia Signpost contacted three separate sources on the otrs-en-l mailing list. Each user confirmed that Wales sent an e-mail to the list in early February 2008; the e-mail discussed what he saw as concerns with Marsden's article, and Wales' recusal from handling the matter due to a growing friendship:

Other than a possible followup to this email with any clarifications that Rachel might have (I will show it to her later) I am going to recuse myself for at least a while from dealing with this case. As I have mentioned before, Rachel contacted me during the most recent round of major revisions to her article via Facebook. We struck up a friendly conversation about her new website ... In the past week or so we have struck up something of a personal friendship, and I offered to meet with her and give some feedback on her website design and business model.

At the end of the e-mail, he made it a point to say,

As such, at least for the time being, I may have a sufficient COI regarding this case that I should not edit the article or do anything "official" ... so please treat any emails from me about this as emails from a friend of a BLP, not as policy or anything similar to that. (And, as I say, other than posting direct clarifications after talking to Rachel, I intend to just steer clear of it completely.) This is particularly important ... [because] I want to be particularly careful not to give anyone an excuse to make up bizarre allegations.

After the e-mail was sent, two edits were made to Rachel Marsden by JzG. These edits concerned an incident involving Marsden and a Canadian counterterrorism officer with whom she was having an affair. The edits changed the timeline of the events, in line with a source, added some cited information, and removed a reference to sexually-explicit photos purported to be of the officer, along with e-mails purportedly from the officer, sent by Marsden to the National Post. The National Post had said of the latter that "the photos do not show the man's face, and the newspaper could not verify the origins of the images and accompanying letters.", commenting that she also had made claims of a long term relationship in that case, which the officer had denied.^[3]

It only gets messier from there, unfortunately. It's worth reading the rest of the article.

References