Tag Archives: Wikipedia

Natural History Museum: Monitoring changes in Wikipedia pageviews could help save wildlife

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Natural History Museum: Monitoring changes in Wikipedia pageviews could help save wildlife. ” Monitoring changes in how people view the natural world could prove invaluable in gaining support for tackling the biodiversity crisis. Many current metrics that monitor these changes are not published in real-time, often due to a lack of resources…. But now researchers have developed a new tool called the Species Awareness Index (SAI), which can track the real-time rate of change in online biodiversity awareness. The index looks at the monthly change in average daily page views for around 40,000 species across 10 of the most popular Wikipedia languages.”

City A.M.: Wikipedia won’t comply with Online Safety Bill if passed, its charity warns

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City A.M. (UK): Wikipedia won’t comply with Online Safety Bill if passed, its charity warns. “Wikipedia will not comply with aspects of the Online Safety Bill if passed, the website’s charity has warned. The bill — currently sitting in the House of Lords — will compel social media platforms and tech companies to police and remove hateful content.”

Euronews: EU targets Google, Facebook, Twitter and other ‘very large’ tech companies with stricter rules

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Euronews: EU targets Google, Facebook, Twitter and other ‘very large’ tech companies with stricter rules. “Social media giants, Google, Alibaba, Amazon and Wikipedia are among the big tech companies that have been labelled ‘Very Large Online Platforms’ by the European Commission and will now have to adhere to tighter rules under the bloc’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA).”

Kyiv Independent: Russia fines Wikipedia for second time over article about war in Ukraine

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Kyiv Independent: Russia fines Wikipedia for second time over article about war in Ukraine. “A Moscow court again fined Wikipedia for refusing to remove an article in Russian about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, RFE/RL reported. The court fined the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, 2 million rubles (around $25,000) for refusing to remove an article titled ‘Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.'”

Reuters: Russian court fines Wikipedia over military ‘misinformation’

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Reuters: Russian court fines Wikipedia over military ‘misinformation’. “The Wikimedia Foundation was fined 2 million roubles ($27,000) by a Russian court on Tuesday after the authorities accused it of failing to delete “misinformation” about the Russian military from Wikipedia, the courts service said.”

Boing Boing: The cryptid complications of Wikipedia’s editing policies

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Boing Boing: The cryptid complications of Wikipedia’s editing policies. “This is (apparently) a great war simmering between Wikipedia editors and cryptid hunters. Cryptid enthusiasts, such as those who haunt r/Cryptozoology, accuse the open-source information website of being biased against their beloved beasts, dismissing such things as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster with pejorative descriptors of ‘pseudoscience’ (Or, worse — ‘folklore’).”

Press Trust of India: Company Employees With Fake Profiles Created False Praise About Gautam Adani, Says Wikipedia

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Press Trust of India: Company Employees With Fake Profiles Created False Praise About Gautam Adani, Says Wikipedia. “For more than a decade, sockpuppets – some of them being company employees – created ‘puffery’ around tycoon Gautam Adani, his family and the apples-to-airport group he helmed by adding non-neutral material and removing warnings from information on Wikipedia, the free internet-based encyclopedia has alleged.”

Chapman University: Research Reveals Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust

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Chapman University: Research Reveals Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust . “New research by Chapman University and the University of Ottawa shows how a small group of individuals, with no ties to any government, can slowly erode reason and accuracy to promote ideological zeal and prejudice on Wikipedia.”

Bloomberg: Wikipedia is blocked in Pakistan over ‘sacrilegious’ content

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Bloomberg: Wikipedia is blocked in Pakistan over ‘sacrilegious’ content. “Pakistan has blocked Wikipedia services in the South Asian nation after the platform failed to remove ‘sacrilegious’ content. The action was taken because some of the content is still available on Wikipedia after the expiry of a 48-hour deadline, Malahat Obaid, spokesperson for Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, said by phone.”

Lifehacker: This App Turns the World Into a Wikipedia Scavenger Hunt

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Lifehacker: This App Turns the World Into a Wikipedia Scavenger Hunt. “You might think your know your hometown pretty well, but I’m willing to bet there’s a lot you don’t know—something noteworthy that happened in a spot you walk or drive past every day without thinking about, like the building that’s been there forever, or the park you relax in every now and then. Well, there’s an easy way to learn all about your neighborhood, or any neighborhood in the world, in a way that almost feels like playing Pokémon Go, but for real life.”

Context News: Wikipedia Middle East editors ban shows risks for creators

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Context News: Wikipedia Middle East editors ban shows risks for creators. “Rights groups have accused the Saudi Arabian government of ‘infiltrating’ and seeking to control Wikipedia, after the Wikimedia Foundation banned 16 users for engaging in ‘conflict of interest editing’ in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Wikipedia Gets a Fresh New Look: First Desktop Update in a Decade Puts Usability at the Forefront (Wikimedia Foundation)

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Wikimedia Foundation: Wikipedia Gets a Fresh New Look: First Desktop Update in a Decade Puts Usability at the Forefront . “The updated interface, which comes on the heels of English Wikipedia’s 22nd birthday (January 15), prioritizes usability and modernizes the Wikipedia experience to make it easier for everyone to access, explore, and share knowledge. The update is rolling out today on English Wikipedia and is already live on 94% of the 318 active language versions of Wikipedia for all desktop users.”

Alan MacMasters: How the great online toaster hoax was exposed (BBC News)

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BBC News: Alan MacMasters: How the great online toaster hoax was exposed. “For more than a decade, a prankster spun a web of deception about the inventor of the electric toaster. His lies fooled newspapers, teachers and officials. Then a teenager flagged up something that everyone else had missed.”

Slate: Russian Oligarchs Keep Dying in Suspicious Ways. Wikipedia Is Keeping a List.

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Slate: Russian Oligarchs Keep Dying in Suspicious Ways. Wikipedia Is Keeping a List.. “On July 9, an anonymous Wikipedia editor with the username ‘cgbuff’ started Wikipedia’s 2022 Russian mystery deaths article, which chronicles ‘unusual deaths of Russian-connected businessmen [that] occurred under what some sources suggest were suspicious circumstances.’ When the article was first published, it listed just nine Russian oligarchs.Today, it chronicles 17 deaths, and it’s been viewed more than 400,000 times.”