As firstreported byThe Scottish Sun, and thenshared byThe National, a few computers from theScottish Parliament's headquarters might have been used to edit the Wikipedia articles of severalMSPs from all over the political spectrum. Both newspapers correctly remind that all kinds of edits made to a specific page are automatically archived in itshistory: in this case, the original inquiry found that theIP addresses of some unregistered users apparently trace back toHolyrood. If confirmed, this would represent an evident breach not only of the parliamentary code of conduct, but also Wikipedia's rules onconflict of interest.
The main subject involved in the inquiry isScottish Liberal Democrats leader,Alex Cole-Hamilton. Back in February 2021, the MSP received widespread backlash afterbeing caught insulting his fellow politicianMaree Todd, who was then serving as theMinister for Children and Young People, during an online institutional meeting. On February 16 of the same year, userAlex B4 addeda short mention of the incident, which includedaNational article that further criticized Cole-Hamilton for his inappropriate apologies to Todd. However, on February 24, anIP user stepped in toremove references to the incident entirely: then, they proceeded tocut down part of the information provided on Cole-Hamilton's expenses for his campaign ahead of the2016 elections, calling them "ad hominem attacks". All of the content was eventuallyrestored by Alex himself on March 7. Since then, another IP user deleted some of the references about the 2021 incident again, replacing them with an unsourced statement claiming that Cole-Hamilton wrote a letter saying sorry to Todd, before apologizing to her in person – a statement that isstill up at the time of writing this piece.
Other notable MSPs involved in the report are incumbentScottish First Minister andSNP leader,Humza Yousaf, whowas added to a list of "notable alumni" of theUS-backedInternational Visitor Leadership Program;Reform UK Scotland leader,Michelle Ballantyne, who had an entire section about her political controversies removed from her article; and, finally, incumbentMinister for Cabinet and Parliamentary Business,George Adam, whose love for football clubSt Mirren F.C. was further highlighted on his page – curiously, Adam was the only one who immediately responded upon being contacted byThe Sun, and it looks like he just had a good laugh out of the "incident". –O,B andRTH
In a recent episode ofCBS-hosted comedy panel showAfter Midnight, aired on February 12, 2024, hostTaylor Tomlinson arranged a specialwikirace as part of one of the show's mini-games,Wikipedia Link. In the occasion, her fellow comediansVinny Thomas,Riki Lindhome andRob Huebel took turns to guess how many clicks it takes to go fromSnoop Dogg to theGreat Depression on the English Wikipedia.
Tomlinson introduced the game by deeming Wikipedia as "humanity'sCliffsNotes", as the three panelists then shared increasingly unorthodox guesses, ranging fromweed toThe Grapes of Wrath. Although it was Huebel who eventually found the right number of articles needed to complete the race, specifically five (including the two aforementioned pages), Tomlinson revealed quite an unexpected pattern: from Snoop, toPeanuts, toHowdy Doody, toWonder Bread, to the1939 New York World's Fair, to the Great Depression. However, in the comments below the video extract available on the show'sYouTube channel, several users have stated there are even shorter paths connecting the two pages.
No matter who is right, it's safe to say Taylor and the rest of theAfter Midnight staff deserve a shout-out for helping popularize the wikirace trend and, by extension, Wikipedia as a whole. –O
TheMIT Technology Review has published aprofile of the Wikimedia Foundation'sCTO,Selena Deckelmann. The main focus of the piece is how Deckelmann sees the place of Wikipedia in the age ofchatbots:
Deckelmann argues that Wikipedia will become an even more valuable resource as nuanced, human perspectives become harder to find online. But fulfilling that promise requires continued focus on preserving and protecting Wikipedia’s beating heart: theWikipedians who volunteer their time and care to keep the information up to date through old-fashioned talking and tinkering. Deckelmann and her team are dedicated to anAI strategy that prioritizes building tools for contributors, editors, and moderators to make their work faster and easier, while running off-platform AI experiments with ongoing feedback from the community. “My role is to focus attention on sustainability and people,” says Deckelmann. “How are we really making life better for them as we’re playing around with some cool technology?”
However –
Today Deckelmann sees a newer sustainability problem in AI development: the predominant method for training models is to pull content from sites like Wikipedia, often generated byopen-source creators without compensation or even, sometimes, awareness of how their work will be used. “If people stop being motivated to [contribute content online],” she warns, “either because they think that these models are not giving anything back or because they’re creating a lot of value for a very small number of people—then that’s not sustainable.” At Wikipedia, Deckelmann’s internal AI strategy revolves around supporting contributors with the technology rather than short-circuiting them. Themachine-learning and product teams are working on launching new features that, for example, automate summaries of verbose debates on a wiki’s"Talk" pages (where back-and-forth discussions can go back as far as 20 years) or suggest related links when editors are updating pages. “We’re looking at new ways that we can save volunteers lots of time by summarizing text, detecting vandalism, or responding to different kinds of threats,” she says.
The article also discusses the potential need for Wikipedia to meet its readers elsewhere online, naming the Foundation'sWikipedia ChatGPT plugin as an example. –AK
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I feel like this story deserves a full "Disinformation report", because those IP users might have edited an even bigger amount of articles than the report suggested...Oltrepier (talk)09:11, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth,Snoop Dogg →Cleveland →Great Depression is 3. —Qwerfjkltalk12:28, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A small correction: The court case was decided by asingle judge on theCourt of International Trade.voorts (talk/contributions)21:16, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
