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Archive for the 'International' Category

All the Rage #12: The Neither Tim Russert Nor 3G iPhone Edition

Published by William Beutler on June 15, 2008 in Apple, Entertainment, International, MSNBC, Obituary, Sports, Tech Blogosphere, WikiRage, Wikipedia and William Beutler. 1 Comment

Although All the Rage exists as a feature for the purposes of examining the top 10 most-edited articles on the English-language Wikipedia for the week ending Saturday, sometimes it’s almost more interesting what doesn’t make the list. Today we’ll do both:

  1. UEFA Euro 2008 logoArticle: UEFA Euro 2008
    Why: The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship is under way right now in Austria and Switzerland, and at least some English-speaking country must still be alive.
    Detail: Possibly the UK? British subjects (the articles, not the citizens) dominated the top slot for the past month now, and we can assume plenty of them are involved here.

  2. Article: The Incredible Hulk (film)
    Why: It’s the number one movie in America this week.
    Detail: Just as British articles have been landing in the top 5 edited articles for several weeks now, so have the top-grossing U.S. films on their opening weekends.

  3. Article: Kung Fu Panda
    Why: The number one movie in America last week.
    Detail: See above.

  4. Article: Lukas Podolski
    Why: This Polish-born German soccer player made both goals in a 2-0 victory over Poland on June 8. Then he scored the Germans’ only goal in a 2-1 defeat by Croatia.
    Detail: I’m not sure if he’s just really good or Germany is really just not that good. And if you assumed that the German-language Podolski article would be longer than the English one, as I did until just a moment ago, you’d be wrong.

  5. From the Treaty of Lisbon page on WikipediaArticle: Treaty of Lisbon
    Why: This EU treaty, apparently in the works since at least 2001, was rejected this week by Irish voters, thus throwing its future into question.
    Detail: I’d never heard of this treaty once, I’ll admit. But if I wanted to find out more about it, this is probably the best place to find it. I am sincerely impressed by the quality of the article. When I first saw it, I assumed it was a historical subject that had made Featured Article. Well, it’s not — but it should probably be up for Featured Article status. The editors who assembled this page are among Wikipedia’s most sophisticated.

  6. Article: ICarly
    Why: It’s another one of those Nickelodeon “sitcoms” aimed at “tweenagers”, and it’s back on this list after appearing once, in this feature’s second week.
    Detail: Given the target age range for this show noted above, I’m surprised this show is so frequently edited. It can’t be my sisters and their friends; though they’re a precocious wireless generation more advanced than the wired childhood of my generation, I doubt they’re editing Wikipedia just yet. The youngest editors I’ve seen are still a few years older, maybe late middle school. Does this show have an adult following? A few questions I can’t answer: Why hasn’t Hannah Montana been on this list? And do you think SpongeBob SquarePants would have made this list during its heydey?

  7. Article: Deaths in 2008
    Why: The most consistently-ranking Wikipedia article on WikiRage is back after a couple off-weeks.
    Detail: If that’s how you want to put it. Passing this week: Washington’s most respected journalist, Tim Russert, the politician uncle of Rep. Jeff Flake, a 28-year-old Armenian chess grandmaster, by heart attack (perhaps even more tragic than the 58-year-old Russert) and the suicide of a Polish-German footballer (stay happy, Lukas Podolski).

  8. Jurassic Park poster, fair use.Article: Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
    Why: It’s the new Coldplay album, released in Europe last week and available in the United States on Tuesday.
    Detail: They are English, but somehow I doubt that’s it. For one thing, they’re in all those iTunes commercials right now. I’m one of those Radiohead fans who views all Coldplay fans as easily entertained if not actual philistines, but I’ll admit the section played before the Apple logo comes onscreen is catchy.

  9. Article: Jurassic Park (film)
    Why: Front-paged on the English Wikipedia as a Featured Article on June 9.
    Detail: Meanwhile, the article about the novel Jurassic Park “needs additional citations for verifications.” That’s a damn shame.

  10. Article: George I of Great Britain
    Why: The Featured Article on June 11.
    Detail: For the first time this week, the first and last articles on this list concern something British.


  • Holdovers this week: Nothing, actually, for just the second time.

  • Falling off the list: Last week’s list.

  • Recurring themes: British articles of all kinds, American blockbuster films, Featured Articles, I try to be polite when I don’t care about the subject.

  • Tim Russert via queenkv on Flickr.Honorable mention: Tim Russert made it just to #24 according to WikiRage as of Sunday afternoon. That’s fewer than the apparently unintentionally hilarious new M. Night Shyamalan flick, the two-weeks out Adam Sandler vehicle, and a Tamil-language film released in “many theaters.” Hmm.

    • On the other hand, according to Brian Cubbison at the Syracuse Post-Standard, Wikipedia beat the AP to announcing Russert’s death on Friday afternoon. John Robinson at the Greensboro News-Record praises Wikipedia for getting there first. Indeed, if you follow breaking news, you know AP almost never gets beaten on getting there first. Plus, I’m pleased that newspapers have reporter-bloggers following Wikipedia this closely.

    But I’d also like to salute the anonymous first-time editor at 66.187.200.74 in New York City for rolling the page back until the rumors could be verified. As I understand it, MSNBC held back the news until it could notify Russert’s wife, Maureen Orth, and the other TV networks held back until NBC News could break it. Plus, the Verifiability requirement for new information is one of the central tenets of Wikipedia. It’s what keeps the sometimes unreliable website anywhere in the neighborhood of reliable. Wikipedia is supposed to be a research site, and it shouldn’t try to be a news site. I suppose that’s what Wikinews is for, but it hasn’t really caught on.

    I don’t really know what else to say about that, except my best to his friends and family. I’m going to miss the hell out of Russert on “Meet”.

  • One more thing: Notice something missing? How about the 3G iPhone? In fact, this article is at #20 overall at the time of this writing. I’m not sure if it’s counting edits still, because the article has been “merged” with iPhone. The announcement last week was covered heavily by the business and tech press in addition to the Apple and gadget blogs, but on this website full of geeks, that’s as good as it can do? Does this bode ill for Apple and the new iPhone, or does it say something about the type of people who are and are not on Wikipedia? I’ll leave you with that thought.

Image courtesy queenkv on Flickr.

Is Benazir Bhutto the Next Theo Van Gogh?

Published by William Beutler on December 27, 2007 in Breaking News, Fox News, International, Religion, Terrorism and White House '08. 8 Comments

Benazir Bhutto assassinated, via Puneetworld on FlickrI’m nobody’s expert on Pakistani politics, although I know enough that when I saw “Charlie Wilson’s War” this weekend, I nodded with recognition when Tom Hanks’ Wilson made reference to the execution of President Bhutto, I knew he wasn’t referring to Benazir Bhutto.

Small coincidence, and what a way to return to work* this morning: Approaching my office building for the first time in two weeks, I looked up to the WJLA JumboTron to see:

BHUTTO KILLED IN EXPLOSION

By the time I collected my morning coffee and found my desk, Fox News had revised this to:

BHUTTO SHOT IN NECK

Damn. Well, it’s crazy but not a surprise, except maybe that this attempt succeeded after others failed. As I understand it, Bhutto was hardly a great prime minister — twice-removed from office on corruption charges that I presume are largely true but not the proximate cause of her ousters. Will Pakistan be thrown into further turmoil? Will this resurrect terrorism as an issue in the U.S. presidential election? At the very least, I assume her reputation outside of Pakistan as a friend of the U.S. and a representative of moderate Islam — now, to borrow a phrase, martyred — may grant her a legacy that her actual record doesn’t necessarily warrant.

One last thought: I remember back in high school, one of my junior social studies classmates was Pakistani-American, who as a secular young woman from a family that had presumably left because of the country’s highly volatile politics, idolized Bhutto and wrote her major year-end term paper about her. Her name escapes me at the moment, and I have no idea where she is today, but I wonder what she’s thinking this morning.

Update: Sue Davis, an old colleague from National Journal, writes at the WSJ’s Washington Wire:

Before news of Bhutto’s death was reported, Rudy Giuliani’s campaign unveiled a new ad this morning, entitled “Freedom,” to begin airing nationally tomorrow. … Giuliani was also the first candidate to release a statement on the death of Bhutto.

National security has taken a back seat in the last month or so of the presidential campaign; not coincidentally, Giuliani’s campaign has already received the pre-mortem treatment, even from supporters. If Giuliani has any chance of getting back into this thing, this is it.

*Oh, and if you’ve been wondering at the dearth of posts the past two weeks, wonder no more.

Image via puneetworld on Flickr.

Exclusive! Must Credit Taipei Times!

Published by William Beutler on June 28, 2007 in Al Gore, Democrats, International, Misquotations, Seriously, Urban Legends and White House '08. 0 Comments

As you read this, the following item from the Taipei Times is being forwarded from Washington outbox to Beltway inbox, setting hearts aflutter and livers atwitter (emphasis added):

Al Gore visit postponed Former US vice president Al Gore will not be able to make it to Taiwan this September to address the issue of global warming, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin [Chinese symbols WordPress doesn't recognize] said yesterday. Tien, who invited Gore to visit Taiwan to promote awareness on global warming, told reporters yesterday that she received an e-mail from the Harry Walker Agency, which has the exclusive right to arrange Gore’s speeches, saying that Gore had canceled all his scheduled events in the next six months. The visit to Taiwan had been postponed to next year, she added. Tien said the reason for the cancelation was that Gore was considering a presidential bid.

This amazing news exclusive just happened to come from a Democratic Progressive Party Legislator in Taiwan? Riiiight. But I could see this Tien Chiu-chin misinterpreting a canceled event or exaggerating to make himself sound more important. Or maybe the uncredited reporter simply misheard it.

But before this misbegotten blurb becomes a full-fledged urban legend, let’s dig a little deeper, because there’s both less and more to the story.

For anybody just coming across this story tonight, see Raising Kaine, where Lowell Feld apparently fact-checked this against Gore’s office and obtained the following denial:

It is completely and utterly false. 1. He never accepted an event in Taiwan 2. We have loads of events on the schedule in the next six months I don’t know how to spell bubkus but there’s no credibility to this whatsoever.

Wow, so much for benefit of the doubt. Does the Taipei Times have a Stephen Glass problem? Probably not, actually — Harry Walker Agency is no Jukt Micronics — and in fact it does represent The Honorable Al Gore.

If my hunch is right, then the biggest loser of all — besides the latent Gore supporters currently propping up Edwards and Obama — would be none other than Tien Chiu-chin, whose credibility on the 2008 U.S. presidential race may never fully recover.

P.S. Last summer I took to saying “All politics is national.” This time, let’s try “All politics is global.”