This week’s edition presents something of a dilemma. As the title of this latest installment indicates, several articles related to the “The Dark Knight” and Batman universe show up in this week’s list of the most-edited articles on the English Wikipedia.
The problem is, you see, I haven’t actually seen the movie yet. (I know, I know.) I do hope to get myself to a movie theater sometime this week, but for the time being I am avoiding spoilers like Ebola. That means I won’t be able to read too closely about anything related specifically to the film’s plot or characters, but I think we’ll manage.
A note: This marks the final bi-weeekly version of All the Rage before we start going monthly in September — but the new, more frequently-recurring Wikipedia section is still in the offing, I promise. And last but not least, thanks again to Craig Wood and Wikirage for making this feature possible, and to the Wikipedia Weekly podcast for the inital inspiration.
Article: Radovan Karadžić
Why: The indicited former leader of the Bosnian Serbs (at right with Photoshopped trucker hat), long sought for alleged war crimes against non-Serbs under his rule, was finally captured this past week.
Detail: Most of the activity here over was focused on keeping the article up to date with current events and general cleanup, but it also seems that much energy was expended keeping Karadžić’s supporters from tilting the page in his favor. The talk page includes at least four debates among editors, one of them very long, about which facts to represent, how to do so, and as happens on the most controversial of pages — what precisely constitutes a fact. And the article history contains a few intriguing edit summaries, such as ths one: “No trivia sections, especially ones which have blobs of text defending war criminals.”
- Article: Two-Face
Why: Née Harvey Dent, from the Batman universe. Not Billy Dee Williams, Tommy Lee Jones or Aaron Eckhart, but the comic book character himself.
Detail: According to the talk page, it does look like the updates owe something to The Dark Knight. In fact, even before the movie came out, one editor suggested, “Two Face is likely to be receiving lots of attention when The Dark Knight (film) is released. Is anyone interested in working this up to GA [Good Article] level before may?” It doesn’t look like they made it; it’s only rated B-class, which is still better than average.
- Article: List of characters from Total Drama Island
Why: It’s a list of characters from an animated parody of a reality game show.
Detail: This one came up two weeks ago, and here it is again. The show has 34 characters at present, which I am sure makes for plenty of updates. It still seems an odd entry to keep showing up this high in the list repeatedly; despite being an Adult Swim show I still have not heard of it offline, and even at Television Without Pity the associated forum is all but dead. I’ve often considered the pop culture entries on this list as a barometer of what’s bubbling up below the radar, and I still think that is generally the case — but with this one I’m not so sure.
- Article: Joker (comics)
Why: Where does he get those wonderful Wikipedians?
Detail: As with the Two-Face article, fans of the Batman comics and films have made an effort to bring this article up to Good Article status, and on more than one occasion. I’m still seeing what I presume to be minor spoilers on the talk page, such as “Following the release of The Dark Knight, does anyone else think ‘ballistics’ or ‘bomb expert’ should be added to Joker’s repertoire of abilities?” But then I did see this in the six-minute preview released to theaters last year, so I’ll survive.
- Article: Deaths in 2008
Why: People died, Wikipedia testified! (Sorry.)
Detail: Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor who became well-known for his inspirational “Last Lecture”; “Golden Girls” actress Estelle Getty; America’s “Spam King” in a murder-suicide; and the drug trafficker who once hired Woody Harrelson’s father to (successfully) murder the presiding judge of his first trial.
- Article: Joe Jonas
Why: An American pop-rock singer who is in a band with his two teenage brothers. Whether this makes them a Hanson for the 21st century I know not.
Detail: But I do recognize the Jonas name from various online pop culture periodicals (I mean, gossip blogs) so I guess I’m not totally clueless. They’re contemporaries of Miley Cyrus and the Nickelodeon crowd, which indicates to me that this article is here instead of other articles from the genre which occasionally appear, such as iCarly. The article is currently locked due to vandalism, which may have something to do with the Jonas brothers being on the cover of this month’s Rolling Stone.
- Article: Christian Bale
Why: Although he’s currently starring in the number one movie in America, Bale made headlines for a different reason this past week, being briefly jailed over a family dispute in which his mother and sister made claims of assault.
Detail: You can pretty much chalk this one up to “wrong” headlines, and how exactly to represent the incident has been a matter of considerable talk page debate. At one point the incident had its own section in the article, but now it has been folded into the Personal life section. I find it interesting that, after 1900+ words of discussion about the incident on the talk page, the currently approved verision of this is just 49 words. And it’s probably the right one.
- Article: Joker’s appearances in other media
Why: Hey, wait a minute — this just redirects back to “Joker (comics)”.
Detail: Not being an admin, it is impossible for me to determine when the page was first created, but I can say that it was merged sometime this past week, and most of that content can now be found in this section.
- Article: Breakout (album)
Why: Did I really think I would get out of this edition without mentioning Miley Cyrus again? I shouldn’t have, because apparently her new album came out just over a week ago.
Detail: As someone whose favorite albums sometimes have very, very little written about them, perhaps this should annoy me. It might, if I didn’t understand how Wikipedia’s biases work — and when it comes to music, Wikipedia is heavily biased toward recordings by famous people garnering lots of coverage, not to mention albums released in the Wikipedia era (if you will). If I want The Decemberists’ debut album Castaways and Cutouts to be anything more than a stub, it’s up to me. Or anyone else who gets there first.
Article: Hurricane Dolly (2008)
Why: There it was. It rocked you like a hurricane.
Detail: Or didn’t. Dolly is just the second hurricane (and fourth cyclone, hence the D-name) of the (young) 2008 season, and caused modest devastation and relatively few casualties. Nonetheless, hurricanes draw Wikipedia’s serious-minded breaking news contingent, producing a well-written, highly-sourced article (74 citations at latest count) with a talk page more civil than most you will find. Good show.
Holdovers this week: Deaths in 2008
Falling off the list: All else, including WALL-E
Recurring themes: Miley Cyrus, popular American movies
Honorable mention: Had there been an installment of this feature last week, I have little doubt that The Dark Knight (film) would have topped the list. After all, the film appears to be breaking all box office records — so why shouldn’t it be breaking at least a few Wikipedia records? Well, I don’t think anyone is keeping track of these things (at least not yet) so until I can get someone to program that particular tool, research of that sort remains prohibitively time-consuming. But then it may have not been quite that big — after all, WALL-E made topped Wikirage two weekends in a row whereas this film did not.
Images courtesy midgard, Sick Sad M!kE and Coast Guard News on Flickr.
Our periodic look at the top ten most-edited articles on the English language Wikipedia, made possible Craig Wood’s Wikirage monitoring tool, is back this week. It’s been two weeks since our last installment, the previous week’s edition being canceled on account of travel.
However, it also marks the beginning of a new direction for this recurring feature, or at least a new frequency for its recurrence. When July ends in two more weeks, All the Rage will start appearing on a monthly basis. I think we’ve pretty well established a week-by-week pattern, and here is a brief outline of the kinds of articles that usually make the list:
- Weekly installments of popular television shows in the U.S. and UK are frequently represented.
- The highest-grossing film in North America each week almost always makes the list.
- Pay-per-view professional wrestling events are not unheard of.
- Other entertainment genres popping up from time to time: Nickelodeon sitcoms aimed at tweenagers, televised elimination-style competitions produced by Simon Cowell, sports playoffs and championship series.
- Deaths in 2008 is the list-based article most likely to appear in the top ten articles, and prominent passing figures sometimes earn a spot of their own.
- Those who write the breaking/current news articles — on terrorist attacks, natural disasters and many things government-related — are among the most sophisticated and motivated Wikipedians of all.
- If an article attains the status of Featured Article, thereby giving it 24 hours on the front page of Wikipedia, the resulting vandalism and reversions thereof can push it into the most-edited articles of the week.
Now that we’re going monthly (and between these three installments, bi-monthly) I wonder what different patterns will emerge. What’s likely is that some or all of the above article types will remain, but they won’t all and their relative chart positions may prove to be different as well. Or maybe the trends will look no different on a month-by-month than week-by-week basis. Stay tuned and we’ll find out.
Also, this is not to say that Wikipedia commentary on Blog P.I. itself will be reduced, and this may also be a good place to announce that I will introduce, in the next few days, a new recurring feature also focused on evaluating Wikipedia articles. The angle will be different and the frequency will be a little more when-I-feel-like-it-and-have-the-time, and I’ll have much more to say about that very soon.
And in the meantime, how about that list for the past week:
- Article: Rafael Nadal
Why: Spanish tennis player Nadal, long the #2 in the world, won Wimbledon 2008 over Roger Federer, long the #1 in the world.
Detail:
This article is very long and well-developed, and was so going into the final two days of the tournament. And while new information has been added to the 2008 section, making it a few paragraphs longer, it is now recognized as being of lower quality. Specifically, the “Playing style” section has been slapped with a warning that says it “may contain original research or unverified claims.” This despite the fact that it’s a paragraph or two shorter and already cited several sources. Among the claims disputed enough to be removed entirely is his being known for “ultra-precise drink bottle positioning on changeovers.”
Article: Roger Federer
Why: Despite losing to Nadal last week, Swiss tennis player Federer is still the #1 ranking player in the world, for a record consecutive 232nd week.
Detail: As with the Nadal article, it is very much the same article as it was just a week ago, and the differences are not always apparent on first glance. On second glance, however, we see that the old section “Personal life” — listed above the “Tennis career” section — has been broken up into two constituent parts and reordered. The article now begins with a section called “Early life” containing a basic biographical sketch. Information about his dating life and charitable works has been relocated to the end of the article and is still titled “Personal life.” Meanwhile, context has been given to the “Tennis career” section, which is itself broken into “Junior tennis” and “Career on the ATP.”
- Article: WALL-E
Why: Pixar + robots × space = intense fan interest.
Detail: Seriously, this is the third week in a row WALL-E is on the list, after consecutive weeks in the number one position. I could be wrong, but that might make it the single most-edited article in the three-plus months I’ve been writing this feature. Based on the discussion page, it looks like much of the recent editing has focused on dealing with the extraneous info added by some editors — an Apple references section existed at one time — and debates over how much a critique of consumerism it represents. In its current form, the “Commentary” section largely focuses on disagreements among conservatives about whether the film is “leftist” or reinforcing of “traditional conservatism,” and whether the culprit is big business or too close a tie of business to big government.
- Article: List of characters from Total Drama Island
Why: Let’s see if I’ve got this right: it’s a Canadian television show modeled on Survivor and Drawn Together, now being shown on Adult Swim.
Detail: Why not the main article itself? Why the list? Well, the show seems to have a lot of characters, and the show has apparently struck enough of a nerve that fans are compelled to fill out as much information as possible about them. And the place for that has been designated this page, not the main article.
- Article: I Love Money: Challenge Show
Why: This one is about a reality game show, rather than the above article, which is a parody of a reality game show.
Detail: I must say, this is a terrible article — written by fans and for fans but not giving outsiders any idea what the show is like or why it is interesting or how it works different from other shows. Most edits, so far as I can tell, have gone into meticulous updates of the chart showing contestant and episode progress, with detailed but impenetrable episode summaries. Too much detail. Not enough background. Just goes to show that even highly active articles are not necessarily good articles.
Article: Journey’s End (Doctor Who)
Why: Marking its second week on the list, this is the final episode of the “fourth series” of Doctor Who — after 26 “seasons” that is.
Detail: To be fair to the fans of I Love Money, I am sure it is much easier to write an “encyclopedic” article about Doctor Who. The show has been around since the 1970s, continuity and the TARDIS-associated universe has a detailed history to explain and even summarize when it gets too long. While there is very little discussion on the I Love Money series talk page, the talk page for this individual episode of Doctor Who is already very long, and fairly sophisticated. And it surely can’t hurt that there is a WikiProject Doctor Who.
- Article: To Kill a Mockingbird
Why: It was the Featured Article (FA) on July 11.
Detail: Featured Articles are frequently vandalized (sometimes amusingly but more often not), articles with racial components are especially vulnerable, literary disputes can get very contentious, and damage done by these edits will bring people to the talk page complaining about how this terrible article was made, FA by editors who may or may not have a bone to pick with other editors or WikiProjects. That more or less describes what’s happened here.
- Article: Atom
Why: The Featured Article on July 9.
Detail: More FA vandalism. After watching this list for some time, I would probably be willing to vote for temporary semi-protection of Featured Articles. Wikipedia prides itself on openness and in its site policies prefers not to create barriers for new editor participation (in its behind the scenes clique-ishness, it can be a bit different). However, policing vandalism on these articles seems like a real drain for editors on “Recent changes (RC) patrol”, aka vandal watch. A semi-protect would only apply to unregistered users and very new accounts, and would only last the period on which the FA was front-paged. I am sure this has been proposed before and shot down in a vote or debate, but if I ever become aware of a discussion to implement this, I would certainly weigh in on its behalf.
- Article: Deaths in 2008
Why: The hardiest perennial makes another showing.
Detail: Passing this week: former White House press secretary and Fox News anchor Tony Snow, medical pioneer Michael DeBakey, the founder of Benihana, a producer of Woody Allen films, and an Indonesian serial killer.
Article: 34th G8 summit
Why: As mentioned above, the government and news-focused Wikipedians do a damn good job of creating detailed articles about recent events in record time. Editors of, say, I Love Money expended many edits on not that much result. Editors of this article added a great deal of information in fewer edits.
Detail: It seems strange to me that President Bush’s joking conclusion, “goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter,” didn’t make the article. I could understand, though, that it may be a little too U.S.-centric given the global scope of the article, although with equal treatment of similar news coverage of leaders’ statements in other countries, it would not be out of place. But then it seems even more curious that the statement was not raised at all on the discussion page. These people mean business.
Holdovers this week: WALL-E and Deaths in 2008.
Falling off the list: Everything else from two weeks ago.
Recurring themes: Doctor Who episodes, reality TV, Featured Article vandalism.
Honorable mention: Tony Snow, the 50th most-edited article for the concluding week. More and more this section reads like an obituary, which I really don’t need to be doing on a weekly basis. But on Saturday morning, as I learned of Snow’s passing from the morning television news, I did what came natural and checked out the Wikipedia page. While the article obviously reflected current events, as a Wikipedia article it was only mediocre at that point. I made a few edits of my own, removing extraneous information. Did his “pay cut” comment upon leaving the White House need to be mentioned in the second paragraph? Did Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan need to be mentioned in the first paragraph? I said no, and on both counts, other editors have since agreed.
Images courtesy Graham Hodgson, agentjon and davidsilver on Flickr.
All the Rage is taking a week off due to my own busy schedule and the fact that, when I arrived back in town late last night from spending the July 4th holiday in Ohio, I found the list at Wikirage to be somewhat underwhelming.
For the record, WALL-E is still at number one, that second-to-last Doctor Who episode remained in the top 10 and, as predicted, so was the finale. I think that’s about all the Wikipedia analysis I can muster for the time being.
Next week, when I won’t be spending a miserable Sunday waiting for my delayed flight at a Detroit airport, we’ll get back to the business of analyzing the top ten most edited aticles on Wikipedia for the week ending Saturday.
If it’s Sunday (or, admittedly, sometimes Monday) it’s Blog P.I.’s weekly post about the ten most-edited articles on Wikipedia:
Article: WALL-E
Why: Disney-Pixar’s latest movie hit theaters this weekend, and it’s unsurprisingly shaping up to be a hit, posting Pixar’s third-best opening ever.
Detail: Wikipedia aims to be as impartial as possible, but what can you do when the subject is universally acclaimed? You fine-tune the language and cut back on verbatims, as one editor advises: “Well, as you say, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, so it will be difficult to get the reception section sounding anything less than a puff piece. However, and speaking as the editor who added the current version of the reception section, I entirely agree that the reviews should be paraphrased better, with fewer direct quotes.”
- Article: The Stolen Earth
Why: The penultimate episode of the latest run of Doctor Who episodes on BBC One.
Detail: Which means there’s a very good chance we’ll see the final episode appear in one of these slots next weekend. Of the numerous British articles included in this list over the past few weeks, Doctor Who has ranked the highest most consistently.
- Article: 2008 NBA Draft
Why: If you’ve ever wondered where all these new basketball players come from, perhaps you should learn about the NBA draft.
Detail: The NBA still hasn’t caught back up with football in national prominence, but basketball fans still eagerly anticipate and closely follow draft night each year. With two televised rounds of thirty picks each and numerous trades, that’s a whole lot of updates on one night — and as Wikirage shows, most edits did occur all on one night.
- Article: Night of Champions (2008)
Why: It’s not the WWF, that’s the World Wildlife Federation. It’s WWE now — World Wrestling Entertainment.
Detail: If the NBA draft is a bit less-attended than the adventures of the Tenth Doctor and his TARDIS (yes, I’ve been skimming the Doctor Who pages) at least it is a little better-attended than this WWE event.
This page was reverted and protected and reverted, but not necessarily due to vandalism. More the problem seems to be enthusiastic but inexperienced editors adding information in the wrong place and even trying to use the page as a forum. This happens often on some popular subjects, and it makes me wonder about members of the WikiProject Professional wrestling. No doubt the project counts among its members some dedicated and knowledgeable editors, but it seems that they find themselves having to undo a lot of the “help” they get. I doubt the same happens at WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Article: Guitar Hero World Tour
Why: Previously titled Guitar Hero IV, makers of the next installment of the popular video game series have continued to make new information available over the past few weeks, but was protected from unhelpful help (see above) until early June. Now the gates are wide open.
Detail: Allowing people to add spurious rumors such as the planned inclusion of a Soulja Boy track with no guitar instrumentation (since removed). Interesting also that video games seem to show up in this list months ahead of release — the title won’t be out until late October — while movies typically don’t appear until the week of release.
- Article: Deaths in 2008
Why: Death and taxes may be inevitable, but only one ranks well in the list of most-edited Wikipedia articles.
Detail: Passing this week: one of the most influential comedians in my life and the second half of the 20th century, George Carlin. And then some other people, including a 37-year-old American comic book artist of cancer, a 20-year-old Russian-Kazakh model who threw herself from her 9th story Manhattan appartment yesterday afternoon, and the 9-year-old University of Georgia mascot, Uga.
- Article: District of Columbia v. Heller
Why: In the session’s most closely-watched decision, the Court affirmed 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a firearm.
Detail: Through the week I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the claim bandied about that the case was the first to rule on the Second Amendment, and here is an amusing smackdown of Slate’s lead legal correspondent, who apparently was among the banditos: “We are well aware of U.S. v. Miller, and know much more about it than the sensationalist writer Lithwick. The article does not say that D.C. v. Heller is the first case to pertain to the Second Amendment or that has incidental remarks that could be interpreted as pertaining to the question of individual-rights vs. collective-rights; it is not the first such case, nor is it the second. It is, however, the first case to definitively or directly or comprehensively address the question.”
Article: Battlefield: Bad Company
Why: Not the English rock supergroup, but a new video game from Electronic Arts which “puts the player in a fictional war against Russia, where gamers will lead a squad of AWOL soldiers fighting both Russians and Mercenaries.”
Detail: I can’t really tell where all the edits went, except that editors have removed some unnecesary sections, but I was a bit surprised to find out that this page has existed since August 2006, presumably when it was first announced.
- Article: 2008 WWE Draft
Why: Did you know the WWF WWE had a draft? Or maybe that should be “draft”? If it wasn’t for Wikipedia and this feature, I wouldn’t.
Detail: Do you think Vince McMahon is mocking David Stern?
- Article: Camp Rock
Why: The Disney Channel sitcom all but ignored in last week’s edition because I was trying to pay attention at Personal Democracy Forum is back again, down to the tenth slot from the third.
Detail: For I think the first time, Disney holds the first and last articles on this list.
Holdovers this week: Camp Rock
Falling off the list: Everything else.
Recurring themes: Top American film releases, Doctor Who episodes, the NBA, Disney.
Honorable mention: I would have thought Carlin would have been ranked higher. Instead, it looks as if his page was edited heavily on June 22 but not much thereafter. And while there was some coverage this past week of the young woman who was fired for editing Tim Russert’s article before his death was officially announced, less has been said about Carlin’s article though an edit war of sorts took place here. Several people tried to add the correct data, only to have other editors ask for more information, changing the article back until receiving confirmation.
Meanwhile, you still can’t say the seven dirty words on television, but as the headline implies, you most certainly can say them on Wikipedia. In the proper context, of course.
P.S. For what it’s worth, I feel compelled to note that I have made a few disclosed edits to a handful of Disney movie articles for distributor Buena Vista. However, I have not contributed to the Disney movies listed here — haven’t been asked and haven’t needed to do so.
Images courtesy andy castro, noamgalai and eyewash design on Flickr.
I spent most of Sunday traveling to New York City for Personal Democracy Forum, so I am filing this week’s edition from the auditorium. This means I’ll have to keep it short, including this intro:
- Article: Mozilla Firefox
Why: Although Firefox 3.0 has been available for a few weeks in beta, the official release took place just this past week.
Detail: One editor asks: “Should we include a section on Easter eggs into this article? For example, typing ” about:robots ” into the URL bar in Firefox3 results in a page titled ‘ Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!” Apparently not — that’s already covered in The Book of Mozilla.
- Article: The Incredible Hulk (film)
Why: The #1 film in America last week. But why still so high?
Detail: One possibility, nothing better than a little healthy competition to raise the article to “GA” or “Good Article” status: “How can we improve this article to make it GA quality? Iron Man (film) was GA within two weeks I think? Something like that I think. We should get moving on this article. Thoughts?”
- Article: Camp Rock
Why: This Disney Channel
Detail: Last week it was ICarly, this week it’s Camp Rock? I was about to assign credit to WikiProject Disney, but it turns out that particular project hasn’t claimed the film. WikiProject Films has. That said, it does seem that something Disney-related does make it on this list most weeks.
- Article: UEFA Euro 2008
Why: Last week’s #1, still in the top of the list.
Detail: The European soccer tournament concludes on June 29, so it may well appear on this list again next weekend.
- Article: Feed the Animals
Why: It’s a mash-up album released just this week.
Detail: The album contains substantial information about which samples were used on each track, so much so that I suspect it wouldn’t withstand serious scrutiny from the community. In fact, already the page is tagged for failing to cite sources.
- Article: Tim Russert
Why: The host of Meet the Press died of a sudden heart attack two Fridays ago.
Detail: I expressed some irritation last week that Russert’s article had failed to crack the top ten — apparently I just spoke too soon.
- Article: 2008 NBA Finals
Why: The Boston Celtics won their first championship in some twenty years last week, devastating the hated Los Angeles Laters and forever banishing all comparisons of Kobe Bryan with Michael Jordan to the dustbin of history (so says this Blazers fan).
Detail: In a previous edition, I had also wondered at why the article about the NBA playoffs failed to make the list, even as European soccer tournaments appeared. Well, finally it has.
- Article: Dasavathaaram
Why: A Tamil-language film released in the past couple weeks.
Detail: This article too was mentioned in last week’s edition, as an example of an article which ranked higher than Russert’s.
- Article: Midnight (Doctor Who)
Why: The latest episode of Doctor Who on BBC.
Detail: This is the third Doctor Who episode to appear on this list during the latest season (or as they say, series) began.
- Article: The Happening (2008 film)
Why: The latest Shyamalan film to be met with mostly negative reviews.
Detail: Which has, apparently, elicited the interest of more than a few Wikipedians. Who make suggestions like this one: “I have noticed that a lot of edits for this article were inclusions of unnecessary details, some of them detailing the methodology of suicides used in the film. I haven’t got time at the moment but perhaps, it might be useful if I (or someone else who beats me to it) make a new section that describes just that: how people killed themselves.”
Holdovers this week: UEFA Europe 2008, The Incredible Hulk (film)
Falling off the list: Everything, including Deaths in 2008 and any Featured Articles.
Recurring themes: Metric football, movies
Honorable mention: George Carlin I am writing this up on Monday morning, just a few hours after learning about the passing of comedian George Carlin his article is the most-edited of the past 24 hours, and there’s a good chance he’ll make the list next week as well.
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:
Article: 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.
- 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.
- Article: Kung Fu Panda
Why: The number one movie in America last week.
Detail: See above.
- 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.
Article: 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.
- 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?
- 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).
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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
For the third time in four weeks, an article about a British television show takes the top spot in our exploration of the top 10 most-edited articles on the English-language Wikipedia for the week of June 1 to June 7. Hat tip as usual to WikiRage creator Craig Wood for making this feature possible. Let’s get started:
- Article: Britain’s Got Talent
Why: Simon Cowell’s latest show actually named its winner in time for last week’s edition, but apparently there was more to stay about it. Sustained editing and discussion of how best to organize the article continued until June 4, but now the edits are trailing off as the article stabilizes.
Detail: I think for the first time, we have the same #1 two weeks in a row, although if not for week nine’s asterisk edition, I think Indy IV would have preceded it.
- Article: Harold Innis
Why: Featured Article on June 1. Heavily vandalized
Detail: I had never heard of the guy, but the article certainly demonstrates that he was interesting. But what’s more interesting to me is what appears to be no mere vandalism, but a hacking of the MediaWiki software. But be careful clicking on that link, especially if you have a large monitor. The heavily pixelated background is NSFW in the extreme, though it takes a moment to realize the fact.
- Article: Yves Saint Laurent (designer)
Why: The French fashion designer whom I would not have won an “alive or dead?” guessing game until his death on June 1 was announced.
Detail: It’s actually a surprisingly short article for a business celebrity or a most-edited page. My guess is that Saint Laurent didn’t do much publicity. The article’s two photos are from when he was fairly young. I can’t ever recall seeing him answer Vanity Fair’s Proust questionnaire like Karl Largerfeld has done. Heck, Lagerfeld picked the music and DJs for a radio station in Grand Theft Auto IV. Yves Saint Laurent, not so much.
Article: Bo Diddley
Why: The American rock singer, songwriter and rectangular guitarist died at age 79 on June 9.
Detail: I wondered what the last version of the page before his passing was announced looked like, so I looked it up. It’s substantially the same and approximately even the same length, but now is more tightly written. One image has been removed, likely because it wasn’t clearly released under a public license. It may be tempting to think of the latter change as making Wikipedia worse, but Wikipedia is quite conservative when it comes to approving images for use, probably to avoid being sued. This actually makes the “information wants to be free” types on Wikipedia strong defenders of copyright, which is kind of ironic.
- Article: Ran (film)
Why: Featured Article (FA) on June 1.
Detail: The article is fairly long, but apparently its suitability for the front page fell under dispute almost as soon as it went up. The page seems fine to me, and I’m not sure this wasn’t just a case of a user from WikiProject Music sniffing that his work was better.
- Article: Confederate government of Kentucky
Why: Featured article on June 3.
Detail: You can always count on certain articles which have reached FA status resulting in some debate on the associated talk page, even though these are pages which have supposedly reached enough stability that they’ve been so approved for the front page. Headline on the latest talk page debate: “’provisional government’ or ’shadow government’ a better term?”
- Article: 2008 Danish embassy bombing
Why: The Danish embassy in Islamabad was the site of a suicide car bombing on June 2, killing five. Al-Qaeda reportedly claimed responsibility on June 5, citing the Jyllands-Posten cartoons as motivation.
Detail: With no natural disasters to meticulously document this week, Wikipedia’s newshounds instead focused on building up this article. With the breakdown of country-by-country responses and substantial number of news citations (48) it certainly looks more than a little like it.
Article: One Night Stand (2008)
Why: It’s a WWE pay-per-view event that aired on June 1.
Detail: WWE has been dominating the bottom half of these lists for awhile. Long enough now that maybe we should think about it. Apparently one of the entertainment/media subcultures that has really taken to Wikipedia is professional wrestling and its fans. They may be more active than fans of any other professional sport; playoffs and championships pages sometimes show up here when they come around, but the 2008 NBA Finals are nowhere to be found, though it’s not a bad page. I used to have a WWE-related page watchlisted and for awhile, noted the changes each day. Kudos to WP:PROWRESTLING, or WikiProject Professional wrestling (you don’t capitalize “wrestling”). They’ve created 5 Featured Articles, which is pretty good, considering the subject matter.
- Article: Giovani dos Santos
Why: At first I thought he might be Baby Diego from “Children of Men” but apparently he’s a 19-year-old “attacking midfielder or forward, who plays for Barcelona and the Mexican national team.”
Detail: Why him, why now? Looks like the surge of interest owes to Santos transferring to Tottenham Hotspur in London, a deal worth between four and eight million pounds.
- Article: Night of Champions (2008)
Why: It’s a pay-per-view WWE event coming up on June 29.
Detail: “The official theme song is “Devour” by Shinedown.[3]”
Holdovers this week: Britain’s Got Talent
Falling off the list: Among non-featured articles, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Phoenix (spacecraft), Eurovision Song Contest 2009, Deaths in 2008 (just #15 this week), Nepal, 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Eurovision Song Contest 2008
Recurring themes: Simon Cowell, professional wrestling
Honorable mention: Clocking in at #25 is Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008, the name of which makes you wonder if he ran in 2004 or if Obama supporters want to imply there will be a 2012 re-elect.
Images courtesy garretkeough, timburts and greggoconnell on Flickr.
A look at the top 10 most-edited articles on the English-language Wikipedia from May 26 through June 1, according to the handy Wikirage edit-monitoring online tool.
- Article: Britain’s Got Talent
Why:The British (which I assume means original) version of Sim Cowell’s other show wrapped up on May 31.
Detail: The show as won by angelic-faced 14-year-old “street dancer” George Sampson. To see his final performance, click here (actual dancing begins at about 1:50). And apparently vandalism has been bad enough that the article is locked until June 3.
- Article: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Why: The new Indy flick may not be all that good, but that doesn’t seem to have diminished its popularity much.
Detail: Thousands of words have been spilled on the Talk page about the supposed original Lucas script and title, Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars. Visit that page quick, because it will probably be deleted within the week. Also of note, this was probably the top-most edited article last week but I’m pretty sure my clumsiness denied it that title, and it merely made the #2 slot. Either way, it’s the first time since this series started that any article has been in the same slot in consecutive weeks.
- Article: Phoenix (spacecraft)
Why: The much-celebrated unmanned space probe landed on Mars to much fanfare on May 25.
Detail: NASA typically makes many photos and details available about its grander projects, which makes for highly informative, highly detailed Wikipedia articles.
- Article: Eurovision Song Contest 2009
Why: Making its second appearance on the list, following its (possibly erroneous) #1 showing last week.
Detail: Not much seems to have changed since last week, except someone has added a really cool map. One thing I failed to note last week is that this page is about an event that won’t be held until next May; the 2008 version just wrapped up. That’s something, all right. Many of these pages document ongoing events, but I think this is the first time we’ve seen an article show up about an event so far in the future.
- Article: D. B. Cooper
Why: The article about the mysterious hijacker was the Featured Article on May 30.
Detail: It’s more than thirty years later, but there are still enough claims about Cooper’s identity and whereabouts for Wikipedians to argue about the details almost indefinitely.
- Article: The Strangers
Why: I’d never heard of it until now, but apparently it’s a horror film released just this weekend.
Detail: The same thing happened in the fifth edition of this series, with the film Prom Night. Like the mixed martial arts and professional wrestling events (to say nothing of the reality TV shows) that have made this list recently, the lowbrow are as drawn to Wikipedia as anyone.
- Article: Deaths in 2008
Why:
Detail: Passing this week: Director and actor Sydney Pollack, Blazing Saddles actor Harvey Korman, Star Trek producer Robert Justman, and you remember that movie, Lorenzo’s Oil? The real Lorenzo Odone passed away at age 30 in Fairfax, Virginia — living 20 years longer than doctors would have thought. Oh, and Australia’s most infamous female child murderer.
- Article: Nepal
Why: When the week began, the South Asian country was a monarchy, and now it’s a democracy. Then again, the Maoists won, so it’s debatable how much progress they made.
Detail: The change in form of government raised numerous questions among Wikipedia editors, among them whether a new article titled Kingdom of Nepal was needed, or whether the current page should be moved to Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. So far, the answer is no to both.
- Article: 2008 Sichuan earthquake
Why: The earthquake in China isn’t making front page headlines in the United States anymore, but it’s still making news.
Detail: This article fell off the list last week, after being the #2 entry in our eighth edition.
- Article: Eurovision Song Contest 2008
Why: This is the contest just concluded, and the first time we’re seeing it here. Strange how the 2009 contest has ranked higher than the current one.
Detail:
Holdovers this week: Eurovision Song Contest 2009, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Deaths in 2008 (probable).
Falling off the list: Stanley Cup, Dima Bilan, Eurovision Song Contest, UFC 84, Union of South American Nations, Rob Knox, Lion and Manuel Marulanda.
Recurring themes: Reality TV shows by Simon Cowell or competitions similar to Simon Cowell’s reality TV shows, natural disasters, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Honorable mention: Sydney Pollack, who came in at #11 and would have made the list if I had anything to say about it. I suppose I could have made a lot of tiny little changes to the page in hopes of propping it up, but by the time I knew it was too late. Oh, and I wouldn’t actually recommend doing so.
For the record, this page will not be covering Flavor of Love (season 3), Deaths in 2008, 2008 UEFA Champions League Final or a handful of other articles that may have made the top-edited list but for the fact that I’m not entirely sure whether I copied the list of top articles for the week or just for Sunday.
I’m only a human and WikiRage is only a program which as yet does not allow one to look at charts in the past. But in the interests of Wikipedia trivia, let’s keep this feature moving forward. And in the interests of posterity, all apologies to Indiana Jones, who may have been the rightful owner of the top slot this week.
Article: Eurovision Song Contest 2009
Why: The Eurovision Song Contest is something like the Olympics for pop groups of various European nations, held annually. I’d wager most Americans have never heard of it, but it’s actually entering its 53rd year.
Detail: It’s not easy to see where all those edits went in this first week. The page is not very long, and only a few participants are yet confirmed. The best explanation is that new pages being prepared to expand greatly according to pre-established rules are the locus of numerous tiny edits and adjustments. Glancing over the meticulous, country by country, week by week charting on the article for 2008’s installment, I expect the 2009 page will make this list in subsequent weeks.
- Article: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Why: This is no time for Wikipedia, Dr. Jones! The fourth installment in the Lucas/Spielberg/Ford series is the biggest movie in the world at the moment.
Detail: Through no real particular linking effort, this article is the third non-news listing on Wikipedia when the title is used as a search term. If your search term is “Indy 4″ it’s the second result. And in terms of length and citations, this page resembles nothing so much as two chart-topping articles from the past few weeks: 2008 Sichuan earthquake and Cyclone Nargis.
Article: Stanley Cup
Why: Yes, the NHL championship is under way now, but the article about the trophy itself was the Featured Article on May 25.
Detail: Is it surprising that Canada’s national sport a target of relentless Wikipedia vandals? Perhaps not when you consider how frequently recent “South Park” episodes make this list.
- Article: Dima Bilan
Why: The Russian pop artist won the 2008 Eurovision song contest.
Detail: Apparently the beginning of the new season brings the trolls out, as they make a recent, unscheduled appearance on the Talk page. But the attention also brought out the copyright hounds, who noted there was no rationale cited for the fair use image of Bilan in the article, and removed it.
- Article: Eurovision Song Contest
Why: The flagship article for the aforementioned annual European diva-off.
Detail: I kind of hope I did grab the wrong list of articles, becuase I’m not sure if I get interested enough in the contest to cover it week in and out.
- Article: UFC 84
Why: This weekend the MGM Grand in Las Vegas hosted the latest battle royale between the leading practitioners of what has apparently come to be known as “mixed martial arts.”
Detail: The title makes it sound like this event has been going for 84 years, but in fact UFC 83 was only in April, and UFC 85 will be in June. The only other thing I can say is that the Brazilians do exceptionally well.
- Article: Union of South American Nations
Why: You know the unification of North America raised by conspiracy theorists obsessed with the “NAFTA superhighway”? Yeah, well they did it South America.
Detail: I’m kidding, sort of. The newly created union aims to create a single market not unlike the European Union, but it’s not quite a reimagination of borders as drastic as the Organization of North American Nations from “Infinite Jest”, even if the name sort of implies it.
- Article: Rob Knox
Why: Article about an 18-year-old British actor killed by stabbing outside a bar in suburban London.
Detail: Wait a few days, and you may miss it. The article has been nominated for deletion, although early indications from the Talk page are that it will stay.
- Article: Lion
Why: Featured Article for May 24, 2008.
Detail: Lions are not greater targets for vandalism than Canadian hockey trophies, but as charismatic megafauna, they’re still a target.
Article: Manuel Marulanda
Why: Not Bill Frist’s former counsel but a leader of the FARC terrorist group reported to have died this week of a heart attack.
Detail: A fair point from a newbie, not yet taken up: “Im kinda new here. Is it good to have the Video section have a link to a site selling a video?You cannot watch it free. Seems a bit too commercial.”
Holdovers this week: You know, let’s just pretend Deaths in 2008 made the list. In the second week of this feature, we honored Herb Peterson, inventor of the Egg McMuffin, so it would be wrong now if we did not reflect briefly on the life of J.R. Simplot, the man behind the McDonald’s french fry.
Falling off the list: Everything from last week.
Recurring themes: Weekly-elimination musical competitions, televised non-Olympic fighting events, long articles about current events with 100-plus citations.
Honorable mention: American Idol. It’s #11 for the week as of Monday, and may have been on the list as of last night. I suppose we’ll never know. But considering that the American TV series has concluded just as it has helped Fox become the #1 network in the United States for the first full season ever, I’ll throw it a bone.
Images courtesy Banlon1964, Dunechaser and Heaven’s Gate (John) on Flickr.
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