Category Archives: Wikipedia

Wikipedia challenging UK law it says exposes it to ‘manipulation and vandalism’

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Wikimedia Foundation seeks judicial review of some requirements of Online Safety Act it claims may endanger safety of volunteer editors

The charity that hosts Wikipedia is challenging the UK’s online safety legislation in the high court, warning some of its regulations would expose the site to “manipulation and vandalism”.

In what could be the first judicial review related to the Online Safety Act, Wikimedia Foundation claims it is at risk of being subjected to the act’s toughest category 1 duties, which impose additional requirements on the biggest sites and apps.

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UK readers may lose access to Wikipedia amid online safety bill requirements

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Wikimedia UK says it will not carry out age verification if required to do so by the bill

Wikipedia could be made inaccessible to UK readers due to issues over complying with the online safety bill, a charity affiliated with the website has warned.

Lucy Crompton-Reid, the chief executive of Wikimedia UK, warned the popular site could be blocked because it will not carry out age verification if required to do so by the bill.

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Saudi Arabia jails two Wikipedia staff in ‘bid to control content’

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Administrators jailed for 32 years, and eight years, as activists warn of ploy to infiltrate website

Saudi Arabia has infiltrated Wikipedia and jailed two administrators in a bid to control content on the website, weeks after a former Twitter worker was jailed in the US for spying for the Saudis.

One administrator was jailed for 32 years, and another was sentenced to eight years, the activists said.

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Wikipedia at 20: last gasp of an internet vision, or a beacon to a better future?

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The naysayers said the user-written encyclopedia would never work. Now it boasts 55m articles and 1.7bn visitors a month

Twenty years ago today, a tech startup called Nupedia launched a side project. The company had been hard at work producing a free online encyclopaedia, but it was slow going: its strict editing process, comprehensive peer review and focus on expert authors meant it finished only 21 articles in its first year.

The side project would do away with all of that. Instead, anyone would be able to write and edit articles. Nupedia’s founders were split over whether the trade-off – more content with a lower barrier to entry – was worth it, but by the end of its first year, the side project had amassed articles on more than 18,000 topics. Nupedia, by the time it shut in 2003, had finished just 25.

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Vladimir Putin calls for ‘reliable’ Russian version of Wikipedia

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President says user-edited site should be replaced with Big Russian Encyclopaedia

Vladimir Putin has called for the creation of a more “reliable” Russian version of Wikipedia.

The president told a Kremlin meeting on the future of the Russian language: “As for Wikipedia … it’s better to replace it with the new Big Russian Encyclopaedia in electronic form,” RIA Novosti news agency reported. “At least that will be reliable information, presented in a good, modern way.”

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Spread the word: the Iraqis translating the internet into Arabic

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Ameen al-Jaleeli and a team of student translators are working to empower people with knowledge

When Islamic State overran the Iraqi city of Mosul, human life was not the only thing in peril. Knowledge was, too.

Fortunately, Ameen al-Jaleeli understood this. He used a friend’s wifi to transfer a vast batch of Wikipedia files for offline usage. When the militants cut the cables in July 2016, he was ready.

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