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Wikipedia is dying! Wikipedia is dying! That's the line parroted by the media every six months or so since 2009, when Spanish researcher Felipe Ortega first noticed that unprecedented numbers of volunteer editors were abandoning the sixth most popular website in the world. As the now familiar story goes, the byzantine infrastructure behind the free, crowdsourced encyclopedia - 30 million articles in 287 languages, including more than 4.3 million in English - is choking to death. Wikipedia pessimists say the site is fatally clogged by a geeky cabal of white American men who would rather describe the minutiae of a new breed of Pokémon or fervently debate the politicization of hummus than mentor a diverse group of new editors around the world. The other corrosive element is the pervasive fighting by editors that sometimes supersedes the facts. "You have to realize that there are two very, very different sides to Wikipedia," Tarc, a 40-year-old IT worker from New England, told Newsweek in an email (Tarc is his Wikipedia editor name). One is "the public face of Jimbo Wales and 'the sum of human knowledge,' represented in tens of hundreds of thousands of articles, i.e. the encyclopedia proper." The other is "harsh and ugly," like "taking the red pill and waking up in the Matrix." Tarc took the red pill when he started editing in 2005. "To me it was more of a new place to hash out one's ideological positions than to collaborate on writing your own encyclopedia," he said. "And like most of the Internet, it can be done anonymously and without repercussion." Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now Tarc, a self-described reformed "Internet jerk," spent years editing articles on contentious topics ranging from Israel to Sarah Palin, not for the love of public knowledge but for love of drama. "Some of the battles are waged down at the sentence and word level, where each is not the product of a cheerful volunteer but a large collective of competing sides that have to compromise," he said. If, a few months later, an editor wants to change the wording, the bickering begins anew. Everyone seems to agree that some editing standards are needed, and that Wikipedia can't flourish without substantial pruning; otherwise, people's reputations are ruined or, sometimes worse, restored (last week, Vice UK broke a story about Wiki-PR, a sock-puppet firm that strategically edits clients' pages in violation of the site's neutrality policy.) In many ways, Wikipedia is a victim of its success, and the Wiki ethos upon which it was founded. The site grew quickly: more than 20,000 articles in 18 languages just one year after Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger founded it in January 2001. Two years later, Wales launched the Wikimedia Foundation to finance and run the site; the nonprofit now has a staff of 187 people who develop and maintain open-content, Wiki-based products. After the site saw gargantuan growth from 2004 to 2007 - the English-language Wikipedia had around 750,000 entries by late 2005 - the community created some tools to preserve quality and accuracy. Things didn't go as planned. A study published in the American Behavioral Science Journal by former Wikimedia fellows earlier this year found that the new automated quality-control tools and bureaucratic editing guidelines "crippled the very growth they were designed to manage" by scaring off new editors: The proportion of "desirable newcomers" - defined in the study as both "good-faith" editors who try but fail to be productive and "golden" (successful) contributors - entering Wikipedia has not changed since 2006, and they are significantly more likely than their predecessors to have their first contributions rejected. The number of editors peaked in 2007 and has been falling ever since, and it's now next-to-impossible to become an exalted "administrator," editors who check entries for accuracy and fairness. The site didn't just stagnate; it homogenized. In 2011, The New York Times reported that less than 15 percent of Wikipedia's hundreds of thousands of contributors were women. Studies have found that articles written by female editors were notably shorter than those written by men, and more than 80 percent of entries tagged by location were about Europe or North America. The Wikimedia foundation disclosed in its 2011-2012 annual report that "declining participation is by far the most serious problem facing the Wikimedia projects." The Wikimedia fellows behind a comprehensive study led by computer scientist and University of Minnesota Ph.D. candidate Aaron Halfaker were more blunt: They suggested Wikipedia change its motto from "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" to "the encyclopedia that anyone who understands the norms, socializes him or herself, dodges the impersonal wall of semiautomated rejection and still wants to voluntarily contribute his or her time and energy can edit." Wikimedia has been working hard on this problem, but the site is still "almost entirely written by techno-Libertarian white guys in their 30s," said Kevin Gorman, a longtime Wikipedia editor who has done work for the Wikimedia Foundation. According to a 2011 worldwide Wikipedia Editor Survey, the typical editor is college-educated, 30 years old, and intimidatingly tech-savvy; 91 percent of them are men. In 2011, Wikimedia Executive Director Sue Gardner pledged to raise the number of women contributors to 25 percent by 2015, but it's unclear whether that's still a goal; last March, she announced plans to transition out of her position. Headlines proclaiming Wikipedia's decline are "hyperbolic and wrong," said Andrew Lih, a journalism professor at American University and author of The Wikipedia Revolution. Even Halfaker thinks there's hope. "I'm inspired by what Wikipedia has done for the accessibility and access of knowledge generally," he told Newsweek. "But that doesn't mean that we can't do better." Halfaker has developed a program called Snuggle, an antidote to Huggle, Wikipedia's most prolific countervandalism tool. Snuggle is meant to minimize the amount of effort Wikipedians waste fighting vandalism and spam so that they can focus on contributing new content. Halfaker said Huggle works, but it also "labels newcomers as a problem to be dealt with." Conversely, Snuggle highlights the work of "good-faith" newcomers and the negative reaction they face. It sounds like a promising countermeasure, but Wikimedia is thinking bigger. Gardner told Newsweek that Wikimedia is primarily focused on fixing the infrastructure, streamlining Wikipedia's wonky and inscrutable text-based editing tool so that it's as accessible to undergraduates and grandmas as it is to geeks. She believes VisualEditor, currently in buggy Beta, will do just that - as soon as it stops crashing. She also pointed to another pet cause: tweaking the site's interface in small ways most users probably won't notice. For example, when Wikimedia realized that successful editors got their sea legs by fixing typos, the foundation started directing new registrants toward articles full of them. "The idea is to handhold people so they're getting positive feedback," she said. According to Wikimedia, that quick fix has led to 3,000 new Wikipedians a month making their first edits. Wikimedia has also hired diversity advocates like Sarah Stierch, a longtime Wikipedia editor and gender issues crusader. Before joining Wikimedia as a program evaluation community coordinator, Stierch held a paid Wikimedia fellowship during which she focused on gender work and taught women around the country how to edit Wikipedia. She also founded Teahouse, described on its Wikipedia page as "a friendly place to help new editors become accustomed to Wikipedia culture, ask questions, and develop community relationships." Additionally, Wikimedia helps organize domestic and global education programs in which volunteer "ambassadors" work with college professors to assign Wikipedia entries instead of essays. Gardner extolled the virtues of the program in Egypt, launched in spring 2012 to tackle the gender gap on the Arabic Wikipedia. It reached out to arts and languages departments, where there is a higher percentage of female students. According to Wikimedia, 87 percent of the Egyptian student-editors in the program are women, and they've added more than 1,000 articles to the Arabic Wikipedia and have made needed edits on many existing articles. Gorman, the regional ambassador for the U.S. Education Program for California and Hawaii, spoke passionately of his work with professors and undergraduates and pointed to some of his favorite pages written by U.C. Berkeley freshman, including one on STDs in prison, which he called one of his best "how the hell is this not here yet?" examples. But he said the program lacks oversight, particularly when it comes to targeting underrepresented topics, and wishes Wikimedia would consider paying ambassadors. "A lot of Wikipedians have a phobia of money," he said, which he believes holds back widespread progress. Gardner's response: "I don't think we would ever consider paying [ambassadors], because we really don't have to. Wikipedians naturally want to evangelize. They like coaching new people." Tell that to frequent Wikipedia editor AndyTheGrump, a U.K. resident who "naturally" wants to squabble, not coach - he asked to be identified by his editor name only "given some of the controversial topics" he has written about. He listed a variety of subjects one could visit if looking for controversy, including "medical quackery," em dashes, and "debates about whether Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' was New Wave or Dance Pop." But AndyTheGrump doesn't think Wikipedia is eating itself alive. A better user interface "might encourage the non-geeks a little," he said, but he thinks it's inevitable that certain demographics - i.e., guys just like him - are going to be more attracted to the site than other groups. "Contributing to an encyclopedia for fun isn't going to appeal to everyone," he wrote in an email. Gardner believes Wikimedia's initiatives will start paying off in the next few years - and they might - but the data aren't impressive. The education programs don't result in higher editor-retention levels. Stierch said her grassroots groups haven't attracted new women to editing and that Wikimedia still struggles to find women for leadership positions. "There hasn't been a [Wikipedia] project that has really moved the needle," said Valerie Aurora, the executive director and co-founder of the Ada Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting women in open tech and culture. She said both community leaders and editors need to prioritize diversity. But what if Wikipedia's core demographic would rather revive petty grudges on pages like "The Unblockables," than, say, mentor an 18-year-old girl from Pakistan? Even if Wikimedia fails to draw a diverse group of users who want to edit, not just battle one another, it seems unlikely that Wikipedia will self-destruct. What it offers the world is imperfect, but so much better than no Wikipedia at all - even if, as Stierch said, the site "epitomizes a project started by good-faith white males," like so much written history and cultural research in the Western world, that may take years to change. "I can't even imagine a world without Wikipedia at this point," Stierch said. "Can you?" |
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In a world flooded with celebrity crotch-shots and half-naked selfies, where pornography is not only readily available online but also serves as the linchpin for mainstream advertising campaigns (insert gratuitous American Apparel link here), does the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue even matter anymore? If you’re Time Inc., the answer is YES!!!!!! The iconic compendium of sexy models lounging on yachts and booty tooching on exotic beaches generates around seven percent of SI’s annual revenue, according to Forbes. It’s also one of Time Inc.’s most profitable ventures, raking in more than $1 billion over the years and reaching a global audience of more than 70 million. The photos from beyond-beautiful locales are shot by leading photographers such as Walter Iooss Jr. and Raphael Mazzucco and published like works of (modestly erotic) art. Sex has always sold and always will, even if looking at barely-there-bikini-clad beauties now seems a little last-century. Still, there is something different about the Swimsuit Issue, and that je ne sais quoi can be gleaned in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: 50 Years of Beautiful, a coffee-table book celebrating the 50th anniversary of the issue. Serving as an invaluable visual thesaurus for the word “bikini,” it bubbles over with photos of swimsuit-clad bombshells. The book, which took over two years to create, includes amusing outtakes, stories from editors, sections dedicated to athletes and, of course, body-painting, SI’s answer to the new-new bikini (you know, the one that isn’t there). Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now The Swimsuit Issue has been called everything from the librarian’s worst nightmare to every teenage boy’s best friend. It has launched the careers of famous household first names, from Heidi, Christy and Tyra to Brooklyn and Kate. And it’s always had a female editor-in-chief. Its humble beginnings were rooted in a simple quest: to pique readers’ interests during the winter sports doldrums. The first Swimsuit Issue arrived on January 20, 1964, with a specific purpose. “Andre Laguerre, the longtime managing editor of SI, wanted something completely offbeat from the hurly-burly of pro football – the playoffs and all of the hard sports. He thought it would be nice to look at a pretty woman down on the beach. And that’s how it began,” longtime SI writer and editor Walter Bingham tells Newsweek. “It was never intended to be what it has become.” Bingham, 83, covered baseball, golf, college football and tennis during his tenure at the magazine, from 1955 until 2000. He was already an SI veteran when the Swimsuit Issue launched, and though he was not directly involved in its production, he did pen a few titles, including 1988’s “Thailand Fling” and 1977’s “Zowie, it’s Maui!” “I was kidding!” he said of the Maui title. “But by god, it ran. I couldn’t believe it.” 'Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: 50 Years of Beautiful' includes amusing outtakes, stories from editors, and body-painting, SI’s answer to the new-new bikini. Courtesy of Sports Illustrated The first installment of the Swimsuit Issue was an eight-page supplement featuring Babette March looking like America’s prettiest girl next door in a conservative white two-piece, posed in the surf, water up to her knees and messy brown hair soaked through. The next year, the cover projected a similarly tame aesthetic, with Sue Peterson admirably filling out a black one-piece with red straps and cutouts at the waist. Things got a little more suggestive in 1966, when Sunny Bippus wore a low-cut red floral bikini. Reclining in the water with her face in profile, eyes closed and arm raised above her head, she smiled as if she was having all of the fun anyone has ever had at the beach. Covers continued in this way – quietly sexual and cleavage-less – until 1975, when Cheryl Tiegs posed in a skintight bikini. Kneeling in the water, she tossed her head to the right and shut her eyes as she splashed herself. The photo, taken by Iooss, was all about Tiegs’s body – the suit was just an inconvenient truth. Over time, “the suits got skimpier and skimpier, the models’ attributes bigger and bigger,” Bingham wrote in 2010 in the Cape Cod Times. In 1997, the swimsuit edition, which had always been part of the weekly edition of the magazine, became its own stand-alone issue; Tyra Banks was on the cover in a teeny, tiny polka-dot bikini, one year after becoming the publication’s first black cover girl. The 2005 issue, with Carolyn Murphy holding up (or taking off) the straps of her red bikini top, raked in $35 million in ad sales, according to Forbes. And while athletes have graced many of its pages – including tennis greats Steffi Graf, Serena Williams and Anna Kournikova; NFL cheerleaders, and race-car driver Danica Patrick – the Swimsuit Issue has always been a place where fantasy meets sexuality meets models pretending all that sand isn’t starting to chafe. Elle Macpherson has claimed the most covers (five) and Kathy Ireland appeared in its pages a record 12 times (her 1989 cover remains the best-selling issue). Over time, “the suits got skimpier and skimpier, the models’ attributes bigger and bigger." Courtesy of Sports Illustrated SI’s 50th anniversary book joins a crowded market. ESPN’s Body Issue, which features athletes posing nude and launched as a special section in 2009, was a direct response to declining advertising sales for ESPN, The Magazine; in the six months prior to its publication, ad pages had decreased 24 percent. Men’s magazine FHM has its 100 Sexiest Women in the World issue and Victoria’s Secret now televises its runway show. The venerable and now-creaky Playboy remains the arbiter of hot girls taking off their clothes. “I hear that a lot of people would like to do away with [the Swimsuit Issue], but it makes so much money, plus the offshoots – the calendars, all sorts of things – that they couldn’t possibly afford to. It’s the biggest moneymaker of all,” Bingham says. Asked if he has seen the new book, or even the latest Swimsuit Issue, he replies, “I haven’t given it a thought. I don’t think it’s something any of us – the 15 to 20 people I still email or see occasionally who all have left the magazine – have even mentioned. No one says, ‘Did you hear what’s happened to the Swimsuit Issue? Do you know who’s in charge?’ I have no idea. But as long as it keeps making money.…” Tags: Overhead Line Monitoring, Distribution Power Line Monitoring, Grid Analytics System, overhead Line sensor, grid fault detection |