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No need to describe admin appointment process -- irrelevant to allegations of abuse. Criticisms of admins already detailed above, so discussion of specific articles is superfluous.
There is no need to duplicate so much content from Criticism of Wikipedia
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In April 2008, writer and lecturer [[Clay Shirky]] and computer scientist [[Martin M. Wattenberg|Martin Wattenberg]] estimated the total effort to create Wikipedia at roughly 100&nbsp;million [[man-hour]]s.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html | title=Gin, Television, and Social Surplus | last=Shirky | first=Clay | authorlink=Clay Shirky | work=shirky.com | date=April 26, 2008 | accessdate=February 7, 2011}}</ref> <!--Not sure if this is the best place to mention it - if not, move it elsewhere... -->
In April 2008, writer and lecturer [[Clay Shirky]] and computer scientist [[Martin M. Wattenberg|Martin Wattenberg]] estimated the total effort to create Wikipedia at roughly 100&nbsp;million [[man-hour]]s.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html | title=Gin, Television, and Social Surplus | last=Shirky | first=Clay | authorlink=Clay Shirky | work=shirky.com | date=April 26, 2008 | accessdate=February 7, 2011}}</ref> <!--Not sure if this is the best place to mention it - if not, move it elsewhere... -->

== Identification ==
Wikipedia does not require that its editors create accounts. Registered users may choose to maintain a profile on their userpage.

=== Anonymity of editors ===
{{See also|On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog}}
Wikipedia co-founder<ref name="GlynMoody">{{Cite news|url=http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1818630,00.html|title=This time, it'll be a Wikipedia written by experts|author=Glyn Moody|work=The Guardian|date=2006-07-13|accessdate=2007-04-28|quote=Larry Sanger seems to have a thing about free online encyclopedias. Although his main claim to fame is as the co-founder, along with Jimmy Wales, of Wikipedia, that is just one of several projects to produce large-scale, systematic stores of human knowledge he has been involved in..."[Jimmy Wales] saw that I was essentially looking for employment online and he was looking for someone to lead Nupedia"...Career: 1992–1996, 1997–1998 Graduate teaching associate, OSU; 2000–2002 Editor-in-chief, Nupedia. | location=London}}</ref> [[Larry Sanger]] wrote:<ref>{{Cite web|title = Toward a New Compendium of Knowledge (longer version) |url = http://www.citizendium.org/essay.html | work = Citizendium.org | accessdate = 2006-10-10 }}</ref>
<blockquote>Widespread anonymity leads to a distinguishable problem, namely, the attractiveness of the project to people who merely want to cause trouble, or who want to undermine the project, or who want to change it into something that it is avowedly not – in other words, the troll problem.</blockquote>

But more importantly, allowing anonymous editing generally induces a lack of authority, accountability, and healthy (or at least civil)
interaction:<ref>
B. Bergstein,
[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2007-03-25-wikipedia-alternative_N.htm Citizendium aims to be better Wikipedia], ''[[USA Today]]'', Posted 3/25/2007 3:00 PM.
</ref>
<blockquote>... Wikipedia's anonymity reduces the accountability that stimulates healthy exchanges. ... When you put everybody in a system that is flat, where everybody can say yes or no, without any sense of authority, what you get is tribalism, ... What has gone into the article creation is very often the result of this dysfunctional system. It presents itself with this aura of authority, whereas what goes on behind the scenes is anything but.</blockquote>

A February 2008 article in ''[[SF Weekly]]'' details a journalist's attempts to track down the real identity of Wikipedia user Griot, who got involved in edit wars over the biography of [[Ralph Nader]] as well as local politicians, and was eventually banned on Wikipedia for [[WP:SOCK|sock puppeteering]]. The article draws the distinction between the press and Wikipedia:<ref name=sfweekly>Mary Spicuzza (February 13, 2008) [http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-02-13/news/wikipedia-idiots-the-edit-wars-of-san-francisco Wikipedia Idiots: The Edit Wars of San Francisco] ''SF Weekly''</ref>

<blockquote>
Say what you will about the press: There is at least a measure of accountability in a newspaper that is rarely seen on Wikipedia. It's called a byline. I mean, I'm sure I've produced some less-than-brilliant work during the dozen or so years I've been a journalist. But at least I've had the guts to sign my name — my real name — to what I write.
</blockquote>

The article also quotes Paul Grabowicz, the new-media program director for the [[University of California at Berkeley]] Graduate School of Journalism:
<blockquote>
I guess I have the same feeling about Wikipedia and other citizen-generated sites [as I have] about the media: The more transparency the better [...] People should be able to find out who is producing the information.
</blockquote>

On Wikipedia, the term "anonymous" applies only to those editors who do not have registered accounts, and who use auto-generated [[IP address|IP]]-labeled accounts. They are referred to as anonymous, or "anons". To disambiguate the two notions of anonymity on Wikipedia, the term ''unregistered'' is employed for the remainder of this section.

Unregistered editors reveal their IP addresses, which can be used by admins to register complaints with Internet service providers or to put "range blocks" in place. Admins may also choose not to block because they might exclude regular contributors who share the same IP. Knowledgeable computer users and [[Hacker (computer security)|hackers]], though, are easily capable of finding ways around IP blocking. Many have suggested requiring users to register before editing articles, and on December 5, 2005 non-registered editors were prohibited from creating new articles on the English Wikipedia.<ref>{{Cite web|author=[[Jimmy Wales|Wales, Jimmy]]|date=2005-12-05|url=http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/033880.html|title=WikiEN-l Experiment on new pages|accessdate=2005-12-30}}</ref> This does not address the larger problem of anonymity however.

=== Verification ===
{{See also|Essjay controversy}}
In July 2006 ''[[The New Yorker]]'' ran a feature about Wikipedia by [[Stacy Schiff]].<ref name="New Yorker">Schiff, Stacey. [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact "Know it all: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?"], ''The New Yorker'', July 24, 2006.</ref> The initial version of the article included an interview with a [[Wikipedia:Administrators|Wikipedia administrator]] known by the [[pseudonym]] Essjay, who was described as a [[tenure]]d [[professor]] of [[theology]].<ref name="guardian">{{Cite news
|url = http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2028328,00.html
|title = Read me first
|accessdate = 2007-08-01
|last = Finkelstein
|first = Seth
|date = March 8, 2007
|work = Technology
|publisher = The Guardian
|archiveurl =
|archivedate= | location=London}}At some point, Essjay claimed he had sent a letter to a real-life college professor using his invented persona's credentials, vouching for Wikipedia's accuracy. In the letter he wrote in part, "It is never the case that known incorrect information is allowed to remain in Wikipedia."</ref> Essjay's Wikipedia user page<ref>{{Cite web|title=Archived copy of Essjay's Wikipedia user page|publisher=The Internet Archive|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20060111060701/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Essjay|archivedate=2006-01-11}}</ref> (now removed) made the following claim:
<blockquote>
I am a tenured professor of theology at a private university in the eastern United States; I teach both undergraduate and graduate theology. I have been asked repeatedly to reveal the name of the institution, however, I decline to do so; I am unsure of the consequences of such an action, and believe it to be in my best interests to remain anonymous.
</blockquote>

Essjay also claimed on his userpage that he held four academic degrees: Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.), Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.), Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology (Ph.D.), and Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD). Essjay specialized in editing articles about [[religion]] on Wikipedia, including subjects such as "the penitential rite, transubstantiation, the papal tiara";<ref name="New Yorker" /> on one occasion he was called in to give some "expert testimony" on the status of [[Mary (mother of Jesus)|Mary]] in the [[Roman Catholic Church]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Five_solas&diff=prev&oldid=15002257|title=Talk:Five solas|publisher=Wikipedia|date=2005-06-11|accessdate=2007-06-18}}</ref> In January 2007, Essjay was hired as a manager with [[Wikia]], a wiki-hosting service founded by Wales and [[Angela Beesley]]. In February, Wales appointed Essjay as a member of the [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee|Wikipedia Arbitration Committee]], a group with powers to issue binding rulings in disputes relating to Wikipedia.<ref>{{cite web|last=Elsworth|first=Catherine|title=Wikipedia professor is 24-year-old college dropout|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1544803/Wikipedia-professor-is-24-year-old-college-dropout.html|publisher=The Telegraph|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/6425sbBbB|archivedate=December 18, 2011|date=March 7, 2007}}</ref>

[[File:L Sanger.jpg|150px|thumb|[[Larry Sanger]], who left Wikipedia and founded [[Citizendium]]]]

In late February 2007 ''The New Yorker'' added an editorial note to its article on Wikipedia stating that it had learned that Essjay was Ryan Jordan, a 24-year-old college [[Dropping out|dropout]] from [[Kentucky]] with no advanced degrees and no teaching experience.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6423659.stm|title=Fake professor in Wikipedia storm|publisher=BBC|last=Staff|date=2007-03-06|accessdate=2007-03-08}}</ref> Initially Jimmy Wales commented on the issue of Essjay's identity: "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it." [[Larry Sanger]], [[History of Wikipedia#Conceptual origins|co-founder]]<ref name="Larry_Sanger_Springs_Citizendium">{{Cite news
|first=Brian
|last=Bergstein
|title=Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia
|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/25/AR2007032500570.html
|work=[[The Washington Post]]
|agency=Associated Press
|date=March 25, 2007
|accessdate=2007-03-26
|quote =The nascent Web encyclopedia Citizendium springs from Larry Sanger, a philosophy Ph.D. who counts himself as a co-founder of Wikipedia, the site he now hopes to usurp. The claim doesn't seem particularly controversial—Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder. Yet the other founder, Jimmy Wales, isn't happy about it.}}</ref><ref name="sanger-NYTimes">{{Cite news
|title=Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You
|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E5D6123BF933A1575AC0A9679C8B63&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fC%2fComputer%20Software
|work=New York Times
|accessdate=2007-08-01
|date=2001-09-20 | first=Peter | last=Meyers}}"I can start an article that will consist of one paragraph, and then a real expert will come along and add three paragraphs and clean up my one paragraph", said Larry Sanger of Las Vegas, who founded Wikipedia with Mr. Wales.</ref><ref>{{Cite news| url = http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/02/12/bias_sabotage_haunt_wikipedias_free_world/?page=4 | title = Bias, sabotage haunt Wikipedia's free world | author = David Mehegan | work = [[The Boston Globe]] | date = February 12, 2006 | accessdate = 2007-07-30}}</ref> of Wikipedia, responded to Wales on his [[Citizendium]] blog by calling Wales' initial reaction "utterly breathtaking, and ultimately tragic." Sanger said the controversy "reflects directly on the judgment and values of the management of Wikipedia."<ref name="cz">{{Cite web|url=http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/01/wikipedia-firmly-supports-your-right-to-identity-fraud/|title=Wikipedia firmly supports your right to identity fraud|accessdate=2007-03-02|publisher=Larry Sanger|date=1 March 2007|author=Larry Sanger|work=Citizendium Blog}}</ref>

Wales later issued a new statement saying he had not previously understood that "EssJay used his false credentials in content disputes." He added: "I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust within the [Wikipedia] community."<ref>{{Cite web|title=User talk:Jimbo Wales|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=112270687}}</ref> Sanger responded the next day: "It seems Jimmy finds nothing wrong, nothing trust-violating, with the act itself of openly and falsely touting many advanced degrees on Wikipedia. But there most obviously is something wrong with it, and it's just as disturbing for Wikipedia's head to fail to see anything wrong with it."<ref name="sanger2">{{Cite web|url=http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/03/jimmy-wales-latest-response-on-the-essjay-situation/|title=Jimmy Wales’ latest response on the Essjay situation|accessdate=2007-03-03|publisher=Larry Sanger|date=3 March 2007|author=Larry Sanger|work=Citizendium Blog}}</ref>

On March 4, Essjay wrote on his userpage that he was leaving Wikipedia, and he also resigned his position with Wikia.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wikia.com/wiki/User:Essjay|title=Essjay's Wikia user page|accessdate=2007-09-19}}</ref>

A subsequent article in ''[[The Courier-Journal]]'' ([[Louisville, Kentucky|Louisville]]) suggested that the new [[résumé]] he had posted at his Wikia page was exaggerated.<ref>{{Cite web|first=Andrew |last=Wolfson |title=Wikipedia editor who posed as professor is Ky. dropout: Man resigns post after controversy |url=http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070306/NEWS01/703060446/1008 |work=[[Louisville Courier-Journal]] |date=March 6, 2007 |accessdate=2007-03-07 |archiveurl=http://www.kctcs.net/todaysnews/index.cfm?tn_date=2007-03-06#9315 |archivedate=2007-05-17}}</ref> The March 19, 2007 issue of ''The New Yorker'' published a formal apology by Wales to the magazine and Stacy Schiff for Essjay's false statements.<ref name="WalesApology">{{Cite news| last = Wales| first = Jimmy| author-link = Jimmy Wales| newspaper = [[The New Yorker]]| date = 2007-03-19| title = Making amends| page = 24 }}</ref>

Discussing the incident, the ''New York Times'' noted that the Wikipedia community had responded to the affair with "the fury of the crowd", and observed:

<blockquote>
The Essjay episode underlines some of the perils of collaborative efforts like Wikipedia that rely on many contributors acting in good faith, often anonymously and through self-designated user names. But it also shows how the transparency of the Wikipedia process—all editing of entries is marked and saved—allows readers to react to suspected fraud.<ref>{{Cite news|first=Noam |last=Cohen |title=A Contributor to Wikipedia Has His Fictional Side |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/technology/05wikipedia.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=f79cc41f899c2de6&ex=1330750800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=2007-03-05 |accessdate=2007-03-05 }}</ref>
</blockquote>

The Essjay incident received extensive media coverage, including a national U.S. television broadcast on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC's]] ''[[World News with Charles Gibson]]''<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2929512|title=ABC News broadcast on Essjay|accessdate=2007-03-08}}</ref> and a March 7, 2007 [[Associated Press]] story that was picked up by more than 100 media outlets listed in the [[Google]] news cache.<ref>{{Cite news|title= After flap over phony professor, Wikipedia wants some writers to share real names |url= http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-03-07-wikipedia-credentials_N.htm |agency=Associated Press|first=Brian |last=Bergstein|date= March 7, 2007 | work=USA Today}}</ref> The controversy has led to a proposal that users claiming to possess academic qualifications would have to provide evidence before citing them in Wikipedia content disputes.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129702-c,webservices/article.html|title=Wikipedia Founder Addresses User Credentials|first=Martyn|last=Williams|publisher=IDG News Service|date=2007-03-09}}</ref> The proposal was not accepted.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Credentials|Wikipedia Credentials]]</ref>

In 2009, it was revealed that a British [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] councillor had been anonymously editing Wikipedia as 'Sam Blacketer', including many political articles in the UK. He resigned from membership of the Arbitration Committee.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/wikipedia-sentinel-quits-after-using-alias-to-alter-entries-1698762.html |title=Wikipedia 'sentinel' quits after using alias to alter entries |publisher=Independent.co.uk |date= 2009-06-07|accessdate=2010-03-31 | location=London | first1=Jamie | last1=Welham | first2=Nina | last2=Lakhani}}</ref>

==Editorial process==
{{Further|Academic studies about Wikipedia#Power plays}}

=== Civility ===
The standard of debate on Wikipedia has been called into question by persons who have noted that contributors can make a long list of salient points and pull in a wide range of empirical observations to back up their arguments, only to have them ignored completely on the site.<ref name=cult>{{Cite news
| url = http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/insideit/story/0,,1667345,00.html
| title = Log on and join in, but beware the web cults | last = Arthur | first = Charles
| date = 2005-12-15 | accessdate = 2006-07-14 | work=The Guardian | location=London}}</ref> An academic study of Wikipedia articles found that the level of debate among Wikipedia editors on controversial topics often degenerated into counterproductive squabbling:
<blockquote>For uncontroversial, 'stable' topics self-selection also ensures that members of editorial groups are substantially well-aligned with each other in their interests, backgrounds, and overall understanding of the topics... For controversial topics, on the other hand, self-selection may produce a strongly misaligned editorial group. It can lead to conflicts among the editorial group members, continuous edit wars, and may require the use of formal work coordination and control mechanisms. These may include intervention by administrators who enact dispute review and mediation processes, [or] completely disallow or limit and coordinate the types and sources of edits.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://mailer.fsu.edu/~bstvilia/papers/stvilia_wikipedia_infoWork_p.pdf|format=PDF|title=Information Quality Work Organization in Wikipedia|author=Besiki Stvilla, Michael Twidale, Linda Smith, Les Gasser|publisher=Florida State University|accessdate=2007-10-05}}</ref></blockquote>

Another complaint about Wikipedia focuses on the efforts of contributors with [[idiosyncratic]] [[belief]]s, who push their point of view in an effort to dominate articles, especially controversial ones.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=55&objectid=10368068|title=Wikipedia – separating fact from fiction|work=[[The New Zealand Herald]]|date=2006-02-13|accessdate=2007-04-17|author=Martin Hickman and Genevieve Roberts|quote=Such checking leads to a daily battle of wits with the cyber-wreckers who insert erroneous, ludicrous and offensive material into entries. How frequently entries get messed about with depends on the controversy of their subjects. This week the entry [[Muslim]] is being attacked dozens of times a day following the row about cartoons of [[Mohammed]] with angry denunciations of suicide bombing and claims of hypocrisy. Prime Minister [[Tony Blair]]'s entry is a favourite for distortion with new statements casting aspersions on his integrity.}}</ref><ref name="Torsten_Kleinz">{{Cite news|first=Torsten|last=Kleinz|title=World of Knowledge|work =The Wikipedia Project|url=http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/51/Wikipedia_Encyclopedia.pdf|format=PDF|work=[[Linux Magazine]]|month=February | year=2005|accessdate=2007-05-12|quote=The Wikipedia's open structure makes it a target for trolls and vandals who malevolently add incorrect information to articles, get other people tied up in endless discussions, and generally do everything to draw attention to themselves.}}</ref> This sometimes results in revert wars and pages being locked down. In response, an Arbitration Committee has been formed on the English Wikipedia that deals with the worst alleged offenders—though a conflict resolution strategy is actively encouraged before going to this extent. Also, to stop the continuous reverting of pages, Jimmy Wales introduced a "three-revert rule",<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:3RR |title=Wikipedia: Three revert rule}}</ref> whereby those users who reverse the effect of others' contributions to one article more than three times in a 24-hour period may be blocked.

Another edit war reported in mainstream press happened soon after the death of [[Kenneth Lay]], the disgraced former [[CEO]] of [[Enron]], who died from a [[heart attack]]. Several editors to the encyclopedia added content to Lay's Wikipedia biography surmising that the death was in fact a [[suicide]], well in advance of any official determination of cause of death. Such edits were reverted and re-inserted several times; eventually the article reported the cause of death as a heart attack. As of July 2007, there is no evidence to suggest that Lay's death was by other than natural causes. The edit history of the article was investigated by the press, and ''[[The Washington Post]]'' published a column on the subject.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070800135_pf.html/|title=Death by Wikipedia: The Kenneth Lay Chronicles|date=2006-07-09|author=Frank Ahrens | work=The Washington Post}}</ref>

Another edit war occurred in August 2009 on [[Swedish Wikipedia]], where [[Onoff]] employees removed critical content from the article about Onoff, a Swedish retail chain that sells home electronics and appliances. Erik Frankedal, press contact for Onoff, told Computer Sweden that he didn't know about this edit and didn't have the time to check it out. [[IDG]] reported about this event.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.243223/onoff-friserade-sig-sjalvt-pa-wikipedia |title=Onoff and Swedish Wikipedia |publisher=IDG.se |date= |accessdate=2010-03-31}}</ref>

An ''SF Weekly'' article<ref name=sfweekly/> commented on the stakes of edit wars:
<blockquote>
Many an edit war may seem like a fight over nothing to the casual observer, but considering that according to its staff, the popular, multilingual Web site gets about 7 billion views per month, stakes can be high. An edit yields what millions of people read on the site on any particular topic.
</blockquote>

Insults are often made by users to create a hostile environment. The increasingly hostile environment in Wikipedia has led to a sharp decline in the number of Wikipedia editors, as reported in a November 2009 ''The Wall Street Journal'' article, titled
"Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages"<ref name="angwin.fowler.wsj.2009">J. Angwin and G.A. Fowler, Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages, ''The Wall Street Journal'', 27 Nov 2009. Read the article from [http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/11/23/wsj-volunteers-log-off-as-wikipedia-ages/ Resource Shelf].</ref>:
<blockquote>Volunteers have been departing the project that bills itself as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" faster than new ones have been joining, and the net losses have accelerated over the past year. In the first three months of 2009, the English-language Wikipedia suffered a net loss of more than 49,000 editors, compared to a net loss of 4,900 during the same period a year earlier. ... "Wikipedia is becoming a more hostile environment", contends [[Felipe Ortega|Mr. Ortega]], a project manager at Libresoft, a research group at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. "Many people are getting burnt out when they have to debate about the contents of certain articles again and again."<ref name="angwin.fowler.wsj.2009"/> </blockquote>

This concern has been acknowledged by Wikipedia; civility<ref>{{Cite web| url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CIVIL |title= Wikipedia: Civility}}</ref> and "no personal attacks"<ref>{{Cite web| url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPA |title= Wikipedia: No personal attacks}}</ref> are official policies of the project, and the concept of "wikiquette" has been adopted by some users in response.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/h074pg176l3k3120/fulltext.pdf|title=''Wiki: Web Collaboration'', Chapter One: "The Wiki Concept", p. 28-29|author=Anja Ebersbach, Markus Glaser and Richard Heigl|publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2006 ISBN 978-3-540-25995-4|accessdate=2007-01-28|format=PDF}}</ref>

In an article in ''[[The Brooklyn Rail]]'', Wikipedia contributor {{srlink|User:David Shankbone|David Shankbone}} contended that he had been harassed and stalked because of his work on Wikipedia, had received no support from the authorities or the [[Wikimedia Foundation]], and only mixed support from the Wikipedia community. Shankbone wrote that "If you become a target on Wikipedia, do not expect a supportive community."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/06/express/nobodys-safe-in-cyber-space|title=Nobody's safe in cyberspace|last=Shankbone|first=David|month=June | year=2008|work=[[The Brooklyn Rail]]|accessdate=2008-07-10}}</ref>

===Consensus and the "hive mind"===

[[Oliver Kamm]], in an article for ''[[The Times]]'', expressed skepticism toward Wikipedia's reliance on [[WP:CON|consensus]] in forming its content:<ref name=okw>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2267665.ece Wisdom? More like dumbness of the crowds | Oliver Kamm – Times Online]{{Dead link|date=March 2010}}</ref>
<blockquote>
Wikipedia seeks not truth but consensus, and like an interminable political meeting the end result will be dominated by the loudest and most persistent voices.
</blockquote>

In his article, ''[[Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism]]'' (first published online by ''Edge: The Third Culture'', 30 May 2006), computer scientist and digital theorist [[Jaron Lanier]] describes Wikipedia as a "hive mind" that is "for the most part stupid and boring", and asks, rhetorically, "why pay attention to it?" His thesis follows:

<blockquote>
The problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous.<ref name="JaronLanier"/>
</blockquote>

Lanier goes on to point out the economic trend to reward entities that aggregate information, rather than those that actually generate content. In the absence of "new business models", the popular demand for [[information|content]] will be sated by mediocrity, thus reducing or even eliminating any monetary incentives for the production of ''new'' knowledge.<ref name="JaronLanier">{{Cite news
|first=Jaron
|last=Lanier
|title=Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism
|url=http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html
|publisher=[[Edge Foundation, Inc.|Edge Foundation]]
|date=May 30, 2006
|accessdate=2007-04-30}}</ref>

Lanier's opinions produced some strong disagreement. Internet consultant [[Clay Shirky]] noted that Wikipedia has many internal controls in place and is not a mere mass of unintelligent collective effort:

<blockquote>Neither proponents nor detractors of hive mind rhetoric have much interesting to say about Wikipedia itself, because both groups ignore the details... Wikipedia is best viewed as an engaged community that uses a large and growing number of regulatory mechanisms to manage a huge set of proposed edits... To take the specific case of Wikipedia, the Seigenthaler/Kennedy debacle catalyzed both soul-searching and new controls to address the problems exposed, and the controls included, inter alia, a greater focus on individual responsibility, the very factor "Digital Maoism" denies is at work.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/06/07/reactions_to_digital_maoism.php|title=Reactions to Digital Maoism|publisher=Many2Many|author=Clay Shirky|date=2006-06-07|accessdate=2007-05-01}}</ref></blockquote>

In a 2005 study, Emigh and Herring note that there are not yet many formal studies of Wikipedia or its model, and suggest that Wikipedia achieves its results by social means—[[Norm (sociology)|self-norming]], a core of active users watching for problems, and expectations of encyclopedic text drawn from the wider culture.<ref name="emigh">Emigh & Herring (2005) "Collaborative Authoring on the Web:
A Genre Analysis of Online Encyclopedias", Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences. ([http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/wiki.pdf PDF])</ref>

=== Communication ===
MediaWiki provides many features beyond hyperlinks for structuring content. One of the earliest features is ''[[namespace]]s''. One of Wikipedia's earliest problems had been the separation of encyclopedic content from pages pertaining to maintenance and communal discussion, as well as personal pages about encyclopedia editors. Namespaces are prefixes before a page title (such as "<code>User:</code>" or "<code>Talk:</code>") that serve as descriptors for the page's purpose and allow multiple pages with different functions to exist under the same title. For instance, a page titled "<code><nowiki>[[The Terminator]]</nowiki></code>", in the default namespace, could describe [[The Terminator|the 1984 movie]] starring [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]], while a page titled "<code><nowiki>[[User:The Terminator]]</nowiki></code>" could be a profile describing a user who chooses this name as a pseudonym. More commonly, each page and each namespace has an associated "<code>Talk:</code>" page, which can be used to discuss its contents, such as "<code>User talk:</code>" or "<code>Template talk:</code>". The purpose of having discussion pages is to allow content to be separated from discussion surrounding the content.<ref>{{cite book |title=Enterprise 2. 0 Implementation |author=Newman, Aaron, Adam Steinberg, and Jeremy Thomas |page=185 |publisher=McGraw-Hill Professional |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-07-159160-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Multi-Stakeholder Governance and the Internet Governance Forum |author=Malcolm, Jeremy |pages=188, 280 |publisher=Terminus Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-9805084-0-6}}</ref>

==Social stratification==
{{Further|Academic studies about Wikipedia#Work distribution and social strata}}

Since its creation, Wikipedia ostensibly upheld the basic principle of equal status for all good faith editors. In 2010, Jimmy Wales stated that: <ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=370807626</ref>
<blockquote>There must be no cabal, no elite, and no hierarchy or structure to get in the way of this openness to newcomers. Any security measures to be implemented to protect the community against real vandals (and there are real vandals, who do occasionally affect us), should be implemented on the model of "strict scrutiny".</blockquote>

===Expansion of administrator authority===
To reduce vandalism and to control user conduct, Wikipedia created a class of volunteer [[sysop|administrators]] or "sysops" who are invested with the means and authority to discipline users.<ref name=nyt1>Hafner, Kate (June 17, 2006). [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?_r=1&scp=8&sq=wikipedia&st=cse "Growing Wikipedia Refines Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy".] New York Times. Retrieved June 25, 2010.</ref> Administrator powers include deleting articles, protecting pages from editing, and blocking users; actions that ordinary (non-sysop) editors cannot do or undo. Special rules and protocols were set up to prevent administrators from abusing their powers; such as the [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]] (AfD) page, a forum to discuss article deletions. An administrator who wished to delete an article was required to post a notice on the article itself, and wait for comments of other editors, before carrying out the deletion. Moreover, since every sysop can undo the actions of other sysops, any reported abuse by one individual can in principle be corrected by his peers.

Nevertheless, those extra powers inevitably meant that the opinion of administrators, individually and as a whole, would prevail over that of ordinary users in certain kinds of disputes. While the principle of equality among editors was never formally revised, changes in Wikipedia policies have gradually increased the effective authority and independence of administrators. These changes intensified after 2006, when the [[Wikipedia biography controversy|Seigenthaler biography incident]] forced Wikipedia to tighten its defences against malicious edits. For instance, at some point sysops were given the authority to [[Wikipedia:Speedy deletion|speedily delete]], without prior discussion on the AfD, articles that were clearly malicious, or deemed inappropriate by any of several other criteria. In 2010, these criteria were further widened to include biographies of living persons (BLPs) which did not include adequate references, irrespective of their contents being verifiable or not. As a consequence of these enlarged powers, administrators have increasingly had to impose their opinion, ex officio, over that of ordinary users.<ref name=forte>Forte, Andrea; Larco, Vanessa; Bruckman, Amy (June 2009). "Decentralization in Wikipedia Governance". Journal of Management Information Systems 26 (1): 49–72. ISSN 0742-1222. "Despite the traditional division between technical and social powers on the site, administrators are beginning to step into more authoritative roles and are making more and more interpretive and "moral" decisions about user behavior.".</ref> At the same time, the body of Wikipedia rules and procedures kept increasing in size and complexity. This further increased the authority gap between administrators and veteran editors, who know the rules, and ordinary editors — especially novice ones.

===Complaints about administrator abuse===

Allegations have been made in Wikipedia's internal forums that administrator abuse has been steadily increasing in frequency and severity, and that it is one major reason for a decline in editor numbers since 2006.<ref name="parc">Bongwon Suh, Gregorio Convertino, Ed H. Chi, Peter Pirolli (2009), "[http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~echi/papers/2009-WikiSym/wikipedia-slow-growth-ASC-PARC.pdf The Singularity is Not Near: Slowing Growth of Wikipedia]". Proc. WikiSym’09.</ref>

Allegations of administrator abuse have circulated outside Wikipedia in blogs, online technical forums, and in mainstream media.<ref>Millard, Mike (February 20, 2008). "[http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-5129-feature-wikipediots-who-are-these-devoted-even-obsessive-contributors-to-wikipedia.html Wikipediots: Who are these devoted, even obsessive contributors to Wikipedia?]". Salt Lake City Weekly. Retrieved June 25, 2010.</ref> It has also been argued that, despite the perception of Wikipedia as a "shining example of Web democracy", "a small number of people are running the show."<ref name="wilson">Wilson, Chris (February 22, 2008). [http://www.slate.com/id/2184487/pagenum/all/#p2 "The Wisdom of the Chaperones: Digg, Wikipedia, and the myth of Web 2.0 democracy."] ''Slate''. Retrieved June 25, 2010.</ref> In an article on Wikipedia conflicts, ''[[The Guardian]]'' noted complaints that administrators sometimes use their special powers to suppress legitimate editors.<ref name=admin /> The article discussed "a backlash among some editors, who argue that blocking users compromises the supposedly open nature of the project, and the imbalance of power between users and administrators may even be a reason some users choose to vandalise in the first place."<ref name=admin>{{Cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/mar/25/wikipedia.web20|title=Wiki wars|author=Jenny Kleeman|date=2007-03-25|accessdate=2007-10-04|work=The Guardian | location=London}}</ref>

===Consistency of complaints===
The existence and significance of widespread administrator abuse is highly disputed within Wikipedia. A common rebuttal to such allegations is that a raising of editorial standards became necessary to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles. In particular, the higher rates of article deletions observed since 2006<ref name="parc"/> are claimed to be necessary to meet new guidelines on allowed article topics, such as a set of "notability" requirements. The same argument is used to justify the insertion of tags in articles that warn readers against perceived flaws and/or request that other editors perform certain editorial actions.

There have been no systematic surveys of the opinions of ordinary editors about sysop behavior, or about Wikipedia governance in general. A limited enquiry was made in 2009 among former Wikipedia editors, with the goal of finding out the reasons why they had left.{{Citation needed|date=July 2010}} Another experiment was conducted in 2009, with the goal of determining whether Wikipedia had indeed become hostile to new editors. In this experiment, several experienced editors pretended to be inexperienced new users, deliberately created poor-quality articles, and followed their fate over the following weeks.{{Citation needed|date=August 2012}}

===Frequent editors===

In 2006, Jimmy Wales claimed that the majority of Wikipedia edits are made by a group of around 500 people who "all know each other".<ref name="whowriteswikipedia">[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia Who Writes Wikipedia? (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> However, at the same time it was claimed that the amount of text was used as a metric instead of edit count, the result was often the opposite. Most of the top contributors to the content of articles were people who only edited Wikipedia occasionally, many of whom had not registered a Wikipedia account.<ref name="whowriteswikipedia"/>


==Size==
==Size==
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=== Wiknics ===
=== Wiknics ===
The annual Great American Wiknic is a social gathering that takes place in major cities of the United States.<ref name="Great American Wiknic">{{cite web|title=Wikipedia editors log off long enough to mingle|url=http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20110625/NEWS0107/106250306/|publisher=The Washington Post|accessdate=5 July 2011|author=Monica Hesse|date=25|month=June|year=2011}}</ref>
The annual Great American Wiknic is a social gathering that takes place in major cities of the United States.<ref name="Great American Wiknic">{{cite web|title=Wikipedia editors log off long enough to mingle|url=http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20110625/NEWS0107/106250306/|publisher=The Washington Post|accessdate=5 July 2011|author=Monica Hesse|date=25|month=June|year=2011}}</ref>

=== Criticism of the community ===

{{main article|Criticism of Wikipedia#Criticism of the community}}

The community of Wikipedia has been subject to several criticisms. These include the effects of users' anonymity, the alleged abuse of privileges by administrators, and the role of the project's founder, [[Jimmy Wales]], in the community.


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 22:32, 9 August 2012

Community of Wikipedia

The community of Wikipedia is a network of volunteers, sometimes known as "Wikipedians", who make contributions to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

William Emigh and Susan C. Herring found that "a few active users, when acting in concert with established norms within an open editing system, can achieve ultimate control over the content produced within the system, literally erasing diversity, controversy, and inconsistency, and homogenizing contributors' voices."[1] The community has also been criticized for responding to complaints regarding an article's quality by advising the complainer to fix the article themselves.[2] Professor James H. Fetzer criticized Wikipedia in that he could not change the article about himself;[3] to ensure impartiality, Wikipedia has a policy that discourages the editing of biographies by the subjects themselves except in "clear-cut cases", such as reverting vandalism or correcting out-of-date or mistaken facts.[4]

The community has been described as "cult-like",[5][6][7] although not always with entirely negative connotations.[8]

Wikipedia does not require that its users identify themselves. This means that multiple people may use one account, or, more often, one person may use multiple accounts, often in an attempt to influence the content of articles, or help fabricate consensus in editorial disputes.[9][10] The latter practice is known as "sockpuppetry", which is actively discouraged on Wikipedia.[11]

In April 2008, writer and lecturer Clay Shirky and computer scientist Martin Wattenberg estimated the total effort to create Wikipedia at roughly 100 million man-hours.[12]

Size

Early studies of the size of the community of Wikipedia showed an exponential growth rate of the number of Wikipedia volunteers. By 2009, the rate of growth had declined.[13] In November 2011, there were approximately 31.7 million registered user accounts across all language editions, of which around 270,000 accounts were active on a monthly basis.[14]

Motivation

Members of the Wikipedia community on the whole do not receive monetary compensation or other forms of compensation such as significantly elevated status within community or a possibility to self-promote.

Several studies have been done with regard to the motivations of Wikipedia contributors. In a 2003 study of Wikipedia as a community, economics Ph.D. student Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low transaction costs of participating in wiki software create a catalyst for collaborative development, and that a "creative construction" approach encourages participation.[15] A paper written by Andrea Forte and Amy Bruckman in 2005 called "Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? Incentives to Contribute to Open-Content Publishing" discussed the possible motivations of Wikipedia contributors. It applied Latour and Woolgar's concept of the cycle of credit to Wikipedia contributors, suggesting that the reason that people write for Wikipedia is to gain recognition within the community.[16]

Oded Nov, in his 2007 paper "What Motivates Wikipedians", related the motivations of volunteers in general to the motivations of people who contribute to Wikipedia.[17] Nov carried out a survey using the six motivations of volunteers, identified in an earlier paper.[18] The six motivations he used were:

  • Values – expressing values to do with altruism and helping others
  • Social – engaging with friends, taking part in activities viewed favourably by others
  • Understanding – expanding knowledge through activities
  • Career – gaining work experience and skills
  • Protective – e.g. reducing guilt over personal privilege
  • Enhancement – demonstrating knowledge to others

To these six motivations he also added:

  • Ideology – expressing support for what is perceived to be the underlying ideology of the activity (e.g. the belief that knowledge should be free)
  • Fun – enjoying the activity

The survey found that the most commonly indicated motives were "fun," "ideology," and "values," whereas the least frequently indicated motives were "career," "social," and "protective."[17]

The Wikimedia Foundation has carried out several surveys of Wikipedia contributors and users. In 2008 the Wikimedia Foundation, alongside the Collaborative Creativity Group at UNU-Merit launched a survey of readers and editors of Wikipedia. It was the most comprehensive survey of Wikipedia ever conducted.[19] The results of the survey were published two years later on March 24, 2010.[20] The Wikimedia Foundation began a process in 2011 of semi-annual surveys in order to understand Wikipedia editors more and better cater to their needs.[21][22]

"Motivations of Wikipedia content contributors", a paper by Heng-Li Yang and Cheng-Yu Lai, hypothesised that because contributing to Wikipedia is voluntary, an individual's enjoyment of participating would be the highest motivator.[23] However, their study showed that although people might initially start editing Wikipedia out of enjoyment, the most likely motivation for continuing to participate is self-concept based motivations such as "I like to share knowledge which gives me a sense of personal achievement."[23]

Editors of Wikipedia have occasionally given personal testimonials of why they contribute to Wikipedia. A common theme of these testimonials is the enjoyment that editors seem to get from contributing to Wikipedia and being part of the Wikipedia community. Also mentioned is the potential addictive quality of editing Wikipedia. Gina Trapani of Lifehacker said "it turns out editing an article isn't scary at all. It's easy, surprisingly satisfying and can become obsessively addictive."[24] Jimmy Wales has also commented on the addictive quality of Wikipedia, saying "The main thing about Wikipedia [...] is that it’s fun and addictive".[25] Wikipedians sometimes award one another barnstars for good work. These personalized tokens of appreciation reveal a wide range of valued work extending far beyond simple editing to include social support, administrative actions, and types of articulation work. The barnstar phenomenon has been analyzed by researchers seeking to determine what implications it might have for other communities engaged in large-scale collaborations.[26]

Socializing

Wiknic 2011 in Pittsburgh

Offline activities are organized by the Wikimedia Foundation or the community of Wikipedia. A WikiMeet is an organized face-to-face meeting of Wikipedia members, sometimes small and informal, sometimes large and formal.

Wikimania

Wikimania is an annual international conference for users of the wiki projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation (such as Wikipedia and other sister projects). Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia Foundation projects, other wikis, open source software, free knowledge and free content, and the different social and technical aspects which relate to these topics.

Wiknics

The annual Great American Wiknic is a social gathering that takes place in major cities of the United States.[27]

Criticism of the community

The community of Wikipedia has been subject to several criticisms. These include the effects of users' anonymity, the alleged abuse of privileges by administrators, and the role of the project's founder, Jimmy Wales, in the community.

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference emigh was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Orlowski, Andrew, "Wiki-fiddlers defend Clever Big Book", The Register, 2004-07-23.
  3. ^ "Professor James Fetzer Exposes Wikipedia.org". Video.google.com. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
  4. ^ "Wikipedia:Autobiography". Wikipedia. Retrieved 2007-05-03.
  5. ^ Arthur, Charles (2005-12-15). "Log on and join in, but beware the web cults". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-03-27.
  6. ^ Thompson, Bill (2005-12-16). "What is it with Wikipedia?". BBC.
  7. ^ Orlowski, Andrew (2005-12-06). "Who owns your Wikipedia bio?". The Register.
  8. ^ Lu Stout, Kristie (2003-08-04). "Wikipedia: The know-it-all Web site". CNN.
  9. ^ Fang, Lee (March 9, 2011). "Koch Industries Employs PR Firm To Airbrush Wikipedia, Gets Banned For Unethical ‘Sock Puppets’". ThinkProgress.
  10. ^ Reagle, Jr., Joseph Michael. "Chapter 5: The Challenges of Consensus". Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia. MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2010
  11. ^ "Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry", Wikipedia. Retrieved: 2007-01-27.
  12. ^ Shirky, Clay (April 26, 2008). "Gin, Television, and Social Surplus". shirky.com. Retrieved February 7, 2011.
  13. ^ Suh, Bongwon; et al. (2009). "The singularity is not near: slowing growth of Wikipedia". WikiSym '09 Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration. ACM. Retrieved July 15, 2011. {{cite web}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  14. ^ List of Wikipedias. Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. Retrieved 2011-11-18.
  15. ^ Andrea Ciffolilli, "Phantom authority, self-selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Wikipedia," First Monday December 2003.
  16. ^ Forte, Amy (2005). "Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? Incentives to Contribute to Open-Content Publishing". SIGGROUP 2005 Workshop: Sustaining community. CiteSeerx10.1.1.120.7906. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ a b Nov, Oded (2007). [: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1297797.1297798 "What Motivates Wikipedians?"]. Communications of the ACM. 50 (11): 60–64. doi:10.1145/1297797.1297798. Retrieved 11 August 2011. {{cite journal}}: Check |url= value (help)
  18. ^ Clary, E (1998). "Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers: A functional approach". J. Personality and Social Psychology. 74: 1516–1530. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  19. ^ Moeller, Erik. "New Reports from November 2008 Survey Released". Wikimedia Foundation Blog. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  20. ^ Ruediger Glott. "Wikipedia Survey - Overview of Results" (PDF). Wikipedia Study. UNU-MERIT. Retrieved 20 July 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  21. ^ Wikimedia Foundation. "Wikipedia editors do it for fun: First results of our 2011 editor survey". Wikimedia Foundation Blog. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
  22. ^ Wikimedia Foundation. "Launching our semi-annual Wikipedia editors survey". Wikimedia Foundation Blog. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
  23. ^ a b Yang, Heng-Li (2010). "Motivations of Wikipedia content contributors". Computers in Human Behavior. 26 (6): 1377–1383. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.04.011. Retrieved 2 August 2011. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) Cite error: The named reference "Yang and Lai" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  24. ^ Trampani, Gina. "Geek to Live: How to contribute to Wikipedia". Lifehacker. Gawker Media. Retrieved 12 August 2011.
  25. ^ Griffin, Ricky W. (2011). Management (10 ed.). Mason, OH. USA.: South-Western Cengage Learning. ISBN 1-4390-8099-2. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  26. ^ T Kriplean, I Beschastnikh; et al. (2008). "Articulations of wikiwork: uncovering valued work in Wikipedia through barnstars" (Document). Proceedings of the ACM. {{cite document}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help); Unknown parameter |url= ignored (help)
  27. ^ Monica Hesse (25). "Wikipedia editors log off long enough to mingle". The Washington Post. Retrieved 5 July 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)