Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2017-09-25

The Wikimedia Foundation released a report following their Wikimedia France site visit (see previous Signpost coverage), as well as grant expectations for 2017-2018. Wikimedia France held a General Assembly on 9 September 2017:

• Emeric (chairman until end of June) resigned the day prior to the General Assembly
• the remaining board (5 people) was constituted of Samuel (Chair), Marie-Alice (Vice Chair), FloFlo (treasurer), Edouard and Florence Raymond
• Raymond, who was an appointed board member, was confirmed by the General Assembly
• the General Assembly voted by 73% the "lack of trust" in the previous board
• however, the General Assembly voted to retain the remainer of the previous board despite the distrust, in order to allow transfer of information and to support the new board during the audit.
• Floflo and Edouard will finish their term in 6 weeks (may resign earlier). Samuel and Marie-Alice indicated they would resign at the earliest convenience, only staying to help the transition and the audit.

— Florence Devouard, writing on the Wikimeida-l mailing list

Wikimedia Macedonia was de-recognised after the termination of their Chapter Agreement on 10 September 2017. This followed the suspension of chapter benefits in February due to "long-standing non-compliance with reporting requirements".

Wikimedia Israel celebrated their tenth anniversary on 6 September with an event that included the presentation of "Wikimedia Awards for the promotion of open knowledge in Israel". These were the first awards from a Wikimedia affiliate for "significant contributions to promoting Wikimedia’s vision." The four winners were:

• Israel Internet Association
• Haifa University
• Former Minister of Education Rabbi Shai Piron
• Oren Helman, former director of the Government Press Office

Further information is available on the Wikimedia Blog.

The Autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) began on 14 September 2017 and will last for 6 months. The WMF will study the impact on newly registered accounts, quality assurance processes, and content quality. Information gathered during the trial period will be reported to the English Wikipedia community, and the community will decide if any additional steps should be taken based on the results.

• 2017 CUOS appointments: There are nine CheckUser and five Oversight candidates for the community to review, ask questions of, and comment on, until 29 September 2017.
• New administrator: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, Ansh666.
• New HQ: The WMF is moving its San Francisco headquarters to One Montgomery Tower (see additional Signpost coverage).

Naruto was just another monkey in the wilderness of Indonesia. Until one day in 2011, photographer David Slater came into the jungle. Naruto took Slater's camera, and snapped a 'selfie.' Slater published, and claimed the copyright for his company, Caters News Service. That would have been that, if not for PETA. They sued Slater, alleging that the copyright belonged to Naruto, as he took the image. PETA filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, starting the long, arduous tale of NARUTO, a Crested Macaque, by and through his Next Friends, PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS, INC., and ANTJE ENGELHARDT, Ph.D. Plaintiff, vs. DAVID JOHN SLATER, an individual, Defendant. In 2016, the Judge dismissed the case, only to have PETA appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Wikipedia came into the dispute when Slater asked them to take the image down. Wikipedia refused, maintaining that the image is in the public domain. In early September 2017, PETA and Slater reached a settlement. Reported in, among others The New York Times, The Smithsonian Magazine, NPR, and The Washington Post)

Were I to say, go to the grocery story, to buy food, common sense would tell me that the displays are not food. To take this a step further, "we know intuitively that certain verbs pair naturally with certain nouns, and we also know that most verbs don't make sense when paired with random nouns." David Wingate, a Computer Science professor at Brigham Young University, put it this way "Consider the monitor on your desk: you can look at it, you can turn it on, you can even pick it up or throw it, but you cannot impeach it, transpose it, justify it or correct it. You can dethrone a king or worship him or obey him, but you cannot unlock him or calendar him or harvest him." However, as Science Daily reported, that intuition is almost nonexistent in most robots. In a study done by Wingate and several other researchers, they found that Wikipedia could be used to inform the AI what they were looking at, and what their uses are.

• Jeopedia: J-archive is a database of over 338,000 Jeopardy clues. Using that database, The Washington Post created a Jeopardy! content "Wikipedia". The tool allows you to search anything, and you will get the Jeopardy questions that correspond to the answer.
• Science is shaped by Wikipedia: A recent study published by MIT found that content on Wikipedia is directly correlated with how likely that same information added is to be referenced in future scientific work. Neil Thompson of MIT explained the project as "Our research shows that scientists are using Wikipedia and that it is influencing how they write about the science that they are doing. Wikipedia isn’t just a record of what’s going on in science, it’s actually helping to shape science." (Reported in The Next Web)
• Dubaipedia: Saqib Qayyum plans to make Dubai the worlds first 'Wikipedia city'. The ideas creators plan to install QR code around the city that residents and tourists can scan to learn more information. Currently, the group has identified over 200 locations that will have QR codes installed. (Reported in GulfNews.com)
• Fake quote: Das menschliche Vorstellungsgebilde der Welt ist ein ungeheures Gewebe von Fiktionen voll logischer Widersprüche, d. h. von wissenschaftlichen Erdichtungen zu praktischen Zwecken bzw. von inadäquaten, subjektiven, bildlichen Vorstellungsweisen, deren Zusammentreffen mit der Wirklichkeit von vornherein ausgeschlossen ist.
  – Attributed to Hans Vaihinger: Philosophie des Als Ob, 1911, p. 14 
  This quote was on the German Wikipedia's Hans Vaihinger page for over 12 years. The quote was picked up by numerous scholars. (Reported in Parergon)

Chickenz are the most common type of poultry in the world, clucking in at about 19 billion.^[1][2] In contrast, there are only 7.5 billion people alive right now.^[3] This comes to about 2.5 chickens per human, clearly we are outnumbered.^[4] We should be concerned. Since perhaps only knowledgeable Wikipedians know this now, many editors have already developed Alektorophobia.^[5] Signs of unrest continue to come in.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]} Much of the anger coming from hens, capons, chicks and roosters is associated with the Wikipedia articles which cast them as buffons and simpletons. These include:

• Chicken eyeglasses – Tiny spectacles for chicks, to stop them from seeing red.
• Spooky stories – that roosters tell their chicks.
• Exploitation of chickens – Humans disrupt the development of very young chickens and then hide them under the bushes in the backyard. After this, they try to blame a rabbit for the crime. Deceiving little children is part of this ritual.
• Chicken Dance, Chicken (dance) – There is a huge difference.
• Chicken gun – Valuable for the mitigation of damage from bird strikes. The chicken carcass must be thawed first, though.
• Chicken hypnotism – Have you ever wanted to hypnotize a chicken? If not, why not?
• Foghorn Leghorn – "That's a joke, ah say, that's a joke, son."
• Egghead – Never thought Uncle Foghorn was funny.
• Chicken or the egg – Which came first? Leave comments below.
• Blame the chickens – Chickens initial and feeble attempt to annihilate humans.
• Chicken sexer – A person who has been specially trained to determine the gender of chicken hatchlings.
• Chicken Powered Nuclear Bomb – A British project to lay nuclear mines in West Germany during the Cold War
• Empathy in chickens – Have some empathy when eating crunchy little tykes.
• Hollywood Freeway chickens – A colony of feral chickens that have been living underneath a highway off-ramp since 1970.
• Mike the Headless Chicken – A rooster that lived for 18 months with its head cut off.
• Tastes like chicken – But baked, grilled, or fried?
• Chicken and duck blood soup – Heads and feet included.
• Ernie the Giant Chicken – TV chicken of fame.
• Cannibalism in poultry See: tastes like chicken.
• Henny Penny – A chicken's contribution to the English language and the idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent.
• The Little Red Hen – the first female entre-hen-neur.
• What is the Primary postulate – the answer to this is the bedrock for all western philosophy.

• Additional Signpost coverage

Reviewed by Thomas Niebler

In several Wikipedia-based systems and scientific analyses, researchers have assumed that no two articles in Wikipedia represent the same concept, i.e. a semantically closed description of a specific item, for example "New York City". Lin et al. however published a paper at CSCW'17^[1] where they showed that this “article-as-concept” assumption does in fact not hold: The abovementioned article about "New York City" has a separate sub-article about the "History of New York City", which describes a topic very closely related to “New York City” and could at the same time easily be merged into the original article. This way of splitting up lengthy articles into several smaller ones ("summary style", more specifically "article size") may improve readability for human users, but seriously impairs many studies based on the “article-as-concept” assumption. Using a simple classification approach on features based on both the link structure as well as semantic aspects of the title and the context, the authors identified 70.8% of the top 1000 visited pages which have been split up into articles and sub-articles, with an average of 7.5 sub-articles per article, thus stating that the existence of sub-articles is not the exception, but the rule.

A drawback with the proposed sub-article relationship detection method, as stated in the paper, is that it is trained only on explicitly encoded sub-article relationships; it is yet unsure how to detect implicit relationships, i.e. where no editor has linked the sub-article with the main article. Still, this presents the first step into a deeper analysis of the Wikipedia page network to make it at the same time better readable for humans, but also easily exploitable for many algorithms.

Summary by Tilman Bayer

A survey among 1,354 German academic researchers about their professional use of social media found Wikipedia to be the most widely used site as of 2015, with 84.7%.^[2] Among German internet users in general, 79% use Wikipedia. Only 2% of these Wikipedia readers think it's "never reliable" and 80% hold it is "mostly" ("größtenteils") reliable.^[3] A report by the German Monopolkommission (which advises the government on antitrust matters) on potential monopoly problems in the Internet search engine market highlighted Wikipedia as the top 10 website in Germany that is by far the most dependent on Google, with around 80% of its traffic (according to third-party data from SimilarWeb that is not quite consistent with the Wikimedia Foundation's own data).^[4]

In France, surveys by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE) found that from 2011 to 2013, the ratio of people who use the internet to consult Wikipedia ("or any other collaborative online encylopedia") rose from 39% to 51%. Wikipedia usage was higher among younger internet users and among those with degrees - 82% among 16-24 year olds, 54% among 25-54 year olds, and only 31% among 55-74 year olds.^[5] The corresponding Eurostat data gave 45% for the entire European Union as of 2015.^[6]

In contrast, Ofcom found that only 2-4% of UK 12-15 year olds use Wikipedia as first stop for information as of 2015.^[7]

In the meantime, a 2016 Knight Foundation report, based on a study by Nielsen, found that "Among mobile sites [in the US], Wikipedia reigns in terms of popularity (the app does well too) and amount of time users spend on the entity. Wikipedia’s site reaches almost one-third of the total mobile population each month".^[8]

See the research events page on Meta-wiki for upcoming conferences and events, including submission deadlines.

Other recent publications that could not be covered in time for this issue include the items listed below. contributions are always welcome for reviewing or summarizing newly published research.

Compiled by Tilman Bayer

• "Intellectual interchanges in the history of the massive online open-editing encyclopedia, Wikipedia"^[9] From the abstract: "[Its] open-editing nature may give us prejudice that Wikipedia is an unstable and unreliable source; yet many studies suggest that Wikipedia is even more accurate and self-consistent than traditional encyclopedias. Scholars have attempted to understand such extraordinary credibility, but usually used the number of edits as the unit of time, without consideration of real time. In this work, we probe the formation of such collective intelligence through a systematic analysis using the entire history of English Wikipedia articles, between 2001 and 2014. ... [We] find the existence of distinct growth patterns that are unobserved by utilizing the number of edits as the unit of time. To account for these results, we present a mechanistic model that adopts the article editing dynamics based on both editor-editor and editor-article interactions.. .. [The] model indicates that infrequently referred articles tend to grow faster than frequently referred ones, and articles attracting a high motivation to edit counterintuitively reduce the number of participants. We suggest that this decay of participants eventually brings inequality among the editors, which will become more severe with time."

• "Not at Home on the Range: Peer Production and the Urban/Rural Divide"^[10] From the abstract and paper: "We find that in both Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap, peer-produced content about rural areas is of systematically lower quality, is less likely to have been produced by contributors who focus on the local area, and is more likely to have been generated by automated software agents (i.e. 'bots')", however there is a "substantial rural advantage in the per capita quantity of peer-produced information."
• "Understanding the Role of Participative Web within Collaborative Culture: The Case of Wikipedia"^[11] From the abstract: "This article will use Wikipedia as an example to illustrate about what the term “participative webs” exactly means. From perspectives of collaborative culture, this study will emphasize the role that participative website plays in knowledge-creating and knowledge-sharing [...] and discuss how collaborative culture reflects the role participative web is equipped."
• "From Freebase to Wikidata: The Great Migration"^[12] From the abstract: "The two major collaborative knowledge bases are Wikimedia's Wikidata and Google's Freebase. Due to the success of Wikidata, Google decided in 2014 to offer the content of Freebase to the Wikidata community. In this paper, we report on the ongoing transfer efforts and data mapping challenges, and provide an analysis of the effort so far. [...] Throughout the migration, we have gained deep insights into both Wikidata and Freebase, and share and discuss detailed statistics on both knowledge bases."

The Sustainability Initiative was created two years ago. Finally we're seeing some initial successes: steps are now being taken with regard to energy sourcing for the servers and green investment strategies by the endowment after the WMF Board of Trustees voted on these issues earlier this year. But the Wikimedia movement is still far from being environmentally sustainable.

The Sustainability Initiative was started in 2015 with the goal of reducing the environmental impact of the Wikimedia movement. It was started by Aubrey and me after Greenpeace USA published a report on green hosting, in which Wikipedia scored particularly badly.

Apart from switching our servers to renewable energy, which could set a significant example for the entire internet, it became clear that the Sustainability Initiative had to address other areas, such as the energy used to run the Foundation's offices in San Francisco, and the Wikimedia endowment – it makes no sense to run the servers on renewable energy while at the same time investing in carbon-intensive industries.

The Sustainability Initiative had a slow start. The main challenge seemed to be that reducing our environmental impact is not directly connected to the idea of free knowledge. This is probably why it's been difficult to convince Foundation staff to prioritize the matter. Also, US electricity consumers typically have less flexibility than others in choosing their electricity provider.

So how do you convince such a large organization like Wikimedia to change course? As so often, the solution lies with the volunteer Wikimedia communities. To demonstrate that the Sustainability Initiative has broad community support, we asked Wikipedians from across the globe (in 12 languages) to add their usernames to the list of supporters – and many followed our request. Our conversations – both with WMF staff and experts from Greenpeace – indicated that the first steps had to come from the WMF Board of Trustees, so that any staff efforts could align with a greater corporate directive, rather than being projects outside the annual plan.

After more than 250 community members had expressed their support for the Initiative, the Board adopted a sustainability commitment in February 2017. While the commitment stays behind what we proposed based on similar policies at other organizations, it's a step in the right direction, and helped to finally get the Initiative moving:

• Servers: In the week leading up to Wikimania 2017 in Montreal, WMF CTO Victoria Coleman and CFO Jaime Villagomez sent out letters to its big colocation providers Equinix and CyrusOne, asking them to follow up on their own previous commitments by providing information about the possibilities regarding renewable energy for Wikipedia's servers at their hosting centers in Texas and Virginia.
• WMF offices: Not directly triggered by the Sustainability Initiative but in line with its goals, the Foundation chose a "certified green" building for its new San Francisco offices.

• Endowment: Just after Wikimania 2017 in Montreal, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that the endowment is currently being invested in funds that are rated for sustainability. A new investment policy will be adopted in the spring of 2018, and WMF chief advancement officer Lisa Seitz-Gruwell expects the new policy to contain similar language.

• Travel: It turns out that the most significant step to making the Wikimedia movement more sustainable would be to cancel Wikimania: The carbon footprint of the many long-distance flights is far greater than that of the servers – not only, but especially in the case of Cape Town 2018. Yet, one solution – encouraging remote participation by streaming as many sessions as possible online – would not appeal to those for whom physical meetups are critical.

Currently, well over 300 community members are supporting the Sustainability Initiative. Ideas and comments are welcome on the talk page.

The Big Ol' Bout To Knock The Other Guy Out makes its presence felt on this list, with the two protagonists, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor taking the top two spots, and the fight itself in fifth. The fight does the unexpected – dethrone the ending seventh season of Game of Thrones; the season and the show take spots three and four respectively.

The devastating impact of Hurricane Harvey (#8), which struck Houston this week drew attention. Elsewhere, we find two much discussed women adjacent to each other – Diana, Princess of Wales in ninth for the twentieth anniversary of her death; and Taylor Swift in tenth following the release of her new single.

Blue Whale (#7) is still in the list, unfortunately. Lastly, the sentencing of Indian guru Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh (#6) keeps him in the list.

For the week of August 27 to September 2, 2017, the most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

It was a really scary week: the Americas have people frightened of killer clowns in It (#1, #6), and losing their homes to the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season (#4, #7), and threatened to be deported by the Trump administration rescinding DACA (#2); meanwhile in Asia, India has the Blue Whale suicides (#3). The deaths in 2017 list even returned to the top 10. The escapism that always permeates the rest of the list, aside from football/soccer (#8) continues subjects as heavy as the monster clowns, with Narcos (#9) reviving interest in the Colombian cartels (#5).

For the week of September 3–9, 2017, the most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

• These lists excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.

• The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) operated the Vultee Vengeance (nominated by Nick-D) dive bombers during World War II. The Australian Government ordered 400 of the type in late 1941 as part of efforts to expand the RAAF. Large-scale deliveries commenced in early 1943. The RAAF was slow to bring its Vengeances into service, their first combat missions being flown in June 1943. The main deployment of the type took place between mid-January and early March 1944, when squadrons operated in support of Australian and United States Army forces in New Guinea. This force was withdrawn after only six weeks as the Vengeance was considered inferior to other aircraft available to the Allied air forces. All of the RAAF's five Vengeance-equipped squadrons were re-equipped with Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers. Vengeances continued to be used in training and support roles with the RAAF until 1946, and some were transferred to the Royal Australian Navy between 1948 and 1950 for ground training. Historians' assessments of the Vengeance's career in Australian service differ. While there is consensus that the type was obsolete, some argue that it nevertheless proved successful. Others, including the RAAF's Air Power Development Centre, have judged that the Vengeance's performance was mixed and the type was not suited to Australia's requirements.
• The red-billed quelea (nominated by Dwergenpaartje & Cas Liber) is a small—approximately 12 cm (4.7 in) long and weighing 15–26 g (0.53–0.92 oz)—migratory, sparrow-like bird of the weaver family, Ploceidae, native to Sub-Saharan Africa. It was named by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The species avoids forests, deserts and colder areas such as those at high altitude and in southern South Africa. It constructs oval roofed nests woven from strips of grass hanging from thorny branches, sugar cane or reeds. It breeds in very large colonies. It feeds primarily on seeds of annual grasses, but also causes extensive damage to cereal crops. Therefore, it is sometimes called "Africa's feathered locust". The usual pest-control measures are spraying avicides or detonating fire-bombs in the enormous colonies during the night. Extensive control measures have been largely unsuccessful in limiting the quelea population. When food runs out, the species migrates to locations of recent rainfall and plentiful grass seed; hence it exploits its food source very efficiently. It is regarded as the most numerous undomesticated bird on earth, with the total post-breeding population sometimes peaking at an estimated 1+1⁄2 billion individuals. It feeds in huge flocks of millions of individuals, with birds that run out of food at the rear flying over the entire group to a fresh feeding zone at the front, creating an image of a rolling cloud. The conservation status of red-billed quelea is least concern according to the IUCN Red List.
• Ben Affleck (nominated by Popeye191) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. His accolades include two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He began his career as a child and has subsequently acted in and directed many films. Affleck is the co-founder of the Eastern Congo Initiative, a grantmaking and advocacy-based nonprofit organization. He is also a stalwart member of the Democratic Party. Affleck and Matt Damon are co-owners of the production company Pearl Street Films. His younger brother is actor Casey Affleck, with whom he has worked on several films including Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone. Affleck married actress Jennifer Garner in 2005; they have three children together. The couple announced their separation in 2015 and filed for divorce in early 2017.
• Marjorie Cameron (nominated by Midnightblueowl) who professionally used the mononym Cameron, was an American artist, poet, actress, and occultist. A follower of Thelema, the new religious movement established by the English occultist Aleister Crowley, she was married to rocket pioneer and fellow Thelemite Jack Parsons. Born in Belle Plaine, Iowa, Cameron volunteered for services in the United States Navy during the Second World War, after which she settled in Pasadena, California. There she met Parsons, who believed her to be the "elemental" woman that he had invoked in the early stages of a series of sex magic rituals called the Babalon Working. They entered into a relationship and were married in 1946. Their relationship was often strained. After Parsons' death in an explosion at their home in 1952, Cameron came to suspect that her husband had been assassinated and began rituals to communicate with his spirit. Moving to Beaumont, California, she established a multi-racial occult group called The Children, which dedicated itself to sex magical rituals with the intent of producing mixed-race "moon children" who would be devoted to the god Horus. The group soon dissolved. Returning to Los Angeles, Cameron befriended the socialite Samson De Brier and established herself within the city's avant-garde artistic community. Among her friends were the filmmakers Curtis Harrington and Kenneth Anger. She appeared in two of Harrington's films, The Wormwood Star and Night Tide, as well as in Anger's film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. In later years, she made appearances in art-house films created by John Chamberlain and Chick Strand. Rarely remaining in one place for long, during the 1950s and 1960s she lived in Joshua Tree, San Francisco, and Santa Fe. In 1955, she gave birth to a daughter, Crystal Eve Kimmel. Although intermittent health problems prevented her from working, her art and poetry resulted in several exhibitions. From the late 1970s until her death from cancer in 1995, Cameron lived in a bungalow in West Hollywood, where she raised her daughter and grandchildren, pursued her interests in esotericism, and produced artwork and poetry. Cameron's recognition as an artist increased after her death, when her paintings made appearances in exhibitions across the U.S. As a result of increased attention on Parsons, Cameron's life also gained greater coverage in the early 2000s. In 2006, the Cameron–Parsons Foundation was created to preserve and promote her work, and in 2011 a biography of Cameron written by Spencer Kansa was published.
• The Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (nominated by SounderBruce) is a public transit tunnel for buses and light rail trains in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. It runs north–south through Downtown Seattle, connecting five stations on 3rd Avenue and Pine Street. It is the busiest section of Sound Transit's Link light rail network, with an average of over 10,000 weekday train boardings at the four stations served by light rail. The $469 million tunnel was planned in the late 1970s and built between 1987 and 1990, using tunnel boring machines and cut-and-cover excavation. Between 1990 and 2004, the tunnel was exclusively used by dual-mode buses that ran on overhead wires; they were later replaced with hybrid electric buses using batteries within the tunnel. After a two-year renovation, the tunnel reopened on September 24, 2007, and light rail service began on July 18, 2009, sharing the platforms with existing buses. Planned expansion of the light rail system, along with the closure of one station, will necessitate the removal of buses from the tunnel by 2019.
• Claudio Monteverdi (nominated by Smerus & Brianboulton) was born in Cremona, where he undertook his first musical studies and compositions, Monteverdi developed his career first at the court of Mantua (c. 1590–1613) and then until his death in the Republic of Venice where he was maestro di capella at the basilica of San Marco. His surviving letters give insight into the life of a professional musician in Italy of the period, including problems of income, patronage and politics. Much of Monteverdi's output, including many stage works, has been lost. His surviving music includes nine books of madrigals, large-scale sacred works such as his Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers) of 1610, and three complete operas. His opera L'Orfeo (1607) is the earliest of the genre still widely performed; towards the end of his life he wrote works for the commercial theatre in Venice, including Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea. While he worked extensively in the tradition of earlier Renaissance polyphony, such as in his madrigals, he undertook great developments in form and melody, and began to employ the basso continuo technique, distinctive of the Baroque. No stranger to controversy, he defended his sometimes novel techniques as elements of a seconda pratica, contrasting with the more orthodox earlier style which he termed the prima pratica. Largely forgotten during the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth centuries, his works enjoyed a rediscovery around the beginning of the twentieth century. He is now established both as a significant influence in European musical history and as a composer whose works are regularly performed and recorded.
• High Explosive Research (nominated by Hawkeye7) was a British project to independently develop atomic bombs after the Second World War. This decision was taken by a cabinet sub-committee on 8 January 1947, in response to apprehension of an American return to isolationism, fears that Britain might lose its great power status, and the actions by the United States to unilaterally withdraw from sharing of nuclear technology under the 1943 Quebec Agreement. The project concluded with the delivery of the first of its Blue Danube atomic bombs to Bomber Command in November 1953, but British hopes of a renewed nuclear Special Relationship with the United States were frustrated. The technology had been superseded by the American development of the hydrogen bomb, which was first tested in November 1952, only one month after Operation Hurricane. Britain would go on to develop its own hydrogen bombs, which it first tested in 1957. A year later, the United States and Britain resumed nuclear weapons cooperation.
• RAAF area commands (nominated by Ian Rose) were the major operational and administrative formations of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) between 1940 and 1954. Established in response to the outbreak of World War II, they underpinned the Air Force's geographically based command-and-control system for the duration of the conflict and into the early years of the Cold War, until being superseded by a functional control system made up of Home, Training, and Maintenance commands.
• Fragment of a Crucifixion (nominated by Ceoil) is a 1950 canvas by the Irish-born, English figurative painter Francis Bacon, housed in the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. The painting shows two animals engaged in brutal struggle. The upper figure, which may be a dog or a cat, crouches over a chimera and is at the point of kill. It stoops on the horizontal beam of a T-shaped structure, which may signify Christ's cross. The painting contains thinly sketched passer-by figures, who seem oblivious to the central drama. Typical of Bacon's work, Fragment of a Crucifixion is drawn from a wide variety of sources, including the screaming mouth of a nurse in Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 film Battleship Potemkin, and iconography from both the Crucifixion of Jesus and the descent from the cross. The chimera's despair forms the centrepiece of the work, and in its agony can be compared to Bacon's later works focusing on the motif of an open mouth. Although the title has religious connotations, Bacon's personal outlook was bleak; as an atheist he did not believe in either divine intervention nor an afterlife. As such, this work—through the inevitable fate of the prey—seems to represent a nihilistic and hopeless view of the human condition. Bacon later dismissed the painting, considering it too literal and explicit. He abandoned the theme of the crucifixion for the following 12 years, not returning to it until the more loosely based, but equally bleak, triptych Three Studies for a Crucifixion.
• Smiley Smile (nominated by Ilovetopaint) is the 12th studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on September 18, 1967. The album reached number 9 on UK record charts, but sold poorly in the US, peaking at number 41—the band's lowest chart placement to that point. Critics and fans generally received the album with confusion and disappointment. Only one single was issued from Smiley Smile, "Heroes and Villains". Smiley Smile began a seven-year string of under-performing Beach Boys albums, but has since grown in stature to become a cult and critical favorite in the Beach Boys' oeuvre. Regarded as a forerunner to certain bedroom pop acts, in 1974, it was voted the 64th greatest album of all time by NME writers and, in 2000, it was one of 100 albums featured in the book The Ambient Century as a landmark in the development of ambient music. Some session highlights from the album are featured on the compilations The Smile Sessions (2011) and 1967 – Sunshine Tomorrow (2017).
• The scarlet myzomela (nominated by Cas Liber) is a small passerine bird of the honeyeater family, Meliphagidae, native to Australia. It was described by English ornithologist John Latham in 1801. At 9 to 11 centimetres (3.5 to 4.3 in) long, it is the smallest honeyeater in Australia. It has a short tail and relatively long down-curved bill. It is sexually dimorphic; the male is a striking bright red with black wings, while the female is entirely brown. It is more vocal than most honeyeaters, and a variety of calls have been recorded, including a bell-like tinkling. The scarlet myzomela is found along most of the eastern coastline, from Cape York in the far north to Gippsland in Victoria. It is migratory in the southern parts of its range, with populations moving north in the winter. Its natural habitat is forest, where it forages mainly in the upper tree canopy. It is omnivorous, feeding on insects as well as nectar. Up to three broods may be raised over the course of a breeding season. The female lays two or rarely three flecked white eggs in a 5 centimetre (2 in) diameter cup-shaped nest high in a tree. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed it as being of least concern on account of its large range and apparently stable population.
• Barry Voight (nominated by ceranthor) is an American geologist, volcanologist, author, and engineer. He is also the brother of actor Jon Voight and songwriter Chip Taylor, and the uncle of actress Angelina Jolie. He studied at Cornell University for a year before transferring to Columbia University, where he earned his PhD in geology in 1965. Voight worked as a professor of geology at several universities, including Pennsylvania State University, where he taught from 1964 until his retirement in 2005; he remains an emeritus professor there. He still conducts research, focusing on rock mechanics, plate tectonics, disaster prevention, and geotechnical engineering. In April 1980, Voight's publications on landslides and avalanches and other mass movements attracted the attention of Rocky Crandell of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), who asked him to look at a growing bulge on the Mount St. Helens volcano in the state of Washington. Voight foresaw the collapse of the mountain's north flank as well as a powerful eruption. His predictions came true when St. Helens erupted in May 1980; Voight was then hired by the USGS to investigate the debris avalanche that initiated the eruption. After his work at St. Helens brought him international recognition, Voight continued researching and guiding monitoring efforts at several active volcanoes throughout his career, including Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia, Mount Merapi in Indonesia, and Soufrière Hills, a volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. For his research, publications and disaster prevention work as a volcanologist and engineer, Voight has been honored with numerous awards, appointments, and medals.
• The Waterloo Medal (nominated by Wehwalt) was designed by Italian-born sculptor Benedetto Pistrucci. He worked on it from 1819 to 1849, when the completed matrices were presented to Britain's Royal Mint. The medal was commissioned by the British government in 1819 on the instructions of George IV while Prince Regent; copies were to be presented to the victorious generals at the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, and to the leaders of Britain's allies. As most of the intended recipients had died by 1849, and relations with France had improved, the medals were never struck, though modern-day editions have been made for sale to collectors. The Prince Regent and William Wellesley-Pole, Master of the Mint were impressed by Pistrucci's models, and he gained the commission. Pistrucci fell from grace at the Royal Mint in 1823 by refusing to copy another's work for the coinage, and he was instructed to concentrate on the medal. He likely concluded that he would be sacked if he completed it, and progress was extremely slow. He stayed on at the Mint, the medal uncompleted. In 1844, the Master, William E. Gladstone, reached an accord with Pistrucci and the medal matrices were eventually submitted in 1849. Due to their great size, 5.3 inches (130 mm) in diameter, the Mint was unwilling to risk damaging the matrices by hardening them, and only electrotypes and soft impressions were taken. Pistrucci's designs have been greatly praised by numismatic writers.
• Underwater diving (nominated by Peter (Southwood)) is the practice of descending below the water's surface to interact with the environment. Humans are not biologically adapted for deep diving, and equipment has been developed to extend the depth and duration of human dives. In ambient pressure diving, with direct exposure to the pressure of the surrounding water, the diver can use breathing apparatus for scuba diving or surface-supplied diving. For repeated deep dives, divers can reduce the risk of decompression sickness by living in a pressurized environment on the surface to prevent repeated pressurization and depressurization as they dive. Atmospheric diving suits may be used to isolate the diver from high ambient pressure. Diving activities are restricted to maximum depths of about 40 metres (130 ft) for recreational scuba diving, 530 metres (1,740 ft) for commercial saturation diving, and 610 metres (2,000 ft) if atmospheric suits are worn. The history of breath-hold diving goes back at least to classical times, and there is evidence of prehistoric hunting and gathering of seafoods that may have involved underwater swimming.
• The Baltimore railroad strike of 1877 (nominated by TimothyJosephWood) involved several days of work stoppage and violence in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1877. It formed a part of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, during which widespread civil unrest spread nationwide following the global depression and economic downturns of the mid-1870s. Strikes broke out along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) on July 16, the same day that 10-percent wage reductions were scheduled. Violence erupted in Baltimore on July 20, with police and soldiers of the Maryland National Guard clashing with crowds of thousands gathered throughout the city. In response, President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered federal troops to Baltimore, local officials recruited as many as 500 additional police, and two entirely new national guard regiments were formed. Peace was restored on July 22. Negotiations between strikers and the B&O were unsuccessful, and most strikers chose to quit rather than return to work at the newly reduced wages. The company easily found enough workers to replace the strikers, and under the protection of the military and police, traffic resumed on July 29. The company promised minor concessions at the time, and eventually enacted select reforms later that year. In total, between 10 and 22 were killed, more than 150 were injured, and many more were arrested.
• On the Job (2013 film) (nominated by Slightlymad) is a 2013 Philippine neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by Erik Matti. It stars Joel Torre and Gerald Anderson as two contract killing prisoners temporarily released from jail to carry out political executions in a corrupt justice system. Piolo Pascual and Joey Marquez portray law enforcement officers tasked with investigating the drug-related murder case, connected to the prison gun-for-hire business. The inspiration for On the Job came from a Viva Films crew member who claimed to have been temporarily released from prison to perform contract killings before being reincarcerated. Principal photography took place in Manila and lasted thirty-three days, on a production budget of ₱47 million (about US$1.1 million). On the Job was shown in the Directors' Fortnight at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival on May 24, where it received praise and a standing ovation. The film was released in the Philippines on August 28 by Star Cinema, and in the United States on September 27 by Well Go USA Entertainment. The film drew very positive reviews from both local and international critics.
• The Astronomica (Manilius) (nominated by Gen. Quon) is a Latin didactic poem written in hexameters and divided into five books about celestial phenomena. The Astronomica was penned c. AD 10–20 by a Roman poet whose name was likely Marcus Manilius; little is known of Manilius, and although there is evidence that the Astronomica was read by many other Roman writers, no surviving works quote him. The poem was rediscovered c. 1416–1417 by the Italian humanist and scholar Poggio Bracciolini, who had a copy made from which the modern text derives. The earliest extant work on astrology that is extensive, coherent, and mostly intact, the Astronomica describes celestial phenomena, and, in particular, the zodiac and astrology. The poem—which seems to have been inspired by Lucretius's Epicurean poem De rerum natura—espouses a Stoic, deterministic understanding of a universe overseen by a god and governed by reason. The fifth book of the Astronomica features a lacuna, which has led to debate about the original size of the poem; some scholars have argued that whole books have been lost over the years, whereas others believe only a small section of the work is missing. Upon its discovery, the Astronomica was read, commented upon, and edited by a number of scholars. Nevertheless, it failed to become as popular as other classical Latin poems and was neglected for centuries. This started to change during the early 20th century when, between 1903 and 1930, the classicist A. E. Housman published a critically acclaimed edition of the poem in five books. Housman's work was followed by the Latinist G. P. Goold's lauded English translation in 1977. Today, scholars consider the Astronomica to be highly technical, complicated, and occasionally contradictory; at the same time, many have praised Manilius's ability to translate complex mathematical computations into poetic verse.
• Chartwell (nominated by KJP1) is a country house near the town of Westerham, Kent in South East England. For over forty years it was the home of Winston Churchill. He bought the property in September 1922 and lived there until shortly before his death in January 1965. In the 1930s, when Churchill was excluded from political office, Chartwell became the centre of his world. At his dining table, he gathered those who could assist his campaign against German re-armament and the British government's response of appeasement; in his study, he composed speeches and wrote books; in his garden, he built walls, constructed lakes and painted. During the Second World War Chartwell was largely unused, the Churchills returning after he lost the 1945 election. In 1953, when again Prime Minister, the house became Churchill's refuge when he suffered a devastating stroke. In October 1964, he left for the last time, dying at his London home, 28 Hyde Park Gate, on 24 January 1965. The origins of the estate reach back to the 14th century; in 1382 the property, then called Well-street, was sold by William-at-Well. It passed through various owners and in 1836 was auctioned, as a substantial, brick-built manor. In 1848, it was purchased by John Campbell Colquhoun, whose grandson sold it to Churchill. The Campbell Colquhouns greatly enlarged the house and the advertisement for its sale at the time of Churchill's purchase described it as an "imposing" mansion. Between 1922 and 1924, it was largely rebuilt and extended by the society architect Philip Tilden. From the garden front, the house has extensive views over the Weald of Kent, "the most beautiful and charming" Churchill had ever seen, and the determining factor in his decision to buy the house. In 1946, when financial constraints forced Churchill to again consider selling Chartwell, it was acquired by the National Trust with funds raised by a consortium of Churchill's friends led by Lord Camrose, on condition that the Churchills retain a life tenancy. After Churchill's death, Lady Churchill surrendered her lease on the house and it was opened to the public by the Trust in 1966. A Grade I listed building, for its historical significance rather than its architectural merit, Chartwell has become among the Trust's most popular properties; some 232,000 people visited the house in 2016, the fiftieth anniversary of its opening.
• "Barge of the Dead" (nominated by Aoba47) is an episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. It is the third episode of the sixth season and was first broadcast by UPN on October 6, 1999. "Barge of the Dead" was developed from a story by Ronald D. Moore and Bryan Fuller, who wrote the teleplay, and was directed by Mike Vejar. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they are stranded in the Delta Quadrant, far from the rest of the Federation.

• In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five-for" or "fifer") refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded as a significant achievement. As of August 2017, 148 cricketers have taken a five-wicket haul on their debut in a Test match, with nine of them being taken by West Indian players. (nominated by Lugnuts & Khadar Khani)
• Zootopia (known as Zootropolis in some places) is a 2016 American 3D computer-animated buddy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore and was based on a screenplay written by Jared Bush (who also co-directed) and Phil Johnston. Zootopia focuses on the unlikely partnership between an ambitious rabbit police officer, Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and a crafty red fox con artist, Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman) as they uncover a conspiracy behind the mysterious disappearance of predators from a mammalian metropolis. The film premiered on February 11, 2016, in Denmark before going into wide release in more than 3,800 theaters in the United States and Canada on March 4. It debuted in first place on its opening weekend earning more than $75 million. Zootopia grossed a worldwide total of over $1 billion at the box office on a production budget of $150 million. Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator surveyed 247 reviews, and judged 98% to be positive. Zootopia received 24 awards on 66 nominations (nominated by Cowlibob), many of them in the Best Animated Feature category.
• The Indian Navy currently operates twenty-one (nominated by Krishna Chaitanya Velaga & Strike Eagle) air squadrons. Of these, ten operate fixed-wing aircraft, eight are helicopter squadrons and the remaining three are equipped with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
• Benedict McCarthy is a former South African footballer who represented his country 79 times and scored 31 goals (nominated by Liam E. Bekker) between 1997 and 2012. He played as a forward during the course of his career and is the top scorer in the history of the national team, having broken Shaun Bartlett's previous record of 29 international goals in a friendly win over Paraguay in March 2008.
• Nevada is a state located in the Western United States. According to the 2010 United States Census, it is the 36th most populous state, with 2,700,691 inhabitants, but the 7th largest by land area spanning 109,781.18 square miles (284,332.0 km²). Nevada is divided into 17 counties and contains 19 incorporated municipalities (nominated by Mattximus). Nevada's incorporated municipalities cover only 1% of the state's land mass but are home to 56.7% of its population. Incorporated places in the state are legally described as cities, except for the state capital, Carson City, which has no legal description but is considered an independent city as it is not located in any county. To incorporate, a petition for incorporation can be made to the board of county commissioners, who consider numerous geographic, demographic, and economic factors. Cities are categorized by population for the purpose of determining the number of wards and council election structure as well as the number of city clerks: cities with 50,000 or more inhabitants are in population category one, cities with 5,000 or more but fewer than 50,000 inhabitants are in population category two, and cities having fewer than 5,000 inhabitants are in population category three. Cities are responsible for providing local services such as fire and police protection, road maintenance, water distribution, and sewer maintenance. The largest municipality by population in Nevada is Las Vegas with 583,756 residents, and the smallest is Caliente with 1,130 residents. The largest municipality by land area is Boulder City, which spans 208.52 sq mi (540.1 km²), while Lovelock is the smallest at 0.85 sq mi (2.2 km²). The first place in Nevada to incorporate was Carson City, on March 1, 1875, and the most recent place was Fernley, on July 1, 2001.
• Enix was a Japanese video game publishing company founded in September 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima. Initially a tabloid publisher named Eidansha Boshu Service Center, it was renamed to Enix in 1982, and shortly thereafter ventured into video game publishing. On April 1, 2003, Enix and Japanese video game developer and publisher Square merged to form Square Enix, with Enix legally absorbing Square. Between 1985 and April 2003, Enix published 95 video games (nominated by PresN) for 56 developers on 12 systems, 65 titles of which were exclusive to Japan.
• Margaret is a Polish singer-songwriter, who has released 45 sound recordings (nominated by ArturSik). She rose to prominence after the release of her debut single, "Thank You Very Much" (2013), which charted in the top fifty in Austria, Germany and Italy, and was the third best-selling digital single of 2013 in Poland released by a Polish artist.
• The Walter Lawrence Trophy (nominated by The Rambling Man) is an annual award made to the player who has scored the fastest century in English domestic county cricket that season, in terms of balls received (not counting wides). Hundreds are considered by a panel of experts which, as of 2017, comprise Michael Atherton, David Gower, Simon Hughes and John Barclay. Those which are adjudged to have been made against declaration bowling are not eligible for the award, although this restriction was not always observed in former years. As of 2016, the recipient of the Walter Lawrence Trophy is also presented with a cheque for £3,000.
• The Associated Press NFL Offensive Player of the Year Award (nominated by Lizard) is given annually by the Associated Press to the offensive player in the National Football League (NFL) deemed to have had the most outstanding season. The winner is chosen by votes from a nationwide panel of sportswriters who regularly follow the NFL.
• Romanian singer-songwriter Inna, whose ongoing career started in 2008 with her debut single "Hot", has received 27 awards and 52 nominations (nominated by Cartoon network freak).
• Jared Leto is an American entertainer who has had an extensive career in film, music, and television. He made his debut with minor roles in the television shows Camp Wilder (1992) and Almost Home (1993), and has since acted in numerous other films (nominated by Earthh).
• In cricket, a five-wicket haul (also known as a "five–for" or "fifer") refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single innings. This is regarded by critics as a notable achievement, and fewer than 50 bowlers have taken 15 or more five-wicket hauls at international level in their cricketing careers. Danish Kaneria, a right-arm leg spinner, represented the Pakistan national cricket team in 61 Tests between 2000 and 2010. He took 15 five-wicket hauls (nominated by Khadar Khani & Vibhijain) during his career in international cricket. Kaneria was described by the BBC as a "match-winner with his leg-breaks".
• Clint Dempsey is a professional soccer player who has represented the United States in international competition since 2004. As of September 5, 2017, Dempsey has appeared 139 times for the national team and scored 57 goals (nominated by SounderBruce). He is the joint all-time male top scorer for the United States, having tied Landon Donovan and his 57 goals. He is also third worldwide among active international male goalscorers, behind Cristiano Ronaldo (75) of Portugal and Lionel Messi (58) of Argentina.
• Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person by a government for the express purpose of causing immediate death. While Nazi Germany was known to execute enemies of the state using an injection of lethal drugs, the first country to legalize and formally implement what is referred to today as lethal injection was the United States. The state of Texas adopted it as its form of capital punishment in 1977 and executed the first person by it, Charles Brooks Jr., in 1982. The practice was subsequently adopted by the other U.S. states using capital punishment. As of 2017, the method is being used by 31 U.S. states, as well as by their federal government and military. Lethal injection was also adopted as a method of execution by Guatemala in 1996, China in 1997, the Philippines in 1999, Thailand in 2003, Taiwan in 2005, and Vietnam in 2013. The Philippines abolished the method in 2006, though a bill to reinstate it passed through the House of Representatives and as of July 2017 is still awaiting debate in the Senate. While it is still legal, no executions have been carried out in Guatemala since 2000 nor in Thailand since 2009. The United States and China are the two biggest users of this method of execution. The U.S. had executed 1,283 people via lethal injection as of April 2017. The number of people executed annually in China is thought to surpass all other countries combined, though the actual number is a state secret, and the percentage of people killed via lethal injection and the other method of execution used there, firing squad, is also unclear. Lethal injection was proposed and adopted on the grounds it was more humane than the methods of execution in place at the time, such as the electric chair and gas chamber. Opponents of lethal injection reject this argument, noting multiple cases where executions have been either painful, prolonged, or both. List of executions by lethal injection (nominated by Freikorp)
• Danish singer Oh Land has released various content (nominated by Carbrera) comprised of four studio albums, one extended play, 16 singles (including two as a featured artist), three promotional singles, and 13 music videos.
• The Trans-Tasman Trophy (nominated by The Rambling Man) is awarded to the winner of the Australia–New Zealand Test match series in cricket. The trophy is awarded to the team that wins a Test series, or one-off Test match, between the two nations. If the series is a draw, the holder retains the trophy. It was first competed for in the 1985–86 season, although six Test series between the nations were contested before the trophy's instigation. As of February 2016, Australia holds the trophy following their 2–0 victory in the 2015–16 series in New Zealand. Australia also leads in overall wins, winning 10 of the 17 series, while New Zealand (nicknamed the Black Caps) have won 3, the remaining 4 ending in draws.
• Swedish singer and songwriter Tove Lo has released numerous content (nominated by Paparazzzi), including two studio albums, one extended play, nineteen singles (including seven as a featured artist), three promotional singles and fifteen music videos.