Directory:Examiner articles by Gregory Kohs

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Gregory Kohs was Examiner.com's only citizen journalist assigned to exclusively cover Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation. Kohs held this role from July 2010 until July 2016, when Examiner closed down due to financial insolvency. Over that span of time, he published 90 different articles which collectively received over 80,000 page views. Archived copies of these articles are kept here for posterity.

National Wiki Edits Examiner

Congratulations! You are now officially an Examiner and part of the largest group of knowledgeable contributors in the world. Covering thousands of subjects, Examiners entertain, inform and inspire readers about their topics and the communities in which they live. We’re excited to have you join the team. Your page has already been created, which will allow you to begin publishing articles as soon as you receive your Publishing Tool username and password... (July 8, 2010 e-mail from Rick Brown at Examiner)

Bio

Trained in the field of History with an emphasis on quantitative methods, Gregory Kohs delivers market research insights to a Fortune 100 media company. He is passionate about user-generated content on the Internet, focusing primarily on Wikipedia and his own wiki directory, MyWikiBiz.com. For years, Kohs has carefully expressed grave concerns about the Wikimedia Foundation (owners of Wikipedia), citing an improbable number of lapses in governance and knowledge management. He is reached at ResearchBiz@gmail.com.

Archive

2010

At its sixth annual "Wikimania" summit of devoted Wikipedia users and other guests, the Wikimedia Foundation announced the ascension of Ting Chen as the new chairperson of the Foundation's board of trustees. Mr. Chen, an information... (alternate link)

Wikipedia goes to great length to discourage in principle, if not prohibit in practice, the phenomenon of people or businesses writing about themselves on Wikipedia. In fact, Wikipedians have cobbled together a 5,490-word "behavioral guideline"...

One of Wikipedia's biggest problems is the fact (or perhaps it's merely a perception) that experts who work in the time-honored knowledge professions -- college professors, librarians, museum curators -- are often made to feel unwelcome by the belligerent...

An academic group dedicated to fostering a "critical point of view" as regards Wikipedia has decided to purge three noteworthy Wikipedia critics from its ranks. The crime? They were too critical of Wikipedia. The Critical Point...

As a struggle persists about whether or not to welcome avowed pedophiles to edit Wikimedia Foundation projects like Wikipedia, and whether or not it's okay to allow a 15-year-old volunteer administrator on Wikimedia Commons to view, judge... (alternate link)

Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner has issued a rallying call to the loyal minions of the free culture movement. In order to help Wikipedia, volunteers are supposed to: Work to create a favourable public image for the movement Support...

Wikipedia may claim as a headline on its very own main page to be "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit", but nothing could be further from the truth. While we've seen how some self-promotional...

Over the Labor Day weekend of 2009, I conducted a short case study of 10 new articles created on Wikipedia. Using the "recent changes" feature and looking for that big capital "N" (for new articles)...

Sue Gardner is the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the non-profit corporation that manages Wikipedia. In May and June 2010, the WMF was beset with complaints about the various floods of pornographic images, videos, and text... (alternate link)

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is no stranger to assisting and even dating attractive brunettes through the focal point of their Wikipedia biographies. This week, he turned his editorial attention to perhaps the most attractive female government minister in...

The much maligned co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, has once again stumbled into saying something that simply doesn't appear to be true, if judged against the evidence that the rest of the world sees on the Internet...

Wikia, Inc. is often known as the "commercial spinoff" of Wikipedia, as it was co-founded by the co-founder of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia's non-profit board of trustees was once 60% stocked with Wikia, Inc... (alternate link)

If you take a look at how Wikipedia's article about halibut appears today, you'll find in the article's lede section:Halibut live in both the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans and are...

In what has become an annual tradition in the latter part of the year, the folks who run Wikipedia have launched their fundraising appeal. Typically, they beg for money from site visitors for about a month, then they pull...

The Wikimedia Foundation that governs Wikipedia has released the results of a survey directed at past donors (of less than $1,000) to the non-profit organization. The report draws the usual conclusions:Three-quarters of respondents are male...

Over the past week, the national news media -- including National Public Radio, MLB.com, FOX Sports, Chicago Sun-Times, United Press International, and ESPN -- have focused stories on former Chicago Cubs pitcher Mike Remlinger. While you may not have...

As reported about a week ago, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) that runs the Wikipedia encyclopedia has been embroiled in controversy about how it handles contracts with outside vendors. In the most recent case, a market research study of nearly... (alternate link)

In a startling move today, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that Mike Godwin, the organization's General Counsel and Legal Coordinator, would no longer be in their employ after Friday of this week. As is typical for the Foundation...

It's another uncomfortable day for the Wikimedia Foundation that runs Wikipedia and its cohort projects like Wikimedia Commons, a photo file repository of freely-licensed images. You may recall from September that the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) paid...

Faced with too much work heading up both "Reader Relations" and the 2010 fundraising drive for theWikimedia Foundation, Philippe Beaudette announced today that another new employee will be working for the San Francisco non-profit to help ease the work load. Beaudette's new "Community Associate" is Christine Moellenberndt...

If you go to the Google Apps sales site, you'll learn that more than 3 million businesses run the Google office suite for their e-mail, calendar, word processing, and spreadsheet services, and "thousands more sign up...

For about the past three months, the Kent Police (Kent County, England) have enjoyed an advertising pitch in the Wikipedia article about the Kent Police. On August 3, an IP editor added direct links from Wikipedia to the Kent...

As reported last month, the Wikimedia Foundation which operates Wikipedia and sister projects like photo repository Wikimedia Commons knows that it has some significant problems with pornography. A flood of pornography, actually, and as noted last week, even potentially...

The highest volunteer tier of administrators on the English-language Wikipedia is the Arbitration Committee, a body selected by popular vote among the Wikipedia community and formally installed to the post by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. No stranger...

The Wikimedia Commons website is the photo album, so to speak, of Wikipedia and all of the other projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco. If the world needs a freely-licensed photo of an apple, or...

A highly-visible and leading Wikipedia administrator, Fred Bauder, recently answered a somewhat spurious question about why virtually all of the English Wikipedia's contributors are white people. While even here at the Examiner, it's been...

As the Wikipedia encyclopedia project nears its tenth anniversary, a surprising discovery was made today. Original copies of the earliest edits on the now globally popular resource -- edits long thought to be forever lost -- have been unearthed and restored...

2011

On Wikipedia, there is a handy category called "Living people", which is convenient for looking up articles that are likely to be vandalized and cause harm to a real person. There is also a policy regarding biographies... (alternative link)

Owing to Mike Godwin's mysterious departure in October 2010, Wikipedia's parent organization has been operating without lead counsel for months. This week, however, that legal vacuum has been filled by Geoff Brigham, the new...

According to his e-mail auto-reply, Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales is on a “semi-holiday”, most likely to play the supporting role for Kate Garvey, the new mother of his second child. Garvey...

Potential Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Jimmy Wales, is trailing incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson by a huge margin in preliminary polling of Florida voters. While Nelson obtains 47% of the eligible voters' preference, Wales garnered a paltry...

As many users of Wikipedia know, the Wikimedia Foundation recently raised over $16 million of tax-exempt money to help operate the popular encyclopedia and its sister reference projects. This in spite of the concern that donations to the...

For the past few weeks, users of Wikipedia have noticed a banner at the top of the page, inviting candidates for the upcoming Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) board of trustees election. Every year or two (depending on the availability of...

On the afternoon of May 18, a Miami-based executive specializing in hotel real estate wanted to give a name to the famously ritzy section of South Beach along Collins Avenue, between 24th and 15th Streets. We know this... (map) (photo)

The Wikimedia Foundation which owns and operates the mighty servers that host Wikipedia and the related sister projects that make it a Top Five global website took almost 5 months to find a Chief Technical Officer in Danese Cooper. ...

Nearly five months ago, Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner bemoaned the fact that only 13 percent of Wikipedia's contributing editors were women. She blogged about it, she chimed in on discussions on the Foundation's... (alternate link)

The non-profit foundation that is responsible for Wikipedia and multitudes of smaller sister projects announced the results last week of its board of trustees election. As reported earlier here at Examiner, the foundation determined that its best interests... (photo 1) (photo 2) (photo 3)

What do Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II, and Miley Cyrus have in common? They, along with other famous and not-so-famous personalities help round out the Top 10 Most Contentious people list, as calculated from underlying Wikipedia data... (alternate link)

When searching Google for Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, the search engine's autocomplete feature tries to predict exactly what about Jimmy Wales you're looking for. Lots of people apparently are trying to figure out Wales...

As reported by Examiner, the divorce records of Jimmy Wales reveal the net worth of the co-founder of Wikipedia to be just north of $470,000. Be that as it may, some of the more intriguing aspects of...

A popular Internet search is for Jimmy Wales' net worth (see photo). That figure was revealed for the first time by Examiner here, and many of Wales' financial obligations were reported here. However, owing to the...

There were plentiful helpings of death and Harry Potter being served up on Wikipedia in July, as shows a tally of article page views released on August 9. After discounting the perennially common pages like the Wikipedia main page...

In the month of August, there were a number of surprising discoveries found in the list of the ten most-viewed Wikipedia articles. It's becoming readily apparent that the Google Doodle initiative is responsible for sending millions...

Your Wiki Edits Examiner has been covering his beat of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, and other wiki websites since June 2010, producing over 40 detailed stories that have kept you informed of the latest wacky wiki whirlwinds. These news...

A scandal that links pornography and children has been brewing for some time on Wikipedia, but the mainstream media has so far not put together all of the pieces of the puzzle. Wikipedia's lead founder, Dr. Larry... (alternate link)

The mystery of where Wikipedia web traffic is coming from continued in the month of September. As with August's report, still more surprising anomalies were uncovered in the list of the ten most-viewed Wikipedia articles for...

Wikia, known by many as the for-profit branch of Wikipedia, announced after market trading on October 12 the replacement of its CEO Gil Penchina with Craig Palmer, the former chief of Sony-owned Gracenote. Co-founded in 2004... (alternate link)

There is a battle raging on Wikipedia right now. Should the article about "pregnancy" feature an image of a clothed pregnant woman, or a nude pregnant woman? So far, it looks like the nude woman is...

For once, every one of the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia in a given month can be explained by popular themes or current events. In previous months, there had been mysterious traffic surges for topics like "Malapascua... (alternate link)

Earlier this month the new charitable organization, Wikimedia UK, received its government clearance to operate as a non-profit in the United Kingdom. The mission of the Wikimedia UK, a spin-off from the San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation... (alternate link with photo)

A few weeks ago, a new organization identifying itself as a "charity" appeared in Great Britain. It calls itself "Wikimedia UK", and its purported purpose is to "help collect, develop and distribute freely licensed... (alternate link)

Wikipedia is one of the world's ten most-used websites, right up there with the likes of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and Amazon. However, it is the only non-profit, educational site in the top 50, inspiring... (alternate link)

As reported on December 20, the Wikimedia UK non-profit organization was recently granted "charity" status, even though an overview of its constitution says it "has no control over the contents of Wikipedia or any other projects...

2012

If you have edited Wikipedia in the past six months, you may have noticed the option to give feedback about your mood as an editor. Maybe you're happy, or sad, or confused. The Wikipedia MoodBar lets...

Just one person on Wikipedia is granted the authority to select which page of the vast encyclopedia will be featured on the "Main Page" of the project. His name is Mark Pellegrini, a long-term graduate student... (alternate link)

There is a battle going on between the Public Relations industry and Wikipedia insiders who wish to exclude PR editors from "the encyclopedia anyone can edit". In fact, a breakfast confab held yesterday morning by the San... (alternate link)

While the Wikimedia Foundation runs Wikipedia from its headquarters in San Francisco, it supports various regional branch chapters across the globe. Recently, the United Kingdom chapter known as Wikimedia UK appointed a new Chairman of its board of trustees...

Wikipedia contains a little-known project page called "Unreferenced BLPs". These are a collection of biographies of living persons (BLPs) that lack any links to independent, third-party sources that verify what's said in the...

Over the past few days, the worldwide media has finally cottoned to the fact that certain leaders and membersof the non-profit Wikimedia UK charity have been exploiting Wikipedia on the side for personal financial gain...

By now, unless you live in a cave in Uruguay, you know that former CIA director General David Petraeus resigned his post amid allegations he was having an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, his biographer. You probably also know...

Over the past 48 hours, something very strange and disturbing has been panning out on one of Wikipedia's most popular pages -- the Talk page of the project's co-founder, Jimmy Wales. Accusations have been leveled... (alternate link)

2013

Today, a rigorously assembled timeline was completed that connects key figures of the Internet, the former British government, and an oppressive central Asian regime.Two weeks ago, Examiner broke a controversial story that explored some...

Wikipedia was in a bit of chaos today, as some of its administrators and its Arbitration Committee seek to wipe away any mention of the real name of a user who goes by the nickname "Russavia". One popular... (alternate link)

Most people are familiar by now with the fact that Wikipedia is a huge encyclopedia, but that it suffers from occasional vandalism by users. And while we're often reassured that most vandalism on Wikipedia is usually fixed within minutes, how many of us knew that some Wikipedia vandalism emanates from the offices of the Wikimedia Foundation headquarters itself?...

Wikipedia's notorious co-founder, Jimmy Wales, has launched an investigation to determine if any of the pseudonyms who edit the world's biggest encyclopedia are in fact (or suspected to be) classified security info leaker, Edward Snowden... (alternate link)

Hartford Courant reporters Alaine Griffin and Josh Kovner believe that they have uncovered an Internet user identity that appears to have been used by the Newtown school killer, Adam Lanza, to engage in conversations on many websites, including Wikipedia... (alternate link)

If you're not one of the 34,000 or so people who edit the English Wikipedia at least five times per month, you may not have noticed the change that has taken place on the massive encyclopedia, but... (alternate link)

In a shocking decision today, the English Wikipedia's highest volunteer governing body, the Arbitration Committee, has defrocked a Wikimedia Foundation paid contract staff member, Oliver Keyes, for "conduct unbecoming an administrator, and for bringing the project into... (alternate link)

Since its January 2001 inception by Dr. Larry Sanger (with some software and server help from Jimmy Wales), Wikipedia has grown from just a handful of crowdsourced encyclopedia articles to over 4.3 million articles in the English-language version...

In the wee hours of this morning, Thursday, October 3rd, over 35,000 users of Wikipedia's sister projects received a startling e-mail from the Wikimedia Foundation, telling them that their private user information inadvertently had... (alternate link)

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales delivers a paid keynote speech to a conference of information technologists meeting at the Alfresco Summit. What Jimbo (as he is affectionately called online) will be leaving behind at Wikipedia are the heated arguments regarding a controversy about purportedly 250 "sockpuppet" editor accounts...

Last week, Examiner reported that Wikimedia Foundation law firm Cooley LLP issued a cease and desist letter to a Wikipedia editing company, Wiki-PR, telling them to stop editing Wikipedia -- or else. Yesterday, the other shoe dropped, where it... (alternate link)

Just when you thought that the nerdy know-it-alls who run Wikipedia couldn't get much creepier, it was revealed yesterday (December 10, 2013) that Wikipedia contributors who voted in the recent "Arbitration Committee" election will... (alternate link)

2014

Yesterday, the foremost Wikipedia criticism site, Wikipediocracy.com, revealed on its blog a batch of web traffic data from the Wikimedia Foundation that is truly newsworthy: Wikipedia experienced in 2013 the first-ever year-over-year loss in page... (alternate link)

Yesterday morning, March 7, a software developer employed by the Wikimedia Foundation was compelled to turn over his Wikipedia administrator toolkit, when it had become clear that he had been caught using a "sockpuppet" account to badger another... (alternate link)

The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that runs Wikipedia, recognized International Workers Day today by hiring an international replacement for their most important worker, outgoing executive director Sue Gardner. The foundation announced that Gardner, a Canadian, will be replaced...

It took Jimmy Wales only a matter of minutes to install the software that would become Wikipedia. But it took years for another of Jimmy Wales' creations, Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, to finally ban a middle-aged... (alternate link)

Only weeks after Wikipedia editors from around the globe gathered for a happy and uplifting Wikimania 2014 rally in London, many long-time active editors of Wikipedia are expressing their rage today on the Talk page of Wikipedia... (alternate link)

On October 26, New York Times reporter (and frequent cheerleader for Wikipedia) Noam Cohen published a story about how Wikipedia's article about the Ebola virus disease is now a credible source, and that its "requirement for sourcing...

Jimmy Wales had a busy Christmas Eve on Twitter, trumpeting what a principled and successful man he is. The co-founder of Wikipedia has come under fire for his acceptance of a $500,000 award from Mohammed bin... (alternate link)

2015

On Thursday, February 19, the organization that operates Wikipedia posted a blog article that proudly declared, "Research finds the Wikimedia Foundation to be the largest known Participatory Grantmaking Fund". Shortly after this was published, the Wikipedia criticism... (alternate link)

Imagine it's 1918. World War One has drawn to a close in Europe. The city of Cleveland founded its own orchestra. And over in Japan, the Sagami Railway is nearing completion of its first section...

In the United States, the tenth-most popular website is Reddit.com, a message-based social networking and news sharing site. Yesterday, Friday July 3rd, the various message boards of Reddit erupted in turmoil. Volunteer moderators have shut... (alternate link) (photo 1) (photo 2) (photo 3) (photo 4)

The excitement is in the air. A veritable fiesta of sun-starved Wikipedia nerds and nerdettes will descend on Mexico City today (from July 15-19, 2015) to participate in their biggest annual wiki-conference: Wikimania. While salmon... (alternate link)

Some companies, like General Motors, Procter & Gamble, and Apple, spend many millions of dollars in promotional advertising campaigns. Other companies, like Rolls-Royce, Krispy Kreme, and the makers of Sriracha hot sauce, allocate no money toward traditional ad...

Surely readers are tiring by now of the news stories identifying people or companies "caught" editing their own Wikipedia articles. These "investigative" reports seem to appear like clockwork, every few weeks or so. This week, it...

What Wikipedia did for encyclopedias, Wikimedia Commons attempts to do for photo albums. A database of nearly 30 million freely usable images and other files, Wikimedia Commons is where so many of us turn in search of that perfect... (included slideshow, with this summary slide)

Late yesterday, the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees voted to remove one of its own members, Dr. James Heilman, from that governance body. Heilman, an emergency room physician from Canada, had just been appointed to the wiki... (alternate link)

2016

An anonymous investigator blew the whistle today on Liz Allison, the primary director of the $228 million Stanton Foundation. Allison was caught editing Wikipedia's article about her own organization, despite having a huge personal financial conflict of...

The National Archives will be the site tomorrow of a controversial "Diversity Conference" hosted jointly by the Wikimedia DC organization and the federally-funded Archives. The June 17-18 conference is billed as "open to everyone...

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