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.org
Year: 2007 Week: 52 Number: 88
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
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=== Technical news ===
[No pictures?] - If users complain that the can not see any pictures
on the wiki the it can be the "upload.wikimedia.org" it being blocked
by adblock software. Possibly in an attempt to hide the fundraiser
banner.
=== Foundation ===
[Board resignations] - Michael Davis, Board member since the founding
of the WMF, has resigned as announced per December 1, 2007. Erik
Möller, elected Community representative since summer 2006 and
re-elected in July, also resigned in december. Anthere, Board Chair,
announced an appointment for Erik's seat soon, awaiting elections, and
in time also an appointment for Michaels seat.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23094
[Board expansion] - A lot of Board-related news nowadays, as Anthere
also announced that the Board will be expanded to 11 members. The time
schedule is not totally clear yet. Anthere also announced that she is
considering to reduce her work for the Wikimedia Foundation, after
four years of Board membership, of which 1,5 years as chair and if
elected join the board of Wikimedia France instead of chair of the WMF.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_expansion_december_2007
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23444
[Deputy Director] - Erik Moeller will become WMF's Deputy Director,
which was announced after Erik's resignation from the Board. On
Foundation-l the point was raised that for this newly created function
no public announcement was made for people to submit there candidacy
for this function. Also the move from the unpaid position as board
member to a new, paid, function raised questions. Sue Gardner,
Executive Director WMF and new boss of Erik, clarified the choice and
procedure. Key aspects were that Erik - because of his professional
background, community background and technical knowledge of the
technical side of WMF operations - is a very useful addition to the
WMF staff who have no WMF community background. The WMF is still
looking for people for some functions for the San Francisco office.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23208 --
Announcement by Sue Gardner
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23275 --
clarification by Sue Gardner
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23227 --
reservations about it
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings -- functions still open
[Fundraiser] - The fundraiser of the Wikimedia Foundation has been
extended until January 3, 2008. It was scheduled to end on december
22, 2007, but extended to be able to cover the holidays as well. This
is to benefited from the people in the USA who look at the last days
of the year for a good cause to donated to get a tax deduction. The
fundraiser started October 22, and is now already the longest
fundraiser ever. The current balance is around 1.25 million US dollar.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23368
=== Community ===
[Wikinews in Israel]] - Wikinews' David Shankbone wrote his first
report to his sponsored trip to Israel.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Israel_Journal:_The_Holy_Land_has_an_image_prob…
-- David Shankbone's first report
[Stewards] - New stewards have been appointed by the Board after the
2007 elections. The new stewards are: .anaconda, Andre Engels,
Dungodung, Jusjih, Lar, Millosh, Spacebirdy, Thogo, Wpedzich, Zirland,
DerHexer, Nick1915. Now that the new stewards have been appointed, the
Steward reconfirmations discussions can start. All stated objections
during the elections are being taken into account by all the stewards,
which will decide which of the stewards will be reconfirmed. Datrio
and Fantasy are already destewarded, as they did not want to stand for
reconfirmation.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23420 -
Announcement by Anthere
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/confirm -- Steward confirmation
=== Awards ===
[Web of the Year] - The Japanese Wikipedia won for the second time in
a row the "Web of the Year"-award, the most famous internet award in
Japan, organized by Yahoo-related groups and companies.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23372
http://woy2007.sbcr.jp/ -- website of the award, in Japanese.
=== Media ===
[Knol] - Media are still finding out that Google launched Knol, and
almost every article about this is reporting about the damage it may
do to Wikipedia. Nice thing to note is that (almost) no media consider
damage to traditional encyclopediae like Brittannica.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol -- If you missed lastWikizine
[COO] - The story about Wikimedia's Chief Operations Officer is
spreading now also to the more main stream media.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317887,00.html
[Bet] - Weblogs vs. The New York Times; Wikipedia wins.
http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/3302/long-bet-winner-weblogs-vs-new…
[US senate BIS] - Of the statement by Jimmy Wales before the US
senate, see Wikizine 87, is also a video. It is a video of 2 hours.
Jimmy does his thing at time index 00:34:25.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odvr4w2gMJY
http://www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie/ -- tool to download the
video (282mb)
=== Stats ===
[New projects] - The Language subcommittee has conditionally approved
37 new language projects. Among them three new Wikiquotes, five
Wikinewses, one Wikisource, seven Wikiversities, eleven Wiktionaries
and ten Wikipedia's. This means that these projects can move on to the
Wikimedia Incubator project, and can get their own environment if they
succeed to establish the community and project.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
[Lombard Wikipedia] - The Lombard Wikipedia has currently only just
over 23000 articles, although that were over 117000 a few weeks ago.
This is the result of a massive cleanup of robot generated articles.
http://lmo.wikipedia.org
[DE Wikibooks] - The German Wikibooks has now its 10,000th page in the
main article namespace and reached so far a major milestone. We have
now 569 Books, 40 of them are ready and numerous have their own
printversion.
http://de.wikibooks.org
=== Other news ===
[Citizendium license] -- Larry Sanger announced that Citizendium will
use CC-BY-SA as a license. This means that Citizendium is freely
licensed as well, and if the GFDL and CC-BY-SA licenses become
exchangable in the future, Citizendium content could be used within
the Wikimedia projects.
http://tinyurl.com/2gby6p - The official announcement on Citizendium
[Amazon Kindle & wp] - As reported in Wikizine 85 Amazon (webshop) is
selling an ebook reader (kindle) that also provides access to
Wikipedia. Cali Lewis of Geekbrief.Tv explains more about how this
actually works. The device has a key "search" that can be used to
search a dictionary, the English language Wikipedia and the internet.
By means of a web browser function also the other languages editions,
Wikibooks, Wikinews and Wikisource can be read. Wireless access is
free of charge but it only works in the USA.
http://www.dearcali.com/wikipedia-on-the-kindle/ -- text explication
by Cali about the Kindle and Wikipedia
http://www.geekbrief.tv/gbtv-0277-dearcalicom -- Video version; time
index 3:15 for Wikipedia item
[Wikizine review] - In 2007 EN Wikizine presented 33 editions (extra
editions excluded) to our readers. The readership by means of email
increased by 18% this year. The number of unique visitors to the
website is going steadily downhill since the the seconded quarter of
2007. New language editions of Wikizine where launched this year.
There is now a Wikizine in the German, Spanish and Indonesian
language. The continuing publication of these new editions has been
troublesome and there readership, with the strong exception of the
Indonesian edition, highly disappointing despite the effort put in
those editions. EN Wikizine suffered also troubles and it came close
to termination of this project. The last months the effort of only a
few people sufficiently supported this project and provided the
necessary energy to continue Wikizine in to 2008 and hopeful well
beyond. Thanks for reading Wikizine people, and that is all for 2007.
http://www.wikizine.org
=== Did you know ... ===
... that you can expand your knowledge by subscribing to an email list?
You can subscribe to the Wikipedia-Daily-Article-List, and receive
every day an extract of the enwikipedia article of the day in your
maibox!
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l - subscribe
=== Quote ===
"Taking the risk of offending some people; Marry Christmas everyone
and a not to bad new year!" -- user:Walter in the "Quote" section of
Wikizine 88
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Number of subscribers: 703
Unique Visitors website last week: 173
Editor(s): Effeietsanders, Walter
Special thanks to: Cali Lewis of Geekbrief.tv
Contact: reply or
http://report.wikizine.org
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correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
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Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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