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Year: 2007 Week: 26 Number: 76
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An independent internal news bulletin
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=== Foundation ===
[Board elections: round 1] - The first round of the board elections are over.
The candidates who are confirmed will now be listed as actual candidates in the
election. There where 18 candidates. 15 of them passed the endorsements
procedure. Most of the candidates received support that exceeded the necessary
12 endorsements many times. There was one very late submission of candidacy
about 6 hours before the closing of the deadline for submissions and
endorsements. In those few hours this candidate received 36 endorsements.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17769
[Board elections: round 2] - The vote is open now and this until 2007-07-07,
23:59 UTC. The link to that page to vote can be found in the site-notice. To
have voting rights if the are active on any Wikimedia wiki for at least 3
months before 2007-06-01 and have at least 400 edits before that date on that
wiki. You can have voting rights on several wikis but only one will count. Do
not do that, vote only on one wiki.
There are 3 candidates that will be elected in this elections for a 2 year term
on the board. Despite there are only 3 places to fill voters are free to vote
for as many or few candidates the want to do. The system that is used is called
"Approval voting". See article to see what that means.
New this election is that there is an external partner to oversee the elections;
"Software in the Public Interest". This to ensure the neutrality of the
election.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17790http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_votinghttp://tinyurl.com/252p9v -- Signpost: An interview with the candidates
[Wikimedia Norge] - A new Wikimedia chapter is founded; Wikimedia Norway.
[[no:User:Haros]] - Hans Rosbach is president.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17741http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Norge/Forslag_styremedlemmer
[Wikimedia NL] - The chapter of the Netherlands will organize with the
assistance of Kennisnet a one day conference in October in the Netherlands.
http://www.wikimediaconferentie.nl/
[New hire] - Anthere announced that the WMF has hired a new staff member; Sue
Gardner. She will be consultant and special advisor for the WMF.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17792
=== Community ===
[Portal] - The wikis of the projects are language specific, not country
specific. But the national domain name is often the logical version of the
domain people use to go to a wiki. The National domain name "wikipedia.de" has
been redirecting to the German language Wikipedia for many years. This has now
changed. It goes now to a sort of portal and search page for the German
Wikipedia and Wikipedias in languages that are also spoken in Germany that have
a official minority status.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17770http://www.wikipedia.de/ -- The portal of .de
http://www.wikipedia.dk/ -- Example of an other type of portal
[Wikimania] - A short video clip is made about how to find the location of
buildings where Wikimania 2007 will be.
http://youtube.wikia.com/wiki/Don%27t_Get_Lost
=== New project proposals ===
[Kunkelfruit Wiki] - A home for free, collaborative articles on how popular
products are made.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Kunkelfruit_Wikihttp://scriblerus.net/kunkelfruithttp://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17794http://tinyurl.com/24u9p4 -- Example article
=== Other news ===
[Meta-l] - New mailing list for affairs that effect specific Meta Wiki
http://mail.lists.wikipedia.be/mailman/listinfo/meta-l_lists.wikipedia.be
=== Statement by candidate Frieda ===
Ciao,
I'm Frieda.
Usually I'm on time, but I arrived late and in hurry with my nomination and here
too..
Months ago I was thinking about this election and I decided not to candidate
myself this year because few people know me and Wikimedia Italia still needs (I
think) my help.
But Saturday afternoon I was reading and discussing the other candidates'
statements with other wikimedians and I found many ideas that I cannot agree
with, therefore I wrote my statement.
I want to underline, among the rest, two points:
# every Wikimedia project is equally important
# Chapters are essential to WMF
You can find my full statement and Q&A on meta. I'm sorry in advance if my
answers are too pithy :-)
Ciao,
Frieda
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/Frieda/en
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Year: 2007 Week: 25 Number: 75 Extra bis
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Board election ===
Today, Saturday, is the last day for submissions for candidates for the board
elections and the endorsements of those candidates. There are a now 17
candidates of who 13 have received at present sufficient support to be granted
the right to be a candidate in the actual election.
The voting will start next Thursday, the 28th of June. A board election is not
done the "normal wiki-vote" way on some page but by means of a special page
providing private vote functionality in the wiki-software.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007
=== Statement by candidate Artur Jan Fijałkowski (WarX) ===
I'm one of those strange people who like reading encyclopedias. In January 2005
I read an interview with Jimbo Wales on Wizards of OS conference ;), since that
moment I've been an involved Wikimedian.
My target as a person involved in Wikimedia projects is to create as much free
content as possible. I have been writing articles for Polish Wikipedia, drawing
SVG images for different articles (mostly flags, CoAs, some schemes). Now I'm
working on something larger - every day I'm trying to establish contact with
different institutions to obtain free-licensed materials or permissions to make
such materials by Wikimedia photographers. During the last few months I've send
my friends to make photographs during several concerts (from which we have
photos of stars like Sepultura or Moonspell). Now I'm negotiating with one of
Mining Industries about making documentation of underground mining.
There are billions of photos, drawings, documents that are laying in archives
waiting to be freed. I believe that we can do it! I believe that Wikimedia
Community has the power to change the World and my main target as a member of
Board of Trustees will be to move the steering wheel in this direction!
I hope YOU will join my direction ;)
Artur Jan Fijałkowski / Wikimedian WarX
http://tinyurl.com/26pl3h -- Candidate presentation
=== Statement by candidate Erik Möller (Eloquence) ===
Dear Wikimedia community -
in September 2006, you elected me to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia
Foundation. It's been an exciting, exhausting, and occasionally crazy 9 months!
In this time period, I sent more than 400 e-mails to my fellow Board members,
attended 4 Board meetings (2 in Florida and 2 in the Netherlands) and a retreat
in Frankfurt, voted on over 30 resolutions, (co-)authored many key strategy and
policy documents, and met with representatives from many other organizations.
As Executive Secretary of the Board, it is also my responsibility to keep
minutes at Board meetings.
The Board acts as a group, and has, for the most part, done so harmoniously. I
would be very honored to be permitted to continue to serve together with the
present Board members. These are the achievements of the Board which I am
particularly proud of:
* We elected a new Chair of the Board, Florence Devouard, and expanded the Board
from 5 to 7 members. We appointed Kat Walsh and Oscar van Dillen to these 2 new
seats initially (they are now running for re-election together with myself).
* We defined the mission and the vision of the Foundation in a participatory
process.
* We assembled a distinguished Advisory Board, which has helped the Board
directly on many matters of critical importance.
* We addressed some problems with the Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws. See
foundation-l post for further information
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-December/025543.html
* We adopted a licensing policy which strengthens our commitment to Free
Culture, while also giving every project clearly defined rights to develop
suitable exemptions.
* We oversaw the expansion of Foundation staff to include a part-time Chapter
Coordinator, a Communications Director, an internal ICT manager, and a
Volunteer Coordinator. Carolyn Doran became a member of the full-time staff as
a very capable Chief Operating Officer, and Vishal Patel recently joined us for
grants and business development.
* We directed the largest fundraiser in the history of the Wikimedia Foundation
last December and January.
In my personal capacity, I also represent the Wikimedia Foundation in the
Institutional Council of the Encyclopedia of Life and have attended their
inaugural meeting in Washington, D.C. I have met in Houston with
representatives of several projects in the eLearning community. I have worked
closely with Philipp Birken on coordinating a development project to implement
functionality to identify "stable versions" of articles (FlaggedRevs extension
to MediaWiki). I have lobbied for the creation of Planet Wikimedia and
currently administer the English and German planets; I believe it to be an
important
community communication tool.
The Board has also proven itself to be capable of steering the ship Wikimedia
through crisis. After Brad Patrick stopped working as interim Executive
Director of the Foundation in order to focus on his work as legal counsel, the
Board had to assume certain operational responsibilities. These were delegated
to individual Board members until a new ED could be appointed. I was
responsible for coordinating the work on grants and other business development
projects, for example, which involved weekly phone calls, work on
specifications and contracts, and plenty of e-mail. I can attest to the fact
that both Oscar and Kat have also invested tremendous amounts of personal time
to help Wikimedia through this period.
As we finalize the search for a new ED, the Board will be able to focus once
again on defining ends, rather than means. Many of the goals I laid out in my
election platform from last year still apply, but I would identify the
following five priorities for the near future:
1. Ensure better budgeting and accounting of all expenses. Right now, the level
of detail to which we can make specific statements about how every dollar by
the WMF is spent is limited. So are our estimates about how much money WMF
needs to spend in the coming months.
2. Tell the real story of the Wikimedia Foundation to the general public: the
story of thousands of volunteers collaborating to bring free knowledge to every
human being on the planet. Storytelling is a critical component of fundraising.
We need to be able to convey, on an emotional level, what we intend to do
before we ask for money.
3. Develop a strategy for the rapid improvement of MediaWiki technology that
involves users, stakeholders, open source developers, and paid staff. WMF
maintains an extremely important open source project; one of our
responsibilities is to ensure that useful code changes actually get integrated,
and that the project continues to innovate. I have already done considerable
work in this area, partially outside my work as Board member (see below).
4. Pursue at least one large-scale grant (more than US$100,000) that relates
directly to our mission and preferably benefits all projects, not merely
Wikipedia. For example, a grant that would allow us to coordinate a large scale
content and technology development project on Wikiversity or Wikibooks could
have very tangible outcomes.
5. Significantly improve internal information sharing and transparency. We have
made some improvements: Sandy Ordonez is doing excellent work as Communications
Director and has opened up some processes for more community participation; the
internal wiki has a defined process for adding new members now; Cary Bass was
recently hired as Volunteer Coordinator to help volunteers find areas of
organizational work; I have personally emphasized the element of openness in a
couple of recent negotiations with external parties.
We could, however, do much more. Many current working areas lack clearly defined
reporting components, which makes it difficult and frustrating for community
members to find out what is going on. Even if a task may involve confidential
information, there is almost always some that can be shared, and we are almost
always better off if we do share it.
Whether or not I am re-elected, I have effectively become a full time "wiki
nut": My day job is to be the Chief Technology Officer of a non-profit
organization called Open Progress, which develops structured wiki technology
based on MediaWiki, notably OmegaWiki. I am also overseeing several other
development projects, including LiquidThreads (making great progress, current
code in SVN), Multilingual MediaWiki (going slowly but surely), and
InstantCommons (about to be merged, current code in SVN).
I also provide hosting services to WikiEducator and serve on the project's
advisory board. Through WikiEducator, I recently co-facilitated a Tectonic
Shift Think Tank about the future of MediaWiki, attended by key stakeholders
including our own Brion Vibber. One outcome of this think tank was the creation
of a MediaWiki NG list for coordinating funding and development activities on
key next generation technologies.
Spending most of my waking hours with something or other related to wikis can be
a little unnerving sometimes. At the same time, I feel like I am part of the
biggest revolution in knowledge since the invention of the printing press. It
is in the nature of wikis that they can be very frustrating and very rewarding;
the same goes for work on the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation. (For example,
I have had to learn that people from other countries do not generally care what
time zone you are in when they call you.) If you do appreciate the work I have
been doing, and would like me to continue, I would be grateful to receive your
vote.
Sincerely yours
Erik Möller
http://tinyurl.com/23tffa -- Candidate presentation
http://tinyurl.com/yr2ph2 -- questions
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine provides the candidates for the board election who are interested to do
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support by Wikizine for those candidates. Publication of the exact text as
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Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
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correct grammar and spelling.
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and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news (and time)
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Year: 2007 Week: 25 Number: 75
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An independent internal news bulletin
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//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[SUL] - The status of "single user login" is still in progress.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/32140
=== Request for help ===
[Wikimentary] - At the first Wikimania in 2005 Rory O’Connor, a documentary
maker and journalist, was present to record this event. This to make a
documentary about the wiki-community. Two years later they have made recordings
of several other wiki-activities and will also be at Wikimania 2007, still for
the documentary that started in 2005. Video and other materials are placed
online on the wiki of the Wikimentary project. It is the intentions and hope of
the makers of this documentary that people will come and work on this
documentary like many people do to the many wiki projects that exist.
Everybody who knows about the wiki world is welcome to go to
globalvision.wikia.com and work on the first real "Wikimentary", a community
created documentary.
http://globalvision.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
=== Policy ===
[IRC reform] - The IRC channel #wikipedia has a new management and policy. This
to try to reduce the off-topic talk in the channel. The changes are not well
received by all.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_guidelines/wikipediahttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:IRC_guidelines/wikipediahttp://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/30187http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17686http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17720http://blog.seanwhitton.com/2007/06/changes-to-wikipedia.html
=== Foundation ===
[Elections] - The number of candidates for the board has increased suddenly from
4 to 17. Submissions as a candidate and the endorsement procedure will close
Friday, 200-06-23 23:59 UTC. Currently it looks like most candidates will have
enough endorsements to go to the actual election.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Endorsements/en
=== Community ===
[Long week] - There is again a new edition of WikipediaWeekly
http://wikipediaweekly.com/2007/06/19/wikipedia-weekly-20-return-of-the-pod…
=== Media ===
[China] - Many media around the world are reporting that China has unblocked
Wikipedia. Most likely they are wrong about this. The WMF has Korean servers to
serve users from that part of the globe. Recently the IP addresses of those
servers has changed. Other IP addresses = unblocked. At least until the
firewall of China is updated.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=9750
=== Stats ===
[de.wp] - The German Wikipedia has reached 600,000 articles with Universität
Dundee.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A4t_Dundee
[vi-wp] - The Vietnamese Wikipedia reaches 20,000 articles with ".se".
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/.se
[vo.wp] - The Volapük Wikipedia reaches 10,000 articles. This is a constructed
language with only +/- 25-30 speakers. The most active user is SmeiraBot.
http://vo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patikos:Contributions/SmeiraBot
=== Did you know ... ===
... how the Special:Random page works?
Every page has a random number assigned to it in the database. When selecting a
random page, a second random number is selected, and the page whose number most
closely matches the second number (actually the smallest number greater than
the second number) is returned.
Basically, the page is simply picked at random, for most intents and purposes.
http://tinyurl.com/2yo6w9 -- advanced explanation
=== Quote ===
“50 million nerds doing your homework for free.” ~ Ambrose Bierce on
Wikipedia
[Source: uncyclopedia.org]
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Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
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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.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news (and time)
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Year: 2007 Week: 25 Number: 75 Extra
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//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Statement by candidate Yann Forget ===
I have been involved in Wikimedia projects since December 2002 (4.5
years), mainly on Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Commons and Wikisource. I am
one of the early contributors of Wikisource, from when it was still
called Project Sourceberg. I am admin on about a dozen Wikimedia
projects and steward since June 2005. I proposed the creation of
Wikimédia France in November 2003, of which I was secretary in 2004-2005.
I am a computer professional specialized in free software since 1998.
Before that I worked for 10 years with NGOs on humanitarian, social and
cultural projects. I would like to bring my experience of non-profit
organizations and free culture movement to the service of Wikimedia
Foundation. I would like the Foundation to be an influential
organization, to bring free knowledge far and wide. My main input would
be working on financial independence.
I was director of a technical school founded by the Anglican Church in
India. As an employee, I also worked for "Fédération des œuvres laïques"
(Non religious cultural organization), teaching computer basic to
children, and "Partenaires" (Partners) a French NGO working on
development and humanitarian assistance in India. I worked 6 months as a
full time volunteer for Peace Brigades International in civil war torn
Sri Lanka, and 2 years part time with "Friends of All", an Indian NGO
dedicated to improving education in rural India.
As being a board member needs time, I decided to work part-time if
elected to be able to cope with the amount of work needed for the
Foundation.
== Ads ==
I think that advertising cannot be neutral. Putting ads on Wikimedia web
sites would change the perception of the projects. They would not be
seen as free. There are many other financial possible resources, so
resorting to ads would be a failure of the financial management to bring
these resources to the Foundation.
== Banding ==
Branding of a non profit organization is fundamentally different of
branding of a business company. In addition, we should find a balance
between the independent development of the projects and the branding of
the Foundation as a whole.
== Foundation projects development ==
A business developer is useful to organize the management of Foundation
services (datafeeds, trademarks for the Foundation and third parties
products, etc.).
I think that Wikibooks, Commons, Wikinews, Wiktionary, Wikisource, etc.
should receive more help from the Foundation. Some budget should be
earmarked for their development, and promotion.
== Priorities ==
My priorities are:
# Creating an endowment fund to insure long term financial viability.
Developing other sources of funding (grants, business partnerships, etc.).
# Creating a technical roadmap for Mediawiki development. Implementing SUL.
# Developing detailed legal guidelines to contributors, particularly
about copyright.
== Others ==
The most efficient way to reduce greenhouse gases is to reduce energy
consumption. Investment in energy saving is wise, both on a long term
financial plan and greenhouse gas reduction. Buying carbon offset could
be done, but is only a short term remedy.
Thanks for your support.
Regards,
Yann
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/en#User:Yannhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/Yann/questio…
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Wikizine provides the candidates for the board election who are interested to do
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support by Wikizine for those candidates. Publication of the exact text as
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//////////////////////////////////////////
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Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
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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.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news (and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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.org
Year: 2007 Week: 24 Number: 74 Extra
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
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//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Board election ===
The procedure for the elections for the 3 open places on the board of trustees
of the Wikimedia Foundation has started. Candidates can present them self until
2007-06-23 23:59 UTC on Meta. At time of this writing there are 7 candidates.
Wikizine sends an invitation to all candidates to submit a statement for
publication. Those statements will be published in this and similar extra
editions of Wikizine.
New in this board election is the concept of endorsement. This means that a
candidate will only be a candidate in the actual voting procedure if at least
12 users support the candidacy of the candidate. The idea is to try to exclude
candidates who make totally no change in getting elected. This endorsement
procedure takes place on Meta and is now open until 2007-06-23 23:59UTC.
Because of this it is theoretical possible that a candidate presented in
Wikizine before 2007-06-24 will not appear as a candidate when voting.
The endorsement procedure means also that (very) late new entry's of candidates
also will need to manage to find fast 12 users to support there candidacy.
Potential candidates need to apply soon now to have a change.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/enhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Endorsements
=== Statement by candidate Michael Snow ===
In the media, certain people have tried to pit professionals against amateurs,
usually to establish the superiority of one over the other. Wikipedia is often
cited as an example of amateurism in this context.
The reality of the Wikimedia Foundation is much more complex. For one thing,
although its projects are based on the work of amateurs, it strives for
“professional” quality. Furthermore, many of the “amateurs” who
contribute are professionals in other contexts. As an organization, the
Wikimedia Foundation must balance these and similar considerations:
professional and amateur, paid and unpaid, expert and student.
The Wikimedia Foundation is slowly integrating more professionalism into its
operations. The Board of Trustees, which needs some people with professional
experience but depends on them to provide volunteer service, is a focal point
for integrating the two sides. As we bring in new professional staff, we must
ensure that they understand our culture and values. Meanwhile, it’s important
to encourage the volunteers to match them in the standard of their work.
I have extensive experience with Wikimedia as a volunteer, but I also have
professional skills that can be of use here, and in all my work I try to
maintain a professional standard. I feel that my legal training as an attorney
would be particularly helpful on the board and add a dimension that is not
currently present. I believe my familiarity with both sides of the coin, so to
speak, makes me qualified to work with each. The professional and amateur sides
need to be brought together, since the emphasis on collaboration and neutrality
means we should try to maximize participation from each approach. Instead of
fostering division over issues like elitism and expertise, we should find the
value each side has to offer. For my part, I hope you will see what value I
could bring in serving on the Board of Trustees. Thank you for your interest in
improving Wikimedia.
--Michael Snow
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/Michael_Snowhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Candidates/Michael_Snow…
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine provides the candidates for the board election who are interested to do
so a forum to present there self to the community. This is not a sign of
support by Wikizine for those candidates. Publication of the exact text as
provided by the candidate is in the order of receiving it.
//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Walter
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news (and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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.org
Year: 2007 Week: 24 Number: 74
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
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=== Technical news ===
[Frameless] - New option for displaying an image; Frameless, like thumbnail,
respects the user preferences for image width but without border and no right
float. [[Image:Example.jpg|frameless]]
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images
[Watch this page] - When changing the access level of page sysops have now also
a box to put that page directly on your watchlist.
[New pages] - [[Special:Newpages]] now has option to display new pages from all
namespace; not only from the main namespace.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Newpages
[Block email] - When blocking a user or an IP, sysops now have option to also
block the user or IP to send email using [[Special:Emailuser]].
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Blockip
=== Request for help ===
[Translate] - Help with translations for the board elections, has been
requested.
http://tinyurl.com/2q9d5r
=== Foundation ===
[Elections] - Candidates are been called for the election of to the Wikimedia
Foundation's Board of Trustees. At least three positions will be filled from
this election, with the elected members serving a two year term. Candidates
have until 2007-06-23 23:59:59 UTC to become a candidate. Voting is expected to
start on 2007-06-28. Wikizine will publish presentations of the candidates for
so far the are interested in extra editons.
http://tinyurl.com/22wpg5
[Update data policy] - The board approved a new version of the "Access to
nonpublic data policy". In this version it is not longer explicit necessary to
provide proof of being at least 18 years old but it remains possible that it
will be asked. People working on the emails send to the projects (OTRS) are not
longer included in this policy but fall now under non specific instructions of
the WMF office staff.
http://tinyurl.com/2mbdzg -- The new and old policy , the diff function does
not work good
http://pages.citebite.com/n1b8m5t0g7suy -- Sending proof is possible, not
necessary
=== Community ===
[The Wikinews Bulletin] - Following the success of EN Wikipedia’s SignPost,
New Wikinewise Daniel Bryant, establishes a EN Wikinews community newspaper
that will appear every two weeks on Monday.
http://tinyurl.com/32lgmz
[Deleted] - The last image of Spanish Wikipedia has been erased, so it uses
images from Commons only.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Imagelist
[Mirror] - Wikinews has a problem. It is writing news articles but an important
channel for readers of news to find it, Google News, exclude it. This because
of the wiki way of making the articles. A user on EN Wikinews has made a mirror
of the articles of the EN Wikinews so that Google News can present that version
to the readers of there service.
http://tinyurl.com/2dg2e3http://thenewswiki.com/
=== Media ===
[Privacy] - Privacy International, a nonprofit organization, reports Wikipedia
being among best sites regarding privacy, but needing improvement.
http://tinyurl.com/2to9f3http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=22495
[Holland Open] - Anthere gave the keynote speech in the Netherlands at the
Holland Open Software Conference. One of things Anthere said was that the WMF
wants to improve the software so that the visual impaired have better access to
the content.
http://tinyurl.com/2b99pq -- News report about it (Dutch)
http://tinyurl.com/yvb49q -- Impression by [[meta:user:GerardM]]
=== Stats ===
[Global Stats] - There are no real visitor logs of the WMF websites to
calculated the number of visitors. But there is sampling of the visitors
traffic. Brion has made extrapolations from those to make global total page
view estimates. Brion comes out at seven thousand million (7,008,306,975) for
the number of monthly page views for all WMF wikis. That does not mean that
there seven thousand million visitors monthly. How many unique visitors there
are is not clear. But the ceiling number is known; there are one thousand
million (1,133,408,294) internet users.
http://leuksman.com/log/2007/06/07/wikimedia-page-views/http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
[EN Wiktionary] - The English language Wiktionary got its 400,000th entry.
http://en.wiktionary.org
[pi.wp] - The Pali Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles. The is not bad
considering that Pali is a dead language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pali
=== Other news ===
[Carbon neutral?] - On Foundation-l the topic was raised to consider by the
Wikimedia community to reduce the environmental footprint of the Wikimedia
projects. This by attempting to work environmental friendly and possibly to
look for ways to invest in green projects to compensate the environmental
impact of the projects.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17517/
[Citizendium] - Some technical news about it. Including the report that
Citizendium had in April about 100,000 unique visitors. That is nothing
compared with Wikipedia but it is no fair to compare it with Wikpedia.
http://tinyurl.com/yql79z
[Wikitravel] - The English language edition of Wikitravel has won the "Webby
Award 2007" for best travel website. Wikitravel is not a Wikimedia Foundation
project.
http://www.wikitravel.org/http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php#webby_entry_travel
=== Did you know ... ===
... there is a webbased Ogg Vorbis/Theora player?
The WMF projects use for audio and video the Ogg file format. This format is not
supported out of the box so the necessary codex or a player that supports it
must be installed. That is a step that some users are unable to take for
whatever reason. A webbased player is the way to provide convenient access to
the media to all.
[[w:en:user:Gmaxwell]] has created such a player on the toolserver. A link to
play the media in that player can be added to the audio and video templates. It
is not as good as like on YourTube but is a big improvement. Look at the source
of the templates to find out how to use it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Listenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Videohttp://tinyurl.com/2bmvyf -- Example of a webbased played video
=== Ferengi Rules of Acquisition ===
"A woman wearing clothes is like a man in the kitchen." -- Rule 4
"Satisfaction is not guaranteed." -- Rule 19
"Treat people in your debt like family... exploit them." - Rule 111
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 661
Unique Visitors website last week: 293
Editor(s): Walter, Brian, Ivan Lanin
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
New: Wikizine Auf Deutsch and en Español
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news (and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
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.org
Year: 2007 Week: 23 Number: 73
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Deletion log] - When accessing a non existing page or creating a new page, user
can now see the deletion log for that page. This used to be only for sysops.
Now even anonymous user can see it.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwipeer -- Example of a deleted page
[Shared history] - Local image description pages now show image history for
shared images from commons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Beer_mug.svg -- example
[Block] - System message for blocked users [[MediaWiki:Blockedtext]] now shows
the actual IP range target for blocks that are applied to IP range. This will
explain to the users why they got blocked.
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?view=rev&revision=22641
[Read-only] - Due to a power failure, several servers went offline on Monday,
resulting in the need to put the sites for a few hours in to read-only mode.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/31925
=== Request for help ===
[wikimania] - New accomodation note is announced on Wikimania website. If your
language have the page there, and you are sure multiple people from your
language community will attend, your translation will be very helpful.
http://wikimania2007.wikmedia.org/http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2007-June/000404.html
=== Policy ===
[CC 3.0] - There is a discussion in progress about the Creative Commons 3.0
licence. Currently the 3.0 version, the most recent version of the Creative
Commons licence is not allowed to be used on Wikimedia Commons.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17437
=== Foundation ===
[Board] - The board of Wikimedia Foundation held a face to face meeting on the
1st, 2nd and 3rd of June 2007 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Europa. Anthere
posted a first report about it to the list.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17461
[Survey] - On Meta is there currently a survey about Wikimedia's brands, their
uses, and possible changes to the strategy. The survey has questions like
"Would you support or oppose rebranding the projects as "Wikipedia Sources",
"Wikipedia Quotes", "Wikipedia Textbooks", and so on?"
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17391http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_brand_survey
=== Community ===
[G8] - Wikinewsie Sean Heron has managed to get press accreditation for the
press center of the G8 in Heiligendamm.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/assistance#G8_question_fr…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G8http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Category:G8
[Weather] - EN Wikinews provides now also a global basic Weather Service.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:DragonFire1024/Wikinews_Weather_Service_BE…
=== Media ===
[Audio] - "Wikipedia: Blessing or Curse?" item on the American public radio
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10731811
[Wikipedia and Beyond] - Long written interview with Jimbo about "Jimmy Wales'
sprawling vision". The interview gives also a description of the home of Jimmy
and the neighbourhood.
http://reason.com/news/show/119689.html
=== Stats ===
[FR Wikiquote] - The French Wikiquote has reached 500 articles with Jean de La
Bruyère. Since its reopening in December 2006, nearly 2,500 quotes have been
added by 1,081 registered users.
http://fr.wikiquote.org
[DV.wp] - The Divehi Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles. Divehi is a language
with about 300,000 speakers from India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divehi_languagehttp://dv.wikipedia.org
[Popular searches] - EN Wikipedia Users Searching for Anime and Occasionally
Other Stuff
http://www.appscout.com/2007/06/wikipedia_users_searching_for.php
=== Other news ===
[GNU/FDL] - Dutch government provides freely licensed photos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-06-04/Dutch_…
=== Did you know ... ===
... it is possible to have fun with "Spoken Wikipedia"?
Some Wikipedias have a spoken wikipedia project. That is an audio recording of
someone who reads the article. Of that is a useful activity we will keep in the
middle. But it is possible to have some fun with it by using different voices
and intonation. A great example of fun with a spoken article is the Dutch
language version of "Bert en Ernie" from Sesame Street.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Nl-Bert_en_Ernie-article…http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_en_Ernie
=== Quote ===
"It appears many people are learning about what sex is and how to have it by
referencing Wikipedia. -- Adam Tornes""
http://blog.compete.com/2007/05/31/wikipedia-search-terms/
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 655
Unique Visitors website last week: 386
Editor(s): Walter, Ivan Lanin
Thanks to: bawolff
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news (and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
