******************************************
__ __ _ _ _ _
/ / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __ ___
\ \/ \/ / | |/ / |_ / | '_ \ / _ \
\ /\ /| | <| |/ /| | | | | __/
\/ \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
.org
Year: 2009 Week: 32 Number: 114
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Full downtime] - All of Wikimedia's services (sites, mailing lists,
etc.) were down on July 31 at 12:00 (UTC) to allow the primary router
at the Tampa hosting facility to be rebooted.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/pmtpa-router-reboot-scheduled-downtim…http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-July/044406.htmlhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Downtime
[SysAdminDay] - System Administrator Appreciation Day was held on July
31st; it's the day where you appreciate and thank all the system
administrators who make your lives easier!
http://www.sysadminday.com/
[Override this function] - on August 6, users were temporarily getting
the message 'Override this function' when visiting pages on Wikipedia,
due to a server only partially getting an update. The issue was
supposedly fixed but the sysadmins are still getting reports, it needs
further investigation of the problem.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20081
=== Request for help ===
[WikimediaMobile] - Wikimedia Mobile, the mobile interface for
Wikipedia, has started accepting translations on betawiki. Help is
greatly appreciated in localizing it for your local Wikipedia.
http://m.wikipedia.org/http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Wikimedia_mobile
[Flickr tool maintainers] - Bryan Tong Minh posted a request for
co-maintainers for his flickr tools on the toolserver. The bots are
written in Python and use the mwclient library to edit and upload.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2009-August/004976.html
[Best practices team] - "Best practice in public outreach" is a
collection of articles describing experiences in winning new
volunteers, partners, content and audiences. The group will help
coordinate the creation and enhancement of the best practices
documentation pages on Meta-Wiki, which will help share the knowledge
about engaging new target groups or deepening relationships to new
Wikimedians. Volunteers are needed!
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Best_practices_documentation_team
[BLP task force] - Cary Bass is in the process of launching a new task
force on Biographies of Living People (as a result of the board
resolution on the subject). The task force will be focusing on the
English Wikipedia, but its recommendations and guidelines will
probably be useful on other projects too. Volunteers are needed, see
the blog post for more information.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2009-August/102667.html
-- call for volunteers
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people --
resolution
=== Proposals ===
[Strategic Proposals (Call)] - the Strategic Planning team has sent
out a call for proposals. They'd like to encourage people to put their
ideas into proposals for what the Wikimedia movement should be doing
over the next five years. What's more is that you can write it in the
language of your choice.
=== Foundation ===
[Guidestar] - the Wikimedia Foundation has finally received a profile
on GuideStar, one of the largest American databases for non-profits.
Be sure to visit the profile and write a review!
http://tinyurl.com/wmfGuidestarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GuideStar -- article on the site
[Usability: Babaco] - the Usability team is preparing for its next
release and has some new designs and ideas that need feedback from
users, community members, and interested parties.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/29/the-abcs-of-usability/ -- blog post
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Babaco_Designs -- designs
[Transcom newsletter] - the Translation committee (the people whose
job it is to coordinate translations of Wikimedia Foundation-related
items) has released its newsletter, which is a summary of open
requests. If you speak another language, please look and see if
there's anywhere that you can help out!
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2009-July/000982.html
[LSS: foundation-l] - a new list summary of foundation-l posts between
July 16-31 has been published. Phoebe has also posted a request for
help, reminding others that she's not the only one who can do it and
there are other lists that could be summarized too!
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2009_July_16-31http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS -- main LSS page
=== Legal ===
[EFF&NPG update] - Another update on the National Portrait Gallery
legal issue, the Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer, Fred von
Lohmann, has posted a legal analysis of the situation.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/eff-defends-wikipedi
=== Agenda ===
[PL: pl.wp meeting] - the Polish Wikipedia is having its annual
working meeting in Sopot, Poland from September 11-13.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GDJ_2009 (pl)
[SE: Book Fair] - Wikimedia Sweden will have a booth at the largest
book fair in Scandinavia with 100,000+ attendees. The fair will be
September 24-27, 2009.
http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Projekt:Bok_och_Biblioteksmässan_2009 --
WMSE's page about the booth (sv)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg_Book_Fair -- enwp article
about the fair
[JP: Conference] - Wikimedia Conference Japan has opened up its
official website and has finalized its details: November 22 at Tokyo
University!
http://www.wcj2009.info/ (ja)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_Japan/en --
summary on Meta (en)
[BE: Fosdem] - FOSDEM, the FOSS conference, has announced the dates
for its 2010 conference: February 6-7, 2010
http://www.fosdem.org/2010/
=== Community ===
[GLAM-WIKI] - GLAM-Wiki, Wikimedia Australia's conference for
galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and how they can collaborate
with Wikimedia, is being held this week (August 6-7) and a live
"play-by-play" can be found via twitter.
https://twitter.com/#search?q=%23GLAM-WIKI -- twitter posts
http://brianna.modernthings.org/article/230/glam-wiki-day-one -- blog
post summarizing day 1
[Simple Wikipedia] - this little known Wikipedia works since 2004 on a
encyclopedia that is using fewer words and easier grammar then the
English Wikipedia. The small community has managed to get again at the
54,000 articles mark, after falling down 2000 articles due to a
quality cleanup. For those who find other Wikipedias has become to
large to be happy there a small project like Simple could be attractive.
http://simple.wikipedia.org
[WMNL: Partnership] - just in time for GLAM-WIKI, Wikimedia Nederland
officially announced a partnership with the Tropenmuseum (one of the
largest museums in the Netherlands). This new partnership will bring
over 2100 high quality images to the Wikimedia Commons!
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/05/wikimedia-netherlands-and-the-tropenmu… -- blog post and press
release
[Wiki-Conference NY] - Archive.org is hosting a few videos of the
proceedings at Wiki-Conference New York, so far Jimmy Wales's keynote
and Cary Bass's OTRS presentation have been published but more will
come soon.
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=Wiki?Conference%20New%20York
[IRC Meeting] - a general IRC meeting was hosted by the Group
Contacts. There was a high number of participants (~80 people) and a
wide array of topics, from contacting the GCs and new cloak options to
public logging and alternate channel management techniques.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Group_Contacts/Meetings/August_2009
[WMDE: Report from the Office] - the new Executive Director of
Wikimedia Deutschland, Pavel Richter, has published his first "Report
from the Office" on the WMDE blog. He shares his new priorities and
introduces himself.
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2009/07/31/1-bericht-aus-der-geschaftsstelle-juli-…
(de)
=== Media ===
[GLAM-Wiki] - As described above in the "Community" section, GLAM-WIKI
is being held this week and it has been covered by a few media outlets.
http://wikimedia.org.au/w/images/b/ba/GLAM_WIKI_-_Media_Release.pdf --
WMAU press release
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/313846/wikimedia_event_seeks_open_u…http://www.itwire.com/content/view/26683/1231/
[Judges & Strippers] - Wiktionary was quoted when defining a lap dance
in a legal case!
http://www.dbs.id.au/blog/law/lap-dance-wikipedia.htmlhttps://twitter.com/Wittylama/status/3102455466
[Anecdote] - there's a nice, thoughtful blog post from a
paleontologist/geoscientist and his experiences with contributing to
Wikipedia.
http://triassiccritters.blogspot.com/2009/08/contributing-to-wikipedia-as.h…
[Experts obliged?] - experts and people who find errors in Wikipedia
are obliged to correct them, a blog post says. "Whether you like it
or not, Wikipedia is the source that people go to for information."
http://blog.k1v1n.com/2009/08/if-tree-falls-in-forest-part-1.html
[We're NC-17] - Apple has rated us NC-17! Wikipanion, an iPhone/Pod
application giving access to Wikipedia (nicely formatted with extra
features), featured a warning when downloading: "Rated 17+ for the
following: Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes".
http://dougpete.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/covering-your-click/ -- blog
post about this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NC-17 -- in case you have no idea what
we're talking about
=== Stats ===
[comScore: down to #5] - Facebook is now the 4th largest site in the
world and has pushed the Wikimedia Foundation down to the 5th largest
web property. Wikipedia is still far above an beyond the most popular
non commercial website. By the way; the ranking of Wikizine is 50% up
to become the 2,983,528th most popular site :) (Source:Alexa)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/04/facebook-is-now-the-fourth-largest-sit…
[African Wikipedias] - Swahili Wikipedia "has raced ahead with great
momentum" and surpassed Afrikaans as the largest African Wikipedia by
number of articles. There's also stats about the other African
Wikipedias and sister projects.
http://www.greenman.co.za/blog/?p=614 -- blog post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Africa -- African languages
[Wikipedias] - the Spanish Wikipedia has reached 500,000 articles, the
Lithuanian Wikipedia has reached 90,000, and the Latin Wikipedia
reached 30,000 articles with the addition of "Magninovilla".
[EN Wikinews] - Not really a direct goal of Wikinews to have many
"articles" but nevertheless the English language Wikinews has
surpassed 15,000 news stories.
http://en.wikinews.org
=== Other news ===
[wikiHow&MediaWiki] - wikiHow showcased an interesting article (on its
twitter feed) about how to make a MediaWiki skin, worth a read if
you're ever in the need for a new skin. :-)
https://twitter.com/wikiHow/status/3111069632
[Mobile Feedback] - the Mobile Wikipedia site requested feedback from
its users and got a few interesting results, you might get a laugh out
of them!
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/amusing-mobile-feedback/
[Correction: WMUK&Schools] - we previously reported that the new WMUK
schools project was about revisiting its "Wikipedia Version for
Schools" project. This is actually a new initiative, one focused on
going into schools and teaching the staff and students how to
effectively use and contribute to Wikipedia.
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives/Schools_project
[Wiktionary users] - Dvortygirl posted an interesting blog post about
the type of users who are attracted to writing a dictionary. She
found that most of the people in the #wiktionary IRC channel all
shared similar characteristics to her (and a Dutch Wiktionary
visitor), more information in the blog post.
http://dvortygirl.blogspot.com/2009/08/wiktionary-type.html
=== Quote ===
"About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love
you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some
won't like you at all." - Rita Mae Brown
//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Casey, Alex, Walter
Thanks to: Cary, David, Brianna, Phoebe, Bryan, Steve, Brion, Sage,
Hampton, Signpost, Naoko, Bark, ErikZ, Jay, wikihow, Mecredis, Liam,
Jessica, Pavel, Leinad, Mile K., Dvortygirl, St-Lemur
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. Satisfaction is not guaranteed.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]].
Wikizine is a nearly 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
and also the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/