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.org
Year: 2009 Week: 27 Number: 110
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Michael Jackson Kills WP] - Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop", died
this week and nearly took Wikipedia down with him (as well as many
other websites). Wikimedia sites were unresponsive for a whole due to
the large number of page hits. The Michael Jackson article got nearly
6 *million* hits on June 26, more than the Main Page.
In the evening of the 2th July (UTC) Wikipedia&Co was virtually down
because of power outage of the European servers. The remaining servers
choked on the additional traffic routed to them.
http://stats.grok.se/en/200906/Michael_Jackson -- page hit statistics
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/current-events/ -- techblog
explanation of issues
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/News_of_Michael_Jackson's_death_overloads_Internet_sites_and_sparks_hoaxes -- wikinews
article
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/power-outage-in-wikimedias-european-s… -- wiki
down
[Usability] - the Usability team has released its first set of
usability improvement (the "acai" release) for testing. As of press
time, the new "vector" skin has been made available on all wikis for
users who select it from their preferences, please help test the new
features!
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/first-usability-release-is-coming-up-… -- blog
post
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Releases#Acai -- "acai" release
description
[Usability BIS] - one aspect is already live by default; the new
design of the search results. Just use the internal search and see.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Designs#Search_Results
=== Request for help ===
[Fundraising 2009] - the Wikimedia Foundation is preparing for its
next fundraiser and would like feedback from the community on some of
the pages it has developed so far. In addition to the creation of a
new survey that they would like comments on, the Foundation is also
trying to enhance the visibility of the donate button. The new buttons
will be placed on the skin and will be viewable on every page. There
are also several design proposals that need community input!
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/25/would-you-press-this-button/ --
blog post about it
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Donation_buttons_upgrade --
buttons
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Survey -- survey
=== Foundation ===
[Licensing] - The "licensing update" changes have now been rolled out
to all languages and projects, with the new license being featured in
the footer and new interface items to translate for your wiki.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/30/licensing-update-rolled-out-in-all-wik… -- blog
post
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2009-June/000959.html --
translation steps
http://tinyurl.com/LU-interface-trans -- betawiki trans interface
[Board election] - Once again an election for the board of trustees of
the Wikimedia Foundation is coming up. It is for 3 seats this time.
But before there can be elections there must be someone to vote for.
Submissions of candidacy are open between 6th and 20th July.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009
[New grant: Commons] - the Wikimedia Foundation was just awarded a
US$300,000 grant that will research problems with and design new
tools/fix current tools for uploading files to the global Wikimedia
image repository, the Wikimedia Commons.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/02/ford-foundation-awards-300k-grant-for-… -- blog
post
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Ford_Foundatio… -- press
release
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:WMF_Ford_Multimedia_Participation_… -- full grant
proposal
[Job: "Bookshelf"] - as a further development from the "Scribus
operator" volunteer position noted in Wikizine a few months ago, a new
job opening has been posted for project manager of the "Bookshelf"
project. The "Bookshelf" project strives to develop a slate of basic
educational materials (print, online and video) to attract new authors
and editors to Wikipedia.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Project_Manager_Bookshelf --
job opening
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_outreach/Get_involved --
volunteer position, scribus operator
=== Community ===
[David Rohde] - it turns out that Wikipedia, along with tons of other
media outlets, kept the kidnapping of journalist David Rohde out of
its article on him. This has caused a few Wikipedians and Wikipedia
critics to note this and either scream censorship or just point out
the fact that it was unsourced information that could help save
someone's life by erring on the side of caution.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/technology/internet/29wiki.html?ref=media --
nytimes article
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/06/29/was-wikipedia-correct-t… -- blog post about
censorship
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/29/2120257/Wikipedia-Censored-To-Protec… -- slashdot
discussion
[A reliable article?] - A new tool tries to help make scholars feel
better about using Wikipedia by telling how reliable an article seems
to be by using "wikibu-points". These points are based on statistical
criteria and represent only possibilities, the creators hope that
warnings will help people think to look at the discussion pages or
article history. Wikibu is only available on the German Wikipedia at
this time.
http://www.wikibu.ch/ -- site/tool
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2009-July/000833.html --
mailing list post
[EN Wikibooks] - is now using Meta's unified "user language" template.
It will enable greater collaboration on the textbooks that teach
foreign languages.
[enwp AFD] - An interesting AFD (deletion discussion) on the English
Wikipedia was recently closed -- it resulted in the deletion of 4077
articles, probably the most ever from a single AFD on enwp!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Anybot's_algae_articles -- deletion
discussion
=== Media ===
[No tourists] - an article by a New Zealand newspaper tells that
"references to gang violence and crime on Palmerston North's Wikipedia
page have seen overseas investors and professionals shy away from the
city"!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/2516472/Wikipedia-entries-slag-off-Palmer…
=== Stats ===
[bn.wp] - The Bengali Wikipedia (bn) has reached 20,000 articles.
http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/???????????_???????_?_?????????_?????_???????_…
-- 20,000th article
=== Other news ===
[Who owns transit schedules?] - Only marginally related but
interesting nevertheless, the subject of a recent battle has been
pretty simple: who owns the copyright to bus arrival times? Public
transportation agencies are trying to assert that they own the times
and stop people from making iPhone apps (and similar items) off of the
content, so that they can do it themselves and charge people. Not
very FOSS of them!
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090628/1419595382.shtml
[Wikizine@Foundation-l] - Wikizine will now be featured on
foundation-l too! Thanks to Milos for proposing it and the list
members for agreeing.
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation
[Firefox 3.5] - ... is finally out. This main stream browser supports
natively Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis, the media file formats our
projects are using.
http://www.mozilla.com/
=== Quote ===
"Programming languages are like cats. It is easier to get a new cat
than to get an old cat fixed." -- Douglas Crockford
//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Casey, Walter
Corrector(s): Alex
Thanks to: Rand, Steve Bennett, Brion, Domas, Nando, Erik, Belayet,
Naoko, Chad, Kul, Jay, Signpost, Adrignola, rainman-sr
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 irregular 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/
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.org
Year: 2009 Week: 26 Number: 109
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[New "Green" Data Centers] - The Foundation announced a new "in-kind"
sponsorship (valued at over ?300,000) by "green" (environmentally
friendly) Data Center EvoSwitch. EvoSwitch will be Wikimedia's new
Internet HUB for Europe. Not only does this provide us with a
long-term solution for delivering faster and better traffic in Europe
and beyond, it also means that Wikimedia servers are taking advantage
of cutting edge green power technology provided by Evoswitch.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Selects_EvoSwi…http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/22/evoswitch-helps-us-improve-project-acc…
[Public repositories for dumps] - A new public repository has been
created to host WikiXRay database dumps, containing info extracted
from public Wikipedia dbdumps. The image is hosted by RedIRIS (in
short, the Spanish equivalent of Kennisnet in Netherlands). These new
dumps are aimed to save time and effort to other researchers, since
they won't need to parse the complete XML dumps to extract all
relevant activity metadata. As of press time, only some of the
biggest Wikipedias are available. However, in the following days the
full set of available languages will be ready for downloading.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2009-June/000825.html --
mailing list post
http://sunsite.rediris.es/mirror/WKP_research/ -- respository
[Chinese search improved] - the search function for the Chinese and
Japanese wiki's are improved due to to a better support of the
language structure.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/chinese-language-search-fixes-for-med…
=== Request for help ===
[Spread the word!] - We are very happy with your readership, but the
subscriber numbers are not really growing anymore. Wikizine could use
some more readers. Maybe are there users on your wiki who do not know
about Wikizine? Talk about Wikizine, put a Wikizine banner on your
user page or on a community page if approved. Thanks.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/banners
=== Foundation ===
[Wikimania] - last year the were missing but now the are back; the
hacking days. Those who love to work on MediaWiki & extensions, bot
scripts, toolserver stuff, etc.can amuse themselves at Wikimania.
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Days
=== Legal ===
[Plagiarism?] - There's a report that some parts of Chris Anderson's
book "Free" were copied from various Wikipedia articles without
attribution. This news has been picked up by a few gossip blogs, but
has not been confirmed as accurate.
http://www.vqronline.org/blog/2009/06/23/chris-anderson-free/
=== Agenda ===
[SF: Mozilla] - Mozilla Labs is holding their monthly meetup at
Mozilla's new HQ in Mountain View Thursday (6/25) night. The topic
should be of interest to local SF Wikimedians (some members from the
WMF office are going too). Joseph Smarr, Chief Platform Architect at
Plaxo, will talk about the ?Open Social Web? initiative to put users
back in control of who they know when using socially-enabled sites by
using open data-sharing standards. He will be discussing the social
web, the underlying protocols that make it possible, and the potential
role for the browser to play in this world.
https://labs.mozilla.com/2009/06/mozilla-labs-meetup-thursday-625/
[WMAT] - Wikimedia Österreich (the Austrian chapter of the Foundation)
will be holding its second Annual General Assembly on 26 June 2009 at
19:00 at the AKH-Hörsaal Medical Center in Vienna. If you live in
Austria, please attend!
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/vereinat-l/2009-June/000049.html (German)
=== Community ===
[Wikimedium #2] - Wikimedia Deutschland released its second
"newspaper" aimed at (potential) sponsors, partners, friends and fans
of Wikimedia, The new edition includes issues 'around the world' (from
other Chapters), information about the recent conferences in Berlin
(developers, board, and chapter meets), explanation of the Wikipedia
structure, and a lot more. The next edition is planned for September.
It's definitely worth reading if you know German!
http://wikimedia.de/fileadmin/wiki/images/Downloads/Wikimedium_2009-02.pdf
[New DVD (for Linux)] - Wikimedia CH (in collaboration with openZIM)
has released a new edition of the German Wikipedia DVD on LinuxTag
2009. The DVD contains more than 900,000 German Wikipedia articles and
a full text search index for phrasal search. The openZIM project
develops a file format called "ZIM" to store hypertexts like
Wikipedia, or other websites, with search indexes and images in the
most efficient way. The data is highly compressed; the Wikipedia
articles only take up 1.4 GB on the DVD. A new edition of the
Wikipedia DVD, in Spanish, is also planned for the Wikimania
conference from August 26th to 28th of 2009 in Buenos Aires.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediach-l/2009-June/001259.html
(German)
http://openzim.org/2009-06-23_Wikipedia_DVD -- press release (multiple
languages)
[Weather bot] - There's a new bot for the Serbian Wikinews that posts
and updates weather information for Serbia. It is planned to increase
this to the whole world and all Wikinewses, but help from bot
operators is needed. This has brought up questions on how best to
incorporate it into the sites (with OpenStreetMaps? a new
weather.wikizine.org?).
http://tinyurl.com/wn-weather -- example of weather on sr.wikinews
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikinews-l/2009-June/001535.html
-- mailing list post
[PLWP New Main Page] - The Polish Wikipedia is trying to design a new
main page ("Strona g?ówna") and is trying to solicit opinions and
ideas on what the new one should look like.
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GDJ/Strona_g%C5%82%C3%B3wna/Debata
(Polish)
[Vandalism survival] - A new study on Wikipedia attempts to determine
the distribution of the length of time that vandalism remains on the
English-language Wikipedia. This distribution is also known as the
survival function for vandalism. The two primary results from this
study are: (a) the median time to correction is down to four minutes,
and (b) some subtle forms of vandalism still persist for months and
even years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-06-22/Vandal…
-- study was published in the Signpost
=== Media ===
[Interview] - Lichtenstein's "Vaterland" did an interview with German
Wikipedia user "Dodo von de Bergen" where "dvdb" talked about his
activities within Wikipedia.
http://www.vaterland.li/page/epaper/pdf_download.cfm?seite=09_mapc_01_2009-… -- article
(German)
[Video Upgrade] - Technology Review (a publication by MIT) gave an
update about some future changes to how Wikipedia will handle
searching, editing, and embedding video clips (and other media). This
article combined a large number of "mini-updates" that Michael Dale
has been giving the community about his work on MediaWiki's video
handling (per a grant with Kaltura).
http://beta.technologyreview.com/web/22900/page1/ -- article
http://tinyurl.com/kaltura-pr -- press release
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2009/06/dotsub.html -- multi
language subtitles for video
[Wikisource] - An info/law blog published an interesting post about
using Wikisource as an alternative open access repository for legal
studies. It turns out the author is actually an admin on Wikisource
who works on expanding the texts too!
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2009/06/19/using-wikisource-as-an-alte…
=== Stats ===
[Wikt OC] - The Occitan Wiktionary has reached 10,000 entries.
http://oc.wiktionary.org
[WP Ru] - The Russian Wikipedia has reached 400,000 articles
http://ru.wikipedia.org
[Wp an] - The Aragonese Wikipedia has reached 15,000 articles
http://an.wikipedia.org/wiki/
[Wp csb] - The Kashubian Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles
http://csb.wikipedia.org/
=== Other news ===
[Give us your passwords] - Not exactly related to Wikimedia projects,
but a US city tried to request that government job applicants turn
over their user names and passwords to Internet social networking and
Web groups. A flood of criticism has prompted a Montana city to drop
this request, but it still started an interesting (albeit offtopic!)
discussion on the Wikimedia mailing lists.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/19/us/AP-US-Internet-Background-Che…http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2009-June/101262.html
[Berkman files now in Ogg] - The Berkman Center for Internet & Society
(a research center at Harvard University) has released its audio and
video files in Ogg (and licensed under CC-BY).
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/5444
=== Did you know ... ===
.... that some articles can make you feel stupid?
One of the articles on Wikipedia is about 1 car and 2 goats. And the
probability of these goats and car to be behind a particular door.
If you have no problem to be disillusioned ....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem
=== Quote ===
There is a theory which states that if anybody ever discovers exactly
what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and
inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has
already happened. - (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, almost all
versions)
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 729
Unique Visitors website last week: 192
Editor(s): Casey, Walter
Thanks to: David Gerard, Eloquence, Nathan, Milos, Wiktoryn, John
Vandenberg, Catrin, Brion, Petar Marjanovic, Signpost (fuzheado, Loren
Cobb), Jay, MichaelSnow, Felipe Ortega
Special thanks to: The Wikipedia Signpost for publicity
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 irregular 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/
******************************************
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.org
Year: 2009 Week: 29 Number: 108
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[LiquidThreads] - One of the few things that has not changed since the
start of the projects in 2001 is how the talk pages work. Correction:
the name has changed, it is now "a discussion page". Besides that,
that can change. The MediaWiki extension "LiquidThreads" is again in
development by order of the Wikimedia Foundation. LiquidThreads makes
from a discussion page more a forum, but in a good way. It is not like
a traditional php-forum, it remains very wiki.
http://wiki.werdn.us/test/view/Talk:Main_Page -- LiquidThreads in action
http://blog.werdn.us/2009/06/discussion-threading-on-wikimedia-sites-with-l… -- if interested about this: read
me
[Code updates] - In the past, the Wikimedia sites were updated roughly
every week with the new code from Wikimedia's revision (or version)
control system (SVN). But recently, this has not been taking place
due to the developers being busy elsewhere -- the last update was on
March 25, months ago! To help with this, Erik announced that the
Foundation is planning to hire a full-time "QA engineer to help with
code review, bug triaging and deployment". *Update*: After the
writing of this entry, a code update took place to r51904 (r51864 for
extensions). But as of publication, SVN's latest revision was r25015,
so help is still needed.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-June/043336.html
-- mailing list post
http://svn.wikimedia.org -- SVN
[MW 1.15.0] - MediaWiki 1.15.0 was released, this is the first stable
release of the 2009 Q2 branch of MediaWiki.
http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/tags/REL1_15_0/phase3/RELEASE-NO…
-- release notes
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-June/043387.html
-- mailing list post
=== Request for help ===
[New study] - There is a new research study about effects of a
modification to the Wikipedia editing interface. Participants will
test an experimental change to one aspect of the Wikipedia interface.
All that you have to do is edit Wikipedia as you would normally. After
the observation is complete, you will be asked to fill out a
questionnaire and you'll be able to continue using the interface
modification if you like.
http://wikipedia.grouplens.org/NICE/consent/index.html -- consent form
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/100810 --
mailing list post about the subject
[Greenspun] - The Greenspun project, an initiative that tried to fund
the creation and improvement of illustrations for Wikimedia, has been
stalled and is currently looking for ideas on how to better go about
the project. Suggestions and discussion are appreciated on the
mailing list!
http://brianna.modernthings.org/article/213/reflections-on-pgip-phase-1 --
blog post describing what went wrong
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Greenspun -- project page
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/greenspun-illustrations
-- mailing list
=== Foundation ===
[LU] - The licensing update is in progress. The license of the WMF
website and the English Wikipedia is updated. Help is going to be
needed for translations, please watch translators-l for details.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Implementationhttp://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/100958http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.translators
[BLP] - After the Wikimedia Board of Trustees released a statement
about content on living people, a new global policy is being created
that attempts to deal with those issues in the spirit of that
resolution. Comments and help is appreciated on Meta.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/BLP -- proposed policy
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people --
Board statement
[WMF openings] - The Wikimedia Foundation is still looking for a
software developer to help with the Usability Project, as well as a
Communications intern. Both positions are based in San Francisco, but
remote work is possible for the software developer position.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Software_Developer_(projec…http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Communications_Intern
[OTRS Stats] - The Foundation is currently looking for a volunteer
interested in evaluating and analyzing how the response system
("OTRS") has been working for the English Wikipedia.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Volunteering:Email_response_statistician
=== Legal ===
[Privacy violation?] - There was a bit of drama on the Foundation
mailing lists when a KnowPrivacy study - a research project by the
School of Information from University of California in Berkeley - hit
the German media. It showed findings that Wikipedia, among many other
websites, used "web bugs" like Google Analytics on its pages. Further
investigation revealed this was triggered by content on vlswiki &
huwiki. The former was added to confusion that it was a privacy
violation and it turns out the Hungarian Wikipedia was just a false
alarm (it was a private stats generator)
http://knowprivacy.org/http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Studie-Google-fuehrend-bei-Web-Bug-Nutzung--… -- newspaper article
(German)
=== Agenda ===
[Wikimedia Canada] - There is a planning meeting for Wikimedia Canada
being organized for June 18, interested users and Canadians should
definitely attend.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada/Meetings/2009-06-18 --
meeting sign up page
[Wiki-Conference NY] - The 1st Wiki-Conference in New York will be
held over the weekend of July 25-26, 2009 at New York University, and
hosted by Free Culture @ NYU and Wikimedia New York City. Jimmy Wales
will be giving a keynote, and there will also be panels, lightning
talks, and open space technology. There's also the Central Park picnic!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Wiki-Conference_2009
=== Community ===
[WMDE-5 years!] - Happy 5th birthday WMDE! Wikimedia Deutschland, the
German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation celebrated 5 years of being
an organization with a party in Berlin.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:5_Jahre_WMDE
[Paid editing?] - The English language Wikipedia has started a
"Request for comment" on whether or not to allow paid editing, or
under what circumstances to allow it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Paid_editing
[IRC GCs] - There are new IRC Group Contacts -- the group of people
who help manage the Wikimedia Foundation IRC channels (setting cloaks,
fixing access issues, etc.). More information can be found in the
actual announcement.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/GC/N#Group_Contacts_Rearrangements
[Commons] - After some drama surrounding a "fight" between Wikimedia
Commons community member and a Wikimedia Israel project, a large
number of discussions have sprung up about the problems with Commons
and whether it's a service project or a more independent one. The
discussions can be found on foundation-l, commons-l, and the Commons
Village pump.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/39621http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Some_reflections_abo…
[Toolserver outreach] - The Wikimedia Toolserver is trying to increase
its communications with local wiki communities by (1) creating short
page describing the toolserver, with the relevant links, (2)
increasing the use of the blog, and (3) encouraging people to
document/explain their tools. Feedback on this plan, as well as
suggestions and offerings for help are appreciated!
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.toolserver/1405 -- start
of the thread
[AR Wikinews] - probably inspired by the English Wikinews who added
social bookmarking links to the story's has the Arabic Wikinews also
done that. Probably most Wikinews editions will follow.
http://ar.wikinews.org
=== Media ===
[WP as a book] - An artist puts all 5,000 of Wikipedia's featured
articles in one book.
http://www.rob-matthews.com/index.php?/project/wikipedia/ -- picture
of the book
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wikipedia-would-look-like-printed-2009-6
-- newspaper article on subject
[Wikipedia in Google News] - Google News has been experimenting with
links to EN Wikipedia on its homepage. The appear as a link for more
information related to the news topic itself. So Wikipedia is not
listed as news source, what is good because Wikipedia is not a news
site. But it can provide much-needed context and up-to-date
information that static news articles cannot always offer. The stories
of the English language Wikinews, what indeed a news site is, does
appear in Google News as news articles.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chiropractic/3601011581/ -- example
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/google-news-experimenting-with-links-to-wi… -- blog post on the
subject
[Sam Blacketer] - An English Wikipedia Arbitrator turned out to be a
controversial politician who had been blocked before for editing his
opponents' articles. A few British newspapers picked up on this story.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191474/Labour-councillor-David-Boo…http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/wikipedia-sentinel-quits-afte…
[Colbert Report] - The English Wikipedia's blocking of the Church of
Scientology was picked up by American "spoof" news program The Colbert
Report.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/229645/june-04-2009/…
(video)
[Testimony to Congress] - not very Wiki-related but nevertheless
interesting reading (only 3 pages). Statement from Marissa Mayer, Vice
President of Search Product and User Experience of Google, about the
internet changes the way people read news.
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/MarissaMayerFutureofJournalismTest…
=== Stats ===
[ko.wp] - the Korean Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles.
http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%95%A1%EC%84%B8%EC%8A%A4%EA%B6%8C --
100,000th article
=== Did you know ... ===
... that Google has released a very handy tool for translating a
Wikipedia article?
Google offers since long a free automatic translation service. Based
on that Google Toolkit is released. You have a personal overview page,
"a desk", where you can upload text from files or websites.
For text from (the English) Wikipedia is there a special interface
designed for translating Wikipedia content. The source text must be
English, the target language options are limited but there is a fair
collection.
The basic idea is that the toolkit will automatically translate the
text for you and then you can make fixes to the text. Not only does
this help you get the translations done but it also helps Google
Translate to learn from your changes and become better and better.
That translation in progress can be shared with other people so the
can also work on it.
How good the automatic translation is will probably differ from
language to language. Translations from English to Arabic should be
fair because Google used that explicitly as in example in there press
release.
This tool can make it very easy to translate an article from the huge
English Wikipedia to one of the many small wiki's in other languages.
The toolkit may change the way Wikipedia grows in other languages. If
used correctly. It can also be used to import a lot crappy new
articles to a wiki.
Google Toolkit could also be useful for making translations of
Wikizine, if one is interested in doing so.
http://translate.google.com/toolkit -- google translator webkit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7W2NJFdoIg -- short video-overview of
how it works, Wikipedia is used as example
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/09/google-translator-toolkit-supports-wik… -- Wikimedia Blog post about the
subject
=== Quote ===
?The automobile has practically reached the limit of its development?
? Scientific American, 1909
//////////////////////////////////////////
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Corrector(s): Alex
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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 irregular 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/
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Year: 2009 Week: 23 Number: 107
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Chrome Support for Ogg] - Google's Chrome browser is going to support
Theora video (the type of audio files that Wikimedia uses) natively
with the HTML5 video tag. Earlier announced Mozilla also this support
in there upcoming version Firefox 3.5
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/052123.htmlhttp://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/05/google-chrome-3-adds-html5.html
[Usability] - The Usability Team has been working on a number of new
projects that hope to make editing easier. Among others, there is a
new skin (vector) and an action-grouped toolbar. The toolbar which
hides the overwhelming number of tool icons which are not being used
by novice users and the new skin has a streamlined tab layout. Lots of
clutters will be removed from the interface.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/02/ -- blog post
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Designs -- design descriptions on
usability wiki
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vectorskin.png -- image of skin
[New search] - After some initial hardware issues, the new search
backend/servers has been enabled on all wikis. This new feature has
many cool parts, including "did you mean", wild cards, prefix, etc.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-October/040022.html --
full feature list
[Google Wave] - Google has recently announced a new communication and
collaboration tool called Google Wave. There was a long thread on
foundation-l about how this "wiki-like" tool could fit in with
Wikimedia projects.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/052135.html
-- mailing list thread
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave -- Wikipedia article
=== Request for help ===
[Licensing update] - GFDL wikis must migrate their licenses by August
1 to remain compatible with Wikimedia projects. Help is needed to
identify and contact the wikis affected.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Outreach
[Signpost] - The Wikipedia Signpost is looking for writers. A few
have signed up so far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-05-18/From_t…
=== Proposals ===
[Social bookmarking] - EN Wikinews has voted in favor of the
introduction of links to add articles to social bookmarking sites such
as Facebook and Delicious. On news stories, there is now a template
available to share it.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikinews-l/2009-May/001512.html
-- mailing list proposal
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Social_bookmark… -- onwiki
discussion
=== Foundation ===
[Trustee elections] - Three community representatives will be elected
to the Wikimedia Foundation board this summer. The election is
scheduled to run from July 28-August 10, the vote time was extended to
two weeks after input from the community.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/enhttp://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/052070.html
=== Community ===
[TS: New servers] - The Toolserver received a new shipment of servers
that will be used as a new place for user home directories, a
replacement for zedler (s2 database), a second login server, and an
extra toolserver for OpenStreetMap stuff. All the new servers should
be up and running before the next maintenance period, July 6.
[POTY 2008] - The Third Annual Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year
Competition has concluded and the results are now available. The
winner was "Horses on Bianditz mountain" by Mikel Ortega.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biandintz_eta_zaldiak_-_modified2.jpg
-- Winning image
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2008/Results --
Results
[First logo creator] - The creator of Wikipedia's first logo has
finally realized that we used his logo when he googled himself! ;-)
Bjørn Smestad, had submitted his idea to a Nupedia logo competition
and, while it didn't win that competition, it became the official
Wikipedia logo for around 8 months (and served as a basis for the
current logo).
http://bjornsmestad.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-wikipedia-logo.html --
creator's blog post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_logos -- Wikipedia
logos through the years
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/2009/05/28/another-reason-not-to-copyright-… -- blog post by sj on the
subject
[SF+MakerFaire] - The San Francisco Wikimedians and the Wikimedia
Foundation office made an appearance at the San Mateo MakerFaire. The
event went very well and was mostly community run. Visitors to the
booth found Wikimedia trading cards and a guess the language game!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_Faire -- Wikipedia article
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_-_Trading_Card_… -- trading
cards
http://austinhair.org/guess/ -- guess the Wikipedia language
=== Media ===
[ArbCom + Scientology] - The English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee
(final level of dispute resolution) closed a 6-month long case
involving the Church of Scientology articles. This news was quickly
picked up by the tech press and is making its way through the
mainstream papers, with articles in many languages (including English,
German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Danish).
http://tinyurl.com/ScientologyWiki -- Google News results
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology --
arbitration case
[nowiki comparison] - A Norwegian newspaper (VG, Verdens Gang)
compared Wikipedia in Norsk (Bokmål) and Store Norske Leksikon. The
latter encyclopedia is a large traditional paper lexicon transferred
to a web portal, together with to other lexicons; one medical and
health lexicon
and one biographical lexicon. The roundup focused on five different
areas; history, culture, entertainment, society and politics, and
sport. Wikipedia either won or tied in all categories.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-June/052282.html --
mailing list post description
http://bayimg.com/image/laannaacf.jpg -- scan of the article
[WMUK denied charity] - Wikimedia UK, the British chapter of the
Wikimedia Foundation, was recently denied charity status by HMRC (the
organization that controls charity status in the UK). The HMRC
stating that production of an encyclopaedia is not a charitable
purpose; the story was listed on the front page of Charity Finance, a
charity-related news site.
http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=2876&pg=15&cat=30 -- story
http://uk.wikimedia.org -- Wikimedia UK
=== Stats ===
[wp] - The Ukrainian Wikipedia has reached 150,000 articles, the
Arabic Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles, and the Malayalam
Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
http://tinyurl.com/ukwp150k -- 150,000th article (uk.wp)
http://tinyurl.com/arwp100x -- 100,000th article (ar.wp)
http://tinyurl.com/mlwp10k -- 10,000th article (ml.wp)
[wikt] - The Italian Wiktionary has reached 100,000 entries and the
Ukrainian Wiktionary has reached 20,000 entries.
http://tinyurl.com/ukwikt20k -- 20,000th entry (uk.wikt)
[more] - More stats: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_News
=== Other news ===
[Open Source City] - The Vancouver (in British Columbia, Canada) city
council has stated it will try to make its data open and accessible to
everyone (when possible), opting for open standards and considering
open source software when replacing existing applications.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/05/22/tech-vancouver-open-source-st…
[OSM Italy] - The first conference of the Italian Open Street Map
(OSM) will be held in Trento, Italy between June 5 and 6. The OSM
software will be integrated into Wikimedia sites and Wikimedia Italia
is also sponsoring this conference.
http://osmit.fbk.eu -- conference website
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OSM -- Meta page on the integration
[WMDE: Job] - Wikimedia Deutschland, the German chapter of the
Wikimedia Foundation, is currently hiring a new Executive
Director/Geschäftsführer. Applications are being accepted until June
13.
http://neu.wikimedia.de/index.php?id=95 -- more information (German)
=== Quote ===
"I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would
not fly for fifty years. Two years later we ourselves made flights.
This demonstration of my impotence as a prophet gave me such a shock
that ever since I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions."
-- Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, speech to the Aero Club
of France, 1908
//////////////////////////////////////////
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Editor(s): Casey, Sj, Alex, Walter
Corrector(s):
Thanks to: Shipmaster, Kat, Ec, Frieda, John at Darkstar, Brianmc,
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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 irregular 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/
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Year: 2009 Week: 7-22 Number: 106
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[dumps] - Dumps are becoming more regular now and are actually
working, thanks to Foundation developer Tomasz Finc. Two new mailing
lists were created to discuss dumps.
http://dumps.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/xmldatadumps-l --
discussion list for the dumps
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/xmldatadumps-admin-l --
admin list (Failures / Upgrades / Changes)
[Abuse Filter] ? After all the research done by the English Wikipedia,
many other wikis have reached consensus about activating the Abuse
Filter and are now carefully exploring the possibilities (including:
alswiki, arwp, elwp, fiwp, hewp, nlwb, nlwp, ruwp, svwp, zhwp).
[Books & PDF] - In April a new function was enabled to make "books" of
pages of the wiki. The added pages can be stored, exported as PDF or
OpenDocument. Also is there the option to order your "book" (=
collection of wiki-pages) in print. It is enabled on most projects and
wikis but not on all. Look for a book toolbox in the side menu.
On the English Wikipedia this function is removed again after
objections of the community. On most Wikis is there also an option to
download a PDF-version of the page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Books
=== Request for help ===
[wikizine] - Wikizine is planning on becoming more regular and to do
that, we need your help. Please post news tips or even help us with
writing by joining the editors mailing list.
http://report.wikizine.org -- tip line
http://mail.wikizine.org/mailman/listinfo/editors_wikizine.org --
editors mailing list
=== Foundation ===
[new board members] - The chapters have finally selected their choices
for the board, choosing Arne Klempert (akl) and Michael Snow.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/052037.html
announcement on foundation-l
[usability] - The usability project published a sneak preview of their
research results. The project is also still looking for a software
developer.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/04/24/usability-study-results-sneak-preview/ --
blog post
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Software_Developer_(projec…
-- job opening
[strategic planning] - The board announced that they are starting a
long-term strategic planning process to lay out the next 3-5 years.
The foundation is currently hiring 3 people to work as a part of that
project.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-April/051565.html --
board resolution
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings -- job openings
[auditcom] - The audit committee is currently looking for volunteers.
The only requirement is to be financially literate.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/051977.html
-- call for volunteers
[BLPs] - The Board released a statement about biographies of living people.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people --
resolution/statement
[Public outreach] - The public outreach hub on Meta-Wiki was recently
revamped. Among other things, the Foundation is seeking a volunteer
for the bookshelf project and tips from public
outreach/Wikimedia-related presentations.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_outreach/Get_involvedhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Best_practices_in_giving_a_Wikipedia_present…
=== Legal ===
[licensing update] - The licensing update vote results are now
available. 75% has voted in favor of the license update (with 14%
remaining neutral). 43% of all votes came form the Enlgish language
Wikipedia.
This means that the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA)
license will be be added in addition to the current GNU Free
Documentation License (GFDL) CC-BY-SA) for most of the Wikimedia
Foundation projects. Actual change of the license on the sites will be
arround the 15th of June.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Resultshttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Dual_license_vote_May_20…
-- press release
=== Agenda ===
[Maker Faire-SF] The Wikimedia Foundation is planning to have a booth
at the San Francisco Maker Faire again this year. If you're near SF,
stop by and say hi or volunteer to help out with the booth!
http://makerfaire.com/ -- Maker Faire home page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/San_Francisco/Maker_Faire --
volunteer signup
[Wiki Loves Art/NL] ? In collaboration with Creative Commons NL, the
Dutch Wikimedia chapter, Wikimedia Nederland, is organizing Wiki Loves
Art/NL this June. More than 30 museums and other inheritanc-agencies
are cooperating with volunteers to free their collections, amongst
them the well-known Van Gogh museum. More information:
www.wikilovesart.nl
=== Community ===
[embassies contest] - Norwegian & Estonian embassies sponsor
article-writing contests in three languages (Norwegian: nb/Bokmal &
nn/Nynorsk, et/Estonian).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-05-18/Multil…
[japanese conference] - a one-day Japanese conference is currently
being planned for November 22 in Tokyo, planning is on Meta.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_Japanhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_Japan/en
[Wikimania 2009] - The scholarships and program committees are
currently reviewing all the submissions they received; more
information should be given by the end of May.
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/
[Wikimania 2010] - It is official, Wikimania 2010 will be held in
Gdansk, Poland, Europe on July 9-11, 2010. The event site is
beautifully located on O?owianka Island.
http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/http://www.epgd.net/grafika/wilga/images/37.jpeg -- air picture of
O?owianka (Bleihof) island
[Picture of the Year] ? Wikimedia Commons held their annual Picture of
the Year election. The votes have been cast, and now we?re waiting for
the final results to appear. The unofficial results can be found at
http://is.gd/CKHG
=== Awards ===
[webware] - Wikipedia was one of the Webmare 100 winners, which
recognizes the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications on the
Web today.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13546_109-10237659-29.html
[WMIT award 2009] - Wikimedia Italia, the Italian chapter of the
Wikimedia Foundation, issues an Award for people who gave significant
contributions to the open projects supported by Wikimedia Foundation
and/or Wikimedia Italia. The winners were announced on May 23 at the
Digital Freedoms Festival.
http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Premio_Wikimedia_Italia_2009/en --
description page
http://www.libertadigitali.org/ -- festival webpage
http://wikimedia.it/index.php/Vincitori_del_Premio_Wikimedia_Italia_2009 --
winners list
=== Media ===
[ta.wp] - Tamil Wikipedia got a nice article in "The Hindu". New
account creations on that wiki doubled on the day the article was
published.
http://www.thehindu.com/mp/2009/05/21/stories/2009052150760100.htm
[Censors of Wikipedia?] - an article with comments from our General
Counsel, Mike Godwin, about the censorship of Wikipedia in the UK a
few months back.
http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2009/05/features/the-hidden-c…
=== Stats ===
[de.wp] -- The German Wikipedia has reached 900,000 articles.
=== Other news ===
[Marriage for CTO] - Brion Vibber, the Chief Technical Officer for the
Foundation, got married this weekend. Congratulations to Brion & Marti!
=== Did you know ... ===
... that there are also browser, operating system (and more)
statistics of the projects available?
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/VisitorsSampledLogOperatingSystems.htm
=== Quote ===
"Man will not fly for fifty years" ? Orville Wright, 1901
//////////////////////////////////////////
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Unique Visitors website last week:
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Corrector(s): Rjd
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Contact: http://report.wikizine.org
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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 irregular 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/
Dear reader of Wikizine,
Wikizine depends on volunteers to provide you, our readers, this service.
There are no volunteers for Wikizine who help out on a core level who
are needed to be able to continue to provide this service.
If you find Wikizine useful consider to help me. Only by substantial
assistance on a more then occasional basis can wikizine continue. Who
helps out gets wide editorial freedom to give form to Wikizine.
If you would like to help out with the creation of Wikizine please
contact me.
Greetings,
Walter
--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community
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Year: 2009 Week: 6 Number: 105
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Oversight] - the OverSight function to remove edits is replaced with
a new OverSight function. Edits are now not longer removed from the
history but hidden. A revision of a page can be hidden (not new), but
you can also comments, log entry's, user names or an ip address. And
also define of that will be hidden also from administrators or not.
This is live on all wikis (if there are users who have OverSight status)
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/41519
[AbuseFilter] - A new extension "AbuseFilter" is nearly ready to be
used and will probably be go live fairly soon on the English Wikipedia.
This extension makes it possible to create rules that will invokes
certain automatic reactions to user behavior of a user according to
the programmed rules. That reaction can be like giving a warning,
blocking a user or some other action. It is like the name indicates
intended to help to protect the wiki against vandalism. This is a very
powerful tool.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AbuseFilterhttp://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/41442 --
posting of Brion about it
http://wiki.werdn.us/test/view/Main_Page -- developer test-wiki
[Auto NOINDEX] - From now on when you block a user the user page and
talk page those pages get the status "NOINDEX" so it will no longer
show up in google anymore.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11443
[E-mail us] - The email contact form to send an email to Wikipedia is
gone. If you get surpisingly few emails in your local contact queue
maybe this can the reason.
http://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/webform.plhttps://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15624
[Interwiki OTRS] - the links to OTRS tickets using the
[[OTRS:Ticketnumber]] works again after around 6 months. When you make
a new link use the new prefix [[Ticket:Ticketnumber]] instead because
that has better changes to keep working in the long run.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15681
[Suppressredirect] - ever had to revert page-move vandalism? or just
move a page without leaving a redirect? This is no possible for
sysops on all Wikimedia wikis thanks to a vote on Meta.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14998
[Sex] - there is in the preferences section (user profile) an option
now to specify your gender. That information is to support the
function to present different interface messages depending on your
sex. In some languages is text gender specific.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13040
=== Request for help ===
[Licensing] - the saga on the licensing migration to CC-BY-SA
continues! There is a new page on Meta for coordinating the migration
(including an FAQ). Please join in the discussion!
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/36090http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update
[Wikimania] - work on Wikimania 2009 is under heavy development, but
they need your help with translations and expanding the existing
pages. More information about volunteering, call for participation,
and registration will be released soon.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2009-February/001329.htmlhttp://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteershttp://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/T
=== Policy ===
[Wikibooks logo] - It has been a process of years but now it is there;
a new, final and live logo for Wikibooks.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks/Logohttp://www.wikibooks.org/
[New ombudsmen] - There are new ombudsmen (you know, the people who
review privacy policy/checkuser abuse cases) and an increase in number
from 3 to 5.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-January/049125.htmlhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission
=== Foundation ===
[Stewards] - the steward election is open and this until 22 February.
Request for comments about the current stewards is also open.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2009http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/confirm
[Mozilla grant] - The Mozilla Foundation is giving the WMF $100,000
(USD) for the development of improved Theora encoders and more
powerful playback libraries. Theora is the video-format that
Wikipedia&Co is using as the only high profile website. Mozillas
FireFox version 3.1 that is to be released soon will have build in
support for playing Ogg Theora video. It is intended that the results
of this grant will flow back for improved playback in FireFox.
http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2009/01/26/in-support-of-open-video/http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=977http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox#Version_3.1
[Committees] - the Wikimedia Foundation board has reviewed the
committees structure at its last meeting. The result was the official
closure of a few inactive committees and a resolution describing how
committees work (including a list of current committees).
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/35989http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_Committees
=== Agenda ===
[FOSDEM] - It is this upcoming weekend again FOSDEM in Brussels,
Belgium, Europa, Sol3. On Sunday, the 8th of February, will Brion
(Chief Technical Officer) give there a presentation about MediaWiki.
http://fosdem.org/2009/schedule/events/mediawikihttp://fosdem.org/2009/interview/brion+vibberhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSDEM
[MediaWiki meet-up] - It will take place in April 3.-5. in Berlin. The
event is for everyone who works on MediaWiki, writes extensions,
builds bots, writes scripts for the toolserver, or is otherwise
interested in the technical aspects of Wikimedia.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Developer_meet-up_2009
=== Community ===
[Wikimania 2010] - The Wikimania 2010 bidding process has officially
opened and the jury (those who review the bids and select the host
city) has been selected.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Timeline
[EN Wikinews] - Is electing the "Picture of the year 2008".
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Picture_of_the_Year_2008
[Flagged revisions] - after some normal vandalism on high profile
pages and media reporting about that EN Wikipedia is moving forwards
to use it on there wiki. Jimmy Wales expressed public support for
using it. A vote resulted in 59% in favor of doing a trial activation
of Flagged revisions. The English Wikibooks is already using it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7851400.stmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_revisions
=== Awards ===
[IT Wikipedia] - wins the "Premiolino", which means "little award",
and is the most
important Italian journalistic award. IT wp wins in the category "New
media" for this reason: "(because) it's a great, open, accessible for
everyone, democratic encyclopedia, always updated in real time, very
useful for every writer". The award consists in a parchment and a
5000? cheque.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/36862
[Character Approved] - An American television station "USA Network"
has selected several people in different fields to give them an award.
Jimmy Wales has been selected in the "New media" category. The prize
money of $10,000 goes to the WMF. USA Network is also running clips of
the "character approved" people, including Jimbo - and are so sending
out a sort of advertisement for Wikipedia on TV for free.
http://www.usanetwork.com/characterapproved/honorees/wales/
=== Media ===
[Google Knol] - ArtsTechnica has an evaluation of Google Knol six
months later. There conclusion is that Wikipedia does not need to worry.
http://tinyurl.com/cr6bm6
[Negative press] - The Indepentent has published a very negative
article about Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Jay Walsh, Head of
Communications of the WMF responded by means of the comment function
of the article and stated "A number of the facts in the story are
blatantly false, and further details are sloppily reported or
incorrect."
http://tinyurl.com/bqmedehttp://blog.reidster.net/2009/02/more-publicity-for-my-wikipedia-work.html --
responds about the article
=== Other news ===
[New wiki-manual] - In January, a new user guide about Wikipedia was
published by the University Press of Grenoble (France), in French
language. The authors of this 80 pages guide are Guillaume Paumier
(aka guillom) and Florence Devouard (aka Anthere). The user-guide is
published under the GFDL and has already been transferred to
Wikibooks. The book is for sale in paper version and electronic version.
http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikipédiahttp://www.pug.fr/titre.asp?Num=1072http://tinyurl.com/bf72r6 -- WM France Press release
["Old" wiki-manual] - A user manual for Wikipedia that was published
one year ago has been released under GNU/FDL by the publisher
O?Reilly?s and is now on the EN wp for all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikipedia:_The_Missing_Manual
[Epistemia] - Once again a new wiki Encyclopedia project is started
like Wikipedia but also is different some how. Epistemia has strong
emphasis on civil and polite conduct. If you are wishing it was like 6
years ago when Wikipedia was much smaller, and maybe also better from
your POV, then maybe you start over at Espistima. The have vacancies
there for editors and unborn policy pages to be written.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/36770
[AnswersWikia] - ... and Wikia (Jimmy&Angela) has started
AnswersWikia, what is just like WikiAnswers.com A website where you
ask questions and other people can answer those.
http://answers.wikia.com
=== Quote ===
"Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
-- Irving Fisher, Yale University Professor of Economics, 1929
(two weeks later, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression started)
//////////////////////////////////////////
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Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
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//////////////////////////////////////////
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 irregular 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/
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Wikizine
Happy Wikipedia-day!
_(_)_
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/ Y \| \|/ /(_)
\ | \ |/ | / \ | / \|/
\\|// \\|/// \\\|//\\\|/// \|///
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Anno Domini MMIX Week III Number CIV
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=== Technical news ===
[Upload size] - The maximum allowed upload size of files in increased
from 20 megabytes to 100 megabytes. That is especially important for
Commons that now can receive more easy video. Brion says there is now
48 terabyte of storage space for the media. 5 terabyte is used
currently.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/011309-wikipedia-digital-media.html
[Time zone] - in the user preferences, section "Date and time", is
there now an option to select your location. This way the correct
local time can be used automatically.
=== Request for help ===
[Wikimania] - volunteers are requested for taking care of the
scholarship applications that will come for next Wikimania.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/35468
=== Foundation ===
[ $:) ] - The WMF succeeded in collecting the 6 million dollar in
the fundraiser. According to the WMF more then 130,000 donors from
around the world are responsible for that result. 4 million of the 6
came from small donations, the rest from major sponsors. After the
very successful request for donations by Jimmy Wales is the "thank
you" message now also presented by Jimmy. The WMF has now the funding
to carry out all the plans for 2009.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/02/http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/ThankYou/enhttp://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/31/1315209 -- some /.
discussion about it
[Wikimania 2009] - We knew next Wikimania would be in Argentina,
Buenos Aires. Now we also know it will take place on August 26th, 27th
and 28th.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/35409http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org
[Steward election] - A new steward election is coming up. The first
candidates have already showed up. Confirmation of the current
stewards will also take place. It is supposed to start on the first
of February.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2009
[Board update] - the term of 3 board members; Jimmy Wales, Jan-Bart de
Vreede, and Stu West expired end of 2008. The terms of all 3 are
renewed by the board. Work is in process to select a couple of other
people to join to board by appointment. Being a WMF-board member is an
unpaid position. (some media suggested otherwise recently)
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/35398
[Job openings] - the WMF is looking for 3 persons to work on the
"Wikipedia Usability Initiative" in San Francisco.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/09/http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings
[Advisory board] - A new member is added to the WMF advisory board,
Roger McNamee. For some reason the blog "The Register" finds that
interesting. But this item is more to remind that such a thing as the
WMF Advisory board actually exist.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/13/welcome-roger/http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Boardhttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/14/macnamee_joinds_wikiboard/
=== Agenda ===
[Wikipedia Day] - it is again 15 January, Wikipedia Day, Wikipedia's
most important holiday. On this day we remember the eviction of the
seed of the project from the late Nupedia encyclopedia project and
birth of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, under this name as an
independent project.
The oldest of all projects is now just only 8 years old .... and is
also the 8th most popular website globally. Applause.
=== Community ===
[Year in review] - also EN Wikinews made an overview of the news of
the year 2008. And there is also a News Quiz of the year 2008 to see
how short term your memory is.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews%27_overview_of_the_year_2008http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Dynamic_quiz/quiz/2009/01 -- quiz
[ZH Wikinews] - the Chinese wikinews is reported to be blocked in
China. EN WIkinews is not blocked.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Chinese_version_of_Wikinews_gets_blocked_in_Chi…
=== Awards ===
[Knight Anthere] - the French National Order of Merit has been awarded
by President Sarkozy of France to [[w:fr:User:Anthere]] (Florence
Devouard). She received the rank of knight as "chair of an
international foundation" (= WMF).
http://tinyurl.com/9ytx8p
=== Media ===
[Jimbo gossip] - the story has come up that Jimmy Wales was not longer
a WMF-board member. The term for the seat on the board of Jimmy did
indeed expired end of 2008. But his term is extended as usual by the
board. Jimmy Wales was and is a WMF board member and Chair Emeritus of
the WMF.
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5122766/wikipedias-jimmy-wales-out-of-a-job
[Bad edit] - one year ago (2008-01-18) some anonymous user added
some POV-info to the Dutch language edition of the Mohamed article (an
edit that was reverted one minute later). The edit was done by people
working for the Dutch justice department. Several large newspapers in
the Netherlands and Belgium have now one year later reported this
event as "news". In the meantime is discovered that the bureaucrats
who did the edit where punished by there superiors by blocking access
to Wikipedia for 2 months. A block that was lifted later because the
need Wikipedia for there work.
http://www.telegraaf.nl/digitaal/2978623/__Ambtenaren_knoeien_weer_met_Wiki…
=== Stats ===
[Wikigeits] - [[user:Tookam]] has created Wikigeits. It is an attempt
to build the Wikipedia equivalent of Google's Hot Trends. It tracks,
aggregates, ranks and reports the page views on en.wikipedia.org.
http://www.wikigeist.com/
[Survey results] - A personal survey was handed out to many of the
attendees at Wikimania 2008. These are the results of that survey.
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Survey_results
# The Simple English Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.
# The Old Belarusian Wikipedia has reached 15,000 articles.
=== Other news ===
[Wikizine licence] - for compatibility with Wikinews has changed
Wikizine by request its license. This newsletter is from this edition
on, in all versions, dual licensed GNU/FDL and also Creative Commons
Attribution 2.5 Generic License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
[VisualWikipedia] - A website that provides as the say themselves "a
visual, intuitive, and interactive web interface to encyclopedic
knowledge/information."
http://visualwikipedia.com/
=== Quote ===
Max Planck: May I ask you a very serious question? What if God were to
say you were mistaken? If he said "Stop. Newton is right"?
Albert Einstein: Then I would thank God for his POV, and we would
agree to differ, and I would be left feeling very sorry for God.
from;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_and_Eddington
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 728
Unique Visitors website last year: 22453
Returning Visitors website last year: 800
Editor(s): Bawolff, Walter
ASCII Art: joan stark - ascii-art.com
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 irregular 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/
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.org
Year: 2008 Week: 52 Number: 103
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Hosting move] - the servers located in Amsterdam, Europe, are on the
move to a new data center. At the old data center where around 40
servers located mostly for caching pages and images requested by
European users. According to an unconfirmed source has Kennisnet ended
its sponsoring of this cluster. Since May 2005 has Kennisnet paid all
expenses for the cluster in Amsterdam.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/35389
[404] -If you follow a link to a page that doesn't exist (to the
actual page, not including the edit pages), the servers now give a 404
(not found error code) where before they gave the 200 (ok) error code.
This may help some automated programs, is
more inline with what you are "supposed" to do, but most people will
not notice as the page returned is still the same.
http://leuksman.com/log/2008/12/22/fixing-404-for-wiki-pages/
[MediaWiki messages] - revision-info, revision-info-current,
cannotdelete, redirectedfrom, historywarning and difference messages
now use Wiki text rather than raw HTML markup. Some wikis will need to
fix their customized messages.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16026http://leuksman.com/log/2008/12/23/wikimedia-sites-updated-to-r44990/
=== Proposals ===
[Licence discussion] - the new version of the GNU Free Documentation
License contains a section that gives the projects now using the GNU
Free Documentation License the option to change the licence of those
projects. The option to migrate to an other license expires on August
1, 2009. Discussion about this is requested.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update
=== Foundation ===
[Jimbo's appeal] - The post of a message from Jimmy Wales to ask for
money that is announced exceptionally prominent at the sites has
resulted in a temporary increase of donations of 892%.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/12/24/a-great-day-for-our-fundraiser/
=== Legal ===
[Wikimedia NL wins] - Wikimedia Nederland wins a preliminary
injunction. Not a big surprise because the wrong Wikimedia was sued,
but nevertheless good news.
http://tinyurl.com/7l4zc2
=== Community ===
[Photo-print service] - a partnership has been established between the
French language Wikipedia community and a photo printer service. it is
now possible to order a print of an image on the wiki with the menu
"Get a poster of this image". For every order is 1,5 EUR donated to
Wikimedia. At present a 1000 EUR is donated this way. You see only the
option if the site language is French. So logout or change your setting.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Impression/enhttp://www.wikiposter.fr/
[Everyone Bureaucrat] - the community of the Italian Wikiquote has
decided that all sysops also will be a bureaucrat. On IT Wikiquote are
only 6 sysops, so now also 6 bureaucrats. That have found inspiration
from the Spanish language Wikipedia. There are nearly all sysops also
bureaucrats, all 126.
How to become a bureaucrat differs strongly from wiki to wiki. For
example; on the English language Wikipedia you need to be elected in a
extremely difficult bureaucratic process. And on the Dutch language
Wikipedia all sysops active for at least one year can become
bureaucrat by simple request.
[EN Wikinews] - the main page is decorated for the holidays. It has a
tree , menorah, Kwanzaas and snowman. This unusual. Normally the do
not do this, but (strangely) no one complained.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Main_page_header&oldid=74…
[New planet] - At the location "planet.wikimedia.org" are several
language based websites who collect the posts of many different blogs
with postings who are supposed to be related to WMF-projects. For
example Wikizine is also listed there on the English language version.
There is now a new planet; the "North Germanic languages". Normally it
is for one language only but because the amount of posts would be to
few the languages Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese
form one planet.
http://gmq.planet.wikimedia.org/
=== Awards ===
[Picture of the year&Co] - Wikinews is gearing up for end of year. The
2008 picture of the year will be voted on shortly . You must be active
somewhere in wikimedia to vote, but that does not necessarily have to
be wikinews.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Picture_of_the_Year_2008
=== Media ===
[Wiki first] - A scientific journal "RNA Biology" has requested their
contributors create wikipedia articles on their research subject
before publishing a paper. Although some people have expressed
concerns that a research paper is not that same as a good article.
http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Info/Press/2008/081217.shtmlhttp://en.wikinews.org/wiki/RNA_journal_submits_articles_to_Wikipedia
=== Stats ===
[SV wp] - Swedish Wikipedia passed 300 000 articles and have send out
a press release.
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediadiskussion:300K
=== Other news ===
[Betawiki bounty] - If you translate 500 mediawiki messages before the
end of the year, you can get a 1000 euro prize!
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2008/12/betawiki-end-of-year-price.htmlhttp://translatewiki.net/wiki/Betawiki:News/Newsletter_2008-12-2
=== Donation comments ===
"Find a clean way to make profitable enough to survive for we count on
you but you can't really count on us, we don't have money!..." --
Anonymous
"When I first started working with computers in the '70s, I dreamed of
an electronic library with all the information anyone needed on a
portable device. You're making that happen. Thank you." -- Harvey
Platter
"Une modeste contribution ainsi qu'un grand MERCI... continuez..." --
Mathieu TARTARE
"DONATION, BUT I DISLIKE JIMBO"
//////////////////////////////////////////
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Corrector(s): none
Thanks to: Plyd, Nemo_bis, Ainali
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]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a irregular 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: 2008 Week: 50 Number: 102
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Wiki rename] - the first letters of the url of our projects indicate the
language of that project. For some of them those will change to other
ones. Effected languages are; Aromanian, Low German, Moldovan and
Belarusian. Redirects will be created.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/34563
[WikimediaNotifier] - A system has setup to create a message on Meta that
then is copied automatically to all the wikis. The purpose is to improve
the internal distribution of important news to the community. The messages
are posted in namespace of the bot [[user:WikimediaNotifier]] but wikis
can request to post them somewhere else like in there village pump if the
wish it so.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_notificationshttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_notifications/how-to
[MediaWiki extension Testing] - Many of the extensions written for
MediaWiki are used outside of the Wikimedia Foundation. Installing is not
always easy because they do not come with a guarantee that they will work.
ExtentionTesting provides a testing environment where these extensions
can be tested against the stable releases of MediaWiki. This way it is
easier and more predictable to use extensions with the MediaWiki software.
http://extensiontesting.wikiation.nl/Main_Page
[Interwiki map] - the interwiki map is updated. The means that the many
changes done to it are now live. For example you can now link to an
OTRS-ticket with the interwiki [[Ticket:]]. The old prefix [[OTRS:]] was
broken and no support was found to repair it.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Interwiki_map
[Turnkey MediaWiki] - A Ubuntu-based distro created for one purpose;
running MediaWiki. Ideal to try out MediaWiki on your own computer.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/TurnKey_MediaWiki
=== Request for help ===
[Web Designer/geek] - Wikizine.org seeks the help of a volunteer who can
realize an idea the involves building a website that is intended to
besides being useful also create revenue to support Wikizine.org Contact
[[user:Walter]]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Walter
=== Foundation ===
[Wikimedia Foundation] - The Stanton Foundation donates US$ 890,000 to the
Wikimedia Foundation to develop an easier way to write and change
articles. The goal is to increase usability so that more people can edit
articels, which have less technical knowledge.
http://tinyurl.com/64zmen -- WMF press release
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/StantonGrantQA
[WMF Audited financial statements] - the new ones for the period 2007-2008
are published. If you like the know the official financial numbers then
this is what you need to read.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/34390
=== Legal ===
[Wikimedia Deutschland] - The German chapter Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
are hosting a website (www.wikipedia.de), where the German wikipedia can
be searched. A German court enacted a temporary restraining order that
this website must not link to the German wikipedia (de.wikipedia.org). The
reason is a lawsuit between Wikimedia Deutschland and Lutz Heilmann, a
member of the German Parliament (Bundestag), about some statements in the
article about him. He also sued three Wikipedia users because of their
work on this article. The restraining order was abolished after 2.5 days.
Because of the news coverage the donations for the Wikimedia Deutschland
was increasing signifcant.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutz_Heilmannhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutz_Heilmannhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikimedia_deutschland_website_16_no…
[European Copyright] - A working group of the Dutch Wikimedia, German
Wikimedia, Hungarian and Italian Wikimedia Chapter has issued a reaction
on the EU Green paper Copyright in the Knowledge Economy.
http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Groep_Groenboek/enhttp://tinyurl.com/6djgwy -- The text of the green paper
[WM Netherlands] - a request for an preliminary injunction is issued by
Bob Sijthoff against the Dutch Chapter to obtain the identity of
particular user and the removal a specific article. The position of WM
Netherlands is that the are not legally or technical capable of doing
that. Ruling is expected by the 10th of December.
=== Agenda ===
[WM Serbia Conference] - The Regional Conference of Wikimedia Serbia will
be held at 19th, 20th and 21st December in Belgrade, in the Belgrade Youth
Home.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/34612http://tinyurl.com/6hx9vo -- WM Serbia conference
=== Community ===
[Commons: Bundesarchiv Project] - The German Federal Archive has about
170.000 digital photos since 2007. Using this photos was not free of
charge. After long discussions with the Wikimedia Deutschland almost
100.000 photos are now licenced by the cc-by-sa 3.0 DE. Currently the
photos are uploaded to Commons.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bundesarchivhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_German_Federal_A…
[New Wikibooks logo] - The selection process of new logo for the Wikibooks
project is coming to a close. Only the colors of the new logo still need
to be decided.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks/Logo
=== Media ===
[Censor] - British internet service providers have been blocking a
Wikipedia article and so also causing problems for there users to edit
Wikipedia. The blocked article was flagged as child-pornographic in
nature. Interestedly also Chinese media are reporting the blocking of
Wikipedia in the UK.
http://tinyurl.com/5eo9s7 -- Wikinews article about it
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Censorship_of_WP_in_the_…
[Winkler Prins] - in the Dutch language is the Winkler Prins, founded in
1870, the last surviving encyclopedia. Winkler Prins announced that there
10th edition will no longer be published in paper from. Reasons are lack
of interest in a encyclopedia on paper and huge work to get the
information that can fill 50 book down to 26 books. The 10th edition be
published online subscription based.
http://www.deredactie.be/cm/de.redactie/cultuur%2Ben%2Bmedia/1.419229
=== Stats ===
[EN wp] - out of frustration of lack of good statistics on the number of
active editors on the EN wp [[User:Dragons flight]] has made some.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/96575http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_frequency
[NL Wikipedia] - the Dutch language Wikipedia passed the 500,000 article mark
[Fundraiser] - while the funding is coming in some stats are available
about the success rate of the different banners.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/34559http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/11/25/wikimedias-fundraiser-which-banners-cl…http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/11/14/2008-fundraiser-update/
=== Other news ===
[Wikipedia Loves Art] - is a free content photography contest coordinated
with the Brooklyn Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and possibly other
museums worldwide, and aimed at illustrating Wikipedia articles. The event
is planned to run for the whole month of February 2009, and the name is a
play off of Valentine's Day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Loves_Arthttp://www.flickr.com/groups/wikipedia_loves_art/
[WikiVoices] - The podcast "Not The Wikipedia Weekly" changes its name to
WikiVoices.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiVoices
=== Quote ===
"Fair use is not a right. [..] Fair use is only a... ...legal defensible
position" ~ A Fair(y) Use Tale!
http://dotsub.com/view/4918f3c8-8f04-4aa1-b300-39048dca6822
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