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.org
Year: 2008 Week: 17 Number: 94
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Suggestions] - A function has been enabled on the projects that gives a
drop-down menu with search suggestions.
http://leuksman.com/log/2008/04/21/suggestion-search-drop-down/
[New search tests] - Testing is underway of a new search system to replace the
current wiki-search function. The new system is supposed to give a more
"google-like" search experience.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/37611http://ls2.wikimedia.org/ - location of experimental search system
[Global blocking?] - A MediaWiki extension has been created that makes global
blocking of IP addresses on all WMF wikis possible. Discussion is opened about
whether this is a good idea, how it can be used, and by whom.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/37704http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_blocking
[Global login] - Users who already have a global account for the projects still
need to login to every wiki independently. There is a global login but no
global session. The developers are working on this. Brion explains a possible
way for doing this and the security risks.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/37661http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Global_session_threat_assessment
[OpenID] - Regarding the possible implementation of OpenID on the WMF-projects,
Brion says: "We may [implement this] at some point, but it's a much lower
priority atm, and requires more review to make sure we're happy with how it'll
look and behave."
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/37671http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID
=== Foundation ===
[Board Treasurer] - A non-elected seat on the Board of Trustees has been filled
by Stuart West, who is the new Treasurer of the Board.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/28722 -- announcement on
Foundation-l
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/28753 -- "Hello" from
Stuart West
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board#Stuart_West
[New jobs] - the Wikimedia Foundation has job openings for 3 functions related
to the organisation of future fundraising drives.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/28517
[Wikimania 2008] - Requests for scholarships (financial support) to go to
Wikimania in Egypt were opened but are now cloased again. Sorry. The timeframe
was to short to make it in time for Wikizine.
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
[Large donation] - the WMF has received a new large donation. It is US$500,000
from Vinod and Neeru Khosla.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_Releases/Khosla_Gift
[WMF blog] - a Foundation blog has been started. WMF staff will post news and
information about the work they're engaged in that is not large enough to need
a press release, but is still noteworthy. Also, guest contributors, board
members and so on can post... but anyone can comment!
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/04/11/welcome/
=== Community ===
[Wikiportret] - the Dutch Wikimedia chapter presents a service to make it more
easy for famous people or there managers to submit pictures for use on the
projects.
The front-end is a basic website with clear and easy instructions to submit a
picture. After this an email is sent to the OTRS team (who need to verify the
submission) and if is is accepted they put in on Commons.
Currently there is only a Dutch language version of this service in use, but
support for more languages is possible and intended. (However, for many
languages this already exists by use of a page on the wiki Contact form.)
To support this project templates are placed on (Dutch) articles of people who
have not yet a picture to point to the special website. Also an advertisement
is created that can be used for publication by people who wish to support this
project.
http://www.wikiportret.nlhttp://www.wikiportrait.org -- multi-language version (only Dutch works)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Photo_submission -- English
Wikipedia (and four other language versions linked from the sidebar)
[EN Wikinews] - a bot active on the English Wikipedia is helping to bring the
news articles of the sister project Wikinews to the attention of the Wikipedia
readers. This bot will update pages on Wikipedia with relevant Wikinews
articles, including the addition of Television portal links to recent Wikinews
articles that are about television related topics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Wikinews_Importer_Bothttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Television
=== Media ===
[Documentary] - On the Dutch (Netherlands) public television, a 50-minute
documentary about Wikipedia has been broadcast at prime time, and uninterrupted
by commercials. An English-language version is available on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMSinyx_Ab0http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/39405191/
=== Stats ===
[By page view] - Overview of how much traffic the different Wikipedias receive.
English gets 50%, German 10% and Japanese 9.5%.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/27602
[2000th featured articles] - the English language Wikipedia now has 2000
featured articles. The latest Signpost features an interview about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-04-14/2000th…
[Wiktionary] - the Japanese has 30,000 definitions, the French has 800,000
definitions and the English also has almost 800,000.
http://ja.wiktionary.orghttp://fr.wiktionary.org
=== Other news ===
[Britannica free!] - ... at least for bloggers. The "Encyclopædia Britannica"
is now giving away free accounts for their encyclopedia to "web publishers".
Also articles of EB are now free for all to read, if you go to the article by
means of an hyperlink posted online. You can only read that one specific
article, if you jump to any other article the text is shielded by a subscribe
option.... at least if you have javascript enabled. If you disable javascript
in your browser, everyone (without the need to login) can read all articles of
Britannica.
http://britannicanet.com/?page_id=15http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/18/encyclopedia-britannica-now-free-for-b…http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1192818/Wikipedia -- The "Wikipedia"
article on EB (if this doesn't work use the online link on en.wikizine.org)
http://www.britannica.com/bps/home -- MainPage (disable javascript)
[Wikipedia book] - come autumn 2008, the publisher Bertelsmann will publish a
German-language printed edition of Wikipedia that contains information on about
50,000 topics on 1000 pages. The price will be EUR 19.95 (US$32). The Wikimedia
Foundation will receive EUR 1 for every copy.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/04/22/wikipedia-in-german-book-form/http://tinyurl.com/4fx4n2 Slashdot news item
[Wikipedia Chemistry] - Yet another book: KnowledgePublications is publishing an
English language book about hydrogen (H). It contains large parts of the
chemistry related articles of EN wp. The book is titled, "The Chemical
Educator: for The Chemistry and Manufacture of Hydrogen". The published says it
is one of the best books ever written on the manufacture of hydrogen.
http://www.send2press.com/newswire/2008-04-0416-003.shtmlhttp://tinyurl.com/65c49c -- view of the book
[ID Wikizine] - the Indonesian language edition of Wikizine has been closed due
to lack of interest and assistance.
=== Did you know ... ===
... that even changes that were active during a very brief amount of time can
pop up for a long time afterwards as the version a visitor will see?
On the first of April was the tag-line changed several times. That is the string
of text that normally says "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". Seven days
later, when requesting an article as a visitor, the version of the article
displayed contained the version of the tagline that was active for only one
minute on the first of April.
The reason is that for the servers to be able to take care of the very large
volume of traffic the sites get, pages are cached. Anonymous users get a
previously saved version to see. The cache of a page expires after 31 days.
Moral of the story: even a "joke edit" that is only live for a minute or so can
show up to visitors up to a month later.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/37598
=== Quote ===
"Spanking or hitting a skunk is not recommended"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-04-14/WikiWo…
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 710
Unique Visitors website last week: 86
Editor(s): Walter
Corrector(s): Philippe, Oliphaunt, Cbrown1023
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: 14 Number: 93 Extra
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Foundation ===
[Wikimania 2009] - on March 28, after a long wait since February 28,
the jury that would determine the location of Wikimania 2009 chose
Buenos Aires, Argentina. This is the first time that a
Spanish-speaking country will harbor the largest gathering of
Wikimedians. Other bids for Wikimania 2009 were from the cities of
Toronto (Canada), Brisbane (Australia), and Karlsruhe (Germany).
This is the first occasion that the convention will be done in two
languages (English and Spanish) and will be carried out in the
southern hemisphere of the planet, on August 28-30, 2009, according to
information presented by the local organization.
Backing this bid was Wikimedia Argentina (presided by Patrician
Lorente), which did everything to present to the capital of Argentina
as a place for Wikimedians to come and visit.
The jury picked the Latin American city due to the large
Spanish-language projects of the Foundation (wikipedia, wikinoticias,
wikilibros, etc.) and the cultural significance of the city. The jury
also emphasized the great commitment of the organization and the
activity that has developed Wikimedia Argentina from December 2007.
[Interview] - In a brief interview, Patrician Lorente (President of
Wikimedia Argentina) responded to questions about Buenos Aires as
headquarters of Wikimania 2009.
This interview was arranged and published in the Spanish language
edition of Wikizine ( ES2008-93 extra). A machine translation of it is
in included below.
<babelfish translation>
Wikizine: How arose the restlessness from Wikimania in Wikimedia Argentina?
Patricio: It even arose before organizing to us like Wikimedia
Argentina formally. Our sensation is as much the Spanish-speaking
world as the South hemisphere has, by different reasons, a marginal
participation in the global community of Wikimedia, that does not
correspond with the real participation in the projects. Even let us
remember that the Wikipedia in Spanish second more is visited and than
the Spanish-speaking community, with its overwhelming heterogeneity
and complexity is growing and it is being organized of admirable way.
W: Which were the main problems that were in the organization?
P: We have not had serious problems still, but the hard work just
begins. Until now we have had to work in the development of a project,
from the resolution of the jury of Wikimanía 2009 we will have to take
that project to the practice.
W: What is the hope of this event?
P: We hope to turn to the Spanish-speaking community and the South
hemisphere assets protagonists of the global dynamics of the Wikimedia
projects. We want to show our European and North American friends whom
an anxious community exists here and worker who is perhaps sometimes
invisible for many. Perhaps that the ideal of the free knowledge has a
more meant and particular importance in these places of the world in
which the difficulties to the access to the education and the
knowledge are multiplied for vast social sectors.
W: A message for the readers of Wikizine.
P: That we waited for them in Buenos Aires! The projects brothers of
the Wikipedia already take own flight and is necessary to show them
the community.
</babelfish translation>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenos Aires
http://wikitravel.org/en/Buenos_Aireshttp://www.wikimedia.org.ar - Wikimedia Argentina
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2009/Bids/Buenos_Aires -
Candidatura de Buenos Aires para Wikimania 2009
//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Dennis Tobar ([[meta:User:Superzerocool]])
Translator: Casey Brown
Thanks to: Patricio Lorente
Construction: Walter
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling. 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: 13 Number: 93
******************************************
Wikizine ... not yet dead
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
=== Single User Login ===
SUL. Single User Login. Bug 57. Unified login. One login for all wikis. The
mythical uberlogin has migrated to The Real World.
The migration function is enabled currently for sysops only. The options to
migrate can be found on the first page of the account preferences page on the
projects were you're a sysop. From there you can follow the instructions to
claim all you accounts on all wikis that have the same username. After the
migration you can log on all these wikis with the same password.
For the migration to work you need to have the same email address or password on
all your user accounts. You can claim the rest of the accounts with your name
by providing their password.
The current sysop-only migration is to collect information for the general user
migration later. Sysops who have problems are strongly encouraged to report
them so that they can be fixed before SUL is rolled out generally.
By migrating now (if you can) you have the advantage that you can use that
username to log in to all WMF wikis as long as there is not a local user
account with your name that is not yours.
Please note that not everhings works yet when you migrate. For example renaming
an account can not be done (for now at least). Inform you before you do it.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/37290http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/37434http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Unified_login
[Upload auto-confirmed] - upload of files on all Wikimedia sites except Commons
is now restricted to auto-confirmed users. That are user accounts older then 4
days.
http://tinyurl.com/2vuz8m
[Search changed] - the technical side of the search function of the wikis has
changed. As a result some wikis who have used javascript to include external
search engines may experience glitches requiring an update of the local code.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/37379http://leuksman.com/log/2008/03/21/lucenesearch-is-dead-long-live-mwsearch/
=== Request for help ===
[Stable Versions] - testwikis are setup for tests of the stable versions
function. This function makes it possible to rate the quality of an article.
Feedback is requested from users who volunteer to test the function.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/37372
[Scholarship] - translations are requested of the Wikimania 2008 scholarships
information page.
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Translation/Scholarships
=== Foundation ===
[+ $3,000,000] - The board of the "Alfred P. Sloan Foundation" has granted the
Wikimedia Foundation 1 million dollars (US) per year for the next three years.
This is the largest donation made to the Foundation in its history. Note: 1
million USD = 642302 EUR / 501669 GBP
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/27379http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_P._Sloan_Foundationhttp://www.itwire.com/content/view/17324/53/
[New hire] - the WMF has hired a new accountant, Mary Lou Secoquian, who will
work in San Francisco.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/27279
=== Community ===
[NotTheWikipediaWeekly] - On the English language Wikipedia a new audio podcast
project about Wikipedia has started. They announce a time to meet in a
skypecast, talk about Wikipedia topics and publish the recordings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NotTheWikipediaWeekly
=== Awards ===
[IT Wikipedia] - The Italian Wikipedia has won the a category award of
"PremioWWW-Il sole 24 ore" a competition organized by the most important
business newspaper in Italy (Il Sole 24 ore). The winners were selected by jury
from the shortlist composed by the 5 sites that obtained the highest score
through a popular vote. This is the second time that it.wiki wins
"PremioWWW-Il sole 24 ore". Last time was two years ago.
http://premiowww.ilsole24ore.com/vincitori.php
=== Stats ===
[Animated stats] - Our grandmaster of statistics Erik Zachte has made a new form
of Wikipedia-stats. Animated statistics; bubbles representing the projects
floating true time and number of articles. It is available in an interactive
format that works currently with FireFox 3.0 release candidate. A flash version
that works with any browser (8MB) is also available.
http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/Wikistats/http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/27393
=== Other news ===
[Schoolbook] - A publisher of schoolbooks in Japan is using a Wikipedia map as
illustration. It is the world map of death penalty sentences.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/27395http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Death_Penalty_World_Map.png
=== Did you know ... ===
... Microsoft also uses MediaWiki ?
Microsoft researcher Steve Ickman said while Microsoft SharePoint is great,
MediaWiki has valuable features not found in SharePoint - particularly the
ability to archive.
http://tinyurl.com/ysbz6nhttp://tinyurl.com/2ar5jo
=== Quote ===
"Do not leave your children unattended. All unattended children will be eaten."
-- Friendly advice from vulture in movie "Ice age 2"
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 712
Unique Visitors website last week: 132
Editor(s): Walter
Corrector(s): 2 who do not wish to take credit for it
Thanks to: Nick
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: 10 Number: 92
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[__HIDDENCAT__] - there is a new magic word __HIDDENCAT__ When used on a
"Category:Foobar"-page it is not listed among the other categories at the
bottom of an article in the category.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/36831
[New dump!] - There is a new database dump of the English language Wikipedia.
The full dump of EN Wikipedia, all articles, full history is 130gb
(compressed).
http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20080103/ -- EN Wikipedia dump
http://download.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html -- other wikis dump
[New Skin] - When you go to your "preferences" you have the option "skin" where
you can select what the interface will look like. The default skin is Monobook.
There are several others to choice from but besides "classic" they are not very
usable. But now is there a new good looking and usable skin: "Modern". Check it
out.
http://tinyurl.com/22gsy6 -- Wikipedia style "Modern"
[RC on IRC] - Recent changes of the projects are posted on IRC by means of a
Wikimedia IRC-server. By request access to this service has been added to the
Wikizine IRC gateway for a selection of projects.
http://chat.wikizine.org
=== Request for help ===
[Wikimania 2008] - Call for Participation; Submissions are open until 16 March.
Submissions are warmly welcomed
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation
=== Foundation ===
[4 new Wikimedia Chapters] - The board of the Wikimedia Foundation approved 4
new chapters. The new chapters are: Wikimedia Česká republika, Wikimedia
Österreich, Wikimedia Australia Incorporated, Wikimedia Hong Kong Limited
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters
[Wikimanina 2008] - A site risk assessment will be ordered for Wikimania 2008 in
Alexandria, Egypt announced Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue
Gardner. Concern for the safety of Wikimanians in Alexandria has been a topic
on Foundation-l and the assessment will look at various threats.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/26221
[Board elections 2008] - there is a call for election officials
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/25911http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/Committee/en
=== Media ===
[Sue on CNET] - Video intervieuw of Sue Gardner (executive director of the WMF)
about the Jimmy Wales buzz and Wikipedia.
http://www.cnettv.com/9742-1_53-32449.html
[Wikipedia in Africa] - story about Wikipedia on DVD in Africa.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23906
[1984] - Japan is considering legislation to "govern top news Web sites"
http://tinyurl.com/2dt26j
[The Economist] - inclusionists versus deletionists
http://tinyurl.com/23agss
=== Stats ===
[WikiWoordenboek] - the Dutch language Wiktionary passed the 30,000 page
milestone.
http://www.wikiwoordenboek.org
[Counts] - The Wikimedia Commons has reached 2,500,000 media files.
[Again new stats] - A site that is using the squid logs to generate Wikipedia
article traffic statistics. You can get the stats for a specific article or get
a list of the most popular pages. There can you learn that for some reason
"Canine reproduction" is very popular.
http://stats.grok.se
[Wikipedia is 2nd in the world!] - at least in the "2008 Web Globalization
Report Card". The number of languages supported is a big factor in this
ranking.
http://bytelevel.com/news/reportcard2008.html
=== Other news ===
[Dirty dishes] - Bad week for Jimmy Wales. His personal life is getting media
coverage. It is reported that Jimmy had a brief relationship with Rachel
Marsden, a conservative blogger who works in the media industry. The
relationship broke off and Rachel Marsden provided private communications
between herself and Jimmy to a gossip site, which published them. Jimmy
published a statement about it on his blog.
And at the same time Danny Wool, ex WMF staff member, published a blog posting
where he writes about his time at the Wikimedia Foundation and requests for
reimbursement of expenses by Jimmy, among other things.
http://blog.jimmywales.com/index.php/statement/http://tinyurl.com/22t42g -- Wikinews article
http://allswool.blogspot.com/2008/03/money-for-nothing-chicks-for-free.htmlhttp://tinyurl.com/23f3am -- Signpost article about it
[Encyclopedia of Life] - the EOL has gone live with more than one million
species pages that are mostly minimal articles. Only 25 articles are like the
EOL wishes the articles to be, articles containing rich media with extensive
information.
http://www.eol.org/
[About Wikipedia] - author John Broughton wrote the book "Wikipedia: The Missing
Manual" . A guide to editing Wikipedia. ISBN 0596515162
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-03-03/Book_r…
[CNN goes (a bit) Wikinews] - CNN, an American news network, has started a
website where everyone can submit news and pictures. As it looks now every
article has only one author and people can post comments about it. So it is
more a blog than a wiki.
http://beta.ireport.com/
[Wikileaks] - An attempt to bring down Wikileaks has failed. There was a
DOS-attack, a fire at their web hosting facility and the release of lawyers who
obtained a court order to remove the domain "wikileaks.org" from DNS. Wikileaks
did remain online by means of other domains and by entering the ip-address. The
court order was later revoked. Wikileaks.org is again online.
http://tinyurl.com/2pbk3q
[Wikirace] - Wikirace.org is game where you compete with other people to try get
from one "start-article" to try to reach the "end-article" in as few steps as
possible.
http://wikirace.org
=== Message to the readers ====
Wikizine is there to inform you, readers, about the news related to the
Wikimedia projects or what seem relevant to inform you about.
It has been increasingly more difficult to get a new edition ready for
distribution the last half year. At present the publication rate is below the
necessary frequency necessary to inform our readers in a timely manner about
the relevant news.
Because of this I recommend, as editor, that the readers of Wikizine read the
Wikipedia Signpost as their primary internal news source to keep informed. --
[[meta:user:Walter]] , Editor of Wikizine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost
=== Did you know ... ===
... there is dedicated program to browse Wikipedia visually?
The program is called indywiki. (And no, it has nothing to do with Indymedia.)
Basically it is a GUI that displays Wikipedia content in a different way then
your browser. Focus is on the visual aspect. You search for a entry, you get a
selection of pictures related to that article. By clicking on an image you can
browse Wikipedia. Also is there a text box that displays text sections of the
article, a list of sections of the article and a list of external links. The
software runs on Linux, Mac and Windows.
Indywiki is young software and the main developer is looking for assistance with
this project. The developer is looking for a python developer to work on
features and people who can work on the GUI to make it better looking.
http://indywiki.sourceforge.net/ -- website
http://indywiki.sourceforge.net/indywiki_fosdem.pdf -- presentation of Indywiki
Contact indywiki: <mgogoulos AT gmail DOT com>
=== Quote ===
"[..] And for the encyclopedia, it turned out
that a volunteer model was able to do quite a reasonable job." -- Bill Gates
reffering to Wikipedia
http://tinyurl.com/32kpw9
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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]],
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: 7 Number: 91
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Deletion limit and abuse] - Some pages have an exceptional large amount of
saved versions. Like a main page or a "Village pump". Because the deletion of
those pages resulted in very high load of the servers and slowing down of the
website the deletion of pages that have more then 5000 versions in the history
is not longer possible.
And it has been abused directly by bots who make fake edits to get to 5000
versions so the article can not be deleted anymore.
Also a result of this is that need for users who have "oversight" status becomes
higher on the projects who have not yet those. This because you can not longer
deleted and restore selective editions if that pages has more then that 5000
versions.
[IRC cloak] - A new system has been created for requesting a Wikimedia IRC cloak
for the Freenode network. A "cloak" means that the hostname of your connection
will be hidden and replaced by something else. This increases your privacy and
associates you with the Wikimedia projects on IRC.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_cloakshttp://stable.ts.wikimedia.org/wmfgcbot/
[Parser] - A new parser code that makes wiki syntax more consistent and scalable
was deployed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-01-28/New_pa…
[Wap] - The WAP (sort of teletext on your phone) service of Wikipedia is not
dead. It is even updated.
http://en.wap.wikipedia.org/http://leuksman.com/log/2008/01/31/wikipedia-wap-portal-updated/
[#wikimedia-admin] - sysops of any project are invited to join the general
Wikimedia admin channel for cross-wiki coordination of admin matters. To join
you need to be invited. Contact any of the following users; Az1568,
Cbrown1023, Connel, Pathoschild (slavie), Shanel and Slowking Man. Or ask in
#wikimedia
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24392http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Invitehttp://chat.wikizine.org -- webbased access
=== Request for help ===
[Wikimania 2008] - Requests for participation, this means submissions for
presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open spaces, and artistic artifacts.
Submissions are open until March 16th 2008.
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation
[Translation Requests] - there are again a lot of pages waiting for a
translation. Assistance is welcome.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TR
[Wikizine] - As usual, assistance with Wikizine would be helpful
http://report.wikizine.org
[Praise] - it is requested that if you find statements praising Wikimedia
projects to list those on linked page at Meta. Those can be useful for
marketing the projects and external communication.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Praise_for_Wikipedia_and_the_Wikimedia_Proje…
=== Policy ===
[Copyright clarifications from Mike Godwin] - About the copyright of speeches
(See http://tinyurl.com/2sdhr4
) and the law that applies to the WMF projects.
- Is it true that any content hosted on Wikimedia servers must be legal to
publish in the U.S.?
-- *the answer is clearly YES*
- May local non-English Wikimedia projects still make an exception to that rule
by applying only their local laws?
-- *the answer is NO*
See also http://tinyurl.com/2jpfuw
[Stewards policy] - A proposed rewritten policy for stewards has been rejected.
The existing policy remains valid.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Rewriting/Stewards_policy/Vote
[Foundation values] - In a list posting our Chair Anthere is proposing that the
WMF would accept a set of core values. This to make it more clear to anyone to
know for what the Wikimedia Foundation stands for.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/25147http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values
=== Foundation ===
[New board members] - Chair of the board Florence Devouard (Anthere) announced
that the board has appointed two new members to the board. The are Michael Snow
(from the Signpost) and Domas Mituzas (core tech team member). Michael was
candidate in the board elections of 2007 where he ended as 5th, after Oscar.
Domas was not a candidate in that election. There appointment expires by the
next board elections of June-July 2008.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/25456
[WMF Office] - The Saint Petersburg Office is now closed. This also means that
Barbara Brown (office manager), Sandy Ordonez (head of communications) and
Vishal Patel (business development) does not work anymore for WMF. Accountant
Oleta McHenry stays on until the end of March. The new "World Headquarters of
the Wikimedia Foundation" is now in San Francisco, California (USA). The
webservers are not moved to this new geological highly unstable location.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation/offices -- pictures of
the new office before and after the move
[Finances] - a financial statement for the years 2006/2007 is available.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Image:Wikimedia_2007_fs.pdfhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-02-11/Audit_…
-- full report about it by the signpost
[Wikimedia staff] - Veronique Kessler is appointed Chief Financial and Operating
Officer for the Wikimedia Foundation.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/25154 -- announcement by
Sue Gardner
[Fundraising] - A report on the 2007 fundraising is available. 2.162 million
dollars from nearly 45,000 donors worldwide was donated.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/Reporthttp://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24127http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_fundraising_analysis --
fund raising graphs
[Wikimania 2009] - the selection process for the city to host Wikimania 2009 is
now down to 4 candidates. Until February 28 questions can be asked to the
people submitting the candidacy. After that the jury will decide where
Wikimania 2009 will be.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2009
[Potential donors] - The staff plans to organize a major donor dinner in order
to interest potential donors of supporting our mission.
[By Anthere] - a day in a life of a board member...
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24432
[Survey] - Plans are in the works to organize a (first) survey of the
Wikipedians. This was announced in a joined announcement of the WMF and the
"Collaborative Creativity Group". The very vague statement indicated that this
survey must take place before Wikimania 2008.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24970http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24970http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/UNU_survey_agreementhttp://www.wikipediasurvey.org/ -- the survey site, no survey yet
[EditVideo] - The WMF made an agreement with Kaltura.com to do an experiment
with collaborative video editing. The software of Kalture makes online video
editing possible. The experiment is done on the non WMF wiki wikieducator.org
When this software works well and is useful and also is made open source, what
is not yet the case, it could be added to the WMF-projects eventually.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/36279 --
list announcement
http://tinyurl.com/3ddsz8 -- press release; Collaborative Video Experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalturahttp://wikieducator.org/Help:Collaborative_video
=== Community ===
[Wikibooks logo] - there is (again) an new logo selection process in the works
for Wikibooks and Wikijunior. This is due the restrictions of the WMF who
forbids the use of the WMF colors in the logo.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks/Logohttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikibooks/Logo#Time_to_Move_On.3F
[Picture of the year] - The picture of the year 2007 was selected. It is a
picture of the Broadway Tower in Cotswolds, England, taken by Wikimedian
Newton2.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2007http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Broadway_tower_edit.jpg
[EN Wikinews] - User:bawolff informs Wikizine that EN Wikinews has one of the
most extensive and most international reports since long about the protests
against the Church of Scientology. There where reports from over 30 locations,
a 150 pictures and 9 minute video of the protests.
http://tinyurl.com/29vrbr -- the wikinews article
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/24/1311252 -- and /. about it
[Wikipedia IT] - The Italian Wikipedia presents a new layout of there main page.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagina_principale
[More music] - user:Raul654 asked and received permission from Musopen.com to
copy there collection of classical music. 137 have been uploaded to commons
under a free licence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Free_musichttp://www.musopen.com/
[*beep*] - It is a long Wikipedia tradition for people to try to get a image of
a penis on the main page of the English Wikipedia. Recently image vandalism was
successful and a bit more original then normally by putting a image of vagina
on the main page.
=== Media ===
[Wikipedia in the Newsroom] - A long article about how Wikipedia is used or can
be used by the traditional media.
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4461
[Elite trusts Wikipedia?] - "When young US opinion leaders were asked to choose
the most credible source for corporate information, a surprising 55 per cent
mentioned Wikipedia."
http://tinyurl.com/2lmzcg -- "The Financial Times" article
[Chat with Angela] - WikipediaWeekly has a long interview with Angela Beesley,
long time Wikipedian and Co-founder of Wikia, about Wikimania, Wikia, Kultura
and more.
http://tinyurl.com/2pa2yj -- WikipediaWeekly episode 41
[Jimmy TV] - Some more interviews of Jimmy. New and old.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtNJgBopr7ghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC0YZb3OjGMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCUFq4jyvI4
=== Stats ===
[Milestones] - The Turkish Wikipedia reaches 100,000 articles, the Wu Wikipedia
reaches 1,000 articles, the Hawaiian Wikipedia gains its 1,000th article.
[Lists stats] - there are also statistics about the who is posting how many
times to what lists
http://infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/index.html
=== Other news ===
[Earn $ with your hobby] - Stichting Open Progress as received a grant from the
Dutch NGO Hivos to improve the localisation of MediaWiki. This has resulted in
a project which places bounties on MediaWiki localisation milestones for a list
70 to 80 languages spoken in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that have a
sizeable number of speakers, but insufficient support in MediaWiki.
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Language_project
[Pictures of Muhammad] - Moslim groups request removal of depictions of the
Prophet Muhammad from Wikimedia websites, particularly commons, as this would
be conflicting to Islamic believes. A petition that asks for the removal of the
pictures has over 160,000 signatures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/books/05wiki.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-02-11/Muhamm…
-- Signpost report
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Muhammad/FAQ -- FAQ especialy for
[[w:en:Muhammad]]
http://tinyurl.com/2cyxue -- the matter from a islamic POV - recommended
reading.
[Brockhaus (for) Free] - *the* encyclopedia in English is the Encyclopædia
Britannica. In French is that Larousse and in German there is the Brockhaus
Enzyklopädie. You can buy the Brockhaus in print (30 books) for 2670 EUR or on
DVD for 40 EUR. But from 15th of April the Brouckhaus encyclopedia will be also
free to read online!
http://www.boersenblatt.net/180265/
[Wikizine down] - due to hosting problems Wikizine.org has been down for a
almost a week. Services are currently partially restored on a back-up location.
[Wikipedia iPhone] - you can now install a local copy of Wikipedia on your
iPhone.
http://collison.ie/wikipedia-iphone/http://mashable.com/2008/02/11/entire-wikipedia-on-your-iphone/
[Pictures for the new office] - for the new Wikimedia Foundation office in San
Francisco a request was made to present Wikimedia-related pictures to decorate
the walls of the new office. Submissions are now closed.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stillman_Wiki_Wall_Photo_Contest
[Wikback] - user:UninvitedCompany has setup a forum for primarily EN Wikipedia
matters but also foundation discussions.
http://www.wikback.com/
=== Did you know ... ===
... we're not for sale.
If you're waiting for Wikipedia to be bought by your friendly neighborhood
Internet giant, don't hold your breath. Wikipedia is a non-commercial website
run by the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in
St. Petersburg, Florida. We are supported by donations and grants, and our
mission is eventually to bring free knowledge to everyone on the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ten_things_you_may_not_know_about_Wi…
=== Quote ===
"It's "Godwin," not "Goodwin." I make no special claim to goodness." -- Mike
Godwin
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24265
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 720
Unique Visitors website last week: website down
Editor(s): Londenp, Walter
Thanks to: 555, GerardM, bawolff
Special thanks to: Peter van Londen
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a 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: 3 Number: 90
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[User rights] - it is now possible for the developers to selectively
assign groups permissions to grant/revoke other groups, either to
themselves or to all other users. An implementation is don on some
wikis, including English language Wikipedia, by creating the new group
'rollbacks' with right 'rollback', and giving sysops the ability to
grant/revoke this group to any user.
Wikis who also wish to have that option need to get consensus about it
and make a bugzilla ticket for it.
The page Special:Userrights is now also listed in the special pages
overview. Eventually the pages like MakeSysop will be removed and all
changes to status will need be done by use of the page
Special:Userrights.
[Page move restricted] - Since the 2nd of January 2008 it is no longer
possible to move/rename pages if a user is not autoconfirmed (Users
are autoconfirmed after a specified time and after specified amount of
edits). There is a opt-out policy, which means that individual
projects can decide to make page moves possible for new users as well.
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12071
[Title blacklist] - the new function "Title blacklist" announced in
the previous edition of Wikizine is again disabled. The comment in the
log about the disabling was "domas: removing titleblacklist. there's
certain level of crap beyond which I won't fix stuff. "
=== New project proposals ===
[Wikibooks multilingual] - A new wikibook-project is proposed aimed at
writing multilingual books, which means the usage of several languages
within one book; at languages without a own wikibooks, i.e. incubator
function; and to courage translations and cooperation between the
several Wikibooks-projects.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikibooks_Multili…
=== Policy ===
[Bot generated articles] - A proposal for a policy regarding (heavy)
bot-generated articles in certain Wikipedias is discussed on Meta.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Proposal_for_Policy_on_overuse_of_bots_…
=== Foundation ===
[Business development] - Executive Director Sue Gardner announced that
a new head of Business Development has been hired. Vishal Patel will
not join the Wikimedia Foundation in there move to the Westcoast, and
Kul Wadhwa will join the staff in his position as head of business
development.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/036927.html
[Head of communications] - Jay Walsh from Canada is the new head of
communications and takes over this job from Sandy Ordonez, who will
not relocate to San Francisco with the WMF. The job includes press
relations, written and oral communications.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/037233.html
[Fundraiser result] - The fundraiser has resulted in the biggest
amount of money donated during a fundraiser ever: over 2 million
dollars. The biggest donation of half a million dollars was made by an
anonymous donor and almost 45,000 donors have donated about $33 on
average.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/037230.html
[Concerns on transparency] - Following a leakage of information from a
private list used within the Foundation, which resulted in articles on
the en.wikinews it is being discussed if the foundation is
communicating transparent. There are opposing views on the subject,
saying that the WMF is the most transparent organisation and opposing
views, which state that it becomes less transparent. The discussion is
going-on, but everyone values transparency up to a certain point. Some
opinions are telling that the WMF is too far away from the local
communities and so that representatives of those communities have no
feeling to issues on WMF-level. A Wiki-council as a council made up of
representatives of all communities might be a solution to channel
issues from local communities to the WMF board and the WMF office.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/037273.htmlhttp://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/037255.htmlhttp://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/037344.html
[Meta-arbcom?] - A meta-arbcom is being discussed. There are projects
which have an arbcom, but many projects don't. Arbcom is short for
arbitration committee: if there are problems or disagreements in a
certain community with an arbcom, and the people involved in the
arguments don't find a solution themselves, these people can asked the
appointed or chosen arbcom to mediate and even rule (including
corrective actions) over the dispute. For communities without an
arbcom sometimes stewards are asked to decide for certain actions.
Steward rules prevent them from taking decisions: a steward serves the
different communities. Fur such cases and also for cases which exceed
the specific community a meta-arbcom is being discussed.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/036985.html
[Wikimania 2009] - 6 bids have been submitted for consideration for
the Wikimania 2009 venue, which are listed below.
* Bogotá (Colombia, South America)
* Toronto (Ontario, Canada)
* Kathmandu (Kathmandu, Nepal)
* Buenos Aires (Argentina, South America)
* Brisbane (Queensland, Australia)
* Karlsruhe (Germany, Europe)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2009/Bids#Bids for more details
=== Community ===
[Looking back and forward] - Florence Devouard, chair of WMF, has
evaluated her wishes made for Wikimedia beginning of 2007 and has
specified 10 wishes for 2008.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Summary_of_a_year-_2007http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/036818.html
[One administrator projects] - Following an incident on Russian
Wikibooks, where the only administrator removed the banners referring
to Wikimedia and MediaWiki, it is being discussed if a policy should
be created which states what every Wikimedia project can or cannot
change to the appearance of the site, and what to do when projects
have only one administrator, with the risk of hijacking the project.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/036930.html
[Moratorium on deletion of smaller projects] - A moratorium on the
deletion of language projects was proposed. This is mainly about
smaller, almost inactive, projects.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/036923.html
[Picture of the Year] - On Commons is there are again the election of
the picture of the year. The first round of nominations will close
soon on the 17th. Voting takes place this year by means of special
software hosted on the toolserver. To use it you need to enable the
email function of your user account. The second round of the election
will be the 20th and 24th of january.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2007http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Picture_of_the_Year
[New projects approved] - The langcom has approved requests to start a
Wikipedia in Saterland Frisian, a micro language spoken in the
Saterland commune in Germany, and a Wikiversity in greek language.
Both have already been created.
=== Stats ===
[Traffic] - Domas Mituzas has made an excellent review of operations.
Amongst others he mentions that traffic and requests doubled in 2007.
The WMF spend $279k on hardware; hardware was also expanded at
Amsterdam facility with 15 squid servers bought by the German chapter.
The software was upgraded so that performance is faster.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-January/036944.html
=== Other news ===
[The Economist] - In "The World in 2008" published by "The Economist"
the Wikimania 2008 is mentioned in the "Diary for 2008" <quote>
Scholars, journalists, geeks and other fans of Wikipedia, an
open-access encyclopedia meet in Taipei for Wikimania 2008 <unquote>.
Too bad that they mentioned the wrong place: Taipei was in 2007;
Wikimania 2008 will be held in Alexandria. Also they failed to mention
that it is not only about Wikipedia.
[Correction] - Wikipedia is not 8 years old this year but only 7.
=== Was ist das? ===
[patrol] - A lesser known feature of MediaWiki is the patrol-function.
Every change on any article can be patrolled, which means there on the
difference page there is a button, with which the controller can mark
the change as patrolled. In the recent-changes list there is an option
to show only non-patrolled changes. This function is only available
for logged-in users and is active on the Dutch
Wikipedia/Wikibooks/Wikiquote. Already many years now it works with a
high success rate to counteract on vandalism if this is missed during
live patrolling.
== Quote ===
<boem! - boem! - ship shakes>
Computer; what was that? -- Constable Odo
"A temporary loss of stability resulting of the impact of a
concentrated plasma charge."
We are being attacked???? -- Constable Odo
"Affirmative." -- computer
From Star Trek DS9
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 713
Unique Visitors website last week: 115
Editor(s): Londenp, Walter
Corrector(s): IDRex
Thanks to: pfctdayelise, Steven Fruitsmaak, SPQRobin, Splarka, MZMcBride
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
Anno Domini MMVIII Week I Number LXXXIX
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Page protection] - It is now possible to protect unborn articles and
deleted pages, with the normal protection levels: only sysops or
semi-protection. Also, auto-expire of the protection is available. To
protect a non-existent page (as sysop), you only need to request the
page and hit the "protect" button.
[Title blacklist] - A new extension is live on the wikis. The Title
Blacklist extension allows wiki administrators to block the creation,
movement and upload of pages whose title matches any among a list of
regular expressions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Titleblacklisthttp://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Title_Blacklist
[Special:Userrights] - Bureaucrats now have access to the special page
"Userrights". At this time this page is listed in the special pages
overview, but not yet in the sysops section. Manually enter
"Special:Userrights" in the location bar of your browser or in the
search box of Wikipedia to request this page. In the current form this
does not give extra rights to bureaucrats. The new special page only
combines the functionality of "MakeSysop" and "Makebot".
=== Request for help ===
[Fundraising] - The Fundraising website's layout and usability have
been enhanced. However, this also implies that new translations are
required.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/en - The English version of
the new donations page
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Cbrown1023/Donate - More
information about the translation request
=== Policy ===
[Stewards] - A rewrite of the steward policy is in progress. Comments
are welcome on the talk page. A vote is expected around the 15th.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Rewriting/Stewards_policy
=== Foundation ===
[Fundraiser] - Now at the very end of the fundraiser, a modest
matching donation of $50,000 has been made by an anonymous donor. The
current total balance is $ 1.43 million.
=== Community ===
[Image service] - A project on the English Wikipedia provides a really
quick and easy way to add an image to a person's biography article in
various language Wikipedias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BOTijo/Images_for_biographies
[Wikimania dates] - The dates for Wikimania 2008 in Alexandria have
been changed after a request by a group of people. The conference now
covers Thursday-Friday-Saturday, and is held 17 - 19 July 2008. This
way, the conference will fall into a single week, so that people have
to take less days off from their work to attend.
http://www.wikimania.org - The Wikimania website
[Photo submission] - Many Wikipedia articles about a person don't
feature a photograph yet. A new project on the English language
Wikipedia has started to ask people whose articles have no pictures to
submit one. A request for people to submit their images by email,
together with usage permission, has been included on the contact page
of the English Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contact_us/Photo_submission
[Stewards] - The confirmation of the "old" stewards has been
concluded. Four stewards did not make it, all due to inactivity:
Ausir, Romihaitza, Snowdog and Suisui.
=== Media ===
[Video] - Sue Gardner and Erik Moeller gave a presentation at
Stanford's Open Source Lab about Wikimedia and the Wikiversity
project, and shot a video of it.
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Stanford_Open_Source_Labhttp://blip.tv/file/551254
=== Stats ===
[Stats for all] - On the English language Wikipedia, an extensive
statistical overview of all the Wikipedias is included. In this
overview, you can see for example that the Volapuk Wikipedia (the 15th
largest) has grown by a stunning 18634% in 2007.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multilingual_statistics
[WP numbers] - The Arabic Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles and
the French Wikipedia has reached 600,000 articles.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_News -- more on this subject
=== Other news ===
[Reminder] - Soon, it will be the most important holiday of the year:
Wikipedia Day. On January 15, Wikipedia will be 8 years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_day
=== Did you know ... ===
... you can add a extra link to the upper right menu?
By including the code below on your [[User:Your_Name/monobook.js]]
page you get an extra link between "My talk" and "My preferences". You
can define the page it points to, and the name of the link, yourself.
It can be used, for example, to easily access a page where you collect
links to pages or websites you find useful.
The code:
/*Personal links*/
addOnloadHook(function() {
addPortletLink('p-personal','/wiki/User:Your_Name/Link_Target','Link_Name','pt-links','Link
title','!',
document.getElementById('pt-preferences'));
});
Note: change "Your_Name" to your account name; change "Link_Target" to
the page you want to link to; change "Link_Name" to the link name that
is to be shown. The shortcut key for this link is alt-shift-!.
=== Quotes ===
"An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A
pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves." -- Bill Vaughan
"It wouldn't be New Year's if I didn't have regrets." -- William Thomas
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art27040.asp -- More New Year quotes
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 706
Unique Visitors website last week: 157
Editor(s): Walter, Effeietsanders
Corrector(s): Oliphaunt
Thanks to: Adrian M. H., pfctdayelise
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a 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: 2007 Week: 52 Number: 88
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[No pictures?] - If users complain that the can not see any pictures
on the wiki the it can be the "upload.wikimedia.org" it being blocked
by adblock software. Possibly in an attempt to hide the fundraiser
banner.
=== Foundation ===
[Board resignations] - Michael Davis, Board member since the founding
of the WMF, has resigned as announced per December 1, 2007. Erik
Möller, elected Community representative since summer 2006 and
re-elected in July, also resigned in december. Anthere, Board Chair,
announced an appointment for Erik's seat soon, awaiting elections, and
in time also an appointment for Michaels seat.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23094
[Board expansion] - A lot of Board-related news nowadays, as Anthere
also announced that the Board will be expanded to 11 members. The time
schedule is not totally clear yet. Anthere also announced that she is
considering to reduce her work for the Wikimedia Foundation, after
four years of Board membership, of which 1,5 years as chair and if
elected join the board of Wikimedia France instead of chair of the WMF.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_expansion_december_2007http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23444
[Deputy Director] - Erik Moeller will become WMF's Deputy Director,
which was announced after Erik's resignation from the Board. On
Foundation-l the point was raised that for this newly created function
no public announcement was made for people to submit there candidacy
for this function. Also the move from the unpaid position as board
member to a new, paid, function raised questions. Sue Gardner,
Executive Director WMF and new boss of Erik, clarified the choice and
procedure. Key aspects were that Erik - because of his professional
background, community background and technical knowledge of the
technical side of WMF operations - is a very useful addition to the
WMF staff who have no WMF community background. The WMF is still
looking for people for some functions for the San Francisco office.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23208 --
Announcement by Sue Gardner
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23275 --
clarification by Sue Gardner
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23227 --
reservations about it
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings -- functions still open
[Fundraiser] - The fundraiser of the Wikimedia Foundation has been
extended until January 3, 2008. It was scheduled to end on december
22, 2007, but extended to be able to cover the holidays as well. This
is to benefited from the people in the USA who look at the last days
of the year for a good cause to donated to get a tax deduction. The
fundraiser started October 22, and is now already the longest
fundraiser ever. The current balance is around 1.25 million US dollar.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23368
=== Community ===
[Wikinews in Israel]] - Wikinews' David Shankbone wrote his first
report to his sponsored trip to Israel.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Israel_Journal:_The_Holy_Land_has_an_image_prob…
-- David Shankbone's first report
[Stewards] - New stewards have been appointed by the Board after the
2007 elections. The new stewards are: .anaconda, Andre Engels,
Dungodung, Jusjih, Lar, Millosh, Spacebirdy, Thogo, Wpedzich, Zirland,
DerHexer, Nick1915. Now that the new stewards have been appointed, the
Steward reconfirmations discussions can start. All stated objections
during the elections are being taken into account by all the stewards,
which will decide which of the stewards will be reconfirmed. Datrio
and Fantasy are already destewarded, as they did not want to stand for
reconfirmation.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23420 -
Announcement by Anthere
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/confirm -- Steward confirmation
=== Awards ===
[Web of the Year] - The Japanese Wikipedia won for the second time in
a row the "Web of the Year"-award, the most famous internet award in
Japan, organized by Yahoo-related groups and companies.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/23372http://woy2007.sbcr.jp/ -- website of the award, in Japanese.
=== Media ===
[Knol] - Media are still finding out that Google launched Knol, and
almost every article about this is reporting about the damage it may
do to Wikipedia. Nice thing to note is that (almost) no media consider
damage to traditional encyclopediae like Brittannica.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol -- If you missed lastWikizine
[COO] - The story about Wikimedia's Chief Operations Officer is
spreading now also to the more main stream media.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317887,00.html
[Bet] - Weblogs vs. The New York Times; Wikipedia wins.
http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/3302/long-bet-winner-weblogs-vs-new…
[US senate BIS] - Of the statement by Jimmy Wales before the US
senate, see Wikizine 87, is also a video. It is a video of 2 hours.
Jimmy does his thing at time index 00:34:25.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odvr4w2gMJYhttp://www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie/ -- tool to download the
video (282mb)
=== Stats ===
[New projects] - The Language subcommittee has conditionally approved
37 new language projects. Among them three new Wikiquotes, five
Wikinewses, one Wikisource, seven Wikiversities, eleven Wiktionaries
and ten Wikipedia's. This means that these projects can move on to the
Wikimedia Incubator project, and can get their own environment if they
succeed to establish the community and project.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
[Lombard Wikipedia] - The Lombard Wikipedia has currently only just
over 23000 articles, although that were over 117000 a few weeks ago.
This is the result of a massive cleanup of robot generated articles.
http://lmo.wikipedia.org
[DE Wikibooks] - The German Wikibooks has now its 10,000th page in the
main article namespace and reached so far a major milestone. We have
now 569 Books, 40 of them are ready and numerous have their own
printversion.
http://de.wikibooks.org
=== Other news ===
[Citizendium license] -- Larry Sanger announced that Citizendium will
use CC-BY-SA as a license. This means that Citizendium is freely
licensed as well, and if the GFDL and CC-BY-SA licenses become
exchangable in the future, Citizendium content could be used within
the Wikimedia projects.
http://tinyurl.com/2gby6p - The official announcement on Citizendium
[Amazon Kindle & wp] - As reported in Wikizine 85 Amazon (webshop) is
selling an ebook reader (kindle) that also provides access to
Wikipedia. Cali Lewis of Geekbrief.Tv explains more about how this
actually works. The device has a key "search" that can be used to
search a dictionary, the English language Wikipedia and the internet.
By means of a web browser function also the other languages editions,
Wikibooks, Wikinews and Wikisource can be read. Wireless access is
free of charge but it only works in the USA.
http://www.dearcali.com/wikipedia-on-the-kindle/ -- text explication
by Cali about the Kindle and Wikipedia
http://www.geekbrief.tv/gbtv-0277-dearcalicom -- Video version; time
index 3:15 for Wikipedia item
[Wikizine review] - In 2007 EN Wikizine presented 33 editions (extra
editions excluded) to our readers. The readership by means of email
increased by 18% this year. The number of unique visitors to the
website is going steadily downhill since the the seconded quarter of
2007. New language editions of Wikizine where launched this year.
There is now a Wikizine in the German, Spanish and Indonesian
language. The continuing publication of these new editions has been
troublesome and there readership, with the strong exception of the
Indonesian edition, highly disappointing despite the effort put in
those editions. EN Wikizine suffered also troubles and it came close
to termination of this project. The last months the effort of only a
few people sufficiently supported this project and provided the
necessary energy to continue Wikizine in to 2008 and hopeful well
beyond. Thanks for reading Wikizine people, and that is all for 2007.
http://www.wikizine.org
=== Did you know ... ===
... that you can expand your knowledge by subscribing to an email list?
You can subscribe to the Wikipedia-Daily-Article-List, and receive
every day an extract of the enwikipedia article of the day in your
maibox!
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l - subscribe
=== Quote ===
"Taking the risk of offending some people; Marry Christmas everyone
and a not to bad new year!" -- user:Walter in the "Quote" section of
Wikizine 88
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 703
Unique Visitors website last week: 173
Editor(s): Effeietsanders, Walter
Special thanks to: Cali Lewis of Geekbrief.tv
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news
(and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
******************************************
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\ /\ /| | <| |/ /| | | | | __/
\/ \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
.org
Year: 2007 Week: 51 Number: 87
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Printing] - As we all probably know, the layout for printing Wiki
pages is not the best. The Wikimedia Foundation announced a
cooperation with the Open Society Institute and the Commonwealth of
Learning to make an extension that will enable nice printing options.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikis_Go_Printable
[AMS-IX] - The Wikimedia Foundation received a Gigabit internet
connection at no cost from Amsterdam Internet Exchange (one of the
largest internet hubs world wide), for the "good of the internet".
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/AMS-IX
=== Request for help ===
[Greenspun] - The Philip Greenspun Illustration Project, coordinated
by Brianna Laugher (meta:user:Pfctdayelise), is now accepting requests
for image proposals to run in the project. If you really really want
an animation to be created, you can request it there, and there will
be a small amount of money available for the creator to stimulate the
creation. It is likely that the first round of this creation process
will start at the begin of January.
Our internal media collages of WikipediaWeekly have an interview with
Brianna about this.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Philip_Greenspun_illustration_projecthttp://wikipediaweekly.org/2007/12/14/episode-38-interview-wbrianna-laugher/
=== Foundation ===
[Wikinews] - Wikimedia Serbia has made a formal agreement with the
Serbian news agency "Beta news" for using there news articles in
Serbian and English on Wikinews.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.wikinews/773http://www.beta.co.yu/
[Wikimania 2009] - The formal start for the submissions for candidate
cities to host Wikimania 2009 is open now until 15th of February.
Reminder; for 2008 Wikimania is in Alexandria, Egypt.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2009
[Wikimania 2008] - The first public planning meeting was held on IRC
with many topics being discussed for 2 hours on Thurs Dec 13. Next
meeting was planned for Saturday 22nd Dec, 1500 (UTC).
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Meetings/20071213
[Staff] - The Wikimedia Foundation hired it's first new staff for the
relocation to San Francisco. Sue Gardner announced that Erica Ortega
will be the new Office Manager and Cheryl Steffen will be the Personal
Assistant for the Executive Directive.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/22805
[SR Wikimedia] - A translation and adaptation to local law of the
Creative Commons license in Serbian is presented. This is done with
the collaboration of Wikimedia Serbia.
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7911
[Felon?] - According to the blog "The Register" the former Chief
Operating Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation was a multiple convicted
felon. Concerns have been raised that the story told in the "The
Register" is inaccurate. Mike Godwin, the WMF legal consul, posted on
Foundation-l that the WMF can not give comments about this because of
legal restrictions. Mike Godwin did say that "the Foundation has
retained an independent firm that conducts criminal background checks,
consistent with state and federal law in the USA." Jimmy Wales also
promised that if it would turned out that money has been stolen he
will compensated it from personal funds. Jimmy promised that so that
people could feel comfortable about it, not that he expects there will
be a problem.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/13/wikimedia_coo_convicted_felon/
-- The Register
http://tinyurl.com/2hvor8 -- Wikinews report
[Chapters] -- The Wikimedia Foundation has officially approved two new
chapters: Wikimedia Sweden and Wikimedia Argentina.
=== Media ===
[Abuse] - Since the WikiScanner came up, the media are all the time
stunned by the fact that people, but also companies and governments
are actually editing Wikipedia, also on spots where they maybe should
not. However, the media are *still* reporting on numerous new found
governments and companies, such as recently the BBC and the US
Military. Although the bare facts might be boring to Wikimedians, it
is funny to see how media are still reporting this.
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article3255702.ece
[Signpost] - Wales’ comments on citing Wikipedia produce BBC correction
http://tinyurl.com/yvc82n
[Extra! Extra!] - News paper headline reads "U.S. military command
hacks Wikipedia". Translation; kindergarten level normal vandalisme on
article.
http://tinyurl.com/yr6br5
[Family reads also] - Articles about living people are also read by
direct family of these famous people. Jeff Tweedy, musician, says in
an interview that his son founded out things about the past of his
father by means of Wikipedia.
http://pages.citebite.com/w9q8c2xwcqu
=== Stats ===
[q:fr]- The French Wikiquote has reached 5,000 quotes. This project
was deleted in April 2006 (see Wikizine 19 Extra) and only restarted
one year ago in December 2006.
http://fr.wikiquote.org/
[Wiktionary 2nd in the World!] - At least according to Alexa.com for
the category of English language dictionaries.
http://tinyurl.com/2kon7y
[Daily Image] - Commons started in February with the service of
sending out the link to the Picture of the Day. There are now already
over 1000 people using this service.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-image-l
=== Other news ===
[Knol] - Google announced a new project, Knols. It will contain pages
with encyclopedic-like information, written by individuals, which will
appear at the top rank of Google. The writers will receive a share in
the advertisements. The big question is not: What license will Google
require? It is likely that this will raise a conflict of interest, now
Google is both publisher of information and search engine. Currently
content from the WMF projects is very highly listed in most search
requests. As a result very large amounts of traffic comes from Google
to the WMF projects.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/22897
[US senate] - Jimmy Wales has testified in the US senate about the
positive use wikis for the government can have. This is in relation of
an effort to make US government websites and databases more searchable.
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_7689792http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/121107Wales.pdf -- the statement of
Jimmy Wales before the US senate
=== Did you know ... ===
... that Wikinews has a weekly quiz about the current events of last week?
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/WN:QUIZ
Wikinews is using the MediaWiki extension "Quiz" for this function.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Quiz
=== Quote ===
"It's not the size of your tools that matter, but how you use them."
-- Cary Bass on IRC
"Then I asked if he was surprised that Google did it; "I am surprised
it took them so long. :)" -- Responds of Jimmy Wales in regard of the
Google Knol project.
http://battellemedia.com/archives/004152.php
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 703
Unique Visitors website last week: 195
Editor(s): Walter, Effeietsanders
Corrector(s): Londenp
Thanks to: Connel
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news
(and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
******************************************
__ __ _ _ _ _
/ / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __ ___
\ \/ \/ / | |/ / |_ / | '_ \ / _ \
\ /\ /| | <| |/ /| | | | | __/
\/ \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
.org
Year: 2007 Week: 50 Number: 86
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Inspector Gadget] - Our wikis support the function that you can put
in a subpage of your useraccount your own javascript. That is usually
/monobook.js This way you can change the behavior of the wiki or
include specific functionality. In the years several users have
written there own javascript modification. But to use them you need to
tinker a bit, create that subpage, copy the code and so. Not exactly
userfriendly for the no so technical Wikimadians. Now there is the
"Gadget" function. When this function is active on your wiki you have
a nice menu in the "Preferences" section to enable or disable the
extra javascript functionality. And that is all you need to do.
This function is active on the English and French Wikipedia and
commons. Go there and see how it works. To get this function also
active on you wiki; 1) discus it on your wiki and get censuses 2) make
a bugzilla ticket about it and wait 3) after a couple of weeks start
annoying people about it in #wikimedia-tech
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Gadgets
[Move page] - The function to move a page (to change the title) is
one that all logged in users have. On some wikis the restriction is
active that user who have a newly created account are not permitted to
move a page similar to semi-protection restrictions. There is now a
proposal, that seems to have clear support, to restrict page movement
by default on all wikis to non-new user accounts. Wikis can opt-out.
http://tinyurl.com/3avdfd
=== Foundation ===
[World Economic Forum] -- The Wikimedia Foundation is invited to the
World Economic Forum 2008 as Technology Pioneer out of a record number
of applications and nominees. The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a
Geneva-based foundation whose annual meeting is attended by top
business leaders, national political leaders and selected
intellectuals and journalists. As such is this a valuable opportunity
for the WMF to make contacts.
http://tinyurl.com/276asx - Wikinews Report
[Stewards] - the nomination election for stewards is nearing the end.
Your opinion can be given up to 16th December. At present there are 18
candidates for steward.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2007
[Fundraiser update] - the end of the current fundraiser, 22 December,
is coming near. At present about $ 1.1 million is donated. That is
more compared with the previous fundraiser of end 2006. But far below
the budget of 2008.
In an interview with the Wikipedia Signpost the Executive Director of
the WMF Sue Gardner says;"Yes, the online fundraiser will not cover
our operating costs - nor did we expect it to. And that's okay. We
have a couple of major donations coming in within the next few weeks:
they’ve been committed to, and will arrive in the bank before the new
year."
The bot posting the live donations feed in #wikimedia-donations is
down does not seem to come back anymore.
http://donate.wikimedia.org/en/node/22
=== Community ===
[I did not do it] - The main page of the English Wikipedia was briefly
deleted, 2 minutes or less, by an admin account. The user involved was
blocked after one minute and desysoped 5 minutes after the deletion of
the main page. After explanation by the user that it was his sister
who used his account the block was lifted. Moral of the story; logout
when you leave your computer alone, especially when you are a sysop or
higher.
[How Wikipedia works] - Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, Ben Yates and
Samuel Klein are writing a book on how Wikipedia works, and hope to
publish it (GFDL) early 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/35h72j Phoebes announcement on Foundation-l
[Arbcom DE] -- The German Wikipedia voted to keep the arbitration
committee (Schiedsgericht) and elected three new members.
http://tinyurl.com/2p48th - The voting page to keep the arbitration committee.
=== Awards ===
[Puerto Rico] -- The Puerto Rica Senate has honoured Wikipedian Marine
69-71 (Antonio Santiago) in an official resolution for "his dedication
to the cause of helping spread information about distinguished Puerto
Ricans through new media, and in particular, those who have served
with distinction in the military". Santiago is not only active on
Wikipedia, but also in other media.
http://tinyurl.com/2jgpda - The original (Spanish) resolution - see page 4
http://tinyurl.com/3dyhwq - Userpage of Marine 69-71
=== Media ===
[Interview Sue Gardner] - The Signpost has an interview with the new
Executive Director of the WMF, Sue Gardner. Her appointment as such,
she was already managing consultant, has been reported earlier.
http://tinyurl.com/2z7eqz
[Wikinews] -- Wikinews reporter and Wikimedia volunteer David
Shankbone has been invited by the Israeli government to join a (by
them financed) tour through the country, together with other
journalists. This is a nice recognition of Wikinews!
http://tinyurl.com/37dq22 - A blog about this news
[DEwiki rocks!] -- Stern Magazine (A German big Magazine) compared the
German language Wikipedia with Brockhaus, the traditional German
encyclopedia, on 50 articles. Stern concluded that Wikipedia was quite
better then Brockhaus both on Current Events and Correctness.
Brockhaus is considered to be better on readability. Although 50
articles is not fully representative, it is a great signal, and worth
a compliment for the German Wikipedia's editors.
http://whygive.wikimedia.org/2007/12/07/can-you-trust-wikipedia/ --
with image Cover of stern + 350 comments
[Nazi] - A German politician has filed charges against the German
Wikipedia because he finds that there are to many Nazi symbols used
in Wikipedia on the articles. In Germany it is illegal to display Nazi
symbols except for educational or artistic reasons. After a talk with
Wikimedia Deutschland the politician dropped the charges. The number
of illustration in the German language article about the Hitler-Jugend
is strongly reduced.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/07/wikipedia_germany_charges/http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL0616923220071206http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL0731501920071207
[Let's run a Wikipedia story] - One of several recent Wikipedia
storeys that made it around the globe was that of "The Secret Mailing
List Of The Evil Elite Administrators Of Wikipedia". Ironically the
"discovered" mailing list is actually a self assistance list for
victims of cyberstalking on Wikipedia. This news started by an article
of The Register.co.uk with user Durova in the spotlight. User Durova
stated that she was not contacted by the register to give here POV.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/06/wikipedia_and_overstock/http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/0333252http://tinyurl.com/aykjm -- English Wikipedia Village pump about this
[Onion?] - A story that reads more as a report from "The Onion.com".
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=3973925http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/UnNews:Main_Page -- more weird stories
=== Stats ===
[7th] - The online research institute Muliscope announced its yearly
list of the top 20 most popular websites in the Netherlands. The Dutch
language Wikipedia is up from the 10th place in 2006 to the 7th in 2007.
http://www.multiscope.nl/top-20-sites-van-2007.html
[Growth] -- In 1.5 years Wikimedia went from 10,000 to 50,000 HTTP
requests per second (peak)! Also Wikimedia handles a 30Tb of data
volume per day.
http://tinyurl.com/yh7t7j - Graph of HTTP requests
http://tinyurl.com/yqtkoh - Help from the Operator with the pocket calculator
=== Other news ===
[Cape Town Declaration] - Advisory Board member Melissa Hagemann
reported that a preview of the Cape Town Declaration is now available.
The Cape Town Declaration is about Open Education.
http://tinyurl.com/yt887x
[Wiki too free?] -- Katina Schubert, vice chair of Germany's radical
left-wing party "Die Linke", claims "to have reported Wikipedia to the
police for the use of Nazi insignia". Display of such is generally
forbidden by law, but perfectly legal for documentation or educational
purposes. The party website declares the charge aims to "introduce
political and ethical standards" in order to get rid of what they
consider extreme right-wing viewpoints. The issue has caused a lot of
press, almost exclusively in support of Wikipedia, and even Schubert's
own party criticises her for the action. She has now openly admitted
that this was not a stroke of genius.
http://tinyurl.com/2me5bv -- Reuters news
[Paper, now in full-colour] - electronic paper is the technology that
currently gives the best hope to give truly everybody cheap access to
the content of the projects. The currently still expensive devices
that support black and withe displaying are in production. Fuji Xerox
presented a prototype of full-colour electronic paper.
http://tinyurl.com/ynlrmn
[Theora Support] - Our projects use for video the format Ogg Theora.
But besides the WMF-projects use of Ogg Theora is not used by main
stream websites. And so are most computers not able to play it. The
Mozilla foundation and Opera are planning to include playback support
of Ogg Theora build in their browsers. This can result in increased
use of Ogg Theora and make the use of video content of our projects
easier for the readers.
http://tinyurl.com/3csgb7
=== Did you know ... ===
... that Wikinews does not show up on Google News? Wikinews does not
fit one of Google's criteria, that it can't that easily be edited? :)
EN Wikinews has because of that a blog where the news is posted and
that is included by Google News. Unfortunately that blog is updated
infrequently.
http://wikinewsreports.blogspot.com/
=== Quote ===
"When you start accusing everyone of being in on a conspiracy, you
shouldn't be surprised if they decide to confirm your paranoia by
banding together against you." — w:en:user:khaosworks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CABAL
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