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.org
Year: 2006 Week: 52 Number: 55
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Auto patrol] - If a user has the "autopatrol" right, then their edits are
auto-marked as patrolled. If a user does not have this right, then they can not
mark their own edits as patrolled in the normal fashion.
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5411
[Check user] - the interface for check user has been changed. There is now a
field to provide a reason for the check. The log where you can see that can
only been seen by checkusers.
=== Foundation ===
[Stewards] - The Wikimedia Foundation appointed 12 new stewards; M7, Redux,
Effeietsanders, Dbl2010, Shanel, Pathoschild, Guillom, Bastique, Drini,
Darkoneko ,Cspurrier, MaxSem
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2006-2http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards
=== Community ===
[User:†††††] - When SUL is implemented all users have
one user account for all wikis. But also one user name. And because the many
languages use different writing systems it means that user names also are
written in very different characters. When used on Wikis not using that system
writing system it can be that it is impossible to read those user names. This
because of unknown writing system for the normal users there or because the are
displayed as ††††† because of lack of font support on
the computers used by most of the users of that wiki. On some wikis it happens
that people with "foreign" user names are blocked because of that. An extensive
discussion is ongoing on the mailing list about that and also some possible
technical solutions.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12576/focus=12576http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12666/focus=12666http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12909/focus=12909
[DE Wikipedia DVD] - the German language Wikipedia has made a new version of
there DVD. It has the look and feel of the real Wikipedia
http://wikipedistik.de/2006/12/06/wikipedia-dvd-20062007/http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DVD#Screenshots
=== Media ===
[Something Search] - This weeks buzz is the news of a new project of Wikia for a
search engine site. The idea is to make a "wiki-inspired search engine". As
usually several media mixed up Wikia and Wikipedia. Also a screenshot form the
unrelated Wikia project "Wikisearch" that currently is in beta and not open is
to the public caused confusion.
http://tinyurl.com/w6gyd - EN Wikinews
http://tinyurl.com/y3rm5a - Wikipedia: A free search engine?
http://search.wikia.com - the wiki about the new project
http://tinyurl.com/ykz9pr - techcrunch.com and there "exclusive screenshot", 120
comments
=== Stats ===
[vls.wikipedia] - The West Flemish Wikipedia reaches 1,000 articles. This
Wikipedia has only started in April 2006. The idea of Wikipedia in this dialect
was not taken serious by many when founded and regarded as a "joke-wikipedia".
Now this Wikipedia has jumped over many other older Wikipedias and is now a
viable Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Flemishhttp://vls.wikipedia.org
[nl.wikipedia] - And the have now passed the 250,000 mark with an article about
Pierre Soulages, a French painter, engraver and sculptor.
http://nl.wikipedia.org
=== Other news ===
[Google Earth] - Google has added Wikipedia to the default setup of Google
Earth. Google Earth is software the gives a virtual version of the planet
Earth. (win/mac/Linux) If you have Google Earth go to; layers -> Primary
database -> geographic web -> wikipedia. The result is that you will see the
Wikipedia globe appear on certain
places. When you click on them you get information about the location in a
pop-up. The information for placing a globe icon comes from the templates on
certain articles that contain the geographical co-ordinates of the topic of the
article. It is nice but the implementation can be improved. There is also
Wikipedia community layer that contains a lot more links.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/opening-my-eyes-to-whole-new-world.h…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth#Wikipedia_and_Panoramio_mashuphttp://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Georeferenzierung/Wikipe…
=== Did you know ... ===
... what a Wikipedia Christmas-vote is?
A Christmas vote is an around the 24the of December on Wikipedia organized
advisory poll. The objective is to on completely informal basis figure out
of Wikipedia is or not an appropriate place for wishing your fellow man
pleasant Christmas days.
=== Quote ===
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for.
-- Unknown source
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 570
Unique Visitors website this week: 297
Editor(s): Walter
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://en.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.
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
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.org
Year: 2006 Week: 51 Number: 54
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[(+338)] - New anti-vandalism function is included to the recent changes. When
an edit is made it now shows up in the RC how many characters are removed or
added. This function is also added to the IRC-stream of the recent changes. To
use is conect to irc.wikimedia.org with a IRC-client and go to #xx.wikiproject
= so FR Wikibooks is #fr.wikibooks
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1085
[Site notice] - registered users have now the option to hide the site notice
messages. It works with a cookie. The cookie expires after one month. To view
the the site notice again or delete the cookie "dismissSiteNotice" or a sysop
must give the site notice a new ID-number. This can be putting in
MediaWiki:Sitenotice_id a number other then the current ID-number. Ad one digit
or use a random number. Translate MediaWiki:Sitenotice_close for the "close"
link.
Reminder; if the site notice shown to the anonymous users must be the same as
for the registered users then you can keep MediaWiki:Anonnotice empty. Then
MediaWiki:Sitenotice will also be used for anonymous visitors.
[Oversight] - this is an technical function that can be used to censor the
history of an article. The difference with a normal dentition is that there is
no undo like for the deletion function. Also also for sysops it is gone if
used. It is actually a function to hide things that also the sysop are not
supposed to see anymore. Using this function to hide a edit is more user
friendly the if you are a sysop; you can hide a specific version without
deleting and restoring the article like you must do as an sysop to hide a
version. It is in use on the English Wikipedia. It is now technical possible
for a steward to grant "oversight" status to any user on any WMF-project.
Discussion is now in process about who can be trusted with this function.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12589/focus=12589http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight
=== Foundation ===
[Pledge] - Jan-Bart de Vreede (the new board member of the WMF since last week)
has posted his pledge of pledge of allegiance to the Wikimedia Foundation
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12476/focus=12476
[Fundraising] On the sixth day of the official Fundraiser, over $USD 100,000 has
been given in donations. There is a special website "Wikimedia Fundraising
C.O.R.E." to see the details of the donations coming in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-12-18/Fundra…http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/
=== Community ===
[Interwiki] - Report from the German Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-11-06/Interw…
=== Media ===
[Zeitgeist] According to Google's year-end 2006 Zeitgeist, Wikipedia was the
sixth most popular search term. Other common queries included several social
networking sites.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2006.html
[Wikipedia=Wikia?] - Wikia announced recently that the are going to give free
hosting away and also the profit of the ads on those websites. No problem. But
in a fair amount of articles in the press it was presented as if Wikia was the
commercial part of Wikipedia. And, besides incorrect, headlines like "Wikipedia
offers free web hosting" are not good message when holding a fund raiser. A
fair amount of articles have been corrected after there publication. This type
of articles is also been confirmed published in the Dutch and French press.
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8027/53/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia
=== Stats ===
[China] - Wikipedia maybe blocked but is still very popular sites in china. It
is the 1st online encyclopedia and the 3th general reference site.
http://www.andrewlih.com/blog/2006/12/19/wikipedia-in-china-still-ranks-hig…
[mt.wp] - The Maltese Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles. All European main
state languages have now passed this benchmark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_language
=== Other news ===
[Name change] - It was started as "The Ultimate Wiktionary", later is was
renamed to "WiktionaryZ" and now it is OmegaWiki. OmegaWiki is a collaborative
project to produce a free, multilingual resource in every language, with
lexicological, terminological and thesaurus information. OmegaWiki is also the
first implementation of the Wikidata technology. Wikidata brings relational
data to MediaWiki. OmegaWiki is not a Wikimedia foundation project. But the
Stichting Open Progress, the foundation running OmegaWiki, and the WMF are
working together.
http://wiktionaryz.blogspot.com/2006/12/last-post-for-this-blog.htmlhttp://www.omegawiki.org/
=== Did you know ... ===
... that no only facts in articles can be false but also pictures or video?
The truth is out there, possible. The lie is out there certainly. Never ever was
it so easy as today to change photographs or video-recordings. Or make totally
fabricated material. The fact that it comes comes from a reputable source is
not a guarantee that is not fake.
Last week the Belgian public television of the French community interrupted the
normal evening programs for a special news bulletin. The normal journalists in
the normal setting reported the news that the parliament of the Northern part
of Belgium just had unilaterally declared its independence, that the King had
fleet the country and picked lines on the border between North and South where
in place. This with live reports and interviews with politicians. It was all
totally and completely false. Most viewers (89%) believed what the television
was reporting. Some other news agencies distributed the "news" the Belgium has
ceased to exist to the world.
Luckily elaborate deception is not the rule. Or can you notice directly that
there is something wrong with this picture ...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ysQzXT_lBWo
=== Quote ===
ST. PETERSBURG -- -Rumors that Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales might be moving to
Silicon Valley from his home here prompted two reactions from Tampa Bay
business leaders.
1. "We can't let this happen."
2. "We didn't even know he lived here."
http://tinyurl.com/yysv8v
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 572
Unique Visitors website this week: 387
Editor(s): Gary Kirk, Walter
Sources: Omegawiki
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://en.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.
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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.org
Year: 2007 Week: 50 Number: 53 Tech flash
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
The fund raiser is now live! The fund raiser banner must be or must come on the
top of all WMF websites. The banner will only appear automatically if
[[MediaWiki:Anonnotice]] and/or [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] are never been updated
before.
So this means for most wikis the banner needs to be manually activated.
To have a successful fund raiser the banner must be on the projects wikis. The
instructions for how to get the banner working on your home wiki can you find
on this page;
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_sitenotice_2006_Q4
Notice the new option "close" for registered user. This can hide the banner.
Please only translate the text, nothing else. Please help with this, this is
paying the bill. When you get the banners working for your home-wiki do not
forget the other projects in you language. Check them and updated them there
to, if you do not have sysop rights there ask it to local admin, put a notice
in there local village pump.
=== Request for help ===
For the fund raiser some documents and pages still need translation.
Please go to;
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests#Current_requests
and see how you can help with translating. Meta is also a wiki, so you can do
it.
There is also a new type of donation page. It is already created for a fair
amount of languages but many still have the old one.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:DavidStrauss/Fundraising_Translati…
Please first verify that the content of the current donation page in your
language is not plain wrong. And then try to make also a one in the new style.
If you need help with one of the places to look for it are the IRC channels. You
can use the IRC-service of Wikizine;
http://chat.wikizine.org
And try #wikimedia-tech , #wikimedia or #wikimedia-stewards
If you can use your own IRC-client, the one of wikizine is sometimes blocked in
certain channels.
//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Walter
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://en.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.
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
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.org
Year: 2006 Week: 50 Number: 53 Extra
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Request for help ===
Anthere, Chair of the WMF, has send the following request to Foundation-l;
<quote>
Hello
As roughly announced last week, the fundraiser will start *tomorrow*.
A bunch of things still need to be fixed, and in particular, WE NEED
HELP to translate the fundraising page.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:DavidStrauss/Fundraising
We need it at minimum for tomorrow in english, german, french, spanish,
swedish, japanese, italian, dutch...
Please help us with the translation.
The page in on Foundation because it requires html (will not work on
meta) and is using rather complex templates. If you need help and more
generally, please contact Danny (dwool ATTTT wikimedia.org).
These are the most urgent languages, others are welcome as well of
course. Please coordinate either with Danny or with Aphaia and transcom.
Thank you for your help
Anthere
</quote>
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12388/focus=12388
//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Walter
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://en.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.
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
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.org
Year: 2006 Week: 50 Number: 53
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Redirect] - It is now possible to redirect to a specific section of the target page. The syntax is; #REDIRECT[[Target page#Traget section]] This only works when JavaScript is enabled; otherwise, the redirect will lead to top of the target page.
http://bugs.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=218
[OS swap] - The developers seem to be changing the operating systems used on the servers from Fedora to Ubuntu. Both are Linux distributions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28Linux_distribution%29
[Python Wikipediabot] - The Python Wikipediabot framework has been updated.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/28863http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pywikipedia
[tEmplate] - On most projects, the first letter of an article title starts with a capital letter, but some subjects are correctly spelled with a starting lowercase letter. There is a way around this by using a special template that changes the appearance of the title with JavaScript.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Lowercase - the template
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/iPod - the template in action
=== Request for help ===
[License Wikizine] - Wikizine is currently using the GNU Free Documentation License. A request has been made to change that; reader feedback would be useful.
http://tinyurl.com/yyvmp8
=== Foundation ===
[New boardmembers] - The Wikimedia Foundation has appointed 3 new board members. These are [[w:en:user:Mindspillage]] (Kat Walsh), [[w:nl:Gebruiker:Oscar]] (Oscar van Dillen) and Jan-Bart van Kennisnet (Jan-Bart de Vreede). Kate and Oscar were candidates in the last board election that appointed Eloquence (Erik Möller). For personal descriptions, see their board election candidacy statements linked below. Jan-Bart was an unexpected appointment; he was not a candidate for the board elections, but was appointed directly by the board. Jan-Bart has significantly supported Wikimedia projects by means of the Kennisnet organization and the Dutch ICT organization for the schools. Kennisnet is providing hosting facilities in Amsterdam for the Wikimedia Foundation. It is also thanks to the support of Kennisnet that the WikitionaryZ project was able to start. Jan-Bart was also present at Wikimania2006 with a presentation titled "The Use of Wikis and Wikipedia in Dutch Education" (no recording/transcript available).
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12312http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Board_expansionhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006#Mindspillagehttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006#Oscarhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jan-Barthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennisnet
[Financial audit] - Brad Patrick announced the public release of audited financial statements for the Wikimedia Foundation for the fiscal years 2004, 2005 and 2006 inclusively. The results of the audit were positive for the Foundation, and help to establish it as a reputable charitable organization. This will improve chances of getting external support for our projects.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12330/focus=12330
[Bylaws] - A new version of the Wikimedia Foundation's bylaws have been posted. These are the rules governing the internal management of the Foundation.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12352
[WMF/Chapters] - The Wikimedia Foundation approved a default agreement between itself and its chapters. The agreement describes the Foundation's relationship with the chapters.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12351http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Agreement_between_chapters_and_Wikimedi…
[Fund raising] - The start of the fundraising drive has been delayed, but it is still expected to start (very) soon.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12315
=== Community ===
[Interwiki] - A report in the Wikipedia Signpost talks about the Japanese Wikipedia's growth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-10-30/Interw…
[ne.wikipedia] - The Nepali Wikipedia has become the second Wikipedia to enable a JavaScript-based input editor that allows the user to type directly in Devanāgarī. The script, designed by Tatari, addresses text-entry problems faced by languages that do not use a Latin-based alphabet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devan%C4%81gar%C4%ABhttp://ne.wikipedia.org/
=== Awards ===
[ja.wikipedia] - The Japanese language Wikipedia has won the Yahoo "Web of the Year 2006" award and one in the "Information Resource on the Web" category. These awards are awarded specifically for websites written in Japanese. The Wikimedia Foundation was represented at the ceremony by Imaizumi Makoto (known as Suisui on Wikipedia), who commented that "besides hardware, Wikipedia is supported by Japanese volunteers. We are happy to see such a website awarded." A video of the award ceremony is available.
video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=YHH63IDJa6chttp://www.sbcr.jp/yig/woy2006/WOY2006.htmlhttp://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/0612/07/news010.html
=== Media ===
[On CBS] - CBS, one of the largest television and radio networks in the United States, has made a broadcast about Wikipedia. It was nothing spectacular, just a basic story on Wikipedia for any people that are unaware of it. The news report is 7 minutes 36 seconds in length, and was broadcast on a Sunday morning. The video is available online.
http://tinyurl.com/skqb3 - direct link to RealMedia video stream
http://preview.tinyurl.com/skqb3 - try this if the first does not work
http://tinyurl.com/wbtgx - written article of the item
=== Stats ===
[Interwiki-stats] - Andre Engels has made a new list of articles with the most interwiki links on Wikipedia projects that gives some interesting results. The article with the most interwiki links is [[w:en:India]] with 233 language links; next is [[w:en:True Jesus Church]] with 161. Fourth place is [[w:en:Wikipedia]] with 142 links.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Common_Interwiki_linkshttp://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/28829
[Netherlands] - The Dutch edition of Wikipedia experienced significant growth in 2006. This is reflected in its website rankings, where it went from the 45th most popular Dutch-language website at the beginning of 2006 to the 10th most popular website in the Netherlands.
http://www.multiscope.nl/organisatie/nieuws/berichten/top-20-sites-van-2006…
[qu.wp] - The Quechua Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles. It is the first Native American language wiki with some many articles.
http://qu.wikipedia.org/
[tk.wp] - The Turkmen Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
http://tk.wikipedia.org/
=== Was ist das? ===
Matching donations: a form of sponsorship. For every unit a person or organization sells, the sponsor will double it. This can be in the form of money, goods or services. This is often used by schools or youth organizations. For example, cakes can be sold, and for every cake sold the sponsor will donate the value of one extra cake. In return, the name of the sponsor is often included in marketing materials as a form of recognition for their donation.
LOL: Laughing Out Loud. Used in written form for expression of emotion. Used in email, chat and similar forms of informal written communication
OT: Off-Topic. When something is not appropriate for the location where it is used. Usually used for situations regarding chat rooms, mailing lists or news groups
=== Quote ===
We're all standing on the edge of a cliff, all the time, every day, a cliff we're all going over. Our choice isn't about that. Our choice is about whether we want to go kicking and screaming or whether we might want to open our eyes and our hearts to what happens once we start to fall." -- Character Allie Keys / science fiction miniseries "Taken"
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 573
Unique Visitors website this week: 357
Editor(s): Walter
Corrector(s): Pathoschild, Lantoka
Thanks to: Andre Engels
Used sources: Wikimedia Foundation website
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://en.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.
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
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.org
Year: 2006 Week: 49 Number: 52
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Login] - The universal login, that you have one username & password for *all*
wikis, is again a step closer to reality. Brion is testing the migration.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:News/2006-11-30/Unified_login_in_t…
[Sort-function] - it is now possible for tables to have the option to be sorted
by date, alphabetical order or numerical order. However, it is not possible to
sort numbers with a dot or comma in them. Javascript must be on to make it
work. Use "class="prettytable sortable" for the table.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/Example#52 - Example
[Undo]- when viewing the diffs of page you have edited on, also as an anonymous
user, there is now an extra button "undo". It is not like the rollback
function, it only goes to an edit screen where you can modify that revision.
The localize; MediaWiki:Editundo
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/28195…
[New HTML-dump] - New static HTML dumps of Wikipedia have been made, except the
English Wikipedia (due to technical problems). If it can be fixt the English
one will also come online soon.
http://static.wikipedia.org/http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/28160…
=== Politics ===
[Censure?] - Wikipedia, and other websites, are reported to be blocked in Iran.
But then later they were also reported to be again unblocked. Also, there where
recently reports of a block of Wikipedia in Tunisia but a little later the
block was lifted.
http://tinyurl.com/y7bvqchttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_block_in_Iran
=== Foundation ===
[Fundraiser] - The Wikimedia Foundation will start a new fundraiser campain this
Friday (2006-12-08), but it is possible it might be delayed for a few days. If
there is translation work needing to be done then you can find it on
[[meta:Translation requests]]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests
[Board] - Anthere provided feedback about a board meeting at end of November.
Please read Anthere's post. Some highlights;
- the board will be expanded to probably 11 members by July 2008
- 3 board members will be added by appointment before the end of the year
on the board, until next elections in July 2007. (includes replacement for Tim
Shell)
- every year there will be board elections for the board
- an audit of the WMF has been done. The result was positive and will be
published soon.
- the idea of an advisory board for the WMF is being implemented. Candidates are
being contacted.
- the board informally approved new bylaws for the WMF.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12108
[fr.wikiquote] - end of March 2006 the French language Wikiquote was deleted and
closed and by the WMF because of copyright problems. Now a new and empty wiki
is again online.
http://fr.wikiquote.orghttp://en.wikizine.org/2006/03/wikizine-number-19-extra.html
=== Awards ===
[ru.wikipedia] - The Russian Wikipedia has won the Russian national internet
award in the "Science and education" category. There is no money involved in
this award but they do get a very nice trophy and publicity. The award ceremony
will be broadcast on the television so this can give more visibility to the
Russian Wikipedia in Russia.
http://tinyurl.com/yb7m5a - Machine translation
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Premia_Runeta_2006http://www.premiaruneta.ru/
=== Media ===
[censor/bias] - the Hearld Tribune and the New York Times publicized an article
about self censorship of the sensitive articles on the Chinese Wikipedia.
Feedback for the Chinese Wikipedia suggests that the article is misleading.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/29/news/wiki.phphttp://www.andrewlih.com/blog/2006/11/29/howard-french-on-chinese-wikipedia/http://twofish.wordpress.com/2006/11/30/note-on-new-york-times-article-abou…http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/12044/focus=12044
[Non-Notable] - the Washington Post noticed that if your are non-notable then
your article gets deleted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/02/AR200612020…
=== Stats ===
[1000000] - Commons has breached the 1 million mark of files on the 30th of
November. Commons was launched on September 7, 2004. A mosaic is made for this
occasion containing 1200 images forming the Wikimedia logo.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/1Mhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_logo_mosaic - Wikimedia logo made of
1200 tiny pictures
=== Other news ===
[Compare] - It happens frequently that people who are not well informed, like
journalists, think that every website where you can edit the pages is "a
Wikipedia". The software Wikipedia uses is, of course, MediaWiki. MediaWiki is
"a wiki" but there are many others. Wikimatrix.org attempts to present all
those different wikis there out there and to make it possible to compare them
easily.
http://www.wikimatrix.org/
[Wikia, Inc.] - has taken over Armchairgm.com for $2 US million in cash and
Wikia stock. Armchairgm writes that they are "a fan-based sports community
built on a customized MediaWiki (Wikipedia) engine that combines blogs, news,
and voting, with the power of a sports-wiki."
http://armchairgm.com/ - only works if you enable javascript
[Parody] - A not to bad parody of Wikipedia templates
http://www.cracked.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=12…
=== Did you know ... ===
... there is an interesting program for MacOSX to navigate Wikipedia?
It displays a graphical "network" representation of your visited article pages.
A node represents an article, and a connection between two nodes means that you
have gone from the first article to the second one. You can save the network
you've created to disk and recover it. This way, you are able to keep track of
everything: what you've looked at, how you get there, and just how it all fits
together.
http://pathway.screenager.be/2006/11/25/pathway-06/
=== Quote ===
"My first sight of the office was an open door with a big (Wikipedia)
poster on it. All other offices in that building have closed doors.
After one walks past the poster, one gets in a corridor with the signed
Wikimania banner. And it is open...
Who else than us could have office doors open this way ?" -- Anthere about the
WMF-office
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Editor(s): Walter
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Thanks to: JePe, Angela
E-mail: ihavenews AT wikizine DOT org
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