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.org
Year: 2007 Week: 42 Number: 82
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
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=== Technical news ===
[New tool] - Magnus Manske created a tool called WatchFlickr. It runs through a
category, finds articles without images, and searches for relevant free,
Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr. Flickr is a website used for
sharing photos. The tool can help with replacing non-free/fair use images, by
allowing users to easily find free replacements on many related articles at
once. [source SignPost]
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/watchflickr.php
[Diff] - Sysops have now a "diff" option when viewing the history of a deleted
page
=== Request for help ===
[Wikizine] - This current edition of Wikizine is different from all others
before because it is created with the very substantial constructions of a few
other editors besides the editor-in-chief. Nevertheless your help is still
requested with Wikizine. Firstly for writing (parts of) Wikizine. And secondly
to provide information about your home-wiki. If you are interested please
contact the editor-in-chief using the link below or edit the next edition in
construction on Meta.
http://report.wikizine.orghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine
[Translations] - The upcoming fundraiser needs some translations for the
testimonials, which will be next to "wikilove" a central theme for the
fundraiser. Please follow this link for the translation requests:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translations#Current_requests
[Serbian National Library] - Wikimedia Serbia wants to cooperate with the
Serbian National Library, and Milos Rancic asks for input.
http://tinyurl.com/27zgeo
[Communications] - The "Communication Projects Group" is being reorganized and
is looking for new members. Follow this link:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communication_Projects_Group/Membership
=== Policy ===
[GSFDL] - A new licence by Free Software Foundation is under construction; the
"GNU Simpler Free Documentation License". It is possible that this licence will
replace eventually the currently used GNU Free Documentation License by most of
the Wikimedia projects.
http://tinyurl.com/2s6hwshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSFDL
=== Foundation ===
[Wikimania] - Next Wikimania in 2008 will be held in Alexandria, Egypt. This is
the 4th Wikipedia on a consecutive different continent. Extrapolation means
that the next Wikimania in 2009 might be in Australia or South-America. The
opening and selection of the city to host Wikimania 2009 is expected to be
concluded by the end of 2007. Anyone who would be interested in hosting
Wikimania in 2009 is strongly advised to start the process informally now.
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2008/Bids/Alexandriahttp://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-September/033411.html
[WMF Jobs!] - As a result of the move the Wikimedia Foundation world
headquarters from Saint-Peters burg to San Francisco (USA) the Wikimedia
Foundation is looking for several people for different functions for the new
office in San Francisco. These are not voluntary positions, you will get paid.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings
[Board meeting] - The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees held a board
meeting 6-7 October. A few of the conclusions were that the chapters meeting is
suspended, Florence Devouard will stay chair, Erik Möller executive secretary
and that Jan-Bart and Jimbo have been re-appointed for another year term as
board member. It has been decided that no further board members will be added
for now.
http://tinyurl.com/ytj7fa
[Wikimedia NL]- On 20 September, the Dutch chapter held a seminar about free
media (vrije media). Goal of the workshop was to inform organizations about the
possibilities of placing their media-collections under a free license.
Wikimedia Nederland organized the seminar in cooperation with Creative Commons,
and was supported by Kennisnet Ict op school. The organizations that were
invited are mostly organizations that are (partly) financed by the Dutch
national government (university museums, regional archives, etc). Although the
attendance was not very big, the seminar was a success, because of the
enthusiasm of the attending organizations. The following months, Wikimedia
Nederland will further advise those (and other) organizations about using free
licenses.
[Wikimedia IT] - [[:it:Utente:Frieda]] - WMF board member, former WM Italia
president and wikimedia evangelist - was invited by the Ministry of the Public
Education, to help starting a project to improve the diffusion of Wikimedia
projects in Italian schools and to involve more teacher and students to edit
and to produce free knowledge.
[Wikimedia CH] - The Swiss chapter has held their third Wikipediaday on Saturday
the 29th of September. The day made the national news. The main focus was on
people working in education.
=== Community ===
["Wikimania" also in USA?] - Next Wikimania will be in Egypt. One of the
"losers" is the bid of Atlanta in the USA. Because Wikimania will not come to
Atlanta attempts are now made to organize their own separate event for
Wikimedians from America. The "Conference of the Americas". Like the plans are
now the conference will be held in May 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/2sko9u
[EN-Wikipedia]] - It seems that the English Wikipedia has reached its peak 8
months ago, since then the amount of edits per day is falling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikipedia_Article_Edits_Minus_Reverts.png
[Deletion] - The deletion of the already closed Siberian Wikipedia is being
considered.
http://tinyurl.com/24np38
=== Media ===
[African Wikipedia] - An interesting inside story on the development of
Wikipedia's in South-African languages can be found on
http://www.icommons.org/articles/afrikaans-wikipedia-a-tiny-giant
[Lists of ...] - the 8 Most Needlessly Detailed Wikipedia Entries
http://www.cracked.com/index.php?name=News&sid=2411
[la.wp] - Veni, Vidi, Wiki: Latin Isn't Dead On 'Vicipaedia'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119103413731143589.html
[About en.wp] - "Delete generation rips encyclopedia apart"
http://tinyurl.com/25kctd
=== Stats ===
[Milestones] - The Vietnamese Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles. The
Italian Wikipedia has reached 350,000 articles. Commons hosts now 2,000,000
files and approaches the English Wikipedia as biggest project in term of pages.
The Kazakh Wikipedia reaches 1,000 articles. The Piedmontese Wikipedia reached
10,000 articles.
=== Other news ===
[Free view] - After discussion involving some wikipedians, the Italian
parliamentarian Franco Grillini, member of the Camera dei Deputati, proposed to
introduce freedom of panorama in the Italian copyright law.
[Picture permission] - [[:it:Utente:Senpai]] had contacts with the head of
Soprintendenza dei beni culturali of Firenze (the agency legally owning the
rights of reproduction of paintings and arts in the Florence museums) that
resulted in a chance of being authorized to use art related images on Wikimedia
projects. Not much time ago, the Soprintendenza asked firmly to remove all the
images taken in those museums (this applies only to photos made by Italians and
subject to Italian law).
[Fair use] - After a long debate that involved WM Italia, a group of
parliamentarians proposed a law amendment to allow fair use in Italy, "for
encyclopaedic use". This proposal is still being evaluated, but had positive
opinions from the Commissione Cultura and other institutions.
[CC-3.0] - Creative Commons is writing on a new license version, 3.01. The
public discussion has been opened.
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7718
[Veropedia] - Former WMF employee and long time Wikipedia editor Danny Wool
started together with a few other long time editors Veropedia, which wants to
re-use the Wikipedia content by improving it, and locking the good version on
their website.
http://www.veropedia.com
=== Was ist das? ===
[OTRS] - OTRS (Open-source Ticket Request System) is the system which is used
for answering questions and comments about Wikipedia and other
Wikimedia-projects. The teams consist of volunteers representing the different
communities. In order to help out you need to know the ins and outs of your
project. Besides, as the OTRS-members have access to private information, the
Foundation needs to know your identity.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS
=== Did you know ... ===
[Featured article] - There is a page on meta where you can compare the different
Wikipedias regarding featured articles. Featured articles is considered one of
the indicators for the quality of a Wikipedia, although the qualification
process differs per Wikipedia http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Featured_articles
[Extension] - There is an interesting extension which is used by the Wikiversity
projects. It can be used for making tests in order to let the participant of a
course find out if material in the course is understood; it might also be
useful for Wikibooks-projects http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Help:Quiz
=== Quote ===
[From EN-Wikiquote] - "You set up this fantastic site, with people sending
information all around the world, and you don't make any money of it! It's
practically an un-American activity!" from Clive Anderson, 2007-07-24, The
Wikipedia Story, BBC Radio 4.
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 699
Unique Visitors website last week: 148
Editor(s): Londenp, Walter, Effeietsanders
Thanks to: Jollyroger, Fruggo
Exceptional thanks to: Londenp, Effeietsanders
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
