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Year: 2007 Week: 31 Number: 78
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
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=== Foundation ===
[Wikimania 2007] - In a few days the Wikimedia event of the year will
start: Wikimania. From 3 Augusts until 5 Augusts in Taiwan. For so as
possible Wikizine will attempt to provide reports about Wikimania
during the event. Extra editions are probable but the blog that used
to post Wikizine in English will be updated frequently during the
days. Wikizine is at present one person who is not at Wikimania. So
all coverage will be limited to availability to online access to the
event. Attempts will be made to create audio recordings of some of the
presentations from the audio live-stream if present and to put those
online very soon. Contributions from people who are there are very
welcome.
On en.Wikizine.org can be found now;
# a countdown to the start of Wikimania
# 3 clocks providing the current time and date in Taipei, one for
UTC+0 and your local time.
# And also easy access to IRC.
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.orghttp://en.wikizine.orghttp://chat.wikizine.org -- webbased access to the IRC channels,
including #wikimania
[Wikipedia Academy] - Wikimedia Deutschland is organising the second
Wikipedia Academy to be held in Mainz on August 24th and 25th, 2007.
The conference will focus on the humanities in Wikipedia, aiming for a
dialogue between researchers and Wikipedians. The Wikipedia Academy
will be sponsored by the German Ministry for Education and Research.
The conference will be opened by Doris Ahnen, Minister of Education,
Research, Youth und Culture in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, and Elke
Lütjen-Drecoll, President of the Academy of Sciences and Literature. A
price, the "Johann Heinrich Zedler Medal" will be awarded. Wikimedia
Deutschland and the Mainz
Academy of Sciences and Literature award this prize for an outstanding
encyclopedia article in the area of the humanities. The Zedler Medal
comes with 3,000 Euro and is sponsored by the German scientific
journal "Gehirn&Geist". The selection jury consists of seven renowned
scientists.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/18958 -- Read more
[Correction of Wikizine 77 Extra] - regarding the results of the board
election; Michael Snow has the 5th place (and not the 6th), Danny Wool
has the 6th place (and not the 7th)
[Request for comments] - the community is invited to provide feedback
about the proceedings of the recent board election.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comments/Board_Election_2007
=== Technical news ===
[Special:ProtectedPages] - Now specifies whether pages are cascade
protected or not
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Protectedpages
=== Request for help ===
[Checkuser] - Request for feedback about the current check-user policy
and related matters.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/18974
=== Community ===
[Natinalistic Wikipedia?] - The topic was raised on the mailing list
Wikipedia-l that the Armenian Wikipedia was using a Wikipedia logo
with colors of the Armenian flag. Anthere (WMF chair) said about that
"Whilst I am supportive of temporary (as in "24 hours") fun logo for
special events, setting up a permanent derivative logo is really
wrong, in particular when it refers to a nation.". The Armenian
Wikipedia has changed the logo back to the normal one.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/30344
[Wikigame] - The first computer game in the Piedmontese language is
created, a clone of Colonization. For this BetaWiki, the wiki used
for the localization of MediaWiki was used. Piedmontese is a small
language spoken in a part of Italy and has its own Wikipedia.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/First_computer_game_in_Piedmontese_language
=== Media ===
["The Wikipedia Story"] - A half-hour BBC Radio 4 radioshow about Wikipedia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/ram/wikipediastory.ram -- RealAudio
Get "file not found?" If it does not work anymore and you wish to hear
the recording contact Wikizine
[SpyWiki] - A story has appeared on /. about an article claiming that
an admin on the English Wikipedia is a secret agent. Jimmy Wales
responded; "This story is demented and broken on so many levels, it
is quite difficult to know where to begin, even. Here we have an
excellent Wikipedia administrator who has been victimized by lunatic
conspiracy theorists, a private person who has absolutely no relation
to the wild stories that this article promulgates."
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=374006&rel_no=1http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/27/1943254http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=256781&cid=20018335
[Thank you wikipedia.com] - Not new but original. To make sure that is
no confusion about; this is not a real commercial for Wikipedia by
the Wikimedia Foundation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du1XrldPzn8
=== Stats ===
[Wikipedia] - Can Teenagers Write An Encyclopedia?
<quote>
Google has changed its search algorithm in late 2005-early 2006. I
have been monitoring 154 keywords on Google since 1999. Of these, the
number one (#1) search result in 128 keywords is now a Wikipedia
article. More than a quarter (38 out of 128) of these "articles" are
what the Wikipedia calls "stubs" (one or two sentences to be expanded
by Wikipedians in the future). Between 7 and 10 of the articles that
made it to the much-coveted number one spot are ... empty pages,
placeholders, yet to be written! (These results were obtained in early
2007).
</quote>
http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=3134&cid=1&sid=112
=== Other news ===
[Metapedia] - not a Wikimedia project - is the "alternative
encyclopedia dedicated to the pro-European cultural struggle". It uses
the racistic POV.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/metapedia/http://www.metapedia.org/
=== Quote ===
"But even with all of its flaws and failures, America is still a
democracy, and Americans still enjoy certain basic freedoms that are
unknown to the average Chinese. In our panic over economic questions,
we've forgotten that many, if not most, Chinese citizens are still
living in desperate conditions under a repressive government. Jimmy
Wales hasn't forgotten that. May the founders and executives at
Google, Yahoo and others learn from his example." -- From "Free wikis
for China" by Caille Millner
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/29/EDGGDR5N211.DTL
//////////////////////////////////////////
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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
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Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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.org
Year: 2007 Week: 28 Number: 77 Extra
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Board election ===
The results of the board election are published. The 3 elected
candidates to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation are;
1. Erik Möller [[w:en:user:Eloquence]] (renewal) with 1671 votes
2. Kathleen Walsh [[w:en:user:Mindspillage]] (renewal) with 1427 votes
3. Frieda Brioschi [[w:it:Utente:Frieda]] (new board member) with 1254 votes
The are appointed immediately to the board. There term will run until
the board election of 2009.
Board member Oscar van Dillen is not reelected and his term is now
expired. Oscar came at the 4th place in the election after Frieda with
1234 votes.
At the 6th place we have Michael Snow (Signpost) with 1229 votes and
7th Danny Wool [[w:en:user:Danny]] with 1217 votes.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/Resultshttp://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/18543
//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): 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.
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: 28 Number: 77
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Spam-blacklist] - For a long time is there on meta the spam
blacklist. That list is used to make it impossible to save a page the
contains the domains the are listed on the blacklist. More recent but
also since a long time the local wikis have a local white-list to
overrule the global blacklist on Meta. Now there is also a local
blacklist. So if you want to block a domain it can be blocked by
requesting to include it on the global list on meta or you can put it
on your local list so it is only blocked on your wiki.
[[MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist]]
[[MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist]]
[New special page] - There is new special page and it is even a useful
new special page. [[Special:DeletedContributions]]. By means of this
page a sysop can very easy get a list of all the deleted contributions
of any user.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/32551
[Ugly bug] - One of the fundamentals of concept of the wiki-software
is that you can see in the history who has edited what and when.
Tuesday there was a bug in the system of the wikis that resulted in
random edits being saved to an other specific article on that wiki. On
the dutch Wikipedia the edits ended up in the article about Albert
Speer. This bug is fixed now. The result is that users could have done
a normal edit from there point of view edit but when you look the edit
is saved and logged in an totally other article. So it could look like
you have vandalized that article when reviewing the history.
=== Request for help ===
[Wikizine] - The English edition of Wikizine is looking for a core
editor, the German version for a translator. Please only respond if
serious.
http:/report.wikizine.org
[Wikimedia Canada] - The people attempting to found a Canadian chapter
are looking for people to help out, especially with the legal stuff.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada
=== Foundation ===
[Board elections] - The elections are closed. The results are expected
to be announced on July 15. There are 4179 votes counted. Invalid
votes are not yet deducted from that number.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-07-09/Board_…https://wikimedia.spi-inc.org/index.php/Reports/Day_10
[New hire] The WMF has hired Mike Godwin as "General Counsel and Legal
Coordinator" = the WMF lawyer. Mike Godwin is the person most geeks of
us know from "Godwin's Law".
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/17982http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-07-09/New_hi…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Godwin
[Wikimania] - The first draft version of the schedule for Wikimania is
online. Being a draf it can change but at least now you can have an
idea about what will happen.
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schedule
[Board meeting] - Report of the in person board meeting in june in
the Netherlands.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/June_1-3%2C_2007
[Removal] - Carolyn Doran, who works as Chief Operating Officer since
January 2007 for the WMF, is removed from the list of the current
staff of the WMF. This suggests that Carolyn does not work anymore for
the WMF.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Current_staff
[Wikimedia Taiwan] - The WMF has given Wikimedia Taiwan the formal
status as a Wikimedia Chapter.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Taiwanhttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_Taiwan
=== Community ===
[Murder he wrote] - On the EN Wikipedia an anonymous users included in
the article about [[w:en:Chris Benoit]], professional wrestler, that
his wife was dead. This was many hours before the police discovered
the wife of Chris benoit (and himself and son) dead. Writing that
someone is dead before the police knows about it is suspicious
behavior. It was noticed and reported by EN Wikinews. Also the police
noticed this event and investigated it. The anonymous user posted on
the talk pages of EN Wikinews extensive statements that it was all a
coincidence and that he had nothing to do with the dead. The police
was able to locate the anonymous users was after interrogation
convinced that he was not involved with the murders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-07-02/Wrestl…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Benoithttp://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Death_of_Nancy_Benoit_rumour_posted_on_Wikipedi…http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Chris_Benoit_mystery_editor_confesses:_Claims_%…
[DE Wikipedia] - The German Wikipedia will get support from the German
state. The idea is to pay experts to work on certain articles on the
DE Wikipedia that are about or related to renewable resources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-07-02/German…http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/26/159232
[Wikiclosed] - The Chocktaw Wikipedia has been closed. Chocktaw is a
Native American language with arround 9200 speakers. Also Wikipedias
in Kwanyama, Muscogee and Hiri Motu languages are closed. End the
Wiktionaries in Rhaetian and Tibetan languages are closed also.
http://cho.wikipedia.org/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choctaw_language
=== Media ===
[japan] - Newspaper obituary plagiarizes Japanese Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-07-09/Japane…
=== Stats ===
[Vote stats] - Gregory Maxwell has made some graphs to help to
understand the impact of the Board elections across projects. That
graphs are very clear: the board is elected by the English Wikipedia.
Only when you put all the non-EN Wikipedia votes together and besides
the votes from the EN Wikipedia the number of votes comes in the
neighbourhood of the number of EN Wikipedia votes. Many users have not
voted. Depending of the project between 2,5% and 20% of the possible
voters have voted. Not only the voters where not very enthusiastic
about these elections. From the 15 candidates only 5 accepted the
invitation of Wikizine to present them self to the communitity.
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~gmaxwell/election_analysis/ivote3/graphs.html
[nds.wp] - The Low Saxon Wikipedia now has reached 10,000 articles
with the article on Erskine Caldwell
http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_Caldwell
=== Other news ===
[Wiki Maps] - Openstreetmaps.org is a community project to make free
maps of the world. These are made by a community of volunteers. The
collect the information needed to make the maps from volunteers who
import data from GPS-units that then is used as the raw data for
making the maps and drawing the roads. There are places where the
streets are present in great detail but in general there maps are
still largely empty. The company Automotive Navigation Data has
decided to release there street database of the Netherlands under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence. This will mean
the there will become a free streetmap available of the Netherlands on
Openstreetmaps.org when the data is processed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStreetMaphttp://www.opengeodata.org/?p=223http://www.openstreetmap.org/
[Special offer] - Wikizine will provide mailing list hosting service
on request to its readers for Wikimedia related activities. This most
explicitly is not indented to replace the mailing list hosting
service of the WMF. This service is intented as a supplementary
service when a WMF list is not practical or possible. This is in
situations you need very quickly a list for some small temporary
project or as an temporary mailing list while waiting for the creation
of the official WMF list. Creation is subject to approval by the
editor of Wikizine.
== Did you know ... ==
... What WikiGroaning is?
It is the art of comparing the level of two things nerdyness based off
Wikipedia results.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/wikigroaning.phphttp://www.wikigroaning.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikigroaning#Systemic_bias_in_coverage
=== Quote ===
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. -- Mike Godwin"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 671
Unique Visitors website last week: 294
Editor(s): Walter
Thanks to: Slomox, NielsF, 555
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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