******************************************
__ __ _ _ _ _
/ / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __ ___
\ \/ \/ / | |/ / |_ / | '_ \ / _ \
\ /\ /| | <| |/ /| | | | | __/
\/ \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
.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
