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Year: 2008 Week: 7 Number: 91
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An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community
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=== 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_cloaks http://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_par...
[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/24392 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Invite http://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_Projec...
=== 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/25147 http://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.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-02-11/Audit_r... -- 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/Report http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24127 http://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/24970 http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24970 http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/UNU_survey_agreement http://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/Kaltura http://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/Logo http://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/2007 http://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_music http://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=MtNJgBopr7g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC0YZb3OjGM http://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.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-02-11/Muhamma... -- 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_Wik...
=== Quote ===
"It's "Godwin," not "Goodwin." I make no special claim to goodness." -- Mike Godwin
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/24265
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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 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