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.org
Year: 2006 Week: 45 Number: 49
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
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=== Technical news ===
[New block option] - sysops have now a third tickbox when blocking a user. The
box is labelled "Automatically block IP addresses used by this user" and is
selected by default. Previously blocking a registered user meant edits done
with that account were removed. And every time that user was trying to edit a
page after the block was given the IP address of the blocked user was
"auto-blocked". Those blocks appear in the log like "#15429" so you
cannot see
the real IP address. In some situations it can be that you only wish to block a
specific user account and not the IP address used by that user. Like for
example when a bot needs to blocked because it is doing something wrong. Or
when blocking an unsuitable username.
When the option "Automatically block IP addresses used by this user" is not
selected it shows up in the log as "autoblock disabled".
To localize translate; [[MediaWiki:Noautoblockblock]] and
[[MediaWiki:Ipbenableautoblock]]
Be aware that when an ip address is blocked automatically because of it is used
by a blocked user that this hidden ip address (like #15429) can not be used by
any other user. The option "Block anonymous users only" has no effect on them.
So this way important ipadresses, like form a ISP proxy, can be blocked for all
users, also registered ones. And can will not even know it because you can not
see the ip address. The good thing is that this type of automatic block is only
for 24 hours.
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1294
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:News/2006-11-02/New_option_to_disa…
=== New project proposals ===
[WikiWorlds] - Project for creating 3-dimentional virtual worlds, like a
Wikimedia Commons of virtual worlds. (Not [yet] a Wikimedia Foundation
project)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWorlds
http://editthis.info/wikiworlds/Main_Page
=== Foundation ===
[Wikimedia DE] - the German chapter now has tax-exempt status. This means that
private persons and companies can get tax reduction for their donations or
membership fees to the German chapter. The have also ordered 15 new servers for
an amount of 50,000 Euro to serve as squids in the Amsterdam (Kennisnet) NOC.
This will more than double the server capacities in Europe.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/11522/focus=11522
[Freenode] - will receive from the WMF a one time donation of 5000 US dollar.
This is as recognition for the value of the Freenode IRC-network for the
Wikimedia projects.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:_Freenode_Donation
[TransCom] - the translation subcommittee presents the first issue of their
newsletter "The Babylonian"
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/Newslette…
[Jasonr] - is not working anymore for the WMF. He now works only for Wikia.
Jason Richey worked behind the curtains since the very beginning of Wikipedia
for Wikipedia. This in the function of employee for
Bomis.com, the company
co-founded by Jimbo.
Note: this is actually old news. But so long you do not know about it it remains
news.
[$] - The WMF received by means of paypal $42,025 US dollar in the month of
October. That is the highest amount ever when there is no fundraiser.
http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/ongoing/index.php/2006/
=== Community ===
[pt.wikipedia] - No local upload anymore on the Portuguese Wikipedia. They are
the second wiki to use only the Wikimedia Commons for uploads.
[Interwiki report] - This time it's the Finnish Wikipedia who shows their best
side
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-10-23/Interw…
=== Awards ===
[TBTF] - The "Tampa Bay Technology Forum" will award Jimmy Wales there first
"Visionary Achievement Award" on the 9th of November.
http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2006/10/30/daily57.html
=== Media ===
[Publicité] - a website or publication reporting about the existence of
Wikipedia is no news since many years. But this one is. In France there is a
website "Service-public.fr". It is a state website that "aims to give
citizens
access to all administrative information on-line. Its objective is above all
practical: to answer questions posed by citizens to make their contact with the
civil service more user-friendly." says their website. And they have presented
Wikipedia to their nearly two million monthly visitors and 200,000 readers of
their email newsletter. As a state e-government website this can bring FR
Wikipedia in spotlight to many less advanced internet-users.
http://www.service-public.fr/actualites/00369.html
[Intellipedia] - the US intelligence services have created a internal MediaWiki
encyclopedia to collect and share information between the different agencies.
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/01-11-2006/85315-Wikipedia%20encycl…
[Virus Alert!] - a typical subject for spam. A more original was "warning from
Wikipedia"; an attempt by using the name and logo of Wikipedia to get people to
download a file that is suspected to be a virus. They also used a link to a
history page of an article to make it look more real. It was on the DE
wikipedia, and like you can except from DE.wp there admins are very gründlich
so the link was gone in a few minutes. It did has give many media inspiration
to write something negative about wikipedia. Example; the mostly read newspaper
in Belgium had on Monday a article, just above the one where the where saying
that Novell had invented Linux, that Wikipedia was hacked.
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/80417
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6120268.stm
www DOT wikipedia-download DOT org - the fake website used by to spread the
virus. Windows users can probably better stay away from that site.
[Not funny] - a student who posted a theat to do something violent in a school
has discovered that editing "anonymous" is a relative term when there is an
incentive to find out who it was.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-061031niles-threat,1…
=== Stats ===
[81%] - According to a study you have an 81% change that when you look for
something in google a Wikipedia result will show up in the first 10 results.
When you look with Yahoo it is 77%. And if you look by means of MSN it drops to
38%. You would think; that is logical, Microsoft has his own encyclopedia,
Encarta. But strangely enough MSN links to Encrata in 0% of the first 10
results. This is of course a summary of a summary. See the blog post, the full
report and appendix for the real information.
http://www.kiberpipa.org/~gandalf/blog/?p=66
[Wow!]- According to Netcraft; in August 1995 there where 18,957 hosts, April
1997 (1 million sites), February 2000 (10 million), July 2001 (30 million),
March 2005 (60 million), November 2006 ; +100 million websites.
To compare; the stats place Wikipedia between the 15th and 6th most popular site
of all those million of websites. Of you can believe that is something else.
According to Alexa is the website where this ezine is also on posted,
Wikizine.org, in the top 1 million of hose 100 million and that with around
1400 unique visitors a month.
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2006/11/01/november_2006_web_server_surve…
=== Other news ===
[An other one] - In Wikizine 47 you were presented with a very extended nice
presentation about Wikipedia & Co made by a librarian. Here is another one,
this one made by our own w:en:User:Tawker .
http://tawker.com/tutorials/
=== Was ist das? ===
Jimbo: Jimmy Wales. Founder of Wikipedia, Chairman Emeritus of the Wikimedia
Foundation. President of Wikia, Inc.
Wikia: company founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. It is hosting wikis
and works on the developing of MediaWiki, the software the projects are using.
Bomis: an internet company founded Jimmy Wales and Tim Shell. Bomis provided
hosting and staff to Wikipedia in the very beginning of the project.
=== A bit of wisdom from South Park ===
Peta-member: "But why on earth would you not want to vote?"
Stan Marsh: "I think voting is great but I just did not care this time because
it was between a giant douche and a turd sandwich."
Peta-member: "But Stan, do you do not know it is always between a giant douche
and a turd sandwich. Nearly every election since the beginning of time has been
between some douche and so turd. The are the only people who suck up enough to
make it that far in politics."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douche_and_Turd
Note: "douche" means in American something else than in the rest of the world.
You can look it up in Wikipedia...
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Editor(s): Gary Kirk, Walter
Corrector(s): Gary Kirk
Thanks to: Renaud, Pathoschild, 555
E-mail: ihavenews AT wikizine DOT org
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