*****************************************
__ __ _ _ _ _
/ / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __ ___
\ \/ \/ / | |/ / |_ / | '_ \ / _ \
\ /\ /| | <| |/ /| | | | | __/
\/ \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
.org
Year: 2007 Week: 44 Number: 83
******************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Upload limit] - The upload limit is 20 MB. Now that the recent
changes have resulted in good support for video, it was suggested to
increase this limit. There are concerns for a dramatic growth in
bandwidth and storage need.
=== Request for help ===
[Fundraising translations] - Most translations for the 2007
fundraising have been done, but some still remian. Cary Bass,
volunteer coordinator, requests your help.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007
=== New project proposals ===
[Chain of reasons] - This proposed new project aims to be a reference
for people who simply want to learn about the reasoning behind
particular beliefs -- moral, political, scientific, religious, or
whatever.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chains_of_Reason
=== Policy ===
[Page creation on EN Wikipedia] - Page creation for anonymous users
has been disabled for the English Wikipedia since December 2005. There
will probably soon be a trial of one week during which page creation
is enabled again.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/84133
http://tinyurl.com/yw6gvj -- discussion at the village pump
=== Foundation ===
[Priorities] - Florence Devouard, chair of the Wikimedia Foundation
board of trustees, has stated priorities for her next term as a chair.
She also summarizes the major developments of last year.
http://tinyurl.com/325sjo
[Fundraising] - The 2007 fall fund raising has started on October 22
and will run until December 22. People are encouraged to place web
buttons on their private websites. At present around US$130,000 has
been donated. The live stream of donations from Paypal can be seen in
the IRC channel #wikimedia-donations on freenode.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/web_buttons and
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising_FAQ
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2007 -- feedback from
the visitors of the projects on the fund raiser
http://chat.wikizine.org -- provides access to #wikimedia-donations
[Budget] - Together with its fundraising, the Wikimedia Foundation has
also published its budget for 2007-2008. The Foundation plans to spend
US$4.6M in total, of which 57% is reserved for technical services. The
rest is going to overhead, staff and other activities such as Wikimania.
http://tinyurl.com/3bxpwa
[New chapter] - Wikimedia Sweden was founded in Stockholm, Sweden.
Lennart Guldbrandsson was elected Chair. For the board several members
of community were elected as well as persons from the free knowledge
movement of Sweden. One of them is Lars Aronsson, founder of
susning.nu, which was the second largest wiki in the world before it
was closed.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Sverige
[Treasurer] - The foundation is looking for a treasurer who will
succeed Miles Davis on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
http://tinyurl.com/2y9ryy
[Job openings] - As a result of the relocation of the Wikimedia
Foundation's headquarters from St. Petersburg, Florida, to San
Francisco, several positions are to be filled.
http://tinyurl.com/24ow5e
=== Community ===
[Dutch Conference] - On October 27, Wikimedia Nederland held a
conference in Amsterdam about Wikimedia, Wikis and Education. Most of
the program was in Dutch; however, a few presentations were in
English. Florence Devouard was one of the keynote speakers.
http://tinyurl.com/2r9e4p -- conference website
http://tinyurl.com/2r2na9 -- Wikinews report on the conference
[Russian Conference] - The Wiki-Conference 2007 was held on October 27
and 28 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
http://tinyurl.com/35axup
[Wikijunior] - It is proposed that stable versions of the Wikijunior
books hosted on the English Wikibooks will be published on
www.wikijunior.org. Also there are discussions on a new logo.
http://tinyurl.com/32vh9b
http://tinyurl.com/3afhp3
=== Media ===
[Wikicomics] - "Wikimedia fundraiser highlights webcomic community's
frustration with Wikipedia guidelines" reports Wikinews
http://tinyurl.com/2z8mda
[Edit for grades] - Some schools may ban Wikipedia, but the story
about a teacher of the University of Washington-Bothell who makes her
students write Wikipedia articles for grades was in the news this week.
http://tinyurl.com/2hjnmm
[Anons best?] - "Anonymous Wikipedia entries the most accurate" writes
Brockpress.com.
http://tinyurl.com/3c4895
=== Stats ===
[Commons] - Three years have passed since Commons started selecting
their best pictures; now, the 10,000th featured picture has been
selected.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/21385
http://tinyurl.com/2e4xab -- the 10,000th featured picture
[hu.wp] - The Hungarian Wikipedia just reached 75.000 articles.
http://hu.wikipedia.org
[haw.wp] - The Hawaiian Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
http://haw.wikipedia.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_language
[simple wp] - The Simple English Wikipedia has reached its 20,000th
article with "Mandurah railway line, Perth". Simple is looking for
editors to write even more articles.
http://simple.wikipedia.org
[Erratum] - Wikizine 82 reported that the Vietnamese Wikipedia had
reached 100,000 articles. This is not correct. The count was 100,000
pages in total, not just articles. The Vietnamese Wikipedia has over
25,000 articles.
=== Editorial ===
Dear readers,
Today, Wikizine has existed for three years. A couple of weeks ago, I
was seriously considering to stop contributing to Wikizine. My reason
was that it became too difficult to continue creating weekly a new and
good edition of Wikizine virtually alone.
At this time, the start of the third year of Wikizine, I want to
inform you, my readers, that Wikizine will continue. This is possible
because of the recent assistance in creating Wikizine that has been
provided to me by users londenp and effeietsanders and a slightly less
pessimistic state of mind.
It will not longer be a goal of Wikizine to have a weekly issue. The
new publication frequency will be "You will get a new Wikizine
whenever one is ready".
The Spanish and Indonesian language edition of Wikizine will mostly be
terminated soon because of lack of activity of the people who started
them. For the German edition there is just a new volunteer so there is
hope that this one can stay.
Thanks for reading Wikizine. That is the reason for existence of a
newsletter. This newsletter is "for the members of the Wikimedia
community". The main purpose of Wikizine is to inform you, the
Wikimedia community, what is going on in the community. That is across
all projects and languages.
Only what is known by the (small) staff of Wikizine can be reported.
Currently Wikizine fails in reporting what is going on in the global
community due to lack of information. Please take a minute to send
notice to Wikizine if there is something of interest to report from
your home-wiki.
Greetings,
[[meta:user:Walter]]
=== Did you know ... ===
... that the income of the Wikimedia Foundation is mainly based on
small donations from individuals who appreciate the Wikimedia
projects? The Wikimedia projects are hence mainly supported by the
large public, not by major organisations.
=== Fundraising quotes ===
"For tripling the number of Elephants in Africa!" US$500 --Anonymous.
"Instead of a banner asking for donations, why don't you just have a
banner with an ad, and skip the middle step." --Anonymous.
"Wikipédia est d'une utilité publique colossale." -- Lionel Bolnet
"Who's that guy? The guy on the banner looks like Osama bin Laden."
--Anonymous
"Your efforts to educate the world are highly admirable. Keep up the
good work." -- Alison Dwyer
"Symbolisch bedrag en mijn hartelijke dank voor jullie geweldige
site." -- Tejo Hoekman
http://tinyurl.com/2rlb39 -- more quotes
//////////////////////////////////////////
Number of subscribers: 695
Unique Visitors website last week: 167
Editor(s): Walter, Effeietsanders, Londenp
Corrector(s): Oliphaunt
Thanks to: Tgr, Joakim Larsson, Borgx
Contact: reply or
http://report.wikizine.org
Website:
http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantees of accuracy,
validity and especially 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