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

Year: 2008 Week: 52 Number: 103

******************************************

An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community

//////////////////////////////////////////

=== Technical news ===

[Hosting move] - the servers located in Amsterdam, Europe, are on the move to a new data center. At the old data center where around 40 servers located mostly for caching pages and images requested by European users. According to an unconfirmed source has Kennisnet ended its sponsoring of this cluster. Since May 2005 has Kennisnet paid all expenses for the cluster in Amsterdam. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/35389

[404] -If you follow a link to a page that doesn't exist (to the actual page, not including the edit pages), the servers now give a 404 (not found error code) where before they gave the 200 (ok) error code. This may help some automated programs, is more inline with what you are "supposed" to do, but most people will not notice as the page returned is still the same. http://leuksman.com/log/2008/12/22/fixing-404-for-wiki-pages/

[MediaWiki messages] - revision-info, revision-info-current, cannotdelete, redirectedfrom, historywarning and difference messages now use Wiki text rather than raw HTML markup. Some wikis will need to fix their customized messages. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16026 http://leuksman.com/log/2008/12/23/wikimedia-sites-updated-to-r44990/

=== Proposals ===

[Licence discussion] - the new version of the GNU Free Documentation License contains a section that gives the projects now using the GNU Free Documentation License the option to change the licence of those projects. The option to migrate to an other license expires on August 1, 2009. Discussion about this is requested. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update

=== Foundation ===

[Jimbo's appeal] - The post of a message from Jimmy Wales to ask for money that is announced exceptionally prominent at the sites has resulted in a temporary increase of donations of 892%. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/12/24/a-great-day-for-our-fundraiser/

=== Legal ===

[Wikimedia NL wins] - Wikimedia Nederland wins a preliminary injunction. Not a big surprise because the wrong Wikimedia was sued, but nevertheless good news. http://tinyurl.com/7l4zc2

=== Community ===

[Photo-print service] - a partnership has been established between the French language Wikipedia community and a photo printer service. it is now possible to order a print of an image on the wiki with the menu "Get a poster of this image". For every order is 1,5 EUR donated to Wikimedia. At present a 1000 EUR is donated this way. You see only the option if the site language is French. So logout or change your setting. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Impression/en http://www.wikiposter.fr/

[Everyone Bureaucrat] - the community of the Italian Wikiquote has decided that all sysops also will be a bureaucrat. On IT Wikiquote are only 6 sysops, so now also 6 bureaucrats. That have found inspiration from the Spanish language Wikipedia. There are nearly all sysops also bureaucrats, all 126. How to become a bureaucrat differs strongly from wiki to wiki. For example; on the English language Wikipedia you need to be elected in a extremely difficult bureaucratic process. And on the Dutch language Wikipedia all sysops active for at least one year can become bureaucrat by simple request.

[EN Wikinews] - the main page is decorated for the holidays. It has a tree , menorah, Kwanzaas and snowman. This unusual. Normally the do not do this, but (strangely) no one complained. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/ http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Main_page_header&oldid...

[New planet] - At the location "planet.wikimedia.org" are several language based websites who collect the posts of many different blogs with postings who are supposed to be related to WMF-projects. For example Wikizine is also listed there on the English language version. There is now a new planet; the "North Germanic languages". Normally it is for one language only but because the amount of posts would be to few the languages Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese form one planet. http://gmq.planet.wikimedia.org/

=== Awards ===

[Picture of the year&Co] - Wikinews is gearing up for end of year. The 2008 picture of the year will be voted on shortly . You must be active somewhere in wikimedia to vote, but that does not necessarily have to be wikinews. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Picture_of_the_Year_2008

=== Media ===

[Wiki first] - A scientific journal "RNA Biology" has requested their contributors create wikipedia articles on their research subject before publishing a paper. Although some people have expressed concerns that a research paper is not that same as a good article. http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Info/Press/2008/081217.shtml http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/RNA_journal_submits_articles_to_Wikipedia

=== Stats ===

[SV wp] - Swedish Wikipedia passed 300 000 articles and have send out a press release. http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediadiskussion:300K

=== Other news ===

[Betawiki bounty] - If you translate 500 mediawiki messages before the end of the year, you can get a 1000 euro prize! http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2008/12/betawiki-end-of-year-price.html http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Betawiki:News/Newsletter_2008-12-2

=== Donation comments ===

"Find a clean way to make profitable enough to survive for we count on you but you can't really count on us, we don't have money!..." -- Anonymous

"When I first started working with computers in the '70s, I dreamed of an electronic library with all the information anyone needed on a portable device. You're making that happen. Thank you." -- Harvey Platter

"Une modeste contribution ainsi qu'un grand MERCI... continuez..." -- Mathieu TARTARE

"DONATION, BUT I DISLIKE JIMBO"

////////////////////////////////////////// Number of subscribers: 725 Unique Visitors website last week: 103 Editor(s): Bawolff, Walter, Casey Corrector(s): none Thanks to: Plyd, Nemo_bis, Ainali 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. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. 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