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.org
Year: 2007 Week: 11 Number: 64
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
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=== Technical news ===
[Planet Wikimedia] - A website has been created to collect Wikimedia related
blog entries in one place. English blogs about Wikimedia can request their feed
be added on Meta (see links). Non-English blogs can can request a similar
system for that language. In addition to the Wikimedia version of this service,
[[w:en:user:Nickj]] has created his own version at
open.wikiblogplanet.com.
This version has a "Edit this planet" link which allows you to your own blog.
http://planet.wikimedia.org
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planet_Wikimedia
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Planet_Wikimedia -- Change of the url?
http://open.wikiblogplanet.com/
=== Foundation ===
[Wikimania 2007] - Registration is open for Wikimania 2007, which will be held
from 3-5 August in Taipei, Taiwan. A 3-day ticket costs 40$US. You can also
register for the Hacking Days and "Citizen Journalism Unconference".
Registration for sleeping arrangements are also open; the fee is 20$US if you
register now, and the number of beds is limited. The Wikimedia Foundation is
also offering some scholarships for Wikimania.
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
=== Community ===
[Usurpation] - 'Usurpation' is a new Wikipedia jargon term whose real meaning is
to seize something by force. It is used on the English Wikipedia to refer to
the process of changing the username of an inactive user so that the username
becomes available for registration or can be assigned to another user. This is
not a new function; it has existed for as long as renaming users was possible.
However, it may not have been very well known until now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CHU/U
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/usurpation
[Torrent] - The "Picture of the Year 2006 archive" containing the best
photographs that Wikimedia Commons has to offer from the year 2006 are now
available as a torrent download (321 pictures, 526MB).
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~bryan/poty2006.torrent
[Bias] - A company active in selling worthless college degrees was not happy
about the article about their business. They have published a job offer for a
watchdog to follow the article and remove negative content about them. Although
it is not uncommon for a company to edit their own article in this way,
offering a paid job as a professional bias-pusher is new.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-03-12/Paid_e…
=== Media ===
[According to Wikipedia] - The English language Wikipedia article about the US
town "Sioux Falls" is printed in a local publication of that town. This is what
Wikipedia is all about, giving people information they can use freely. However,
people of Sioux Falls where not charmed with the article's description of their
town as a "dirty little town" and "full of drunks".
http://tinyurl.com/2xmda9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sioux_Falls
[Jimmy] - A short written question-and-answer session with Jimmy Wales.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1755098.cms
[Audio] - BBC has broadcast a radio interview about Wikipedia versus
Conservapedia, a new wiki intended to provide information from a Conservative
point of view.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_wikipedia_20070307…
-- RealAudio 5:34min
=== Stats ===
[RU.wp] - The Russian Wikipedia has reached 150,000 articles just one week after
they reached 140,000 articles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Wikipedia
[EL.wikt] - The Greek Wiktionary has reached 75,000 entries.
http://el.wiktionary.org/
=== Other news ===
[MediaWiki book] - A new book by Mizanur Rahman about MediaWiki will soon be
released. It is a technical book for MediaWiki administrators. If you
pre-order, you get a discount and free shipping (for some reason, it is cheaper
when you use US dollars as currency).
http://www.packtpub.com/book/Mediawiki -- "MediaWiki Administrators' Tutorial
Guide"
[Doc] - A real documentary about Wikipedia is in production. The people involved
have already made a documentary about
craigslist.org, a popular website in the
United States, and a movie about graffiti in San Francisco. The producers are
accepting donations to pay for the production. Donors of at least $50 are
included in the credits in the movie on DVD when it is ready. The documentary
is scheduled to be released in 2008. Their website contains preview video
clips.
http://www.wikidocumentary.org
[Stella Artois] - An advertisement bureau working for InBev, the world's largest
brewery company, has used Wikipedia in their online campaign for their beer
brand "Stella Artois" for the Belgian market. They replaced the text of the
article about "Stella Artois" in the French- and Dutch-language Wikipedia with
their own fictional history of the beer. Their version is permalinked on the
official website of Stella Artois as "proof" for the fictional history used in
a publicity campaign.
http://www.stella-artois.be/hacking/NL/
=== Did you know ... ===
... that it is possible for non-sysop to semi-protect a page?
This method is based on last week's "did you know" about protecting unborn
articles (see link below). If you "transclude" pages you would like to protect
(including them as templates) on a page that is semi-protected with the
'cascading protection' option enabled, they will be automatically protected
from edits by non-sysops.
Because the semi-protected page can be edited by almost all users, most editors
can protected pages.
For example, make a page like [[Wikipedia:Non-sysop protected pages]], with
semi-protection and cascading protection. An editor adds the "Foobar" article
with '{{:Foobar}}'. The article [[Foobar]] is now fully protected (not only
semi-protected, as would be expected).
When this system is used, the semi-protected page (in the example,
[[Wikipedia:Non-sysop protected pages]]) will become very large if many pages
are included in it.
This type of protection is not listed in the block logs, and this behaviour may
change in the future. Although it is probably not a good idea to use this
system, at least now you know that it is possible.
http://en.wikizine.org/2007/03/year-2007-week-10-number-63.html -- last week's
"did you know"
=== Quote ===
Some people put a lot of work into their lawn, as if a patch of green grass was
the most important thing in the world. As if they thought that as long as the
lawn out front was green and mowed and beautiful, it wouldn't matter at all
what was going on inside of the house. -- Character Allie Keys / science
fiction miniserie "Taken"
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Number of subscribers: 626
Unique Visitors website last week: 318
Editors: Walter, Gary Kirk
Corrector: Pathoschild
Contact: reply or
http://report.wikizine.org
Website:
http://en.wikizine.org
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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 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