This year, within the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia community,
we achieved a lot. More than we could have ever expected, for sure, and
I think that we should look back and reflect on some of the more significant
events that happened this year.
In March, the German Wikipedia reached 1,000 featured articles, a very
significant milestone for the wiki. The Foundation also introduced it's new
licensing policy, which affected all of the projects, and caused some noticable
controversy among several sites. We also launched the Planet Wikimedia blog
aggregator, which currently has over 50 blogs being aggregated into it.
In July, Wikimedia Taiwan was approved by the Board. On the 12th, the tally for the Board
of Trustees was completed, and Erik, Kat re-joined the Board, with Frieda joining for the
first time.
In August, Wikimania took place, attracting over 1000 participants from over
92 countries. Wikimania took place in Taipei, Taiwan.
In September, the English Wikipedia reached 2 million articles, which was a very
significant milestone for the English community.
In October, Alexandria was chosen as the location for Wikimania 2009, and Paris
held it's first Colloque Wikipedia event. Amsterdam hosted the second Wikimedia
Netherlands Conference, and Saint Petersburg (Russia) hosted the first Wiki-Conference
in Russia. It was also announced that the Wikimedia Foundation would be moving
to San Fransisco, California.
Last month, the 2007 Steward Elections began. On the 24th, the new Ombudsman commission
was approved.
Looking back, Wikimedia has had a great year, a great community, and a surge
of events, growth, content, and quality, with several projects (including Wikipedia,
Wikinews, Wikibooks, and many of our projects). If we can acomplish this much
this year, we can acomplish even more in the next year, and I personally look
forward to working with all of you to continue to create, maintain, and develop the
world's largest repository and community of free information. Happy holidays
to everyone, and a very happy new year.
--
Thunderhead
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Thunderhead
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thunderhead
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DISCLAIMER: I hold no official position in the Wikimedia
Foundation. This message expresses the views of a single
Wikimedia user and not necessarily the community at large.