Wikidata milestone

Wikidata passed the one billion edit milestone. The milestone edit, by User:Stevenliuyi https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Stevenliuyi, created the item “The band structure in microwave frequency for quasi-1-D coaxial photonic crystals (Q66665412) https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?oldid=1000000000”.

Anti-disinformation research

There was a meetup regarding disinformation at Wikimania 2019 https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2019:Meetups/Disinformation. Thanks to Leila https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:LZia_(WMF) for the notes from the session. I am glad that that there is interest among WMF and community members regarding this topic.

Humor

"The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that you can never know if they are genuine." —Abraham Lincoln https://www.pinterest.com/pin/360921357612301545/

(For anyone who does not understand the joke: Abraham Lincoln’s life preceded the existence of the Internet by approximately a century.)

Google and Mozilla take steps to limit mass surveillance in Kazakhstan

See Mozilla’s blog post at https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/08/21/mozilla-takes-action-to-protect-use... .

Content

From English Wikipedia’s “Selected anniversaries” I learned that on 18

August 1877, “American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Phobos, the larger of Mars's two moons, six days after his discovering Deimos, the smaller one.” This image of Phobos is featured on Commons and on the Arabic, English, Spanish, and Persian Wikipedias https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phobos_colour_2008.jpg. I enjoyed reading the description of how the image was made. Also of note is that when Asaph Hall was learning mathematics, he studied under an instructor who was two years ahead of him, Angeline Stickney. “During their days together as teacher and student, Hall and his classmates would devise questions and problems that they were convinced Miss Stickney could not solve, yet she never failed to solve them https://maia.usno.navy.mil/women_history/hall.html.” The two of them later married. Stickney encouraged Hall to search for the Martian moons. Hall said, "The chance of finding a satellite appeared to be very slight, so that I might have abandoned the search had it not been for the encouragement of my wife." The largest crater on Phobos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stickney_(crater) is named Stickney in her honor.

The Commons Picture of the Day for 23 August 2019 was “Khotyn Fortress under the light of the full moon https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A5%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%86%D1%8F_%D0%B2_%D0%BC%D1%96%D1%81%D1%8F%D1%87%D0%BD%D1%83_%D0%BD%D1%96%D1%87.jpg”. According to the article about the fortress on English Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khotyn_Fortress, “The Khotyn Fortress ( Ukrainian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_language: Хотинська фортеця...) is a fortification complex located on the right bank of the Dniester https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dniester River in Khotyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khotyn, Chernivtsi Oblast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernivtsi_Oblast (province https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblast) of western Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine... Construction on the current Khotyn fortress was started in 1325, while major improvements were made in the 1380s and in the 1460s.”

Off wiki

Related to Wikimania 2019’s focus on the Sustainable Development Goals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals, I sometimes think about what happens to recycled materials. This article from The New York Times Magazine https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/magazine/the-big-business-of-scavenging-in-postindustrial-america.html reports that “The recycling of scrap metal is a $32 billion business in the United States, according to IBISWorld.” The article discusses the business of scavenging for metals and recycling them.

Closing comments

Translations of the subject line of this email would be appreciated on Meta https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine/WMYHTW_translations. Thanks to User:Ата https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%D0%90%D1%82%D0%B0 for the Ukranian translation.

What’s making you happy this week? You are welcome to write in any language. You are also welcome to start a WMYHTW thread next week. Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )