WikimediaAnnounce-l September 2010

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Wikimedia India Community Newsletter
by Achal Prabhala 26 Sep '10

26 Sep '10

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Fwd: Announcing the Wikimedia India Community Newsletter - Edition 1
by CherianTinu Abraham 26 Sep '10

26 Sep '10

FYI First Wikimedia community letter from India http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_India_Community_Newsletter… <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_India_Community_Newsletter…> Thanks Tinu Cherian ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Achal Prabhala <aprabhala(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 6:15 PM Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Announcing the Wikimedia India Community Newsletter - Edition 1 To: wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Greetings, On behalf of Shiju Alex, here is... the first ever edition of the Wikimedia India Community Newsletter. It's an incredible effort, and we're really glad to have something like this - congrats to all who helped with it. Going forward, Shiju (and all of us) would appreciate help and participation. If you are a member of a Wikimedia language, or geography, or project that you feel isn't adequately represented, or if you'd like to help with design, proofreading and turning it into something that works like the Signpost - we'd appreciate hearing from you at: wminewsletter(a)gmail.com or Shiju Alex <shijualexonline(a)gmail.com> At the moment, we're circulating the file in two pdf versions (one for viewing, one for printing) and this is the link to the file on Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_India_Community_Newsletter… Shiju will shortly find a way to design it in html, making it easier for everyone. Cheers, Achal -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Releasing first edition of Wikimedia India Community Newsletter - 2010 September Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:56:06 +0530 From: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline(a)gmail.com> To: <> Dear All, Our hard work for the past 2 months to release the first version of Wikimedia India newsletter is coming to an end today. Please find attached the Print Quality PDF of the finalized version of Wikimedia India Newsletter for your reference. We are officially releasing the newsletter at 7:00 PM in the Bangalore Wikimeetup. This newsletter is the result of the ideas, suggestions, and feedback that you had been provided by you during the last 2 months. Finally Indian wikipedia community has come together for a common purpose. This is just a starting. We have a long way to go. Each language community (8 communities as of now) has helped by providing content about the respective language community. Some communities could not join as their communities are not strong enough to provide news to the newsletter. Hope they will join soon. Let me introduce again the Indian Language Wikipedians involved in this effort (All are included in this mail thread). Here are they: Bengali: * Belayet Hossain * Jayantanth * Ragib Hasan *English* * Naveen PF * Srikanth Lakshmanan * Tinu Cherian *Hindi:* * Mayur Kumar *Kannada:* * Hari Prasad Nadig Malayalam: * * Praveen P . * * Raziman T.V . * * Simy Nazareth * * Shiju Alex * * Junaid P.V . * * Thachan makan * * Jacob Jose * * Rajesh V arma *Marathi:* * * Mahitgar * * Abhay Natu * * Sankalp Dravid *Tamil:* * * Mayoora Nathan * * C.R. Selva Kumar * * Ravi Dreams * * Sundar *Telugu:* * * Arjuna Rao C . * * Ravi Vyzasatya * * Veeven * * Sujatha Thummapud i * * Bhaskara Rao Chimakurthy * * Ravi Chandra Enagant *Technical team* * * Typesetting, template design, other tecnical support: Junaid P.V. * * Front and back cover page design: Rajesh Odayanchal I know that not everybody knows each other. But you will be excited to be introduced to wikimedians working for other language wiki communities of India. Let this be a new begining. Sharing experience from different language wiki communities will surely help us (it is already helping us) to replicate the success stories and best practices in other wikis. So we are done with the first release. So what next? Eventhough we cannot think of a monthly newsletter now, we need to aim atleast for a quaterly newsletter. Taking this point in into account, we are proposing a list for regular content collation and newsletter coordination. This list will contain the core editorial team and two volunteers from each wikipedia. The volunteer nominations can be suggested by the respective wikipedia community. The role of the volunteers from the language wikipedias would be to conduit for collating content on events, happenings and plans of those respective wikipedias. The community could choose to rotate these nomiees as they deem appropriate. Please send your queries regarding the mailing list to Arun Ram (arunram25(a)gmail.com <mailto:arunram25@gmail.com>). Once again I would like to thank each one of you from various language communities for providing the community news.( from various language communities.) Junaid P.V has done the type setting and the template design of this newsletter. Without his support and hardwork this newsletter would not have seen as it is today. Many days he was woking over night to fix various issues. Once again I thank him for being kind with me while I was sending repeated changes that I got from various language communities. Rajesh Odayanchal has designed front and back cover pages.He specially created an Indian language map for this newsletter. Thanks to him. Arun Ram has done the peer review of most of the language community news. Special Thanks to him. Last but not the least, I specillay thank Achal Prabhala for the review, timely advice, and support. His advice has helped us to move forward when there were many roadblocks in between. Thanks once again. Thank you. Shiju Alex

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All four Wikipedia videos published
by Erik Moeller 25 Sep '10

25 Sep '10

Hello all, over the last few days, we've been releasing the videos mentioned in a previous announcement through various social media. All four videos are now published, and you can find a blog post with links here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/24/four-videos-of-wikipedias-volunte… I'm personally very excited to have these videos: I think they'll be a great outreach tool to help us grow the very special community of volunteers who contribute to our projects. We can use them at conferences, training events, in online tutorials, etc. I hope they'll also help us break out of the perception of Wikipedia as simply a useful product, and contribute to it being understood as a community of shared passion and purpose quite unlike any other online community of comparable scale. We think these videos do speak for themselves beyond any specific use that we'll have for them. If you agree, we appreciate your help in sharing them through various channels available to you :-) Subtitle transcriptions and translations are underway and will be made available soon. All best, Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Wikimedia Foundation Blog] Article feedback pilot goes live
by Guillaume Paumier 23 Sep '10

23 Sep '10

Link to the original article: http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/22/article-feedback-pilot-goes-live/ As recently announced on the tech blog and in the Signpost, we're launching an experimental new tool today to capture article feedback from readers as part of the Public Policy Initiative. We're also inviting the user community to help determine its future by joining a workgroup tasked with evaluating it. The "Article Feedback Tool" allows any reader to quickly and easily assess the sourcing, completeness, neutrality, and readability of a Wikipedia article on a five-point scale. It will be one of several tools used by the Public Policy Initiative to assess the quality of articles. We also hope it will be a way to increase reader engagement by seeking feedback from them on how they view the article, and where it needs improvement. The tool is currently enabled on about 400 articles related to US public policy. You can see it in action at the bottom of articles such as /United States Constitution/, /Don't ask, don't tell/ or /Brown v. Board of Education/. Another goal of this pilot is to try and find a way to collaborate with the community to build tools and features. As main users of the software, Wikimedians are in a unique position to evaluate how a feature performs, and what its strengths and limitations are. The Article Feedback Tool is still very much in a prototype state; we're hoping the user community can help us determine whether resources should be allocated to improve it (and if so, how), or if it doesn't meet the users' needs and should be shelved or completely rethought. More information about the tool is available on our Questions & Answers page [1]. If you want to try the tool to assess an article, pick a subject you're familiar with from the full list [2] and rate it! If you'd like to participate in the evaluation of the tool itself and what becomes of it, please join the workgroup [3]. If you're interested in article assessment in general, please also join the Public Policy Initiative's Assessment Team [4]. Thank you, Guillaume Paumier, on behalf of the Features Engineering team [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Public_Policy_Pilot/FAQs [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Article_Feedback_Pilot [3] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Public_Policy_Pilot/Workgroup [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Pol… -- Guillaume Paumier Product Manager, Multimedia Usability Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Wikimedia Foundation Blog] Fifteen Global Chapter Grants Supported by Wikimedia Foundation
by Moka Pantages 22 Sep '10

22 Sep '10

Fifteen Global Chapter Grants Supported by Wikimedia Foundation https://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/21/fifteen-global-chapter-grants-su… Each year, the Wikimedia Foundation conducts a grant making process to support the work of chapters around the world. We are happy to announce that fifteen grants for ten different chapters have been awarded for the 2010-2011 fiscal year thus far. The Wikimedia Foundation is excited to help launch all of these great projects and we encourage other chapters (and organized groups of volunteers) to consider grant request as we have additional funds available. We'd like to spotlight a grant from 2009/10 as an example of the work that chapters are doing. The Indonesian chapter ran a project Bebaskan Pengetahuan 2010 (Free Your Knowledge 2010) during 2009/10. The grant aimed to enrich the informational content of the Bahasa Indonesian language Wikipedia with the goal of increasing active contributions. The highly anticipated competition included 10 universities on the island of Java, each appointing nine students and one professor to compete for the largest quantity and highest quality of articles produced in the Bahasa Indonesian language. The top-five student winners received a laptop computer and free operating system. The grand-prize winner was awarded a trip to the 2010 Wikimania in Gdansk, Poland this past July. While it is hard to directly attribute the impact of the project to the overall project growth, it is worth noting that the Bahasa Indonesia Wikipedia article count grew by over 20% to 130,000 articles between August 2009 and July 2010. In addition, page views on Indonesian Wikipedia grew by 100% in that time period – the fastest growing Wikipedia in the world. The 2010/11 grants have been provided by the Wikimedia Foundation to further the growth of new chapters in the areas of Organizational Development, Digital Technology and Outreach Activities. This year will see chapter start-ups and kick-offs in Hong Kong, Estonia, Ukraine, the Philippines and in New York City. As a result of these grants, chapters will be able to register and host their own websites, secure government permits and non-profit status as well as pay necessary legal fees. Organizational development is an important aspect in expanding individual chapters. Several Foundation grants have been given for materials such as laptop computers, projectors, and video equipment. This year, the Netherlands have been granted a forgiveness grant from their participation in 2009/10 fundraiser revenue sharing. These funds will be allocated towards sustainable organizational development and outreach activities. Digital technology grants have been given to the Hungary chapter for a Free License Photo Competition, encouraging the photographer community to place their work under Free License for the Wikimedia Commons project. The Czech Republic followed up their successful photo project in 2009/10 and will continue their efforts to expand the site’s documentation of regional costumes and traditions and vernacular architectural landmarks project. Outreach activities are an integral part of chapter work on behalf of the movement. Internship programs, Wikimedia conferences and academies, and educational programs in schools and universities are all a part of this program. New York City is setting a worldwide precedent by holding the first annual Wikipedia Day NYC 2011. In conjunction with several 10th Anniversary celebrations to commemorate a decade of Wikipedia, funds will go to logistics preparation and conference supplies for participants. Sharing in Outreach Activities, Wikimedia Switzerland will be embarking on a three-year project to invite senior citizens into the world of Wikipedia editing. By fostering the life experience and collective knowledge of seniors, the Third Age Online (TAO) program will be used to bridge age and cultural gaps in the community. Likewise, our Hong Kong chapter will be working with a new mandatory liberal studies program in high schools, encouraging students to use and contribute to Wikipedia Hong Kong. The grant process is open to all chapters and volunteer groups officially recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation. Proposals must be aligned with the Foundation’s shared mission statement and the core values that drive the Wikimedia project. Each of these project grants has been assessed by the Foundation for relevance based on the needs of individual chapters and the diffusion of Wikimedia language sites and Wikimedia projects worldwide. Once grants are approved, chapters are subject to reporting requirements that are then made available to the general public to enable knowledge sharing. This year alone, the Wikimedia Foundation has awarded $82,000 in grants to international chapters and $115,000 in forgiveness funding for fundraiser revenue sharing. The Foundation is pleased to announce the availability of additional funds for the 2010/2011 fiscal year. We encourage all chapters to apply. For more information on our grant process please visit: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index

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New Wikipedia videos being released this week
by Jay Walsh 21 Sep '10

21 Sep '10

This week the Foundation is excited to be releasing four separate videos shot at the recent Wikimania Conference in Gdansk, Poland. The first video 'Username' is now posted on the WM Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_User_Name_MEDIUM.ogv Later today the Foundation will be releasing the videos on a few other platforms as well, specifically to increase public visibility: http://www.facebook.com/wikipedia http://identi.ca/wikipedia http://www.youtube.com/wikimediafoundation http://vimeo.com/wmfoundation/ I'll be posting more about the links on the Wikimedia blog later this morning (San Francisco time) blog.wikimedia.org And maybe some others. What are these videos? They were originally produced to complement the public outreach work going on now (and in the future) and to provide a short, energetic clip for folks to use in all sorts of presentations. A very good example of that would be in Sue's keynote presentation from Wikimania, which some of you may have seen. We hope everyone in the movement may find them useful, and we're particularly hopeful that they can be easily localized and shared even more widely. They shed a new light on the passionate people behind our projects. Who made them? The clips were created for the Wikimedia Foundation (led mostly by Communications and Public Outreach) by a team that's been working with the Foundation over the past year. They were directed by Jelly Helm, produced by Noah Stanik, shot by DP Reed Harkness, and edited by Sarah Marcus. The music is by Portland, Oregon based musician Matt Carey. The Germany-based film production crew Living Colour was an essential partner in bringing everything together at the shoot in Gdansk, Poland, and Fenton Communications, who have been supporting the Foundation over the past year, were our agency partners in pulling this project together. We also owe the organizers of 2010's Wikimania conference a great deal of thanks for helping us sort out the production on the ground and for letting us borrow participants for short interviews. What's next? The remaining clips will be posted on Commons and other video sharing sites through Friday. Once they're all announced we'll share another note with all of the links. You can follow the progress and hear what the public thinks on identi.ca and twitter. We hope to see the videos make an appearance in media and other blogs too. Hope you enjoy! -- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org blog.wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw

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1M Entries of Free Knowledge Go To Africa
by Itzik Edri 16 Sep '10

16 Sep '10

*Wikipedia Goes To Africa -- Israeli Students to Leave for Humanitarian Work in Africa, Equipped With Portable Static Wikipedia* *Ben-Gurion University's "Africa Center", Wikimedia Israel, and Hamakor cooperate in making free knowledge accessible in Africa* The Africa Center at BGU, headed by Dr. Tamar Golan, annually sends a group of students on a three-month humanitarian expedition to developing countries in Africa. This year's group is going to the Repbulic of Benin and the Republic of Cameroon. Learning about this while approaching the Africa Center for help with developing Africa-related entries on the Hebrew Wikipedia, Wikimedia Israel decided to equip the students with computers running free software and containing an offline (static) version of the French Wikipedia, so that the students can bring free knowledge to Africans without access to the Internet. Wikimedia Israel reached out to Hamakor, the Israeli Free and Open Source Software NGO, and Hamakor helped obtain computer donations, refurbished them and installed the Linux operating system on them. Wikimedia Israel collaborated with members of Wikimedia Switzerland and Wikimedia France to produce an up-to-date static version of the French Wikipedia (numbering about 1 million entries, and including images), French being a major language of reading and writing in Cameroon and Benin. "The students also have portable installations of the offline Wikipedia, so that they may install it on any other computers they may run across in Africa," explained Asaf Bartov, who coordinated the project in Wikimedia Israel, "and they have received training on using Linux and Kiwix, the offline Wikipedia reader (free) software, so they may train others to use the computers". Incidentally, the Linux version installed on those computers is called Ubuntu Linux, 'Ubuntu' being an African word (in the Zulu language) roughly translatable as "unity of mankind" or "mutual reliance". Supporting and promoting the distribution of free knowledge in developing countries is one of the five major goals identified by the Wikimedia Foundation as central to its five-year strategy plan, developed by thousands of members of the Wikimedia Movement. Itzik Edri Spokesman, Wikimedia Israel

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Fwd: [Wikimedia Chapters Reports] Fwd: report of Wikimedia Argentina
by Erik Moeller 16 Sep '10

16 Sep '10

FYI - see the link below for Wikimedia Argentina's September bulletin. Highlights include: * The chapter just celebrated its three year anniversary -- congratulations! :-) * A new version of the outreach brochure "Wikipedia en el aula" ("Wikipedia in the classroom"), which can be downloaded from: http://www.wikimedia.org.ar/wiki/Publicaciones It's very nicely done -- I encourage you to check it out :-) * The work done to recognize the bicentenary of Argentina's independence revolution, which includes a PDF collection of articles and many spoken versions: http://www.wikimedia.org.ar/wiki/Bicentenario * Ongoing efforts around policy advocacy and content partnerships/digitization. All best, Erik ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Patricio Lorente <patricio.lorente(a)gmail.com> Date: 2010/9/9 Subject: [Wikimedia Chapters Reports] Fwd: report of Wikimedia Argentina To: chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org Dear friends: You can find the english version of the monthly report of Wikimedia Argentina in http://www.wikimedia.org.ar/wiki/Bolet%C3%ADn_informativo/Septiembre_2010/en Patricio Lorente -- Patricio Lorente Mensajería Instantánea: patricio_lorente(a)jabber.org Blog: http://www.patriciolorente.com.ar _______________________________________________ Chapters-reports mailing list Chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/chapters-reports -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Fwd: [Wikitech-l] [Announce]: Mark Bergsma promotion to Operations Engineer Programs Manager
by Erik Moeller 16 Sep '10

16 Sep '10

FYI, also posted to the Wikimedia tech blog at: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/09/1033/ (EPM stands for Engineering Program Manager.) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Danese Cooper <dcooper(a)wikimedia.org> Date: 2010/9/14 Subject: [Wikitech-l] [Announce]: Mark Bergsma promotion to Operations Engineer Programs Manager To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Please join me in congratulating Mark Bergsma on his promotion last week to Operations EPM. Mark has been a volunteer since 2004, and a paid Network Engineer on our team since August 2006. He's been helping us with our extreme scaling issues (by debugging and tuning our Squid setup, creating our Netherlands caching center, and generally developing our network strategy) since the very beginning. For some time now Mark has been unofficially in charge of managing the entire Ops Team's deliverables including designing and implementing our new Primary Data Center in Ashburn, VA, and the other Ops activities mentioned at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Projects <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Projects>. Mark has expressed an interest in gaining some experience with people management skills as a logical next step in his career, and to that end we will gradually add direct reports under Mark over the next year, starting with the Data Center Ops crew. He will continue to report to me until we hire a Director of Technical Operations. I know you will do all you can to support Mark in his new role. Danese Cooper CTO, Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Fwd: [Wikimedia Chapters Reports] Wikimedia Hong Kong Report for Jul-Aug 2010
by Erik Moeller 16 Sep '10

16 Sep '10

FYI, the report for Wikimedia Hong Kong for July and August. The "education toolkit" referenced below is a media literacy project targeting high schools in Hong Kong; you can read more about the grant here (we funded it at a reduced budget of $10,000): http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_HK/Education_Toolkits_For_Liberal_… All best, Erik ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jeromy-Yu Maximilian Chan <yuyu(a)wikimedia.hk> Date: 2010/9/11 Subject: [Wikimedia Chapters Reports] Wikimedia Hong Kong Report for Jul-Aug 2010 To: WM Chapters Reprots <chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Jul-Aug 2010 Monthly Report Wikimedia Hong Kong Ref: WMHK/DIR01/MM/001E This is the chapters report for Wikimedia Hong Kong, Jul - Aug 2010. I apologize for the perious long time silence. If you have any questions, please approach us directly. Anniversary Conference 2010 This is our third Anniversary Conference, an annual public outreach event we maintained since 2007. This is year we set the event as a kick start of our WMF-funded project, the Education Toolkits For Liberal Studies. With the help and support from ISOC-HK and the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, we are able to had such meeting in HRH Duke of Windsor Service Building, a prime conference location in town. In the meeting Dr. Chitat Chan, our chapter’s advisor, and John Chan from our partner group in the LS toolkit project, 3 teachers group. We had clarified our goal and defined the strategy for the project. Photos of the event: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeromyu/sets/72157624394600259/ Education Toolkits For Liberal Studies This is a WMF-funded project, and from the anniversary conference, our partners and us agreed that we should involved teachers who currently teaching the subject. So we kept on the strategic preparation for the platform to bring the teachers together. Preparation for annual fundraising Preparation for this years fundraiser had started much earlier this year, and several things are in progress: - unlock our Paypal account by gaining charity status - moving bank account to HSBC - seeking gov’t approval to set up fundraising stalls in downtown streets - preparation for selling Alpaca(Caonima) stamp in the fundraising period (special thx to Argentine Chapter) Wikimedia Asia Conference Negotiated with dot Asia organization and ISOC-HK, we may facilitate an option for Wikimedia Asia Project, that we might collocate the conference with their APRICOT-APAN 2011. We still need a consensus from the Asian Chapters to make the conference a reality. General assembly 4th General Assembly was held in June, 1st Council, which provides check and balance to the directory, was elected. Councillors were inaugurated in June, in their first assembled, when the annual plan and budget of the chapter presented by the Directory was also approved. Coming up 18-Sept 5th Anniversary re-do of the First WIkipedian’s Meetup in Hong Kong Sept,Oct Focus groups with liberal studies teachers -- Jerry~雨雨 Jeromy-Yu Maximilian Chan, ARAD President, Wikimedia Hong Kong Member, Chapters Committee, Wikimedia Foundation Member, Communications Committee, Wikimedia Foundation User:Yuyu | zh.wikipedia | jeromyu.info MSN: jeromyuchan(a)msn.com also Jeromyu on twitter, plurk and most of places Tel (Mobile): +852 9279 1601 Laudamus quae laudentur Qui mollis et dissolutus est in opere suo frater est sua opera dissipantis. Non clamatis hostilia, numquam esse vos accusatoribus. _______________________________________________ Chapters-reports mailing list Chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/chapters-reports -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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WikimediaAnnounce-l September 2010