[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2009 Week: 32 Number: 114

EN Wikizine info-en at wikizine.org
Thu Aug 6 22:25:20 UTC 2009


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                                     .org

Year: 2009  Week: 32  Number: 114

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

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=== Technical news ===

[Full downtime] - All of Wikimedia's services (sites, mailing lists,  
etc.) were down on July 31 at 12:00 (UTC) to allow the primary router  
at the Tampa hosting facility to be rebooted.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/pmtpa-router-reboot-scheduled-downtime/
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-July/044406.html
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CentralNotice/Downtime

[SysAdminDay] - System Administrator Appreciation Day was held on July  
31st; it's the day where you appreciate and thank all the system  
administrators who make your lives easier!
http://www.sysadminday.com/

[Override this function] - on August 6, users were temporarily getting  
the message 'Override this function' when visiting pages on Wikipedia,  
due to a server only partially getting an update.  The issue was  
supposedly fixed but the sysadmins are still getting reports, it needs  
further investigation of the problem.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20081

=== Request for help ===

[WikimediaMobile] - Wikimedia Mobile, the mobile interface for  
Wikipedia, has started accepting translations on betawiki. Help is  
greatly appreciated in localizing it for your local Wikipedia.
http://m.wikipedia.org/
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Wikimedia_mobile

[Flickr tool maintainers] - Bryan Tong Minh posted a request for  
co-maintainers for his flickr tools on the toolserver. The bots are  
written in Python and use the mwclient library to edit and upload.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2009-August/004976.html

[Best practices team] - "Best practice in public outreach" is a  
collection of articles describing experiences in winning new  
volunteers, partners, content and audiences.  The group will help  
coordinate the creation and enhancement of the best practices  
documentation pages on Meta-Wiki, which will help share the knowledge  
about engaging new target groups or deepening relationships to new  
Wikimedians.  Volunteers are needed!
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Best_practices_documentation_team

[BLP task force] - Cary Bass is in the process of launching a new task  
force on Biographies of Living People (as a result of the board  
resolution on the subject).  The task force will be focusing on the  
English Wikipedia, but its recommendations and guidelines will  
probably be useful on other projects too.  Volunteers are needed, see  
the blog post for more information.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2009-August/102667.html  
-- call for volunteers
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people --  
resolution

=== Proposals ===

[Strategic Proposals (Call)] - the Strategic Planning team has sent  
out a call for proposals. They'd like to encourage people to put their  
ideas into proposals for what the Wikimedia movement should be doing  
over the next five years.  What's more is that you can write it in the  
language of your choice.

=== Foundation ===

[Guidestar] - the Wikimedia Foundation has finally received a profile  
on GuideStar, one of the largest American databases for non-profits.   
Be sure to visit the profile and write a review!
http://tinyurl.com/wmfGuidestar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GuideStar -- article on the site

[Usability: Babaco] - the Usability team is preparing for its next  
release and has some new designs and ideas that need feedback from  
users, community members, and interested parties.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/29/the-abcs-of-usability/ -- blog post
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Babaco_Designs -- designs

[Transcom newsletter] - the Translation committee (the people whose  
job it is to coordinate translations of Wikimedia Foundation-related  
items) has released its newsletter, which is a summary of open  
requests.  If you speak another language, please look and see if  
there's anywhere that you can help out!
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2009-July/000982.html

[LSS: foundation-l] - a new list summary of foundation-l posts between  
July 16-31 has been published.  Phoebe has also posted a request for  
help, reminding others that she's not the only one who can do it and  
there are other lists that could be summarized too!
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2009_July_16-31
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS -- main LSS page

=== Legal ===

[EFF&NPG update] - Another update on the National Portrait Gallery  
legal issue, the Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer, Fred von  
Lohmann, has posted a legal analysis of the situation.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/eff-defends-wikipedi

=== Agenda ===

[PL: pl.wp meeting] - the Polish Wikipedia is having its annual  
working meeting in Sopot, Poland from September 11-13.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GDJ_2009 (pl)

[SE: Book Fair] - Wikimedia Sweden will have a booth at the largest  
book fair in Scandinavia with 100,000+ attendees.  The fair will be  
September 24-27, 2009.
http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Projekt:Bok_och_Biblioteksmässan_2009 --  
WMSE's page about the booth (sv)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg_Book_Fair -- enwp article  
about the fair

[JP: Conference] - Wikimedia Conference Japan has opened up its  
official website and has finalized its details: November 22 at Tokyo  
University!
http://www.wcj2009.info/ (ja)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_Japan/en --  
summary on Meta (en)

[BE: Fosdem] - FOSDEM, the FOSS conference, has announced the dates  
for its 2010 conference: February 6-7, 2010
http://www.fosdem.org/2010/

=== Community ===

[GLAM-WIKI] - GLAM-Wiki, Wikimedia Australia's conference for  
galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and how they can collaborate  
with Wikimedia, is being held this week (August 6-7) and a live  
"play-by-play" can be found via twitter.
https://twitter.com/#search?q=%23GLAM-WIKI -- twitter posts
http://brianna.modernthings.org/article/230/glam-wiki-day-one -- blog  
post summarizing day 1

[Simple Wikipedia] - this little known Wikipedia works since 2004 on a  
encyclopedia that is using fewer words and easier grammar then the  
English Wikipedia. The small community has managed to get again at the  
54,000 articles mark, after falling down 2000 articles due to a  
quality cleanup. For those who find other Wikipedias has become to  
large to be happy there a small project like Simple could be attractive.
http://simple.wikipedia.org

[WMNL: Partnership] - just in time for GLAM-WIKI, Wikimedia Nederland  
officially announced a partnership with the Tropenmuseum (one of the  
largest museums in the Netherlands).  This new partnership will bring  
over 2100 high quality images to the Wikimedia Commons!
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/05/wikimedia-netherlands-and-the-tropenmuseum-bring-2100-images-to-the-commons/ -- blog post and press  
release

[Wiki-Conference NY] - Archive.org is hosting a few videos of the  
proceedings at Wiki-Conference New York, so far Jimmy Wales's keynote  
and Cary Bass's OTRS presentation have been published but more will  
come soon.
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=Wiki?Conference%20New%20York

[IRC Meeting] - a general IRC meeting was hosted by the Group  
Contacts.  There was a high number of participants (~80 people) and a  
wide array of topics, from contacting the GCs and new cloak options to  
public logging and alternate channel management techniques.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Group_Contacts/Meetings/August_2009

[WMDE: Report from the Office] - the new Executive Director of  
Wikimedia Deutschland, Pavel Richter, has published his first "Report  
from the Office" on the WMDE blog.  He shares his new priorities and  
introduces himself.
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2009/07/31/1-bericht-aus-der-geschaftsstelle-juli-2009/  
(de)

=== Media ===

[GLAM-Wiki] - As described above in the "Community" section, GLAM-WIKI  
is being held this week and it has been covered by a few media outlets.
http://wikimedia.org.au/w/images/b/ba/GLAM_WIKI_-_Media_Release.pdf --  
WMAU press release
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/313846/wikimedia_event_seeks_open_up_australian_culture
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/26683/1231/

[Judges & Strippers] - Wiktionary was quoted when defining a lap dance  
in a legal case!
http://www.dbs.id.au/blog/law/lap-dance-wikipedia.html
https://twitter.com/Wittylama/status/3102455466

[Anecdote] - there's a nice, thoughtful blog post from a  
paleontologist/geoscientist and his experiences with contributing to  
Wikipedia.
http://triassiccritters.blogspot.com/2009/08/contributing-to-wikipedia-as.html

[Experts obliged?] - experts and people who find errors in Wikipedia  
are obliged to correct them, a blog post says.  "Whether you like it  
or not, Wikipedia is the source that people go to for information."
http://blog.k1v1n.com/2009/08/if-tree-falls-in-forest-part-1.html

[We're NC-17] - Apple has rated us NC-17!  Wikipanion, an iPhone/Pod  
application giving access to Wikipedia (nicely formatted with extra  
features), featured a warning when downloading: "Rated 17+ for the  
following:  Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes".
http://dougpete.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/covering-your-click/ -- blog  
post about this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NC-17 -- in case you have no idea what  
we're talking about

=== Stats ===

[comScore: down to #5] - Facebook is now the 4th largest site in the  
world and has pushed the Wikimedia Foundation down to the 5th largest  
web property. Wikipedia is still far above an beyond the most popular  
non commercial website. By the way; the ranking of Wikizine is 50% up  
to become the 2,983,528th most popular site :)      (Source:Alexa)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/04/facebook-is-now-the-fourth-largest-site-in-the-world/

[African Wikipedias] - Swahili Wikipedia "has raced ahead with great  
momentum" and surpassed Afrikaans as the largest African Wikipedia by  
number of articles.  There's also stats about the other African  
Wikipedias and sister projects.
http://www.greenman.co.za/blog/?p=614 -- blog post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Africa -- African languages

[Wikipedias] - the Spanish Wikipedia has reached 500,000 articles, the  
Lithuanian Wikipedia has reached 90,000, and the Latin Wikipedia  
reached 30,000 articles with the addition of "Magninovilla".

[EN Wikinews] - Not really a direct goal of Wikinews to have many  
"articles" but nevertheless the English language Wikinews has  
surpassed 15,000 news stories.
http://en.wikinews.org

=== Other news ===

[wikiHow&MediaWiki] - wikiHow showcased an interesting article (on its  
twitter feed) about how to make a MediaWiki skin, worth a read if  
you're ever in the need for a new skin. :-)
https://twitter.com/wikiHow/status/3111069632

[Mobile Feedback] - the Mobile Wikipedia site requested feedback from  
its users and got a few interesting results, you might get a laugh out  
of them!
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/amusing-mobile-feedback/

[Correction: WMUK&Schools] - we previously reported that the new WMUK  
schools project was about revisiting its "Wikipedia Version for  
Schools" project.  This is actually a new initiative, one focused on  
going into schools and teaching the staff and students how to  
effectively use and contribute to Wikipedia.
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives/Schools_project

[Wiktionary users] - Dvortygirl posted an interesting blog post about  
the type of users who are attracted to writing a dictionary.  She  
found that most of the people in the #wiktionary IRC channel all  
shared similar characteristics to her (and a Dutch Wiktionary  
visitor), more information in the blog post.
http://dvortygirl.blogspot.com/2009/08/wiktionary-type.html

=== Quote ===

"About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love  
you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some  
won't like you at all."  - Rita Mae Brown

//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Casey, Alex, Walter
Thanks to: Cary, David, Brianna, Phoebe, Bryan, Steve, Brion, Sage,  
Hampton, Signpost, Naoko, Bark, ErikZ, Jay, wikihow, Mecredis, Liam,  
Jessica, Pavel, Leinad, Mile K., Dvortygirl, St-Lemur
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////

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