[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2009 Week: 36 Number: 117

Thu Sep 17 01:50:24 UTC 2009

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                                     .org

Year: 2009  Week: 36  Number:  117

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

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=== Technical news ===

[Software updates] - Brion is in the process of updating the Wikimedia  
sites with several weeks of new updates.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-September/045179.html

[Mobile survey] - the Wikipedia Mobile team is running a survey,  
hoping to get feedback on their progress so far and suggestions for  
future additions.
http://bit ly/LBXdK
http://m.wikipedia.org/

[Sever donations] - do you know of a non-profit that needs servers?   
The Wikimedia Foundation is donating 35 servers (over 3 years old)  
that aren't fast enough to run our sites anymore, but would probably  
work fine for smaller projects.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/server-donation-time-again/

[TIFF support] - the tech team is adding full TIFF support in the near  
future.  This support will help MediaWiki render TIFF images (an image  
format widely used by museums and in scientific research) so that  
users can view them in their browsers.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/full-tiff-support-is-comming/

=== Foundation ===

[Board Minutes] - the minutes for the April and June Board meetings  
have now been published.  You can view them on foundationwiki.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/April_3-5,_2009
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/June_16,_2009

[Wikimedia IRC meeting] - the new three new Board members held an  
introductory meeting on IRC where they introduced themselves and  
answered questions.  A full log is available on Meta and minutes are  
to come.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/054870.html
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_meetings/September_11,_2009#Meeting_information_.26_Attendees

[Report to the Board] - Sue Gardner, the Executive Director, published  
her Report to the Board for the month of June.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/054904.html

[Foundation-l LSS] - The latest summary for foundation-l has been  
posted on Meta-Wiki, thanks to Phoebe.  In addition, you can now also  
follow updates to the LLS on identi.ca, either from the site there or  
via RSS.
http://identi.ca/listsummaryservice
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2009_August_1-31

[Orange Poland] - the Orange partnership has expanded into Poland.   
Unfortunately, though, there were a few issues with local press during  
the launch (see the foundation-l post).
http://wikipedia.wp.pl/
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/054946.html

[Usability Beta Status] - Naoko Komura, Program Manager for the  
Usability Initiative, gave an update on the status of the usability  
updates (the "Try Beta" link).  She also included statistics on how  
often they were enabled/kept enabled.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/14/usability-beta-status/ -- blog post

[Omidyar Grant] - the Wikipedia Signpost has an article further  
explaining the nature of the Omidyar Grant of US$2 million to the  
Wikimedia Foundation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-09-14/News_and_notes

[Job openings] - the Wikimedia Foundation has three job openings, as  
of press time, including a software developer, project manager, and  
development associate.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings

[Transcom] - the translation committee has released another newsletter  
summarizing open requests.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2009-September/001004.html

=== Legal ===

[WMIT being sued] - Wikimedia Italia, the Italian chapter, has been  
sued for ?20,000,000 over a possibly defamatory article.  WMIT is in  
no way connected to the article or edits in question, but they still  
have to pay the legal fees and fight a court battle due to the Italian  
legal system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gianfranco/Wikimedia_Italia_sued_for_20,000,000_%E2%82%AC -- unofficial summary  
(en)
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Sabato_19,_a_Roma,_abbiamo_bisogno_di_te -- community notification  
(it)

=== Community ===

[University course about WP] - a university course solely devoted to  
Wikipedia has recently been started in Sweden.
http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_release_August_30,_2009

[Translatewiki.net update] - Gerard and Niko both published blog posts  
giving updates on Translatewiki, the site for translations of the  
MediaWiki software.
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2009/09/translatewikinet-update.html
http://laxstrom.name/blag/2009/09/01/gsoc-wrap-up-translate-extension/

[Office Move] - the Wikimedia Foundation officially announced its  
upcoming office move (to be completed in mid-to-late October).  It has  
also publicized the address, something the Foundation has shied away  
from in the past.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/055204.html

[Improving Foundation-l] - Foundation-l, the mailing list intended to  
discuss Foundation issues, has started a request for comment.  Do you  
know ways the mailing list could be improved or replaced?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l

[Restoration Discovery] - Durova, one of the people on Commons who  
works on restoring images, received a pleasant surprise.  While  
restoring a photo, she discovered that there was actually human  
remains in picture.  This discovery has been noted in the Montreal  
Museum of Fine Arts and the Library of Congress even credited her in  
its bibliographic record.
http://durova.blogspot.com/2009/09/synergies.html

[WMBD Meeting] - Wikimedia Bangladesh (a planned local chapter) had a  
meeting on September 10
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Bangladesh/Online_Meeting_2009-09-10

=== Media ===

[Biggest blunders] - CNN has assembled a list of "Wikipedia's Biggest  
Blunders".
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/09/06/wikipedia.biggest.blunders.cnn

[Wikipedia grows up] - the UK Telegraph wrote an article saying that  
Wikipedia and the Internet are growing up.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6122514/Wikipedia-and-the-Internet-grow-up.html

[Strategic Planning] - the New York Times covered the new Strategic  
Planning Initiative and the other consultants that are helping  
professionalize the Foundation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=2

[Editing For Beginners] - the Australian Lifehacker wrote an article  
trying to teach beginners how to contribute to Wikipedia.
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/09/wikipedia-editing-for-beginners/

[Wikipedia reacts to outburst] - a reporter for the New York Times  
wrote a blog post describing the Wikipedia community's response to a  
US Representative shouting at the president during his speech.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/wikipedias-rapid-reaction-to-outburst-during-obama-speech/

=== Stats ===

[Commons reaches 5 mil] - just in time for its 5th birthday, the  
Wikimedia Commons has reached 5 million files.  See the blog post and  
chapter press releases for more information.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/02/wikimedia-commons-breaks-5000000-files/
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Commons_5_million_files
http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Commons_5_miljoen_bestanden

[Wikistats Portal 2.0] - Erik Zachte, maintainer of Infodisiac (a set  
of Wikimedia statistics), wrote about a recent overhaul of the  
statistics portal.
http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/09/wikistats-portal-20/

[Wikipedia?s Growth Animated] - all the Wikipedias grow at different  
rates and have started at different times.  How can we compare them  
other than just by the numbers?  Erik Z has updated an animation that  
shows this growth visually.
http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/09/wikipedias-growth-animated/

[vi.wp] - the Vietnamese Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles.
http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-11

[th.wp] - the Thai Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.

[cs.ws] - the Czech Wikisource has reached 10,000 pages.
http://cs.wikisource.org/wiki/Ilias/Zp%C4%9Bv_p%C3%A1t%C3%BD

[bo.wp] - the Tibetan Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
http://tinyurl.com/bowp1k

=== Other news ===

[Semantic Web Problem] - TechCrunch wrote a humorous article centering  
the unfortunate results when robots try to get meaning from Wikipedia  
text.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/02/netbase-thinks-you-can-get-rid-of-jews-with-alcohol-and-salt/

=== Did you know ... ===

...the first public cell phone call was made on April 3, 1973 by  
Martin Cooper?

=== Quote ===
"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to  
work hard at work worth doing." -- Theodore Roosevelt

//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Casey, Alex
Corrector(s):
Thanks to: Ainali, Mike, WikimediaMobile, infodisiac (Erik Z),  
Hampton, Mathias, Sj, Gerard, Durova, Austin, Sue, Marcin, Rand,  
Frieda, Tanvir, David, Phoebe, Naoko, Brion, Kat, Signpost, Mxn, Daniel
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
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