[Foundation-l] Year: 2012 Week: 4 Number: 132

2012-01-17 Thread EN Wikizine

  ____  _  _ _   _
 / / /\ \ \(_)| | __(_) (_) _ _____
 \ \/  \/ /| || |/ /| ||_  /| || '_ \  / _ \
  \  /\  / | ||| | / / | || | | ||  __/
   \/  \/  |_||_|\_\|_|/___||_||_| |_| \___|
.org
 Year: 2012  Week: 4  Number: 132


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



=== The EN Wikipedia goes offline for 24 hours ===

The community of the English language Wikipedia has decided to  
blackout the English Wikipedia for 24 hours. A sort of strike thus.  
The blackout goes in to effect from 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January  
18. The blackout is a protest against the proposed law of the United  
States of America Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

The protest is there because the proposed law is could harm the  
operation of community driven website like Wikipedia.

The decision of the Community of the English language Wikipedia is  
supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. This in the first time the  
English Wikipedia - the oldest and most popular of all Wikipedias -  
does something like this. The Italian language Wikipedia did this a  
couple of months ago.

Other language Wikipedias have indicated to show support by displaying  
a banner but not also go dark. Also non-Wikimedia websites will take  
part but not all by going dark. Google will put a link on there  
homepage about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-sopa-blackout-january-18/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-01-16/Special_report
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-01-16/News_and_notes
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/58755
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech
http://www.sopastrike.com/  -- websites that join the strike


@@Wikizine-seeks-editors--@@

Editor(s): Walter
Contact: http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
Gophersite: gopher://gopher.wikizine.org

@@---Wikizine-loves-feedback--@@


Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and
especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling.
Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly
inspired or directly copied from other sources.
Those sources are listed above at Sources-Attributions.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]].
Content is available under Creative Commons
Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


[Foundation-l] Wikizine - Anno Domini MMXII Week II Number CXXXI

2012-01-07 Thread EN Wikizine

   ____  _  _ _   _
  / / /\ \ \(_)| | __(_) (_) _ _____
  \ \/  \/ /| || |/ /| ||_  /| || '_ \  / _ \
   \  /\  / | ||| | / / | || | | ||  __/
\/  \/  |_||_|\_\|_|/___||_||_| |_| \___|
 .org
   Anno Domini MMXII   Week II   Number CXXXI


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



=== Foundation ===

[Terms Of Use] - On websites the Terms of Use are what most of us
frequently indicate to agree with but never reed. Also Wikipedia has a
Terms of Use. A Terms of use for Wikipedia came only to existence
years after its founding and remained very basic. Until now. In
original Wikimedia style a new Terms Of use have been written by the
community at Meta. It is more extensive then the current but it
remains, for a Terms of Use, relative short and very readable. The
WMF board still needs to approve it before it can replaces the current
Terms of Use.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/31/terms-of-use/
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use -- New Terms of Use
(final community draft)

[The Annual Fundraiser] - Despite the economic problems of the world -
the Wikimedia Foundation did it again. The goal is every year higher
but the donations follow. The WMF has raised the new record amount of
20 million US dollar in the fundraiser that just now ended. The
miracle of the WMF business model to just ask for money keeps working.
But even a miracle needs some help. Last year the WMF spend 1,8 USD $
on fundraising. The operating budget of the WMF will increase in
spending in 2011-12 compared with 2010-11 with $9.8 million. 28.3
million USD will be the current budget. The gap between the raised
amount and the budget is closed by several grants and continuous
donations. 44% of the budget will go to running the actual
web-infrastructure. 24% will go to management, finance and
administration. A tiny fraction smaller, 23% of the budget, is under
the label Other programs. The Community department and the Global
Development department falls under that slice. The rest are
fundraising costs. Best read the annual plan if you wish to know more.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/02/wikimedia-fundraiser-concludes-with-record-breaking-donations/
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2011-2012_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers

[Grant of $3.6 Million] - The Stanton Foundation -, a long term funder
of the WMF, donated $3.6 million USD (2,61 Million EUR) to the
Wikimedia Foundation. This is the largest grant ever received by the
WMF.
http://tinyurl.com/3qv5grb

=== Technical news ===

[https] - It was already possible to login to the projects by means of
a secure connection but that was by means of a
https://secure.wikimedia.org; -type of link. Now the usable links
work. Just add the s to the protocol. This works on all Wikimedia
wikis. Using https is not yet the default option when you login. If
you wish to use it you need to enter it manually.
https://en.wikipedia.org

[Article Feedback] - A new article feedback system is in testing at EN
Wikipedia. A previous version used a star-system the the reader could
give to articles. The new one uses a different approach. It does not
asks to give points but the give real textual reader feedback. More
like a very easy comment function like on blogs and news sites. Only
are the comments not posted. Currently the collected data is only for
testing and not public. The idea is that editors will be able to
assess the feedback in the future. The test runs on limited number of
articles on EN Wikipedia.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/20/a-new-way-to-contribute-to-wikipedia/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28operating_system%29  --
example article with the new feedback function

=== Movement ===

[Al Jazeera] - The media company Al Jazeera, mostly know for its
television stations, is releasing a large part of the pictures and
video's the make under a Creative Commons license (CC BY 3.0). This is
very, very great news. Wikinews and Wikipedia now have access to
recent quality material for there articles about topics that would be
nearly impossible otherwise.
http://cc.aljazeera.net/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aljazeeraenglish/sets/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_from_Al_Jazeera

=== Media ===

[Wikipedia Vs. Britannica] - It is not original but always interesting
to read; compare the articles of Wikipedia with those of Britannica
and other classic sources by academics. The reaserch is published in
the peer-reviewed medical journal Psychological Medicine. To read
the actual article you can buy the article for $45 or rent it for
$5,99. Luckily the Singpost is not so silly.
http://tinyurl.com/6mzosac -- free read


[Foundation-l] Wikizine News - Year: 2011 Week: 40 Number: 130

2011-09-29 Thread EN Wikizine

 Wikizine.org's   __
   /\ \ \ ___ __  __ ___
  /  \/ // _ \\ \ /\ / // __|
 / /\  /|  __/ \ V  V / \__ \
 \_\ \/  \___|  \_/\_/  |___/
 EDITION
 Year: 2011  Week: 40Number: 130


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



=== Movement ===

[30 September] - The last day of the project Wiki Loves Monuments for  
this year is September 30th. So if you still have pictures of  
monuments, it is not yet to late to share them on Commons and maybe  
win a prize. Currently there are already more then 125,000 new  
pictures added to commons in this one month of Wikimedia Loves  
Monuments. Yes - 125,000 - that is correct. And ... one country is  
{{done}} -  Andorra has now 100% of the monuments photographed!
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2011

[Image filter] - Discussion about ethical problems with image filter  
implementation on Wikisource started by John Vanderberg, one of the  
most active Wikisource editors and the chair of Wikimedia Australia.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Image_filter_on_Wikisource

=== Technical news ===

[Automatic photo orientation] - Brion Vibber informs us about  
automatic photo orientation in MediaWiki 1.18. At least if the  
orientation information is available in the EXIF-information.
http://leuksman.com/log/2011/09/23/automatic-photo-orientation-in-mediawiki-1-18/

[New look on statistics] - Erik Zachte created a new new look for  
Wikimedia statistics. Interpretation of data in editorial of this  
week's Opinion edition.
http://infodisiac.com/blog/2011/09/summary-reports-for-all-wikimedia-wikis/

[Wikimedia India conference] - India Hackathon 2011 will be held  
during Wikimedia India conference (18-20 November).
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/25/india-hackathon-2011/

=== Foundation ===

[Google Summer of Code] - Sumana Harihareswara, WMF's Volunteer  
Development Coordinator, published a report on Wikimedia-related  
projects from the Google Summer of Code.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/22/gsoc-students-reach-project-milestones/
http://code.google.com/soc/

[Jon Harald Søby becomes Community Fellow] - Jon’s fellowship will run  
until February 2012. His project priorities include recruiting and  
coordinating more translators for more languages, building pages and  
processes that make it easier for new volunteers to get started, and  
improving systems for producing high-quality translations.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/27/announcing-community-fellow-jon-harald-soby/
https://sugar.corp.wikimedia.org/translators/translators.php?referrer=wikizine  
-- Sign up to be a translator

 Jimmy Wales 

[London startup competition] - Jimmy is leading the jury for a new  
startup funding event kicking off in London this December.
http://thenextweb.com/uk/2011/09/22/wikipedia-co-founder-jimmy-wales-heads-up-new-london-startup-competition/

[On Wikipedia and Facebook] - Jimmy on Wikipedia and Facebook for The  
Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/wikipedia-jimmy-wales_n_982243.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/27/wales_no_outing_wikipedia_on_facebook/

[Why 'like' button isn't enough?] - Jimmy thinks that the 'like'  
button isn't enough.
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/fast-chat-jimmy-wales-135257

=== Chapters ===

[Wikimedia India] - Wikimedia India opened blog.
http://wikimedia.in/?p=26

[Wikimedia Germany] - Wikimedia Germany published the book Alles über  
Wikipedia – und die Menschen hinter der größten Enzyklopädie der  
Welt, which is the first ever book in the catalogue of a traditional  
German publisher that is published under a free license.
http://wikimedia.de/wiki/Wikipedia_Buch
http://philippebeaudette.com/great-news-from-wikimedia-deutschland/

[Wikimedia Poland] - Wikimedia Poland celebrated 10 years of the  
Polish Wikipedia. The Polish media covered the event.
http://www.poland.pl/news/article,Polish_Wikipedia_is_10_Years_Old,id,461162.htm
http://www.thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/55748,Polish-Wikipedia-marks-10th-anniversary

[Wiki Loves Monuments] - Wiki Loves Monuments officially ends on 30  
September, although there will be some events after the official end.
http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/wiki-loves-monuments-comes-to-a-close/

[Wiki Takes Cologne] - Wiki took Cologne, Germany in one of the last  
events of this year's Wiki Loves Monuments campaign. Jimmy Wales got  
Leonardo Award in Cologne.
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu/2011/09/25/wiki-loves-monuments-cologne-koeln/
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2011/09/25/wiki-loves-monuments-koln/ (in German)

[Foundation-l] Wikizine News - Year: 2011 Week: 39 Number: 129

2011-09-21 Thread EN Wikizine

 Wikizine.org's   __
   /\ \ \ ___ __  __ ___
  /  \/ // _ \\ \ /\ / // __|
 / /\  /|  __/ \ V  V / \__ \
 \_\ \/  \___|  \_/\_/  |___/
 EDITION
 Year: 2011  Week: 39   Number: 129


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



=== Technical news ===

[Babel on all Wikis] - There are a great deal of templates and signs  
that one can put on there user page. One of the most useful are the  
Babel-templates that indicate the knowledge of different languages.  
Now is there an extension active on all wikis for that. No need to  
manually setup all those templates on all wikis. The structure is  
easy; see the excellent blog posting of Mister Internationalisation  
himself - Gerard Meijssen.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/21/babel-extension-live-on-the-wmf-projects/

[New mobile gateway] - There is a new mobile gateway active for the  
Wikipedias. The the other projects will follow. This is provided by  
new extension of MediaWiki 1.17, the software our wikis are using.  
This replaces the old mobile gateway.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/14/new-mobile-site-launched-on-wikipedia-soon-for-sister-wikis-too/
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend

[MediaWiki 1.8] - As announced in the TechFlash upgrade of the wikis  
is in progress. New functions in MediaWiki 1.8 include;
- Support for gender-specific user pages: languages that have  
different words for User whether the user is male or female will be  
able to show the male or the female version, if the user has specified  
their gender in their preferences.
- MediaWiki 1.18 will make it easier for left-to-right and  
right-to-left text to coexist on the same page.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/16/mediawiki118iscomin/

[Fundraiser-time?] - You could encounter the well known gigantic  
donation banner personal appeal by  But no, it is not again the  
big fundraiser event. But only a banner test. If you see it then you  
where lucky. It is only at EN Wikipedia for anonymous users and  
generally only in certain countries. The tests are currently being  
conducted for 1 hour once a week. The real fundraiser will proably be  
in November. But, test or not, donations are welcome.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011

[Techs share knowledge] - Running a massive infrastructure like the  
WMF is using also mean that collect knowledge how to do that. In line  
with the mission of the WMF detailed information about the  
configuration of the system has been released so that others can learn  
from it.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/19/ever-wondered-how-the-wikimedia-servers-are-configured/

[Operations Engineer goals] - In another post, Ryan Lane gives a  
longer story about his goals for the past year.
http://ryandlane.com/blog/2011/09/19/ive-been-with-the-wikimedia-foundation-for-a-year-have-i-met-my-goals/

=== Request for help ===

[Petition to UNSECO] - Wikimedia Foundation, with full support of  
founder Jimmy Wales, is asking to support the request to the UNESCO to  
recognize Wikipedia as the first digital World Cultural Heritage  
Site. Over 51,000 people have signed the petition already. Your are  
suggested to spread the word of this petition (after you signed) by  
all the communication channels of the modern day. If you sign the  
petition need to confirm by a link send by e-mail
http://wikipedia.de/wke/Main_Page

[Sign-up for translation] - Frequently there are messages that need to  
be translated in, if possible, all the languages of the projects. If  
you like to volunteer to be a translator you can register yourself  
(see link) so when you are needed you can be contacted.
https://sugar.corp.wikimedia.org/translators/translators.php?referrer=wikizine

=== Bureaucracy ===

[Stewards election] - You can vote in the election for new stewards  
until 6 October. According to the present situation, 9 Wikimedians  
have a good chance to become stewards: Axpde, Bencmq, Bennylin,  
Quadell, Quentinv57, Teles, Trijnstel, Vituzzu and Wikitanvir.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2
http://toolserver.org/~stewardbots/elections.php

=== Movement ===

[German Wikipedia] - On 15 September a poll on the German Wikipedia  
questioning participants about the proposed image filter was closed.  
German Wikipedians rejected implementation of an image filter on the  
German Wikipedia by a 86.23% majority (430 votes, 357 against, 57 in  
favour, 16 neutral).
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/068502.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%C3%B6nlicher_Bildfilter
 (proposal, arguments 

[Foundation-l] Wikizine Opinion - Year: 2011 Week: 38 Number: 128 BIS

2011-09-16 Thread EN Wikizine
**
Wikizine.org's
___ _ _
   /___\ _ __  (_) _ __  (_)  ___   _ __
  //  //| '_ \ | || '_ \ | | / _ \ | '_ \
/ \_// | |_) || || | | || || (_) || | | |
\___/  | .__/ |_||_| |_||_| \___/ |_| |_|
|_|

Year: 2011  Week: 38  Number: 128 BIS

**

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

//

=== Wikizine needs YOU! ===

Wikipedia has already changed the world. Wikimedia movement is at the  
beginning of that task. To push the movement into that direction,  
Wikizine needs your '''bold''' ideas and personal perspectives! Send  
your ideas to us or simply add them into the appropriate section. What  
YOU think can change the world!

[Name] - Working title of this edition is Wikizine Talk Edition  
because we didn't have better idea. Send us suggestions for the name!

=== Contents ===

Editorial
Personal perspective
In the news
 From Wikipedia

=== Editorial by Milos ===

As you could read in Wikizine 127 [1], I took initiative and began a  
Wikizine revival. You may notice some changes and I can say that there  
will be more changes, as such changes keep all of us alive.

Editorial is one of those changes and it will have two main parts: (1)  
presentation of one of the Wikizine feature and (2) analysis of the  
most important event from the previous week or two. Opinion or Talk  
Edition of Wikizine will be published on Friday and ?previous week?  
means approximately Friday-Thursday time frame.

Last week had begun with such intensity, I thought I could close this  
edition by Monday.

[1] http://en.wikizine.org/2011/09/year-2011-week-36-number-126.html

 (Un)acceptible Foundation influence on chapters 

On August 27th, almost 20 days before the conclusion of this edition,  
CasteloBranco, a member of the initiative for Wikimedia Brazil, sent  
an email to foundation-l [1] with the description of agreement inside  
of Brazilian Wikimedian community about chapter creation. That was the  
main obstacle toward formalizing the chapter, as Brazilian Wikimedians  
didn?t feel comfortable with the idea of having a formal organization.

That day five more Wikimedians discussed the outlines of this  
agreement on foundation-l, including a note from Ray Saintonge that  
it?s not the best idea to have a Wikimedia Foundation appointee in  
chapter?s Board (as suggested by WM Brazil?s agreement).

For five days discussion was dead, when Jimmy Wales said that having a  
WMF appointee is, actually, a good idea. That sparked long discussions  
on both foundation-l and internal-l (the latter one is a non-public  
list of the core of Wikimedia movement). A number of chapters  
representatives felt offended by the idea of having a WMF appointee on  
their boards.

[1] http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/246958

 Image filter retrospective (from spring 2008 to early 2011) 

For those who have forgotten what?s behind the image filter  
?referendum?, here is a retrospective.

The initial point of the drama started on 7 May 2008 [4]. Because of  
religion, of course. US-based ?social conservative? site WorldNetDaily  
reported Wikipedia [5] because of the cover art for the Scorpions?  
album Virgin Killer [6]. According to Concerned Women of America,  
another ?social conservative? group, ?Wikipedia is helping to further  
facilitate perversion and pedophilia.?

On 5 December 2008, in the moment of madness, worthy of the best of  
surreal poetry, Internet Watch Foundaiton (IWF) [7], the association  
of UK internet providers, listed Wikipedia as a child pornography site  
[8] because of the same album cover [6]. It seems that IWF needed just  
four days to find someone who knows what Wikipedia is. IWF reversed  
their blacklisting on 9 December.

In a moment of desperate need for self-promotion, Larry Sanger [9],  
known because he didn?t believe that his project (Wikipedia, for which  
has sometimes been described as a co-founder), would succeed and not  
so known because of a number of failed projects, reported Wikipedia to  
the FBI [10] on 10 April 2010 because, of course, ?child pornography?.

Just a short 17 days later, Fox News discovered the hot news and  
published it [11] in a well known form of spreading FUD to everything  
which doesn?t fit to their retarded worldview.

The action of the IWF prompted discussions on Wikimedia Commons in  
2008. However, just after the Commons community declined to change  
well defined policy toward images, which are handled based on their  
quality, not the biased opinion on content, on May 6th, 2010 Jimmy  
Wales started to delete not just poor quality Second Life animated  
pornography, but artworks, as well. That sparked a huge revolt among  
editors [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. At the other side, the  
action was praised by Fox News, of course [21].

Between May 

[Foundation-l] Year: 2011 Week: 36 Number: 125

2011-08-29 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2011  Week: 36  Number: 125

**

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

//

=== Community ===

[Stewards election] - Candidate submission will last up to September  
7th. Voting will be held between September 15th and October 6th.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2

[Writing contest] - In 2004 the Dutch language Wikipedia was the first  
Wikipedia to organize a writing contest. Now at the 1th of September  
already the 8th edition will start and run for 2 months. Users can  
work alone or in a team on an article of their choice. At the end the  
jury will award the prizes to the winners; an image of the trophy they  
can put on their user pages.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Schrijfwedstrijd

[Research committee] - Next Research committee meeting will be held on  
September 2nd.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Meetings/Meeting_2011-09-02

[Project closures] - Scots Wikipedia proposed for closure; proposal  
rejected during the same day. Proposals for Inuktitut and Old English  
Wikipedias closure rejected, while proposal for Asturianu Wikibooks  
closure accepted using the standard procedure.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Scots_Wikipedia
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Inuktitut_Wikipedia_2
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Inuktitut_Wikipedia_2
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Old_English_Wikipedia
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Asturianu_Wikibooks
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Closing_projects_policy

=== Other news ===

[WikiLoves Monuments] - Have a date with a monument and send the proof  
to Commons! And, you never know, you may win one of many nice prizes.

WikiLoves Monuments is project in 18 European countries to get quality  
pictures of important items of cultural heritage. It is organized by  
national groups, with the exception of the program representing the  
Kingdom of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg - which is one  
project that crosses state lines and includes several languages.

The project takes the form of an image contest. The user needs to  
upload their pictures to Commons in September. A national jury,  
depending on the country where the monument is located, will judge and  
proclaim the winners and award prizes. But the best prize is to get  
freely licensed pictures of our heritage out there.
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu/ --- see menu at the right for list  
of participating country's
http://tinyurl.com/3bzt2oc -- Wikimedia Germany about WikiLoves  
Monuments (google translation)

=== Technical news ===

[AbuseFilter] - this is an extension for MediaWiki, which helps  
prevent vandalism on wikis, and is now active on all wikis. Before you  
needed to ask (via a bugzilla request) to enable it for your wiki.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/08/24/filter-preventing-abusive-edits-all-wikis/
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/54632
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Edit_filter -- documentation about it

=== Foundation ===

[Results are in] - ... of the editor survey of April 2011. The actual  
report is available as a PDF on Meta. But there is also an extensive  
summary on Meta. And if that is also too long to read for you - check  
out the Wikipedia Signpost - they will probably give a short summary  
of it.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/08/29/report-for-editor-survey-april-2011/
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_Survey_2011 -- actual report here!
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_Survey_2011/Executive_Summary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost

=== Chapters ===

[Wikipedia.no] - YES! - The Chapter Wikimedia Norway has unanimously  
decide to make the domain wikipedia.no a portal page instead of  
pointing it to the bokmål version of Wikipedia. In many countries the  
first thing internet users enter is name+national TLD when they look  
for a website. By sharing this important internet real estate other,  
mostly very small, Wikipedias in languages of that county get exposure  
to visitors. Others, like wikipedia.be and wikipedia.be made this  
change long ago. Some, like wikipedia.de , choose not to.
http://www.wikipedia.no
http://tinyurl.com/3l7cchr -- WM Norway press release about it (Google  
translation)

[Chapters Planet] - There are many WM Chapters so a special blog  
aggregator for all the postings by them seemed to be a good idea. User  
Bence, a student in 

[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2011 Week: 4 Number: 123

2011-01-19 Thread EN Wikizine

**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2011  Week: 4  Number: 123

**

When you thought you were relieved of it...

//

=== 2010 ===

[News of the Wiki: year 2010] - Wikizine totally failed at informing  
you about Wikimedia news last year. This was regrettable but  
unavoidable due the lack of active staff. Fortunately, The Signpost  
looks better than ever and provides an excellent overview about the  
main topics of the past year in the Wikimedia world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-01-03/2010_in_review

=== Technical news ===

[Virginia Data Center] - the WMF has rented space in a data center in  
Virginia, USA. Installation of the hardware has been scheduled for  
February 2011. This location will soon become the main WMF data center.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_Projects/Data_Center_Virginia

[Article feedback] - a function to give readers the option of rating  
the quality of an article has been activated on a few pages of the  
English Wikipedia. The test showed that anonymous users give a much  
higher score than registered users. It started in September 2010 and  
is ongoing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion -- an article with the feedback  
function enabled
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Public_Policy_Pilot_Phase_2

[WMF Engineering Update] - an extensive overview of technical news,  
events and more.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2011/01/wmf-engineering-update/#more-1268

=== Request for help ===

[Keep your news clippings] - Do you see an article about Wikipedia in  
a newspaper or other printed media? Keep it. Contact your local  
chapter (if it exists) to ask if they can keep it safe for your local  
community. When there is no chapter, just keep it yourself --  
especially if you are from a small language Wikipedia. Every article  
that appears in print is something to collect.

=== Foundation ===

[Founder] - A video message from Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, to  
the world
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WalesCalltoAction.ogv

=== Agenda ===

[StrataConf 2011] - February 1-3, 2011, Santa Clara, California ? Many  
Wikimedians will be attending the O'Reilly conference, and there will  
be a an informal meetup with foundation staff member Erik Zachte on  
Wikimedia Data.
http://strataconf.com/strata2011

[FOSDEM] - February 5-6, Brussels, Belgium ? Tomasz Finc, Arthur  
Richards, and Roan Kattouw will be at FOSDEM 2011 this year. They will  
be speaking about data collection at Wikimedia.
http://www.fosdem.org/2011/

=== Community ===

[Celebrations] - A collection of photos from many Wikipedia 10  
community events are available on the Ten Wikipedia.  All of these  
photos, especially the international birthday cakes, are very nice  
and worth a look. Online you could see that there was something  
special at the English Wikipedia which used the special Wiki10 logo,  
and at the Dutch Wikipedia which used the old Wikipedia logo for one  
day.
http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_gallery#Wikipedia_10_Cakes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-01-17/News_and_notes
 -- report about Wiki10 by the  
Signpost

=== Media ===

[10 years] - There has been a huge amount of media coverage. A very  
long - and totaly incomplete - list of links to articles can be found  
at the Ten Wikipedia. There has been also radio and television  
interviews, not only with WMF key figures but also with regular users.
http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage

[A few links] - A very small selection of recent articles about the  
10th anniversary of Wikipedia. For more, see above.
http://www.wired.co.uk/topics/wikipedia-week
http://chronicle.com/article/Wikipedia-Comes-of-Age/125899/
http://www.slate.com/id/2281294/

=== Other news ===

[Translating EN WP] - A common misconception is that the many language  
editions of Wikipedia are actually translations of the English  
Wikipedia. In the case of Thai, however, this is correct. Asia  
Online created a complete translation of EN Wikipedia to the Thai  
language. This was done through advanced machine translation and a  
staff of 10 proofreaders.
http://www.globalwatchtower.com/2011/01/13/asia-online-thai-wikipedia/

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

... there are two Spanish language Wikipedias?

The ES Wikipedia forked to an independent project in the early days of  
Wikipedia: Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español. At first the new  
project was very successful, but ES Wikipedia overtook the fork in  
2004. A couple of days ago the Spanish language Wikipedia passed the  
700,000 article mark and remains the 7th largest Wikipedia. The fork  
is still bravely 

[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2011 Week: 2 Number: 122

2011-01-16 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2011  Week: 2  Number: 122

**

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

//

=== Community ===

[Wikipedia-day] - Once more it is almost the most important holiday of  
the year: Wikipedia day. Now Saturday we celebrate the 10th  
anniversary of the project. The start of the very first Wikipedia, the  
English language Wikipedia.

But this is also a day of celebration for all the other many projects  
and language editions who form the Wikimedia-family;

Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity,  
Wikispecies, Commons

10 years. 400 million unique visitors a month. 80,000 active volunteer  
editors. 17 million articles (wikipedia's only). A very successful  
fundraiser ( $US  16 million).

Time to celebrate!  -  And how to do that?  - With a special celebration-wiki;
http://ten.wikipedia.org/

There are many Wikimeets and events world-wide. Check the  
celebration-wiki for an event near you. Wikipedia will also come these  
day extra in the news so watch those news reports on TV and newspapers  
to see what the traditional media write about our project.

=== Wikimedia news ===

[Steward elections] - Call for candidates for the upcoming  
steward-election. Stewards perform technical tasks on all Wikimedia  
wikis. Sort of über admin.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011

[Wikimania 2011] -  Applications are open until the end of the month  
for a subsidy to go to Wikimania 2011 in Israel.
http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships

=== Quote ===

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in  
the sum of all knowledge.
That?s our commitment.

Jimmy Wales

//
Editor(s): Walter
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//

Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]].
Wikizine is published as long as there is noteworthy news (and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
and also the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


___
To unsubscribe;
mailto:requ...@wikizine.org?subject=unsubscribe

___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l


[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Anno Domini MMX Week III Number CXXI

2010-01-18 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Anno Domini MMX  Week III  Number CXXI

**

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

//

=== Technical news ===

[Flagged revisions] - status information about flagged revisions and  
how the English Wikipedia is going to use it.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/01/flagged-revisions-your-questions-answered/

[10gbit/sec] - on the 11th of January Wikimedia's world-wide  
five-minute-average transmission rate crossed 10gbit/sec. This peak  
rate was achieved while serving roughly 91,725 requests per second.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/46655

[Wikipedia and Google] - A custom Google skin for Wikipedia is  
created. It provides advanced Google/Wikipedia search options.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/10/26/google-experiments-with-new-ways-to-search-wikipedia/

=== Foundation ===

[Stewards] - Candidate submissions are open for the function of  
Steward. A steward is a user who has the administrative user rights to  
grant and revoke all existing user levels on all Wikimedia Foundation  
projects. It can be compared with a super-bureaucrat.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2010/Guidelines#Candidates  
-- until 28th January

[WMF fundraiser] - it has come and is gone again. The Wikimedia  
Foundation was able to raise just over $8 million USD. In Euro it 5,5  
million. In any case it was the most successful fundraiser to date.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/2009_Fundraiser_Closing_Release

[WMF move] - The Wikimedia Foundation started in Saint-Petersburg,  
Florida. And moved in early 2008 to San Francisco, California. A  
couple of months ago the WMF moved again to a larger office in the  
neighborhood of the old office.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/10/27/wikimedia-finds-a-new-home/

=== Community ===

[Commons] - Post of Erik about how the contend imported on Commons  
from partnerships have been used on the projects.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/43645

[Wiki jobs] - If you work on a WMF project and do your best, maybe,  
just maybe, you will be offered a job. That was the case with  
[[user:Mike Halterman]]  from EN Wikinews. His work on Wikinews  
attracted the attention of a new magazine starting up in Tampa,  
Florida, USA, This user did had a journalistic background but this  
online work at Wikinews was the ticket. Nine months after being hired  
as a writer, Mike Halterman is now lead editor of OMG! Magazine.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Mike_Halterman
http://omgmag.com

=== Awards ===

[PL Wiki] - Polish Wikipedia has been awarded a Jan ?ukasiewicz  
special award for social innovation in the application of IT by the  
Polish IT Society (Polskie Towarzystwo Informatyczne). The award has  
been received by Pawe? Jochym, a co-founder of pl.wiki, and Prof.  
Janusz Ency Doro?y?ski, an active Polish Wikimedian and a member of  
the Society.

=== Media ===

[A editor story] - A nice article about one of the many people working  
on the wiki
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102204715.html

=== Other news ===

[Wikitravel] - has changed there license to Creative Commons  
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. This is the same license as the Wikimedia  
Foundation is using for most projects.
http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:License_upgrade

[Upcoming holiday] - 25th of January Magnus Manske Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Magnus_Manske_Day

=== Editorial notice ===

So, this was the first Wikizine of 2010 (and it was not even a good  
one). It has been a couple of months since the previous Wikizine.  
There was a short revival of Wikizine in the period of August,  
September and October. And now this edition in January. I can not make  
any promises for a next edition. Maybe until Wikizine 121,

Greetings,
User:Walter

//
Editor(s): Walter, Casey
Corrector(s):
Thanks to: Erik, Jay, Cary, George Herbert, Frank, Magnus Manske,  
Jyothis, Amgine, Sage, Jay, Tim, Marlita, Kat, David, Wpedzich, Naoko,  
Kul, Evan
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//

Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]].
Wikizine is published as long as there is noteworthy news (and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
and also the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 

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

2009-09-17 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 36  Number:  117

**

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

//

=== 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

[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2009 Week: 34-35 Number: 116

2009-09-07 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 34-35   Number: 116

**

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

//

=== Technical news ===

[Tech Update] - Brion posted an update on the status of a few  
projects, before shipping off to Wikimania.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/weekly-wiki-tech-update-pre-wikimania-edition/

[Commons: ImageAnnotator] - Wikimedia Commons added a new gadget: an  
Image Annotator, where users can place comments *onto* images (like  
flickr).
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator

[Bugs] - Trevor Parscal, of the Usability Project, gave an update on  
the Usability Beta by saying that more than 40,000 users have now  
participated in the process.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/squashing-the-bugs/

[iPhone app released] - the Wikimedia Foundation released its own  
official iPhone/iPod application for Wikipedia, in addition to the  
regular mobile interface.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_lauches_official_iphone_app_-_but_its_no.php
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_iPhone_app
http://m.wikipedia.org/

[SmartWikiSearch] - Smart Wiki Search, a concept similarity search,  
tries to make your Wikipedia search experience better by finding other  
Wikipedia pages that discuss the same or similar concepts to the one  
you searched for.
http://www.smartwikisearch.com/

=== Request for help ===

[Wikipedia Signpost RfC] - the Wikipedia Signpost, the English  
Wikipedia's newspaper, is looking for comments about what is their  
mission, purpose and where they should go from here.  Feedback is  
appreciated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/About#Where_does_the_Signpost_go_from_here.3F

[Multimedia Usability Meeting] - we previously reported on the  
upcoming Multimedia Usability Project by Wikimedia France, suggestions  
and feedback are being requested on Meta-Wiki.  There is also a  
planning event to take place in October 2009.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Usability_Project_Meeting_October_2009

=== Proposals ===

=== Policy ===

=== Foundation ===

[Report to the Board] - Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the  
Wikimedia Foundation, published her report to the board for May 2009.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-August/054008.html

[New labs sites] - two new labs sites have been created to test  
out the flagged revisions and reader feedback extensions. In general,  
Wikimedia Labs is the name given to sites created to test out new  
extensions before they are used on Wikimedia wikis.
http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://readerfeedback.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

[Hewlett Foundation grant] - the Wikimedia Foundation received a  
US$500,000 grant towards operational support from Hewlett Foundation.   
The grant's purpose is to allow the Foundation expand its work  
bringing free educational content to everyone on the planet.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Hewlett_Foundation_grant_August_2009

[Omidyar Network Grant] - the Omidyar Network gave a grant of up to $2  
million over two years to the Wikimedia Foundation.  The grant will  
support Wikimedia's key goals: to bring free educational content to  
every person on the planet, to engage and empower more people to  
author that content and to continually increase the quality and  
breadth of the information provided through Wikimedia?s projects.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Omidyar_Network_Grant_August_2009QA

[New board members/officers] - at Wikimania, the Board of Trustees  
officially accepted the results of the election, welcoming Samuel  
Klein (Sj) and thanking Domas for his service.  Kat Walsh has also  
taken the position of executive secretary.  In addition to these  
community-selected board members, an expertise seat was filled with  
Matt Halprin.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-August/054318.html
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/user:Mhalprin -- biography of Matt

=== Legal ===

=== Agenda ===

=== Community ===

[Wikimania 2009] - Wikimania 2009, the international Wikimedia  
conference, ended this week in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Even if you  
were not there, you can enjoy it too with twitter, flickr photos, and  
presentation videos.
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23wikimania+OR+%23wikimania2009 --  
twitter for #wikimania2009 or #wikimania
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/wikimania2009/ -- flickr

[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2009 Week: 33 Number: 115

2009-08-13 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 33  Number: 115

**

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

//

=== Technical news ===

[Tech Update] - the sysadmins posted a tech update of what happened  
last week and what will be coming up this week and beyond.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/weekly-wiki-tech-update/ --  
techblog post

[clone $brion;] - Brion Vibber, the current Foundation CTO, announced  
that they want to split his position into two.  There will be a new  
Chief Technical Officer and Brion will become the Senior Software  
Architect; more information about the responsibilities of each can be  
found on the blog post.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/cto-position-split/ -- techblog post

[Try Beta] - Have you noticed the new ?Try Beta? link at the top of  
Wikimedia project sites?  The usability team is proud to introduce the  
new skin, Vector, and the newly enhanced edit toolbar. Check it out  
and give them your feedback!
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/try-the-usability-beta/ -- techblog post

[pl.wp: Report a Problem] - The Polish Wikipedia has put together a  
neat little pop-up tool for reporting errors in articles. (The Zg?o?  
b??d link in the sidebar.)
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2009-August/102708.html  
-- post on wikien-l

[MW.org: FlaggedRevs] - MediaWiki.org is currently testing out Flagged  
Revisions in their Manual and Help namespaces.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-July/043806.html  
-- reason for FlaggedRevs
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-August/044582.html --  
brion telling about it being enabled

[Image Annotations] - a hack for Wikimedia Commons allows for image  
annotations, just like Flickr has them, be sure to check it out!
http://ur1.ca/8tik -- example image
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Gadget-ImageAnnotator -- help page

[MediaWiki Wave] - a new project, MediaWiki Wave, has been launched.  
  It attempts to find a way for Google Wave, a communication and  
collaboration tool in development, to work with and make the best of  
MediaWiki.
http://mediawikiwave.blogspot.com/ -- blog
http://code.google.com/p/mediawikiwave/ -- project code

=== Request for help ===

[BBC  Wikimania] - this is a weird request for help, because it  
doesn't come from the community.  The BBC's Digital Revolution, an  
open and collaborative documentary on the way the web is changing our  
lives, wants to come to Wikimania 2009 but can't make it!  They're  
looking for people to film some content for them, are you going to  
Wikimania and interested?  Visit the blog post for more information  
and contact them ASAP.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/digitalrevolution/2009/08/wikimania-2009-are-you-going-w.shtml

=== Proposals ===

[Global sysop opt-out] - a new proposal about global sysops has been  
created and feedback is requested!
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_sysops/opt-out_proposal

=== Foundation ===

[Report to the Board] - Sue Gardner, the Executive Director, has  
published her report to the Board of Trustees for April 2009.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-August/053920.html

[Board Election Results] - the results of the Board of Trustees  
elections have been released; the three winners are: Ting Chen (Wing),  
Kat Walsh (Mindspillage), and Samuel Klein (Sj).  The Election  
Committee started a post-mortem section to collect commentary for  
future elections. Your comments on what went wrong and what went right  
will be highly appreciated.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Results/en -- results
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_elections/2009#Post_mortem  
-- post mortem

=== Agenda ===

[IN: WP Takes Chennai] - Are you in India? Love Wikipedia? Got a  
camera? Then participate in 'Wikipedia Takes Chennai' this Sunday  
(August 16).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Chennai

=== Community ===

[WMFR: Multimedia Usability] - Wikimédia France has announced a new  
Multimedia Usability Project.  It is intended to support and  
compliment the Wikimedia Foundation's project funded by the Foundation.
http://blog.wikimedia.fr/lancement-du-multimedia-usability-project-822
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/02/ford-foundation-awards-300k-grant-for-wikimedia-commons/
 -- WMF  
project

[MW Translation Rally] - Translatewiki.net, the site that coordinates  
translations of the MediaWiki software, is running a translation  
rally.  Contribute 500 MediaWiki translations and share in 1,000 Euro!
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Project:Rally-2009-08

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

2009-08-07 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 32  Number: 114

**

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

//

=== 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 ===

[EFFNPG update] - Another update on the National Portrait Gallery  
legal issue, the Electronic Frontier 

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

2009-08-06 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 32  Number: 114

**

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

//

=== 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 ===

[EFFNPG update] - Another update on the National Portrait Gallery  
legal issue, the Electronic Frontier 

[Foundation-l] Year: 2009 Week: 31 Number: 113

2009-07-31 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 31  Number: 113

**

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

//

=== Technical news ===

[arwp: New namespace] - the Arabic Wikipedia Community has agreed to  
create a new namespace called Supplement. It will contain most of  
date pages (days, months, years, decades, etc.), disambiguation pages  
and lists to give the exactly number of encyclopedic articles. There  
are about 6000 pages that will be moved to the new namespace.  It may  
be possible that your community would like to apply the same idea.
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19357 -- bug report
http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project:Supplement -- guideline of namespace

[Commons: Off-site archive] - A off site archive for Commons and the  
XML snapshots will be added. Thanks are due to eBart consulting and  
User:Milosh for proving a backup server and storage array at their  
colocation facility in Europe. This server will store archives of our  
publicly available data of Wikimedia Commons and the XML snapshots.
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/were-adding-an-off-site-archive-for-commons-and-the-xml-snapshots/
 -- techblog  
post

[Passwords plz] - Watchlistr.com was an outside site that asked for  
Wikimedia passwords in order aggregate user watchlists across all  
projects for them.  Although in this case it did not have a malicious  
intent, use of external sites asking for passwords place in risk the  
accounts used. Users are asked not to share their user password with  
any external site. Not even toolserver tools are allowed to request  
your password for any service. The site has now been shut down, and  
further analysis revealed that it had important vulnerabilities.  
Magnus Manske has created an alternative tool for people to use if  
they liked this feature.
http://www.watchlistr.com/
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-July/044238.html  
-- initial thread
http://magnusmanske.de/MetaWatchlist/ -- alternative proposed by Magnus

[TS: Multi-maintainer tools] - the toolserver is pushing  
multi-maintainer tools and will be actively discouraging single  
maintainer ones. They want to encourage collaboration amongst  
toolserver users and make tools last even when one of the users  
disappears.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.toolserver/1515

[SVN account requests] - there's a new process for requesting SVN  
accounts to the MediaWiki source code.  Brion announced that he'll be  
going through the queue every week, so if you have request throw them  
up on MediaWiki wiki. ;-)
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/44683 --  
mailing list post
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Commit_access_requests -- requests

=== Proposals ===

[Geonotice + Wikinews/Commons?] - Sage Ross recently proposed  
something interesting: using an opt-in geonotice (notice that displays  
based on the location of your IP) to show local reporting or  
photographing opportunities. Hopefully this will help with one of the  
great frustrations that inhibit original reporting.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-July/044367.html

=== Foundation ===

[Board elections: Voting] - the Foundation's Board elections has  
finally entered into the voting phase (voting is open until August 10)  
and translation is continuing.  Visit the Meta pages for election  
information (including a Questions page), the Wikipedia Signpost  
also has interviews with the candidates.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009#voters -- voter  
requirements
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Translation --  
translation page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-07-27/Board_elections#Candidate_interviews
 -- signpost  
interviews

[More donation buttons] - the second round of donation button designs  
has been posted, feedback is appreciated to determine which designs  
we'll end up using!
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Donation_buttons_upgrade

[Audit Committee] - the new members of the 2009-2010 Audit Committee  
have been announced.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-July/053280.html --  
foundation-l post

[wm2009: Registration] - Media Registration for Wikimania 2009 has  
opened.  For regular registration, there is a new update: it is also  
possible to extend your stay past the Wikimania dates, but you need to  
contact the hotel directly.
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration#Accommodations --  
extending stay options

[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2009 Week: 30 Number: 112

2009-07-22 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 30  Number: 112

**

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

//

=== Technical news ===

[Media server problems] - there were some media load problems on all  
the sites, which caused extreme slowness or temporary  
inaccessibility.  The sysadmins took advantage of this downtime to  
redo the way we access media files internally which will help reduce  
the impact on the rest of the site when load problems on the file  
servers occur, and also spreads out the load among multiple servers to  
improve things even more.  They had to shut off all uploads for a  
while to get this done!
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/intermittent-media-server-load-problems/
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/uploads-temporarily-offline-for-site-fix/

[Wikipedia Weekly interviews the Usability Team] - Wikipedia Weekly, a  
podcast for and by Wikimedians, interviewed the Usability team.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikipediaWeekly/Episode76
http://wikipediaweekly.org/2009/07/09/episode-76-usability/

[MediaWiki:Sharedupload change] - MediaWiki:Sharedupload became  
MediaWiki:Sharedupload-desc-here. Admins in other projects should  
rename the first one to the second in order to customize messages for  
images from Commons.  (That's the text shown when a Commons image is  
shown on another project:  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Doorknob_buddhist_temple_detail_amk.jpg  
)

=== Request for help ===

[Translation of the week] -- the Translation of the Week needs help!   
If you speak another language and would like to translate History of  
pizza into your language, TOTW is for you. ;-)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_of_the_week

=== Foundation ===

[Board elections] - the candidate deadline for the elections to the  
Board of Trustees has been extended to July 27 due to some technical  
issues for which the CentralNotice had to be turned off.  The  
questioning of the candidates has also begun and translation is ongoing.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Candidates -- candidates
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Candidates/Questions --  
questions
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Translation -- translation

[New Strategic Planning Staff] - the Foundation announced that they  
filled two positions for their Strategic Planning project.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-July/053165.html --  
project manager
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-July/053168.html --  
facilitator

[National Portrait Gallery] - the English National Portrait Gallery  
(NPG) in London (UK) has threatened to sue a U.S. citizen, Derrick  
Coetzee. The legal letter followed claims that he had breached the  
Gallery's copyright in several thousand photographs of works of art  
uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons, a free online media repository.   
More information in the extremely detailed Wikinews article.
*Update*: The WMF and NPG have entered into good-faith negotiations,  
according to Erik Moeller.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.K._National_Portrait_Gallery_threatens_U.S._citizen_with_legal_action_over_Wikimedia_images
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/16/protecting-the-public-domain-and-sharing-our-cultural-heritage/
 -- WMF blog  
post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-07-13/Copyright_threat
 -- summary by the  
signpost

[Academy: NIH] - the Wikimedia Foundation announced and had its first  
Wikipedia Academy (outreach event to teach people to become  
contributors) in the United States this week.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/NIH_and_WMF_announce_first_WP_Academy_July_2009
 -- press  
release
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23nihwiki -- twitter coverage from the event
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academy/NIH_2009 -- project writeup

[Advisory Board changes] - Angela, chair of the Advisory Board, has  
updated the Advisory Board page to show that 8 members have left,  
bringing the current total to 15 advisory board members.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/?diff=39660

[Fundraising 2008: Post-Mortem] - Rand Montoya, the Foundation's Head  
of Community Giving, has posed a post-mortem (basically what went  
wrong, what went right and what can we do better?) on the 2008  
Fundraising Drive.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2008#Post_Mortem_for_the_2008_Annual_Fundraiser

=== Community ===

[Board elections: Inspiration] - some Wikimedians suggested that it  
might be better if prospective candidates knew *why* they should run  
for board member; what's it 

[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2009 Week: 30 Number: 112

2009-07-19 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 30  Number: 112

**

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

//

=== Technical news ===

[Media server problems] - there were some media load problems on all  
the sites, which caused extreme slowness or temporary  
inaccessibility.  The sysadmins took advantage of this downtime to  
redo the way we access media files internally which will help reduce  
the impact on the rest of the site when load problems on the file  
servers occur, and also spreads out the load among multiple servers to  
improve things even more.  They had to shut off all uploads for a  
while to get this done!
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/intermittent-media-server-load-problems/
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/uploads-temporarily-offline-for-site-fix/

[Wikipedia Weekly interviews the Usability Team] - Wikipedia Weekly, a  
podcast for and by Wikimedians, interviewed the Usability team.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikipediaWeekly/Episode76
http://wikipediaweekly.org/2009/07/09/episode-76-usability/

[MediaWiki:Sharedupload change] - MediaWiki:Sharedupload became  
MediaWiki:Sharedupload-desc-here. Admins in other projects should  
rename the first one to the second in order to customize messages for  
images from Commons.  (That's the text shown when a Commons image is  
shown on another project:  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Doorknob_buddhist_temple_detail_amk.jpg  
)

=== Request for help ===

[Translation of the week] -- the Translation of the Week needs help!   
If you speak another language and would like to translate History of  
pizza into your language, TOTW is for you. ;-)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_of_the_week

=== Foundation ===

[Board elections] - the candidate deadline for the elections to the  
Board of Trustees has been extended to July 27 due to some technical  
issues for which the CentralNotice had to be turned off.  The  
questioning of the candidates has also begun and translation is ongoing.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Candidates -- candidates
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Candidates/Questions --  
questions
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Translation -- translation

[New Strategic Planning Staff] - the Foundation announced that they  
filled two positions for their Strategic Planning project.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-July/053165.html --  
project manager
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-July/053168.html --  
facilitator

[National Portrait Gallery] - the English National Portrait Gallery  
(NPG) in London (UK) has threatened to sue a U.S. citizen, Derrick  
Coetzee. The legal letter followed claims that he had breached the  
Gallery's copyright in several thousand photographs of works of art  
uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons, a free online media repository.   
More information in the extremely detailed Wikinews article.
*Update*: The WMF and NPG have entered into good-faith negotiations,  
according to Erik Moeller.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.K._National_Portrait_Gallery_threatens_U.S._citizen_with_legal_action_over_Wikimedia_images
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/16/protecting-the-public-domain-and-sharing-our-cultural-heritage/
 -- WMF blog  
post
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-07-13/Copyright_threat
 -- summary by the  
signpost

[Academy: NIH] - the Wikimedia Foundation announced and had its first  
Wikipedia Academy (outreach event to teach people to become  
contributors) in the United States this week.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/NIH_and_WMF_announce_first_WP_Academy_July_2009
 -- press  
release
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23nihwiki -- twitter coverage from the event
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academy/NIH_2009 -- project writeup

[Advisory Board changes] - Angela, chair of the Advisory Board, has  
updated the Advisory Board page to show that 8 members have left,  
bringing the current total to 15 advisory board members.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/?diff=39660

[Fundraising 2008: Post-Mortem] - Rand Montoya, the Foundation's Head  
of Community Giving, has posed a post-mortem (basically what went  
wrong, what went right and what can we do better?) on the 2008  
Fundraising Drive.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2008#Post_Mortem_for_the_2008_Annual_Fundraiser

=== Community ===

[Board elections: Inspiration] - some Wikimedians suggested that it  
might be better if prospective candidates knew *why* they should run  
for board member; what's it 

[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2009 Week: 28 Number: 111

2009-07-09 Thread EN Wikizine
**
   ____ _ __ _
  / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
  \ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
   \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
\/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 28  Number: 111

**

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

//

=== Proposals ===

[Logo Wiktionary] - End of 2006 a winner of a new logo selection  
process was declared for Wiktionary.  Some Wiktionary accepted and  
used the new logo, others did not. (like the English Wiktionary). In  
any case once more a new logo selection process is in motion on Meta  
for Wiktionary.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary/logo -- we have a winner (2006)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary/logo/refresh -- new logo  
Wiktionary 2009

=== Foundation ===

[Board elections] - the Wikimedia Foundation Board is holding its  
community elections again, this time for 3 board seats (the next  
regular election will be in two years). Candidates are being accepted  
until July 20.  Help is needed with translating many pages for the  
election. (including the CentralNotice displayed all over Wikimedia's  
sites)!
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Candidates/en --  
candidates
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/Translation -- translation

[Annual Plan] - the Foundation has published its 2009-2010 Annual Plan  
and a set of Questions  Answers to go along with it.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/a3/2009-10_Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan_FINAL_July2.pdf
 -- annual plan  
(pdf)
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2009-2010_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers 
--  
QA

[wm2009: Registration] - registration for Wikimania 2009 in Buenos  
Aires is now open!  If you register before July 30, it's US$15  
cheaper. (= US$45)
http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registration

[Orange] - In April the Wikimedia Foundation announced a partnership  
with the telecommunications company Orange. The Spanish Wikipedia is  
now being showcased on the Spanish Orange site.
http://wikipedia.orange.es
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Orange_and_Wikimedia_announce_partnership_April_2009
 -- original press  
release

[New chapters] - the Board recently approved three new Wikimedia  
chapters:  Wikimedia Danmark (Denmark), Wikimedia Portugal, and  
Wikimedia Ukraine.  This brings the total number of chapters to 24.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-July/052936.html
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#July_2009

=== Agenda ===

[fossevents] - a new site (run by the same people who run IRC network  
Wikimedia uses, Freenode) just opened up that showcases FOSS (Free and  
Open Source Software) Events around the world, big and small. Be sure  
to add your upcoming Wikimedia events and look for others that  
interest you!
http://fossevents.org

=== Community ===

[New Wikipedia] - The founding of Wikipedia, the large Western  
language Wikipedias, may seem to lay in the distant past, new  
Wikipedia's are still founded. The Mari Wikipedia is the newest family  
member.
http://mhr.wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari_language

[GLAM] - in the lead up to GLAM-WIKI (August 6-7), Wikimedia Australia  
is holding an editors' challenge (like a friendly competition) with  
the overall theme of Australian GLAM (GLAM stands for Galleries,  
Libraries, Archives  Museums).  The idea is to pick your own editing  
theme and submit it, along with the edits you make related to it.  
Prizes will be awarded for the most extensive, creative, impressive,  
novel, broad, deep, etc. edits.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Australia/GLAM_challenge --  
GLAM challenge
http://glam.wikimedia.org.au/ -- GLAM wiki

[WMDE: ED/Vision] - we previously noted that Wikimedia Deutschland was  
looking for a new Executive Director; they've finally found one after  
a year! The new director is Pavel Richter (w:de:User:Schreibvieh) and  
he was the unanimous choice of both the search committee and the  
board. Sebastian, chair of WMDE's board and the current director, also  
published a blog post describing the newly defined vision for  
Wikimedia's first and largest chapter.
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2009/07/02/neuer-geschaftsfuhrer/ -- blog  
announcing ED (German)
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2009/07/06/eine-vision-fur-wikimedia-deutschland/ --  
blog discussing vision (German)

[ENWP: 3 million?] - What will the 3 millionth article on the English  
Wikipedia be?  A few community members are making guesses on what  
article that will be, be sure to add your guess too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three-millionth_topic_pool

[India: Meetup] - everyone seems to be linking to a report on the  
third Bangalore, India meetup.  The meetup seems like it was 

[Foundation-l] EN Wikizine - Year: 2009 Week: 27 Number: 110

2009-07-02 Thread EN Wikizine
**
  ____ _ __ _
/ / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __   ___
\ \/  \/ / | |/ / |_  / | '_ \ / _ \
  \  /\  /| |   | |/ /| | | | |  __/
   \/  \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___|
 .org

Year: 2009  Week: 27  Number: 110

**

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

//

=== Technical news ===

[Michael Jackson Kills WP] - Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, died  
this week and nearly took Wikipedia down with him (as well as many  
other websites).  Wikimedia sites were unresponsive for a whole due to  
the large number of page hits.  The Michael Jackson article got nearly  
6 *million* hits on June 26, more than the Main Page.
In the evening of the 2th July (UTC) WikipediaCo was virtually down  
because of power outage of the European servers. The remaining servers  
choked on the additional traffic routed to them.
http://stats.grok.se/en/200906/Michael_Jackson -- page hit statistics
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/current-events/ -- techblog  
explanation of issues
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/News_of_Michael_Jackson's_death_overloads_Internet_sites_and_sparks_hoaxes
 -- wikinews  
article
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/power-outage-in-wikimedias-european-servers/
 -- wiki  
down

[Usability] - the Usability team has released its first set of  
usability improvement (the acai release) for testing.  As of press  
time, the new vector skin has been made available on all wikis for  
users who select it from their preferences, please help test the new  
features!
http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/first-usability-release-is-coming-up-soon/
 -- blog  
post
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Releases#Acai -- acai release  
description

[Usability BIS] - one aspect is already live by default; the new  
design of the search results. Just use the internal search and see.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Designs#Search_Results

=== Request for help ===

[Fundraising 2009] - the Wikimedia Foundation is preparing for its  
next fundraiser and would like feedback from the community on some of  
the pages it has developed so far.  In addition to the creation of a  
new survey that they would like comments on, the Foundation is also  
trying to enhance the visibility of the donate button. The new buttons  
will be placed on the skin and will be viewable on every page. There  
are also several design proposals that need community input!
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/25/would-you-press-this-button/ --  
blog post about it
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Donation_buttons_upgrade --  
buttons
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Survey -- survey

=== Foundation ===

[Licensing] - The licensing update changes have now been rolled out  
to all languages and projects, with the new license being featured in  
the footer and new interface items to translate for your wiki.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/30/licensing-update-rolled-out-in-all-wikimedia-wikis/
 -- blog  
post
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2009-June/000959.html --  
translation steps
http://tinyurl.com/LU-interface-trans -- betawiki trans interface

[Board election] - Once again an election for the board of trustees of  
the Wikimedia Foundation is coming up. It is for 3 seats this time.  
But before there can be elections there must be someone to vote for.  
Submissions of candidacy are open between 6th and 20th July.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009

[New grant: Commons] - the Wikimedia Foundation was just awarded a  
US$300,000 grant that will research problems with and design new  
tools/fix current tools for uploading files to the global Wikimedia  
image repository, the Wikimedia Commons.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/07/02/ford-foundation-awards-300k-grant-for-wikimedia-commons/
 -- blog  
post
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Ford_Foundation_Grant_July_2009
 -- press  
release
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:WMF_Ford_Multimedia_Participation_Project.pdf
 -- full grant  
proposal

[Job: Bookshelf] - as a further development from the Scribus  
operator volunteer position noted in Wikizine a few months ago, a new  
job opening has been posted for project manager of the Bookshelf  
project.  The Bookshelf project strives to develop a slate of basic  
educational materials (print, online and video) to attract new authors  
and editors to Wikipedia.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Project_Manager_Bookshelf --  
job opening
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_outreach/Get_involved --  
volunteer position, scribus operator

=== Community ===

[David Rohde] - it turns out that Wikipedia, along with tons of other  
media outlets, kept the kidnapping of journalist David Rohde out of  
its article on him.  This has caused a few