Year: 2009 Week: 37 Number: 118

Technical news

• [Image renaming re-enabled] – Image renaming has been re-enabled for administrators on all Wikimedia projects.
  • https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15842
  • http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/file-renaming-enabled-for-admins/

• [LocalisationUpdate deployment delayed] – The deployment of LocalisationUpdate, an extension meant to keep the localized messages as up to date as possible, was delayed after it killed the entire site.  You don’t have to be a tech to interpret the blog post graph as “bad news”.
  • http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/localisationupdate-deployment-delayed/
  • http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:LocalisationUpdate

• [Feature deployment updates] – Brion mentioned that the system administrators are starting to maintain a list of feature & extension deployments that they’re rolling out in the very near future (and their status) on the Wikitech wiki.
  • http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/feature-deployment-updates/
  • http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/DeploymentList

• [MakeSysop Removed] – MakeSysop, the old extension for managing user rights, has been disabled on Wikimedia sites.
  • https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20291

• [CTO Job Opening] – back in issue #115 we reported that the current Chief Technical Officer position would be splitting into two, with Brion’s position being changed to something with more of a MediaWiki software focus.  The job opening for the new CTO position has been posted on the Foundationwiki.
  • http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Chief_Technical_Officer — job opening
  • http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/08/cto-position-split/ — reminder about the details of the split

Request for help

• [Strategic Planning CFP] – the Strategic Planning Team has released a call for participation.  The CFP was distributed through a CentralNotice with a link to a letter from Jimmy Wales and Michael Snow, but there is also a blog post giving more details on the process.
  • http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/22/help-shape-the-future-of-wikimedia/

Foundation

• [Jennifer Riggs leaves] – Sue Gardner, the Executive Director, announced on Thursday that Jennifer Riggs would be leaving the Wikimedia Foundation.  Jennifer was the Chief Program Officer and, although she has made good contributions so far, she and Sue decided she wasn’t the right fit for the job.
  • http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/055215.html

• [Wikimedia and OneWebDay] – September 22 was OneWebDay, a day that aims to highlight the critical importance of protecting the values and principles of an open, participatory web.  In a blog post, Jay Walsh used the OneWebDay initiative to thank Wikimedia’s huge volunteer force.
  • http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/22/wikimedia-and-onewebday/

• [New volunteer position] – the Wikimedia Foundation is looking for a local volunteer to help catalog customer service correspondence at the local office in San Francisco.
  • http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Volunteering:Customer_service_clerical_volunteer_(RPP)

Agenda

• [Wikimedia Staff office hours] – after the success of the Strategic Planning “Office Hours”, the Wikimedia Foundation has decided to hold its own as well.  Sue Gardner, the Executive Director, will be online to answer questions in #wikimedia-office on freenode.  The “office hours” will be between 15:30 and 16:30 PDT (UTC 22:30 to 23:30) on Friday, September 25, 2009.
  • http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/055246.html

• [Wikis Take Manhattan] – the third Wikis Take Manhattan, a planned scavenger hunt and free content photography contest in New York City, will be held on Saturday, October 10, 2009.
  • http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia_nyc/2009-September/000105.html
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Manhattan

Community

• [Chapters reports] – Lodewijk Gelauff reminded the community about the chapters-reports mailing list and highlighted a few of the ones he thought were the most interesting.
  • http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/055242.html

• [European Heritage Days] – “European Heritage Days” are held in several European countries.  On these days, many buildings notusually open to the public are open for visiting, as are the workshop of certain artisans.  Some French Wikipedians found a way to take advantage of this by running a sitenotice mentioning the event and pointing out that the general public can help Wikipedia get more photos.
  • http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Journ%C3%A9es_europ%C3%A9ennes_du_patrimoine (fr)
  • http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2009-September/005106.html

• [Wirtualna Polska] – in our last issue we reported that there were a few problems with the local press when Orange Poland launched its branded Wikipedia mirror.  The Polish Wikipedia community has written a statement that they hope will clear up the confusion.
  • http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:O%C5%9Bwiadczenie_nt._Wikipedii_na_WP (pl)
  • http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:Wpedzich/O%C5%9Bwiadczenie — English translation

• [IRC: GC Review] – the new IRC Group Contacts have published a review of the last three months, highlighting what they’ve done, what they plan to do, and how you can help.
  • http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Group_Contacts/Noticeboard#3_month_review

• [WMFR + Cultural institutions] – David Monniaux gave an update on what Wikimedia France has achieved with cultural institutions in France.  He also highlighted some issues that they ran into.
  • http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.commons/5147

Media

• [Where Wikipedia Ends] – Time Magazine published an article questioning if Wikipedia is a victim of its own success.  The article includes a few quotes from Wikimedia Foundation representatives.
  • http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1924492-1,00.html

• [Jimmy Guest Blogs] – Jimmy Wales guest-blogged on the Huffington Post about what the mainstream media gets wrong about Wikipedia and why.
  • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jimmy-wales/what-the-msm-gets-wrong-a_b_292809.html

• [Small Businesses & Wikipedia?] – Small Business Search Marketing, a blog about small businesses, published an article about whether or not “small businesses” should have a Wikipedia article.  The article actually mentions quite a few English Wikipedia policies too.
  • http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/should-small-business-have-wikipedia-article/2311/

• [German courts and wiki] – a German website attempts to teach its readers how to more accurately cite Wikipedia — by using the permanent link to the article.
  • http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Wikipedia-korrekt-zitieren–/meldung/145444 (de)
• [Wikipedia Falsified from Parliament] – the Swedish media reports that articles of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia have been falsified from computers placed in the Swedish parliament.
  • http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/International/nyhetssidor/artikel.asp?ProgramID=2054&format=1&artikel=3116556

• [Strategic Planning] – the Harvard Business Blogs published a good post about Wikimedia’s Strategic Planning Initiative.
  • http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/09/one_fine_winter_saturday_in.html

• [Chinese trademark donation] – Hudong (a large Chinese encyclopedia) donated the Chinese trademark of Wikipedia to the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • http://sev.prnewswire.com/computer-electronics/20090922/CNTU04822092009-1.html

• [Grass Is Greener on a Million Little Wikis] – a humorous article from Wired.com explains what the article “Grass” on the English Wikipedia would look like in different “language” Wikipedias (ranging from Limerick Wikipedia to “Even More Simple English” Wikipedia).
  • http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/09/alt-text-million-little-wikipedias/

Stats

• [hi.wp] – The Hindi Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.

• [ca-wp] – The Catalan Wikipedia has reached 200,000 articles.
  • http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnaval_de_Solsona

• [cbk-zam] – The Zamboanga Chavacano Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.

• [translatewiki.net hits one million] – Translatewiki, the website for translating the MediaWiki software, has reached a million translations.  Congratulations to the Translatewiki staff and all of their translators!
  • http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2009/09/when-size-is-good-cool-million-for.html

• [Forget articles, it’s editors] – Erik Zachte, the maintainer of Infodisiac (the Wikimedia statistics website), wrote a blog post about how we should stop focusing on the article count.  Instead, we should be focusing on the number of editors the site has (and other aspects of community participation).
  • http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/09/partipication-level-a-new-metric/

Other news

• [WikiMarriage] – two Wikimedians got married this weekend: Arne Klempert (akl) and Delphine Ménard (notafish).  Arne is currently a member of the Board of Trustees and Delphine is the former Chapters coordinator and current Treasurer of Wikimédia France.  Congratulations to the new WikiNewlyweds!

• [PediaPress: Job opening] – PediaPress, Wikimedia’s partner in printing personal “Collections” of Wikipedia articles, is hiring.  The job matches the predominant skills of Wikipedians and is specifically looking for “wikifriendly” people, you may want to apply.
  • http://blog.pediapress.com/2009/09/hiring-community-and-communications.html
  • http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikis_Go_Printable — background information about the partnership

• [FR: GNU GPL Legal Win] – the GNU General Public License, a widely used free software license, has been held up by a French court.  (They ruled in favor of the author of the content rather than a company who used it.)
  • http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/09/big-win-for-gnu-gpl-in-france.html

Did you know …

…that the Wikipedia Mobile interface provides anonymous statistics about its use?  The stats page provides total traffic, average page serving speed, and more.
http://stats.m.wikipedia.org/

Quote

“I am not asking you to explain Wikipedia here, I’m asking for a vision!” – Femke Halsema

(The Chair of the Netherlands’s Green Party interrupted the presentation of the new government budget to Parliament with that when the Prime Minister referred to the many committees that are going to search for potential budget cuts.)