Anno Domini MMIX Week III Number CIV

Happy Wikipedia-day!

Technical news

• [Upload size] – The maximum allowed upload size of files in increased from 20 megabytes to 100 megabytes. That is especially important for Commons that now can receive more easy video. Brion says there is now 48 terabyte of storage space for the media. 5 terabyte is used currently.
  • http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/011309-wikipedia-digital-media.html
• [Time zone] – in the user preferences, section “Date and time”, is there now an option to select your location. This way the correct local time can be used automatically.

Request for help

• [Wikimania] – volunteers are requested for taking care of the scholarship applications that will come for next Wikimania.
  • http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/35468

Foundation

• [  $:)  ] – The WMF succeeded in collecting the 6 million dollar in the fundraiser.  According to the WMF more then 130,000 donors from around the world are responsible for that result.  4 million of the 6 came from small donations, the rest from major sponsors. After the very successful request for donations by Jimmy Wales is the “thank you” message now also presented by Jimmy. The WMF has now the funding to carry out all the plans for 2009.
  • http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/02/
  • http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/ThankYou/en
  • http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/31/1315209 — some /. discussion about it
• [Wikimania 2009] – We knew next Wikimania would be in Argentina,  Buenos Aires. Now we also know it will take place on August 26th, 27th and 28th.
  • http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/35409
  • http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org
• [Steward election] – A new steward election is coming up. The first candidates have already showed up. Confirmation of the current stewards will also take place.  It is supposed to start on the first of February.
  • http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2009
• [Board update] – the term of 3 board members; Jimmy Wales, Jan-Bart de Vreede, and Stu West expired end of 2008. The terms of all 3 are renewed by the board. Work is in process to select a couple of other people to join to board by appointment. Being a WMF-board member is an unpaid position. (some media suggested otherwise recently)
  • http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/35398
• [Job openings] – the WMF is looking for 3 persons to work on the “Wikipedia Usability Initiative” in San Francisco.
  • http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/09/
  • http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings
• [Advisory board] – A new member is added to the WMF advisory board, Roger McNamee. For some reason the blog “The Register” finds that interesting. But this item is more to remind that such a thing as the WMF Advisory board actually exist.
  • http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/13/welcome-roger/
  • http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
  • http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/14/macnamee_joinds_wikiboard/

Agenda

• [Wikipedia Day] – it is again 15 January, Wikipedia Day, Wikipedia’s most important holiday. On this day we remember the eviction of the seed of the project from the late Nupedia encyclopedia project and birth of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, under this name as an independent project. The oldest of all projects is now just only 8 years old …. and is also the 8th most popular website globally. Applause.

Community

• [Year in review] – also EN Wikinews made an overview of the news of the year 2008. And there is also a News Quiz of the year 2008 to see how short term your memory is.
  • http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews%27_overview_of_the_year_2008
  • http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Dynamic_quiz/quiz/2009/01 — quiz
• [ZH Wikinews] – the Chinese wikinews is reported to be blocked in China. EN WIkinews is not blocked.
  • http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Chinese_version_of_Wikinews_gets_blocked_in_China

Awards

• [Knight Anthere] – the French National Order of Merit has been awarded by President Sarkozy of France to [[w:fr:User:Anthere]] (Florence Devouard).  She received the rank of knight as “chair of an international foundation” (= WMF).
  • http://tinyurl.com/9ytx8p

Media

• [Jimbo gossip] – the story has come up that Jimmy Wales was not longer a WMF-board member. The term for the seat on the board of Jimmy did indeed expired end of 2008. But his term is extended as usual by the board. Jimmy Wales was and is a WMF board member and Chair Emeritus of the WMF.
  • http://valleywag.gawker.com/5122766/wikipedias-jimmy-wales-out-of-a-job
• [Bad edit]  – one year ago (2008-01-18) some anonymous  user added some POV-info to the Dutch language edition of the Mohamed article (an edit that was reverted one minute later). The edit was done by people working for the Dutch justice department. Several large newspapers in the Netherlands and Belgium have now one year later reported this event as “news”. In the meantime is discovered that the bureaucrats who did the edit where punished by there superiors by blocking access to Wikipedia for 2 months. A block that was lifted later because the need Wikipedia for there work.
  • http://www.telegraaf.nl/digitaal/2978623/__Ambtenaren_knoeien_weer_met_Wikipedia__.html

Stats

• [Wikigeits] – [[user:Tookam]] has created Wikigeits. It is an attempt to build the Wikipedia equivalent of Google’s Hot Trends. It tracks, aggregates, ranks and reports the page views on en.wikipedia.org.
  • http://www.wikigeist.com/
• [Survey results] – A personal survey was handed out to many of the attendees at Wikimania 2008. These are the results of that survey.
  • http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Survey_results
• The Simple English Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.
• The Old Belarusian Wikipedia has reached 15,000 articles.

Other news

• [Wikizine licence] – for compatibility with Wikinews has changed Wikizine by request its license. This newsletter is from this edition on, in all versions, dual licensed GNU/FDL and also Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic License.
  • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
• [VisualWikipedia] – A website that provides as the say themselves “a visual, intuitive, and interactive web interface to encyclopedic knowledge/information.”
  • http://visualwikipedia.com/

Quote

Max Planck: May I ask you a very serious question? What if God were to say you were mistaken? If he said “Stop. Newton is right”?
Albert Einstein: Then I would thank God for his POV, and we would agree to differ, and I would be left feeling very sorry for God.

from;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_and_Eddington