Technical news
- [New tool] – Magnus Manske created a tool called WatchFlickr. It runs through a category, finds articles without images, and searches for relevant free, Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr. Flickr is a website used for sharing photos. The tool can help with replacing non-free/fair use images, by allowing users to easily find free replacements on many related articles at once. [source SignPost]
- [Diff] – Sysops have now a “diff” option when viewing the history of a deleted page
Request for help
- [Wikizine] – This current edition of Wikizine is different from all others before because it is created with the very substantial constructions of a few other editors besides the editor-in-chief. Nevertheless your help is still requested with Wikizine. Firstly for writing (parts of) Wikizine. And secondly to provide information about your home-wiki. If you are interested please contact the editor-in-chief using the link below or edit the next edition in construction on Meta.
- [Translations] – The upcoming fundraiser needs some translations for the testimonials, which will be next to “wikilove” a central theme for the fundraiser. Please follow this link for the translation requests:
- [Serbian National Library] – Wikimedia Serbia wants to cooperate with the Serbian National Library, and Milos Rancic asks for input.
- [Communications] – The “Communication Projects Group” is being reorganized and is looking for new members. Follow this link:
Policy
- [GSFDL] – A new licence by Free Software Foundation is under construction; the “GNU Simpler Free Documentation License”. It is possible that this licence will replace eventually the currently used GNU Free Documentation License by most of the Wikimedia projects.
Foundation
- [Wikimania] – Next Wikimania in 2008 will be held in Alexandria, Egypt. This is the 4th Wikipedia on a consecutive different continent. Extrapolation means that the next Wikimania in 2009 might be in Australia or South-America. The opening and selection of the city to host Wikimania 2009 is expected to be concluded by the end of 2007. Anyone who would be interested in hosting Wikimania in 2009 is strongly advised to start the process informally now.
- [WMF Jobs!] – As a result of the move the Wikimedia Foundation world headquarters from Saint-Petersburg to San Francisco (USA) the Wikimedia Foundation is looking for several people for different functions for the new office in San Francisco. These are not voluntary positions, you will get paid.
- [Board meeting] – The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees held a board meeting 6-7 October. A few of the conclusions were that the chapters meeting is suspended, Florence Devouard will stay chair, Erik Möller executive secretary and that Jan-Bart and Jimbo have been re-appointed for another year term as board member. It has been decided that no further board members will be added for now.
- [Wikimedia NL] – On 20 September, the Dutch chapter held a seminar about free media (vrije media). Goal of the workshop was to inform organizations about the possibilities of placing their media-collections under a free license. Wikimedia Nederland organized the seminar in cooperation with Creative Commons, and was supported by Kennisnet Ict op school. The organizations that were invited are mostly organizations that are (partly) financed by the Dutch national government (university museums, regional archives, etc). Although the attendance was not very big, the seminar was a success, because of the enthusiasm of the attending organizations. The following months, Wikimedia Nederland will further advise those (and other) organizations about using free licenses.
- [Wikimedia IT] – it:Utente:Frieda – WMF board member, former WM Italia president and wikimedia evangelist – was invited by the Ministry of the Public Education, to help starting a project to improve the diffusion of Wikimedia projects in Italian schools and to involve more teacher and students to edit and to produce free knowledge.
- [Wikimedia CH] – The Swiss chapter has held their third Wikipediaday on Saturday the 29th of September. The day made the national news. The main focus was on people working in education.
Community
- [“Wikimania” also in USA?] – Next Wikimania will be in Egypt. One of the “losers” is the bid of Atlanta in the USA. Because Wikimania will not come to Atlanta attempts are now made to organize their own separate event for Wikimedians from America. The “Conference of the Americas”. Like the plans are now the conference will be held in May 2008.
- [EN-Wikipedia] – It seems that the English Wikipedia has reached its peak 8 months ago, since then the amount of edits per day is falling.
- [Deletion] – The deletion of the already closed Siberian Wikipedia is being considered.
Media
- [African Wikipedia] – An interesting inside story on the development of Wikipedia’s in South-African languages can be found on
- [Lists of …] – the 8 Most Needlessly Detailed Wikipedia Entries
- [la.wp] – Veni, Vidi, Wiki: Latin Isn’t Dead On ‘Vicipaedia’
- [About en.wp] – “Delete generation rips encyclopedia apart”
Stats
- [Milestones] – The Vietnamese Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles. The Italian Wikipedia has reached 350,000 articles. Commons hosts now 2,000,000 files and approaches the English Wikipedia as biggest project in term of pages. The Kazakh Wikipedia reaches 1,000 articles. The Piedmontese Wikipedia reached 10,000 articles.
Other news
- [Free view] – After discussion involving some wikipedians, the Italian parliamentarian Franco Grillini, member of the Camera dei Deputati, proposed to introduce freedom of panorama in the Italian copyright law.
- [Picture permission] – it:Utente:Senpai had contacts with the head of Soprintendenza dei beni culturali of Firenze (the agency legally owning the rights of reproduction of paintings and arts in the Florence museums) that resulted in a chance of being authorized to use art related images on Wikimedia projects. Not much time ago, the Soprintendenza asked firmly to remove all the images taken in those museums (this applies only to photos made by Italians and subject to Italian law).
- [Fair use] – After a long debate that involved WM Italia, a group of parliamentarians proposed a law amendment to allow fair use in Italy, “for encyclopaedic use”. This proposal is still being evaluated, but had positive opinions from the Commissione Cultura and other institutions.
- [CC-3.0] – Creative Commons is writing on a new license version, 3.01. The public discussion has been opened.
- [Veropedia] – Former WMF employee and long time Wikipedia editor Danny Wool started together with a few other long time editors Veropedia, which wants to re-use the Wikipedia content by improving it, and locking the good version on their website.
Was ist das?
- [OTRS] – (Open-source Ticket Request System) is the system which is used for answering questions and comments about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia-projects. The teams consist of volunteers representing the different communities. In order to help out you need to know the ins and outs of your project. Besides, as the OTRS-members have access to private information, the Foundation needs to know your identity.
Did you know …
- [Featured article] – There is a page on meta where you can compare the different Wikipedias regarding featured articles. Featured articles is considered one of the indicators for the quality of a Wikipedia, although the qualification process differs per Wikipedia
- [Extension] – There is an interesting extension which is used by the Wikiversity projects. It can be used for making tests in order to let the participant of a course find out if material in the course is understood; it might also be useful for Wikibooks-projects
Quote
- [From EN-Wikiquote] – “You set up this fantastic site, with people sending information all around the world, and you don’t make any money of it! It’s practically an un-American activity!” from Clive Anderson, 2007-07-24, The Wikipedia Story, BBC Radio 4.
