Wikizine - number: 30

Technical news

• [undelete] Uploaded files which are deleted can now be undeleted. Admins can also view the deleted files without actually undeleting them. This works only with newly deleted files.
• Wikipedia-l
  

Request for help

• [Translation] There are several texts waiting for translation. Some like "Travel scholarships for Wikimania" are urgent.
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests#Latest_Requests

• [Wikizine] is looking for a reliable free form-post service to send emails.
  
•  Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
  

Foundation

• [GlobalNotice] The first global notice pushed to all Wikis will be placed very soon. This is to get attention for the Wikimania 2006 event, in the hope that many users will register for it. It is requested to keep the notice online for one week.
  
• Foundation-l
• http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org/
  

• [Scholarship] There is a possibility to reduce your expenses if you like to come to Wikimania. You can apply for a scholarship. Requests must be entered before June 28th.
  
•  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/Wikimania/Scholarships
  

Politics

• [Model] Anthere makes a comparison between the organisation of the Apache Software Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation. And how Wikimedia can learn from that. Responses follow.
  
• Wikitech-l
  

Policy

• [Ombuds-wo-man] for CheckUser. On suggestion of Anthere; volunteers are welcome. The idea if to have a specific person to complain to about possible checkuser abuse. 
• Foundation-l
  

New project proposals

• [Medical] A proposal for a project with medical information. For once this proposal has received responses on Foundation-l. There is an older mailing list for people who are interested in this and related projects; Wikimedical-l.
  
• Foundation-l
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Medical_dictionary_wiki
• http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedical-l
  

Community

• [Unused accounts] On the English Wikipedia is a proposal to delete user accounts who are never used. Around 70% of all existing accounts on the EN Wikipedia have no edits. Currently about 1,6 million accounts exist on the EN Wikipedia.
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Delete_unused_username_after_90_days
  

Media

• [New York Times] The New York Times discovers semi-protection after six months. And interprets it that; Wikipedia is changing its "everybody can edits policy". Wikipedia has pages with limited access for years. Andnow with semi-protection Wikipedia is even more open then before.
• http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html - you need a login
• http://www.bugmenot.com/ - here you can get a login
• http://blog.jimmywales.com/index.php/archives/2006/06/17/ - comments of Jimbo about the NYT-article on his blog
• http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/06/18/0042209.shtml - And /. has something to say about this
• http://liberation.fr/page.php?Article=391273 - also the French media has picked it up

• [WikiCoke] "Coke gets slammed on Wikipedia" - negative publicity
• http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13269186/
  

• [Local News] The "Sint Petersburg Times interviewed local celebrity Jimmy Wales.
• http://www.sptimes.com/Wikipedia_s_creator.shtml
  

Stats

• [Age/edits] Some graphs are made about the relation of the time a useris active on the English Wikipedia and the number of edits the have done.
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Days_since_first_edit

• [UploadStats] Ever wondered how big the database of Wikimedia is with all those pictures?
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Upload_distribution%2C_June_2006

• [MailStats] The great Erik Zachte, the king of statistics, has made some interesting stats about the posting behavior on the mailing lists. What mailing lists are used? And how is the frequency of the number of postsevolving true the years? And who are the top-posters?
• Foundation-l
  

Other news

• [WikiSymposium] An International Symposium on Wikis will be held onAugust 21-23, 2006 in Odense, Denmark. "Participants will present, discuss, and move forward the latest advances in wiki contents, sociology, and technology." This is a non-Wikimedia event. If you register today, June 19, you pay 470 EUR/594 USD. After the 19th it is 537 EUR/679 USD. Full-time students get a very large discount. Some food is included.
• http://ws2006.wikisym.org/space/start
  

• [SoftwareWiki] LiteratePrograms is a unique wiki where every article is simultaneously a document and a piece of code that you can view, download, compile, and run by simply using the "download code" tab at the top of every article
  
• http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.textbook/844
• http://en.literateprograms.org
  

• [WikizineBlog] beta-version is now online. Same contents as Wikizine by email but webbased and with talk-back option. Feedback is highly welcome.
• http://wikizine.blogspot.com
  

Did you know ...

... that the wikis support an easy for linking to RFC's?

To use it is very simple. Let say you would like to link to RFC 1855,  the netiquette-RFC. Just write RFC 1855 on the  wiki. No brackets, only  RFC one space and the number.

To know what an "RFC" is, see;

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments

To specify where the automatically created URL points to, modify [[MediaWiki_talk:Rfcurl]];

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Rfcurl

User quotes

It's better to learn some 'disgusting' things from wikipedia, rather
than from some porn site. --213.184.225.28 12:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

"To change time settings, do as Timwi instructed. To change _time_, on
the other hand, is a great deal more complex, and I don't think anybody
on this mailinglist wants to explain it." -- Mark Williamson

---

Editor(s): Walter, Sj