=== Technical news ===
[ParserFunctions] The extension for mathematical expressions and conditional constructs has been enabled on all Wikimedia wikis.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/27087/
[Single Login] is coming. The previous time frame for it was "end of February, early march". The current time frame is "It'll be done when it's done. - Brion". Make sure that you use for all your accounts the same email address so the can be merged when it is time.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/23027/focus=23029
=== Request for help ===
[Wikimania] There are two weeks left to submit presentation ideas for Wikimania. The design of the conference site is being discussed.
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_participation
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Sandbox
=== Policy ===
[Privacy policy] suggestion of a revised version of the policy
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6833/focus=6833
=== Community ===
[Answers.com] End of 2005 the Foundation announced a partnership with Answers.com The agreement included that Answers.com would provide a search tool where some of the revenue of the use of this tool would go to the Wikimedia Foundation. The tool is now available. There is controversy about this partnership. Anwsers.com is accused to be a company using dishonorable ways of doing business.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/4627/
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/44025/
http://wikipedia.answers.com/
=== Media ===
[Content review] BBC Focus magazine had experts compare three entries in Wikipedia, Britannica, Encarta and Infoplease in a quick study. Wikipedia was ranked http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/44112/
[Fake Bio] of "war hero" caught the attention of the media.
http://reddragdiva.livejournal.com/307381.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mcilwraith
=== Stats ===
[pdc.wp] The Pennsylvania German Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
http://pdc.wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutch
[Alexa] rankings on a by-country basis
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Awareness_statistics#Alexa_country_rankings
=== Did you know ... ===
... that it is not so difficult to chat to many users of different instant messaging systems?
It can be very useful that you can contact your fellow Wikimedians in real time, to chat with them. But of course instant messaging is not like e-mail, a universal system that works. There are many incompatible systems for instant messaging. But you can use one program for that. There are several solutions. A good solution is Gaim.
Works with Windows, BSD and Linux. MacOS X can but not easy. Better use http://adiumx.com/
You chat with users of almost any system with one client. You can also access IRC and use it to join the Wikimedia IRC-channels. Very useful is that you can add IRC-users to you watch list just like with users of MSN, AIM and so. This way you can IRC easy for direct person to person contacts without the need to ask for authorisation or to know there exact user name because you find them in the chat rooms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaim
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_channels
=== Microsoft bashing Quotes ===
-The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners. - Ernst Jan Plugge
-"The box said, Win95 or better required... so I used a Mac !" — Tim Scoff.
-When you say: "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at you blankly and say: "Hey, I got those with the system -- for free." (Linus Torvalds)
-*Welcome to Hell. Here's your copy of Windows.
Editor(s): Shizhao, Walter, Sj
Monday, April 17, 2006
Monday, April 10, 2006
Wikizine - number: 21
=== Technical news ===
[Outage] Wikimedia was down from 19:19 UTC on 9th April to around 01:30
UTC on 10th April. The explanation we have at this time is that one of the
800A circuit breakers between the generators/UPS and our servers failed at
our Florida co-location facilities causing obvious problems. Staff at the
datacenter struggled to resume service as soon as possible, and are now
investigating the reason said breaker failed.
Wikimedia sites were unavailable for just over six hours.
Several servers came up with bad clocks. Brion has corrected the times in
the 'revision' database entries for the entries edited from these servers
so 'history' and 'contribs' will be correct, but you might see some edits
listed in your watchlist etc 8 hours earlier than their actual times.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/22810/
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/22827/
[Parser functions] Tim Starling created a MediaWiki extension supporting
parser functions, along with four new functions: if, ifeq, expr, and rand.
These can replace inefficient templates such as {{{qif}}} and
{{{switch}}} from the English Wikipedia. Parser functions such as
LOCALURL have existed for a while; but including them in an extension has
only been possible since MediaWiki 1.6, released last week.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ed_Poor/subtract&action=edit -- example of inefficient template
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/tags/REL1_6_1/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES
-- MediaWiki 1.6
[Move to Commons] Magnus Manske has made a online tool to make it more
easy to mo move files from a local wiki to commons
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/27061/
http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/commonshelper.php
[SpamWar-IV] The coming of the Redirects - new way of link spamming
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/22799
=== Request for help ===
[Wikimania] Needs volunteers and translators. Spanish, French, and
Chinese translators are especially welcome.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/Wikimania
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Meetings#General_volunteer_meeting
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6795/
[en.wikinews] Needs more people to help out with the daily audio recording
of the news. If you'd like to help contact User:Mrmiscellanious
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Mrmiscellanious
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews
=== New project proposals ===
[List of proposals] User:Robert_Harrison is working on a new version of
the new project proposals page on Meta
http://tinyurl.com/z5ek3
=== Foundation ===
[PR] Schwartz Communications, a public relations firm, provides on a
voluntary basis there services to the Wikimedia organization. The are from
now on included to the Communications committee as advisors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwartz_Communications
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee
=== Community ===
[EN.wikinews] is now offering a podcast of their daily news briefs on a
daily basis and actively promoting it.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AudioWikinewsNewsBriefs
[EN.wp CD] User:BozMo produces a CD with 2006 articles and 8500 images for
use in UK schools to benefit the group 'SOS Children' from the English
Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BozMo/2006_Wikipedia_CD_Selection
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/education-cd.htm
=== Media ===
[no print] the print edition of German Wikipedia is postponed due to lack
of support from the community.
http://tinyurl.com/lhpmn - google translation
[AlistApart.com] Anonymity and Online Community: Identity Matters - about
registered and anonymous users and Wikipedia
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/identitymatters
=== Stats ===
[The TOP] The classic traffic ranking is from Alexa where Wikipedia has
the 18the place of all websites of the internet. But there are also
others. According to "Hitwise" Wikipedia is on the 38th place, just after
CNN.com That seems impressive but that is still only 0,17 % market share.
When limited to "Education websites" Wikipedia is the clearly the number
one. Also according Hitwise the visitors of Wikipedia are 47,2 female and
52,8 male and users of all ages are using Wikipedia.
According to the statistics of "comScore" Wikipedia is on the 28th place
and rising. All those reports are nice to know but it is important to
realize that the give an strong English / American POV of the use of the
internet.
http://tinyurl.com/g6uog -- Hitwise data and demographics (USA) for
Wikipedia, March 2006 (doc file)
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?id=783 -- February 2006 'top 50'
list (WP: #28)
[KW.wp] The Cornish Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles. According to EN
Wikipedia there are around 3500 speakers of this language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_language
http://kw.wikipedia.org
[jp.wp] The Japanese Wikipedia has reached 200,000 articles.
http://jp.wikipedia.org
=== Did you know ... ===
... that you *can* switch of your computer, go outside in the real world,
leave your phone, iPod and PDA at home, go to a forest of a park and watch
to the movement of the leaves in the wind and the breaking of the sunlight
in those leaves and enjoy its fantastic resolution?
=== MediaZilla-IRC Quotes ===
"And so, we don't need a business model, we're just doing it." [Jimmy
Wales, early 21st century]
Sweater: optional piece of clothing applied to child when its mother feels
cold.
"The life is too short, and Wikipedia too slow ..." - Anon
"George Bush is a good president. No really. Please stop laughing."
Editor(s): Walter, Shizhao, Sj
[Outage] Wikimedia was down from 19:19 UTC on 9th April to around 01:30
UTC on 10th April. The explanation we have at this time is that one of the
800A circuit breakers between the generators/UPS and our servers failed at
our Florida co-location facilities causing obvious problems. Staff at the
datacenter struggled to resume service as soon as possible, and are now
investigating the reason said breaker failed.
Wikimedia sites were unavailable for just over six hours.
Several servers came up with bad clocks. Brion has corrected the times in
the 'revision' database entries for the entries edited from these servers
so 'history' and 'contribs' will be correct, but you might see some edits
listed in your watchlist etc 8 hours earlier than their actual times.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/22810/
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/22827/
[Parser functions] Tim Starling created a MediaWiki extension supporting
parser functions, along with four new functions: if, ifeq, expr, and rand.
These can replace inefficient templates such as {{{qif}}} and
{{{switch}}} from the English Wikipedia. Parser functions such as
LOCALURL have existed for a while; but including them in an extension has
only been possible since MediaWiki 1.6, released last week.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ed_Poor/subtract&action=edit -- example of inefficient template
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/tags/REL1_6_1/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES
-- MediaWiki 1.6
[Move to Commons] Magnus Manske has made a online tool to make it more
easy to mo move files from a local wiki to commons
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/27061/
http://magnusmanske.de/wikipedia/commonshelper.php
[SpamWar-IV] The coming of the Redirects - new way of link spamming
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/22799
=== Request for help ===
[Wikimania] Needs volunteers and translators. Spanish, French, and
Chinese translators are especially welcome.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/Wikimania
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Meetings#General_volunteer_meeting
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6795/
[en.wikinews] Needs more people to help out with the daily audio recording
of the news. If you'd like to help contact User:Mrmiscellanious
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Mrmiscellanious
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews
=== New project proposals ===
[List of proposals] User:Robert_Harrison is working on a new version of
the new project proposals page on Meta
http://tinyurl.com/z5ek3
=== Foundation ===
[PR] Schwartz Communications, a public relations firm, provides on a
voluntary basis there services to the Wikimedia organization. The are from
now on included to the Communications committee as advisors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwartz_Communications
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_committee
=== Community ===
[EN.wikinews] is now offering a podcast of their daily news briefs on a
daily basis and actively promoting it.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AudioWikinewsNewsBriefs
[EN.wp CD] User:BozMo produces a CD with 2006 articles and 8500 images for
use in UK schools to benefit the group 'SOS Children' from the English
Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BozMo/2006_Wikipedia_CD_Selection
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/education-cd.htm
=== Media ===
[no print] the print edition of German Wikipedia is postponed due to lack
of support from the community.
http://tinyurl.com/lhpmn - google translation
[AlistApart.com] Anonymity and Online Community: Identity Matters - about
registered and anonymous users and Wikipedia
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/identitymatters
=== Stats ===
[The TOP] The classic traffic ranking is from Alexa where Wikipedia has
the 18the place of all websites of the internet. But there are also
others. According to "Hitwise" Wikipedia is on the 38th place, just after
CNN.com That seems impressive but that is still only 0,17 % market share.
When limited to "Education websites" Wikipedia is the clearly the number
one. Also according Hitwise the visitors of Wikipedia are 47,2 female and
52,8 male and users of all ages are using Wikipedia.
According to the statistics of "comScore" Wikipedia is on the 28th place
and rising. All those reports are nice to know but it is important to
realize that the give an strong English / American POV of the use of the
internet.
http://tinyurl.com/g6uog -- Hitwise data and demographics (USA) for
Wikipedia, March 2006 (doc file)
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?id=783 -- February 2006 'top 50'
list (WP: #28)
[KW.wp] The Cornish Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles. According to EN
Wikipedia there are around 3500 speakers of this language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_language
http://kw.wikipedia.org
[jp.wp] The Japanese Wikipedia has reached 200,000 articles.
http://jp.wikipedia.org
=== Did you know ... ===
... that you *can* switch of your computer, go outside in the real world,
leave your phone, iPod and PDA at home, go to a forest of a park and watch
to the movement of the leaves in the wind and the breaking of the sunlight
in those leaves and enjoy its fantastic resolution?
=== MediaZilla-IRC Quotes ===
"And so, we don't need a business model, we're just doing it." [Jimmy
Wales, early 21st century]
Sweater: optional piece of clothing applied to child when its mother feels
cold.
"The life is too short, and Wikipedia too slow ..." - Anon
"George Bush is a good president. No really. Please stop laughing."
Editor(s): Walter, Shizhao, Sj
Monday, April 03, 2006
Wikizine - number: 20
=== Technical news ===
[CVS] The Concurrent Versions System of SourceForge's developer CVS has
been down. Because of this Brion has setup his own CVS for MediaWiki. This
is CVS system is a system for working on software with several people like
the wiki is for working on texts with many people.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/22626
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Subversion
[Midi] files uploaded to the wiki should now be better handled by internet
explorer
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5277
=== Request for help ===
[Wikimania] The deadline for submitting proposals to the Wikimania 2006
conference has been extended, to April 15 for workshop and tutorial
submissions, and April 30 for presentation submissions.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6762
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org
=== Politics ===
[Proposal] A proposal to close the September 11 Wiki has been made.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Closure_of_September_11_Wiki
=== Foundation ===
[fr.wikiquote] The Foundation closed the French language Wikiquote because
of legal reasons. Despite first enjoined the French Wikiquote will be
reopened unless there are people interested in working on it. For once the
exernal media seem not to regard this as news.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6671
http://fr.wikiquote.org/
[Chapter] dutch Wikimedia chapters founded. Special in this case is that
there are created two dutch Wikimedia organizations by the same people, on
the same day but with two different legal entity's.
http://nl.wikimedia.org
=== Community ===
[Wikisource] started with one wiki for all. But more and more languages
migrate to there own wiki. cs.wikisource, ml.wikisource, sk.wikisource are
created. cs and sk imported pages from the mother-sourceswiki.
[9/11] one of the least know Wikimedia wikis, the "In Memoriam" about the
victims of the 9/11-attack is now under procedure for closing.
http://sep11.wikipedia.org
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects
[Meta] the project "to Overhaul Meta" (= To make extensive renovations or
revisions on; renovate) has put the more obscure Meta-wiki in the spot
light. Extensive discussion on the mailing lists about it. On Meta it
seems to result in a massive categorisation action and deletion of pages.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:MetaProject_to_Overhaul_Meta
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6623
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6730
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#The_Meta_.22community.22.3F
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/43192
=== Media ===
[CBS] online video report about "Britannica Vs. Wikipedia"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/28/eveningnews/main1448372.shtml
[Censure] Pakistan temporarily blocked Wikipedia
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/03/31/184222.php
=== Stats ===
[featured article] the English Wikipedia provides the service that you can
receive by email the first part of there featured article of the day,
anniversaries and a quote. That mailing list has now over 10,000
subscribers.
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/daily-article-l/2006-April/000447.html - example
=== Other news ===
[CC] Creative Commons, a not-for-profit organization, adds Jimmy Wales to
its Board of Directors.
http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/5840
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons
=== Editorial remark ===
Some readers did not believe that the report in "Wikizine number 19 extra"
was true and that it was a early April Fool's Day joke. Wikizine.org will
never ever knowingly reports lies, whatever the date may be, so long it is
under the control of its current Editor-in-chief [[meta:user:Walter]]
=== Did you know ... ===
... that if you use FireFox or Internet Explorer you can add the Google
Toolbar to your browser?
That toolbar of Google is very usefull for your wiki-work because it
contains a spellcheck function that works very good (if your language is
supported).
http://toolbar.google.com/firefox/ - For FireFox
http://toolbar.google.com/index_2 - For Internet Explorer
=== Quote ===
"We strive for three things: objectivity, factually correct information,
and understandable information. It's clearly evident others are not
achieving it." -- Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopedia Britannica
Editor(s): Walter, Shizhao
[CVS] The Concurrent Versions System of SourceForge's developer CVS has
been down. Because of this Brion has setup his own CVS for MediaWiki. This
is CVS system is a system for working on software with several people like
the wiki is for working on texts with many people.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/22626
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Subversion
[Midi] files uploaded to the wiki should now be better handled by internet
explorer
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5277
=== Request for help ===
[Wikimania] The deadline for submitting proposals to the Wikimania 2006
conference has been extended, to April 15 for workshop and tutorial
submissions, and April 30 for presentation submissions.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6762
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org
=== Politics ===
[Proposal] A proposal to close the September 11 Wiki has been made.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Closure_of_September_11_Wiki
=== Foundation ===
[fr.wikiquote] The Foundation closed the French language Wikiquote because
of legal reasons. Despite first enjoined the French Wikiquote will be
reopened unless there are people interested in working on it. For once the
exernal media seem not to regard this as news.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6671
http://fr.wikiquote.org/
[Chapter] dutch Wikimedia chapters founded. Special in this case is that
there are created two dutch Wikimedia organizations by the same people, on
the same day but with two different legal entity's.
http://nl.wikimedia.org
=== Community ===
[Wikisource] started with one wiki for all. But more and more languages
migrate to there own wiki. cs.wikisource, ml.wikisource, sk.wikisource are
created. cs and sk imported pages from the mother-sourceswiki.
[9/11] one of the least know Wikimedia wikis, the "In Memoriam" about the
victims of the 9/11-attack is now under procedure for closing.
http://sep11.wikipedia.org
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects
[Meta] the project "to Overhaul Meta" (= To make extensive renovations or
revisions on; renovate) has put the more obscure Meta-wiki in the spot
light. Extensive discussion on the mailing lists about it. On Meta it
seems to result in a massive categorisation action and deletion of pages.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:MetaProject_to_Overhaul_Meta
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6623
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/6730
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#The_Meta_.22community.22.3F
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/43192
=== Media ===
[CBS] online video report about "Britannica Vs. Wikipedia"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/28/eveningnews/main1448372.shtml
[Censure] Pakistan temporarily blocked Wikipedia
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/03/31/184222.php
=== Stats ===
[featured article] the English Wikipedia provides the service that you can
receive by email the first part of there featured article of the day,
anniversaries and a quote. That mailing list has now over 10,000
subscribers.
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/daily-article-l/2006-April/000447.html - example
=== Other news ===
[CC] Creative Commons, a not-for-profit organization, adds Jimmy Wales to
its Board of Directors.
http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/5840
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons
=== Editorial remark ===
Some readers did not believe that the report in "Wikizine number 19 extra"
was true and that it was a early April Fool's Day joke. Wikizine.org will
never ever knowingly reports lies, whatever the date may be, so long it is
under the control of its current Editor-in-chief [[meta:user:Walter]]
=== Did you know ... ===
... that if you use FireFox or Internet Explorer you can add the Google
Toolbar to your browser?
That toolbar of Google is very usefull for your wiki-work because it
contains a spellcheck function that works very good (if your language is
supported).
http://toolbar.google.com/firefox/ - For FireFox
http://toolbar.google.com/index_2 - For Internet Explorer
=== Quote ===
"We strive for three things: objectivity, factually correct information,
and understandable information. It's clearly evident others are not
achieving it." -- Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopedia Britannica
Editor(s): Walter, Shizhao
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