Technical news - [CommonsDelinker] - one of the most annoying things of Commons is that if you use its content and host your files there that you did not knew of the where deleting the file you are using until it was done and you noticed it. Improvements has been made to solve that. There is a check of the usage of files on the wikis and there is the "CommonsTicker" to inform local wikis about changes to files that are in use on there wiki. Now there is also the "CommonsDelinker". That is bot to remove the dead links to files deleted on commons. It is a maintenance service, to remove the trash from the hundreds of wikis after a deletion on commons. There is currently an "Requests for permissions" to request to get an exemption from local bot policies to run this bot. Currently there is universal support for it. Wikis who do not want to receive the service the CommonsDelinker can request to be excluded.
- [Move] - the Japanese, Korean, Malay, and Thai Wikipedias will be moved from the Korean server cluster (yaseo) back to the main servers in Florida (pmtpa) later this week.
Request for help - [Wikizine] - Currently Wikizine is basically a one person project. This is not a good model to provide weekly a timely and good edition of a consistent quality.
- Wanted: core staff member(s). You look for news and find it. You constructed Wikizine. Eventually you can write an edition on you own if needed. And this week after week, even when you have better things to do. You can be counted on to do the work.
- Wanted: freelance staff member(s). You look for news when you like to do it. You write sometimes an item for an edition of Wikizine.
Foundation
- [Board] - Erik Möller/Eloquence has won the board election. He will continue the term of Angela. Kathleen (Kat) Walsh/Mindspillage is second and Oscar van Dillen third.
- [Wikimania2007] - It is now known where the next Wikimania will be; Taipei,Taiwan.
- [Wikimania2008 & 2009] - Unofficial bids are open for locations to host Wikimania 2008 and 2009
- [Sep11] - the "project" September 11 In Memoriam is closed. This is the first project ever that is closed. Sep11 was a very non-typical WMF-project. It was created in the early days when there where only a few wikis. This in 2001 in responds the 9/11 event. The wiki is now read-only.
Community - [InterWiki-report] - this week we have the Hungarian language Wikipedia and also the Simple English Wikipedia who present there project to you.
Stats - [fi.wp] - The Finnish Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
- [pl.wp] - The Polish Wikipedia has reached 300,000 articles. And this on the day that there wiki is five years old.
Other news - [Larry Sanger] - who played an important role in the early history of Wikipedia and was the editor-in-chief of the late Nupedia, announced a fork of the English Wikipedia. This fork will have a different editorial structure.
Was ist das? SUL: Single User Login. You can use one login for all wikis.
Kudos: to praise someone for doing something.
FYI: for your info - information provided as a service to someone only to inform them about it. No need to responds to it, do with it what you wish.
Quote There is an old Vulcan proverb — "Only Nixon could go to China." -- Mr. Spock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_in_China_(phrase)
Editor(s): Walter, Thanks to: pfctdayelise, helix84
Technical news - [!steward] - it is now more easy to get the attention of a steward if it is urgent. In the IRC-channel #wikimedia-stewards is there now a bot guarding the channel provided by w:nl:user:webboy. If you enter the command !steward it calls for the stewards. To test it use !steward-test
Foundation - [clarification] - For the current vote for the position for the board of the WMF only users who are indefinitely banned or blocked are not allowed to vote on any project. Users blocked for a specific time period are not allowed to vote on the wiki where the are blocked during the time of there block. If that user can vote on a other wiki the are allowed to do so. See also;
- [New hire] - the WMF has hired Mark Bergsma to serve as Networking Coordinator for the Foundation.
Community - [InterWiki-report] - this week the Italian language Wikipedia is writing his bit.
- [De-sysop] - On the En wikpedia is a user de-sysoped. That would not be news on most wikis, but on EN it is.
Media - [Guardian] Wikipedia defies China's censors
- [Law.com] - interview with Brad - Wikimedia's First GC Prepares to Tread 'Legal Minefield'
Stats - The Volapük Wikipedia has reached 500 articles. This is a language with +/- 30 speakers. So 500 is very impressive.
Other news - [Wikizine Closed] - There will be no Wikizine for week 38. The next edition is expected for around the 27th September in week 39. Requests send to Wikizine will not be answered during this period.
Did you know ...
... that you can setup local language portals? The main domain name of the projects is a .org domain. And because most people do not know anything else besides .com domains like www.wiktionary.com also point to that project.
But the first domain people will try is name of the project with the TLD from there country. Check If the domain with the name of your project for your county top level domain is still free. If it is try to obtain it. Keep it private. Do not start discussions about it on your wiki or it will be squatted. Best is that the WMF would buy the domain. Contact Brad Patrick, the WMF interim executive director & lawyer <bpatrick AT wikimedia.org> to ask to buy the domain. If it is already taken try to figure out who it owns and of there intentions are honorable. Possibly it it registered by a friend of your project to prevent it been registered by someone who would exploit it by pointing it to a sexssite or something like that. Maybe the are willing to transfer the domain to the WMF. Do only reconnaissance and contact the [[meta:Trademarks committee]] when you have the basic information.
List the domain and the information you have on;
When you have the domain then you can make a local portal. Consider doing this also even when there is one clear dominant language and other languages are of very little importance in the country. A listing on such a portal can give a project in such a small language the exposure it needs to become successful. Also makes clear that a project organized by language, not by country. Some national domains are already active and are used for portals. Others are only redirecting to the Wikipedia in the dominant language.
Examples of national domains who point to a portal;
Examples of national domains who redirect to the dominant language;
- http://www.wikipedia.at - Austria ; redirect to the German Wikipedia. Excluding the Slovene, Croatian and Hungarian language project.
- http://www.wikipedia.de - Germany; redirect to the German Wikipedia. Excluding the Danish, Frisian, Low German, Sorbian and Romany languages projects
User Quote If you have a dirty mind then most things look sexual. When I first saw the Wikimedia logo it looked to me like someone ripping open their shirt, therby revealing their naked torso underneath. --Dangherous 23:35, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Editor(s): Walter
Request for help from a programmer - [WikipediaToolbar] - For some time there is a FireFox extension to add a toolbar to you browser especially designed for use on Wikipedia and for MediaWiki wikis in general. This toolbar is made by w:de:user:Bananeweizen. The current toolbar will not work with the new upcoming 2.0 version of FireFox. User:Bananeweizen does not have time anymore to work on this and is looking for someone to take the "Wikipedia Toolbar" over from him. If you are intrested contact Bananeweizen on the irc channel #mediawiki on Freenode.
Policy - [New Logos] for Wiktionary, Wikibooks and Wikiversity can now be submitted now. Voting is scheduled to start on September 7 for these logos.
Foundation - [Wikimania2007] - The first round for the selection for the city to host Wikimania 2007 will close on September 10th. No city will be accepted after that date. Candidates may work on their bid until the 15th.
- [Election] - The vote for the new boardmember is now open. Users can vote on one wiki only using the [[Special:Boardvote]]-page. Users who had 400 edits on a wiki on August 1, 2006 and are not blocked have voting rights. A user with a block on any wiki is not allowed to vote during that time, also not on other wikis. The Board has appointed James Forrester and Jon Harald Søby as additional Assistant Election Officials.
- [$] - The Wikimedia Foundation received in August 1769 donations for a total amount of $37,601.58 by PayPal
Community - [InterWiki-report] - it is now time for the Spanish language Wikipedia to tell the whole wide Wikimedia-world about their wiki.
- [FAQ] - the new project Wikiversity presents a FAQ to try to explain what is exactly is.
- [WMC 2006] - last Saturday the Dutch Wikimedia chapter held, with extensive support of Kennisnet.nl, its first own conference in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This was a one day event with several presentations like on Wikimania. There where 46 attendees; most from the Netherlands, but also from Switzerland, Germany, Thailand and Flanders. Some pictures and audio recordings are available. One of them is in English "Kurt Jansson: Wikimedia Chapters - Some insights from Wikimedia Germany". This event was announced with an interview on a Dutch national television broadcaster.
Media - [RE from Jimbo] on /. The announced new functionality of MediaWiki to support stable versions has give inspirations to several media to report that Wikipedia is reducing the freedom of editing to all. A responds from Jimbo about that and the readers of /. on that responds.
- [Brittanica] - Wikipedia is now also included in the Encyclopædia Britannica. You can read the first 75 of 737 words about Wikipedia on the Brittanica for free.
- [Free press] - A politician has found a way to get his name in the press by saying that he is considering to sue Wikipedia.
Stats - [Whois] - a new type of stats. A listing with info about from where the people editing on a wikipedia are coming from. And also on what wikipedia are people of different wikipedias working on. These numbers can give a general idea but take in to account that there is a large possibly of errors.
- [en.wp] has now 1000 sysops. The wiki with the most sysops after the English language Wikipedia is the German with 225 sysops.
Did you know ...
... that there is a easy way for adding inter-wikilinks to the articles? The webbased Interwiki-Link-Checker is a tool for semi-automatic insertion of Interlanguage-links in all latin-encoded Wikipedias larger then 10.000 articles. Input from wikipedians fluent in at least two languages is needed to decide wether articles named the same in two different languages should be interlinked by the bot.
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~flacus/IWLC/start.php - The tool
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Flacus/Wikipedia_Interwiki-Link-Checker/en - FAQ
Ferengi Rules of Acquisition "Small print leads to large risk." - Rule 8
"Trust is the biggest liability of all." - Rule 99
"Not even dishonesty can tarnish the shine of profit." - Rule 181
Editor(s): Walter - Special thanks to: Sasa Stefanovic
