GCS Step 1

Monday, December 24, 2007

Year: 2007 Week: 52 Number: 88

Technical news
  • [No pictures?] - If users complain that the can not see any pictures on the wiki the it can be the " upload.wikimedia.org" it being blocked by adblock software. Possibly in an attempt to hide the fundraiser banner.
Foundation
  • [Board resignations] - Michael Davis, Board member since the founding of the WMF, has resigned as announced per December 1, 2007. Erik Möller, elected Community representative since summer 2006 and re-elected in July, also resigned in december. Anthere, Board Chair, announced an appointment for Erik's seat soon, awaiting elections, and in time also an appointment for Michaels seat.
  • [Board expansion] - A lot of Board-related news nowadays, as Anthere also announced that the Board will be expanded to 11 members. The time schedule is not totally clear yet. Anthere also announced that she is considering to reduce her work for the Wikimedia Foundation, after four years of Board membership, of which 1,5 years as chair and if elected join the board of Wikimedia France instead of chair of the WMF. 
  • [Deputy Director] - Erik Moeller will become WMF's Deputy Director, which was announced after Erik's resignation from the Board. On Foundation-l the point was raised that for this newly created function no public announcement was made for people to submit there candidacy for this function. Also the move from the unpaid position as board member to a new, paid, function raised questions. Sue Gardner,  Executive Director WMF and new boss of Erik, clarified the choice and procedure. Key aspects were that Erik - because of his professional background, community background and technical knowledge of the technical side of WMF operations - is a very useful addition to the WMF staff who have no WMF community background. The WMF is still looking for people for some functions for the San Francisco office.
  • [Fundraiser] - The fundraiser of the Wikimedia Foundation has been extended until January 3, 2008. It was scheduled to end on december 22, 2007, but extended to be able to cover the holidays as well. This is to benefited from the people in the USA who look at the last days of the year for a good cause to donated to get a tax deduction. The fundraiser started October 22, and is now already the longest fundraiser ever. The current balance is around 1.25 million US dollar.
Community
  • [Wikinews in Israel] - Wikinews' David Shankbone wrote his first report to his sponsored trip to Israel.
  • [Stewards] - New stewards have been appointed by the Board after the 2007 elections. The new stewards are: .anaconda, Andre Engels, Dungodung, Jusjih, Lar, Millosh, Spacebirdy, Thogo, Wpedzich, Zirland, DerHexer, Nick1915. Now that the new stewards have been appointed, the Steward reconfirmations discussions can start. All stated objections during the elections are being taken into account by all the stewards, which will decide which of the stewards will be reconfirmed. Datrio and Fantasy are already destewarded, as they did not want to stand for reconfirmation. 
Awards
 Media
Stats
  • [New projects] - The Language subcommittee has conditionally approved 37 new language projects. Among them three new Wikiquotes, five Wikinewses, one Wikisource, seven Wikiversities, eleven Wiktionaries and ten Wikipedia's. This means that these projects can move on to the Wikimedia Incubator project, and can get their own environment if they succeed to establish the community and project.
  • [Lombard Wikipedia] - The Lombard Wikipedia has currently only just over 23000 articles, although that were over 117000 a few weeks ago. This is the result of a massive cleanup of robot generated articles. 
  • [DE Wikibooks] - The German Wikibooks has now its 10,000th page in the main article namespace and reached so far a major milestone. We have now 569 Books, 40 of them are ready and numerous have their own printversion.
Other news
  • [Citizendium license] -- Larry Sanger announced that Citizendium will use CC-BY-SA as a license. This means that Citizendium is freely licensed as well, and if the GFDL and CC-BY-SA licenses become exchangable in the future, Citizendium content could be used within the Wikimedia projects.
  • [Amazon Kindle & wp] - As reported in Wikizine 85 Amazon (webshop) is selling an ebook reader (kindle) that also provides access to Wikipedia. Cali Lewis of Geekbrief.Tv explains more about how this actually works. The device has a key "search" that can be used to search a dictionary, the English language Wikipedia and the internet. By means of a web browser function also the other languages editions, Wikibooks, Wikinews and Wikisource can be read. Wireless access is free of charge but it only works in the USA.
  • [Wikizine review] - In 2007 EN Wikizine presented 33 editions (extra editions excluded) to our readers. The readership by means of email increased by 18% this year. The number of unique visitors to the website is going steadily downhill since the the seconded quarter of 2007. New language editions of Wikizine where launched this year. There is now a Wikizine in the German, Spanish and Indonesian language. The continuing publication of these new editions has been troublesome and there readership, with the strong exception of the Indonesian edition, highly disappointing despite the effort put in those editions. EN Wikizine suffered also troubles and it came close to termination of this project. The last months the effort of only a few people sufficiently supported this project and provided the necessary energy to continue Wikizine in to 2008 and hopeful well beyond. Thanks for reading Wikizine people, and that is all for 2007.
Did you know ...

 ... that you can expand your knowledge by subscribing to an email list?

You can subscribe to the Wikipedia-Daily-Article-List, and receive every day an extract of the enwikipedia article of the day in your maibox!
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Quote

"Taking the risk of offending some people; Marry Christmas everyone and a not to bad new year!" -- user:Walter in the "Quote" section of Wikizine 88
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