Year: 2009 Week: 23 Number: 107

Technical news

• [Chrome Support for Ogg] - Google's Chrome browser is going to support Theora video (the type of audio files that Wikimedia uses) natively with the HTML5 video tag. Earlier announced Mozilla also this support in there upcoming version Firefox 3.5
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/052123.html
• http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/05/google-chrome-3-adds-html5.html
• [Usability] - The Usability Team has been working on a number of new projects that hope to make editing easier.  Among others, there is a new skin (vector) and an action-grouped toolbar.  The toolbar which hides the overwhelming number of tool icons which are not being used by novice users and the new skin has a streamlined tab layout. Lots of clutters will be removed from the interface.
• http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/06/02/ -- blog post
• http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Designs -- design descriptions on usability wiki
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vectorskin.png -- image of skin
• [New search] - After some initial hardware issues, the new search backend/servers has been enabled on all wikis.  This new feature has many cool parts, including "did you mean", wild cards, prefix, etc.
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-October/040022.html -- full feature list
• [Google Wave] - Google has recently announced a new communication and collaboration tool called Google Wave.  There was a long thread on foundation-l about how this "wiki-like" tool could fit in with Wikimedia projects.
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/052135.html -- mailing list thread
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave -- Wikipedia article
  

Request for help

• [Licensing update] - GFDL wikis must migrate their licenses by August 1 to remain compatible with Wikimedia projects.  Help is needed to identify and contact the wikis affected.
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Outreach
• [Signpost] - The Wikipedia Signpost is looking for writers.  A few have signed up so far.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-05-18/From_the_editor
  

Proposals

• [Social bookmarking] - EN Wikinews has voted in favor of the introduction of links to add articles to social bookmarking sites such as Facebook and Delicious. On news stories, there is now a template available to share it.
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikinews-l/2009-May/001512.html -- mailing list proposal
• http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Social_bookmarking_of_Wikinews_articles -- onwiki discussion
  

Foundation

• [Trustee elections] - Three community representatives will be elected to the Wikimedia Foundation board this summer. The election is scheduled to run from July 28-August 10, the vote time was extended to two weeks after input from the community.
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/en
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/052070.html
  

Community

• [TS: New servers] - The Toolserver received a new shipment of servers that will be used as a new place for user home directories, a replacement for zedler (s2 database), a second login server, and an extra toolserver for OpenStreetMap stuff.  All the new servers should be up and running before the next maintenance period, July 6.
• [POTY 2008] - The Third Annual Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year Competition has concluded and the results are now available.  The winner was "Horses on Bianditz mountain" by Mikel Ortega.
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biandintz_eta_zaldiak_-_modified2.jpg -- Winning image
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2008/Results -- Results
• [First logo creator] - The creator of Wikipedia's first logo has finally realized that we used his logo when he googled himself! ;-) Bjørn Smestad, had submitted his idea to a Nupedia logo competition and, while it didn't win that competition, it became the official Wikipedia logo for around 8 months (and served as a basis for the current logo).
• http://bjornsmestad.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-wikipedia-logo.html -- creator's blog post
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_logos -- Wikipedia logos through the years
• http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/2009/05/28/another-reason-not-to-copyright-logos/ -- blog post by sj on the subject
• [SF+MakerFaire] - The San Francisco Wikimedians and the Wikimedia Foundation office made an appearance at the San Mateo MakerFaire.  The event went very well and was mostly community run.  Visitors to the booth found Wikimedia trading cards and a guess the language game!
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_Faire -- Wikipedia article
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_-_Trading_Card_Game.pdf -- trading cards
• http://austinhair.org/guess/ -- guess the Wikipedia language
  

Media

• [ArbCom + Scientology] - The English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee (final level of dispute resolution) closed a 6-month long case involving the Church of Scientology articles.  This news was quickly picked up by the tech press and is making its way through the mainstream papers, with articles in many languages (including English, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Danish).
• http://tinyurl.com/ScientologyWiki -- Google News results
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology -- arbitration case
• [nowiki comparison] - A Norwegian newspaper (VG, Verdens Gang) compared Wikipedia in Norsk (Bokmål) and Store Norske Leksikon. The latter encyclopedia is a large traditional paper lexicon transferred to a web portal, together with to other lexicons; one medical and health lexiconand one biographical lexicon.  The roundup focused on five different areas; history, culture, entertainment, society and politics, and sport. Wikipedia either won or tied in all categories.
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-June/052282.html -- mailing list post description
• http://bayimg.com/image/laannaacf.jpg -- scan of the article
• [WMUK denied charity] - Wikimedia UK, the British chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, was recently denied charity status by HMRC (the organization that controls charity status in the UK).  The HMRC stating that production of an encyclopaedia is not a charitable purpose; the story was listed on the front page of Charity Finance, a charity-related news site.
• http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=2876&pg=15&cat=30 -- story
• http://uk.wikimedia.org -- Wikimedia UK
  

Stats

• [wp] - The Ukrainian Wikipedia has reached 150,000 articles, the Arabic Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles, and the Malayalam Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
• http://tinyurl.com/ukwp150k -- 150,000th article (uk.wp)
• http://tinyurl.com/arwp100x -- 100,000th article (ar.wp)
• http://tinyurl.com/mlwp10k -- 10,000th article (ml.wp)
• [wikt] - The Italian Wiktionary has reached 100,000 entries and the Ukrainian Wiktionary has reached 20,000 entries.
• http://tinyurl.com/ukwikt20k -- 20,000th entry (uk.wikt)
• [more] - More stats: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_News
  

Other news

• [Open Source City] - The Vancouver (in British Columbia, Canada) city council has stated it will try to make its data open and accessible to everyone (when possible), opting for open standards and considering open source software when replacing existing applications.
• http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/05/22/tech-vancouver-open-source-standards-software-city.html
• [OSM Italy] - The first conference of the Italian Open Street Map (OSM) will be held in Trento, Italy between June 5 and 6.  The OSM software will be integrated into Wikimedia sites and Wikimedia Italia is also sponsoring this conference.
• http://osmit.fbk.eu -- conference website
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OSM -- Meta page on the integration
• [WMDE: Job] - Wikimedia Deutschland, the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, is currently hiring a new Executive Director/Geschäftsführer.  Applications are being accepted until June 13.
• http://neu.wikimedia.de/index.php?id=95 -- more information (German)
  

Quote

"I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years. Two years later we ourselves made flights. This demonstration of my impotence as a prophet gave me such a shock that ever since I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions."

-- Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, speech to the Aero Club of France, 1908

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