Year: 2009 Week: 36 Number: 117

Technical news

• [Software updates] - Brion is in the process of updating the Wikimedia sites with several weeks of new updates.
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2009-September/045179.html

• [Mobile survey] - the Wikipedia Mobile team is running a survey, hoping to get feedback on their progress so far and suggestions for future additions.
• http://bit ly/LBXdK
• http://m.wikipedia.org/

• [Sever donations] - do you know of a non-profit that needs servers?  The Wikimedia Foundation is donating 35 servers (over 3 years old) that aren't fast enough to run our sites anymore, but would probably work fine for smaller projects.
• http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/server-donation-time-again/

• [TIFF support] - the tech team is adding full TIFF support in the near future.  This support will help MediaWiki render TIFF images (an image format widely used by museums and in scientific research) so that users can view them in their browsers.
• http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/full-tiff-support-is-comming/

Foundation

• [Board Minutes] - the minutes for the April and June Board meetings have now been published.  You can view them on foundationwiki.
• http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/April_3-5,_2009
• http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/June_16,_2009

• [Wikimedia IRC meeting] - the new three new Board members held an introductory meeting on IRC where they introduced themselves and answered questions.  A full log is available on Meta and minutes are to come.
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/054870.html
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_meetings/September_11,_2009#Meeting_information_.26_Attendees

• [Report to the Board] - Sue Gardner, the Executive Director, published her Report to the Board for the month of June.
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/054904.html

• [Foundation-l LSS] - The latest summary for foundation-l has been posted on Meta-Wiki, thanks to Phoebe.  In addition, you can now also follow updates to the LLS on identi.ca, either from the site there or via RSS.
• http://identi.ca/listsummaryservice
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2009_August_1-31

• [Orange Poland] - the Orange partnership has expanded into Poland.  Unfortunately, though, there were a few issues with local press during the launch (see the foundation-l post).
• http://wikipedia.wp.pl/
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/054946.html

• [Usability Beta Status] - Naoko Komura, Program Manager for the Usability Initiative, gave an update on the status of the usability updates (the "Try Beta" link).  She also included statistics on how often they were enabled/kept enabled.
• http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/14/usability-beta-status/ -- blog post

• [Omidyar Grant] - the Wikipedia Signpost has an article further explaining the nature of the Omidyar Grant of US$2 million to the Wikimedia Foundation.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-09-14/News_and_notes

• [Job openings] - the Wikimedia Foundation has three job openings, as of press time, including a software developer, project manager, and development associate.
• http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings

• [Transcom] - the translation committee has released another newsletter summarizing open requests.
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2009-September/001004.html

Legal

• [WMIT being sued] - Wikimedia Italia, the Italian chapter, has been sued for €20,000,000 over a possibly defamatory article.  WMIT is in no way connected to the article or edits in question, but they still have to pay the legal fees and fight a court battle due to the Italian legal system.  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gianfranco/Wikimedia_Italia_sued_for_20,000,000_%E2%82%AC -- unofficial summary (en)
• http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Sabato_19,_a_Roma,_abbiamo_bisogno_di_te -- community notification (it)

Community

• [University course about WP] - a university course solely devoted to Wikipedia has recently been started in Sweden.
• http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_release_August_30,_2009

• [Translatewiki.net update] - Gerard and Niko both published blog posts giving updates on Translatewiki, the site for translations of the MediaWiki software.
• http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2009/09/translatewikinet-update.html
• http://laxstrom.name/blag/2009/09/01/gsoc-wrap-up-translate-extension/

• [Office Move] - the Wikimedia Foundation officially announced its upcoming office move (to be completed in mid-to-late October).  It has also publicized the address, something the Foundation has shied away from in the past.
• http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-September/055204.html

• [Improving Foundation-l] - Foundation-l, the mailing list intended to discuss Foundation issues, has started a request for comment.  Do you know ways the mailing list could be improved or replaced?
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l

• [Restoration Discovery] - Durova, one of the people on Commons who works on restoring images, received a pleasant surprise.  While restoring a photo, she discovered that there was actually human remains in picture.  This discovery has been noted in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Library of Congress even credited her in its bibliographic record.
• http://durova.blogspot.com/2009/09/synergies.html

• [WMBD Meeting] - Wikimedia Bangladesh (a planned local chapter) had a meeting on September 10
• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Bangladesh/Online_Meeting_2009-09-10

Media

• [Biggest blunders] - CNN has assembled a list of "Wikipedia's Biggest Blunders".
• http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/09/06/wikipedia.biggest.blunders.cnn

• [Wikipedia grows up] - the UK Telegraph wrote an article saying that Wikipedia and the Internet are growing up.
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6122514/Wikipedia-and-the-Internet-grow-up.html

• [Strategic Planning] - the New York Times covered the new Strategic Planning Initiative and the other consultants that are helping professionalize the Foundation.
• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/business/media/31link.html?_r=2

• [Editing For Beginners] - the Australian Lifehacker wrote an article trying to teach beginners how to contribute to Wikipedia.
• http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/09/wikipedia-editing-for-beginners/

• [Wikipedia reacts to outburst] - a reporter for the New York Times wrote a blog post describing the Wikipedia community's response to a US Representative shouting at the president during his speech.
• http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/wikipedias-rapid-reaction-to-outburst-during-obama-speech/

Stats

• [Commons reaches 5 mil] - just in time for its 5th birthday, the Wikimedia Commons has reached 5 million files.  See the blog post and chapter press releases for more information.
• http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/09/02/wikimedia-commons-breaks-5000000-files/
• http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Commons_5_million_files
• http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Commons_5_miljoen_bestanden

• [Wikistats Portal 2.0] - Erik Zachte, maintainer of Infodisiac (a set of Wikimedia statistics), wrote about a recent overhaul of the statistics portal.
• http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/09/wikistats-portal-20/

• [Wikipedia's Growth Animated] - all the Wikipedias grow at different rates and have started at different times.  How can we compare them other than just by the numbers?  Erik Z has updated an animation that shows this growth visually.
• http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/09/wikipedias-growth-animated/

• [vi.wp] - the Vietnamese Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles.
• http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-11

• [th.wp] - the Thai Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.

• [cs.ws] - the Czech Wikisource has reached 10,000 pages.
• http://cs.wikisource.org/wiki/Ilias/Zp%C4%9Bv_p%C3%A1t%C3%BD

• [bo.wp] - the Tibetan Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
• http://tinyurl.com/bowp1k

Other news

• [Semantic Web Problem] - TechCrunch wrote a humorous article centering the unfortunate results when robots try to get meaning from Wikipedia text.
• http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/02/netbase-thinks-you-can-get-rid-of-jews-with-alcohol-and-salt/

Did you know ...

...the first public cell phone call was made on April 3, 1973 by Martin Cooper?

Quote

"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." -- Theodore Roosevelt

Editor(s): Casey, Alex, Corrector(s): Rjd0060, Thanks to: Ainali, Mike, WikimediaMobile, infodisiac (Erik Z), Hampton, Mathias, Sj, Gerard, Durova, Austin, Sue, Marcin, Rand, Frieda, Tanvir, David, Phoebe, Naoko, Brion, Kat, Signpost, Mxn, and Daniel Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org

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