Year: 2006 Week:4 Number:10

=== Technical news ===

[Anonnotice] - The MediaWiki-page [[Mediawiki:Sitenotice]] for putting a
notice on top of every page of the wiki and used for things like the fund
drives, is now divided. The notice put on [[Mediawiki:Sitenotice]] is only
displayed to logged-on users. The new MediaWiki-page
[[Mediawiki:Anonnotice]] is for showing a notice only to anonymous users.
So if you need to display a notice to all users you need to modify
"[[Mediawiki:Sitenotice]]" and "[[Mediawiki:Anonnotice]]".

If you put {{:MediaWiki:Sitenotice}} inside [[Mediawiki:Anonnotice]] then
everything will behave as before.

[Stewards] can now again set rigths for the wikis hosted on the
Korean/Yahoo cluster. Those are ja.wikipedia, ko.wikipedia, ms.wikipedia
and th.wikipedia - Stewards are users who can give and revoke user rights
(like sysop) of any user on any Wikimedia project.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards

[Semi-protection] Semi-protection enabled on the Spanish Wikipedia and the
Japanese Wikinews.

[Namespace] French language Wikipedia has begun using a new namespace for
references cited within articles.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aide:Référence

=== Request for help ===

[Spam Filter] Project startup. Addresses deficiencies in existing
SpamBlacklist extension and $wgSpamRegex. It is now in the proposal phase
and is reviewing requirements and seeking developers. The idea is to give
maximum control at the local wiki to protected against spam.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_Filter
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jwalling - project coordinator

=== Policy ===

[ProtectSection] There is a new vote in wikisource.org. It is about
whether you want ProtectSection to be enabled.
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Vote_on_enabling_the_ProtectSection_extension
http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4375

=== Foundation ===

[Trademark] The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted
a trademark registration for the term "Wikipedia" to the Wikimedia
Foundation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-01-16/Trademark_registered


[Chapter News] from the Serbia and Montenegro chapter
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/26404
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/5939

=== Community ===

[Lawsuit] against the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. by the parents of the
deceased German hacker Boris Floricic (aka Tron), because the article in
the German language Wikipedia about this person contains his full name (at
the same time his full name actually is on many websites at the moment).
The national domain wikipedia.de is because of this not longer redirecting
to the DE Wikipedia. Some media incorrectly reports that German language
is down or has been down because of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(hacker)#Current_controversy
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Berlin_court_issues_provisional_order_against_the_Wikimedia_Foundation

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/19/2056252
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(Hacker)
http://wikimedia.de
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/20/wikipedia_shutdown/ - examples of
incorrect journalism
http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=70807

[9/11wiki] wiki move proposal. The sep11 wiki is a memorial wiki about the
9/11 attacks. (WTC-towers, New York, USA)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/9/11_wiki_move_proposal
http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Memoriam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks


[Bye-bye 2005] The Signpost has written a overview of 2005. It is from the
viewpoint of the English language Wikipedia of course but still
interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-01-16/Look_back

=== Media ===

[Copycat] Reporter who plagiarized Wikipedia gets fired
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-01-16/Tim_Ryan_dismissed
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story1679.shtml

=== Stats ===

[Commons] the wiki for free media now contains over 400,000 files.
http://commons.wikimedia.org
http://slashdot.org/articles/06/01/22/1441228.shtml

[Tools] Contributions Tree Tool allows users to scrutinize their edits by
namespace and by number of edits.
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/contribution_tree

=== Other news ===

[Department of Fun] good place for inspiration for how to waste your time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Department_of_Fun

[NotWikipedia] Encyclopediadramatica - "It's like Wikipedia on crack,
heroin, and meth all at once."
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/

=== Did you know ... ===

... that besides Wikizine there are also other internal news media?

Probably the best known is "The Wikipedia Signpost" of the English
language Wikipedia. It is web based and setup like a newspaper and is
written by a small team of editors... The Signpost is now one year old.

A older one it the "Wikikurier, Das Wikipedia Nachrichtenblatt" fo the
German language Wikipedia. It is around since the end of 2003. This is
only a announcement page, but it is a beauty of a announcement page. It is
constantly updated.

So far as known is that it. The Chinese language Wikipedia has done a
attempt to make a Chinese Signpost, but it seems dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Kurier
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:维基简讯

If you know about other initiatives like those on other Wikimedia projects
please inform Wikizine about this. The are a very valuable source of
information for Wikizine.

=== Quote ===

"acknowledge the reality that there is no way that all bad edits out of a
current rate of around a million edits a week (soon to be ten million no
doubt) will be caught. Not only a slim chance; zero chance. If legal
issues make this intolerable, instead of making a pointless and annoying
gesture, do something concrete and move the servers to an offshore
jurisdiction, as PartyGaming operates from Gibraltar due to the dubious
legal status of online poker." (anonymous)

---

Editor(s): Shizhao, Walter, Oscar

Year: 2005 Week:52 Number: 6

=== Technical news ===

[[Special:Unwatchedpages]] this new special page gives a listing of the
first 5000 pages that are not on someones watchlist. It is a static list
updated regularly (hopefully). This is only for "users with protect
permission". Sysops have access. Seems to be live on all wikis. This
special page is not listed on the [[Special:Specialpages]] page so put
it somewhere.

[Semi-protection] is now live on the English Wikipedia. See
[[w:en:George W. Bush]] for an example of a semi-protected page. Only
registered users with accounts older than 4 days can edit that type of
page.

About getting this function enabled for other languages or projects
Brion says "The policy's only been made on en.wikipedia. If there's some
consensus or order to put it on everything that can be done."

As a result for the implementation of this function the interface for
protecting pages is modified. You can still protect/unprotected and
protect against moves. The protection log history of that page is also
displayed now. A page whit "move protection" only appears to be
protected for sysops. All the others do not see that. You can see the
difference when you try to edit that page as a sysop because you do not
get the warning that you are editing a protected page.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/26086
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semi-protection
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Semi-protection.JPG -- Semi-protection in action
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:View_source.JPG -- Semi-protection
in action

[Old search database] the database used for the search function seems
not to be updated for some weeks. A page created on 28th November 2005
is now still not found.
Suggestion: put on [[MediaWiki:Searchresulttext]] a notice that it can
take weeks befor new pages can be found whit the search function.

[Deleted pages] when requesting a deleted page a non-sysop will from now
not longer see the old versions history. This situation can change again.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/21267


=== Politics ===

[Steward] elections are open. New candidacies are still accepted.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2006

=== Media ===

[Edit???] "Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio" -- some think that is news
http://tinyurl.com/atywl

[CNN] Positive item about Wikipedia on CNN -- sorry no video
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/26110

[Wikibooks] interesting and well-written (and sourced) blog entry by Ben
Crowell, a pioneer in e-book publishing about Wikibooks
http://www.lightandmatter.com/article/infrastructure.html

=== Stats ===

[AR] The Arabic Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
http://ar.wikipedia.org/

=== Did you know...===

...that you can include a link to any page to emty the cache of that page?
[{{fullurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}action=purge}} Purge the cache]

Anonymous users get a question and confirmation button; "Clear the cache
of this page?". You can translate it whit [[MediaWiki:Confirm purge]].
Consider to put also an explanation on that page what this exactly is
"cache". Not all users are so smart as you. See the version of Meta for
inspiration.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Confirm_purge

=== Q4 fund drive quotes ===

*"Proof that the best things in the world are free." by Vijay P Choksi
*"If Plato would have the internet he would constantly read Wikipedia."
by anonymous
*"Best signal to noise ratio on the internet today" by Simon Pichette
*"I have an atrocious memory - Wikipedia fills in the blanks!" by Ian
Henderson
*"Wikipedia makes me look with hope at the future of humanity." by Dario
Teixeira

---

Editor(s): Walter , Special assistance: Flcelloguy

Year: 2005 Week:51 Number: 5

=== Technical news ===

[IRC] IRC client restarted, allowing new channels on the Browne IRC server.
irc://browne.wikimedia.org


[Q4] and the money is pouring in! If you put the code below on any
page you get the donation status bar. Hit F5 and be amazed; it is
going faster then the article counter.

Already received
[http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/ ]

=== Policy ===

[Semi-protection policy] is a new policy from the English Wikipedia.
When a page is "semi-protected" then newest X% of registered users and
all unregistered users can not edit that page. The technical aspect of
it does not yet work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Semi-protection_policy
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2147680/vandals-force-wikipedia-lock


=== Politics ===

[Stewards] are users who can give and remove user rights to any
Wikimedia project, among such rights are: bot, sysop and checkuser.
There is now a nomination round for new stewards. Voting will start on
20th December 2005 and it'll end on the 10th January 2006. You can
list yourself during that time, but you'll have lower chances then.
The Board will eventually choose a group of users (from 1 to 10)
who'll gain steward status.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2006

=== Foundation ===

[Bravo Italia] Wikipedia wins two Awards in Italy.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Goings-on&oldid=251967


=== Media ===

[Good] One week Wikipedia is "not trustworthy", the next we are
"almost as good as Encyclopedia Britannica". The result is a lot of
very good press around the world. And also Wikipedia traffic
skyrockets. We are now bigger then CCN.com (according to alexa.com).
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/v438/n7070/nature-2005-12-15.mp3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/Nature_compares_Wikipedia_and_Britannica


[Nobel Prize] In a program called "Noble minds", with the nobel prize
winners of 2005 in a round table talk with the BBC reporter John
Simpson Wikipedia got merit. The medicine prize winner Barry Marshall
mentioned the Wikipedia article about their discovery (he got the
prize together with Robin Warren) and he said that they could not have
written a better article themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori

=== Proposal===

A New proposal for a Wikimusic, "A Wiki with (1) both score and text
of a free piece of music, (2) the music itself in a playable music
file (in different versions, for example one version with trumpet, one
with a whole orchestra, not MIDI), (3) the sheet music in a wiki-text
format (MIDI can be made out of it) and (4) information about the
piece of music.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimusic_II


=== Stats ===

[milestones] The Chinese Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:新闻稿/2005年12月

[Stats, no more] wikipedia.be and wikipedia.nl are probably the oldest
national portals of Wikipedia. Since the creation of them, end of
2002, they have been counting the visitors with their own visitor
counters. This until last thursday when these where removed by the
technical staff without any notice.

In those years traffic to Wikipedia.nl started with 255 page views a
month to 194372 page views in november 2005. And wikipedia.be from 128
page views a month to 33755 in november 2005.

=== Other news ===

[meetup] 10 December 2005, Taiwan Wikipedians meetup in Taipei. about 25 people.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:聚會/2005臺北冬聚å
http://vista.tw/2005/12/10/39/
http://fancy.twbbs.org/blog/tsaiid/2005.12.10/
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/kaurjmeb&article_id=2709059
http://charlesc.ilovemeow.net/node/451?PHPSESSID=408e4d34d0606c4b1590530985460ddc

[Law] - ERRATUM: in last week's issue it was not very cleary indicated
the the website "www.wikipediaclassaction.org" is not a Wikimedia
Foundation website. They are people who say they will try to sue
Wikipedia. But some are also making fun of them because there exists
also a parody site of it: www.wikipediaclassaction.com
http://www.wikipediaclassaction.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:VPN#Wikipedia_Class_Action_Lawsuit
http://www.wikipediaclassaction.com

=== Quote ===

About Wikipedia;
"I call you my husband's mistress because you get his attention much
of the time..." by anonymous "

=== Editorial ===

Wikipedia was never very good in internal communication. But lately we
have seen some sad highlights. The implementation on the English
Wikipedia of the reduced edit powers came as a total surprise and we
have received the news from external news media. My first reaction
when I read about it was; what a load of bullshit! We, the
Wikipedians, would surely know about it if such change of a
fundamental aspect of Wikipedia was true?

Also the policy of "Semi-protection" only gets widely known after
articles in the traditional media about it.

And finally the removal of visitors counters after more then 3 years
of service without any word to there Wiki is also not nice. Wikipedia
has no working statistics about visitor counts. So when you try to do
it yourself you do not expect that your own system gets sabotaged. It
are not only the articles of Wikipedia that need improvement.

[[user:Walter]],
Editor-in-chief Wikizine

---

Editor:Walter, [[zh:user:Shizhao]], Oscar