Wikizine/EN2007-87

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                                    .org 

Year: 2007  Week: 51 Number: 87       

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An independent internal news bulletin 
for the members of the Wikimedia community

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=== Technical news ===

[Printing] - As we all probably know, the layout for printing Wiki pages is not the best. The Wikimedia Foundation announced a cooperation with the Open Society Institute and the Commonwealth of Learning to make an extension that will enable nice printing options. 
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikis_Go_Printable

[AMS-IX] - The Wikimedia Foundation received a Gigabit internet connection at no cost from Amsterdam Internet Exchange (one of the largest internet hubs world wide), for the "good of the internet".
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/AMS-IX

=== Request for help ===

[Greenspun] - The Philip Greenspun Illustration Project, coordinated by Brianna Laugher (meta:user:Pfctdayelise), is now accepting requests for image proposals to run in the project. If you really really want an animation to be created, you can request it there, and there will be a small amount of money available for the creator to stimulate the creation. It is likely that the first round of this creation process will start at the begin of January. 
Our internal media collages of WikipediaWeekly have an interview with Brianna about this.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project
http://wikipediaweekly.org/2007/12/14/episode-38-interview-wbrianna-laugher/

=== Foundation ===

[Wikinews] - Wikimedia Serbia has made a formal agreement with the Serbian news agency "Beta news" for using there news articles in Serbian and English on Wikinews.
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.wikinews/773
http://www.beta.co.yu/

[Wikimania 2009] - The formal start for the submissions for candidate cities to host Wikimania 2009 is open now until 15th of February. Reminder; for 2008 Wikimania is in Alexandria, Egypt.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2009

[Wikimania 2008] - The first public planning meeting was held on IRC with many topics being discussed for 2 hours on Thurs Dec 13.  Next meeting was planned for Saturday 22nd Dec, 1500 (UTC).  
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Meetings/20071213

[Staff] - The Wikimedia Foundation hired it's first new staff for the relocation to San Francisco. Sue Gardner announced that Erica Ortega will be the new Office Manager and Cheryl Steffen will be the Personal Assistant for the Executive Directive. 
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/22805

[SR Wikimedia] - A translation and adaptation to local law of the  Creative Commons license in Serbian is presented. This is done with the collaboration of Wikimedia Serbia.
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7911

[Felon?] - According to the blog "The Register" the former Chief Operating Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation was a multiple convicted felon. Concerns have been raised that the story told in the "The Register" is inaccurate.  Mike Godwin, the WMF legal consul, posted on Foundation-l that the WMF can not give comments about this because of legal restrictions. Mike Godwin did say that "the Foundation has retained an independent firm that conducts criminal background checks, consistent with state and federal law in the USA." Jimmy Wales also promised that if it would turned out that money has been stolen he will compensated it from personal funds. Jimmy promised that so that people could feel comfortable about it, not that he expects there will be a problem. 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/13/wikimedia_coo_convicted_felon/ -- The Register
http://tinyurl.com/2hvor8 -- Wikinews report

[Chapters] -- The Wikimedia Foundation has officially approved two new chapters: Wikimedia Sweden and Wikimedia Argentina. 

=== Media ===

[Abuse] - Since the WikiScanner came up, the media are all the time stunned by the fact that people, but also companies and governments are actually editing Wikipedia, also on spots where they maybe should not. However, the media are *still* reporting on numerous new found governments and companies, such as recently the BBC and the US Military. Although the bare facts might be boring to Wikimedians, it is funny to see how media are still reporting this.
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article3255702.ece

[Signpost] - Wales’ comments on citing Wikipedia produce BBC correction
http://tinyurl.com/yvc82n

[Extra! Extra!] - News paper headline reads "U.S. military command hacks Wikipedia". Translation; kindergarten level normal vandalisme on article.
http://tinyurl.com/yr6br5

[Family reads also] - Articles about living people are also read by direct family of these famous people. Jeff Tweedy, musician, says in an interview that his son founded out things about the past of his father by means of Wikipedia.
http://pages.citebite.com/w9q8c2xwcqu

=== Stats ===

[q:fr]- The French Wikiquote has reached 5,000 quotes. This project was deleted in April 2006 (see Wikizine 19 Extra) and only restarted one year ago in December 2006.
http://fr.wikiquote.org/

[Wiktionary 2nd in the World!] - At least according to Alexa.com for the category of English language  dictionaries. 
http://tinyurl.com/2kon7y

[Daily Image] - Commons started in February with the service of sending out the link to the Picture of the Day. There are now already over 1000 people using this service.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-image-l

=== Other news ===

[Knol] - Google announced a new project, Knols. It will contain pages with encyclopedic-like information, written by individuals, which will appear at the top rank of Google. The writers will receive a share in the advertisements. The big question is not: What license will Google require? It is likely that this will raise a conflict of interest, now Google is both publisher of information and search engine. Currently content from the WMF projects is very highly listed in most search requests. As a result very large amounts of traffic comes from Google to the WMF projects.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/22897

[US senate] - Jimmy Wales has testified in the US senate about the positive use wikis for the government can have. This is in relation of an effort to make US government websites and databases more searchable.
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_7689792
http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/121107Wales.pdf -- the statement of Jimmy Wales before the US senate

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

... that Wikinews has a weekly quiz about the current events of last week?

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/WN:QUIZ

Wikinews is using the MediaWiki extension "Quiz" for this function.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Quiz

=== Quote ===

"It's not the size of your tools that matter, but how you use them." -- Cary Bass on IRC 

"Then I asked if he was surprised that Google did it; "I am surprised it took them so long. :)" -- Responds of Jimmy Wales in regard of the Google Knol project.
http://battellemedia.com/archives/004152.php

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