Wikizine - number: 83

[EN Wikizine]

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                                     .org

Year: 2007  Week: 44  Number: 83

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

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=== Technical news ===

[Upload limit] - The upload limit is 20 MB. Now that the recent  
changes have resulted in good support for video, it was suggested to  
increase this limit. There are concerns for a dramatic growth in  
bandwidth and storage need.

=== Request for help ===

[Fundraising translations] - Most translations for the 2007  
fundraising have been done, but some still remian. Cary Bass,  
volunteer coordinator, requests your help.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007

=== New project proposals ===

[Chain of reasons] - This proposed new project aims to be a reference  
for people who simply want to learn about the reasoning behind  
particular beliefs -- moral, political, scientific, religious, or  
whatever.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chains_of_Reason

=== Policy ===

[Page creation on EN Wikipedia] - Page creation for anonymous users  
has been disabled for the English Wikipedia since December 2005. There  
will probably soon be a trial of one week during which page creation  
is enabled again.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/84133
http://tinyurl.com/yw6gvj -- discussion at the village pump

=== Foundation ===

[Priorities] - Florence Devouard, chair of the Wikimedia Foundation  
board of trustees, has stated priorities for her next term as a chair.  
She also summarizes the major developments of last year.
http://tinyurl.com/325sjo

[Fundraising] - The 2007 fall fund raising has started on October 22  
and will run until December 22. People are encouraged to place web  
buttons on their private websites. At present around US$130,000 has  
been donated. The live stream of donations from Paypal can be seen in  
the IRC channel #wikimedia-donations on freenode.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/web_buttons and  
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising_FAQ
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2007 -- feedback from  
the visitors of the projects on the fund raiser
http://chat.wikizine.org -- provides access to #wikimedia-donations

[Budget] - Together with its fundraising, the Wikimedia Foundation has  
also published its budget for 2007-2008. The Foundation plans to spend  
US$4.6M in total, of which 57% is reserved for technical services. The  
rest is going to overhead, staff and other activities such as Wikimania.
http://tinyurl.com/3bxpwa

[New chapter] - Wikimedia Sweden was founded in Stockholm, Sweden.  
Lennart Guldbrandsson was elected Chair. For the board several members  
of community were elected as well as persons from the free knowledge  
movement of Sweden. One of them is Lars Aronsson, founder of  
susning.nu, which was the second largest wiki in the world before it  
was closed.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Sverige

[Treasurer] - The foundation is looking for a treasurer who will  
succeed Miles Davis on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation.
http://tinyurl.com/2y9ryy

[Job openings] - As a result of the relocation of the Wikimedia  
Foundation's headquarters from St. Petersburg, Florida, to San  
Francisco, several positions are to be filled.
http://tinyurl.com/24ow5e

=== Community ===

[Dutch Conference] - On October 27, Wikimedia Nederland held a  
conference in Amsterdam about Wikimedia, Wikis and Education. Most of  
the program was in Dutch; however, a few presentations were in  
English. Florence Devouard was one of the keynote speakers.
http://tinyurl.com/2r9e4p -- conference website
http://tinyurl.com/2r2na9 -- Wikinews report on the conference

[Russian Conference] - The Wiki-Conference 2007 was held on October 27  
and 28 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
http://tinyurl.com/35axup

[Wikijunior] - It is proposed that stable versions of the Wikijunior  
books hosted on the English Wikibooks will be published on  
www.wikijunior.org. Also there are discussions on a new logo.
http://tinyurl.com/32vh9b
http://tinyurl.com/3afhp3

=== Media ===

[Wikicomics] - "Wikimedia fundraiser highlights webcomic community's  
frustration with Wikipedia guidelines" reports Wikinews
http://tinyurl.com/2z8mda

[Edit for grades] - Some schools may ban Wikipedia, but the story  
about a teacher of the University of Washington-Bothell who makes her  
students write Wikipedia articles for grades was in the news this week.
http://tinyurl.com/2hjnmm

[Anons best?] - "Anonymous Wikipedia entries the most accurate" writes  
Brockpress.com.
http://tinyurl.com/3c4895

=== Stats ===

[Commons] - Three years have passed since Commons started selecting  
their best pictures; now, the 10,000th featured picture has been  
selected.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/21385
http://tinyurl.com/2e4xab -- the 10,000th featured picture

[hu.wp] - The Hungarian Wikipedia just reached 75.000 articles.
http://hu.wikipedia.org

[haw.wp] - The Hawaiian Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
http://haw.wikipedia.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_language

[simple wp] - The Simple English Wikipedia has reached its 20,000th  
article with "Mandurah railway line, Perth". Simple is looking for  
editors to write even more articles.
http://simple.wikipedia.org

[Erratum] - Wikizine 82 reported that the Vietnamese Wikipedia had  
reached 100,000 articles. This is not correct. The count was 100,000  
pages in total, not just articles. The Vietnamese Wikipedia has over  
25,000 articles.

=== Editorial ===

Dear readers,

Today, Wikizine has existed for three years.  A couple of weeks ago, I  
was seriously considering to stop contributing to Wikizine. My reason  
was that it became too difficult to continue creating weekly a new and  
good edition of Wikizine virtually alone.

At this time, the start of the third year of Wikizine, I want to  
inform you, my readers, that Wikizine will continue. This is possible  
because of the recent assistance in creating Wikizine that has been  
provided to me by users londenp and effeietsanders and a slightly less  
pessimistic state of mind.

It will not longer be a goal of Wikizine to have a weekly issue. The  
new publication frequency will be "You will get a new Wikizine  
whenever one is ready".

The Spanish and Indonesian language edition of Wikizine will mostly be  
terminated soon because of lack of activity of the people who started  
them. For the German edition there is just a new volunteer so there is  
hope that this one can stay.

Thanks for reading Wikizine. That is the reason for existence of a  
newsletter. This newsletter is "for the members of the Wikimedia  
community". The main purpose of Wikizine is to inform you, the  
Wikimedia community, what is going on in the community. That is across  
all projects and languages.

Only what is known by the (small) staff of Wikizine can be reported.  
Currently Wikizine fails in reporting what is going on in the global  
community due to lack of information.  Please take a minute to send  
notice to Wikizine if there is something of interest to report from  
your home-wiki.

Greetings,
[[meta:user:Walter]]

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

... that the income of the Wikimedia Foundation is mainly based on  
small donations from individuals who appreciate the Wikimedia  
projects? The Wikimedia projects are hence mainly supported by the  
large public, not by major organisations.

=== Fundraising quotes ===

"For tripling the number of Elephants in Africa!" US$500 --Anonymous.
"Instead of a banner asking for donations, why don't you just have a  
banner with an ad, and skip the middle step." --Anonymous.
"Wikipédia est d'une utilité publique colossale." -- Lionel Bolnet
"Who's that guy? The guy on the banner looks like Osama bin Laden."  
--Anonymous
"Your efforts to educate the world are highly admirable. Keep up the  
good work." -- Alison Dwyer
"Symbolisch bedrag en mijn hartelijke dank voor jullie geweldige  
site." -- Tejo Hoekman

http://tinyurl.com/2rlb39  -- more quotes

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Unique Visitors website last week: 167
Editor(s): Walter, Effeietsanders, Londenp
Corrector(s): Oliphaunt
Thanks to: Tgr, Joakim Larsson, Borgx
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
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Wikizine.org makes no guarantees of accuracy,
validity and especially correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news  
(and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html


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