The Wikimedia Foundation hired two new people today to fill the open positions of Major Gifts Officer and Head of Community Giving. Chief Financial Operating Officer (CFOO) Veronique Kessler announced the hirings on Thursday:

I am pleased to welcome Rebecca Handler as Wikimedia Foundation's Major Gifts Officer, and Rand Montoya as Head of Community Giving. Rebecca will start officially on August 4. Rand will start officially on July 7. ... Rebecca will report to me and will be responsible for face-to-face solicitations of donations from major donors. Rebecca will be working for us 20 hours per week. ... Rand will report to me and will work immediately on this year's Online Fundraising campaign.

As Major Gifts Officer, Handler will be responsible for dealing with the Foundation's strategy for attracting large donations. As Head of Community Giving, Montoya will be responsible for developing strategies for community donations, including fund drives and matching donations.

A new Firefox extension, the Universal Edit Button, has been released for Firefox 2 and 3. It allows users to click a small icon in the address bar to immediately go to the "edit" page on many different wiki engines, including MediaWiki (as an extension, but enabled for all Wikimedia projects), PeanutButterWiki, PhpWiki, Ward Cunningham's original wiki, and Wikispaces.

• A poll on whether to increase the autoconfirmed level from "4 days of activity and 10 edits" to "7 days of activity and 20 edits" is currently ongoing.
• The Japanese Wikipedia has reached 500,000 articles.
• The Portuguese Wikipedia has reached 400,000 articles.
• The Chamorro Wikipedia recently reached 100 articles.
• The Chinese Wikinews has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Bambara Wikipedia has reached 200 articles.