The English Wikipedia celebrated their 800,000th article this week. It is believed that the milestone article was History of Sudan (Transitional Military Council).

Merriam-Webster, a Britannica subsidiary, has created a new Open Dictionary. Despite the name, the copyright status of entries is not given, and entries with profanities are not accepted. At press time, the dictionary included 1,697 entries.

Wikipedia has entered the Alexa Global Top 40, ranking in at #38. Wikipedia has eclipsed Google Spain, and is poised to pass Google Canada and the popular online weblog site Xanga.

When Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand co-leader Rod Donald died on Saturday, Wikipedia was the first major news source to recognize his passing. At 11:47 UTC on 5 November, Alan Liefting first updated Donald's entry with the news. According to Google News, the first conventional news source to confirm his death was an Auckland radio station, who first posted the story at 2:35 UTC on 6 November. ([1])

The vote on whether to create a new Wikiversity project ended today. Wikiversity, which currently resides on Wikibooks, started a vote on 15 September to move to wikiversity.org, currently hosting a near-dormant German Wikiversity project. A two-thirds majority, required to submit the proposal, has been reached, and board approval is all that is required to start a project beta period. The issue is on the agenda for the next board meeting, scheduled for 12 November.

• The English Wikipedia has reached 800,000 articles.
• The Breton Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Azeri Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Turkish Wikipedia now has over 5,000 registered users.

The Arbitration Committee closed two cases this week.

A case against Onefortyone has closed. The ruling puts Onefortyone on probation on celebrity biography articles. Onefortyone was accused of inserting information of dubious reliability into celebrity articles regarding their sexual orientation.

A case against DreamGuy has closed. The Arbitration Committee made no actions on the case, citing a lack of evidence. Editors claimed DreamGuy had an unreasonable point of view, and was often mean-spirited.

A case was accepted this week against Silverback. It is in the evidence phase.

A temporary injunction has been imposed on Jguk, prohibiting him from changing date notations on articles.

Other cases against Ultramarine (user page), Maoririder (user page), numerous editors on Bogdanov Affair, Rangerdude (user page), numerous editors on Ted Kennedy, Lightbringer (user page), and Copperchair (user page) are in the evidence phase.

Cases against numerous editors on Polygamy, Jguk (user page), REX (user page), Zephram Stark (user page), Everyking (user page), Instantnood (user page), and Stevertigo (user page) are in the voting phase.

Motions to close are on the table in the cases against BigDaddy777 (user page) and 12.144.5.2 (user page, a.k.a. Louis Epstein).