This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.12 (8b8c762), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active; configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.

• When a bot requests an edit token for a page via the API, the edit token returned is now correct even if the page didn't exist beforehand. (r25581, bug 10898)

• Several enhancements were made to the API this week:
  • An API query for the members of a category now contains an option cmprop=timestamp to return each category member's recategorisation timestamp, and an option to sort the results by timestamp. (r25474, bug 10890)
  • It's now possible to exclude redirects or to exclude non-redirects from an API query for a page's what-links-here. (r25476, bug 10980)
  • It's also now possible to query the API to find out the SHA-1 hash of a version of an image. (r25456, bug 11115)
• When a new section of a page is created using the '+' tab, the edit summary no longer has to be identical to the section header; the exact form of the new automatic summary can be customized by admins via MediaWiki:Newsectionsummary. (r25573, bug 10836)
• The error message MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext that displays when a user tries to edit a page is now given a parameter that allows that message to distinguish whether the page was protected or semi-protected. (r25713, bug 11211)
• Two extra parameters are now passed to MediaWiki:Cantcreateaccount-text, which allow that message to display information about the block that is preventing the account being created (the block reason and blocking administrator). (r25714, bug 9611)

• The mw:Extension:OggHandler extension has been enabled on the English Wikipedia; the extension allows audio and video in the Ogg Theora, Vorbis, Speex and FLAC formats to be added to articles in much the same way as images, and will try various methods of playback for such files depending on what a user's browser supports. The syntax to include audio and/or video is [[Image:filename]], the same syntax as for images, and options can be given in a similar way. Video and audio templates have been changed to the new format, so there might be some technical difficulties for the next few days. For more information, see this mailing list post.

• A workaround has been added to the sitewide JavaScript (MediaWiki:Common.js) that improves the display of some transparent PNG images on Internet Explorer 5.5 and 6; without the workaround, the images display with opaque backgrounds on those browsers. In order to completely resolve PNG display issues in Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer users are encouraged to upgrade to version 7 or use a different browser such as Firefox.

• Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla or use Betawiki.

On Sunday, the two-millionth English article was created. It is unclear at this point exactly which article was the 2,000,000th article although El Hormiguero was declared by consensus to be the 2,000,000th article. The Wikimedia Foundation is expected to make an official announcement soon, after reviewing the database logs in a search to find the true 2,000,000th article. As of Saturday afternoon, the Wikimedia Foundation has not conclusively found the true 2,000,000th article.

On August 30, the Finnish Wikipedia discussion in regard to creating an Arbitration Committee was completed, with about 91% of the users supporting it. The committee is called Välityslautakunta ("Arbitration Board"). Now, the first elections are soon coming up; candidacy opened September 3 and is open until September 17, and the elections go from September 17 through October 1.

Using data from the now-discontinued external ogg player (see related story), Greg Maxwell compiled usage statistics for Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora videos. The top five most-played media files were:

1. Image:Ejaculation Educational Demonstration.OGG (Ejaculation), 338,155 plays.
2. Image:Wilhelm.ogg (Wilhelm scream), 192,219 plays.
3. Image:Blonde stag film.ogg (Pornography silent stag film), 41,038 plays.
4. Image:Tacoma Narrows Bridge destruction.ogg (Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse), 35,231 plays.
5. Image:STH reverse.ogg (Supposed backmasking in Stairway to Heaven), 30,286 plays.

The raw data is available here.

Also this week, nearly 100 classical cello recordings by John Michel were uploaded, after Raul654 asked Michel to release them under the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.

Victoria College in Toronto, where SimonP studied, did something rather neat and Wikipedia related. Each year, they have a different theme for orientation week, and this year's was named "Vicipedia" (Victoria College is generally referred to as "Vic"). They had a number of Wikipedia related events, and every first year student at the school spent the week wearing shirts with a parody of the Wikipedia logo on the front and a random Wikipedia utility on the back (such as the community portal or featured articles). For one of the events, due to SimonP's well publicized links to Wikipedia, he was invited back to participate in a trivia contest against teams of first years. The official site for the event can be found here.

• The final draft of Wikipedia:Template standardisation is about to be implemented. Community input is welcomed.
• The English Wikinews has reached 10,000 articles.
• The Russian Wikipedia has reached 200,000 articles.
• The Volapük Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles (and since then, has reached 110,000 articles), due to a large amount of bot-created entries, describing localities in Europe. It is the first constructed language to break the 100,000 article mark.
• The Ukrainian Wikipedia has reached 70,000 articles.
• The Arabic Wikipedia has reached 40,000 articles.
• The Greek Wiktionary reached 150,000 entries.
• The Telugu Wiktionary reached 20,000 entries.
• The Latin Wiktionary reached 5,000 entries.
• The West Frisian Wiktionary reached 2,000 entries.
• The Aymara Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Spanish Wikipedia has 500,000 registered users.
• The Nepal Bhasa Wikipedia has reached 30,000 articles.

The Arbitration Committee accepted one new case this week, and closed one case.

• Boris Stomakhin: A case involving a dispute between Biophys and Vlad fedorov, involving alleged BLP and 3RR violations, block evasion, and edit-warring. As a result of the case, Vlad federov was banned for one year.

• THF-DavidShankBone: A case involving alleged POV editing by THF relating to Michael Moore, and alleged harassment by DavidShankBone. Fred Bauder has proposed a remedy advising THF to "rely more on negotiation with other users and less on legalistic citing of policies and guidelines when disputes arise".

• The Troubles: A case involving a large number of editors on articles related to The Troubles. Some editors attempted to withdraw from the case when its scope was widened at the request of an arbitrator to cover the entire area rather than only the behaviour of Vintagekits, but in accordance with arbitration policy, these attempts, along with other changes to statements after the case opened, were reverted by the clerk.

• DreamGuy 2: A case involving alleged persistent incivility by DreamGuy.

• Dalmatia: A case involving a dispute between Italian and Croatian editors on articles relating to the Dalmatia region.

• SevenOfDiamonds: A case involving alleged abusive sockpuppetry and other misconduct by SevenOfDiamonds. SevenOfDiamonds vigorously denies the allegations, and alleges that MONGO has harassed him.

• Digwuren: A case involving alleged POV-pushing and incivility by Digwuren and alleged sockpuppets.

• Artaxerex: A case involving alleged POV-pushing, incivility and sockpuppetry by Artaxerex. Artaxerex denies the allegations, and alleges that Shervink and others are focusing on getting him blocked, and that certain editors push an Iranian nationalist POV. A remedy banning Artaxerex has the support of three arbitrators.

• Jmfangio-Chrisjnelson: A case involving alleged edit warring, hostility and incivility between Jmfangio and Chrisjnelson. Jmfangio has been indefinitely blocked after checkuser confirmed that this account is the reincarnation of a community banned editor.

• Allegations of apartheid: This case concerns the conduct of various editors in connection with a group of articles whose titles include the words "Allegations of apartheid". It has been alleged that these articles were created in violation of Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, after several deletion debates concerning Allegations of Israeli apartheid resulted in that article being kept. Issues have also been raised concerning comments made in deletion discussions and reviews. Several users who have created and edited the "Allegations of apartheid" articles have strongly denied any inappropriate conduct. Voting on most proposals is split, but an amnesty for past actions currently has a majority.

• Catalonia: A case brought by Physchim62 involving alleged edit warring, possible sockpuppetry, and other misconduct by various editors on Catalonia, Valencian Community, and related articles. A proposal banning Maurice27 for thirty days has the support of five arbitrators, and one encouraging the parties to continue with the normal consensus-building procedure has seven.

• COFS: A case initiated by Durova based on a discussion at the community sanctions noticeboard. The case involves allegations of tendentious editing by various editors, sockpuppetry, conflicts of interest, and other user conduct issues on Scientology related articles. The proposed decision, which has the support of six to nine arbitrators, would ban COFS for 30 days for POV editing and require him to change his username and disclose any duties he may have to the Church of Scientology before resuming editing. A proposal banning Anynobody from harassing Justanother has the support of eight arbitrators, and one placing Scientology articles on article probation has four.