This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are necessarily 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.

• The total numbers of articles and subcategories in a category are now displayed correctly. (r32085, bug 1212)
• When an invalid title is given to an API query, the rest of the query now continues as normal. (r32109, bug 13390)
• A generator=backlinks API query now honours the gblredirect parameter. (r32125, bug 13419)
• Ogg-contained audio and video now play back correctly in Safari. (bug 11249http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11249)
• The audio/video playback no longer confuses the media player Totem with QuickTime. (r32130, bug 13401)
• Some invalid XHTML on the protection page was fixed. (r32147, bug 13428)
• Special:Search now deals with unusual characters like newlines in the search string correctly. (r32148, bug 9403)
• The punctuation on the enhanced watchlist has been corrected. (r32194, bug 13440)
• API queries for category members in the main namespace now return the correct results. (r32279, bug 13465)
• Special:Search with no search query now gives the option to select which namespaces to search in. (bug 8444http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8444)

• There is a new special page Special:FileDuplicateSearch that allows you to search for all images which are completely identical to a given image (that is, same format, pixel-identical, same metadata, etc.). (r32180, bug 1459)

• The eiredirect option to the embeddedin API query has been removed, because it didn't actually make any difference to the query's results. (r32125, bug 13418)
• A category table is currently being added to the Wikimedia databases; when it is complete, it will allow various category-related bugs to be fixed (mostly relating to counting the number of items in a category correctly). (bug 13326http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13326)
• The SHA1 hash of uploaded images is now stored; this makes checks for duplicate images easier (and has made some of this week's image-related changes possible). (bug 5763http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5763)
• The search feature on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia wikis has been synchronised with the search feature used by most small MediaWiki wikis. As a result, several bugs have been fixed and features have been added to the search form (for instance, a search within the image namespace will now display the images as well as the text on the image pages).

• A test of flagged revisions (the 'stable versions' system) is currently taking place at http://en.labs.wikimedia.org (see related story).

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

On Monday, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation voted to award the Wikimedia Foundation a grant of US$1,000,000 yearly for the next three years, for a $3 million total grant. The grant is designed to help meet Wikimedia's institutional needs; Wikimedia Executive Director Sue Gardner said that the money would go toward "financial and operational sustainability, increasing quality, increasing and broadening participation, and distributing our material beyond the wiki environment. As you know, we’ve recently expanded the staff from 10 to 15, and we still have a few more positions to fill: this funding will offset those increased costs."

Deputy Executive Director Erik Moeller is said to be the catalyst for receiving the grant; Moeller was in contact with the Sloan Foundation through Wikimedia's involvement on the institutional council of the Encyclopedia of Life; the Sloan Foundation is also one of the funders of the Encyclopedia of Life. Through this contact, Moeller met formally with the Sloan Foundation, and they asked for a formal grant request, which was approved.

The announcement was first made on Tuesday by Gardner; a press release has also been issued. The grant is by far the largest ever given to the Wikimedia Foundation; prior to this donation, the largest donation was a $500,000 donation by an anonymous donor.

• As of press time, the final decision on the host city for Wikimania 2009 had not yet been made.
• The Welsh Wikipedia has reached 15,000 articles with Polydore Vergil.
• The Sardinian Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
• The Hungarian Wikipedia has reached 90,000 articles.
• The Walloon Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
• The Tamil Wiktionary has reached 10,000 entries.
• The French Wikiquote has reached 1,000 articles.
• The Zamboanga Chavacano Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.

The Arbitration Committee opened two new cases this week.

• September 11 conspiracy theories: A case involving the actions of some editors on articles related to the September 11, 2001 attacks, particularly in relation to 9/11 conspiracy theories.

• Prem Rawat: A case involving the actions of editors on Prem Rawat and related articles.

• Betacommand 2: A case involving the actions of Betacommand and others in relation to BetacommandBot, a controversial bot which tags some non fair use compliant images. Betacommand's actions had previously been discussed on a subpage of WP:AN.

• Highways 2: A case involving editing by NE2 on articles relating to WikiProject U.S. Roads, allegedly against consensus of other editors involved with that wikiproject. If closed as-is, only a remedy counselling editors to consider contributing outside of disputed articles would pass.