Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-30/From the editors Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-30/Traffic report Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-30/In the media
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. This past week, developers updated the live code on Wikimedia sites to 1.15alpha r48811 (see change log), which means that a number of bug fixes and new features previously mentioned are now live.
Please note that some bug fixes or new features described below have not yet gone 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.
Bug fixes
- When exporting pages via Special:Export, where pages have an underscore and the "Include templates" option is checked, two copies of the page get exported. This bug has been fixed. (r48938, bug 17374)
New features
- Preference-based date auto-formatting of dates is now available for unlinked dates, with the {{#formatdate}} parser function. For example, {{#formatdate:March 30, 2009|ymd}} displays as 2009, March 30 for logged-out users, following the format specified. If you are logged-in and have set date preferences, the date will display according to your preferences. (r48249, bug 4582)
- A new system message (talkpageheader) has been added that can be used to display header text when viewing talk pages. (r48930, bug 17163)
- The ability to set user rights via the API has been added. (r48970, bug 15935)
- The Add Media Wizard extension and Firefogg are now enabled on test.wikipedia.org. [1]
- The Abuse Filter is now enabled on Wikimedia Commons. (bug 18094)
Other news
- The Wikimedia Foundation has hired a new systems administrator, Fred Vassard, who will help with server operations and monitoring. [2]
- There is a job opening at the Wikimedia Foundation, for a software developer to work on the Wikimedia Usability Initiative. The Foundation is considering both candidates that can work at the San Francisco offices, as well as those who can work remotely. [3]
- The student application period for the Google Summer of Code program closes on April 3. As well, there is a need for mentors who can answer questions from the students and monitor their progress. Mentors also need to formally apply on the GSOC site. [4] [5] [6]
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-30/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-30/Opinion
End of Encarta, flagged revisions poll, new image donation, and more
Encarta encyclopedia to be discontinued
Microsoft Encarta, the second most popular English-language Internet encyclopedia, is being discontinued and taken offline on 31 October 2009. According to the updated FAQ, "the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past." Although it never had as high a reputation as Encyclopædia Britannica for its articles, Encarta rose to prominence in the 1990s on the strength of its multimedia content, including tens of thousands of illustrations and hundreds of videos. However, in recent years Wikipedia has left Encarta a distant second among online encyclopedias; according to a recent Hitwise analysis, Wikipedia attracts 96.7% of encyclopedia web traffic, compared with 1.3% for Encarta.
New tech hire
On March 23, Brion Vibber announced that Frédéric Vassard had been hired for the Wikimedia Foundation technical staff. Vassard will be working with "operations, monitoring, and documentation of our servers."
Flagged revisions polls nears end
Predicting admin elections; studying flagged revision debates; classifying editor interactions; and collecting the Wikipedia literature
26 March 2012
Studying German flagged revisions, French library agreement, German court case
12 April 2010
Financial statements, discussions, milestones
8 March 2010
BLP deletions cause uproar
25 January 2010
Flagged revisions petitions, image donations, brief news
28 December 2009
Vibber resigns, Staff office hours, Flagged Revs, new research and more
28 September 2009
WikiTrust, Azerbaijan-Armenia edit wars
31 August 2009
An extended look at how we got to flagged protection and patrolled revisions
31 August 2009
Misleading media storm over flagged revisions
31 August 2009
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
24 August 2009
New board member, flagged revisions, Eurovision interviews
25 May 2009
End of Encarta, flagged revisions poll, new image donation, and more
30 March 2009
Commons, conferences, and more
9 March 2009
Flagged Revisions, historical image discovery, and more
16 February 2009
Wikipedia in the news: Wikipedia's future, WikiDashboard, and "wiki-snobs"
8 February 2009
Wikipedia in the news: Flagged Revisions, Internet Explorer add-on
31 January 2009
Jimbo requests that developers turn on Flagged Revisions
24 January 2009
News and notes: Flagged Revisions and permissions proposals, hoax, milestones
10 January 2009
Sighted revisions introduced on the German Wikipedia
12 May 2008
Page creation for unregistered users likely to be reenabled
29 October 2007
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
2 April 2007
The Seigenthaler incident: One year later
4 December 2006
Wikipedia in the news
2 October 2006
Single-user login, stable versioning planned soon
7 August 2006
The ongoing poll on the Flagged protection and patrolled revisions proposal is set to end on April 1. The compromise proposal currently has around 82% support—and has been falling gradually from an early level about 88%—with over 300 votes so far. In addition to those who oppose any form of flagged revisions, the proposal has been opposed by some who argue that it is essentially toothless with regard to biographies of living people. It is yet to be seen whether Jimmy Wales will present his own compromise proposal to apply some form of flagged revisions to such biographies, as he indicated he would before the current proposal gained momentum.
New donation of 250,000 images
Mathias Schindler reports the imminent "release of some 250,000 images from the Deutsche Fotothek under Creative Commons cc-by-sa 3.0 and its subsequent uploading to Wikimedia Commons." A joint press conference with Wikimedia Germany is expected soon. This follows Wikimedia Germany's late 2008 success in securing almost 100,000 images from the Bundesarchiv.
FAC rolls out uniform subpage system
As of April 1, a new system will be used to create nomination pages for featured article candidates. Under the new system, modeled after articles for deletion, all nominations will be automatically created in standard subpages with the following form:
- Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Article/archive1
- Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Article/archive2
- etc.
This will avoid problems associated with the old system of moving pages and updating links. Further information is available here.
Briefly
- In-person and remote usability tests occurred on March 25 and March 26; Naoko Kumura of the Wikimedia usability team stated that results would be released within a few weeks.
- The Military history Wikiproject election for project coordinators ended on March 28.
- After the first IRC bid meeting was held on March 29, Wikimania 2010 bids are open for comment and questions (on the bid talk pages) until April 12.
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The Report on Lengthy Litigation
The Committee announced their new mail-handling policy. They also announced a new procedure and committee for reviewing ban appeals.
The Arbitration Committee opened one case this week, and closed none, leaving seven cases open.
Evidence phase
- Ryulong: A case regarding Ryulong's use of his administrator tools.
- Obama articles: A case opened to review behavior of editors of articles related to Barack Obama.
- West Bank - Judea and Samaria: A dispute about editor behavior in discussions about naming conventions for certain Israel- and Palestine-related locations.
- MZMcBride: A case brought after administrator MZMcBride deleted numerous "secret pages". This case is reviewing administrator conduct by MZMcBride only, and is not ruling on the appropriateness of the pages themselves. MZMcBride was admonished for his administrator actions in a previous Request for Arbitration.
- Prem Rawat 2: A case concerning the continued behavioral problems on the pages about Prem Rawat, and related articles. A previous case, Prem Rawat, was closed in May of last year.
- Date delinking: A case regarding the behavior of editors in the ongoing dispute relating to policy on linking dates in articles. An injunction has been issued prohibiting large-scale linking or delinking of dates until the case is resolved.
Voting
- Scientology: A case regarding behavioral problems in Scientology-related articles; the case is related to the prior case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-30/Humour