Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-03-08/News and notes

The Wikimedia Foundation Mid-Year Financial Statements (covering the period 1 July through 31 December 2009) are now posted to the WMF website. An FAQ replying to questions has also been posted.

According to Veronique Kessler, posting on Foundation-l:

{{blockquote|The upshot is: The Wikimedia Foundation's financial situation continues to be strong; we have met our overall revenue goal for the year and projections say that we will exceed plan by about 50%. Expenses were underspent at the beginning of the year but are catching up and we project expenses to be close to the original plan, maybe a little higher.}}

A Request for comments on the implementation of Community de-adminship is currently ongoing.

A [http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/engine?do=post_view_flat;post=190224;page=1;mh=-1;list=wiki heated] [http://old.nabble.com/FlaggedRevisions-status-(March-2010)-td27751257.html discussion] was held recently about the status of flagged revisions on the mailing list Foundation-l.

Following the discussion, Jimmy Wales started a poll in his userspace about "whether we should ask the Foundation to simply turn on flagged revs in the form that the Germans use it."

For six hours on 2 March, the "Did You Know" section on the main page presented a fake biography [http://onwikipedia.blogspot.com/2010/03/dr-handel-or-how-i-learned-to-stop.html manufactured] as a breaching experiment by one of the writers of the "On Wikipedia" blog, as part of their examinations of BLP issues. (Last month, the Signpost reported on their survey among the subjects of 26 randomly selected BLPs.) Jimbo Wales commented: Fascinating and sad. I'm really proud of some aspects of the saga, and obviously not at all happy with others.

Phase II of a Request for Comment on Biographies of Living Persons (BLPs) was closed this week. The Wordsmith [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people&diff=348290305&oldid=348252000 originally closed] the RfC, but his closure was [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people&diff=next&oldid=348365117 reverted] by Coffee, as he felt that The Wordsmith was too involved to close the RfC. Father Goose nominally [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people&diff=348495322&oldid=348413327 re-closed] the RfC, affirming The Wordsmith's earlier closure.

The close found a consensus that a PROD-like system be created to deal with unreferenced BLPs. The Wordsmith also found consensus that mass deletions of the sort that precipitated the RfC (see archived story) were discouraged, as well as any automated deletion of old unreferenced BLPs or speedy deletion of new ones. Finally, he suggested that the details of the PROD-like process be finally crafted within two weeks of the closure; that a message be sent to all active WikiProjects urging them to participate in cleanup; and that a taskforce be created to organize efforts of clearing the backlog. The Sticky Prod Workshop was created to hammer out the final details of the BLP PROD process.

• [http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/registration-open-for-the-developer-workshop-in-berlin/ Registration is now open] for the MediaWiki Developers' Workshop in Berlin on 14–16 April; registration is open until 21 March, but is limited to 50 people.
• The Strategy Project's Living People task force held an IRC meeting on 8 March (log), discussing a draft for its Recommendations to the Board of Trustees.
• A recording of User:Steven Walling's talk at Ignite Portland 2010 has been uploaded to YouTube: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEkF5o6KPNI Why Wikipedians are the Weirdest People on the Internet]
• Jimmy Wales has started to [http://www.formspring.me/jwales answer user-submitted questions] at the "Ask me anything" site Formspring.me, many of them about Wikipedia.
• The [http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Konferencja_Wikimedia_Polska_2010/en Polish Wikimedia Conference] will be held on 27–28 March.

In the past month:

File:Wikipedia-logo-cs-150k.png

• The English Wiktionary has reached 1,600,000 entries.
• The Egyptian Arabic (Masry) Wikipedia has reached {{formatnum:5,000}} articles.
• The Serbian Wikinews have reached {{formatnum:30,000}} news articles.
• The Waray-Waray Wikipedia has reached {{formatnum:15000}} articles with Dako nga Tagapagpabunggo hin Hadron.
• The Hungarian Wikinews has reached 500 articles.
• The French Wikiquote has reached {{formatnum:2000}} articles with Wajdi Mouawad.
• The Russian Wikipedia has reached {{formatnum:500000}} articles with Ys.
• The Ossetian Wikipedia has reached {{formatnum:5000}} articles.
• The Malayalam Wiktionary has reached {{formatnum:40000}} entries.
• The Romanian Wikinews has reached 500 articles.
• The Czech Wikipedia has reached [{{fullurl:cs:Manuel Pamič|oldid=5000000&diff=prev}} {{gaps|5|000|000}} edits].
• The Portuguese Wiktionary has reached {{formatnum:140000}} articles.
• The Azeri Wikipedia has reached {{formatnum:30000}} articles.
• The Irish Wikipedia has reached {{formatnum:10000}} articles with Ivan Bunin.
• The Czech Wikipedia has reached {{formatnum:150000}} articles.
• The Malayalam Wiktionary has reached {{formatnum:35000}} entries.
• {{plainlinks|http://www.wiktionary.org|Wiktionary}} has reached {{formatnum:40000000}} edits.
• The Portuguese Wiktionary has reached {{formatnum:130000}} articles.
• The Catalan Wikipedia has reached {{formatnum:5000}} files.

• 2005: Fundraiser ends early, having exceeded goal with $100,000 donated
• 2006: 1 Millionth article reached on English Wikipedia, with Jordanhill railway station
• 2007: Essjay resigns after New Yorker correction controversy
• 2008: Marsden-Wales media flap
• 2009: Commons reaches 4,000,000 files

{{Wikipedia:Signpost/Template:Signpost-article-comments-end||2010-03-01|2010-03-15}}

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