After the inconclusive earlier poll for a trial of flagged revisions, a new poll has started for a refined trial proposal that attempts to address common concerns voiced by those who opposed the earlier proposal. The new two-month trial proposal can be found here, and the poll can be found here. As of March 22, the poll was running 116 in support and 18 opposed, with much discussion. (See earlier stories: March 9, January 24).
A new WikiProject, Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup, was founded in March to address "copyright concerns anywhere on Wikipedia", including working on articles and images that have already been tagged as copyright problems, looking for copyright problems, and educating editors who violate copyright. The project was founded by Moonriddengirl, who found and has been working on coordinating cleanup of several widespread copyright violations involving thousands of articles with content violating copyright. One of these violations was found by a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Gastropods, who discovered that most of the articles in the category Molluscs of New Zealand had been plagiarized by a single editor from a book on the subject.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Mid-Year Financial Statements (covering the period July 1 through December 31, 2008) are now posted to the WMF website, as announced by Veronique Kessler, the Foundation's CFO. An FAQ about the statements was also posted to the website. According to Kessler, the position of the Foundation is "strong," with spending slightly under target. Since the projected expenditures of the Foundation for this fiscal year have now been covered (by a strong fundraiser in December and major grants from other foundations), donations received in the remainder of the fiscal year (until July) are slated to go to a contingency reserve. The WMF has not actively pursued putting together a contingency fund in the past, instead focusing on funding day-to-day operations. According to the FAQ, since this year's operating budget is now covered, major grants for specific projects (like the Stanton usability project) and a contingency fund can now be pursued.
Additionally, anonymized data about this year's fundraiser is now available for download (Foundation-l message, data dumps).
The Wikimedia Foundation Chapters Funding Request process is open until April 7. The process, which was launched Feb 17, is for chapters to request funding for projects in 2009-10. According to Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, "This process is the precursor to one slated to launch in August, which will be open for funding requests from all volunteers." [1]
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