Server-related events, problems, and changes included:

• 6 December - Special:Cite disabled on all sites except Wikipedia, Wikinews, and Wikiquote.
• 9 December - Changed Wikimedia homepage to an editable portal.
• 12 December - Restarted 'mint', which had been down for a few days.
• 13 December - IRC client restarted, allowing new channels on the Browne IRC server.

In the wake of the Seigenthaler dispute, Alexa reports that Wikipedia traffic has increased significantly. From 2 December to 11 December, Wikipedia's daily traffic rank had risen from 37th to 27th, passing such sites as Livedoor, craigslist, eBay UK, and CNN.com. ([1]) Wikipedia's page views per million rose from 1,000 to over 1,500, a 50% increase in traffic relative to other websites.

The next Wikimedia Foundation fundraising drive, which was originally slated to begin 1 December, will start on 16 December. The fundraiser will still last for three weeks, ending on 6 January. Although no specific goal has been set, Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO indicated he hoped it could raise at least USD $500,000.

The German Wikipedia has issued a third edition DVD including updated articles. The DVD is license-compliant, and contains over 300,000 articles. In addition, a series of printed books are being sold. Both the DVD and the books are released under the GFDL, and are available for download.

• The Finnish Wikipedia has reached 40,000 articles.
• The Belarusian Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Esperanto Wikipedia has reached 30,000 articles.

The Arbitration Committee closed two cases this week, brought against Rex071404 and Pigsonthewing.

A case against Rex071404 was closed on Tuesday. As a result, Rex071404 has been permanently banned from John Kerry. The Arbitrators also ruled that any administrator can block Rex071404 from any article if they rule that Rex071404's editing there is "problematic". Rex071404 was accused of trying to "own" the article on John Kerry. This is the fourth case brought against Rex071404; after the third, Rex071404 voluntarily left the site for 6 months.

A case brought against Pigsonthewing was closed on Friday. As a result, Pigsonthewing was banned for one day, placed on indefinite probation, and placed on a one-revert per article per week limitation for a period of one year. Pigsonthewing was accused of "stirring up trouble", and getting into lengthy revert wars on numerous articles. Additionally, Karmafist, an administrator involved in the dispute, was prohibited from "any administrator activity" against Pigsonthewing.

A case was accepted this week against Gibraltarian (user page). It is in the evidence phase.

Other cases against Carl Hewitt (user page), voters on webcomics AFDs, Reddi (user page), EffK (user page), editors on climate change-related articles, numerous editors on Neuro-linguistic programming, Johnski (user page), a series of editors on Winter Soldier, Xed (user page), and Copperchair (user page) are in the evidence phase.

Cases against AndriyK (user page), Fuelwagon and Ed Poor, editors Ted Wilkes, Wyss, and Onefortyone, numerous editors on Ted Kennedy, Rangerdude (user page), numerous editors on Political Research Associates, and Ultramarine are in the voting phase.