Server-related events, problems, and changes included:

• 26 January — ImageMagick 6.2.6 installed on all servers.
• 26 January — Spam blacklist disabled, following reports of bugs.
• 28 January — AFD, VFD, and other deletion pages added to Wikipedia's Robots.txt file.
• 29 January — Captcha images added to registration and some editing pages on smaller Wikimedia projects.
• 30 January — Blank passwords disabled (see related story)
• 1 February — Message trimmed from wikimediafr-l mailing list for privacy reasons.

Two newly-elected Arbitrators were granted CheckUser rights this week; in addition, the Arbitration Committee is also considering giving the rights to a non-member. Morven and Sam Korn join seven other current and former Arbitrators and developers with the access, which allows the user to check another user's IP address and match usernames used by that IP. The total number of people with CheckUser access is now nine.

Meanwhile, the Arbitration Committee is soliciting community opinion on giving CheckUser access to Curps, an administrator, contingent on him setting an e-mail address in his profile.

The second annual Wikimedia Conference, or Wikimania, announced its call for participation last Friday. Submissions for papers and other presentations are being accepted over the next few months. The deadline for proposed workshops and tutorials is 30 March; abstracts for panels, papers, posters, and presentations should be received by 15 April. Wikimania is scheduled to be held August 4-6 at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A new deletion method began this week. Proposed deletion, as it was dubbed, involves letting editors flag an article for deletion. If no one objects and removes the tag within five days, administrators may then delete the article. Otherwise, if someone disputes the proposed deletion, the article may either be improved or be taken to articles for deletion. As of press time, the process had gone live, with over 100 articles already tagged. Community reaction was generally positive, although several people objected to both the proposal and the beginning of usage of the system.

A new criterion for speedy deletion was created this week. Originally added by Sannse, it stated that templates which were "divisive and inflammatory" could be speedily deleted. The criterion received implicit approval from Jimbo Wales; he reverted the removal of the criterion. The criterion is most likely intended for controversial userboxes (see related story), which are currently created in the template namespace.

A proposal to reform requests for adminship (RfA) was started this week. Created by bureaucrats Ilyanep and Linuxbeak, the proposal includes implementation of a discussion period, suffrage requirements and candidate requirements, and emphasis on providing diffs and discussion. Although the two bureaucrats initially suspended RfA to test the new proposal, it soon resumed after several users objected. Discussion on the issue continues.

Kelly Martin resigned from her position as chair of the Clerk's Office this week. The former Arbitrator said in her resignation that "It is obvious that the community, for its own inscrutiable reasons, is unwilling to accept the services I am willing and able to provide. I have no doubt that I have the trust of Jimbo and the Arbitration Committee itself. However, it's evident that the community has no intention of allowing me to provide any service of an administrative nature to Wikipedia without having to deal with endless sniping." The position vacated by Martin is now vacant, although only former Arbitrators may fill the position.

Raul654, current featured article director, announced that the number of people subscribed to the daily-article-l list, which sends out the featured article via email, had reached 9000 people. In addition, all the informational featured pages, such as featured articles, featured lists, featured pictures, and featured portals, were redesigned for a "sleek new look". Finally, all featured articles were tagged with {{featured article}} this week, which produces a small star in the upper right hand corner of the article that links to the list of featured articles. All featured lists were similarly tagged with {{featured list}}, which adds a star that links to the list of featured lists .

• The Norwegian Wikipedia has reached 100,000 pages.
• The Tamil Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Esperanto Wikipedia has reached 40,000 articles.
• The Romanian Wikipedia has reached 18,000 articles.
• The Russian Wikipedia has reached 10,000 registered users.
• The Vietnamese Wikipedia has reached 25,000 pages.
• The Hungarian Wikipedia has reached 25,000 articles with Peszternye.
• The Luxembourgish Wikipedia has reached 8,000 articles.
• The Greek Wikipedia has reached 8,000 articles.
• The Vietnamese Wikipedia has reached 2,000 uploaded files.
• The Marathi Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
• The English Wikipedia has reached 950,000 articles.
• The German Wikipedia has reached 350,000 articles.
• The Japanese Wikipedia has been awarded the 11th AMD Award, Digital Contents of the Year '05, Best Writer prize by Association of Media In Digital.
• The Breton Wikipedia has reached 4,000 articles.
• The Albanian Wikipedia has reached 6,000 articles.

The Arbitration Committee closed eight cases this week, tying a record set last November.

A case against Robert I was closed on Tuesday. As a result, Robert I was banned pending the resolution of all legal disputes. When and if this ban is lifted, Robert I is subject to probation, a one-year ban from any articles relating to Gregory Lauder-Frost, and a requirement to use only one account. Robert I had been accused of POV editing on Gregory Lauder-Frost, and legal threats and other comments were made, purporting to be from Lauder-Frost, that were likely made by Robert I.

A case against Copperchair was closed on Wednesday. As a result, Copperchair has been indefinitely banned from all articles relating to Star Wars and the War on Terrorism, and placed on indefinite probation. Copperchair was accused of carrying "fixed, non-negotiable views" about the above articles, and had edit-warred on them.

A case against Johnski was closed on Thursday. As a result, Dominion of Melchizedek and related articles have been semi-protected (with the ability to unprotect if administrators deem it acceptable to do so). Johnski and assorted IP sockpuppets had been accused of being linked with the micronation, and had edit-warred on the page.

A case against editors on Winter Soldier Investigation was closed on Friday. As a result, TDC and an anonymous editor in the IP range 165.247.xxx.xxx have been banned from editing Winter Soldier Investigation for one year. Additionally, if either party wishes to appeal the ban, they can do so after three months. Both editors edit-warred on the article, resulting in numerous three-revert rule blocks and page protections.

A case against Xed was closed on Saturday. As a result, Xed has been reminded to avoid personal attacks, and warned about citing "unreliable sources". Viriditas was also commended for his work in dealing with Xed. Xed, who was the defendant in a prior case, returned after a three month ban, and remains on personal attack parole.

A case against editors on Neuro-linguistic programming was closed on Monday. As a result, a form of probation was enacted on the subject, whereby any administrator can ban any user from Neuro-linguistic programming and its related articles. The article will also be placed under mentorship, with mentors to be named later. Editors Comaze, HeadleyDown, JPLogan, Camridge, DaveRight, and AliceDeGrey have also been required to discuss any reversions on article talk pages, and have been reminded regarding NPOV and adequate sourcing.

A case against Benjamin Gatti was closed on Monday. As a result, Benjamin Gatti has been placed on probation for one year and indefinitely on general probation. Benjamin Gatti was accused of editing with an aggressive anti-nuclear POV, disruption, failing to assume good faith, and Wikilawyering.

A case against Deeceevoice was closed on Monday. As a result, Deeceevoice was placed on probation, and on personal attack parole, and has been prohibited from "using her user page to publish offensive rants." Deeceevoice was also counseled to assume good faith and reminded of the need to follow Wikipedia policies. Friday and Jim Apple were also cautioned to avoid suggesting that other users leave the project. Deeceevoice had been accused of incivility, making personal attacks, and editing with a strong point of view.

A case was accepted this week involving a wheel war on Template:User pedophile (see related story.) It is in the voting phase.

Another case was accepted this week involving Theodore7 (user page). It is in the evidence phase.

Additional cases involving users IronDuke and Gnetwerker, Zeq (user page), Leyasu (user page), Instantnood (user page), Boothy443 (user page), Dyslexic agnostic (user page), Tommstein (user page), and VeryVerily (user page) are in the Evidence phase.

Cases involving KDRGibby (user page), editors on WebEx and Min Zhu, editors on Rajput, Freestylefrappe (user page), users RJII and Firebug, Sortan (user page), Carl Hewitt (user page), and Reddi (user page) are in the voting phase.

Motions to close are on the table in cases involving Ruy Lopez (user page), Beckjord (user page), and EffK (user page).