For the first time this year, Erik Zachte has been able to provide an update of his popular statistical reports for Wikimedia Foundation projects. However, due to the technical demands, so far the reports are available for all projects except Wikipedia.

The update provided last week, which makes the information current as of 10 May, covers five months of additional data, as the last report came in December. This is also the first time that Wikisource statistics have been available broken down by individual languages.

Wikipedia remains the one project for which the statistics are only current as of 10 December. Due to the size of the database involved for Wikipedia as the largest project, it takes considerably longer to produce the report. Zachte hopes to have that completed sometime this week if no further problems come up in the process. (May 24: Wikipedia statistics are done [1], although for English the last working dump dates from February. Other languages are up through 10 May.)

The gap between updates is due to a combination of factors. Ongoing changes from the software development process for MediaWiki force Zachte to constantly tweak his scripts that produce the statistics. Also, the process depends on having current database downloads, which have sometimes been irregular, especially for the largest projects where the database dump is more likely to fail.

Alternative strategies to find the necessary resources to monitor statistics face their own challenges. The toolserver that generates reports such as the popular individual user statistics, and has been considered for use in running Zachte's scripts, is not a perfect solution either. It has to deal with time lags in the data, and due to disk problems has not been working with a current version of the English Wikipedia for a few weeks.

These and other problems have caused Zachte's reports to come out only sporadically over the past year or so (see archived stories). The Communications committee is working on coordinating efforts to keep these statistical updates running on a more regular basis. Some outside researchers and groups are also interested in developing their own statistics to study Wikipedia, and the Wikimedia Foundation frequently gets inquiries from people seeking various kinds of data about the projects.

A number of templates that place icons on articles were put up for deletion this past week, amid criticism of the practice of incorporating metadata into articles. Some of the more popular templates appear likely to survive, but community sentiment seemed to indicate that the practice should be restricted to special cases.

On Wednesday 17 May, featured articles director Raul654 nominated the {{featured article}} template for deletion, along with the similar {{Spoken Wikipedia}} template. These templates place a small icon at the top right of featured articles () and articles with a spoken version (). Raul654 criticized the templates for being metadata, adding clutter to the page, and breaking the layout in some skins. But as the discussion unfolded, considerable sentiment emerged in favor of keeping both icons, although some people felt more strongly about one or the other. Raul654 withdrew his nomination on Monday 22 May, but discussion continues on the talk page of the {{Spoken Wikipedia}} template.

The implementation of these icons was controversial when it began, and at the time Raul654 already objected because he believed it would lead to proliferation of similar templates. Another template for "good articles" was deleted in April, after a contentious debate that included complaints about spamming talk pages to influence the "vote". Two newer templates, {{Japan article}} and {{Hong Kong article}}, were both nominated for deletion last week as well. In these cases, the trend seems more clear, as comments so far strongly favor deleting the templates.

In certain skins, the star icon also appears in interlanguage links to designate the equivalent of featured articles in other Wikipedia languages, using {{Link FA}}, which was also nominated for deletion. This particular template continued to have support, but beyond that a number of people favored restricting their use. CBDunkerson commented that "we need to severely limit these 'icons' to, if anything, a handful of topics central to Wikipedia as a whole." For cases like the Japan and Hong Kong examples, Cynical observed that "we have categories to do this sort of thing."

Previous discussion of template locations generally concluded that metadata (in this context, information about the encyclopedia article itself, rather than the subject of the article) should be kept out of the article space. Sam Korn called the inclusion of such information in the article itself "semantically awful." The appropriate place for metadata is considered to be the talk page, although some exceptions are made. These primarily apply to notices that are considered useful for readers and not just editors, such as various warnings indicating potential flaws with the content of the article.

Delphine Ménard, chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Chapters committee, provided a report on her travels over the past few weeks, in which she met with several of the European local chapters. Her itinerary included meetings with the chapters based in Poland, Germany, Italy, and Serbia and Montenegro.

• The Hungarian Wiktionary has reached 20,000 entries.
• The Greek Wiktionary has reached 20,000 entries.
• The Indonesian Wikipedia has reached 25,000 articles and 12,500 registered users.
• The Basque Wikipedia has reached 9,000 articles and 500 registered users.
• The Turkish Wikipedia has reached 400,000 edits since March 2003.
• The German Wikibooks has reached 5,000 book-Modules.
• The German Wikipedia has reached 400,000 articles.
• The Finnish Wiktionary has reached 500 registered users.
• The Wolof Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Slovak Wikiquote has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Turkish Wikipedia has reached 20,000 registered users.
• The Limburgish Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia has reached 4,000 articles.
• The Franco-Provençal Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
• The Kyrgyz Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Russian Wikipedia has reached 75,000 articles.
• Wikimedia Commons has reached 600,000 media files.
• The Thai Wikipedia has reached 5,000 registered users.
• The Greek Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
• The Piedmontese Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Tetun Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Korean Wiktionary has reached 7,000 entries.
• The Polish Wikipedia has reached 50,000 registered users and 20,000 files.
• The English Wikipedia has reached 55,000,000 edits since July 2002.
• The Indonesian Wiktionary has reached 5,000 entries.

Most articles that mention Wikipedia this week are continuing the coverage of the launch of Baidu Baike, an online Chinese Language encyclopedia founded last week by the search engine company Baidu.

• "Baidu launches self-censoring 'Chinese Wikipedia'", Middle East Times, Egypt
• "Chinese Version of Wikipedia Is Launched", BizReport
• "Baidu.com launches censored Wikipedia encyclopedia", Playfuls, Romania
• "Chinese version of Wikipedia is launched", Boston Herald, Boston, USA

Harry Fuecks, PHP expert and featured blogger at Sitepoint, discussed the Mediawiki architecture and some recent talks given by Wikimedia tech guru Brion Vibber, (available at Google Video and the Pro PHP podcast), in "Brion Vibber on Wikipedia and Mediawiki":

Perhaps the biggest item was that Wikipedia servers are already running PHP 5, even if the code isn’t yet taking advantage of the fact. Side note: imagine if Wikipedia was running on something like .NET -- can you imagine how much marketing noise there’d be following a successful move to the latest version? Funny how the LAMP world moves differently.

David Berger, mayor of Lima, Ohio, has plans to improve the city's coverage in Wikipedia, according to the article "Volunteers contribute to Wikipedia Lima entry" in The Lima News.

Last summer, Berger saw the city’s entry on Wikipedia; it consisted of three sentences about location and population. When he checked again, he found a larger entry that included some ugly pictures, Berger said. “I was thinking with my chamber of commerce hat and decided that we needed to take charge of our entry,” Berger said. “It’s a place to go for a universe of topics, and if that many people are going there, we need up-to-date, accurate information.”

Juan Cole, a professor and media commentator on issues in the Middle East, wrote an entry in his blog titled "Wikipedia Article Hijacked", expressing his confusion over the edit wars in his article. The entry received numerous comments from other professors.

The San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia website picked up the story with an opinion piece at "Juan Cole Wikipedia Article Hijacked":

With a nod to those who are trying in good faith to sort through this issue, Professor Cole's unfair treatment on the page devoted to him is illustrative of why Wikipedia is no longer considered a credible source of information on virtually any topic. I gave up trying to correct facts on various issues and now just actively warn students that Wikipedia is not an acceptable source for research projects or even casual knowledge.

The New Zealand Listener published "Cuts Both Ways", discussing many of Wikipedia's recent critics, and potential competition from Digital Universe.

Wikipedia's weakness is the same as its strength: anyone can edit it. And that means that even when a topic has been comprehensively addressed, and an elegant entry written for it, someone else can come in and have a crack. There are Wikipedia entries that can really only get worse; and many do.

The Tech Blog at the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned Larry Sanger's new project Digital Universe, launched in January, in "An alternative to Wikipedia?".

Digital Universe must now prove that an encyclopedia supervised by people who write under their real names is a useful alternative to Wikipedia -- and not just the venue to settle a grudge.

The May 22 edition of the Daily Press in Newport News, Virginia had a Spotlight story about Wikipedian Mark Fisher (aka Vaoverland), who is a WP administrator and specializes in Virginia history and transportation subjects. The newspaper story tied in to the fact that the community is ramping up for the Jamestown 2007 celebration of the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the Jamestown Settlement in the Virginia Colony in 1607.

During the interview and followup by telephone, we had the opportunity to address the fact that Wikipedia seems to have achieved enough contributor efforts that both false or inaccurate information and the occasional vandalism are each quickly addressed by bona fide contributors who watchdog the quality of the content in a most vigilant manner. I advised that WP administrators are equipped with certain extra powers which make it easier for us to spot suspect changes, revert such content, and even temporarily ban those who would harm the effort. Nevertheless, among all others, newspaper staff realize that a Freedom of Speech (i.e. anyone can contribute) does come at the price of occasional foolishness and ill-intent "contributions". Regretfully, this portion of our communications did not make the final cut for publication. Nevertheless, I feel it was good press for Wikipedia, and I have had some contact from friends and associates to that effect. Vaoverland

News story.

• "ON THE RECORD: MICROSOFT CORP. Steve Ballmer", San Francisco Chronicle interview with Microsoft leader Steve Ballmer
  • Q: Have you read your Wikipedia entry? Do you ever get in there and try to edit it?
  • A: I haven't, in fact. I don't know why I haven't.
• "Yellowikis: Wikipedia of Yellow Pages" launched, according to Search Engine Journal
• One-Click Content, No Guarantees in the May 2006 issue of IEEE Spectrum - "Should you trust the world's first user-generated encyclopedia?"

Seven users were granted admin status last week: Bastique (nom), Xoloz (nom), Deiz (nom), Joelr31 (nom), King of Hearts (nom), Bucketsofg (nom), and Kjkolb (nom). The closest debate was Deiz's, which passed at 59/9/3.

Eleven articles were promoted to featured status last week: Right whale, Chola dynasty, Operation Ten-Go, Global warming, History of Burnside, Michael Woodruff, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Hurricane Irene (2005), Shotgun house, The KLF, and Crab Nebula.

Five articles were recently de-featured: Strategic management, Weather lore, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Venus, and Great Mosque of Djenné.

The following featured articles were displayed last week on the main page as Today's featured article: Geology of the Capitol Reef area, Manuel I Comnenus, Philosophy of mind, The Catlins, Henry James, Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport, and Michigan State University.

Six lists reached featured list status last week: List of largest suspension bridges, 2006 NFL Draft, List of Governors of Delaware, One-day International cricket hat-tricks, List of first-class cricket quadruple centuries, and List of Stargate SG-1 episodes.

No portals reached featured status this week.

Five pictures reached featured picture status last week:

• 
  India
• 
  Tulip
• 
  Agriculture

• 
  Monastery
• 
  Prothonotary Warbler

• Bad images no longer rendered in galleries. (Rob Church)
• Invalid usernames can now be renamed to valid names. (Brion Vibber)

• MediaWiki:Passwordremindertext now includes a parameter for the website's URL. (Rob Church)

• Various double-escaping issues fixed. (Niklas Laxström)
• Magic word conflicts fixed. (Rob Church)
• Error message on Special:Confirmemail fixed. (Rob Church)
• Subtitle navigation works on redirect history pages. (Rob Church)
• Enforce the standard upper limit when accessing page histories. (Rob Church)

• srv117 up; was accidentally uploaded as a duplicate srv116.
• WikiSpecies moved from species.wikipedia.org to species.wikimedia.org.
• Titles now allowed in SVG files.

The Arbitration Committee closed two cases this week.

A case against Jacrosse was closed on Thursday. As a result, Jacrosse was placed on indefinite probation, general probation, and personal attack parole, and banned from all politics-related articles. Jacrosse, who according to the Committee is either Justin Raimondo or a dedicated follower of Raimondo, was engaged in "sustained edit warring" on Neoconservatism and related articles. The article ban was considerably wider than most bans issued by the Committee, though no explanation was formally given for the ban.

A case against Messhermit was closed on Sunday. As a result, Messhermit was banned from articles relating to the Peru-Ecuador conflict for one year, and both Messhermit and Andres C. were placed on probation for one year. Messhermit edit-warred on the pages, in addition to making personal attacks against other users and "either misunderstanding or opposing NPOV."

One case was accepted this week, involving editors on the article 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities.

Cases involving Deathrocker (user page), Infinity0 (user page), PoolGuy (user page), and are in the evidence phase.

Cases involving editors on Biological psychiatry, Sam Spade (user page), users SqueakBox and Zapatancas, Marcosantezana (user page), and Locke Cole (user page) are in the voting phase.

A motion to close is on the table in the case involving users DarrenRay and 2006BC.

A motion to restrict StrangerInParadise to one user account has seven support votes with no opposition.