This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.12 (8b8c762), and changes with a version number higher than that will not yet be active.
Fixed bugs
New features
Other technology news
Ongoing news
- Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla.
"The Wikipedia Story"
BBC presenter Clive Anderson will host a half-hour show about Wikipedia, entitled "The Wikipedia Story". The show, scheduled to air on Tuesday, July 24 at 11:30 a.m. British Summer Time (10:30 a.m. UTC) on BBC Radio 4, is described as "[asking] whether Wikipedia is a valuable source of human knowledge or a symptom of the spread of mediocrity." It includes interviews from Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, former Britannica editor-in-chief Robert McHenry, Web 2.0 critic Andrew Keen, and singer Mike Scott, who was involved in an edit war on his own article [1]. The show will be available on BBC Radio 4's website (RealAudio link) or available as a podcast (Radio 4 Choice podcast) for about a week after its original airing.
Visa ruling incorrectly mentions Wikipedia
A Federal Magistrates' Court of Australia ruling that overturned the denial of a visa to an Armenian citizen repeatedly mentions Wikipedia, in an apparent misunderstanding:
21. It should be noted that the reference to the web site www.armeniapedia.org (the web site) is taken to be a reference to what I understand the parties to accept is a linked web site to the web site known as "Wikipedia".
The court appeared to have assumed that Armeniapedia.org was the same as, or related to, Wikipedia; some of the court's individual findings are questions about the reliability of Wikipedia, not Armeniapedia.
Briefly
- The Volapük Wikipedia reaches 30,000 articles.
- The Asturian Wiktionary has reached 1,000 entries.
- The Lithuanian Wiktionary has reached 1,000 entries.
- The Latvian Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
- The Slovenian Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.
- The French Wikiversity has reached 2,000 pages.
- The Ewe Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
- The English Wikipedia has reached 150,000,000 edits and 750,000 local media files.
- The Hebrew Wikipedia has reached 60,000 articles.
- The Vietnamese Wiktionary has reached an average of three edits per page.
- The French Wikisource has reached 2,000 registered users.
- The Afrikaans Wikiquote has reached 100 articles.
The Arbitration Committee accepted two new cases this week, and closed one case.
Closed case
- CharlotteWebb: A case arising from the revelation by Jayjg, who has checkuser access, that CharlotteWebb had edited from TOR proxies. This occurred during CharlotteWebb's request for adminship, which then failed to reach consensus. As a result of the case, the Arbitration Committee noted that CharlotteWebb remains a user in good standing and is welcome to resume editing, and reminded Jayjg to seek to resolve this type of dispute privately before making public statements alleging misbehavior.
New cases
- Catalonia: A case involving alleged edit warring, possible sockpuppetry and other misconduct, including alleged misuse of blocking tools, by various editors on Catalonia, Valencian Community and related articles.
Evidence phase
- COFS, a case initiated by Durova based on a discussion at the community sanctions noticeboard. The case involves allegations of tendentious editing by various editors, sockpuppetry, conflicts of interest, and other user conduct issues on Scientology related articles.
Voting phase
- Armenia-Azerbaijan 2: A case alleging misconduct by various editors, some of whom were previously placed on revert parole in an earlier case, on articles relating to Armenia, Azerbaijan, the conflict between them, and related matters. Fred Bauder has proposed remedies, supported by SimonP, extending to revert parole applied to various editors to probation, and imposing these remedies also on anyone who edits the articles aggressively.
- Zacheus-jkb: A case involving the actions of -jkb- and Zacheus. -jkb- alleges that Zacheus has published personal data on him, and has made legal threats. Zacheus denies the allegations, and Thatcher131 alleges on the talkpage that -jkb- has himself revealed personal information on Zacheus. In the proposed decision, the Arbitration Committee would admonish both editors for their previous misconduct against each other but note that the problematic conduct seems to have stopped, and warn the parties not to resume practices such as posting identifying information about other editors or making personal attacks.
- Abu badali: A case alleging that Abu badali has disruptively tagged non-free images for deletion, even when a valid fair-use justification exists, and has harassed editors who have complained about this behavior. Abu badali denies the allegations. The proposed decision submitted by arbitrator Fred Bauder would place Abu badali on probation for one year. Arbitrator voting on the remedy, an alternative, and some of the findings of fact underlying it is split. However, a remedy "counseling" Badali has the support of five arbitrators.
Motion to close
- Piotrus: A case involving User:Piotrus and other editors on Central and Eastern Europe-related articles. In the case, multiple parties have accused one another of edit-warring, incivility, unethical behavior, and biased editing. If closed, an amnesty would be granted for prior editing problems on these articles, and the parties would be reminded of the need to edit courteously and co-operatively in the future. However, two arbitrators have opposed the motion to close, citing possible article probation remedies.
- Miskin: A case involving the actions of Miskin, who was blocked by Swatjester for one month (later reduced to one week) for an alleged violation of the three revert rule following an earlier history of blocks. If closed, the committee would advise Miskin to seek consensus on an article's talkpage if his initial edits are reverted, and caution Swatjester to take the length of time since previous blocks into account in deciding on the length of a later block and to treat all editors violating the 3RR fairly.