NB: Greg Williams is on vacation. This rerun is from April 23, 2007.
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "Buttered cat paradox". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
The top uploaders at Wikimedia Commons, by number of bytes uploaded, were calculated recently. The top uploader is GerWsUpload, a bot account to upload book scans for the German Wikisource; the scans totaled about 45.7 gigabytes. Second is Infrogmation, who uploaded about 17.6 gigabytes worth of media.
Wikimania 2008 bids are being reviewed by members of the Wikimania 2008 Jury, with the final decision scheduled for October 6. Zanimum removed Toronto's bid on Monday, noting that he'd focus on a Toronto bid for 2009. The three remaining bids are Alexandria, Atlanta, and Cape Town.
Foundation Volunteer Coordinator Cary Bass announced Friday that Wikimania 2009 bids would be accepted in October, with the expectation of a selection of 2009's host city by December 15, 2007. The decision was "based on our experiences of the process this time around". As such, individuals interested in hosting Wikimania 2009 should begin preparing bids; a timeline will be announced soon.
Wikipedia wars erupt - Jimmy Wales created a one-sentence article about a popular gathering spot in South Africa, Mzoli's, which was originally speedily deleted and then taken to AfD. Some accused others of affording a God-like status to the Wikipedia co-founder, while Wales accused his detractors of bad faith. This incident has refocused attention on the debate between quality and quantity, and because the site has just reached the two-million article mark, the article notes that making an original contribution is harder. The debate between inclusionists and deletionists is framed as one between newer members of the project, and older members who understand that some of the deletions they have made are wrong.
Wikipedia's Awkward Adolescence - At Wikipedia's egalitarian foundations, where anyone can edit, lies a contradiction with its status as one of the top ten trafficked websites. Recent events with WikiScanner have shown Wikipedia's weaknesses, but edits by less established editors are likely to be edited out. There is an increasing bureaucratisation of Wikipedia, as exemplified by the use of codes for policy pages, which leaves Wikipedia open to attack in that the right priorities are not being attended to. As a check and balance for administrators, the article proposes a repository of deleted articles. The article suggests that greater accountability, and some competition, may result in better quality.
Other mentions in the online media recently include:
Eight users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Fabrictramp (nom), Ronnotel (nom), SQL (nom), Bearian (nom), Danaman5 (nom), Metropolitan90 (nom), JForget (nom), Kicking222 (nom), and Recurring dreams (nom).
Two bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: Ficbot (task request), and BOTijo (task request).
Sixteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: Victoria Cross (Canada) (nom), Lung cancer (nom), Biman Bangladesh Airlines (nom), Frederick Russell Burnham (nom), Truthiness (nom), Isle of Portland (nom), Peterborough (nom), Audioslave (nom), Uranus (nom), Religious debates over the Harry Potter series (nom), Eadbald of Kent (nom), Omaha Beach (nom), Issy Smith (nom), Dartmouth College (nom), Israel (nom), and Rachel Carson (nom).
Four articles were de-featured last week: Battle of Normandy (nom), United States Congress (nom), First Battle of the Stronghold (nom), and Article One of the United States Constitution (nom).
Ten lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of Georgia Institute of Technology athletes (nom), List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/T-V (nom), List of Calgary Flames players (nom), List of Orkney islands (nom), The Breeders discography (nom), Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy (nom), List of Baltimore Ravens first-round draft picks (nom), John Frusciante discography (nom), Art Ross Trophy (nom), and IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (nom).
No lists were de-featured last week.
No portals were promoted to featured status last week.
Two topics were featured last week: Song Dynasty (nom), and Confederate government of Kentucky (nom).
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Inaugural games of the Flavian Amphitheatre, Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery, Pilot (Smallville), Henry, Bishop of Uppsala, Trade and usage of saffron, Ernest Emerson, and House with Chimaeras.
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Philippine-American War, Wilson's Snipe, Barbary Macaque, Hyperion (moon), Lassen Volcanic National Park, British Columbia Parliament Building, and Slavery in the United States.
Eight pictures were promoted to featured status last week and are shown below.
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This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are necessarily live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.8 (f08e6b3), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.
The Arbitration Committee accepted one new case this week, and closed one case.
