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.12 (8b8c762), 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 'Compare selected versions' buttons are now disabled on pages with only 1 version. (r28390, bug 11221)
• The option to view all namespaces on Special:Newpages now actually works; previously it only displayed the article namespace. (r28524, bug 12031)
• Selecting the option to hide patrolled pages on Special:Newpages no longer causes the number of pages shown on each screen of results to reset. (r28524, bug 12283)

• It's now possible for administrators to protect a page even if it doesn't exist. (r28385, bug 2919)

• Special:Protectedtitles was also added to track these pages. (r28506)

• MediaWiki:Unusedimagestext now supports wikitext. (r28527, bug 12063)
• Special:Upload now lists which file types are allowed. (r28530, no associated bug tracker entry)

• The prefixes WP: and Wikipedia: are now 'aliases', meaning that they mean the same thing. This means that all shortcut redirects of the form WP:POST have been moved to the Wikipedia: namespace, and now have names like Wikipedia:POST (although because WP: and Wikipedia: are now aliases, typing WP:POST will still work). Likewise, WT: is now an alias for Wikipedia talk:. (bug 6313)

• Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See mw:Localisation statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla or use Betawiki.

Elections for the Arbitration Committee ended this week. Results of the elections are available, although the final decision rests with Jimbo Wales, who is expected to announce new arbitrators later this week. The top eight finishers, by percentage:

1. Newyorkbrad, 97.3%
2. FT2, 88.9%
3. FayssalF, 76.1%
4. Sam Blacketer, 74.3%
5. Deskana, 73.0%
6. Thebainer, 67.2%
7. Rebecca, 65.1%
8. Raul654, 65.0%

At least five candidates will be chosen after the elections by Jimmy Wales, although in both of the last two elections, Jimbo has appointed more than the minimum number of arbitrators. In January 2006, he expanded the Committee from 12 to 15 members, and in Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2006, he appointed an additional user in place of Filiocht, who was unable to discharge his duties due to illness (Filiocht is eligible to claim an additional seat through 2008, but has not edited since June 2006).

In previous elections, Jimbo Wales has chosen arbitrators mainly by the vote percentages, although in the January 2006 elections, he appointed two former arbitrators who were not directly next in line by percentage, "in the interests of ... maintaining continuity".

Elections for new stewards also ended this week. The Board of Trustees now has the option to select any candidate with at least 80% support. Ten users have at least 93% support, and two others hover just above the 80% support mark; the top twelve finishers, by percentage:

1. Spacebirdy, 100.0%
2. Jusjih, 98.6%
3. .anaconda, 98.0%
4. Dungodung, 98.0%
5. Wpedzich, 96.6%
6. Thogo, 96.3%
7. Lar, 94.8%
8. Zirland, 94.6%
9. Millosh, 94.7%
10. Andre Engels, 93.8%
11. DerHexer, 81.2%
12. Nick1915, 80.2%

In all elections so far, the Board has confirmed all candidates with at least 80% support; however, DerHexer and Nick1915 are the only candidates to ever finish so close to the 80% mark. Meanwhile, Dmcdevit, who had held at least 88% support for much of the election, finished with only 78% support, just out of the running, after controversy over his role in the temporary desysopping of Zscout370 over actions taken at the Carolyn Doran article.

Confirmation of current stewards is also complete; comments left there will be considered by current and incoming stewards, and some present stewards may lose their positions.

Wikimania 2009 bidding officially opened this week; as of press time, two official bids had been submitted: Bogotá and Toronto. New bids will be open until January 12, at which time the jury will be announced. Bids already created will be open until February 3, when bidding will end, and deliberations will begin. On or before February 20, the host city for Wikimania 2009 will be announced to the public.

The Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser continued this week. In the first eight weeks of the fundraiser, about 38,000 people had donated at least US$1, and the Foundation had raised about $1,200,000.

Monday, December 17's total donations ($10,503.77) and Saturday, December 15's number of contributions (294) reached a fundraiser low; however, the size of the average donation continues to stay above the fundraiser average; for the last thirteen days, the average donation size has eclipsed the fundraiser average of $31.71.

• The English Wikipedia has reached 6,000,000 registered users.
• The Portuguese Wikibooks has reached 80,000 edits.
• The Hungarian Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
• The French Wikiquote has reached 5,000 quotes.
• The Khmer Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
• The Ukrainian Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
• The Malayalam Wikipedia has reached 5,000 articles.
• The Guarani Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.

The Arbitration Committee did not open any new cases this week, and closed one case, leaving six cases currently open.

• Anonimu: A case involving revert warring and incivility by Anonimu. As a result of the case, Anonimu's community ban was confirmed, and he was concurrently banned for a year.

• John Buscema: A case involving editing of the John Buscema article by editors including Tenebrae and Skyelarke.

• Dbachmann: A case involving alleged misconduct on the part of administrator Dbachmann and editing by other editors on several race-related articles.

• RodentofDeath: A case involving alleged personal attacks and policy violations by RodentofDeath on articles including Angeles City. Remedies banning RodentofDeath for one year, and reminding Susanbryce not to use Wikipedia for purposes of advocacy, have the support of two arbitrators.

• Physchim62: A case revolving around a block of fellow administrator Hesperian by Physchim62. Other users assert that Physchim62 has misused his administrative tools in the past. A remedy noting that Physchim62 has resigned his administrative privileges "under controversial circumstances," so that he could not seek resysopping without a new RfA, has the support of four arbitrators.

• Episodes and characters: A case involving alleged misconduct with regard to the notability of episodes and characters from television series. Remedies admonishing TTN and urging the parties to collaborate on the issue have the support of four arbitrators, but are opposed by arbitrator UninvitedCompany.

• Matthew Hoffman: A case involving a controversial block of MatthewHoffman as a sockpuppet by a vanished user. Arbitrator UninvitedCompany has proposed a remedy calling for Hoffman's block log to be annotated to show that the blocks were unjustified, which has support from four other arbitrators, but is opposed by Fred Bauder. Another remedy, proposed by Bauder and supported by three other arbitrators but opposed by two, cautions the vanished user to avoid taking significant administrative action where he has strong opinions, while a remedy desysopping him stands at five to one. More recently, a motion to suspend the case for 30 days to allow for community input at an RfC has obtained the support of five arbitrators.