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.

• If an image's name has more than one period in it, the image's extension is now interpreted to be the part after the last period rather than the first period. (This problem was causing spurious warnings on some image uploads.) (r31246, bug 13143)
• The message that appears when you try to upload an image to a name that already exists has been fixed; previously the HTML for a link in the message appeared, rather than the link itself. (r31254, bug 13149)
• Some incorrect CSS in the Classic skin (to do with category links) has been corrected. (r31316, bug 13161)
• The position of the edit token in the HTML of an edit page has been moved upwards, which should increase the reliability of saving edits for users with slow connections. (r31365, bug 13130)
• Special:Linksearch can now handle searches for URLs containing two consecutive hyphens; previously such searches caused the page layout to break up badly. (r31427, bug 13207)
• When the API is pretty-printing its output, it now doesn't incorrectly link double quotes at the end of URLs. (r31452, bug 13218)

• The __HIDDENCAT__ feature introduced recently has been refined; hidden categories are now not hidden when included on other categories (r31250, bug 13140), are listed in the category Category:Hidden categories (r31262, bug 13106), and are listed at the bottom of the edit page during a preview (in the same way that templates are) (r31257, bug 13102).
• The API now lists which namespaces have subpages in a query about which namespaces are available. (r31278, bug 13154)
• A new API feature list=recentchanges&rctitles= makes it possible to get information about recent changes to a particular page (which is mostly useful for determining the rcid of a newly-created page, which is needed to mark it as patrolled). (r31348, bug 12394)
• Special:Relatedchanges has been added as an alias for Special:Recentchangeslinked. (bug 13112http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13112)
• The 'From' and 'To' usernames on Special:Emailuser are now links rather than plain text. (r31394, bug 13031)
• It is now possible to preload the title of a newly added section the same way that its text can be preloaded in a link to that page, using the URL parameter preloadtitle. (r31419, bug 13100)
• The action=search API request is now compatible with the Lucene search engine that Wikipedia uses. (r31471, bug 10908)
• A new ucuserprefix parameter has been added to API requests for user contributions, allowing all users or IPs whose name starts with a certain prefix to be listed; this makes it possible to search for the contributions of IP /8, /16 or /24 ranges (by specifying only the first few parts of the IP). (r31312, bug 13157)

• 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.

The Encyclopedia of Life, a collaborative encyclopedia devoted to cataloging all species of living organisms, opened this week. The encyclopedia is supported by a US$110.5 million grant from various organizations, including the MacArthur Foundation and the Sloan Foundation. The site started with 30,000 entries; upon its launch on 26 February, it was overrun by traffic, and reverted to a less server-intensive demonstration until 28 February.

The effort is similar to that of Wikispecies and other online projects; the initiative will apparently rely partially on existing projects, including the Catalogue of Life and Fishbase.

Website: EOL.org

This week, the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees announced five new resolutions. One of the resolutions officially selected new board member Domas Mituzas as the Board's Executive Secretary, replacing Erik Möller. The other four resolutions approved new Wikimedia chapters:

• Australia resolution (Wikimedia Australia)
• Austria resolution (Wikimedia Österreich)
• Czech Republic resolution (Wikimedia Czech Republic)
• Hong Kong resolution (Wikimedia Hong Kong)

English Wikipedia editor and Esperanto Wikipedia administrator William O'Ryan (Oryanw), died on February 12, 2008. O'Ryan contributed over 4,000 edits to the Esperanto Wikipedia, and 458 edits to the English Wikipedia. His last edits were in September.

A paper submitted to peer-reviewed medical journal Genetics and Molecular Research cited Wikipedia; the only claim cited to Wikipedia within the paper, however, also includes the citation of a primary source.

Raul654 discovered that 2007 science fiction film The Last Mimzy used a series of DNA-related images from Wikipedia in a classroom scene, one of which was a derivative of an image first created by Raul654. He said that the images included Image:DNA-labels.png, Image:DNA Overview.png, and Image:Thymine chemical structure.png.

• On Thursday, March 6, at 7 p.m. Andrew Keen, Wikipedia critic and author of The Cult of the Amateur, will present a lecture at Eastern Michigan University, as part of a four-part lecture series. Wikimedia Board member Kat Walsh is scheduled to present the series' final lecture in April.
• Blnguyen became the first editor to reach 200 Did You Know? creations (currently with 206), and is one of six editors with more than 200 DYK creations plus nominations.
• Wikimania 2009's host city is expected to be revealed no later than Thursday, March 6.
• The Swati Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Serbian Wikipedia has reached 60,000 articles.
• The Czech Wikipedia has reached 90,000 articles.
• The Turkmen Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.

The Arbitration Committee opened no new cases this week, and closed one case, leaving five currently open.

• New World Translation: A case involving alleged misconduct in a content dispute on New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. The case was dismissed, because "it appears that the underlying dispute may have been resolved".

• Franco-Mongol alliance: A case involving alleged misconduct over a dispute on Franco-Mongol alliance and related articles.

• Mantanmoreland: A case involving alleged sockpuppetry by Mantanmoreland, which he denies. In a controversial proposed decision, Newyorkbrad has proposed, with the support of five arbitrators, finding that a "definitive conclusion" cannot be reached, placing some articles on article probation, and placing restrictions on current and future editors to the articles.

• Ehud Lesar: A case involving a dispute involving Ehud Lesar, with alleged sockpuppetry on his part and alleged harassment by Fedayee, Eupator and others. Sam Blacketer has proposed a remedy, with the support of six arbitrators, finding that there is insufficient evidence of sockpuppetry and overturning the block.

• Highways 2: A case involving editing by NE2 on articles relating to WikiProject U.S. Roads, allegedly against consensus of other editors involved with that wikiproject. A remedy has been proposed, with the support of two arbitrators, counselling editors to consider contributing outside of disputed articles. UninvitedCompany has proposed a motion to dismiss the case as a content dispute.

• Episodes and characters 2: A case involving alleged continuing disruption of articles concerning television series episodes and characters, following on from a prior case. An injunction has been enacted halting certain editing activities on these articles until the case is resolved. If closed, TTN would be prohibited from requesting merges, redirections or deletions of these articles, and all parties instructed to "cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question". The motion to close stands at 3-2.