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 paging links in Special:Prefixindex now work correctly on pages with ampersands in their names. (r37704, bug 13949)
• Special:Userlogout now doesn't show broken unified-logout images for a user who does not have a global account. (r37772, bug 14842)

• The information in Special:UnwatchedPages is now available to administrators via the API (using list=allpages with apfilterwatched). (r37748, bug 14020)

• The EasyTimeline extension (used to add timelines in some wiki pages) was broken recently, causing pages with timelines in them to become inaccessible; it has been reverted to an older version temporarily pending a fix.

• 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.

At a Board meeting in Alexandria, prior to the opening of Wikimania 2008, the Board of Trustees formally appointed Ting Chen to the Board to fill the spot of Florence Devouard, who declined to seek re-election. To fill Devouard's spot as Chairperson, meanwhile, the Board unanimously chose Michael Snow for a one-year term as Chair.

Snow, who was born in Germany, currently resides in Seattle, where he practices law. Snow was appointed to the Board in February 2008. He becomes the third Chair in the history of the Foundation, after Jimmy Wales, who served as Chair from the board's inception in 2003 through October 2006, and Devouard.

Chen, meanwhile, is the first Chinese Wikimedian, and the first Wikimedian born in Asia, to serve on the Board. Chen was born in Shanghai, China, but currently lives in Germany, where he works as an IT specialist. He is the 14th person to become a member of the Board.

The accounts of inactive administrators Zoe and RickK were desysopped and blocked this week, after the passwords to both accounts were apparently obtained by other users. Kelly Martin alleged on Wikipedia Review that both accounts had the same guessable password, a claim that was apparently proven when another user (purportedly Gmaxwell) logged into both accounts and posted onto the administrators' noticeboard to notify the community of their compromise. The accounts were desysopped almost immediately afterward by Drini, a steward and English Wikipedia administrator.

• This week, the three-millionth media file was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The milestone file was Image:Haishan-Station.JPG, an image of Haishan Station, a Taipei railway station.
• The Hungarian Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles.
• The Russian Wikipedia has reached 300,000 articles.
• The Danish Wikipedia has reached 90,000 articles.
• The Persian Wikipedia has reached 40,000 articles.
• The Czech Wikisource has reached 5,000 pages.
• The Romanian Wiktionary has reached 15,000 articles.
• The Icelandic Wiktionary has reached 14,000 entries.
• The Esperanto Wikipedia has reached 6,000 users.

The Arbitration Committee did not open or close any cases this week, leaving two currently open.

• Geogre-William M. Connolley: A case involving wheel warring between Geogre and William M. Connolley. William M. Connolley inappropriately extended a block on Giano II, while Geogre inappropriately reversed the block, and reversed page protection on Giano's talk page. The case is currently in the voting phase; proposed remedies include:
  • Four different versions of a remedy modifying or removing remedy 2.2 in IRC. All versions are supported by two to three arbitrators, and opposed by one to two arbitrators.
  • A remedy suspending Geogre's administrative privileges for two weeks is supported by two arbitrators, and opposed by two.
  • Currently passing is a remedy prohibiting Geogre and Connolley from taking any administrative action with respect to Giano II.

• C68-FM-SV: A case involving disputes between Cla68, FeloniousMonk, SlimVirgin, JzG, and others. The case, which has seen little-to-no public input from arbitrators, is currently subject to a motion to dismiss, with the support of one arbitrator, and the opposition of one.