Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-03-05/News and notes

News and notes

Commons Picture of the Year results

The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year ended this week. The winner, at left, was a picture of Aurora Borealis, with 83 votes. A close second was a picture of a French homeless person, with 78 votes. A picture of a Blue Jay and a picture of two hoverflies mating in mid-air tied for third, with 70 votes.

Username usurpation in effect

After community approval and first applications last month, the process of usurping other users' accounts has been put into effect. The process is allowed only when taking the username of a user with no prior edits or log entries, save for an entry in the user creation log. As of press time, 50 usurpations had been performed.

Indian WikiCamp event attracts media, hundreds of Wikimedians

"WikiCamp India", held on 25 February at Tidel Park in Chennai, India, attracted over 300 participants from throughout the country, including administrators Bhadani, Ganeshk, and Sundar. The event was covered by multiple Indian press sources, including the Indian Express ([1]), and is expected to have raised Wikipedia's profile within the country significantly.

German Wikipedia reaches 1,000 featured articles

The German Wikipedia reached 1,000 Exzellente Artikel this week with Pamir (Schiff) (English: Pamir (ship)), becoming the second language to reach that milestone. With 1,002 articles, about 1 in 550 articles are featured in the German Wikipedia, compared to about 1 in 1310 articles on the English Wikipedia.

Wikipedia magazine feature selected for anthology

A Wired story about Wikipedia, "The Book Stops Here", has been chosen by the University of Michigan Press for inclusion in its volume The Best of Technology Writing 2006. One odd point about the selection—the article was actually published in the magazine's March 2005 issue (see archived story).