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24 May 2010

 

2010-05-24

New puzzle globe, feature for admins, Israel's "Wikipedia Bill", unsourced bios declining

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By Phoebe, Spiritia and Sage Ross

Criticism of new puzzle globe prompts revision

The new logo. See the file history for the recent revisions it has undergone since release last week.
The previous logo. Wikipedia:Wikipedia logos chronicles earlier logos.

Along with the new Vector interface that was rolled out as the default for readers on 13 May, logged-in users got a surprise: the redesigned puzzle globe logo was revealed. The new logo, now rendered as a three-dimensional object, corrects long-standing issues with the old puzzle globe, including different Chinese and Japanese characters and the replacement of a character representing the now-defunct Klingon Wikipedia. On the back, rendered in the full 3D model but not visible in the logo, the globe has been extended to include many additional writing systems.

Although a welcomed revision in principle, the new logo saw a sharp wave of initial criticism of the implementation. Wikimedia Head of Communications Jay Walsh summarized the most common complaints:

  • the globe overall is blurry and the characters are not legible
  • the definition and depth of the puzzle piece-lines is not as apparent as in the original
  • the shadowed 'back' piece (above Ω) is too dark or not as dark as in the original
  • lighting across the globe is uneven or does not convey depth
  • the globe is too small

Since its initial release, the rendering of the logo has been through several revisions, and the usability team is still seeking feedback to further refine the logo.

"RevisionDelete" feature activated for all admins

On May 18, the Revision deletion function was activated for admins on all Wikimedia projects, following an earlier request. The feature allows individual entries in a page history or log to be removed from public view. While admins had already been able to delete specific page revisions using the more cumbersome process of deleting the entire history and then restoring all revisions except the one to be removed, redacting log entries has so far been only possible for oversighters. (Oversighters have the additional capability to make the removed entries or revisions inaccessible to admins as well.)

Israeli "Wikipedia bill"

The Israeli parliament is debating a bill that would open up government photo archives. It was initiated by Wikimedia Israel and is known informally as the "Wikipedia bill". There would be restrictions on the commercial use of the photos, and use in racist propaganda campaigns would be forbidden. [1]. It is unclear how useful the move would be to the project because of tension between any restriction in commercial use and the fundamental premise that Wikipedia's content should be freely available for re-use.

Unsourced BLP drive on track to clean up or remove 50,000 entries by year's end

WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons passed its first major goal on the way to eliminating all unsourced biographies of living people, or "BLPs". The goal was to have no more than 30,000 "old" unreferenced BLPs on 1 June. There had been about 50,000 at the start of the year. As of this week, editors had reduced the number to fewer than 30,000, ahead of the 1 June deadline.

The June goal is the first of a series, spread over a year, based on an RFC earlier this year. WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons is helping to coordinate efforts, and project members are adding sources and removing outdated tags.

The project is encouraging editors to help in their own areas of interest. Other WikiProjects are being notified of unsourced BLPs that apply to each project. This is being tracked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/WikiProjects.

Bulgarian Wikipedia reaches 100K milestone

In the early hours of May 24, the Bulgarian Wikipedia reached 100,000 articles. The symbolism here is the fact that in Bulgaria this date is celebrated ever since 1851 as the Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius, who are credited with creating the Glagolitic alphabet, predecessor of the modern Cyrillic alphabet that is used to write the Bulgarian and other languages.

The jubilee 100,000th article is devoted to the Petralona Cave in Greece, and was written by local sysop Nadina. Other shortlisted candidates for glory were the article on Bulgarian teacher and IMARO revolutionary Tzvetanka Senokozlieva, and a translation of the English article on James Surowiecki's book "The Wisdom of Crowds" (a friendly wink to all bgwiki editors). Later in the afternoon, Wikipedians Vassia Atanassova (Spiritia) and Grigor Gatchev spoke about Wikipedia and the 100K jubilee on Radio Sofia, in the "Infoholics Hour" radio show.

Bulgarian Wikipedia was established on December 6, 2003. The first 50,000 articles were written in about 4 years, while the next 50K were written in less than 2.5 years. Currently, it occupies 32nd place by number of articles (more stats). On November 9, 2009, the Bulgarian Wikipedia was awarded with the "BG Site" 2009 special award for contributions to Bulgarian language webspace (see archived story).

Briefly

2010-05-24

WikiProject Saints

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By Mabeenot
WikiProject news
Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.

WikiProject Saints was started by Kpalion on June 1, 2004 with one lone member. Six years later, the project is home to 70 members handling nearly 5,000 pages. The project covers 25 featured articles and lists as well as 24 A-class and good articles. WikiProject Saints primarily focuses on holy men, women, and angels within the Christian tradition although the project welcomes saints from other religions. The project maintains a to-do list, missing articles list, and a portal. This week we interviewed John Carter.

What motivated you to become a member of WikiProject Saints? Which saint interests you the most?

I am interested in both biographies and mythology. This is one of the few topics which really extensively deals with both. Particularly regarding the earliest saints, there are a number of legends which are really strange. Saint Christopher was a cannibal with a horse's head? Rrrriiiiight. The idea of Eve and the Celtic goddess Saint Brigid being midwives at the nativity of Jesus is an "interesting" one too. In terms of my favorite, I was confirmed in the Catholic Church with the name Thomas Aquinas, so I guess I would have to say him.

The project maintains a lengthy list of saints included in one or more liturgical calendars that do not currently have a Wikipedia article. Have there been any efforts to tackle this list? What are the most difficult aspects of writing about these lesser-known saints?

In a sense, the sheer number of them. One of the standard references, Holweck's Biographical Dictionary of the Saints, contains at least a short listing for every name known at the time of publication (the 1920s) and some other sources mentioning that individual. But even that book, in two-column format, is over 1,000 pages long, and is about 100 years old, so new canonizations/beatifications/etc. since then aren't listed.

WikiProject Saints has 25 pieces of featured content as well as nearly 25 good articles. Which of these articles are you most proud of being involved with? Overall, what have been some of the project's greatest achievements?

Probably the project's greatest achievement was the five FAs and one GA involved in the Members of the Gregorian mission featured topic.

Has your project developed particularly close relationships with any other projects?

Well, yeah. We work pretty well with WikiProject Christianity, and those related projects for Christian groups which have some sort of calendar of saints.

What are WikiProject Saints' most pressing needs? How can a new contributor help today?

There are individual calendars of saints for Old Catholic churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, as well as specific calendars for some of the various churches of the Anglican Communion, some of the particular churches of the Catholic Church, and possibly others, which are still lacking.

Anything else you'd like to add?

I think we may still have as a long-term goal having the Portal:Saints get updated on a daily basis, listing the various saints and/or other commemorations which are observed on that given day. Having available as many of the individual liturgical calendars as possible would definitely help in that regard.


Next week, we'll visit the natural world without leaving the city. Until then, observe the wildlife roaming around the archive.

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2010-05-24

Approved this week

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By seresin

Administrators

Four editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Tide rolls (nom), AlexandrDmitri (nom), Bradjamesbrown (nom) and Arsenikk (nom).

Eleven articles were promoted to featured status this week: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (film) (nom), HMS Lion (1910) (nom), Grey Currawong (nom), Lemur (nom), John Lennon (nom), Halo 3: ODST (nom), Speechless (Michael Jackson song) (nom), Transandinomys bolivaris (nom), Rogue River (Oregon) (nom), Clemuel Ricketts Mansion (nom) and Guy Fawkes (nom).

Ten lists were promoted to featured status this week: Timeline of railway electrification in Norway (nom), Hugo Award for Best Novel (nom), List of Major League Baseball runs batted in champions (nom), List of Kansas State Wildcats head football coaches (nom), List of Best in Show winners of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show (nom), Aurealis Award for best young-adult novel (nom), List of characters in the Uncharted series (nom), Freedom Award (nom), List of Major League Baseball tie-breakers (nom) and List of Major League Baseball strikeout champions (nom).

No topics were promoted to featured status this week.

No portals were promoted to featured status this week.

The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page as Today's featured article this week: David A. Johnston, Rings of Neptune, Mackinac Island, Brazilian cruiser Bahia, BP Pedestrian Bridge, Margaret Fuller and "The Beginning of the End".

Four articles were delisted this week: New York City (nom), Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (nom), Antarctic krill (nom) and Amateur radio in India (nom).

No lists were delisted this week.

No topics were delisted this week.

No portals were delisted this week.

The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page as picture of the day this week: Austroicetes vulgaris; Scene from Act V, scene 2, of Troilus and Cressida; White-fronted Bee-eater; Leeds Castle; Turkic men performing khitān; Rose Main Reading Room in the New York Public Library and 1883 chromolithograph of the Brooklyn Bridge.

One featured sound was promoted this week:

President of the United States George W. Bush speaks on the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster(nom)

No featured pictures were demoted this week.

Ten pictures were promoted to featured status this week.



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2010-05-24

Arbitration report

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By Jéské Couriano

The Arbitration Committee closed one case this week and opened none, leaving one case open.

Open cases

Recently closed

  • Russavia-Biophys: The case was accepted to expedite a complicated Arbitration enforcement issue concerning Russavia and Biophys. As a result of the case, Russavia is barred from commenting on or unnecessarily interacting with editors who were the subject of the EEML case, and Biophys is topic-banned from articles related to the former Soviet Union, with a 1RR restriction in place after that ban expires. Three other editors received six-month topic bans from the former Soviet Union topic area.

Motions

  • The Committee passed a motion to ban A Nobody from Wikipedia until such time as he submits to the Arbitration case held in abeyance for him. A Nobody had previously been editing under IPs and other usernames in an attempt to evade the case.

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