Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-10-29/News and notes

Treasurer hunt begins

A

, and have previously served as a treasurer on another non-profit board for at least five years. Applicants can contact the Foundation by e-mail, at <treasurer-search AT wikimedia DOT org>, for more information.

Fundraiser continues

The Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser continued this week. In the first seven days of the fundraiser, about 8,280 people had donated, and the Foundation had raised about

This amount is slightly less than the $261,000 donated during the first seven days of last year's drive. Interestingly, only three contributions of $1,000 or more have been recorded so far during this drive; during the last drive, 20 contributions of $1,000 or more were recorded, discounting two large contributions that appeared to have been mailed independent of the fundraising drive. Last year's drive, however, began during the holiday season, which may explain decreased giving so far.

Votes to close Volapük Wikipedia, Simple English Wikiquote to conclude

A proposal to close the Volapük Wikipedia received an unusual amount of attention this week. The Wikipedia is the 15th largest Wikipedia by article count, and reached 100,000 articles last month. However, the nominator, Rosentod, noted that the language has a very low number of speakers (the English Wikipedia gives an uncited count of 25-30 speakers worldwide), and many of the language's articles were written by a bot. In fact, the project has only 286 users (117th most users among all Wikipedias). Others argued that the project was growing, with a few new users making edits, and should not be deleted. They also noted that the project was much larger than, and in some cases had more active contributors than, other Wikipedias that had not been closed. The discussion has been ongoing since September 21, but recently gained much more attention. Currently, 36% of voters support its closure, up from the 28% who supported its closure a week ago, but well below consensus to delete. The discussion is set to close on Monday.

Meanwhile, a proposal made in May 2006 to close the Simple English Wikiquote is set to close on Saturday. The proposal is split almost evenly between those supporting closure and those opposing it.

Lecture series on Wikipedia begins

Thursday was the first event in a lecture series entitled "Wikipedia: The Democratization of Knowledge or the Triumph of Amateurs?" at Eastern Michigan University. Historian Marshall Poe (author of an earlier substantial article on Wikipedia in The Atlantic Monthly) gave a presentation entitled "Wikipedia: Academia's Friend or Foe?" A reporter with The Ann Arbor News had a brief interview with Poe regarding the talk and series. Future speakers in the four-part lecture series are Larry Sanger, Andrew Keen, and Kat Walsh.

Ads project reaches 100 ads

As of 27 October 2007, the

are accepting requests.

Briefly

• The
  good articles
  .
• The Romansh Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
• The Rwandan Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Hawaiian Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Asturian Wiktionary has reached 2,000 entries.
• All Wikisources together have reached 300,000 text-units.

Note

Also this week: From the editor Page creation WikiWorld News and notes WikiProject report Features and admins Technology report Arbitration report
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