Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-11-08/SPV
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| Volume 4, Issue 42 | 8 November 2008 |
About the Signpost |
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From the editor
We're back today after a long break since the last issue. I've been dealing with some real-life issues that have taken up much of my time, and unfortunately, it seems, so have many of our other writers. So I'm issuing another call for writers, and perhaps this one is more important than ever.
At this point, it appears that we have writers for a few of the features that have been without writers, or that I've had to handle, over the last few weeks. However, we're still in need of a few writers, if possible, to cover the various stories that come up from week-to-week -- things like the upcoming ArbCom elections, the fundraiser, and other concerns. These types of stories have not been covered recently, and it's my hope that we can cover them next issue.
While I haven't been as active as I'd like to be recently, it's also unfeasible for me to be nearly the only regular writer here. I would go so far as to say that without more participation, the project will lapse into inactivity completely, and I certainly don't want that to happen.
If you're interested in contributing, please contact me on my
As always, thanks for reading the Signpost.
— Ral315
News and notes
Wikipedia: The Price is Right
The October 24 episode of the American game show
Video of the entire episode is available on CBS.com, though it might not be available in some or most countries outside the United States.
Briefly
- The Persian Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.
- The Thai Wikipedia has reached 40,000 articles.
- The Simple English Wikipedia has reached 40,000 articles.
- The Mazandarani Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
- The Azeri Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
- The Macedonian Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
- The Tagalog Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
- The Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
- The Malayalam Wikipedia has reached 8,000 articles.
- The Arabic Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
- The Sakha Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
- The Georgian Wiktionary has reached 200 articles.
- The Esperanto Wikipedia has reached 10,000 registered users.
- The Fiji Hindi Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
- The Navajo Wikipedia has reached 200 articles.
Dispatches: Halloween Main Page contest generates new article content
For Halloween 2008, Wikipedians from various projects designed a thematic Main Page.
Did you know...
- ... that phasmophobia is a fear of ghosts?
- ... that Halloween in the Castro, San Francisco's gay village, started as a children's costume contest in 1948 and was attended by 500,000 people in 2002?
- ... that the Ursula Southeilon its wings?
- ... that the permanent collection on display at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop in Seattle, Washington includes "Sylvester" (pictured), an excellently preserved mummy?
- ... that the wife of sawmill owner Julius Nicolai Jacobsen was said to haunt their house in Fredrikstad, Norway after she died?
- ... that some types of vampire moth can bite and drink human blood?
- ... that millions of children participate in Halloween-related fundraising events for Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, a program that has raised over US$188 million worldwide?
- ... that candy pumpkins were placed on the seat of every U.S. Senator by the candy industry in 1985 in hopes of extending U.S. daylight saving time to cover Halloween?
- ... that in classical mythology, Cerberus (pictured) is a monstrous dog with multiple heads that guards the gates to the underworld?
- ... that The Witchery of Archery, written by Maurice Thompson in 1878, was the first book about hunting with a bow ever published?
- ... that David J. Skal and Elias Savada wrote the first book-length biography of Tod Browning, who directed the films Dracula and Freaks?
- ... that the Norwegian film Cold Prey 2 was the sequel to what was called "the best slasher flick" of 2006?
The
The
A mock-up of the Halloween mainpage can be seen here, adjusted to include all of the DYKs that appeared throughout the day. DYK is planning a themed "Did you know" column for Christmas, with efforts towards that to begin on December 1, 2008.
Notes
Features and admins
Administrators
Five users have been granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process since the last issue: Protonk (nom), Magioladitis (nom), Ynhockey (nom), Berig (nom), and Addshore (nom).
Bots
Seven bots or bot tasks have been approved to begin operating since the last issue:
Featured pages
Twenty-seven articles have been promoted to
Fifty-five
).One
No
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page over the last three weeks as
Former featured pages
Seven
Seven
).No
Featured media
The following featured pictures were displayed over the last three weeks on the Main Page as picture of the day: Mandarinfish, 2008 Australian Grand Prix, Sukhoi Su-27, Crypsis, Mechanical advantage, Lichens, Royal Spoonbill, Elizabeth I of England, Parabolic antenna, Ecdysis, Maris Pacifici, Iceberg, Rose chafer, Chichen Itza, United States Colored Troops, Caterpillar (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Land sailing, Eta Carinae, Wormian bones, Four-spotted Chaser, and Antelope Island State Park.
Seven
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| O souverain | (nom) |
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| Manon | (nom) |
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| Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning | (nom) |
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| Florodora | (nom) |
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| Mozart's Serenade No. 13, First Movement | (nom) |
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| Swanee | (nom) |
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| Crazy Blues | (nom) |
One featured
Twenty-nine pictures have been promoted to featured status since the last issue and are shown below.
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San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm -
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Brown Tree Frog -
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Australian Pelican -
Embden Goose -
Monarch (butterfly) -
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X PRIZE Cup -
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2008 South Ossetia war
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"Au Clair de la Lune" -
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-Spoonbill-2,-Vic,-3.1.2008.jpg){kind=link}
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
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 1.43.0-wmf.2 (ce9d259), 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.
Fixed bugs
- The apfrom parameter now works on all API queries sorted in descending order which take that parameter. (This was previously fixed for allpages, but not allcategories or allimages.) (r42142, bug 15985)
- The "email this user" link no longer displays for users who can't be emailed (due to not having a valid address, or opting out). (r42179, bug 1306)
- API queries for category members now work if there is a literal pipe character in the sort key for the last entry of a page. (r42197, bug 16017)
- The continue parameter on API queries for the contributions of more than one user now works. (r42198, bug 16018)
- Literal tabs in <pre> and <source> now work correctly. (r42257, bug 15959)
- Some special pages, such as Special:DoubleRedirects, are again updating regularly (once every 3 days, at the moment). (bug 15848)
New features
- Large additions to pages now have a bold bytes-added amount in recent changes, the same way that large deletions have a bold bytes-removed amount. (r42110, bug 15925)
- API queries for category members can now specify start and end by category sort key, rather than timestamp. (r42169, bug 15995)
- [1] now has an RSS feed (r42220, bug 6955); so does Special:Contributions for an individual user (r42220, bug 12171).
- When someone tries to create a username that's confusingly similar to one that already exists, all the pre-existing names are now reported. (r42240, bug 12232)
Ongoing news
- 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 Report on Lengthy Litigation
The
Closed cases
- biographies of living personspolicy.
- Abtract and Collectonian, involving an editing dispute between the two. As a result of the case, Abtract was restricted from interacting with, harassing, or wikistalking Collectonian, or making uncivil comments about any other user. Collectonian, meanwhile, was urged to "continue to avoid any unnecessary interaction with Abtract".
- , inter alia), alleging that he misused the tool. The case found that Lar's checks "fell within the acceptable range of CheckUser discretion". Remedies enacted reminded users to bring similar issues to appropriate dispute resolution processes rather than "public invective", and reminded CheckUser operators to abide strictly to the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy.
New case
- Kuban kazak.
Evidence phase
- workshop proposals made by arbitrator Kirill Lokshin.