WikimediaNotifier

Wikimedia notification system

19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

Wikimedia notification system

This is a global notification system for all Wikimedia wikis!

If it is necessary to inform many/all wikis about something important, a global notification can be requested at Global notifications/requests. It is possible to have wiki and/or language dependent text within every message.

All Meta notifications are synchronized automatically, either on all wikis or just on specific, selected ones.

To have a common access point, the messages are updated at User:WikimediaNotifier/notifications (mirrored, any changes to this page will be overwritten; use a separate page for translation); you can include this page(s) like a template wherever you want, let's say your village pump, with a description in your language!

Have a look on the Frequently Asked Questions to see how it can fit your needs!

With SynchCrosswiki there furthermore is an easy way to create or synchronize pages like user scripts on all wikis!

… it's for spreading information; and for a better cross-wiki communication & collaboration!

Translation of the Week (update 26)

20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a notification update «

Translation of the Week

[discuss this topic]

2009-04-20 This week's article for the translation of the week: William Wilson (aquatics)

Commons: Picture of the Year 2008 (update 1)

19 Apr 2009 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a notification update «

Commons: Picture of the Year 2008

[discuss this topic]

2009-04-19

The third annual Picture of the Year Award on Wikimedia Commons goes into its second (final) round!

The final voting round is running from April 19th to April 30th (23:59 UTC).

Have a look on the finalists and select your favourite featured picture of 2008.

GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 (update 5)

12 Apr 2009 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a notification update «

GNU Free Documentation License 1.3

[discuss this topic]

2009-04-12

The GNU Free Documentation License has been released in version 1.3 by its responsible Free Software Foundation.
This is not least a result of a request by our Board of Trustees in December 2007, trying to offer us a possibility to also license and share our wiki contents under the easier to use Creative Commons CC-BY-SA (Attribution + ShareAlike) license.

The Wikimedia Foundation will soon organize a community wide referendum to decide whether our GNU FDL licensed wikis should be made availabe under the terms of this free and common CC-BY-SA license too, see dual-licensing.

See also a detailed summary for further reading.^(source)

On Meta you can find further information (FAQ) and can discuss the licensing update process of our wikis.

A vote on Meta is taking place from April 12, 2009 to May 3, 2009.

The Wiktionary logo dilemma

26 Mar 2009 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

The Wiktionary logo dilemma

[discuss this topic]

2009-03-26

The Wiktionary community (actually the whole Wikimedia community) voted for a new Wiktionary logo, back in 2006.
As some major local communities refused to adapt the new logo for different reasons, Wiktionary now has two different logos, both widely used!

Because Wiktionary should have one common logo and favicon, meaning a unique visual identity, there is an attempt to refresh the Wiktionary logo update/change process.

Wiktionary needs a single, common and accepted logo, so help finding a solution at Meta or discuss on the Wiktionary mailing list.

Software news in brief (update 3)

25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a notification update «

Software news in brief

[discuss this topic]

2009-03-25

Technical Blog

2009-03-25: The MediaWiki software with its extensions has been updated to SVN revision 48811 (release notes).
- Major new features: New magic word {{REVISIONUSER}}, new special page Special:GlobalGroupPermissions for global users; etc.

2009-03-17: The AbuseFilter has also been activated for the English Wikipedia (Meta/dewiki: 2009-02-25) – the tool allows to automatically detect and/or prevent plain vandalism, spam and other pattern based changes.
2009-03-16: TIFF support on Commons, file/image renaming available for SysOps (through the [Move] tab).
2009-01-27: Collections will soon be activated for all Wikimedia projects where they make sense, like currently for Wikibooks and the German Wikipedia (2009-02-19: fr, pl, nl, pt, es, simple; en) – the extension lets your readers create PDF books to possibly order printed books. Use www.pediapress.com/collection to create cross-wiki article collections of almost all wikis out there.
2009-01-26: Wikimedia will improve Ogg Theora/Vorbis support with the help of the Mozilla Foundation.
2009-01-16: Drafts are ready for testing – the extension makes backups of your unsaved edit sessions.
2008-12-17: Some major Wikipedias now have enhanced search functionalities (example), all other wikis have to wait for better hardware.
2008-12-03: Wikipedia will become more user-friendly for new volunteer writers (current info); see Wikipedia Usability Initiative!

Wikimania 2009

24 Feb 2009 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

Wikimania 2009

[discuss this topic]

2009-02-24

Wikimania 2009, this year's global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe, is accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open space discussions, and even artistic works related to the Wikimedia projects or free content topics in general. The conference will be held from August 26 to 28 in Buenos Aires, Argentina!
For more information, check the official Call for Participation.

Quality illustrations

26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

Quality illustrations

[discuss this topic]

2009-01-26

Beside an elder project for the creation and improvement of illustrations, there is a new project to grow our encyclopedic image restoration community. It's to provide media restorers with the technical resources they need, and to reach out to all the archives in the world.

Software localization

1 Jan 2009 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

Software localization

[discuss this topic]

2009-01-01

The localization of Meta's software (MediaWiki) and its extensions is an ongoing task, and you can help!

There are statistics about how much of the core messages and system messages in total have been translated so far.

Apply, and help translating our software externally at TranslateWiki.net (=Betawiki, no Wikimedia project so far); have a look on the recent localization activity for your language [English].

Central Wikimedia help

24 Dec 2008 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

Central Wikimedia help

[discuss this topic]

2008-12-24 There is a proposal to share Wikimedia's help pages by centralizing and localizing them on Meta or a dedicated wiki.

FlaggedRevs review feature

28 Nov 2008 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

FlaggedRevs review feature

[discuss this topic]

2008-11-28

Beside the elder Patroller extension for patrolling recent changes and new pages, there is a highly configurable MediaWiki extension, called FlaggedRevs.

FlaggedRevs – being already enabled on several Wikimedia wikis – is a toolset for transparent and ensured article patrolling and/or for reliable quality assurance by specifying certain accurate article revisions that are shown to the public by default. Those stable article versions are identified in a release process by a trustable editorial staff and/or get approved by a reviewing expert staff. It is even possible to mark (tag) revisions of selected articles for different purposes, let's say for an article validation aiming on a print edition. Furthermore, there is the possibility to let your readers give you evaluative feedbacks.

FlaggedRevs will make your wiki more reliable and thus more reputable over the time!

Have a look on Meta's description, the technical description and the guidance for requesting FlaggedRevs!

Wikipedia globe logo

13 Nov 2008 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

Wikipedia globe logo

[discuss this topic]

2008-11-13

A dedicated project aims on fixing errors on the globe of Wikipedia's logo as well as deciding another characters to complement the globe in its missing parts! This will not just improve Wikipedia's logo, it will for example also allow to produce three-dimensional Wikipedia globes.
Go and take part at Wikipedia/Logo!

Interlanguage links

2 Nov 2008 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

Interlanguage links

[discuss this topic]

2008-11-02

Beside the ongoing discussion about introducing an interlanguage extension on Wikimedia projects to improve and centralize interwiki linking, an attempt to centralize the discussion about interlanguage link conflicts has been set up.

Global bots

1 Nov 2008 00:00:00 UT

Wikimedia notifier Newsletter
» a global notification «

Global bots

[discuss this topic]

2008-11-01

On Meta, a bot account now can get a bot flag for all wikis that allow global bots!
To be able to run also on your Meta, the community has to explicitly permit global bots by local policy, see list.

To qualify for global bot access, the following requirements must be met by a bot:

it must only maintain interlanguage links or fix double-redirects
it must already be active on several wikis, with long-term contributions to back up its trustworthiness