Wikizine/2005-52

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Year: 2005  Week:52  Number: 6        

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An internal news bulletin for the 
members of the Wikimedia community.

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=== Technical news ===
[[Special:Unwatchedpages]] this new special page gives a listing of the first 5000 pages that are not on someones watchlist. It is a static list updated regularly (hopefully). This is only for "users with protect permission". Sysops have access. Seems to be live on all wikis. This  special page is not listed on the [[Special:Specialpages]] page so put it somewhere.

[Semi-protection] is now live on the English Wikipedia. See [[w:en:George W. Bush]] for an example of a semi-protected page. Only registered users with accounts older than 4 days can edit that type of page.  

About getting this function enabled for other languages or projects Brion says "The policy's only been made on en.wikipedia. If there's some consensus or order to put it on everything that can be done."

As a result for the implementation of this function the interface for protecting pages is modified. You can still protect/unprotected and protect against moves. The protection log history of that page is also displayed now. A page whit "move protection" only appears to be protected for sysops. All the others do not see that. You can see the difference when you try to edit that page as a sysop because you do not get the warning that you are editing a protected page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/26086
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Semi-protection
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Semi-protection.JPG  -- Semi-protection in action
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:View_source.JPG -- Semi-protection in action

[Old search database] the database used for the search function seems not to be updated for some weeks. A page created on 28th November 2005 is now still not found.
Suggestion: put on [[MediaWiki:Searchresulttext]] a notice that it can take weeks befor new pages can be found whit the search function.

[Deleted pages] when requesting a deleted page a non-sysop will from now not longer see the old versions history. This situation can change again.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/21267

=== Politics ===

[Steward] elections are open. New candidacies are still accepted.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2006

=== Media ===

[Edit???] "Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio" -- some think that is news
http://tinyurl.com/atywl

[CNN] Positive item about Wikipedia on CNN -- sorry no video 
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.misc/26110

[Wikibooks] interesting and well-written (and sourced) blog entry by Ben Crowell, a pioneer in e-book publishing about Wikibooks
http://www.lightandmatter.com/article/infrastructure.html

=== Stats ===

[AR] The Arabic Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
http://ar.wikipedia.org/

=== Did you know...===
...that you can include a link to any page to emty the cache of that page?
[{{fullurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|action=purge}} Purge the cache]

Anonymous users get a question and confirmation button; "Clear the cache of this page?". You can translate it whit [[MediaWiki:Confirm purge]]. Consider to put also an explanation on that page what this exactly is "cache". Not all users are so smart as you. See the version of Meta for inspiration.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Confirm_purge

=== Q4 fund drive quotes ===

*"Proof that the best things in the world are free." by Vijay P Choksi
*"If Plato would have the internet he would constantly read Wikipedia." by anonymous
*"Best signal to noise ratio on the internet today" by Simon Pichette
*"I have an atrocious memory - Wikipedia fills in the blanks!" by Ian Henderson 	
*"Wikipedia makes me look with hope at the future of humanity." by Dario Teixeira  	

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Number of subscribers:213
Editor(s): Walter
Special assistance: Flcelloguy
Have news? Hit reply and write it please!
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