Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-07-31/News and notes

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News and notes

By Flcelloguy and Carmelapple, July 31, 2006

Candidate rules for Board election released

Rules and requirements for the candidates in the upcoming Board elections were released. The rules were approved by all three election organizers: Essjay, Aphaia, and Datrio; candidates may start registering on August 1 for the September elections. In addition, candidates must have at least 400 edits on a Wikimedia project, and the first edit must have been made at least 90 days before the start of candidate registration. Finally, candidates may not be anonymous or use a pseudonym, and must be at least 18 years of age. Brief candidate statements are also strongly encouraged.

Milestones

The English Wikipedia reached five million total pages this week. Included are all articles, talk pages, policy pages, user pages, redirects, and pages in other namespaces. Of the five million pages, approximately one-fourth are considered articles. In addition, the Swahili Wikipedia reached 1,000 articles this week, marking the first African-language Wikipedia to reach such a milestone (correction). Swahili is a common language in Eastern Africa with approximately five million native speakers and 50 million total speakers.

Project: Combine German encyclopedia, Austrian newspaper

A project was undertaken by the Institute of Information Systems and Digital Media at the Graz University of Technology in Austria to combine Brockhaus multimedial, the little brother of Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, and Die Presse, a major newspaper based in Vienna. The project will be based on a community-driven model, with users bringing and collecting data. It is unclear whether the project will incorporate a true wiki or use another system to accumulate information.

Incubator name kept

A vote to change the name of the Wikimedia Incubator was closed this week after a month of discussion and voting. The results were heavily in favor of keeping the current name; the only other proposed name with a significant amount of support was Wikimedia Hatchery. Several other proposed names received few votes.

Briefly

• The Korean Wiktionary has reached 10,000 entries.
• The Simple English Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
• The Vietnamese Wiktionary has reached 80,000 entries.
• The Turkish Wikiquote has reached 1000 articles.
• The Portuguese Wikipedia has reached 100,000 registered users.
• The Chinese Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
• The English Wikibooks has reached 20,000 book modules.
• The Albanian Wikipedia has reached 1,000 registered users.
• The Kazakh Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Vietnamese Wikipedia has been edited 300,000 times.
• The Marathi Wikipedia has reached 10,000 total pages.
• The Volapük Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Yiddish Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Norwegian Wikipedia has reached 15,000 registered users.
• The Afrikaans Wikipedia has reached 1,000 registered users.
• The Javanese Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Georgian Wikipedia has reached 8,000 articles.

Also this week: The Onion — Listserv — M.A.N.I.A. — Polish Wikipedia — News and notes — Press coverage — Features and admins — T.R.O.L.L.