Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-03-12/News and notes

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News and notes

By Ral315, Littlebtc, DAUCTER and Alex Bakharev, 12 March 2007

Wikimania 2007: Registration and Call for Participation

Wikimania 2007, the third annual international Wikimedia conference, will be held from August 3 to August 5 in Taipei, Taiwan at Chien Tan Overseas Youth Activity Center (CTOYAC). The technically-oriented preconference for developers, Hacking Days, will occur in the two days leading up to the conference. There are still two other events, Hacking Days Extra and Citizen Journalism Unconference, which will be held on August 2.

Online registration for conference has opened, and will be closed on July 30, with discounted rates for Wikimedia community members. Accommodation at CTOYAC is provided and the available time is July 31 - August 5, and visa assistance for overseas travellers is available. See Registration page in official website for details.

On the other hand, the Call for Participation for Wikimania 2007 is out; submissions for posters, presentations, workshops, and discussion groups are being accepted now. The conference themes this year include Wikimedia Communities, Free Content, and Technical Infrastructure. Six types of submission are available. Nominations for speakers and speaker panels, and suggestions for other activities are welcome too. Details can be found in the official call for participation.

New article categorization bot

Many WikiPortals and WikiProjects have the "New Articles" feature: a section or a page where all newly created articles related to the project are supposed to be announced. When done properly it is a very usable feature: the project participants are the best people to weed out hoaxes and vanity articles, merge duplicates, polish new articles, and enjoy the newborn masterpieces. Unfortunately, digging out the related new articles is quite a chore that requires lurking through thousands of articles that appear everyday.

To facilitate this work Alex Bakharev has created a bot named AlexNewArtBot that does this work automatically. It "reads" the latest articles every night, checks them against some rules, and if they're found suitable for a project, includes them into the corresponding new articles list. The bot also compiles a list of suspected bad articles — entries that are likely attack or vanity articles.

Currently twenty "New Articles" lists are supported (see the bot's userpage) but more are planned. Ideally, every new article should go to at least one list to find readers and reviewers. If you are interested in collaboration to create such a feed for your project please contact Alex Bakharev.

Volunteer Coordinator position advertised

The Wikimedia Foundation has posted a job opening for a Volunteer Coordinator. The position, which would ideally be based in the Foundation's office in St. Petersburg, Florida, involves organizing and coordinating volunteer efforts to assist the Foundation in its day-to-day work. Either part-time or full-time work is possible.

Alexa ranks remain steady

Wikipedia's 3-month Alexa rank remains at 11th; however, daily ranks over the last week have fluctuated, ranking anywhere from 9th to 11th. Should growth remain steady, it appears that Wikipedia will break the Top 10 in the next month. By-country rankings show that in Germany, the site ranks 6th. Not including search engines, the site is the second-most popular site in Germany, behind eBay. Wikipedia ranks 7th in Colombia and the Philippines, 8th in the United States, 9th in Canada, Mexico, Spain, Singapore and the Netherlands, 10th in the United Kingdom and Australia, and 14th in France.

Briefly

The Dutch Wikipedia has reached 100,000 users.
The Norwegian Wikipedia has reached 40,000 users, a jump of nearly 300% over the last year.
The Greek Wiktionary has reached 75,000 entries.
The Russian Wikipedia has reached 150,000 articles.
The Cantonese Wikipedia has reached 2500 articles.
The Nepali Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
The Turkish Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.
The Marathi Wikipedia has reached 60,000 edits.
The Swedish Wiktionary has reached 30,000 articles and 200,000 edits.
The Basque Wikipedia has reached 1,000 users.
The Marathi Wikipedia has reached 18,000 total pages.