Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-05-07/News and notes

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News and notes

By Michael Snow and Phoenix2, 7 May 2007

Foundation seeking election volunteers

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking out volunteers who are interested in helping with the upcoming election of three members of the Board of Trustees. The terms of Erik Möller, Kat Walsh, and Oscar van Dillen expire July 1, and their seats will be filled in this election. Wikimedia chair Florence Devouard, the other elected member of the board, earlier had her term extended until 2008, partly to stagger terms for future elections.

The opportunity was announced by Jan-Bart de Vreede, who as an appointed member of the board has been selected to head up the process. Volunteers have only a short time to make themselves known, as the deadline for applications is May 13. In order to help with election work, they must forgo the opportunity to run, vote in, or openly support candidates in the election.

Administrator contest

On April 29, Wikipedia administrator Grandmasterka proposed a contest in which administrators are awarded points for performing various maintenance tasks, aimed at reducing Wikipedia's growing backlogs. Points would be awarded and deducted in a number of areas, including deletions, blocking, conflicts, and protection. For example, participants would be awarded ten points for properly identifying and dealing with a suspected sockpuppet. Conversely, users would be penalized twenty points for blocking a user who was later reinstated after community discussion. The idea for the contest sparked from discussion here, which concerned inactive administrators.

Though in its very early stages, YechielMan and zzuuzz questioned the feasibility of logging all administrator actions, and the diversion of resources it may create. DESiegel, an administrator himself since 2005, quickly opposed the idea for a contest, nominating it for deletion last Tuesday. In his rationale, he predicted over-zealous administrators developing "adminitis", whereby deletions, protections, and blocks are instituted just because such action is easy to take. Over a dozen editors chipped into the discussion, which concluded with a prominent "keep" result on Thursday. Nearly all disagreed with DESiegel, believing the contest would help reduce the backlogs and initiate friendly competition among administrators where it is sorely needed.

Briefly

• Wikipedia was featured in the comic Non Sequitur on Sunday, April 29.
• The English Wikiquote has reached 10,000 articles.
• The Spanish Wikipedia has reached 400 featured articles.
• The Indonesian Wikipedia has reached 60,000 articles.
• The Irish Wikipedia has reached 5,000 articles.
• The Czech Wiktionary has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Italian Wikipedia has reached 9,000,000 edits.
• The Icelandic Wiktionary has now an appendix °.
• The Cantonese Wikipedia has reached 60,000 edits.
• The Italian Wikiquote has reached 2,000 users.
• The Cantonese Wikipedia has reached 3,000 articles.
• The Marathi wikipedia has reached 21,000 total pages.
• The Vietnamese Wiktionary has reached 500,000 edits.
• The Norwegian Wikipedia has reached 110,000 articles.
• The Alemannic wikipedia has reached 3,000 articles.

Also this week: Admins desysopped — The key to Wikipedia — Fair use — Wikimania2007 — Wikipedian scholarship — WikiWorld — News and notes — Features and admins — Arbitration