Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-04-04/News and notes
1 April activities; RIAA takedown notice; brief news
Main page continues April non-fool tradition
The tradition of "reverse" April fools' jokes on Wikipedia's main page – statements which are designed to appear made-up but are factually accurate – was continued this year. For example, the summary of the featured article of the day played on the ambiguity of the name of one of the article's protagonists, while the "Did you know" section included the US Senate's candy desk.
This did not remain without controversy, with the arguments exchanged largely resembling those from previous years' debates, as pointed out by William Beutler (User:WWB) on his "The Wikipedian" blog. He also noted (illustrated by a screenshot) that "in a nod to last fall’s controversial banner ads" a large animated headshot of Jimmy Wales was included on the main page. However, this change was reverted after half an hour.
Off the main page, various frivolous deletion requests and other non-reverse April Fools' pranks took place.
RIAA demands takedown of fair use sample from 22 year old song
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) last week served the Wikimedia Foundation with a DMCA takedown notice concerning a fair use sample (25s, 64kbps) of "Deeper Understanding", a song by Kate Bush originally released on her 1989 album The Sensual World. It appears that the RIAA may have confused the file with the sample of a new version of the song, to be released as a single for her upcoming album Director's Cut. According to a music blog, a sample from the song's new version had been published on Amazon.co.uk; at the time of writing it is still available on Soundcloud. A few days later, a full-length version of the 2011 edit was made available in some countries on Kate Bush's official YouTube channel. Still, the 2011 sample was deleted on Wikipedia citing an OTRS request. The 1989 sample has since been deleted on other grounds, as the article where it had been in use was converted into a redirect (according to the non-free content criteria, fair use media that are not in use in any article have to be deleted).
Briefly
- Wikipedian in Residence for Berlin State Museums: The Berlin State Museums (a group of fifteen collections in several museums, including some of the German capital's most widely known) and Wikimedia Germany invite applications for a six-month Wikipedian in Residence position. Based at the institution's head office, the Wikipedian will collaborate with the museums to create a "sustainable concept" for the use of Wikipedia and its sister projects within the museums, for supporting the generation of freely licensed content related to their topic areas, for collaboration between Wikipedia volunteers and museum staff in curating Wikipedia content, for the advocacy of free licenses among Berlin museums, and for supporting the museums' PR work. The German Wikimedia chapter and the State Museums will provide a monthly allowance of €1200 for the position.
1760 map of Bali, Indonesia.
A New York map dealer has donated their collection of digital images of maps via Wikimedia Commons. - Image donation from antique maps dealer: Geographicus Rare Antique Maps, a New York-based specialist dealer in fine and rare antiquarian cartography and historic maps of the 15th–19th centuries, has donated their collection of digital images of maps via Wikimedia Commons, encompassing more than 2000 old maps.
- The quarterly policy update is available at WP:Update. Community discussion on how to put together something shorter and snappier for next week's Signpost is welcome at the talk page.
Logo of the GLAM newsletter - New edition of GLAM newsletter: The third edition of This Month in GLAM, a newsletter produced to help keep track of collaboration between Wikimedia projects and galleries, libraries, archives and museums, has been published on the Wikimedia Foundation's Outreach Wiki. Among various other items covered previously in the Signpost, it reports on a continuing collaboration with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
Odia Wikipedia Academy at Bhubaneswar, Orissa - Wikimedia Conference revisited: On his personal blog, Liam Wyatt (User:Witty lama) wrote about "Themes from Wikimedia Conference 2011": Editor Retention, professionalisation of chapters, and the proposal to have Wikipedia listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, arguing that Wikipedia already meets at least three of UNESCO's criteria. "Whilst [there] are indeed valid concerns I would respectfully say that they are UNESCO’s problem, not Wikimedia’s! Yes, to a certain degree this is trolling UNESCO, but equally it’s also such a good idea they’d be mad to ignore it.".
- Indian language milestones: Kannada Wiktionary (kn.wiktionary.org) crossed 100,000 words recently, becoming the second Indian language Wiktionary (after Tamil) to achieve this 100K words mark. Kannada Wiktionary has been growing at a phenomenal pace in recent times with 25K words being added in the last six months. Meanwhile, Hindi Wikipedia crossed one million edits after Malayalam Wikipedia. Odia Wikipedians conducted the first Wikipedia Academy in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India. An FAQ book on Odia Wikipedia was also released on the occasion, which was attended by over 35 participants. The New Indian Express reports that the workshop was aimed at roping in more active Wiki contributors. Divided into two sessions, the participants were first familiarised with Wikipedia, Odia Wiki and the various Wiki projects. The second session was meant to prepare them technically to be contributors.
- Wikipedian in Residence with .se: The Swedish Wikimedia chapter have published their monthly report for February 2011. Among other items, it states the chapter's result for the 2010–11 fundraiser (299,887.72 SEK from 1382 donors, corresponding to around US$47,500), and noted the start of a "Wikipedian in Residence" like collaboration with the .se, the foundation handling the top-level domain for Sweden, which will fund work to improve the Swedish Wikipedia's coverage of the topic "internet in Sweden".
- First report from Wikimedia Spain: The Spanish Wikimedia chapter have published their first report since the chapter's approval by the Foundation in February, mostly covering numerous conferences and meetups, and formal work to finalize the chapter's incorporation.
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