News and notes

By Ral315, 15 October 2007

Historian who studied Wikipedia dies

American historian Roy Rosenzweig died this week, at the age of 57. Rosenzweig, the director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, was the author of Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, which appeared in the Journal of American History, and is one of the few scholarly articles examining Wikipedia in-depth.

Wiki Wednesdays

A series of monthly wiki-related chats have begun recently. Wiki Wednesdays have various structures depending on the particular meeting location; some focus on featured speakers, while others have round-robin talks, and some are unstructured. Most events are held on the first Wednesday of each month. This month, events were held in the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland, Oregon, Montreal, Vancouver, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. New events are scheduled for London and Chicago on Wednesday, November 7.

Briefly

• Discovery Communications has announced plans to purchase HowStuffWorks for a reported US$250 million; the deal will allow HowStuffWorks to incorporate Discovery programming into its articles. According to HowStuffWorks CEO Jeff Arnold, doing so would "ultimately deliver an accurate 'video Wikipedia'"
• The Wikimedia Commons has reached 2,000,000 media files (see related story).
• The Min Nan Wiktionary has reached 7,500 pages.
• The Limburgish Wiktionary has reached 3,000 edits.
• The Dutch Wikipedia has reached 10,000,000 edits.
• The Chinese Wikisource has reached 20,000 articles.
• The Portuguese Wikipedia has reached 300,000 articles.
• The Limburgish Wiktionary has reached 500 articles.
• The Dutch Wikibooks has reached 2,000 modules.

Also this week: From the editor — Wikimania 2008 — Board meeting — Two-million Commons — Job openings — CSN closed — Adminbot approved — License changes — WikiWorld — News and notes — In the news — WikiProject report — Features and admins — Technology report — Arbitration report
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