Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-04-16/News and notes

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This is a draft of a potential Signpost article, and should not be interpreted as a finished piece. Its content is subject to review by the editorial team and ultimately by JPxG, the editor in chief. Please do not link to this draft as it is unfinished and the URL will change upon publication. If you would like to contribute and are familiar with the requirements of a Signpost article, feel free to be bold in making improvements!

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The Newsroom (talk)

deadlines

Writing: 6 June 00:00 (1 day left; 4%)

Publishing: 7 June 00:00 (2 days left; 8%)

There are 15 hours, 33 minutes and 12 seconds until deadline. (refresh)

Last revised 17:50, 15 April 2012 (UTC) (13 years ago) by Jan eissfeldt (refresh)

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16 April 2012

News and notes

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Contribute —

Help page clean-up

-> Tony

Wikipedia:Help pages redesign project /

announcement,

blog

WikiTravel debate

Wikimedia-l since April 8: thread I, II, III

Meta (re-)active since April 11

French outreach

-> Tony

french outreach-story

HighBeam 2.0

The first round of handing out free HighBeam-accounts to the community for one year (Signpost coverage here) ended on April 9. The partnership-project handed out several hundred of the originally agreed 1000 accounts so far and should be, according to schedule, deployed by April 16.

A second round of applications will be open from Monday, April 16, on under the same requirements, a 1 year old account with 1000 edits, as the first round.

Brief notes

Terms of Use update: The efforts to update Wikimedia's Terms of Use (see Signpost coverage) reached a new phase on April 15 as the newly updated version was legally announced. The new terms are not in effect until the notice period has passed by. The accompanying statement can be read here.
Sister Projects Committee: The Sister Projects Committee on Meta, aiming at improving the regulation of the new project process, was announced on April 10.
WMF March report: The Wikimedia Foundation's activity report for March 2012, highlighting Mobile, Arabic outreach and Mediawiki development, has been published on Meta.
New administrators: The Signpost welcomes our new administrators,
Milestones: The following Wikipedia projects reached milestones this week:

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16 April 2012 (all comments)

News and notes

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For the record, the comment about the Terms of Use jumped the gun a little bit. The actual announcement will be on or about 4/20, with the implementation one month after that. You won't miss the announcement - we'll be using site banners to do it. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:01, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the update Philippe, i fixed the note accordingly, regards --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 23:11, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Language has never been the subject of public policy in Anglophone countries" -- what about Wales in the 20th and 21st centuries... come to think of it, and particularly appropriate given the focus of the section, what about modern Canada? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many, if not most, US states have policies on language. e.g. In California, elementary and high schools must offer courses taught in the language of the students - even if that means teaching courses in many, many languages. In Florida, government information must be offered in Spanish and English. Mathew Townsend (talk) 01:18, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What was meant, I think, was content of a language, rather than choice among languages. For example, the French and Quebec governments have separately fought against the introduction of English words into the French language (Franglais), while the United States government could not care less should a previously non-English word become au courant in the English language. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

John, you hit the nail on the head. If there's a better way I could have expressed it, please let me know.

Tony (talk)

06:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I read the updated Terms of use (wow, rather scary) which include provisions against "Harassing and Abusing Others". How will they determine what is "Engaging in harassment" if they don't consider content? Mathew Townsend (talk) 03:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please repeat that question at meta:Talk:Terms_of_use. You won't receive a proper response by asking it over here. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 11:53, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have the impression that a lot of Web/tech/new media terminology catches on first in Quebec and then is eventually recognized by the French government. I could very well be wrong on that. This looks like an interesting collaboration, anyway, I'll be interested in seeing if the various regional language and editing perspectives can cooperate. OttawaAC (talk) 04:44, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re New Page Triage; no, users should suggest them on the WP:NPT talkpage. Suggestions being emailed to me completely undermines the point of holding this process in the open :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:44, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For example, the French and Quebec governments have separately fought against the introduction of English words into the French language (Franglais), while the United States government could not care less should a previously non-English word become au courant in the English language. — Such as the word CHAUVINISM, for example. Carrite (talk) 15:55, 17 April 2012 (UTC) nerk! nerk![reply]

Hello. Is there any chance that this news column could cover significant changes to the Manual of Style? This document impacts many editors, so a summary of revisions would be helpful. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 01:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible, I suppose, but first, are there many significant changes nowadays? Second, it's probably not regarded by many readers as newsworthy. What kind of changes did you have in mind (say, over the past six months)?

Tony (talk)

03:06, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A regular update of major MOS changes would be useful. quarterly? I have no idea what changes would be included because .. I have no idea what changes have happened. Signpost, please educate me. ;-) John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:47, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm slightly surprised to read that "Language has never been the subject of public policy in Anglophone countries". There are plenty of interesting counterexamples; such as the current controversies over Spanish language use in the USA [1], some interesting quirks of Britain's colonial policies in the past, a can of worms in Canada, the Welsh Not, and even the origin of the King James Version of the bible, or the Book of Common Prayer... bobrayner (talk) 09:55, 23 April 2012 (UTC) (Disclaimer: Both my inlaws are anglophone teachers in a country where the language of instruction has been surrounded by controversy, up to and including riots).[reply]

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