wales

Wikimedia: Wales' editor position unchanged

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has not given up any of his editorial privileges, despite reports to the contrary, the Wikimedia Foundation said Monday.

In a blog post written Monday morning, Wikimedia Foundation communications director Jay Walsh formally addressed a growing controversy that began with reports last week suggesting Wales had lost many of his privileges in the wake of a Wikipedia community uprising.

The community discontent--which seems real to some--stems from moves Wales made to unilaterally pull down a series of what were said to be pornographic images from the online encyclopedia and some of its related sites.

Afterwards, … Read more

Wikimedia's Wales gives up some top-level controls

Change is afoot in the Wikipedia community, according to a report from Fox News, but the reality may be less drastic than has been reported.

The news agency is reporting that Wikimedia Foundation co-founder Jimmy Wales is relinquishing his top-level editorial control over content found on Wikipedia and other sites in the foundation's family. The move reportedly comes after a bubbling controversy surrounding potentially pornographic images that appeared on the community-managed encyclopedia and some related sites. Fox's sources said Wales will no longer be able "to delete files, remove administrators, assign projects, or edit any content." … Read more

Google donates $2 million to Wikimedia

Google has made a $2 million donation to the Wikimedia Foundation, the group behind the widely used Wikipedia reference site.

Jimmy Wales, a member of the board who helped create Wikipedia, announced the donation in a tweet on Tuesday. He said a formal announcement would come Wednesday.

Google and Wikimedia did indeed make a formal announcement of the grant, saying the funds will support technical infrastructure to support growing traffic and to help make Wikipedia "easier to use and more accessible."

"Wikipedia is one of the greatest triumphs of the Internet. This vast repository of community-generated content … Read more

Report: Wikipedia losing volunteers

Wikipedia's exponential growth over this decade is due to the efforts of the millions of volunteers who write, edit, and check its entries. But could that volunteer effort now be in danger?

Volunteers have increasingly been quitting Wikipedia en masse for a variety of potential reasons, according to Monday's Wall Street Journal.

More than 49,000 editors left Wikipedia's English-language edition during the first three months of 2009, compared with only 4,900 for the same quarter a year earlier, according to the Journal, quoting Spanish researcher Felipe Ortega, who analyzes Wikipedia's online data. Though the … Read more

Gadgettes Podcast 163: The Technology We're Thankful For Episode

Today's cornucopia of technology is perfect for when you travel to visit your family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Some tech makes getting there safer and capturing the moment easier. Other tech was meant for your escape from the in-laws.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video)… Read more

Jimmy Wales on what's next for Wikipedia

In an exclusive interview, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales talks to Silicon.com's Natasha Lomas about what's next for Wikipedia and why the site needs geeks of all kinds.

If you've ever written something about Jimmy Wales and posted it online, chances are he's read it. He mentions a Twitter post I made, prior to our interview, asking whether people think he's a hero or villain.

With my tweet I'd been hoping to get a feel for opinion on the Wikipedia, Wikimedia and Wikia founder. Which is he then, I ask? Hero or villain?

"… Read more

Marketing agency pretends it's the police on Twitter

We've all had those ideas that seemed like good one at the time and then perhaps didn't seem so good the following morning. Or when the police got involved.

But a marketing agency in Australia reportedly decided to skip straight to the part involving the police.

Mentally Friendly (because mental friends really are the best) decided to set up a Twitter account in the name of the New South Wales police. Which was an interesting thing to do, save for the fact that an increasingly large number of people thought it really was written by the New South … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 943: Confickrolled

The whole world was fooled into fearing a huge storm of worminess that never happened. Was it because we were prepared or because it really wasn't that big of a deal at all? We also avoid most of the April Foolery and talk some Nehalem processors and BlackBerry App World.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 943

Want April Fool’s updates? Go watch Loaded. http://cnettv.cnet.com/2001-1_53-50005651.html

Web 2.0 Expo http://news.cnet.com/webware/

Live blog: Countdown to Conficker http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10208722-83.html http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/conficker-war-r.html… Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: Will Conficker be Y2K redux?

The clock is ticking down on Conflicker, an Internet worm that's making the rounds in various incarnations and is getting more sophisticated. It could be huge, or it could be nada. It's all part of a guessing game and we may know more tomorrow. CNET News' Elinor Mills has the latest. Listen now: Download today's podcast Wales giving up on Wikia search

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