Archive:Wikimedia Quarto/1/En-8

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    From Sept 2-7, 2004, Wikipedia was present at the Ars Electronica Cyberarts Festival in Linz, Austria. Wikipedia had won a Golden Nica in the category digital communities of the Prix Ars Electronica, and Jimmy Wales was invited to speak at the presentation of the prize winning projects.

    In the Brucknerhaus, where the conference talks took place, all the prize winners were given the opportunity to present their projects. Mike from the German Wikipedia organized the Wikipedia booth at the so called electro lobby, where Mike, Emu, Elian, and DerTeufel explained Wikipedia and its concepts to the visitors. We had a very nice group nearby: The people from Creative Commons were there, filling everyone up with "Open Source Water" under a Creative Commons License.

    Open Source Water under Creative Commons License

    The glorious gala on Friday, which was transmitted on Austrian and German TV, was a little bit disappointing, however. After lots of lengthy speeches by local politicians and sponsors, the awards were handed out. Instead of a live part in the ceremony, they played a brief video film about Wikipedia, which included footage from the London meetup. So, we have this nice photo of London Wikipedians as displayed at the Gala.

    Wikipedia film at Linz cyberarts festival 2004

    Sunday evening Jimbo had dinner with Howard Rheingold and Joichi Ito, two big fans of Wikipedia, who were on the Jury of the Award committee. Later, we went to a party with Ito and some others, among them Jane Metcalfe from Wired magazine and Armin Medosch from the German online magazine Telepolis.

    On Monday, Lawrence Lessig payed a short visit to Linz, speaking on a panel, and Jimbo and he talked about the future of the GFDL. Martin Wattenberg, a researcher from IBM, who had worked on a Wikipedia visualization project [1], demonstrated his Java program at the Wikipedia booth -- really, really great stuff.

    On the last festival day, Jimbo held his presentation about Wikipedia on the Digital communities panel, where the jury members Rheingold and Ito explained their decisions for the awards. Since Ito, sitting on the panel, played around with his notebook, Jimbo decided to do the same and chatted on IRC during the speeches. In an experiment, Jimbo asked the folks on #wikipedia to write an article about Ito for the English Wikipedia, which resulted in some funny conversations and -- in the end -- an article, while Ito was blogging it. We finished the conference celebrating the launch of Creative Commons Austria together with the people from Creative Commons.

    The Lentos museum in Linz, at night

    Calendar

    see m:Calendar for more
    What's happening across the wikiverse and beyond.

    Old events  
    Jan New servers installed -> traffic spike. Feb 500,000 article mark
    Mar Apr
    May Prix Ars Electronica "Digital Communities" award. Webby "Community" award. Jun European meetings
    Jul Major Slashdot interview, July 4 meeting in Paris. Aug 8 new Apaches set up -> traffic spike.

    September

    • Sep 9: Aoineko picks up an award for Wikipedia from the Japanese Advertiser's Association
    • Sep 20: 1,000,000-article press release
    • Sep 21-24: Jimmy Wales in Switzerland; presentation to the UN

    October

    • Oct 1 : 40,000 copies of a CD with a snapshot of the German Wikipedia sent out
    • Oct 4 : Wikiversity deadline
    • Oct 12: Berlinux conference
    • 3 squid proxy servers set up in France

    November

    • Nov 27-28 : Rotterdam Symposium

    December

    • Dec 27-29 : 21C3 in Berlin, wikimeetup

    Future Events

    • Mar 18-20, 2005 : CCC conference, party

     

    Australian sunset, near Swifts Creek
    Australian sunset, near Swifts Creek

    The Road Ahead

    The road ahead
    The road ahead

    Foundation members should be able to see this newsletter in print before the start of winter. Keep an eye on the newsletter page on meta for new information, or to sign up to receive newsletter updates by email. Look for the next edition around the new year, and keep the good work and suggestions coming!

    In time of need call on the editor's creed:
        Thesis, antithesis, synthesis!
    If you think what you read should be NPOV-ed,
        Thesis, antithesis, synthesis!
    So plant a good seed
    And do a good deed
    And don't ever stop until all have agreed
    And then they will call you a real Wikiped-
    Ian.
        Thesis, antithesis, synthesis!

    -dpbsmith

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