(contributed by Kizu Naoko [user:Aphaia] from the Foundation Communications Committee)

On 25th June, around 12:36 UTC (21:36 in the Japan Standard Time), Japanese Wikipedia has reached its 500,000 article milestone and has become the first non-European and non-Latin script Wikipedia to pass
over this milestone. The exact 500,000th article is unknown but is very likely one of the following:

フランク・ラザフォード (Frank Rutherford),

国際チャレンジデー (International Challenge Day),

ウエストバージニアの水運 (West Virginia Waterways) or

南阿蘇鉄道MT-2000形気動車 (South Aso Rail Line MT-2000 Diesel Engine).

While this wiki was set up in mid 2001 already, its activities began substantially years later, late 2002, and has steadily been growing. Now it is the 5th biggest Wikipedia and still one of fastest growing Wikimedia projects. In Japan, where the most Japanese speakers dwell, Japanese Wikipedia is known as one of major online references. In 2007  2.7 million people in Japan, roughly over 20% of the whole population of the nation, used Wikipedia from their home, and the number of users has steadily growing since 2005 when the first research was done,  CNET Japan reports.

With a degree of friendly rivalry, the Japanese Wikipedia chases sibling project, Polish Wikipedia, which is 4th largest and reached half a million articles in May. Both projects continue to show steady growth.

The Polish Wikipedia is 9th of the most popular sites in Poland (April 2008). New stats (look on the graph):

http://www.webinside.pl/news/5001

Every day volunteers write ~300 new articles, with average size 1,5 kb

pl wiki (the Polish Wikipedia) has 340 featured articles and more than 200 good articles.

In the beginning of 2008 the Polish Wikipedia started schools and university projects. The first 4 ended with good results (interview with prof. Czachorowski - Polish entomologist, who started 2 projects).

01.07. 2008 will be started new initiative “Holidays with Wikipedia” Wikipedians will work for better quality and they will invite (by sitenotice) readers to collaboration.

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Congratulations to the Polish and Japanese Wikipedia editors!  May the friendly rivalry continue, and here’s to doubling this milestone in the next few years.

The voting in the 2008 elections for the Board of Trustees is currently being held through June 22.  This summer’s election is to fill the seat currently held by Board Chairperson Florence Devouard.   This is the first Trustee election to take place under the Board restructuring approved by the board in April 2008.

Why are we having board elections?  The Wikimedia Foundation is a unique entity in the fact that our projects are managed by a great number of people around the world, volunteers who create and edit the content on the Wikipedia sites and our other projects like Wikinews and Wikimedia Commons.  The volunteers are members of related project communities from which members have agglomerated to form a meta-community of individuals interested in the Wikimedia Foundation and having a voice to participate in determining how Wikimedia fulfill its mission both short-term and in the years to come.

Who is eligible to vote?  The 2008 Board Election Committee has provided guidelines as to which members of the community are eligible to vote in the election.  It effectively covers anyone who is presently active on at least one Wikimedia project, has a history with some edit contributions.

Is Florence Devouard running again?  It saddens me to say that Florence has chosen to pursue other endeavors in lieu of returning to her position as Chairperson of the Wikimedia Foundation.  Florence has overseen the board during a period of rapid growth and maturity of the Wikimedia Foundation and left a legacy that will be difficult for subsequent board to follow.

Is the candidate running for board chairperson?  Although Florence is vacating the position, the election is only for a board seat.  The board then determines among them who they want to perform the duties of Chair.

Who is running for office?  Candidate presentations are located here.  Each candidate for board has provided personal details and a statement as to how they believe they can benefit the Wikimedia Foundation.  There is also a question and answer section where community members have asked candidates a number of questions pertaining to how they see their roles as board members.

Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator

El Señor Presidente is the 2,000th featured article on the English Wikipedia. Featured articles are considered the best Wikipedia has to offer, and are selected through a collaborative peer review and editing process, coordinated on a page called “Featured Article Candidates”, under application of the featured article criteria. From the article:

El Señor Presidente (The President) is a 1946 novel by Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan writer and diplomat Miguel Ángel Asturias. A landmark text in Latin American literature, El Señor Presidente explores the nature of political dictatorship and its effects on society. Asturias also makes early use of a literary technique that would come to be known as magic realism. One of the most notable works of the dictator novel genre, El Señor Presidente developed from an earlier Asturias short story, written to protest social injustice in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in the author’s home town.

This article is particularly interesting in that it has largely been developed as part of a university project by professor Jon Beasley-Murray, who asked his student to write Wikipedia articles as a course assignment. Wikinews has a fascinating interview with Beasley-Murray and two participating students.

Erik Moeller, Deputy Director