Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-08-28/News and notes

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< Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost | 2006-08-28

News and notes

By Flcelloguy, August 28, 2006

Discussions for Wikiversity continue

After the recent launches of Wikiversity and Wikiversity Beta, a search for a logo for the new projects continued. There are, as of press time, 11 proposed logos to replace the current temporary version, a mortarboard, which cannot be used because of licensing restrictions. In addition, discussions for a motto and mission statement also continued this week.

Planet's "demotion" causes flurry

This week, a flurry of editing resulted after the International Astronomical Union voted to change the definition of a planet to exclude Pluto, an item that was still near the top of "In the news" as of press time. Several articles were immediately updated, such as the articles "Pluto", "planet", and "2006 redefinition of planet". Ironically, though, the featured article on the day of the change was the planet Mercury, which became the smallest planet by size after Pluto's "demotion" to a dwarf planet. The featured article was updated a few hours after the change in Pluto's status.

Though the Encyclopædia Britannica updated its article on Pluto shortly after the change, many pointed out that its other relevant articles were not rectified, such as the one on Mercury in the Concise editon, which as of press time still called it the "second-smallest major planet (after Pluto)". The Concise Edition article about Pluto still refers to it as a planet.

Milestone reached

This week, a milestone was reached as Wikipedia surpassed five million total articles in all of its language projects. There are currently over 200 language projects, with the English Wikipedia being the largest with nearly one and a half million articles.