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On 20 March MediaWiki 1.4.0 was released in a stable version (Download). MediaWiki is a Web-based collaborative editing environment, designed for Wikimedia projects. The new version is expected to improve performance. It has some new features including an image gallery display. Currently all Wikimedia projects are powered by this version... read more: Michel Snow* & Brion Vibber*

The second issue of the Wikimedia Quarto, the official newsletter of the Wikimedia Foundation, was released on Saturday, March 19, covering the last quarter of 2004. For this issue, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, founder and chairman of Creative Commons was tracked down for an exclusive interview. Florence Devouard*, Wikimedia Trustee, Wikimedia Quarto Executive Editor.
On 17 March there was read only service for several hours after a disk drive used for logging on the master database server became full. Monitoring tools showed combined space for all drives and the last human check of that drive alone showed apparently sufficient space available. Improved montoring and larger disk drives are being obtained. James Day

Wikimédia France, the French chapter, is now officially created. The chapter can now open bank accounts, be brought to courts by disgruntled trolls, and all the fun that arises from that. The vote for membership fees is complete. Bylaws complements are being written, for next month's assemblée générale after a transitory period of 6 months. Nicolas Weeger.

Jimmy Wales asks for more developers at FOSDEM. As the opening speaker at the FOSDEM 2005 conference in Brussels, Jimmy Wales appealed to the development community for support on the technical side of running Wikipedia, and coverage of his remarks was published in several places last week... read more... Michael Snow

First fund drive of 2005 resulted into a phenomenal success. After all sources were added together, we had brought in the equivalent of 94,648.70 USD (26% more than our goal of 75.000 USD). Donations reached this amount in 11 days. 21% of the total (15,254.66 Euros, or 20,046.15 USD) was via Wikimedia Deutschland. For detailed fund drive statistics, see Fund drives/2005/Q1. Thank you for your generosity. Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO.

On February 22, two circuit breakers activating removed power from the Wikimedia servers and led to loss of all service for several hours, loss of editing ability for most of a day and slowness for a week. Uninterruptible power supplies could have reduced the effect of this incident but not all power incidents, because law requires an emergency power off switch and that has caused outages for other sites, most notably a recent one at LiveJournal. UPS systems for key systems will be used, if local law allows them. James Day

The foundation began its second grobal fundraising drive on February 18. It would continue till March 11 or when we reach 75,000 USD - whichever comes first after the first week. The donations exceeded its goal by 26% in 11 days. Thanks to all who donated! Details in Fund drives/2005/Q1.

The Hebrew Wikipedia received an Honor Certificate from the Israeli Internet Society and the National Society for Volunteering in Israel, in honor of its voluntary activity in the Internet for the benefit of man and society: Honor Certificate Image, in Hebrew.
The German Wikipedia reached 200,000 articles.
The Japanese Wikipedia reached 100,000 articles.
The Belarusan Wikipedia reaches 1000 articles.
The Aragonese Wikipedia reached 100 articles.
The Latvian Wikipedia reaches 1000 articles.

The Wikisource reaches 10,000 pages with Japanese language document 北海道舊土人保護法, about a Japanese law.

Polish, Portuguese, and Romanian editions of Wikinews are set up: See also Wikinews portal