Wikizine/Welcome email text file

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                                    .org 
Date: Today         Special Edition        

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An independent internal news bulletin 
for the members of the Wikimedia community

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=== Community ===

[Wikizine] has today a new subscriber to our little newsletter. Welcome!
http://www.wikizine.org

=== About Wikizine ===

From now on you will receive frequently your copy of Wikizine. In general there is a new Wikizine every week. But if there is to few news the name "news" wordy or when the editor-in-chief is on holiday or just plain lazy it can be that we skip a week.

Wikizine is typically sent on Monday. But it can also be Sunday or Tuesday be when you get it. 

There are four types of Wikizine that you can receive;
* The normal weekly one
* A "tech flash"; when there is urgent and important technical news (very rare)
* A "Extra edition"; when there is big news to report that can not wait for the normal edition (rare)
* A "Special edition"; for lengthy communications about Wikizine itself. (very rare)

Wikizine attempts to bring an overview of the news within the large Wikimedia community across the languages and projects. This is not a Wikimedia Foundation publication, it is editorial independent. The neutral point of view (NPOV) is not a guideline of Wikizine. To bring you in a fair way the most relevant community news is.

=== For who ===

Everybody is free to subscribe! But Wikizine is not written to entertain you but to inform you. Every wiki has some people who are long time users. Those are likely sysop or bureaucrats there. Those users form the core of a project. The main focus of Wikizine is for those group of users. Not to technical but also not for the newbie. It is in general for experienced users who are interested what is going on outside there own project but are not interested to send every week a couple of hours to look in all the corners of Wikimedia-world to find that out.

=== Spread the word ===

You (will) read Wikizine. Great, good choice. You will be informed. But most of the other people on your wiki will not read Wikizine. Possibly because Wikizine is in English and, very understandable, only a few of your home Wiki can read that. The reason that Wikizine is in English is because this gives the best hope that as many people as possibly from different languages will be able to read it. Not because English is "better" or so. It is a practical thing.

If you are from a smaller project there is a good change that you community is more isolated form the larger Wikimedia-community because to the language barrier. Please, please, please act as a bridge and inform your local community about the news that you read in Wizine. 

You can make a complete translation; make a page on you wiki and translate Wikizine every week. That would be great but also a lot of work. And possibly for very few readers. Probably you can suffice by only translate certain fragments that seem to you the most relevant and put those on you local announcement page. Any way of information flow to the non-English speaking wikis is very useful to hold the community across the languages together.

=== How you can help Wikizine ===

You are part of the Wikimedia-community and so are the people writing Wikizine. You know things that other people may not know. That is the foundation of the Wikimedia-projects; people sharing there knowledge. So is it is also for Wikizine. You will notice the news in Wikizine frequently about Wikipedia and especially about the English language version. The reason is that it is easy find out what is going on there. 

If there is interesting news to tell about some smaller project, and most of the Wikimedia projects are small, then it is not likely that Wikizine will find out about if nobody comes to tell about it.

So again, please please please if you have news about your home Wiki share it with Wikizine. You will get credit for it :-)

The existing of Wikizine is still not know by many. So you can also help to expand the reader base by putting a banner on your userpage. Or even see of your community has not problem to include a banner on a public page.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/banners

If you have questions please contact Wikzine.

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Number of subscribers: +1
Editor(s): Walter
E-mail: ihavenews AT wikizine DOT org
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Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy.
Wikizine.org is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. 
Publisher:[[meta:user:Walter]]