Wikimedia-l May 2009

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

122 participants
65 discussions

[Foundation-l] Fwd: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
by GerardM 09 Aug '22

09 Aug '22

Hoi, I have asked and received permission to forward to you all this most excellent bit of news. The linguist list, is a most excellent resource for people interested in the field of linguistics. As I mentioned some time ago they have had a funding drive and in that funding drive they asked for a certain amount of money in a given amount of days and they would then have a project on Wikipedia to learn what needs doing to get better coverage for the field of linguistics. What you will read in this mail that the total community of linguists are asked to cooperate. I am really thrilled as it will also get us more linguists interested in what we do. My hope is that a fraction will be interested in the languages that they care for and help it become more relevant. As a member of the "language prevention committee", I love to get more knowledgeable people involved in our smaller projects. If it means that we get more requests for more projects we will really feel embarrassed with all the new projects we will have to approve because of the quality of the Incubator content and the quality of the linguistic arguments why we should approve yet another language :) NB Is this not a really clever way of raising money; give us this much in this time frame and we will then do this as a bonus... Thanks, GerardM ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: LINGUIST Network <linguist(a)linguistlist.org> Date: Jun 18, 2007 6:53 PM Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers To: LINGUIST(a)listserv.linguistlist.org LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831. Mon Jun 18 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875. Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar(a)linguistlist.org> Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry(a)linguistlist.org> Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project <reviews(a)linguistlist.org> Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/ The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, and donations from subscribers and publishers. Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyer(a)linguistlist.org> ================================================================ To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html ===========================Directory============================== 1) Date: 18-Jun-2007 From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org > Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers -------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:49:35 From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org > Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers Dear subscribers, As you may recall, one of our Fund Drive 2007 campaigns was called the "Wikipedia Update Vote." We asked our viewers to consider earmarking their donations to organize an update project on linguistics entries in the English-language Wikipedia. You can find more background information on this at: http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/wikipedia/index.cfm. The speed with which we met our goal, thanks to the interest and generosity of our readers, was a sure sign that the linguistics community was enthusiastic about the idea. Now that summer is upon us, and some of you may have a bit more leisure time, we are hoping that you will be able to help us get started on the Wikipedia project. The LINGUIST List's role in this project is a purely organizational one. We will: *Help, with your input, to identify major gaps in the Wikipedia materials or pages that need improvement; *Compile a list of linguistics pages that Wikipedia editors have identified as "in need of attention from an expert on the subject" or " does not cite any references or sources," etc; *Send out periodical calls for volunteer contributors on specific topics or articles; *Provide simple instructions on how to upload your entries into Wikipedia; *Keep track of our project Wikipedians; *Keep track of revisions and new entries; *Work with Wikimedia Foundation to publicize the linguistics community's efforts. We hope you are as enthusiastic about this effort as we are. Just to help us all get started looking at Wikipedia more critically, and to easily identify an area needing improvement, we suggest that you take a look at the List of Linguists page at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguists. M Many people are not listed there; others need to have more facts and information added. If you would like to participate in this exciting update effort, please respond by sending an email to LINGUIST Editor Hannah Morales at hannah(a)linguistlist.org, suggesting what your role might be or which linguistics entries you feel should be updated or added. Some linguists who saw our campaign on the Internet have already written us with specific suggestions, which we will share with you soon. This update project will take major time and effort on all our parts. The end result will be a much richer internet resource of information on the breadth and depth of the field of linguistics. Our efforts should also stimulate prospective students to consider studying linguistics and to educate a wider public on what we do. Please consider participating. Sincerely, Hannah Morales Editor, Wikipedia Update Project Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable ----------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831

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[Foundation-l] Ancient Greek reconstructed an analysis of a proposal for a new Wikipedia
by Gerard Meijssen 20 Sep '11

20 Sep '11

Hoi, There is a request for a Wikipedia in Ancient Greek. This request has so far been denied. A lot of words have been used about it. Many people maintain their positions and do not for whatever reason consider the arguments of others. In my opinion their are a few roadblocks. - Ancient Greek is an ancient language - the policy does not allow for it - Text in ancient Greek written today about contemporary subjects require the reconstruction of Ancient Greek. - it requires the use of existing words for concepts that did not exist at the time when the language was alive - neologisms will be needed to describe things that did not exist at the time when the language was alive - modern texts will not represent the language as it used to be - Constructed and by inference reconstructed languages are effectively not permitted We can change the policy if there are sufficient arguments, when we agree on a need. When a text is written in reconstructed ancient Greek, and when it is clearly stated that it is NOT the ancient Greek of bygone days, it can be obvious that it is a great tool to learn skills to read and write ancient Greek but that it is in itself not Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek as a language is ancient. I have had a word with people who are involved in the working group that deals with the ISO-639, I have had a word with someone from SIL and it is clear that a proposal for a code for "Ancient Greek reconstructed" will be considered for the ISO-639-3. For the ISO-639-6 a code is likely to be given because a clear use for this code can be given. We can apply for a code and as it has a use bigger then Wikipedia alone it clearly has merit. With modern texts clearly labelled as distinct from the original language, it will be obvious that innovations a writers needs for his writing are legitimate. This leaves the fact that constructed and reconstructed languages are not permitted because of the notion that mother tongue users are required. In my opinion, this has always been only a gesture to those people who are dead set against any and all constructed languages. In the policies there is something vague "*it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language subcommittee <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_subcommittee>)."* It is vague because even though the policy talks about a discussion, it is killed off immediately by stating "The proposal has a sufficient number of living native speakers to form a viable community and audience." In my opinion, this discussion for criteria for the acceptance of constructed or reconstructed languages has not happened. Proposals for objective criteria have been ignored. In essence, to be clear about it: - We can get a code for reconstructed languages. - We need to change the policy to allow for reconstructed and constructed languages We need to do both in order to move forward. The proposal for objective criteria for constructed and reconstructed languages is in a nutshell: - The language must have an ISO-639-3 code - We need full WMF localisation from the start - The language must be sufficiently expressive for writing a modern encyclopaedia - The Incubator project must have sufficiently large articles that demonstrate both the language and its ability to write about a wide range of topics - A sufficiently large group of editors must be part of the Incubator project Thanks, GerardM

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[Foundation-l] Hungarian Wikinews licence
by Bence Damokos 21 Jul '09

21 Jul '09

Dear All,Sorry for bringing up a possibly old and closed issue, but could someone explain to me that why was the GFDL with a possible migration to CC-BY-SA 3.0 or later[1[ chosen as the site license for the Hungarian (and I guess some others as well, created at the same time) Wikinews? Wasn't the CC-BY used by the older Wikinewses a deliberate decision to give Wikinews an extra opennes and connectivity with other news outlets (I personally see a bigger chance for some newsproducer agreeing to license their work under either CC-BY or less likely CC-BY-SA than GFDL or even GFDL with a possible migration)? Is the current license compatible with Wikipedia (I am thinking that the added migration clause makes the project incompatible with GFDL sites that are not also double licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 or later)? Thanks, Bence Damokos [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Licensing_clause_for_new_wikis

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[Foundation-l] Call for volunteers: 2009-2010 Audit Committee
by Stu West 20 Jul '09

20 Jul '09

As many of you know, the Foundation has an Audit Committee which represents the Board in oversight of financial and accounting issues, including planning, reporting, audits, and internal controls (see http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Audit_committee for details). The Committee typically serves for one year, starting in May/June and ending a year later when the Foundation files its annual tax return in the U.S. (the IRS Form 990). For the past year, the committee has consisted of two Board members (Michael Snow and me as Committee chair) and one long-serving and incredibly helpful community member, Ad Huikeshoven. We've recently started forming the 2009-2010 Audit Committee, and the current team has generously agreed to serve another year. We are keenly interested in increasing community participation. The time commitment is modest, as far as Wikimedia goes: review the Foundation's general financial practices and draft financial statements/filings, and then participate in three or four conference calls during the year with the staff and our independent auditors, KPMG. The one requirement for membership is "financial literacy", usually some kind of professional experience with finance, accounting or audit. If you're interested in serving on the Committee, please email us at audit-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org and let us know how you think you could contribute. Thanks. -s =========================== Stu West Wikimedia Foundation Trustee & Board Treasurer stu <mailto:stu@wikimedia.org> <at> wikimedia.org [User:Stu]

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[Foundation-l] Goodbye
by Michael Bimmler 16 Jun '09

16 Jun '09

Dear all, I would like to use this opportunity to say "Goodbye" to all of you, because my involvement with Wikimedia is now coming to an end. I could make this a long email, taking about my time here and giving my opinion and advice about the state and future of the Wikimedia movement, but I'd like to keep this fairly short and simple -- many of you have already received epic emails from me, you don't need another one ;-) Suffice to say, that the slightly more than 5 years that I have now been involved as non-anonymous participant in Wikipedia and Wikimedia have been very interesting to say the least - certainly a personal benefit for me, albeit one with ups and downs. In this comparably short time span, I saw the foundation mature from a rather abstract concept to a working and professionally staffed NGO with a broad networks of chapters all around the globe and I have learnt a lot in this process. I have thought long about whether I should remain involved with Wikimedia (I originally only resigned from Wikimedia CH because I am no longer in Switzerland since April and do not foresee being there other than for vacation in the next couple of years), but I decided in the end that I prefer a clear cut from everything, rather than just somewhat reducing my activity, and this year being for me personally the start of a new era anyways (new university, new country of residence etc.), it seems quite fitting to move on and start new pastimes, spend my time on new things. The little formalities: My tenure with Wikimedia CH ends on Wednesday, May 27th - my ChapCom and list admin positions end at the end of May and in general, I am fine with having all my access privileges (accounts on non-public wikis, list subscriptions etc.) removed or closed per the end of May. I wish you all the best -- from now on, I will again rely on what I read about Wikimedia's fate in the media, albeit taking it with a pinch of salt... Goodbye! Yours truly, Michael -- Michael Bimmler mbimmler(a)gmail.com

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[Foundation-l] Google Wave and Wikimedia projects
by Milos Rancic 04 Jun '09

04 Jun '09

Probably, some of you already saw that Google made something for which I think that it will be the new form of the mainstream Internet perception. You may read Slashdot article [1], a good description at the blog "Google Operating System" [2] (not officially connected with Google) and, of course, you may see the official site with more than one hour of presentation [3]. I expected such kind of tool (a client connected with others via P2P XML-based protocol; with servers for identification). However, I didn't expect that i will come so soon, that it will be done by one large corporation and that it will be done at the right way: open protocol, free software referent implementation. At the official site they said that it will start to work during this year. As one large corporation is behind the project, as well as free and open source community is able to participate, I have no doubts that it will be implemented all over the Internet (and not just Internet) very quickly. Probably, in two years the basic component of one modern operating system will not be a Web browser, but a Wave client. Probably, Web will become a storage system, while all of the interaction will be done via Waves. This development of Internet is very strongly related to the Wikimedia projects: * I want to be able to edit Wikipedia through the Wave client. * I want to add my own notes to articles, history of articles etc. * I want to have collection of my knowledge at one place, including Wikipedia articles and my notes. * I want to be able to make a program which would analyze articles on Wikipedia and to give program and/or analysis to my friends. * I want many more things to be browsable or editable or whatever from a Wave client... All of those my (but, in one year, not just my) wishes may be fulfilled just through work on MediaWiki and Pywikipediabot. So, I am calling all of you who are willing to think about it or who are at the position to think about it -- to start with thinking :) [1] - http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/1912226/Googles-Wave-Blurs-Chat-Ema… [2] - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/05/google-wave.html [3] - http://wave.google.com/

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[Foundation-l] One Wikipedia Per Person (regarding the distribution of and the ability to read Wikipedia)
by Brian 02 Jun '09

02 Jun '09

Given currently existing technology, and technology that we can reasonably assume to be available within the next decade, how can the WMF best achieve its goal of giving every person free access to our current best summary of all human knowledge? Consider that Google Translate has the best machine translation corpus, consisting not only of the Internet but also all United Nations translations and many other datasets. It is the closest existing thing to a Babelfish, now supporting 41 languages and winning all translation competitions for several years. It will continue to be the best for the foreseeable future. Consider that 75% of the world is not online and that there may be a way to beat market forces in the race to getting free Internet access to every person by literally giving Wikipedia to every person instead, offline. Our current micro-content distribution model would be sufficient if everyone had access to the Internet. They don't so it's not. Consider that the money the WMF could potentially raise through competitive market forces (the OLPC way) may lag behind the money they can raise through their idealistic goals, uncompromised values and principles, and smart ideas. This money can be used to give copies of the entirety of Wikipedia away. Consider that access to Wikipedia does not require readability proper (beautiful prose), just the ability to comprehend the information, and just barely. The human brain is the most powerful translator in existence, we just have to meet said brain halfway. We may see a meta language in our lifetimes but not within the next decade. The current best meta language is a set of fuzzy translations that are a function of the size of the source and target language corpuses. I propose a cheap cellphone-sized device (OWPP) whose only purpose is to read Wikipedia. The WMF teams up with Google to obtain CC-BY-SA translations from all supported source languages to all supported target languages. The device holds just one copy of all of the Wikipedia's in a single target language. The technical specifications of such a device allow for it to be extremely cheap. Let's let those of us fortunate enough to have access to the Internet write an encyclopedia and give it to those who are not, sooner rather than later. Brian

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[Foundation-l] getting Wikipedia to the 5.2 billion people who can't access it
by Anthony 31 May '09

31 May '09

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 9:33 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu> wrote: > How does Google Wave help the WMF achieve its goals? Not sure, it doesn't really exist yet. I'm sure there will be numerous ways in which it can do it, though. Wikipedia has already become a dominant information source for the 1.5 > billion people with Internet access thanks to Google. > How does being a dominant information source for people help the WMF achieve its goals? We need to focus on getting Wikipedia to the 5.2 billion people who can't > access it. > Indeed. What languages do these 5.2 billion people speak? Are they connected to the Internet? If not, what's stopping them? Do they have a telephone, a computer, electricity, television, running water? If not, what is stopping them from being able to get these things? Are the problems things that are well geared toward the expertise of the WMF, or are we better off letting other non-profits with more specialized expertise fix them? Personally, I didn't even know the number was 5.2 billion. Should I do this further research myself, or can someone answer these questions for me?

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[Foundation-l] Information about 2009 Board of Trustees election
by philippe 30 May '09

30 May '09

Information concerning the election rules, candidacy, and suffrage/ voting requirements for the 2009 election to the Board of Trustees is now posted at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/en. I have copied it below, but for the wiki-links to work, you will - of course - need to be on meta. For the election committee, Philippe ________________________ The 2009 elections to the Board of Trustees will be held between August 3rd and August 10th 2009. Members of the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to elect one candidate to a two-year term which will expire in 2011. The Board of Trustees is the ultimate governing authority of the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered in the United States. The Wikimedia Foundation manages many diverse projects such as Wikipedia and Commons. The elections will be held securely on servers belonging to an independent third party (to be confirmed). Votes are secret and are only visible to the select few persons who audit and tally the election. Voters will submit ranked preferences by numbering candidates. The votes will be tallied using the Schulze methodto rank candidates based on the number of voters who prefer that candidate over other candidates. The Election Committee intends to announce the results on or before August 12th. Detailed results will be available. All times on this page are 00:00 (midnight) UTC. Contents [hide] 1 Information for voters 1.1 Requirements 1.2 How to vote 2 Information for candidates 2.1 Responsibilities as member of the Board 2.2 Prerequisites to candidacy 2.3 How to submit your candidacy 3 Organization 3.1 Time line 3.2 Translators [edit]Information for voters [edit]Requirements You may vote from any one registered account you own on a Wikimedia wiki (you may only vote once, regardless of how many accounts you own). To qualify, this one account must: not be blocked; and not be a bot; and have made at least 600 edits before 01 June 2009 across across Wikimedia wikis (edits on several wikis can be combined if your accounts are unified into a global account); and have made at least 50 edits between 01 January and 1 July 2009. Special exceptions: the following may vote regardless of the above requirements: Wikimedia server administrators with shell access; paid staff of the Wikimedia Foundation who started working at the office before 01 March 2009; current or former members of the Board of Trustees. [edit]How to vote If you are eligible to vote: Read the candidate presentations and decide which candidates you will support. Go to the wiki page "Special:Securepoll" on one wiki you qualify to vote from. For example, if you are most active on the wiki meta.wikimedia.org/, go to meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Securepoll. Follow the instructions on that page. [edit]Information for candidates A detailed description of the responsibilities of a member of the Board can be found at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_member. [edit]Responsibilities as member of the Board Being a Board member of a small organization like the Wikimedia Foundation, which faces immense challenges, can be time-consuming. The position is voluntary and unpaid. While board members are not expected to bring personal money to the organisation, they are welcome to help raise funds. Board members are expected to attend at least 3–4 meetings per year in person, attend Wikimania (our annual conference), and attend other scheduled online meetings and votes. The Board communicates intensively via e-mail, wiki, and IRC. Individual trustees sometimes participate in strategic meetings with other organizations and companies, relaying results back to Board and staff. Individual board members are expected to be involved in certain activities (such as fundraising, Wikimania, or auditing) and to help draft policies, charters and resolutions on such topics. Because Board members owe duties by virtue of their position, candidates who currently hold paid positions with the Wikimedia Foundation must resign from those position before they can be appointed to the Board of Trustees. This is to avoid potential conflicts of interests. [edit]Prerequisites to candidacy To be eligible as a candidate, you must: have made at least 600 edits before 01 March 2009 on any one registered account (edits on several wikis can be combined if your accounts are unified into a global account); and have made at least 50 edits between 01 January and 01 July 2009; and publicly disclose your real name in your candidate presentation (because the identities of Board members are a matter of public record, it is not possible to hold a position on the Board of Trustees anonymously or under a pseudonym); and be at least 18 years old and of legal age in your home country. Special exceptions: current members of the Board of Trustees may be candidates regardless of the above requirements. [edit]How to submit your candidacy If you are eligible, you can submit your candidacy by doing the following: Write a brief summary of no more than 1200 characters stating what you would do if you were elected to the Board of Trustees, your relevant opinions and experience, and anything else you think is relevant. You may not use your candidate summary to link to lists of endorsements or other platform pages, and may not run on a slate with other candidates. Submit your summary between 00:00, 06 July 2009 (UTC) and 23:59, 20 July 2009 (UTC). After July 20, it cannot be changed except for minor corrections or translation. Any additions submitted after this deadline will be time-stamped and presented separately from the original summary, and will only be presented to voters if they get translated into all of the same languages as the original summary. Submit proof of your identity to Cary Bass (Volunteer Coordinator) before 20 July 2009. You will be privately contacted by a member of the Election Committee with further information about meeting this requirement when you list yourself as a candidate. Candidates who fail to comply with the above requirements and deadlines will be disqualified. [edit]Organization [edit]Time line 01–30 June 2009: primary translation phase; subcommittee actively coordinates and promotes translation. 06–20 July 2009: candidate submissions. 20 July 2009: deadline to send proof of identity (late or missing submissions will be disqualified). 03–10 August 2009: elections. 10–12 August 2009: vote-checking. 12 August 2009: publication of results. [edit]Translators To ensure that a representative cross-section of the Wikimedia community takes part in this election, it is important to translate election notices and candidate statements into as many languages as possible. To help translate, please see the translation page.

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[Foundation-l] Google Chrome to support Ogg Theora video natively
by Kat Walsh 30 May '09

30 May '09

Another step towards an open web -- Google's Chrome browser is going to support Theora video natively with the HTML5 video tag: http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/05/google-chrome-3-adds-html5.html http://codereview.chromium.org/115625/diff/1/2 (Mozilla has already committed to this--and funded some of our development of video support also!--and it looks like Opera will as well. Video site Dailymotion is now using open video as well: http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=1312 ) If it weren't for Wikimedia using it, this work probably wouldn't have gone into enabling native browser support for it. So thanks to all for your work on this. :-) Cheers, Kat -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: kat(a)wikimedia.org * Personal: kat(a)mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone

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