I've written a standard bot policy that can be enforced on projects
that choose to do so. The idea is to create a template policy,
particularly for small communities, that simplifies and standardizes
the policy writing and bot request process.
This is particularly in response to recent discussion in
#wikimedia-stewards and on Foundation-l, like White_Cat's post at <
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-September/032740.html
>.
Comments and edits are welcome.
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
This is the official announcement for WikiSym 2007, a conference about wikis
that is now in its third year. WikiSym is different from both Wikimania and
Recent Changes Camp in that it is primarily focussed on research into wikis,
though there is also a track for open discussion and practitioner reports;
Wikimedians and Wikip/media researchers are very welcome to attend. See the
site below for more info, and please distribute to anyone who may be
interested.
-- phoebe
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
WikiSym 2007
2007 International Symposium on Wikis
Wikis at Work in the World:
Open, Organic, Participatory Media for the 21st Century
October 21-23, 2007
Palais des Congrès de Montréal
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
http://www.wikisym.org/ws2007/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Registration is now open for WikiSym 2007, convening October 21
through 23 in chic, sophisticated, metropolitan Montreal, Quebec.
**Deadline for early registration is September 13th**
NO ORDINARY CONFERENCE
WikiSym is the only international scientific conference dedicated to
wikis. It brings together wiki researchers, practitioners, and users.
The goal of the symposium is to explore and extend our growing
community. It has a rigorously reviewed research paper track as well
as plenty of space for practitioner reports, demonstrations, and open
discussions. Anyone who is involved in using, researching, or
developing wikis is invited to WikiSym 2007!
We recognize that the online world is always evolving, and therefore
welcome people interested in other online media consistent with the
wiki philosophy of being open, organic and participatory.
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
Our headline speakers this year include many of the thought leaders on
wiki. Our keynote speaker will be Jonathan Grudin (Microsoft
Research), one of the world's leading researchers on Computer
Supported Collaborative Work. Ward Cunningham (AboutUs), inventor of
wiki and founding father of our field, will give the closing talk.
Peter Thoeny (StructuredWikis), creator of TWiki, will give a half day
tutorial on wikis in the workplace.
Our program also includes two headline speakers from ooPSLA, our host
conference. Jim Purbrick and Mark Lentczner, creators of Second Life,
will talk about this collaboratively built 3D virtual world. Peter
Turchi, award-winning author of "Maps of the Imagination", will talk
about the relationships between creative writing, making maps, and
creativity.
That's just a sampling of what makes WikiSym the conference of choice
for wiki researchers.
We are proud to offer you WikiSym and look forward to sharing the
experience with you in Montréal this fall.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Co-located events:
ooPSLA 2007 (http://oopsla.org/)
DLS 2007 (http://www.swa.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/dls07/)
ISMM 2007 (http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~greg/ismm07/)
LCSD 2007 (http://lcsd.cs.tamu.edu/2007/) APL 2007
(http://www.sigapl.org/apl2007.html)
Mini PloP (http://refactory.com/OOPSLA_Workshop.html)
CompFrame 2007 (http://www.compframe.org/compframe2007/)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information and to register, go to http://www.wikisym.org/ws2007/.
Alain Désilets (National Research Council of Canada) WikiSym 2007
Conference Chair
Robert Biddle (Carleton University)
WikiSym 2007 Program Chair
Hi, again we need your help :-)
Now we have a group on Flickr where people can express why they love the
wikimedia projects - more about this here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/WikiLove_campaign
We need the translation of a short text (see link above) in the
following languages:
* English (well that is of course already done - it is just for
completion)
* French
* German
* Italian
* Korean
* Portuguese
* Spanish
* Traditional Chinese
It would be great if some of you could help :-) and maybe pass the
information on to the relevant Village Pumps and discussion lists.
Thank you!!!
Sabine
*****
Sabine Cretella
PM Fundraiser 2007
scretella(a)wikimedia.org
skype:sabinecretella
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:SabineCretella
All,
I'd like to congratulate the entire Wikinews community for passing
another threshold as today the English edition of Wikinews created our
10,000th article. While the total article count is not nearly as
important to a news site which depends on the flow of articles more
than the total volume of content, this is still a significant symbolic
figure and one that we are very proud of.
With about 10 articles published per day on average, about 17,000
users, almost 20 average edits per article, and somewhat under three
years under our belt, we've managed to build a wealth of news content
available to the world under a free license. We focus on synthesizing
free-content versions of news that is reported elsewhere, as well as
using our community to create original reporting not available
anywhere else.
Throughout the years we've remained somewhat different from a lot of
other similar projects. Within the Wikimedia family we are the only
project that depends on continued story flow rather than just being
able to be built up over time. We are also the only site with an
explicit goal and mandate to publish original reporting and research,
yet still staying subject to the NPOV and other core Wikimedia values.
We also try to connect ourselves with the outside world: we allow
trusted members to become "accredited reporters", we invite
collaboration with sites that want to mirror or use our content, and
even invite folks to call in on our telephone hotline.
Outside of Wikimedia, we are one of the larger citizen journalism
websites in terms of visits and users. Unlike most sites, we do not
allow editorial content and stick to newswire-style reporting; unlike
almost all sites, all content is licensed for unrestricted use subject
only to attribution. Unlike almost all other citizen journalism
sites, we do not allow ownership or authorship of articles: they are
owned by the wiki, and no single person is on the by-line of our
articles. All said, these modes of operation are unique within the
citizen journalism space and create both opportunities and challenges
as we continue to grow.
Wikinews still has a lot to learn and a lot to do. We are still
struggling to grow our story flow; we are not as widely read or
respected as we think we should be; we have trouble with using
MediaWiki at times since the platform wasn't really developed for a
news site. We have challenges in integrating into the larger
framework of citizen journalism, in part since we do not allow the
opinionated, POV content that drives a good subset of other citizen
news efforts. We are still not getting the level of crossover from
Wikipedia that we probably should be getting.
Yet we are very hopeful and enthusiastic about our future. We are
getting some technical changes in place to make our site a lot more
lively, interactive, and useful. We are looking forward to Single
User Login helping increase Wikipedia-to-Wikinews crossover. We are
reaching out to other sites that share our mission and are trying to
establish collaborative efforts to help us grow and help Wikimedia
fulfill its mission.
So please join me in congratulating the Wikinews community, and indeed
the entire Wikimedia community, for helping us reach this milestone.
It may seem symbolic, but for us Wikinewsies it is definitely worth a
celebration.
-ilya haykinson
fwd'ed from wikipedia-l. I can vouch for the Davis Wiki -- it really is an
amazing local resource, and is a nice example of people using a wiki for
sharing information. They have very different principles from our projects
(reviews are ok, NOR is not a relevant concept) but they ended up with a
friendly, community-oriented, very detailed encyclopedic resource of
information about a small town, that is deeply rooted in the town's existing
culture. If anyone is interesting in starting a wiki for your own town, I'd
encourage checking out Philip's new venture, which I think has a lot of
promise for building online communities around physical places.
-- phoebe
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Philip Neustrom <philipn(a)gmail.com>
Date: Sep 4, 2007 7:58 PM
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wiki Spot project
To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
I wanted to let folks on this list know about a new, milti-community
wiki project I've been involved with called Wiki Spot
(http://wikispot.org). We are a non-profit organization that aims to
help communities use and maintain wikis, interconnect wikis where it
makes sense, promote the adoption of wikis as a tool for enriching
communities, and generally provide a trusted, non-commercial home to
community wikis.
Philosophically, our drive lines up very closely with the Wikimedia
Foundation: we are dedicated to free software and release all of our
code under free licenses and we strongly encourage the use of various
free-content licenses. What is very different is the scope and range
of the communities we provide a home to.
Wiki Spot grew out of the Davis Wiki project (http://daviswiki.org),
which has had an amazing an unexpected impact on the local community
of Davis, California.
The Davis Wiki won an award from the Davis City Council
(http://daviswiki.org/Thong_H._Huynh_Awards#2007) for our work in
community involvement -- an award usually reserved for traditional
media like radio and tv stations. We've helped people find their lost
pets (http://daviswiki.org/Lost_Pets), find the best bathrooms in town
(http://daviswiki.org/Bathrooms), documented urban art
(http://daviswiki.org/Urban_Art), been the host of countless local
political debates, thrown parties
(http://daviswiki.org/Davis_Wiki_Wacky_Woo_1), and done lots of other
crazy and amazing things as a community.
With Wiki Spot, we want to provide a safe place for other communities
to easily do the same kind of things we've been doing, because we
truly believe in the power of local community wikis.
Anyway, I encourage you to get involved and help out if this sounds
like something you might be interested in.
Best,
Philip Neustrom
http://wikispot.orghttp://daviswiki.org
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Software_Policy_Draft
(Permalink to original:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Software_Policy_Draft&oldid=661…
)
This is a first modest draft for a software policy for WMF projects.
It's an attempt to codify our existing practices re: free file formats
& open source software. I'd appreciate feedback & edits. If we can end
up with something that makes sense, I'll put it to a Board vote.
--
Toward Peace, Love & Progress:
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
This seems to apply to the whole Foundation, so I am cross-posting here.
____________________
Mitch D. (Greeves on all English Wikimedia projects)
-----Original Message-----
From: wikimediameta-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikimediameta-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Slim
Virgin
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 10:25 PM
To: wikimediameta-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Wikimediameta-l] Wikimedia and cyberstalking
I'm writing a paper on cyberstalking and harassment, which I hope to
hand to the Foundation with a view to educating people about the
extent of the problem on the Wikimedia projects, and if possible
improving their responses to it.
I'd like to include some concrete examples of cyberstalking or offline
stalking that have happened to users as a result of their
participation in any of the Wikimedia projects, and particularly where
the target was picked on because they were an administrator.
If you've been a target of this yourself, or if you know of anyone who
has, I'd appreciate hearing from you at slimvirgin at gmail dot com.
All replies will be received in strictest confidence. Your name would
not have to be included in the final document, and if you're worried
about being exposed in any way, I can change all identifying details.
Nothing will be included about you without your express permission.
What I'm most interested in hearing about is how the cyberstalking or
harassment made you feel, and what happened when you tried to find
support. I'd like to hear about your fears; whether it made you
anxious; whether it affected your sleep or appetite, or your health in
any other way; and whether you considered ending your association with
the project you were involved in (or did end it). Even if your fears
felt completely irrational, I'd like to hear about them.
I'd also like to hear from women who feel they were subjected to
additional harassment because of their sex, or from gays and members
of ethnic minorities who feel they were picked on in whole or in part
because of that.
Many thanks,
Sarah
_______________________________________________
Wikimediameta-l mailing list
Wikimediameta-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediameta-l
On 8/26/07, Ed Brown <ed.brown(a)wikinewsie.org> wrote:
>
> notafishz raises the question of whether WikiMedia/Wikinews should "fork"
> into several different directions, or try to retain some central edit
> consistency and a focal point on the Main. I am totally against "forking"
> and splintering off. Focus under those circumstances would be lost, and with
> that, the impact that a central place for reporting accords.
>
> Accommodation of the special interests seems to me to best route, and by
> that I mean pages that are not NPOV. The good stuff makes Main Page. The
> other stuff hasn't found a place yet.... that's the challenge for Wikinews.
>
> Yes, we understand how participation improves an article. Lacking
> participation, we also understand how the lack of it does not diminish the
> news value of it. The trouble is how to deal with it in an inclusive manner.
It is interesting how my email has been interpreted. I never meant to
say or even hint at the fact that Wikinews should lose any kind of
focus, or any kind of principles (that of NPOV etc.). Never ever. I
meant to say that Wikinewsies may find out there in the wide wide
world people who are like minded and share the same kind of values,
and that those could make good people to partner with.
In the end, I must say that I am a bit disappointed at the reactions
about "finding" other people to partner with. Too many answers, to my
liking, were along the lines "but we are the only ones like that".
Well, guess what? I don't think so.
I am sure that there are journalists out there who would love to work
on a wiki. Or who wold love to be bound by a NPOV rile. Or even both.
They just never came across either of these tools/principles. A
reaching-out organisation would, in my opinion, be of greater benefit
than one that's navel gazing and working only towards its own good
(and I know, this is a bit caricatural, and not what has been
expressed by "everyone"). And for example, its goal could then be
"bring NPOV to the news!", which is far broader to start with than
"let's work on Wikinews". At least, I think.
In short, I was not trying to change Wikinews, but rather trying to
explore possibilities of it bringing its principles out in the world.
Delphine
--
~notafish
La critique, art aisé, se doit d'être constructive. -- Boris Vian in
*Chroniques du menteur*
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.
Thank you all for your advice about the WikiCurriculum Project. Feedback
has been quite positive and helpful, and the majority opinion seems to be
that the project should be somehow integrated into Wikiversity.
I have decided to host the project elsewhere. The new project wiki can be
found at http://www.mathweb.org/wiki/Faceted_Curriculum_Project
While it was tempting to try to integrate the project into Wikiversity, I am
able to use semantic mediawiki at the new site, and the mathweb site also
integrates some new math-specific technology that I am interested in.
I certainly appreciate any feedback, and please follow the project at its
new home if you are interested.
I have placed a message on the WikiCurriculum meta page, announcing this
closure. Please feel free to close down that project -- it is now redundant
and out of date.. let me know if there is anything else that I should do.
Thank you very much,
Marty Weissman