Hi all,
It is proposed that Kurdish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_language)
wikipedia (ku.wikipedia) be renamed to Kurmanji wikipedia (kmr.wikipedia) as
currently ku.wikipedia predominantly hosts a single dialect which is
Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish. Local community oppose the proposal so far.
I'd like to explain some background behind the proposal. Kurdish wikipedia
had been hosting multiple dialects since its creation. The three main
dialects (in terms of article count) have been Zazaki (1.5–2.5 million
speakers), Sorani (5 million speakers) and Kurmanji (9 million speakers).
Zazaki is only mentioned here because it was hosted by Kurdish wikipedia at
some point. Zazaki's language family is controversial as some sources put it
as a dialect of Kurdish while others disagree with this. While details
surrounding the linguistic properties are irrelevant for this proposal,
the controversy itself is relevant.
Kurdish as a language has no standard from and the ISO considers ku (kur) to
be a language code for a macro-language for multiple dialects. Furthermore
said dialects are mutually unintelligible (per first Google hit:
http://www.thefellowship.info/Missions/Global-Missions/People-Groups/Kurds)
with multiple different types of scripts such as Sorani using rtl Arabic
script and Kurmanji using ltr latin script and are different in both grammar
and vocabulary. In addition Sorani is the only dialect used officially in
north of Iraq by the Kurdistan Regional Government and is not the most
common dialect of Kurdish (according to Wikipedia anyways).
- Zazaki dialect separated from Kurdish Wikipedia on 5 January 2007 with
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Zazaki
and
had been steadily having an increase in article count and will seemingly
overtake ku.wikipedia soon enough.
- Sorani dialect has seperated from Kurdish wikipedia on 14 November
2010 with
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Kurdish…
and
has steady contribution despite being a very recently created wiki.
- Minor dialects (in terms of article count) hosted by Kurdish wikipedia
already have their relevant incubator pages with Southern Kurdish created
on 29 October 2009 (http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/sdh)
and Kirmanjki created on 30 July 2008 (
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kiu).
Currently ku.wikipedia has very few tagged articles in non-Kurmanji
dialects:
-
http://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taybet:WhatLinksHere/%C5%9Eablon:Soran%C3%AE6
Sorani uses - There is a Sorani wikipedia
-
http://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taybet:WhatLinksHere/%C5%9Eablon:Bi_kurdiya_ba…
Southern Kurdish uses - There is an incubator entry for Southern
Kurdish
-
http://ku.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taybet:WhatLinksHere/%C5%9Eablon:…
Zazaki uses - There is a Zazaki wikipedia
By keeping ku.wikipedia with its ku language code we are:
- Implying Kurmanji as the "official" dialect of Kurdish with the Kurdish
macro-language code
- Implying Sorani as the lesser dialect when in fact it is the only
official one.
- Implying Zazaki to be a Kurdish dialect which Zazaki community
opposes fiercely as evident in closed language proposal of Zazaki of 2007.
- Confusing the reader whom visits ku.wikipedia only to find Kurdish
articles they cannot read unless they use Kurmanji dialect (only half of
Kurdish speakers know Kurmanji if you add up the numbers for all other
dialects).
- I'd like to highlight one remark from Sorani wiki proposal page: "Even
though both "Kurmanj" and "Sorani" are subgroups (accent) of Kurdish
language, they can cause of misunderstanding and misinterpretation for
people who speak the language with these accents to each other. This can
happen in different situations. For instance during regular conversations,
or reading/understanding complex and professional contents.In general,
"Kurmanj" and "Sorani" are not useful to each other since misinterpretation
is so high while they are used in different places. --Marmzok 11 April 2009"
- This is the problem the reader deals on an article by article basis unless
they know the existence of Sorani wikipedia.
Relevant meta discussion is here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Ku…
Might I remind that "The committee does not consider political differences,
since the Wikimedia Foundation's goal is to give every single person free,
unbiased access to the sum of all human knowledge, rather than information
from the viewpoint of individual political communities." (
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy#Requisites).
Therefore political arguments including the ones in the meta discussion are
irrelevant.
- とある白い猫 (To Aru Shiroi Neko)
> From: Nikola Smolenski <smolensk(a)eunet.rs>
> On 22/09/11 10:12, Andrea Zanni wrote:
>> when Sue presented us the Strategic Plan and Wikipedia was all over the
>> pages,
>> but none of the sister projects.
>
> I have to say, whenever I make a presentation of Wikimedia and mention
> sister projects, all I get is blank stares. It really makes sense to
> focus on Wikipedia in outreach activities.
Um… no. That means it really makes sense to talk about the sister projects more than just mentioning them, as they are clearly in more need of outreach than Wikipedia with that audience…
I often briefly describe the sister projects when I'm doing Wikipedia outreach - and quite often see people making comments on twitter etc. as a result about how they didn't know about a particular project, and were going to take a look at it (and hopefully go on to contribute to it…)
Mike
I'd caution against putting too much faith in those raw numbers without a
clear understanding of what they mean. They can make sense comparing
different language editions of the same project, but comparing different
projects is apples and oranges. For instance, some months ago I was doing
some research and I found that for Wikisource it doesn't count the "Page"
and "Index" namespaces as "articles", even though that's where the bulk of
the content generation is taking place these days.
This might have since been fixed, and I'm sure that you (Phillipe) are aware
of it, I just wanted to jump in before someone started complaining that
Wikinews is only a certain unimpressive %age of where Wikipedia was at the
same point.
Cheers,
Craig
Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:49:01 -0700
> From: Philippe Beaudette <philippe(a)wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Minor projects withering and dying?
> Really?
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAPb+kY-o0e0fqgnf0LbwLsbogFO6y5w+2wQ-gqy1a4t013_mzA(a)mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-2022-JP
>
> Usage statistics alone, I would agree with you.
>
> But stats can tell so much more than just what you get from usage stats.
> For instance:
> http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikinews/EN/ChartsWikipediaEN.htm (be
> sure to scroll all the way to the right).
> ___________________
> Philippe Beaudette
> Head of Reader Relations
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> 415-839-6885, x 6643
>
> philippe(a)wikimedia.org
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 11:51 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
> wrote:
>
> > On 09/20/11 10:11 PM, ?????? wrote:
> > > Certain projects are bound to loose active contributors. Projects like
> > > Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikispecies or even Wiktionary do not have the
> > same
> > > growth curve as a general purpose encyclopedia. These tools have
> serious
> > > competition as well. Statistically looking at numbers is unwise unless
> > you
> > > are going to look at it with a perspective. This is not to say these
> > > projects are without problem, but that doesn't mean the wikis are
> > failures.
> > >
> > >
> > This is all very true. The important thing is to keep focused on your
> > own project. If you look at competing projects, rather than looking at
> > their usage statistics, a better question is "What are they failing to
> > do that you could do better?"
> >
> > Ray
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
Carcharoth wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 1:31 AM, Phil Nash <phnash(a)blueyonder.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> Starting at the back, and working forward, my posts are not random.
>> They are carefully selected examples based on my experience as
>> (currently) a reader of Wikipedia and my responses to what I found.
>> I take it as obvious that if I can read these articles, so can their
>> subjects, and if they don't like what they see, making appropriate
>> noises, or (in extreme cases) litigating against the Foundation.
>
> What you seem to be arguing for is a mailing list dedicated to the
> issues you raise. The point I was making is that re-purposing this
> mailing list (wiki-en-l) for that purpose is unlikely to succeed (or
> be desirable), and that is what I meant by references to this being a
> bit random. In other words, the venue(s) you are chosing for raising
> these matters seem a bit random. What you seem to be looking for is a
> mailing list version of the BLP Noticeboard. I've copied the WMF
> mailing list on this post (as you added that mailing list when you
> replied), but I won't see any replies to that mailing list as I'm not
> subscribed there. I've removed Jimmy from the cc list, as the posts to
> public mailing lists should be sufficient.
>
> Carcharoth
OK, Chris. Let's see what happens next.
Just a quick reminder that this is tomorrow at 17:00 UTC.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:42 AM
Subject: IRC office hours with Sue Gardner, Thursday, September 22, 2011 at
17:00 UTC
To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Greetings all,
I just wanted to announce that there will be an office hours with Sue
Gardner in #wikimedia-office Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 17:00 UTC.
Likely topics include current events like the image filter referendum and
Sue's new Executive Director's Barnstar, among many other possibilities. As
usual, links to time conversion and other materials are on Meta.[1]
Best regards,
--
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org
1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
--
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org
Carcharoth wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 1:13 AM, Phil Nash <phnash(a)blueyonder.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> [[User:Rodhullandemu]] - "still flying the flag for Wikipedia, for
>> some inexplicable reason".
>
> Does this refer to this?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Rodhullandemu&diff=431917947…
>
> I'm not going to comment further, but I think others who respond to
> your posts should be aware of this.
Actually, you did comment further, and on a personal level; see below. And
the lack of response in nearly nine hours to your post amply demonstrates,
to me at least, how you seems to have missed the point.
> What the scope of this mailing list should be (given your recent posts
> on BLP matters, all copied to Jimmy Wales), is something I'd like to
> see discussed by the list moderators and those posting here. If there
> is a reason or rationale behind the posts, attempting to demonstrate
> something, then fine, but it would be courteous to state that rather
> then just post randomly like this.
Starting at the back, and working forward, my posts are not random. They are
carefully selected examples based on my experience as (currently) a reader
of Wikipedia and my responses to what I found. I take it as obvious that if
I can read these articles, so can their subjects, and if they don't like
what they see, making appropriate noises, or (in extreme cases) litigating
against the Foundation.
We have BLP policies for that reason, and while I see editors on Wikipedia
competing to provide articles about bacon(!), fiddling about with templates
that are ostensibly fit for purpose as they are[1], and still arguing about
trivial issues, nobody seems to be committed to clearing backlogs of
articles that actually provide legal, if not journalistic, risk for WP and
its parent. And there are myriad similar examples.
My personal reasons are less important than making sure that this project
does, and can, continue without unnecessary diversions into legalities-
perhaps I've been spending too much time reading up Commons policies of
late, one of which (to paraphrase) says that "just because nobody will
notice a copyright violation is no reason to ignore policy"- and so it
should be with any policy on any WMF project that may have consequences for
the Foundation. I am available to discuss any non-apparent personal
motivations PRIVATELY by email rather than on a public list. But don't
assume that I don't have our project's viability at heart.
As a lawyer by training, qualifications, experience, and observation, I've
seen many operations thought to be acting blithely within the law crumble to
the ground when the courts have upheld unexpected, but valid challenges. I'm
not suggesting this is likely in our case; but neither is it beyond the
bounds of possibility, and at least if I bring risks to the attention of
others, my hands are clean.
Hope that helps.
[1] and consuming unnecessary resources in TfDs
************************************************************
Wikizine.org's __
/\ \ \ ___ __ __ ___
/ \/ // _ \\ \ /\ / // __|
/ /\ /| __/ \ V V / \__ \
\_\ \/ \___| \_/\_/ |___/
EDITION
Year: 2011 Week: 39 Number: 129
************************************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Babel on all Wikis] - There are a great deal of templates and signs
that one can put on there user page. One of the most useful are the
Babel-templates that indicate the knowledge of different languages.
Now is there an extension active on all wikis for that. No need to
manually setup all those templates on all wikis. The structure is
easy; see the excellent blog posting of Mister Internationalisation
himself - Gerard Meijssen.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/21/babel-extension-live-on-the-wmf-projec…
[New mobile gateway] - There is a new mobile gateway active for the
Wikipedias. The the other projects will follow. This is provided by
new extension of MediaWiki 1.17, the software our wikis are using.
This replaces the old mobile gateway.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/14/new-mobile-site-launched-on-wikipedia-…http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MobileFrontend
[MediaWiki 1.8] - As announced in the TechFlash upgrade of the wikis
is in progress. New functions in MediaWiki 1.8 include;
- Support for gender-specific user pages: languages that have
different words for User whether the user is male or female will be
able to show the male or the female version, if the user has specified
their gender in their preferences.
- MediaWiki 1.18 will make it easier for left-to-right and
right-to-left text to coexist on the same page.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/16/mediawiki118iscomin/
[Fundraiser-time?] - You could encounter the well known gigantic
donation banner "personal appeal by ...". But no, it is not again the
big fundraiser event. But only a banner test. If you see it then you
where lucky. It is only at EN Wikipedia for anonymous users and
generally only in certain countries. The tests are currently being
conducted for 1 hour once a week. The real fundraiser will proably be
in November. But, test or not, donations are welcome.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011
[Techs share knowledge] - Running a massive infrastructure like the
WMF is using also mean that collect knowledge how to do that. In line
with the mission of the WMF detailed information about the
configuration of the system has been released so that others can learn
from it.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/19/ever-wondered-how-the-wikimedia-server…
[Operations Engineer goals] - In another post, Ryan Lane gives a
longer story about his goals for the past year.
http://ryandlane.com/blog/2011/09/19/ive-been-with-the-wikimedia-foundation…
=== Request for help ===
[Petition to UNSECO] - Wikimedia Foundation, with full support of
founder Jimmy Wales, is asking to support the request to the UNESCO to
recognize Wikipedia as the first "digital World Cultural Heritage
Site". Over 51,000 people have signed the petition already. Your are
suggested to spread the word of this petition (after you signed) by
all the communication channels of the modern day. If you sign the
petition need to confirm by a link send by e-mail
http://wikipedia.de/wke/Main_Page
[Sign-up for translation] - Frequently there are messages that need to
be translated in, if possible, all the languages of the projects. If
you like to volunteer to be a translator you can register yourself
(see link) so when you are needed you can be contacted.
https://sugar.corp.wikimedia.org/translators/translators.php?referrer=wikiz…
=== Bureaucracy ===
[Stewards election] - You can vote in the election for new stewards
until 6 October. According to the present situation, 9 Wikimedians
have a good chance to become stewards: Axpde, Bencmq, Bennylin,
Quadell, Quentinv57, Teles, Trijnstel, Vituzzu and Wikitanvir.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2http://toolserver.org/~stewardbots/elections.php
=== Movement ===
[German Wikipedia] - On 15 September a poll on the German Wikipedia
questioning participants about the proposed image filter was closed.
German Wikipedians rejected implementation of an image filter on the
German Wikipedia by a 86.23% majority (430 votes, 357 against, 57 in
favour, 16 neutral).
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/068502.htmlhttp://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%… (proposal, arguments and
votes)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%… (proposal and arguments translation to
English)
[Germanophone WikiConvention] - Wikimedians from the three major
German speaking countries gathered to share their knowledge about
Wikipedia, Wikimedia and other wikis at the first ?WikiConvention?.
More than 170 participants attended.
http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/germanophone-wikiconvention-establ…http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiConvention (in German)
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2011/09/06/treffpunkt-fur-freies-wissen/ (in German)
[Deletionism] - "Wikipedia needs to return to simplicity" is a blog
post by Urpo Lankinen in which the author explains why deletionism is
bad.
http://www.beastwithin.org/users/wwwwolf/blog/2011/09/wikipedia-needs-to-re…
[European Year of Volunteering 2011] - On September 12, 2011 a group
of Polish Wikimedians took part in an open public event of the
European Year of Volunteering in Warsaw.
*:http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=pl&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.pl&sl=pl&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://wyborcza.pl/1,91446,10276273,W_Pawilonie_ERW_dzien_e_wolontariatu.html&usg=ALkJrhjmnsC5XwCIo-fZsSmYuiR8RmFKCA
*:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:ERW-2011
*:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_volunteering
=== Foundation ===
[WMF; no test] - The Wikimedia Foundation declined to allow developers
to make a trial for restricting non-autoconfirmed users from creating
articles on English Wikipedia. The rejection comes despite the support
of around 2/3 of involved participants (~500 editors took a part).
Discussion about the proposal on English Wikipedia started on 3 April
2011 and concluded on 27 May. Discussion about the implementation
started on 11 July and concluded on 18 August. A bugzilla bug request
was filled on 3 August, but developers refused to implement it. On 14
September Erik Moeller said that "[WMF] believe that creating a
restriction of this type is a strong a statement of exclusion, not
inclusion, and that it will confuse and deter good faith editors" and
rejected the proposal, which sparked long discussion and resignation
by community.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed_article_creation_trialhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29/Proposa…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29/Proposa…https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30208https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30208#c43http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/068494.html
[Board minutes] - The Board has published minutes from Wikimania
meeting of 3 August.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2011-08-03
=== Chapters ===
[WM UK grants] - Wikimedia UK gives scholarships for traveling to the
Wikimedia India conference for Wikimedians from UK. Deadline for
applications is 27 September, 19:30 BST (UTC+1).
http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2011/09/wikiconference-india-travel-grants/http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_Scholarships
[Wikipedia promo] - Wikimedia Sverige will be present at the
Gothenburg Book Fair, around 100,000 visitors are expected to come by
so it will be busy. WM Sverige has made 3 short silent movies to play
at there stand. Because the are silent the can be used easily also by
other Chapters, Wikimedia events. Wikimedia Sverige is even willing to
localize it for you on request.
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/55785
==== Chapters reports ====
[Wikimedia UK] - Wikimedia UK has published August 2011 report.
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports/2011/August
[Wikimedia Philippines] - Wikimedia Philippines published annual
report for 2010.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMPH_2010_Annual_Report.pdf
=== Science ===
[Wikimedia Ambassador survey] - Results from first Wikipedia
Ambassador survey released by WMF.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/14/results-from-first-wikipedia-ambassado…
[Wikipedia on WikiSym 2011] - The technical session during WikiSym
2011 "Understanding Wikipedia" will feature four presentations:
"WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia?s Gender Imbalance",
"Gender Differences in Wikipedia Editing", "Finding Patterns in
Behavioral Observations by Automatically Labeling Forms of Wikiwork in
Barnstars" and "What Wikipedia Deletes: Characterizing Dangerous
Collaborative Content".
http://www.wikisym.org/2011/09/14/session-preview-understanding-wikipedia/http://www.wikisym.org/category/wikisym-2011/
[Wikipedia's gender imbalance] - Paper "Clubhouse? An Exploration of
Wikipedia?s Gender Imbalance" from Wikisym 2011 has been published.
The CBC interviewed Sue Gardner and published a story about it.
http://www.grouplens.org/node/466http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/09/sue-gardner-on-wikipedias-gender-gap/
=== Media ===
[Wikipedia Signpost] - A new edition of the Wikipedia Signpost has
been published. Harry Burt (User:Jarry1250), the Signpost's
editor-in-chief, leaves the Signpost to User:SMasters and
User:Skomorokh, as his studies are going to begin soon. In this
edition you can read the following stories and more: On the Wikinews
fork, Back to school, ArbCom narrowly rejects application to open new
case and so on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-09-…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jarry1250http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SMastershttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Skomorokhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-09-19/From_t…
=== Anniversaries ===
[Slovak Wikipedia] - 23 September 2003 is the best possible
approximation of the date when the Slovak Wikipedia was created
[1][2]. Slovak is a West Slavic language [3][4] spoken by 7 million
people, mostly in Slovakia. Slovak Wikipedia has more than 127,000
articles [5] and more than 550 active users. Statistics [6] shows that
Slovak Wikipedia is among the stable projects, which have a more or
less constant number of new, active and very active Wikipedians.
:[1] http://sk.wikipedia.org/
:[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20030923070746/http://sk.wikipedia.org/
:[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_language
:[4] http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=slk
:[5] http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=slk
[Waray-Waray Wikipedia] - On 25 September the Waray-Waray
Wikipedia[1][2] will be six years old. Waray-Waray[3] is an
Austronesian language[3][4] spoken by 3.1 million inhabitants of
Visayas[5] and Masbate[6] provinces of Philippines. It is used as a
trade language, too. The Waray-Waray Wikipedia has more than 102,000
articles. Counting the number of speakers and considering the economic
situation in Philippines, Waray-Waray Wikipedia is quite an active and
successful project [7][8] (note the increase of new editors in 2010 in
comparison to the number of new articles added to Wikipedia). Here is
a short story about the beginnings of the Waray-Waray Wikipedia by
war:User:Harvzs [9], the initiator of the Waray-Waray Wikipedia.
''The proposal for the Waray-Waray Wikipedia was made on or about June
23, 2005. The native speakers who volunteered to help edit was myself
(User:Harvzsf in Meta) and User:v.oyzon. User:Katimawan2005 and
User:Bentong from the Kapampangan and Cebuano Wikipedias were also
among those who lent their support. The test-wikipedia was set up in
Meta shortly after although test wikipedias weren't mandatory at that
time and Incubator hadn't been in existence. The reason for the test
Wikipedia was for the double purpose of creating content in the event
that the request to create the wiki was granted and also to get some
practice on how to create and edit the wiki. The Waray Wikipedia was
created on or about September 24, 2005 along with the Neapolitan and
Judeo-Spanish/Ladino Wikipedias. By a coincidence, the ISO codes for
the 3 wikipedias coincided with actual one-syllable words in the
English language war, nap and lad respectively :) ) Shortly after, I
obtained administrator rights on the Waray-Waray Wikipedia. Ten days
after the Waray-Waray Wikipedia was created, it reached 100 articles
(the 100th article was [[war:Guiuan, Eastern Samar]]).''
:[1] http://war.wikipedia.org/
:[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waray-Waray_Wikipedia
:[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waray-Waray_language
:[4] http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=war
:[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visayas
:[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masbate
:[7] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaWAR.htm
:[8] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaWAR.htm
:[9] http://war.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Harvzs
[Polish Wikipedia] - On 26 September the Polish Wikipedia [1][2] Will
be 10 years old. Polish is a West Slavic language spoken by more than
40 million speakers [3][4], mostly from Poland. With more than 831,000
articles [5], the Polish Wikipedia is the fifth largest Wikipedia by
number of articles. During its first years of existence, the Polish
Wikipedia was filled with a lot of bot-generated articles, which
created significant positive feedback from Polish speakers and made
the Polish Wikipedian community one of the most vital ones [6].
Wikimedia Poland [7][8] was created on 15 August 2005 thanks to the
work of Polish Wikipedians. Wikimedia Poland recognizes its 10th
anniversary of the project by organizing a conference to be held on
September 24-25, in Poznan, Poland [9][10].
:[1] http://pl.wikipedia.org/
:[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Wikipedia
:[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_language
:[4] http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=pol
:[5] http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specjalna:Statystyka
:[6] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaPL.htm (cf. new
articles per day and new editors)
:[7] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Polska
:[8] http://pl.wikimedia.org/
:[9] http://10lat.wikipedia.pl
:[10] http://tinyurl.com/42tkjub (Google translate)
Press release of Wikimedia Poland is below:
:''The Polish Wikipedia was founded on September 26, 2001, being the
eighth eldest Wikipedia to be established. Over the years, Polish
Wikipedians have created over 830,000 articles, of which almost 500
have received a "Featured Article" status and additional 1,000 being
categorised as "Good Articles".''
:''In a continuation of the year-long celebration of the 10th
anniversary of Wikipedia, the Polish Wikipedia community is going to
celebrate the 10th birthday of the project, with a conference being
held on September 24?25 in Pozna?, Poland. Two weeks earlier, on
September 10, the public exhibition of the winning POTY (Picture of
the Year) pictures has been opened in one of the most prestigious
shopping and art centres in Poland, the Stary Browar (Old Brewery). 16
pictures, chosen by Wikimedians from all over the world in an annual
POTY contest, are shown at the exhibition, with descriptions provided
in Polish, English and German.''
:''The conference will take place in the heart of the very best
location in Pozna?. It will be open to the public, as one of the main
goals of the organisers is to involve people from outside the
Wikimedia movement; therefore, the conference is heavily advertised in
the local media, with increasing daily press coverage.''
:''The event will consist of about 15 presentations and talks about
Wikipedia. They will discuss Wikipedia's place in court judgements;
Wikipedia's role as a source of information; the now-hot topic of
women in the Wikipedia community, and many more topics. They will take
an outside look at Wikipedia with a public screening of the
documentary film ''Truth in Numbers?'', which will be followed by a
discussion, a short surprise from the organising team, and the real
celebration: a massive Wikipedia birthday cake.''
:''The Polish chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation has generously
decided to refund the costs of coming to the conference for
Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe; as of September 20, 13
Wikipedians from Azerbaijan, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
Russia, Ukraine and even Philippines have signed up for the
conference. If you can't join us and you understand some Polish, don't
worry ? all talks from the conference will be streamed live on a
special Internet radio. After the event, all talks ? audio and video ?
will be released under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence and made available
on-line.''
:''Polish Wikipedians hope to have a great event, and even if you
can't join them, please keep your fingers crossed!''
=== Stats ===
*[RU WP] Russia Wikipedia has overtaken Japanese Wikipedia by the
articles' count on 21 September 2011.
:http://tinyurl.com/3cv7tlk -- RU Wikipedia
:http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Wikipedias%2FTable&action=historysubmit&diff=2916894&oldid=2913733
=== Events and meetups ===
[24 September] - Wiki Takes de Zaan (Netherlands) will be held on
September 24th.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ontmoeten#Zaanstreek_24_september
[24 September] - Wikipedia Takes Göteborg, Sweden
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikitr%C3%A4ffar#Fotosafari.2C_G.C3.…
[24 September] - Wikipedia Takes Porto, Portugal
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_Toma_o_Porto
[24-25 September] - Polish Wikipedia community, supported by Wikimedia
Polska, is going to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the project
(founded on September 26, 2001) with a conference to be held on
September 24-25, in Poznan, Poland.
http://10lat.wikipedia.plhttp://tinyurl.com/42tkjub (Google translate)
[25 September] - Wikipedia Takes Cologne, Germany
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_K%C3%B6ln
[25 September] - Wikipedia Takes Lisbon, Portugal
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_Toma_Lisboa
[3-5 October] - WikiSym - The International Symposium on Wikis and
Open collaboration -2011 with the session "Understanding Wikipedia".
http://www.wikisym.org/category/wikisym-2011/http://www.wikisym.org/2011/09/14/session-preview-understanding-wikipedia/
=== Wikizine ===
[Your reports] - Post your news for the next edition of Wikizine on
Meta or in our Google form.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/EN2011-130http://tinyurl.com/wikizine-feedback
=== Quote ===
"Wikinews: Just because we wrote it in our pyjamas doesn't mean you
shouldn't take us seriously." -- IRC quote
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This week, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees unanimously
passed a resolution addressing the issue of controversial content on
the projects. The Board also unanimously passed a resolution
addressing images of identifiable, living people on the projects. The
resolutions are posted at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_contenthttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Images_of_identifiable_people
These topics have been the subject of active debate on the Projects,
and particularly on Commons, for a long time. Last June, following
extensive community debate, the Wikimedia Foundation Board requested
the Executive Director undertake a study of the issue of controversial
content on the projects, acknowledging the difficulty of the issue
(http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Commissioning_Recommendation…).
Robert and Dory Harris were commissioned to do this study, which they
did on meta in consultation with the community, publishing
recommendations in September 2010. Their report is available at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Content
At its October 2010 meeting, the Board was presented with this report.
The Board discussed the recommendations in depth, and developed a
working group to act on them. The working group's report was presented
at the Board's next in-person meeting, in March 2011; and these
resolutions were subsequently drafted and voted on. The working group
report has also been posted on meta, at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Board_report
Note that the controversial content resolution uses the term
"curation." We are using this term to refer to all aspects of managing
images and other content on our projects, including recruiting and
acquiring contributions and uploading, categorizing, placement of
images in articles and other pages (including gallery pages and the
main page), featuring or highlighting, flagging for improvement, and
deletion and removal. All of our projects are curated in line with
broad editorial principles; this is an essential feature that
distinguishes our projects from indiscriminate or general-purpose
repositories.
Not all of the Harris recommendations are addressed in this
resolution. In particular:
* At this time, we refer the recommendation to create a WikiJunior
project to the editing community; the Board would like to see
demonstrated community support before creating such a project.
and
* In agreement with the Harris report, we do not recommend that
changes be made to current editing and/or filtering regimes
surrounding text in Wikimedia projects; we feel editorial mechanisms
regarding text are working well.
Finally, we urge that the community, the Foundation and the Wikimedia
movement continue to discuss the appropriate scope of Commons for
fulfilling Wikimedia's mission; this is a difficult and important
question.
Thank you to everyone who has worked on this issue, and special thanks
to Robert and Dory Harris for their hard work.
-- Phoebe Ayers, on behalf of the Board working group and the Board
2011/9/21 emijrp <emijrp(a)gmail.com>:
> Hi all;
>
> Just like the scripts to preserve wikis[1], I'm working in a new script to
> download all Wikimedia Commons images packed by day. But I have limited
> spare time. Sad that volunteers have to do this without any help from
> Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> I started too an effort in meta: (with low activity) to mirror XML dumps.[2]
> If you know about universities or research groups which works with
> Wiki[pm]edia XML dumps, they would be a possible successful target to mirror
> them.
>
> If you want to download the texts into your PC, you only need 100GB free and
> to run this Python script.[3]
>
> I heard that Internet Archive saves XML dumps quarterly or so, but no
> official announcement. Also, I heard about Library of Congress wanting to
> mirror the dumps, but not news since a long time.
>
> L'Encyclopédie has an "uptime"[4] of 260 years[5] and growing. Will
> Wiki[pm]edia projects reach that?
>
> Regards,
> emijrp
>
> [1] http://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/
> [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_Wikimedia_project_XML_dumps
> [3]
> http://code.google.com/p/wikiteam/source/browse/trunk/wikipediadownloader.py
> [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uptime
> [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die
>
>
Hi emirjrp,
I can understand why you would prefer to have "full mirrors" of the
dumps, but let's face it, 10TB is not (yet) something that most
companies/universities can easily spare. Also, most people only work
on 1-5 versions of Wikipedia, the rest is just overhead to them.
My suggestion would be to accept mirrors of a single language and have
a smart interface at dumps.wikimedia.org that redirects requests to
the location that is the best match for the user. This system is used
by some Linux distributions (see download.opensuse.org for instance)
with great success.
Regards,
Strainu