May I give you some news on the wiki encyclopedias for children:
I have let you know nearly one year ago about the launching of Vikidia
in English[1]:
Vikidia in English now has 1,445 articles and 32 active users. the
advantage in English is that we can pick up, choose, adapt and select
some existing material, especially from Simple English Wikipedia, and
from Wikijunior. Some of the first users on en.vikidia.org also come
from other Vikidia language and it even gather some Dutch teenager from
Wikikids.nl.
Vikidia was first launched in French and there is a similarly developed
counterpart in Dutch : http://wikikids.nl/ . these wikis are 8 and 9
years old now.
Vikidia in French has now more than one million unique visitors a month,
with a yearly growth of audience of nearly 40 %.
It's not a Wikimedia project, yet it is supported by Wikimédia France
that now funds our hosting costs.
Another wiki encyclopedia for children was recently launched in German,
and is supported by Wikimedia Germany. See some English explanation on
it here: [2].
There is some quite significant differences between the way each wiki's
aims, rules and functioning are designed, which we had the opportunity
to discuss between one and another teams/founders.
The guestbook on fr.vikidia show that this resource is really
appreciated by children (and even older peoples), and that there is a
need for such a wiki beside Wikipedia ([3] [4]).
Yet nothing can be done but with a significant community, that's why
your support (as individual people so as an organisation) really matter !
klexikon.de, which claim to be a content - rather than an educational -
wiki for children, directs a great part of its efforts (this is most of
the Wikimedia Germany support) on organizing meeting and workshop for
wannabe editors (teachers or other - mainly - adults). What about
Wikimedia UK supporting something similar? Yet it would demand some
peoples to undertake it... One can also begin with one (or some) blog
post about this project ?
[1]
http://blog.wikimedia.fr/vikidia-in-english-opens-today-lets-build-a-childr…
[2]
https://zikoblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/23/a-new-wiki-klexikon-the-free-ency…
[3] https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Livre_d%27or
[4] see also
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=wikibooks%2C%20wikiversity%2C%20viki…
--
Mathias Damour
49 rue Carnot
F-74000 Annecy
00 (33) 4 57 09 10 56
00 (33) 6 27 13 65 51
https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Astirmays
mathias.damour(a)laposte.net
Hi all,
tl;dr summary: I'm planning to run a survey about wikimeets in the near future. Do you have any comments/suggestions on the draft? See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey
At a recent meetup, a Wikipedian who was new to wikimeets pointed out that the event had the air of a gentleman's club about it. Looking around at the high-back comfy chairs, the Victorian-era interior decorations, the pints of real ale, and the mostly-male (and regular) attendees, I couldn't really disagree with their assessment. This started me thinking: are there better venues and times to hold meetups, or better ways of advertising/inviting people to planned meetups? What would make them more open and inviting to new editors, or the many long-term editors that have never attended a meetup?
As an experiment to try to improve the attendance and advertising of wikimeets in the North of England, a few months ago I posted messages on the talk pages of previous wikimeet attendees about the last Leeds and Manchester wikimeets, and the Liverpool wikimeet coming up this weekend. There was, unexpectedly, a pretty good response, with a number of people signing up to attend the wikimeets. I'm not sure whether it was a direct consequence or not, but we had a long-term editor attend the last Manchester wikimeet who hadn't previously attended a wikimeet. I couldn't attend the last Leeds wikimeet: was anyone there and able to say whether it made a difference or not? I'm hoping that the irregular wikimeet attendees who have signed up for the Liverpool meetup will be there!
It also started a longer conversation with Iridescent [1], which led to the idea of having some sort of a UK-wide notifications list. During that conversation, I started drafting a survey of past and potential wikimeet attendees with the aim of getting some quantified and actionable answers about how to improve wikimeets, and also improve communication about wikimeets. The latest draft of the survey is at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey
Amongst other things, the survey draft asks about how people get to wikimeets; when and where wikimeets should be held; what activities should take place at wikimeets; and how notifications about an upcoming meetup would ideally be circulated.
I'm hoping to run this survey soon, so if you are interested in improving the survey questions then please send me an email or post on the talk page before the end of the month! In particular, if you currently organise (or regularly attend) wikimeets, then I'd greatly appreciate your input/feedback about the survey questions before it goes live. Ideally the survey would be run in association with WMUK, but given the recent turmoil I'm not sure if this will be possible, so I'll run it myself unless WMUK expresses an interest in helping out with it!
Thanks,
Mike
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Iridescent/Archive_17#Next_meetups_…
We need more articles listing public art in United Kingdom counties,
cities or towns.
I've written a blog post about how to compile them:
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk/public-art-wikipedia/
and would be grateful if you would all assist, and ask others to do so.
Once a page is created, adding a row should be something a novice an
easily do. More experienced Wikipedians can help with tidying up
formatting, adding references, and so on. As well as adding artworks
known to you, of course!
--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Hello everyone,
I think there's enough interest confirmed to be able to deliver a session
teaching people more about Wikidata.
The next step is to confirm a date. A Saturday is probably best for most
folks and I'm happy to book a meeting room in the Wikimedia UK office. Once
there is a consensus for a date I'll make the necessary arrangements.
There's also still plenty of time to register an interest in attending.
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Wikidata_training_2015
Thank you,
Stevie
--
Stevie Benton
Head of External Relations
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
@StevieBenton
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street,
London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a
global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the
Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal
control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
Hello,
My name is Karla and I just started working in Wikimedia UK as the
Administration and Programme Assistant and wanted to introduce myself.
Learn more about what I will be doing and about me here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/
Cheers,
--
Karla Marte - Administration and Programme Assistant, Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 207 065 0990 <%2B44%20%280%29%20207%20065%200994>
--
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
I have been going through the not particularly useful category Wikipedia
requested photographs in the United Kingdom
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_requested_photographs_in_t…>
removing some that are done, doing a few either via commons or by importing
them from the Geograph, and most importantly moving a lot of them down to
the much more useful level of nation or in England to County.
So if you fancy taking a few photos and putting them on Wikipedia we
probably have some current requests near you!
Anyone fancy adopting a county? First couple to call for help I will go
through the requests for that county next week and pick off any I can
import from the Geograph, which should make it a bit more practical to do
the rest (offer excludes London, Scotland and Wales due to them being too
big).
Regards
Jonathan
On 12 August 2015 at 10:45, Stevie Benton <stevie.benton(a)wikimedia.org.uk>
wrote:
> Hello Edward, everyone,
>
> If there's a volunteer willing to take the lead on Monuments then we can
> offer a little logistical support. However, the volunteers that delivered
> it last year said it was an enormous amount of work and don't have the
> time. If you would like to lead on it then we can help, although time is
> very short at this point.
>
> Thanks and regards,
>
> Stevie
>
> On 12 August 2015 at 10:35, Ed Hand <edwardxx(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Are we taking part in Wiki Loves Monuments this year?
>> No mention of the UK here:
>>
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2015/Partic…
>>
>> best wsihes
>> Edward
>>
>> On 10 August 2015 at 16:43, WereSpielChequers <
>> werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I have now used the visual editor for more than a hundred edits since
>>> the speed up. I agree that the classic editor is generally faster and I
>>> suspect that will be especially true for anyone editing large articles as
>>> V/E's still lacks section editing.
>>>
>>> I like the way V/E supports infobox editing, one of the things I
>>> sometimes do is add images to articles and with the classic editor you
>>> usually have the pain of having to check the template documentation to find
>>> out what the parameters are for image and caption (sadly and for no obvious
>>> reason these parameters are unlikely to be "image" and "caption"). V/E is
>>> actually quite intuitive here in allowing you to run through the unused
>>> parameters of the infobox.
>>>
>>> Table editing is more nuanced, on the one hand there are handy looking
>>> options that come up inviting you to delete or add columns or rows and I'm
>>> sure at some point I will find an opportunity to use them. But editing the
>>> contents of a cell in a table is challenging, not a task I would suggest to
>>> a newbie and far less intuitive than using the classic editor.
>>>
>>> Adding images from commons is really quite impressive in V/E, I haven't
>>> yet been in the situation of having to work out which Newcastle V/E is
>>> prompting me with and it would be good to know whether V/E is using wiki
>>> data links, keywords, geocodes or some combination. But however it does it
>>> the images it has prompted me with so far have been pretty good.
>>>
>>> Not sure between Joe and Andy's positions re showing diffs. I have had
>>> very little to do with the education program, but I appreciate for
>>> educators knowing how to look at the contributions of a student is
>>> important. I think that V/E would be a better entry point for technophobes
>>> whilst clearly the classic editor is better for the technoscenti. How you
>>> recruit one or other group for an editathon without stereotyping is an
>>> interesting conundrum. If you have access to a large mailing list of people
>>> who might be interested then you could do two sorts of sessions, one
>>> emphasising that this was Wikipedia editing for anyone, especially people
>>> who tried it in the past and found it technically arcane. Another promising
>>> a session led by a "power user" showing how to be an effective editor on
>>> Wikipedia perhaps billed as "this session is suitable for anyone with any
>>> programming experience, however rusty or archaic".
>>>
>>> Alternatively if you have a good ratio of experienced editors to newbies
>>> you can guard people and show them the editor most suitable for them.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>>
>>> > On 9 Aug 2015, at 01:03, Richard Farmbrough <richard(a)farmbrough.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > I guess when it is sufficiently fast that I don't have time to hit
>>> "edit source" instead before it loads, I will start using it on other
>>> projects. Until then, a good character editor beats a good WIMPS editor -
>>> pity it's not a good character editor.
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>> > wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>> > WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Stevie Benton
> Head of External Relations
> Wikimedia UK+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
> @StevieBenton
>
> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
>
> *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>
If anyone is still running outreach editathons to try and recruit new editors, you might want to consider using visual editor. I spoke to some of the WMF people at Wikimania and apparently the issue of it running very very slowly on old kit has recently been largely addressed. I've pointed out in the past that as long as that bug was a "won't fix" you couldn't promote Visual Editor at outreach editathons because even if all the laptops look pretty new, there could well be someone present using a borrowed laptop and intending to use an old PC at home. Since we really can't start an editathon asking the attendees if they all use new computers at home, and then reverting to the classic editor if someone says their machine was bought in 2010 I and several others have been ignoring the Visual Editor for the last couple of years.
I have just run a quick test on this myself using a friend's old PC and V/E does now work, though it is still a little slower than the classic editor.
Regards
Jonathan / WereSpielChequers