The de: Wikipedia recently underwent its second professional content
test, this time overseen by Die Zeit, Germany's leading weekly
newspaper. And friends, this "popular dispenser of knowledge on the
Internet", this "desert of text", is HOT. While it is "completely
without [multi]media" and "does not support complex search queries",
it "stands in first place when it comes to text content," receiving
top aggregate marks in three broad content categories -- Natural
Science and Technology, Humanities and Social Science, and Culture --
matched only by Encarta Professional. Moreover, its "lead in current
events is a mile wide".
This review was longer than the c't review -- seven terms in each of
21 fields -- but the article was shorter and less detailed. Die ZEIT
was kind enough to extend the comparison to include both smaller
German encyclopedias (Data Becker, aimed at a younger audience, and
Universallexikon) and the English-language Britannica 2005 DVD.
Britannica, she of the "legendary 32-volume set," took top marks in
the sciences, but fell down when it came to sports and, most notably,
current events. All the same, "the 165,000 well-sorted Web links
alone are worth the price".
As to that perennial bugbear, editorial responsibility, the reviewers
tackle it with bold eloquence:
"Those concerned with the quality of [Wikipedia] articles,
because no established editorship takes responsibility for
them, can rest at ease: we had most of the Wikipedia articles
we examined judged separately by specialists in their
respective fields, and they were thoroughly done. The texts
still have gaps here and there, but they make up for it
elsewhere with precise and detailed descriptions. And
everyone can engage himself as a gap-filler: clicking on the
link "edit this article" makes the reader an author."
It's enough to make me want to be a first-time author all over again.
Original article : http://www.zeit.de/2004/43/C-Enzyklop_8adien-Test
(English translation available onli^B^B^B^B on request.)
--
+sj+
I recall that ages ago there was a long (and almost acrimonious)
discussion regarding the possibilities (or lack thereof) of conversion
between traditional and simplified Chinese.
Well, I just ran across this app:
>> http://www.ideographer.com/chineserewriter/index_en.shtml
It's Shareware, but it may not be open source. Nevertheless, taking the
thing for a spin and maybe bugging the author with one or two questions
surely can't hurt. The app is for Mac OS X however, so for those poor
souls^W^W of us who don't have access to a Mac, you could either try
pearPC (but if you're only doing it to run this app, then that's using
heavy artillery to aim for sparrows) or see if you can email the author
anyway. I do have a Mac, but sadly I don't understand Chinese.
Anyway, I just meant to sent this to the list *just in case* it's of
use.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
www.ropersonline.com
Hi Mark and everybody,
Yes, Tahoma works (but is ugly and therefore not used on ar: for
example) and is even more widespread than Unikurd Web. I just tried it
on http://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fontexample. The words there
should look similar with the only difference being the diacriticals.
I have not expressed myself correctly. The problem was not only the
font, but the fact one cannot tell Wikipedia to use one font throughout
an article if there are headings and lists. For the page name it doesn't
work anyway. Something I forgot to mention was the edit window, words
appear differently in the edit window and on the page or in the preview.
An automatic script converter would be a fine thing, but there are also
dialect differences. So an article in the two main dialects Kurmanci and
Sorani would exist four times after automatic conversion into both
scripts. At the moment we have three dialects represented which are only
partly mutually intellegible. Until now all Sorani is written in arabic
letter, all Kurmanci and Zazaki in latin letter with links to each other
if the same article exists in different dialects. We like it that way,
there were no objections yet.
But because arabic and latin script are used for either of them,
automatic script conversion would be fine on the long run. Technically
it should be possible, as far as I know 1:1 conversion is possible.
Erdal
Would anyone actually want a print copy of the foundation newsletter?
This was discussed recently; I think it would be a neat thing to have,
but then I have a fondness for printed matter. (I wonder if those of
us who frequent mailing lists are a balanced audience to ask...)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AWikimedia_Quarto#Newsletter_in_Print
--
+sj+
Hoi,
In the past there have been heated debates about this subject, if you
are interested in this subject, here is something uncontroversial for
you; I am looking for the translations of these two terms in ANY
language. Currently I know it in only three languages; Dutch, English
and French. I would like to know it in all languages.
This term is used to indicate in wiktionary that a translation of a word
is in one of these two methods of writing. As such it is really usefull
when I have this information. You can reply to me, but you can also be
really bold and edit the pages on the nl:wiktionary.
[[wikt:nl:eenvoudig Chinees]]
[[wikt:nl:traditioneel Chinees]]
Thanks,
GerardM
Hi there!
We on ku: have a problem. Kurdish uses two different scripts, latin and
arabic. You can see both on the main page at http://ku.wikipedia.org. To
keep the Kurdish Wikipedia together we would like to have both scripts
in one Wikipedia. But there are some problems:
* Though unicode supports the Arabic-letter Kurdish alphabet, very few
fonts do. In the internet a special font named "Unikurd Web" is the
de-facto standard for used on almost all websites. We use a template on
every page that enforces the use of this font, but that does not work
for the headings. Therefore there are wrong letters in the headings. See
http://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/mallewe for an example. The letter that
looks like a "L" that has turned around is from a different font.
Can this be solved with a global style sheet or something similar? The
font is compatible with Unicode, so Arabic of Farsi words would not be
harmed.
To solve this problem would be the most important thing, because then
all texts will be readable. Other minor problems:
* The font ennforcing template {{rtl}} must be repeated after each
heading. That will probably solve with the first problem.
* Dotted lists cross the right border when used on right-to-left pages.
(Also an example on http://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/mallewe)
Thanks,
Erdal
Hello! And greetings from Sweden!
I would like to get in contact with any of the international organizers/leaders
of the Wikipedia project!
Over here in Sweden, I have problems with the correct information of political
parties. Different political groups apparently rearrange each others pages.
>From my point of view, I would like to secure the proper information in the
interest of the public and the democratic community! Thus each party or
political group should have control of their own pages, rather than to let
their political opponents have the control.
Who could I discuss this topic with?
All the best! And good luck with a great project!
Carl-Johan Swaerdenheim, SWEDEN
The Swedish Conservative Party
----- Original Message -----
From: "oboenfan" <oboenfan(a)hotmail.com>
To: "Rowan Collins" <rowan.collins(a)gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 1:27 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia langage solresol
Hi Rowan
Thank you very much to you personally. Your message did really comfort me
last week.
But I did find this matter really absurd: The administration of Wikipedia
looks as a really terrible giant animal and to occupy too much a lot of
people.
This forum is alone a surprising kind to loose the time...
I don't give up and realize without discussion with a lot of people and
loosing of time a dictionary and all my other projects concerning old,
menaced and artificial languages at the new anarchopedia. I did create
French, German main pages, Spanish will follow in the next hours, and
Interlingue, Solresol, Frater and more will follow in the next days.All that
is new. I have to rectify a lot of text errors in a second time but it
exists now. I is a good work for a short week where I have to go to my
professional occupations.
I did observe different problems in the approach of the things at Wikipedia
and I work at anarchopedia that this don't appears in the new project. I
think my technical approach of dictionary better and start for this reason a
lot of languages myself. My first word, the first entry in the new multi
language dictionary was of course a word in "a", naturally the word
"anarchy". And if you compare the content of 2 dictionaries you can see a
completely other view of our world. Anarchy is not conform to the bad
definition in Wikipedia... At the letter "I" I will introduce in the next
days as first word the word "idealism" ;-)
Less bureaucracy (be quite: I didn't redefine in the first time at the
letter "b" the word "bureaucracy" - "birth" is really more important!)
Je veux remercier très spécialement Anthere, mon fier concitoyen, pour son
intervention contre mes petits efforts anarchistes (je ne pensais pas le
moins du monde à une telle définition de mes efforts il y a seulement 8
jours) car sans cette petite querelle vraiment juste au bon moment, je
n'aurais jamais fait connaissance à cette date du projet des autres
anarchistes! Mes visions de mon pays dans le continent qui l'héberge et
surtout mes visions du rôle de mon continent en tant que réalité politique
et sociale ne semble pas être totalement équivalentes aux vôtres!
Perhaps is this the decisive reason why a Wikipedia can't be enough.
Yours truly
François
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rowan Collins" <rowan.collins(a)gmail.com>
> To: <wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org>; <oboenfan(a)hotmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 6:20 PM
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New Wikipedia langage solresol
>
>
> > Francois,
> > please don't give up so easily. If you truly believe that this is
> > something worth doing and encouraging, it should take more than a few
> > people saying "maybe" rather than "yes" to make you give up. Nobody
> > here has said "no" to your proposals; if you think you can make this
> > work, then have courage and try to make it work, even when it seems
> > difficult. I will try to address and discuss some of your current
> > concerns below.
> >
Hiho,
As announced on meta-wiki, the selection round for the city where the
wikimedia meetup will take place ended today.
We compiled a list with the final candidates on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_meetup_2005/City_Candidate_List
* Amsterdam/Rotterdam, Netherlands
* Berlin, Germany
* Cluj-Napoca, Romania
* Dublin, Ireland
* Frankfurt am Main, Germany
* Ljubljana, Slovenia
To make the final decision we asked some well known wikipedians from
countries around the world. The people you'll have to bribe ;-) are:
Angela, Anthere, Jimbo, Danny, Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz, Tomos, Brion
Vibber, Oscar and Gerard Meijssen, Arno Lagrange and elian.
I want to invite these people and all the wikipedians who proposed one
of the finalists and are willing to act as local coordinators for a
first meeting on IRC.
I propose Sunday 17th October, 18:00 UTC, if you have troubles with this
date, state this on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_meetup_2005
please.
greetings,
elian
Hi all.
Just a short question:
Why is it that we have a Wikipedia for the ancient, dead language
Aramaic http://arc.wikipedia.org/ - no content currently, but none for
its modern descendent Syriac (or "Neo-Aramaic"), spoken by millions,
which according to the ISO code would be at http://syr.wikipedia.org/
? Presumably, the number of people who could actually read and fully
understand an Aramaic Wikipedia would be very low, while the number of
people who could read and understand a Syriac Wikipedia would be in
the range of millions of people, almost exclusively native speakers.
Also there is the issue of what script to write it in: it would seem
that some people would write Aramaic in the Syriac script, and others
in the Hebrew script; on the other hand, Syriac is written exclusively
in the Syriac script.
I think that ultimately, the existance of arc: is not a Good Thing,
but that the existance of syr: would indeed be a Good Thing,
especially as there are people fex the people at the Beth Marduto
institute who would probably contribute to syr:.
--node