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Just wanted to draw your attention to the blog post that went out
today regarding offline:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/">http://blog.wikimedia.org/</a><br>
<br>
Feel free to leave comments either there or on this list!<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Jessie<br>
<br>
***<br>
<b>Update on Offline Wikipedia Projects </b><br>
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<p>The last week was a big week for expanding <a
href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline_Projects">offline
Wikipedia</a> work.</p>
<p>Right now, <i>offline</i> refers to supporting read access to
Wikimedia content without an Internet connection. This
increases the reach of the Wikipedia movement by providing more
opportunities for people all over the world to access the
materials. Some of the recent initiatives surrounding this
project were documented in <a
href="http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2011/01/update-on-offline-wikimedia-projects/">Wikimedia’s
tech blog</a> about a month ago (for more detail regarding the
purpose for offline work, see the <a
href="http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline">offline
strategy</a> page).</p>
<p>In support of our offline readership work, we're thrilled to
announce the launch of a new feature on Wikipedia developed with
our partners from <a href="http://pediapress.com/">PediaPress</a>.
Last week we enabled <a href="http://openzim.org/Main_Page">openZim</a>
(the main file format in which offline materials are stored)
export for the existing PediaPress collections extension on
English Wikipedia and numerous other wikis. This means that
individuals can now use the existing PediaPress <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Books">Create a book</a>
tool and download it in a format which can be read offline (via
an offline reader, such as <a
href="http://kiwix.org/index.php/Main_Page">Kiwix</a>). This
is important because it opens new avenues for the creation of
offline materials, for example, an openZim library hosting
different offline “book” options.</p>
<p>Also, the English offline collection <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_0.8">Wikipedia
0.8 </a>was made <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_0.8/downloads">officially
available</a>, after much hard work by the <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team">Wikipedia
1.0 Editorial Team</a>. This collection is an iteration in
the process of developing a vetted collection of offline
articles selected based on their quality and topical importance.
The main constraint with an offline product is the data size
restrictions: the entirety of Wikipedia must somehow be
condensed so that it fits on a CD, DVD, or USB stick. Wikipedia
1.0 aims at creating the highest quality and most valuable
subset of Wikipedia to meet those size requirements, and v0.8 is
a precursor. Wikipedia 0.8 is a general collection of just
under 50K articles, It is available for Mac, PC, or Linux with a
Linux or Okawix reader; some mobile phone versions will be
available later this month as well.</p>
<p>More updates are sure to come on this offline front:
Wikimedians around the world are actively assisting in the
development of offline collections as well as distribution. We
are excited to support and document the momentum going forward.</p>
<p>Jessie Wild, Global Development</p>
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