Announce-l September 2011

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Wikizine News - Year: 2011 Week: 40 Number: 130

by EN Wikizine

12 years, 6 months

Wikizine Techflash - Year: 2011 Week: 40 Techflash

by Wikizine

************************************************************ Wikizine.org's _____ _ ___ _ _ /__ \ ___ ___ | |__ / __\| | __ _ ___ | |__ / /\// _ \ / __|| '_ \ / _\ | | / _` |/ __|| '_ \ / / | __/| (__ | | | |/ / | || (_| |\__ \| | | | \/ \___| \___||_| |_|\/ |_| \__,_||___/|_| |_| EDITION Year: 2011 Week: 40 Techflash ************************************************************ An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Re-post: Hi again folks, We want to run another set of banners to recruit translators for the fundraiser this week, in some areas overlapping with the WLM banners. If it is alright with you we would like to do it the same way we did previously, namely with a rough 25-75 split with the WLM banners, so they are still shown. The banners will only run for logged-in users, so anonymous users will not be affected. The countries that will be affected are these: * Tuesday 27th ** 17:00–21:00 UTC: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands ** 15:00–21:00 UTC: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Andorra * Wednesday 28th ** 17:00–22:00 UTC: Portugal, Spain * Thursday 29th ** 12:00–23:59 UTC: Poland * Friday 30th ** 12:00–23:59 UTC: Russia, Hungary, Estonia, Romania Please let me know if there is a problem – and sorry about the late notice for the ones tomorrow. -- Jon Harald Søby Community Fellow Wikimedia Foundation === Request for help === [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… //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly inspired or directly copied from other sources. Those sources are listed above at "Sources-Attributions". Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]]. Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

12 years, 6 months

Wikizine Opinion - Year: 2011 Week: 39 Number: 129 BIS

by EN Wikizine

************************************************************ Wikizine.org's ___ _ _ /___\ _ __ (_) _ __ (_) ___ _ __ // //| '_ \ | || '_ \ | | / _ \ | '_ \ / \_// | |_) || || | | || || (_) || | | | \___/ | .__/ |_||_| |_||_| \___/ |_| |_| |_| EDITION Year: 2011 Week: 39 Number: 129 BIS ************************************************************ An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// === Wikizine needs YOU! === Wikipedia has already changed the world. Wikimedia movement is at the beginning of that task. To push the movement into that direction, Wikizine needs your '''bold''' ideas and personal perspectives! Send your ideas to us or simply add them into the appropriate section. What YOU think can change the world! Send us email, give us feedback, write it on foundation-l, on Meta! http://report.wikizine.org http://meta.wikizine.org === Contents === *Editorial ** Wikizine ** In the mean time on foundation-l... ** Wikinews: Criticism and fork ** Song of the week *Personal perspective: The cows of Jimmy Walker *In the news Time machine ** 10 years ago ** 5 years ago *From Wikipedia === Editorial by Milos === ==== Wikizine ==== As you can see, there are two regular and one irregular editions of Wikizine. Wikizine News should stay more or less like Wikizine always was: plain news for Wikimedia community. Breaking News or Tech Flash are for irregular editions for important news and they existed before, as well. Wikizine Opinion or Talk Edition or Weekend Edition (we still want to get your input about the name of this edition!) should be for longer reading, over weekends. You can see that there are five main parts of this edition: "Editorial", "Personal perspective", "In the news", "Time machine" and "From Wikipedia". Of those, "Time machine" debuts in this edition. It's about events in and around the Wikimedia community ten and five years ago. We should remind ourselves of past events and still modern ideas. Thanks to Walter, Wikizine got its gopher [1] site [2]. Gopher existed before the web and it was a non-graphical hypertext protocol. Just ~150 gopher sites left on the Internet by now. I was very happy when I realized that. My only objection is that we have to find a way to have the whole site in pure gopher menus and text, as some of the pages are in HTML, which is a shame! You know, we are geeks, at last :) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29 [2] gopher://gopher.wikizine.org/ ==== In the meantime on foundation-l... ==== Like with any good soap opera, after years of discussions about nudity on Wikimedia projects and filtering it, you didn't miss anything! If you join now, you would see the same people, the same relations between them, the same intrigues, but in brand new packaging. But, most importantly, something which you can't do with soap operas, YOU can raise a pro or contra argument a year old and people would discuss it seriously and with the same passion as it was at the beginning! Once again, Wikimedia community proved that it's as vital as it was years ago. On my Gmail account I have 43 foundation-l threads for the period of 17-23 September. Of those: 21 about image filter and similar, including another of Larry Sanger's self-promotional tweets 3 about forking Wikinews 3 about friendly organizations 4 chapter-related 3 WMF and tech related 2 related to languages 3 posts by internal bulletins (Wikipedia Signpost and Wikizine) 4 miscellaneous ==== Wikinews: criticism and fork ==== Wikinews was featured on foundation-l for the first time this month when it was complained that the English Wikinews project has a "codified bias toward non-Western articles" [1]. From a personal perspective, I can say that the English Wikinews, unlike the English Wikipedia, has a significant number of native English speakers who are not willing to accept non-English sources for anything: news source or proof that a Wikinewsie is good enough editor to become accredited journalist. A couple of years ago, I had a hard time trying to convince them to give accreditation to one Serbian and one Polish Wikinewsie. But, fortunately, the core of editors are sane enough. Last week The Open Globe [2][3], a Wikinews fork, was created. That triggered long discussions about Wikipedia's sister projects and their ability to be self-sustainable. ---- In 2007 I made a deal with Beta News Agency [4], the main privately-owned news agency from Serbia, to give to Wikinews short news for free. The deal is, actually, that we've got everything from Beta's site under CC-BY 2.5 license. As you can see, besides Serbian, there are news services in English [5], Hungarian [6], Romani [7] and Albanian [8]. Four existing and one non-existing edition are able to get high quality news, mostly from Serbia. A bot is running on Serbian Wikinews and adding news from Beta. Because of that, Serbian Wikinews has almost as many articles as all other Wikinews editions [9]. However, the bot on Serbian Wikinews is not running presently, actually. For about two weeks there has been a problem with harvesting and I have to fix it. I'll do that, but the problem is the fact that one substantial part of one project depends only on the free time and willingness of one volunteer. For four years I was trying to find just ''one'' more person interested in developing and maintaining the bot, but I didn't find anyone. With two persons, we could maintain not just Serbian Wikinews, but other Wikinews editions, as well. ---- News is not news two days after it has been published. Only those who research a specific event read old news. Thus, one task is to "fix" encyclopedic article, the other is to do that with news. Because of that Wikinews is not attractive to trolls, but it isn’t attractive to regular editors of Wikipedia, either. The main problem with Wikinews is the lack of the fulfillment which Wikipedia offers: What did I do? Wrote an article which was popular for two days, one week? Writing news requires another kind of motivation. Relevant encyclopedias shape cultures. Relevant news outlets shape public opinion. As our contemporary society is based on short-term goals, there is much more competition in writing news than in writing encyclopedias. The threshold for making a news outlet relevant is insanely high. But, it is possible to change things! While waiting for ''one'' WMF programmer devoted to Wikinews (there are a lot of programmers devoted to Wikipedia), if one volunteer programmer would be interested in programming bots for Wikinews, we could use the bot not just for the English Wikinews additionally, but for other Wikinews editions as well. WMF should employ at least one person to deal with Wikinews. Many persons are employed to deal with Wikipedia. WMF should promote Wikinews and the other sister projects. There are other projects beside Wikipedia and Commons in the Wikimedia family. [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/067943.html [2] http://theopenglobe.org/ [3] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/068277.html [4] http://www.beta.rs/ [5] http://www.beta.rs/default.asp?lan=en [6] http://www.beta.rs/default.asp?lan=hu [7] http://www.beta.rs/default.asp?lan=rm [8] http://www.beta.rs/default.asp?lan=al [9] http://www.wikinews.org/ ==== Song of the week ==== The song of the week is [1]. Lyrics could be found, for example, here [2]. [1] http://tinyurl.com/66ctj3g [2] http://tinyurl.com/6cdgnvm === Personal perspective === Joan Goma [1] wrote the text for this edition of Wikizine's Personal opinion. Joan Goma is the president of Associació Amical Viquipèdia [2][3], an organization which wants to be recognizes as the Wikimedia chapter for Catalonia [4]. [1] http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuari:Gom%C3%A0 [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Associaci%C3%B3_Amical_Viquip%C3%A8dia [3] http://www.viquimedia.cat/ [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CAT ==== The cows of Jimmy Walker ==== In a far away country there was a town known as English where people engaged in the milk business. This is a very tricky business because you have to care for the cows, giving them food, milking them and sell the milk. The amount of milk that the cows gave never matched completely with the one needed by the population and this generated problems. To solve them they had tried all kinds of organizational systems. In a quarter of the town, if you had two cows then the district council took up the cows and they manage them taking in mind the needs of the population and not the selfishness of the owner. But then nobody had much interest on looking after them and they died. In another quarter they let you have the cows but they took away the milk from you, this way the cows were cared of because there was that one who was interested on maintaining them and then the council decided how the milk was distributed according to the needs of the population and not based on who was richer. Then the owners of the cows had almost no income die of hunger or boredom, then no one will take care of the cows and the cows died. In another quarter they allow you to kept the cows and milk then you sell a cow and buy a bull have more and more cows and more and more milk then the price of milk falls so that you could neither feed the cows nor pay the salaries of the employees who looked after the cows and the cows eventually also died. [1] One day a farmer named Jimmy Walker, with several crosses and genetic experiments, he obtained a new race of cattle. They were cows that give an infinite amount of milk and that did not eat any fodder. Those cows were very nice and many people liked to look after them, liked them so much that they were willing to do it for free. Jimmy started his farm with a new business model. He distributed the milk for free. At first nobody believed that this may work. Some said some cattle cared for by unpaid volunteers may not give good milk in any way. To take care of cows should be well prepared and very responsible. Others said that carers are volunteers, that cares for one day that they presented by his nickname instead of their real name and we do not know if they are really responsible for taking care of the cows. Others said that what costs nothing is worth nothing. But Jimmy went ahead and the milk turned out to be better every day to the extent that many farmers folded because they could not compete with the milk of high quality and for free delivered by Jimmy. The business expanded. First milk was distributed only to the English town, and then he opened farms in other villages, opened in a town known as German, and in another known as Catalan. The people from Catalan town were quick to raise cows and started right away, [2] others did take a couple of months but the business also did well and soon was extended to more and more towns to virtually all world. [3] On growing the first problem arose. Although the cows did not eat and caregivers did it for free, distribute milk cost money. At first Jimmy did not mind paying it out of his pocket but there was a moment that could not. Then he decided to set up a non-profit foundation. To find a way the foundation have income to pay the costs of transporting milk at the beginning he thought that maybe he could put ads on milk bottles. But then those that looked after the cows told him that they did not agree with this that, if he made this, they no longer wanted to continue caring for the cows for free. Then he remembered a day walking around Prague had seen that some musicians played for free and the people who wanted giving them money. He thought that, as it was only necessary to pay the transport of the milk, perhaps there would be enough of maintaining the milk for free and without advertisements and asking those drinking the milk that give what they want. Said and done and the system worked. The system worked so well that the foundation, with the money raised not only paid transport costs but also hired people to make technical improvements in the stables and to manage the storage and transport of milk, donations and legal requirements of handling money. Some of those that looked after the cows were not very happy that others get paid while they worked for free. So Jimmy set up elections so that a few members of the Board of Directors of the foundation were chosen by carers of the cows. Thus, as the work of the foundation was necessary for delivering of the milk and improve the cow stables caregivers agreed to continue caring for them for free. To encourage carers of cows foundation began to organize annual meetings called cow-mania and began to create local chapters of caregivers of cows. Encouraging carers to create associations and allowing them to use the brand of milk to promote its drink and to encourage more people to look after the cows. Seeing that everything worked so well a new economic theory appeared. It was named cow-economics. The cow-economics consisted in obtaining a race of animals that they grew up without eating, like Jimmy's cows, and they should be very friendly then encouraging a community to take care of the animals for free. At the beginning of each business a small company paid the expenses of distributing the products obtained from animals and of organizing festivals and competitions to keep happy the community of caregivers. The products were given away for private consumption but they put advertising on packaging, they asked for donations and charged fees for uses for profit. The cow-economic companies began to populate the economic system. Companies spent a lot of resources to studying the psychology of the caretakers of animals and build very user-friendly stables. Emerged a lot of companies like cow-how (engaged in the wool obtained from sheep), face-cow (who worked in chicken eggs) and so on, all of them with many benefits. Suddenly the business of Jimmy began to see signs of crisis. The number of cattle keepers had stopped growing and began to fall. The amount of milk consumed also began to stop growing and it seems that also began to fall. Faced with these threats Jimmy Walker tried to strengthen the chapters letting them raise the money from donations. The chapters were organized not by town but they were organized by race. There were many races on the basis of skin colour. There were races of people with different shades ranging from white to black. In the case of the English people they did not have a single chapter, but they were divided into several chapters according to the colour of the skin of the caregivers. In the case of the Catalan town they asked to have a chapter for all the people of the town because they were a small town and they feel comfortable working altogether. The Catalan people was a very strange people who didn’t liked to discriminate people by skin colour and therefore they do not see anything good in being separated on the basis of skin colour. But their request was denied. They told them that they had to join the people of their same race, although they were of different towns because at the time of collecting donations and distributing the milk it was done according to race and not according to the town where the people lived and the laws on taxes and tax deductions were based on race and not the town ... The truth is that there were cases where town agreed with a single race. Then they could have a chapter. There were also cases of very large villages where the village had many races that only lived in this place then those villages could have several chapters. The problems were in the small towns where people was of the same races than people living in neighbour villages that were much larger. They could not have a chapter. But since these were small towns that do not matter to anyone (except to themselves) the problem stayed unsolved. Several problems arose. Some chapters raise the money but not paid to the foundation what had agreed to contribute to the maintenance of the common expenses of distribution of milk. Others had the money in the bank and did not use them for anything. Others used it but not explained where they spent or what results they obtain. Although the primary law of this country was "presuppose good faith", seeing that there was always a very bad caretaker of cows non-compliant with the law that might thought that there were some kind of incompetence in handling of money or even corruption. Moreover, sometimes there were problems among caregivers of cows and the chapters and or the foundation. The chapters were associations of people where not all partners were cattle keepers neither all of cattle keepers were associated. The foundation, although carers of cows appointed a few members of its governing body, had gone ahead with several initiatives which had upset carers of cows. Another problem arose because not all races had the same economic level. The white races were very wealthy and were used to give money to non-profit activities. But the black was very poor and did not have the habit of making donations. The money collected was going mainly to the chapters of the white races and almost none to the chapters of the black races. In some cases such as in the Spanish town most of the caregivers, were quite dark but recently had created a chapter of white people that would raise the most of the money. From here the story takes three finals. Choose what you like. ===== Final 1===== (Centralization and decline) Seeing all this chaos Jimmy turned to his leadership in establishing a system where money collected by the bodies of different races had to pledge for transparently managing the money and for transferring a large extent to the foundation and chapters in need in accordance with established rules. The Foundation will control and monitor the entire system. The chapters fiercely opposed to it but as the foundation had the upper hand in controlling the distribution of milk, they had to accept it. Then the foundation was tried to copy what the cow-economic companies did: Manage the community of caregivers making activities to attract more and redesign the stalls of cows so that they were more user friendly. But the milk business is not as fun as wool or eggs. In addition, the foundation did not have as much money as companies engaged in this business because it could not place ads. Neither could count on much help from the chapters that were quite annoying. With a centralized structure with few resources could not encompass the diversity of races and towns with as much efficiency as other companies did. Gradually caregivers were leaving the business. Some because they were bored, others because they sympathized with the chapters that were annoying for the affair of the money, others were simply move on to other business more fun without such problems, others assembled their own farms of cows aside. Of course there was a small core remained of irreducible who continued for a long time. They included the Catalan town; their only interest was providing their town a great deal of high quality milk. As the cows gave infinite milk, the foundation could continue distributing milk for a long time. But nothing was ever as before again. ===== Final 2 ===== (The chapters assault the foundation. General rush) Seeing that Jimmy was proposed that the foundation overseeing the management of the money by the chapters, that not all chapters will be allowed to collect directly, and even proposed that the foundation appoint members in Chapters Board. The chapters were quick to react against this approach. They set up a council of chapters to join forces with to face the foundation. With this organization they planned the assault of the foundation. There were two members of the Board of the foundation that were traditionally chosen by the chapters. On the first occasion of renewing these charges ensured that the two new members of the Board agreed with its approach. There were three more chosen by the community of caregivers of cows. The community of caregivers of cows was totally disorganized, most had no idea what was going on. The only keepers of cattle that were organized and were informed they were the affiliated to chapters. Only 10% followed somehow what was discussed and they where basically the people's from the English town. The other towns were far away and were not aware of these discussions. In the next election, the council of chapters orchestrated a good campaign. They promoted the presentation of three good candidates related to their postulates and asked the chapters to put all their influence to promote the vote for these candidates. The result was a success. The 3 new members were those who promoted the chapters. With 5 members of the Board they had majority and were able to change the rules of the game to their taste. The first thing that they did was change the way of appointing members of the Board. They increased the number of members appointed by chapters and lower the appointment of experts in various fields and those named by the community of caregivers of cows. This will ensure that they could continue controlling the foundation for ever more. Then they left the foundation limited to the activities of distribution of milk and improvement of stalls. All that was raising money, promoting the consumption of milk and attract new carers of cows was in the hands of the chapters. In each town the outcome was very different. There were towns with only one race that had a good understanding between the chapter and the community of caregivers of cows, in these cases, besides if they were white and could raise a lot of money had very good cards in the game. For the German town things went very well. Other towns had people of many races. In the case of the English town the majority they were of white race. There were not many problems between the chapters and the community of caregivers. They saw many discussions and many caregivers left the business. But as its farm was very big it continued giving milk. In the case of the Spanish town there are many races but the skin colour of the majority was rather dark. Only whites they have good funding. In the community of caregivers, there were many critics of the chapters and the foundation. They were devoted to discuss among themselves. They fill pages and pages of discussion and were becoming less dedicated to caring for cows. Worst of all was for small towns. In small towns there were not enough people in any race to have its own chapter. All chapters were in bigger towns. They were left without money to promote that the people take care of their cows. Many towns were abandoned and are now ghost towns where nobody lives there. In some cases such as the Catalan people were riding back to the chapter of the Foundation and the Council of Chapters and they raise funds on their own to promote the business of milk for his people. ===== Final 3 ===== (The French Revolution. Communities in power) The keepers of cattle were beginning to see those tings were going wrong. They were not organized. Each town was living without much contact to the other and few people where involved in the tasks of organizing the farm. Most limited their activity to care a little cow and nothing more. Only when something happened that attracted much attention a few of them went out and make hear their voice. But Jimmy remembered that the original spirit of the project included the caregivers of the cows that had to decide how best to organize the farm, therefore suggested to organize the keepers of cattle so that they could help to fix the problem. The first step was to go for new blood. Those that is usually limited to caring for the cows and not saying anything more. Off course, there were many and not all were constant carers. Many were limited to go to the farm care for a cow during one day and never return. He thought that a reasonable approach would be bringing together all keepers of cattle that had the right to vote to choose the members of the board of the foundation. These were the ones that had helped to look after the cows for a long period and still continued doing it recently. To go up to meet and talk to each other had to organize them by town. No matter the skin colour of each one. Said and done. In each town created a Council composed of all caregivers eligible to vote. The Council appointed representatives who took care of the relations with other towns. The representatives of the town stayed alert of the affairs of the various farms and the distribution of milk and made a summary report to the Council. Every 3 months they sent this report to each member of the Council to keep them up to date. Also organized discussions among Council members when there were important issues and collected the outcome. The representatives of each town were gathered together to form a General Council of Cattle Carers. The Council of each town allocated trusted caretakers of cows the task of supervising the chapters that were in the town, also ensured that the chapters of the richest races handed the money to the poorer chapters to get the best for the whole of the town. The General Council ensured that all chapters handed the money to the foundation for the distribution of milk, to improve the stable, and to support activities to attract carers in the towns where there was no chapter . Once organized caregivers, and once checked that everyone was involved (not just the same as always that in many cases had already been organized into chapters) then Jimmy changed the status of the foundation increasing the number of members of board elected by the communities so that caregivers so that they were majority. In this way the system was stabilized. The case of small towns that previously could not have a chapter they discuss the matter with the Council of its town. Some decided to agree with chapters of neighbouring villages, others like the case of the Catalan town, decided to create its own chapter and were able to promote the business of milk in her town as everyone else. In the end most people were having a chapter that promoted the business of milk, either own or a neighbouring village who had come to an agreement. With the house tidy, take care of cows was more fun than ever. In addition, the foundation could concentrate on making a much better stable. This gave a whole new air. The global milk market grew slowly and sooner or later they would cover all the demand. In order to grow since they were enthusiastic about the subject, on the one hand they revived some businesses that had already begun and that they had not succeeded. Business of cheese, yoghurt etc. that did not work because they needed different facilities that the business of milk. They were focused on research and develop these infrastructures. They also began to start new business ideas as the business of honey. At first this business was small but gradually grew and reached beyond the milk business. ===== References ===== [1] This is a summary. In fact they tried many more systems of organization. You can find a more expansive collection here: http://coffeehouse-economics.blogspot.com/2008/02/different-ways-of-market-… [2] Although it has nothing to do and it is a pure coincidence, something similar happened with Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Multilingual_monthly_st… [3] Jimmy Walker became famous. Even the diplomatic cables of the United States made some a follow-up of its movements. As can be seen thanks to Wikileaks. By mistake they attribute him the foundation of Wikipedia but obviously should say cow-pedia: http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/11/08SANTIAGO1015.html === In the news === [In defense of Wikipedia] - Bryn Neuenschwander aka Marie Brennan, an American fantasy author, wrote on the Science Fiction & Fantasy Novelists site an article called "Research for Writers #2: In Defense of Wikipedia". A good sum of the arguments in favor of Wikipedia. The Guardian and Arabian Business have stories about her, as well. http://www.sfnovelists.com/2011/09/16/research-for-writers-2-in-defense-of-… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Brennan http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/18/hari-fake-quotes-training-peter… http://www.arabianbusiness.com/dubai-bashing-journo-hari-admits-plagiarism-… [Unethically abusing Wikipedia] - The Economist published a story about Independent journalist Johann Hari, who used a pseudonym to harass rival journalists and edit the Wikipedia article about himself. He made a personal apology in the Independent. Wikizine reported about this incident in the previous Opinion Edition. http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/09/unethical-journalism http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari http://en.wikizine.org/2011/09/wikizine-opinion-year-2011-week-38.html http://blog.tommorris.org/post/10400620996/hari-gate-behind-the-scenes-at-w… [Wikipedia accurate on cancer facts, but...] - DoctorsLounge published an article about the study "Wikipedia Accurate on Cancer Facts, But Hard to Read". That story has been republished by a number of news outlets. http://www.doctorslounge.com/index.php/news/hd/23109 http://www.rocketnews.com/2011/09/wikipedia-accurate-on-cancer-facts-but-ha… http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/09/16/wikipedia-cancer.html http://machineslikeus.com/news/cancer-information-wikipedia-shown-be-accura… http://news.yahoo.com/wikipedia-accurate-cancer-facts-hard-read-study-23141… http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/15478525/wikipedia-accurate-on-cancer-fact… http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2011/9/19/wikipedia-content-on-cancer-i… http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_116511.html [Poor readability] - In related news, instead of transferring the whole news about cancer facts, French Tribune extracted in a sensationalist way just "Wikipedia Offers Poor Readability!" Anyway, what should be expected from an organization which keeps default Drupal favicon on their site! http://frenchtribune.com/teneur/117221-wikipedia-offers-poor-readability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon http://tinyurl.com/6c22ff7 http://drupal.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupal [Jimmy Wales travels] - Jimmy Wales meets with Carlos Slim, the richest person in the world; discusses (on the beach) carbon emissions with Tony Blair. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-20/scene-last-night-carlos-slim-jimmy… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/of-beach-sand-war-and-carbon/ [Book on Obama plagiarized Wikipedia] - White House attacks author of book on Obama, author responds. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/white-house-officials-attack-b… http://www.mediaite.com/tv/white-house-refutes-confidence-men-book-suggests… http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63991.html === Time machine === ==== 10 years ago ==== [19 September] - English Wikipedia User:The Cunctator proposed the creation of a 9/11 wiki. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-September/000478.html [20 September] - Larry Sanger announced an article in The New York Times about Wikipedia. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-September/000475.html [23 September] - Larry Sanger reported that Richard Stallman had called Wikipedia "exciting news". http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-September/000486.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-September/000489.html ==== 5 years ago ==== [16 September] - Jimmy Wales announced Board elections and supported Oscar van Dillen and Kat Walsh. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023349.html http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2006 [16 September] - Delpine Menard published a shortlist of Wikimania 2007 candidates: Alexandria, London, Taipei, Torino. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023358.html [16 September] - Citizendium announced. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023373.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizendium http://en.citizendium.org/ [16 September] - Rob Levin, aka lilo, President of the Peer-Directer Projects Center which operates irc.freenode.net, died in an accident. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023396.html [17 September] - Florence Devouard made a report from her visit to Abuja and posted her ideas about the development of Wikimedia projects related to Africa. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023408.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023409.html [18 September] - Larry Sanger published his first post on citizendium-l, Kat Walsh reposted it on foundation-l. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023452.html [18 September] - Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote about events related to Cherokee and Navajo languages. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023456.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023457.html [18 September] - Angela Beasley informed us that Tim Starling had surgery, but everything went well. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023487.html [18 September] - KDE wanted to use Wikiversity to train developers. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023518.html [19 September] - Discussion about methods to elect ArbCom started. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-September/027672.html [21 September] - David Gerard wrote the essay "Wikipedia:100,000 feature-quality articles". Discussion about it started on wikipedia-l. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:100K http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-September/027683.html [21 September] - Samuel Klein on Board elections. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-September/027698.html [22 September] - Samuel Klein's essays "Wikipedia and the networked society", "Dreams, goals, and milestones", "Reflection and research: User surveys", "Parallels with other volunteer efforts & foundations" http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-September/027699.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023641.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-September/027700.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/023642.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-September/027701.html http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-September/027702.html [22 September] - Erik Zachte created galleries of Main Pages of a couple of different Wikipedias. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-September/027710.html http://infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/Gallery/Gallery.htm http://infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/Gallery/GalleryWayBack.htm === From Wikipedia === [WikiProject Cannabis] - WikiProject Cannabis is dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of cannabis, including articles relating to hemp and marijuana legislation, effects, policies, trends, activists, organizations, culture, and other aspects of the plant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cannabis [Caral] - Caral was a large settlement in the Supe Valley, near Supe, Barranca province, Peru, some 200 km north of Lima. Caral is the most ancient city of the Americas, and is a well-studied site of the Caral civilization or Norte Chico civilization. Caral was inhabited between roughly 2600 BC and 2000 BC, enclosing an area of more than 60 hectares. Caral was described by its excavators as the oldest urban center in the Americas, a claim that was later challenged as other ancient sites were found nearby. Accommodating more than 3,000 inhabitants, it is the best studied and one of the largest Norte Chico sites known. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norte_Chico_civilization [Loveland frog] - The Loveland Frog (otherwise known as the Loveland Lizard) is said to be a humanoid creature with the face of a frog and is described as standing roughly 4 feet (1.2 m) tall with green leathery skin. It walks upright and has webbed hands and feet, and was allegedly first spotted in Loveland, Ohio. It is generally considered a cryptid—a creature rumored or reported to be living, but with no confirmable proof. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loveland_frog [Argan oil] - Argan oil is an oil produced from the kernels of the argan tree, endemic to Morocco, that is valued for its nutritive, cosmetic and numerous medicinal properties. The tree, a relic species from the Tertiary age, is extremely well adapted to drought and other environmentally difficult conditions of southwestern Morocco. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argan_oil [Clathrate gun hypothesis] - The clathrate gun hypothesis is the popular name given to the hypothesis that rises in sea temperatures (and/or falls in sea level) can trigger the sudden release of methane from methane clathrate compounds buried in seabeds and permafrost which, because the methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas, leads to further temperature rise and further methane clathrate destabilization – in effect initiating a runaway process as irreversible, once started, as the firing of a gun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis [Fan death] - Fan death is a widely held belief prevailing in South Korea that an electric fan left running overnight in a closed room can cause the death of those inside. Fans sold in Korea are equipped with a timer switch that turns them off after a set number of minutes, which users are frequently urged to set when going to sleep with a fan on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death [Turritopsis nutricula] - Turritopsis nutricula, the potentially immortal jellyfish, is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary stage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula [Prora] - Prora is a beach resort on the island of Rügen, Germany, known especially for its colossal Nazi-planned touristic structures. The massive building complex was built between 1936 and 1939 as a Kraft durch Freude (KdF) project. The eight buildings are identical, and while they were planned as a holiday locale, they were never used for this purpose. The complex has a formal heritage listing as a particularly striking example of Third Reich architecture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prora [Victoria Woodhull] - Victoria Claflin Woodhull (September 23, 1838 – June 9, 1927) was a 19th century American who was described by Gilded Age newspapers as a leader of the American woman's suffrage movement. She is most famous for her sensational 1872 campaign to run as the first female candidate for the Presidency of the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Woodhull [Marsupial reproductive system] - Marsupials' reproductive systems differ markedly from those of placental mammals (Placentalia). Females have two lateral vaginas, which lead to separate uteri but both open externally through the same orifice. A third canal, the median vagina, is used for birth. This canal can be transitory or permanent. The males generally have a two-pronged penis, which corresponds to the females' two vaginas. The penis is used only for discharging semen into females, and there is instead a urogenital sac used to store waste before expulsion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsupial#Reproductive_system [Misophonia] - Misophonia, literally “hatred of sound,” is a form of decreased sound tolerance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misophonia [Literaturwurst] - Literaturwurst (Literature Sausage) is an Artist's book, made by the Swiss-German artist Dieter Roth between 1961 and 1974. Each book was made using traditional sausage recipes, but replacing the sausage meat with a book or magazine. The cover of the edition was then pasted onto the skin of the sausage and signed and dated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literaturwurst [1% rule] - In Internet culture, the 1% rule or the 90–9–1 principle (sometimes also presented as 89:10:1 ratio) reflects a theory that more people will lurk in a virtual community than will participate. This term is often used to refer to participation inequality in the context of the Internet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_%28Internet_culture%29 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// @@@@@@@@@@--------Wikizine-seeks-editors----------@@@@@@@@@@ °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° Editor(s): millosh, Joan Goma Corrector(s): nathan Thanks to: Sources-Attributions: Support: Walter Contact: http://report.wikizine.org Website: http://www.wikizine.org Gophersite: gopher://gopher.wikizine.org °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° @@@@@@@@@@-------Wikizine-loves-feedback----------@@@@@@@@@@ //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly inspired or directly copied from other sources. Those sources are listed above at "Sources-Attributions". Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]]. Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

12 years, 7 months

Wikizine News - Year: 2011 Week: 39 Number: 129

by EN Wikizine

************************************************************ 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_2011-2 http://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.html http://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_trial http://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=30208 https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30208#c43 http://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/466 http://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:Jarry1250 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SMasters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Skomorokh http://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.pl http://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/EN2011-130 http://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 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// @@@@@@@@@@--------Wikizine-seeks-editors----------@@@@@@@@@@ °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° Editor(s): millosh, Kpjas, Shizhao,Walter Corrector(s): nathan Thanks to: kaldari, Theo10011, pgehres Support: Walter Contact: http://report.wikizine.org Website: http://www.wikizine.org Gophersite: gopher://gopher.wikizine.org °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° @@@@@@@@@@-------Wikizine-loves-feedback----------@@@@@@@@@@ //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly inspired or directly copied from other sources. Those sources are listed above at "Sources-Attributions". Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]]. Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

12 years, 7 months

Wikizine Techflash - Year: 2011 Week: 39 Techflash

by Wikizine

********************************************** Wikizine.org's _____ _ ___ _ _ /__ \___ ___| |__ / __\ | __ _ ___| |__ / /\/ _ \/ __| '_ \ / _\ | |/ _` / __| '_ \ / / | __/ (__| | | / / | | (_| \__ \ | | | \/ \___|\___|_| |_\/ |_|\__,_|___/_| |_| Year: 2011 Week: 39 Techflash *********************************************** An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community ////////////////////////////////////////// Breaking news [Wikimedia servers upgrade] - Wikimedia servers are in the process of upgrading. You may experience difficulties in reading and/or editing Wikimedia sites. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/16/mediawiki118iscomin/ o Upgrade timeline: + [19 September] - Monday, September 19, 23:00-01:00 UTC -- Production test: test2.wikipedia.org – this stage will ensure that 1.18 is compatible with the rest of our production infrastructure. There’s a small chance that changes here could affect all wikis. + [21 September] - Wednesday, September 21, 23:00-03:00 UTC -- Stage 1: simple.wikipedia.org, simple.wiktionary.org, usability.wikimedia.org, strategy.wikimedia.org, mediawiki.org, he.wikisource.org + [26 September] - Monday, September 26, 23:00-03:00 UTC -- Stage 2: meta.wikimedia.org, en.wikiquote.org, en.wikibooks.org, beta.wikiversity.org, eo.wikipedia.org, nl.wikipedia.org + [4 October] - Tuesday, October 4, 23:00-03:00 UTC -- Stage 3: remaining wikis. ////////////////////////////////////////// @@@@@@@@ Wikizine seeks editors @@@@@@@@@ °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° Editor(s): Milos Corrector(s): Nathan Support: Walter Contact: http://report.wikizine.org Website: http://www.wikizine.org °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° @@@@@@@@@ Wikizine seeks editors @@@@@@@@ ////////////////////////////////////////// Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly inspired or directly copied from other sources. Those sources are listed above at "Sources-Attributions". Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]]. Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

12 years, 7 months

Wikizine Opinion - Year: 2011 Week: 38 Number: 128 BIS

by EN Wikizine

****************************************** Wikizine.org's ___ _ _ /___\ _ __ (_) _ __ (_) ___ _ __ // //| '_ \ | || '_ \ | | / _ \ | '_ \ / \_// | |_) || || | | || || (_) || | | | \___/ | .__/ |_||_| |_||_| \___/ |_| |_| |_| Year: 2011 Week: 38 Number: 128 BIS ****************************************** An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community ////////////////////////////////////////// === Wikizine needs YOU! === Wikipedia has already changed the world. Wikimedia movement is at the beginning of that task. To push the movement into that direction, Wikizine needs your '''bold''' ideas and personal perspectives! Send your ideas to us or simply add them into the appropriate section. What YOU think can change the world! [Name] - Working title of this edition is "Wikizine Talk Edition" because we didn't have better idea. Send us suggestions for the name! === Contents === Editorial Personal perspective In the news From Wikipedia === Editorial by Milos === As you could read in Wikizine 127 [1], I took initiative and began a Wikizine revival. You may notice some changes and I can say that there will be more changes, as such changes keep all of us alive. Editorial is one of those changes and it will have two main parts: (1) presentation of one of the Wikizine feature and (2) analysis of the most important event from the previous week or two. Opinion or Talk Edition of Wikizine will be published on Friday and ?previous week? means approximately Friday-Thursday time frame. Last week had begun with such intensity, I thought I could close this edition by Monday. [1] http://en.wikizine.org/2011/09/year-2011-week-36-number-126.html ==== (Un)acceptible Foundation influence on chapters ==== On August 27th, almost 20 days before the conclusion of this edition, CasteloBranco, a member of the initiative for Wikimedia Brazil, sent an email to foundation-l [1] with the description of agreement inside of Brazilian Wikimedian community about chapter creation. That was the main obstacle toward formalizing the chapter, as Brazilian Wikimedians didn?t feel comfortable with the idea of having a formal organization. That day five more Wikimedians discussed the outlines of this agreement on foundation-l, including a note from Ray Saintonge that it?s not the best idea to have a Wikimedia Foundation appointee in chapter?s Board (as suggested by WM Brazil?s agreement). For five days discussion was dead, when Jimmy Wales said that having a WMF appointee is, actually, a good idea. That sparked long discussions on both foundation-l and internal-l (the latter one is a non-public list of the core of Wikimedia movement). A number of chapters representatives felt offended by the idea of having a WMF appointee on their boards. [1] http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/246958 ==== Image filter retrospective (from spring 2008 to early 2011) ==== For those who have forgotten what?s behind the image filter ?referendum?, here is a retrospective. The initial point of the drama started on 7 May 2008 [4]. Because of religion, of course. US-based ?social conservative? site WorldNetDaily reported Wikipedia [5] because of the cover art for the Scorpions? album Virgin Killer [6]. According to Concerned Women of America, another ?social conservative? group, ?Wikipedia is helping to further facilitate perversion and pedophilia.? On 5 December 2008, in the moment of madness, worthy of the best of surreal poetry, Internet Watch Foundaiton (IWF) [7], the association of UK internet providers, listed Wikipedia as a child pornography site [8] because of the same album cover [6]. It seems that IWF needed just four days to find someone who knows what Wikipedia is. IWF reversed their blacklisting on 9 December. In a moment of desperate need for self-promotion, Larry Sanger [9], known because he didn?t believe that his project (Wikipedia, for which has sometimes been described as a co-founder), would succeed and not so known because of a number of failed projects, reported Wikipedia to the FBI [10] on 10 April 2010 because, of course, ?child pornography?. Just a short 17 days later, Fox News discovered the hot news and published it [11] in a well known form of spreading FUD to everything which doesn?t fit to their retarded worldview. The action of the IWF prompted discussions on Wikimedia Commons in 2008. However, just after the Commons community declined to change well defined policy toward images, which are handled based on their quality, not the biased opinion on content, on May 6th, 2010 Jimmy Wales started to delete not just poor quality Second Life animated pornography, but artworks, as well. That sparked a huge revolt among editors [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. At the other side, the action was praised by Fox News, of course [21]. Between May 6th and May 9th, the most striking event was the fact that smart people from the Board were talking nonsense just to stand behind Jimmy?s irrational behavior. The Board?s statement from May 7th [22] was actually quite good. Note that part of the statement says ?In saying this, we don't intend to create new policy, but rather to reaffirm and support policy that already exists.? Yet as it could be seen, in around one month the same Board changed their mind and pushed development with the aim to implement new policy. After that the Kafkaesque parody started. Jan-Bart de Vreede, a Board member, interpreted Board?s statement as supporting Jimmy?s deletion of artworks [23]. Ting Chen, Board chair, also supported deletion of artworks [24]. Stuart West thinks that some deleted artworks are ?hardcore pornography?, as well [25]. Digression about artworks for the complete picture. Jimmy deleted [28], among others, the next images: Painting [27] by Édouard-Henri Avril, a 19th and early 20th century French painter [28]. Graphics [29] by Franz von Bayros, a late 19th and early 20th century Austrian illustrator [30]. Graphics [31] by Félicien Rops, a 19th century Belgian artist [32]. What is interesting with all of those artists is that they belong to the Decadent movement in art [33]. Which, by the way, says that you can create the most important educational resource in the history, but not be able to make distinction between pornography and art. And no matter of your ignorance, you would be supported by your fellow Board members,. On May 9th, 2010, by concluding his regular behavioral iteration -- first makes a problem, then does the right thing to fix it --, Jimmy abandoned his permissions [34]. But, of course, that wasn?t the end of the drama. On June 24th, 2010 Board commissioned the Executive Director to find a way to satisfy Fox News and those who take Fox News seriously. [35] I had personal conversation with Robert Harris, the person employed by the WMF to ?solve? the problem. It was a very surprising discussion. During the first iteration of our communication, at the time when he presented some facts, including a perspective of one Canadian librarian [36], which clearly stated that libraries do not mark ?objectionable? content in any particular way, it was a real pleasure to hear his insights. But a month or two later it was clear that he wasn?t employed to make a decent suggestion, based on our values. He was employed to make a decision which would satisfy Fox News adherents. Instead of mentioning anywhere that it is not usual to mark sexually explicit content, instead of giving a multicultural perspective by adding at least Muhammad depictions to the list, he just produced a conclusion to please those to whom it is much more problematic that their daughter educate herself in sexual hygiene and contraception, then to see her pregnant at the age of 15. Of course, by mentioning ?multiculturalism? just when it is in favor of those, exclusively American right-wing views [37]. Then the Censorship workgroup [not able to find public link; it was likely announced on internal-l] was created. The task of the group was to articulate what the censorship would look like. I offered, hesitantly, to participate in it, as a part of the responsibility which I had as one of the most vocal opponents of that task. Not unexpectedly, all of us were happy without me on the workgroup. After a period of workgroup work, it presented the design of censorship software [38]. To be honest, it is not bad at all. People are able to click on ?show image?, nothing is cemented. In an ideal world, such an image filter would be a very good option. However, we don?t live in an ideal world. I?ll describe current events (the second part of 2011) after enough time passes and some distance from the current events would be created. Milos :[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum :[2] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content :[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Results/en :[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer#Internet_censorship :[5] http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=63722 :[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer :[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation :[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation_and_Wikipedia :[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger :[10] http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/04/11/018255/Larry-Sanger-Tells-FBI-Wikip… :[11] http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/27/wikipedia-child-porn-larry-sanger… :[12] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content/Archive_1 :[13] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content/Archive_3 :[14] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content/Village_pump/… :[15] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Sexual_content/Village_pump/… :[16] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057789.html :[17] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057791.html :[18] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Remove_Founder_flag :[19] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Petition_to_Jimbo :[20] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Undeletion_requests/Archive/2010-… :[21] http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/07/wikipedia-purges-porn/ :[22] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2010-May/000008.ht… :[23] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057795.html :[24] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/057827.html :[25] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058026.html :[26] http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&us… :[27] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%C3%89douard-Henri_Avril_%2827%29.jpg :[28] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard-Henri_Avril :[29] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Franz_von_Bayros_016.jpg :[30] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Bayros :[31] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F%C3%A9licien_Rops_-_Sainte-Th%C3%A9… :[32] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9licien_Rops :[33] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decadent_movement :[34] http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/195612 :[35] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Commissioning_Recommendation… :[36] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Co… :[37] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Conten… :[38] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/en#What_will_the_ima… ==== Song of the week ==== For the end of the editorial, here is the song of the week: http://tinyurl.com/6vaxls Milos === Personal perspective === This week we have personal perspective from Salmaan Haroon, User:Theo10011 [1]. Theo is from India. He is originally from English Wikipedia but mostly active on Meta these days. He worked extensively on the WMF strategic plan on Strategy Wiki [2] a couple of years ago. He has been involved in Movement roles since early this year. He wrote for the Signpost briefly. He worked for WMF for 3 months last year during the fundraiser, and got the chance to interact with chapters and see the fundraising issue from different perspectives. Wikimedia chapters council [3] is his proposal. :[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Theo10011 :[2] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/ :[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters_council ---- I was invited to write about my perspective on the recent chapter and fundraising issues that have been doing the rounds. Let me first start out by making this disclosure- I am not affiliated with any chapter beyond a regular membership acquired a few weeks ago, I never sat on a chapter board, attended a general meeting, and neither do I plan on starting any time soon. Given a different set of circumstance, I am not sure if my perspective would be deemed completely neutral in the following matter. Previously, as an outsider to the internal working of Wikimedia and chapter relations, I viewed the idea of chapters as a regular unaffiliated community member would i.e. with a mix of ignorance and skepticism. Chapters are viewed in some circles as legal organizations formed in different countries by a handful of people who then use Wikimedia trademarks and fundraising to raise funds to just exist and occasionally serve as a local outreach point. Somewhere during the last year, I actually started meeting some of these people. I began to see the other side, how chapters perceive themselves and each other. True, there is an entire spectrum where each chapter falls and how close they actually are to what they want to be. Some of these people became my friends, I started seeing things from their perspective. Over the last year, I saw chapters organize and take on activities like Wiki Loves Monuments, something the foundation never tried to do. I saw them do local GLAM outreach and activities in Germany and France, again, something that the foundation could not take on directly. They all do their own thing individually in their part of the world whether it be some open-license lobbying to their local institutions or outreach to a local exhibition. I can not in good conscience accept that our movement would be any better off without them being independent. They are completely decentralized, and do their own thing independently, I love that model. A few dozen organizations doing their own things in tandem in different parts of the world is an unmatched model when it comes to productivity. Lately however, there have been overtures that this model might be under threat. The distance and the relation between the foundation and the chapters has been getting more and more strained. The fundraising issue and the board letter that started the recent debate at the core placed concerns, that really no one disagreed with. I am yet to talk to a single person who thinks that most of those concerns aren't legitimate or there isn't a need for a sustained model of accountability. Almost every chapter in private and public, agrees that the issues are serious and require some action on everyones part. The biggest issue is however how these concerns are being addressed. Some of the foundation's recent actions are being perceived as a heavy-handed towards chapters and the community at large. The conceptual directives have been coming from the board, perceptually overlooking an important distinction someone else made earlier- the board is the Wikimedia Foundation's board, not the chapter's, certainly not the movement's, the larger community is even less inclined to agree. When the questions about the fundraising issue started, there were 2 large concerns that took over after the board's announcement. One, if the chapters that already agreed to participate in the fundraiser being allowed to continue, and second, if new half-a-dozen chapters that wanted to participate would be able to do so. The timing as others pointed out was less than ideal, having the staff and the board in person at Wikimania didn't help and instead compounded the problems. The cross-talk between the board and staff at that stage seemed minimal. Sue gave a lengthy explanation about the issues and the board's concern, as did several board members who offered their perspective, staff members however seemed to be on a different page. Instead of giving any time to discuss and coordinate on how to address these issues, the entire fundraising model was taken away in what some perceive as a knee-jerk reaction and being replaced quietly by a grants-only model. In hindsight, effective planning, and better timing might have avoided the initial confusion. But springing such an important change on chapters so close to the fundraiser, even after chapters attended an entire 'fundraising summit' just a few weeks prior could not have gone well. Chapters were told how to participate in the fundraiser by WMF staff that attended the aforementioned 'summit'. They were now being told to re-evaluate it all, and forget about fundraising and focus on a grants-based model. With all the arguments and the questions that ensued, the staff hasn't addressed most of the issues publicly. Delphine pointed out facts about WMDE, how the ideal independent chapter, the only one who would be allowed to fundraise came to be. How its independence, and the ability to stand on its own two feet made WMDE an example to follow for others. The notion that independent fundraising by chapters wouldn't affect the money needed by the movement is a fallacy. The movement as a whole would lose millions every year, if the chapters are not allowed to do this locally. At some point, we have to realize - a one size fits all, global solution doesn't work. Our movement is decentralized, I think it's only logical that the fundraising be decentralized as well. There is also a general sense of questioning the ownership of the fundraiser among the larger community. There are people who believe that it is the foundation's prerogative to only allow anyone it wants to fundraise or not, since it is the sole entity in charge of everything related to the movement. This would inevitably lead to more questions about ownership of the projects, and who is entitled to raise money in the name of Wikipedia? Non-profits around the world use a decentralized model similar to the one we might have. The current structure looks identical to theirs. if someone were to visit Oxfam.com, they would be directed to the nearest office in their region where they can donate to the cause. In our case, the biggest identity would be our projects, a banner could serve the same purpose locally. Why do we then question the same model that already exist and work elsewhere? Around the time these discussions were going on, I recalled something that we talked about during the Chapters conference in Berlin. An idea about a Chapters council, composed of all individual chapters to say "We, the chapters...." - The community itself is large enough that it can never completely agree on any point together, an important distinctions that chapters might not suffer from. The number of chapters are not large, and some of the issues are so central that a single unanimous voice is not hard to form. There are and have been several iterations of this body, over the years and there is a clear need for it now than ever before. I have no idea if it can bridge the gap and address some of the concerns everyone has, but I do believe, it is worth trying, now more than ever. Chapters, should ideally be the face of the movement- young, hard-working, active and mostly unpaid volunteers that take the good-nature and ethos of our movement, offline. Be it some small project in their backyard, outreach to a local library or museum or a small exhibition in their city, they should be given freedom to decide what works for them locally and then the ability to do so. The foundation should ideally, do its best to support and decentralize this model as much as possible. When chapters work, they work excellently. Salmaan Haroon, User:Theo10011 === In the news === [Jimmy Wales and Sue Gardner in US diplomatic cable] - Jimmy Wales was mentioned in a leaked US diplomatic cable under the name Jimmy Walker. Among many people with that name, one Jimmy Walker was the mayor of New York City from 1926 to 1932. Another one is Jimmie Walker, comedian. Sue Gardner has been presented as "Wikipedia's leading editor". http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2008/11/08SANTIAGO1015.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Walker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Walker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmie_Walker http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/05/09TELAVIV982.html [Inventor of eBook died] - Michael Stern Hart, inventor of the eBook concept and Project Gutenberg, has died at the age of 64. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Michael_S._Hart [Celebrities? Autographs] - Crushable reports (not quite) news that Wikipedia has started including celebrities' autographs in articles about them. In a related event, User:Hindustanilanguage uploaded ~300 autographs on Wikimedia Commons in mid-August. http://crushable.com/entertainment/wikipedia-has-started-including-celebrit… http://tinyurl.com/4xxmepz ["How do i edit a page on wikipedia without it gettin removed?"] - A classic high school question about editing Wikipedia appeared on Yahoo Answers. http://malaysia.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110902133937AAVW9a8 [Positive critique in Washington Post] - The Washington Post journalist Valerie Strauss published article on "Wikipedia is not wicked!" by The Daring Librarian, otherwise known as Gwyneth Anne Jones, on her blog. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-daring-librarian-… http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/ [Branding company plays with Wikipedia] - Branding company Moving Brands, invited by Viewpoint magazine to showcase their process, created a proposal for a new Wikimedia identity. While the value of the final product could be debated, it is interesting that the company has a clear understanding of Wikipedia, Wikimedia and Wikipedia's core Five Pillars, which they included in their creative process. http://www.movingbrands.com/ http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/wikipedia_concept.php http://www.movingbrands.com/?category_name=wikipedia-work [Wikipedia editors motivation] - Business life has published the article "Why do people contribute to Wikipedia for free?" http://www.babusinesslife.com/Tools/Economics/Why-do-people-contribute-to-W… [New York Times on Wikipedia and 9/11] - New York Times published an article "On Wikipedia, Echoes of 9/11 ?Edit Wars?". http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/business/media/on-wikipedia-911-dissent-i… [Jimmy Wales guest of Cambridge Network] - Jimmy Wales gave a lecture to the Cambridge Network members. The Cambridge Network is a commercial business networking organization for business people and academics working in technology fields in the Cambridge area of the UK. In response to his lecture, Cambridge Business Media published the article "Running Wikipedia, possibly not as easy as Jimmy Wales makes it look". http://www.pr.com/press-release/352263 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Network http://www.cabume.co.uk/blog/running-wikipedia-possibly-not-as-easy-as-jimm… [The worst Kindle eBooks] - "The worst Kindle eBooks ever written" is a compilation of Wikipedia articles. http://www.beyond-black-friday.com/2011/08/30/the-worst-kindle-ebooks-ever-… [Copyright in EU] - Copyright on musical recordings extended by twenty years in EU. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Copyright_on_musical_recordings_extended_by_twe… [WikiSweeper] - Ushahidi and Wikimedia Foundation joint initiative to create a hot news tool for Wiki editors http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_to_add_research_mega-tool_fo… http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2011/09/13/announcing-the-wikisweeper-pr… [Jimmy Wales in Indianapolis] - Jimmy Wales was talking to 3,000 marketing experts in Indianapolis. http://www.indystar.com/article/20110913/BUSINESS06/109130390/Wikipedia-fou… [Columnist for Independent and Wikipedia] - The award-winning Independent columnist Johann Hari has apologized for editing the Wikipedia entries of people he had clashed with, using the pseudonym David Rose. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/14/johann-hari-apologises-orwell-p… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari [Campus paper The Bell Ringer on Wikipedia] - Columnist of The Bell Ringer, the campus paper of the Augusta State University, published text "In the Defense of Wikipedia". http://www.asubellringer.com/2011/09/14/in-the-defense-of-wikipedia/ === From Wikipedia === [Hungry ghost] - Hungry ghost is a Western translation of an Eastern phrase representing beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost [Fenian raids] - The Fenian raids of the Fenian Brotherhood based in the United States on British army forts, customs posts and other targets in Canada were fought in order to bring pressure on Britain to withdraw from Ireland, between 1866 and 1871. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian_raids [Monte Cristo, Washington] - Monte Cristo is a ghost town northwest of Monte Cristo Peak, in eastern Snohomish County in western Washington. Prospecting in the region began in the Skykomish River drainage with the Old Cady Trail used for access. In 1882 Elisha Hubbard improved the trail up the North Fork Skykomish, from Index to Galena, then north up the tributary Silver Creek. A boom shortly followed at Mineral City. The mineral belt was traced in various directions, including north over the divide between the Skykomish and Sauk River drainages. ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Cristo,_Washington [Persin] - Persin is a fungicidal toxin present in the avocado. It is generally harmless to humans, but when consumed by domestic animals in large quantities it is dangerous. It has been suggested as a treatment for breast cancer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persin [Progress trap] - A progress trap is the condition human societies experience when, in pursuing progress through human ingenuity, they inadvertently introduce problems they do not have the resources or political will to solve, for fear of short-term losses in status, stability or quality of life. This prevents further progress and sometimes leads to collapse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_trap [Phosphene] - A phosphene is an entoptic phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without light actually entering the eye. The word phosphene comes from the Greek words phos (light) and phainein (to show). Phosphenes are flashes of light, often associated with optic neuritis, induced by movement or sound. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphene [HD 85512 b] - HD 85512 b is an extrasolar planet orbiting the star HD 85512 approximately 36 light-years away in the constellation of Vela. The planet was discovered by the scientists at University of Geneva, Switzerland, led by the Swiss astronomer Stéphane Udry of the GTO program of High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), a high-precision echelle spectrograph installed on ESO's 3.6 m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. HD 85512 b is one of the smallest exo-planets discovered to be in the habitable zone. HD 85512 b is considered to be the best candidate for habitability as of August 25, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_85512_b [Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin] - Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (May 10, 1900 ? December 7, 1979) was an English-American astronomer who in 1925 was first to show that the Sun is mainly composed of hydrogen, contradicting accepted wisdom at the time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Payne-Gaposchkin [List of people claimed to be Jesus] - John Nichols Thom (1799?1838), Cornish tax rebel who claimed to be the "saviour of the world" and the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and his body temple of the Holy Ghost[citation needed] in 1834. He was killed by British soldiers at the Battle of Bossenden Wood, on May 31, 1838 in Kent, England. Arnold Potter (1804?1872), Schismatic Latter Day Saint leader; he claimed the spirit of Jesus Christ entered into his body and he became "Potter Christ" Son of the living God, he died in an attempt to "ascend into heaven" by jumping off a cliff.[citation needed] His body was later retrieved and buried by his followers. Bahá'u'lláh (1817?1892), born Shiite, adopted Bábism later in 1844, he claimed to be the prophesized fulfilment and Promised One of all the major religions. He founded the Bahá'í Faith in 1866. Followers of the Bahá'í Faith believe that the fulfillment of the prophecies of the second coming of Jesus, as well as the prophecies of the 5th Buddha Maitreya and many other religious prophecies, were begun by the Báb in 1844 and then by Bahá'u'lláh. They commonly compare the fulfillment of Christian prophecies to Jesus' fulfillment of Jewish prophecies, where in both cases people were expecting the literal fulfillment of apocalyptic statements. ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_claimed_to_be_Jesus ////////////////////////////////////////// @@@@@@@@ Wikizine seeks editors @@@@@@@@@ °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° Editor(s): Millosh, Theo10011, Kpjas Corrector(s): Nathan Support: Walter Contact: http://report.wikizine.org Website: http://www.wikizine.org °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° @@@@@@@@@ Wikizine seeks editors @@@@@@@@ ////////////////////////////////////////// Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly inspired or directly copied from other sources. Those sources are listed above at "Sources-Attributions". Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]]. Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

12 years, 7 months

Wikizine News - Year: 2011 Week: 38 Number: 128

by EN Wikizine

****************************************** Wikizine.org's __ /\ \ \_____ _____ / \/ / _ \ \ /\ / / __| / /\ / __/\ V V /\__ \ \_\ \/ \___| \_/\_/ |___/ Year: 2011 Week: 38 Number: 128 ****************************************** An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community ////////////////////////////////////////// === 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/EN2011-129 http://tinyurl.com/5rpahqt === Movement === [Wikinews fork] - The Open Globe, a Wikinews fork, has been announced. The fork produced much discussion on Foundation-l about the causes of the fork, Wikimedia Foundation support for projects other than Wikipedia, and the nature of Wikinews. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/068277.html http://theopenglobe.org/ [Wiki Loves Monuments] - 15,000 images from Wiki Loves Images and counting. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/06/pan-european-wiki-loves-monuments-cont… http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu/2011/09/01/294/ http://whatisgoingonineurope.blogspot.com/2011/09/monuments-in-europe.html http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu/2011/09/12/special-award-for-pyrenees-medi… [Hungarian Wikipedia] - Hungarian Wikipedia reached 200,000 articles. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/12/asteroid-shower-helps-propel-hungarian… [Image filter "referendum"] - Discussions on image filter still ongoing (similar size of the foundation-l archive for the half of September in comparison to the whole August). They escalated last week. The German Wikipedia opened a poll which ends today. As of Tuesday morning, more than 85% (340:56) of voters are against implementation of an image filter on the German Wikipedia. "Next steps" for the de.wp community are in the process of analysis. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/thread.html http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Image_filter_referendum/en http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Einf%C3%BChrung_pers%… http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Next_steps/en === Technical news === [Translation rally] - Wikimedia Netherlands sponsors translatewiki.net to run a translation rally. http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2011/09/localisation-rally-for-mediawik… [Wiki Golf] - Proprietary computer game "Wiki Golf" features "six degrees of separation" on Wikipedia. http://www.pr.com/press-release/352263 === Foundation === [August report] - Wikimedia Foundation published August report. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/08/wikimedia-foundation-report-august-201… [Wikipedia Sepedi] - Wikipedia in Northern Sotho or Sepedi has been approved. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30882 [Donate wiki] - Donate wiki has been opened. However, donate.wikimedia.org still redirects to Wikimedia Foundation Donate page. http://donate.wikimedia.org/ === Chapters === [Wikimedia DC becomes chapter] - Board has recognized Wikimedia DC as 36th Wikimedia chapter and the second chapter in the United States. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Recognition_of_Wikimedia_Dis… [Wikipedia club at University in Mexico] - In a guest post on Gerard Meijssen's blog, Leigh Thelmadatter presents the Wikipedia club at University in Mexico. http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2011/09/wikipedia-club-at-university-in… [Wikimedia UK's CEO] - Wikimedia UK asks Wikimedians to help them to choose a CEO. http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2011/09/help-us-choose-our-chief-executive/ [WikiConference India] - WikiConference India is warming up. It will be held in Mumbai between November 18th and 20th. http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/09/07/wikipedia-indi/ http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2011 [Wikimedia Canada] - Wikimedia Canada offers scholarships for Wikipedia articles in medicine. http://wikimedia.ca/wiki/Scholarship_application [Wikimedia UK and Institute of Physics] - Wikimedia UK members visited the Institute of Physics. http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2011/09/wikimedia-uk-at-the-institute-of-physi… ==== Chapters reports ==== [Wikimedia India] - Wikimedia India has published its fifth report. http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Reports/Report_5 [Wikimedia Sweden] - Wikimedia Sweden has published its report for August 2011. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2011-September/000… === Science === [Wikimedia Summer of Research] - Findings from the Wikimedia Foundation Summer of Research are now available. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/06/summer-research-findings/ [Pupils love, teachers hate Wikipedia] - On his blog, Ziko van Dijk describes research by Wikimedia Germany about the use of Wikipedia by teachers and students. http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/pupils-love-wikipedia-teachers-hat… [Wikipedia in Liberal Arts Classroom] - National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education has published a good article on Wikipedia in liberal arts classrooms. http://blogs.nitle.org/2011/09/12/wikipedia-in-the-liberal-arts-classroom/ [Breaking news trends] - Ushahidi, a non-profit software company from Africa, has started a project to track breaking news trends on Wikipedia. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/13/ushahidi-to-track-breaking-news-trends… http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2011/09/13/announcing-the-wikisweeper-pr… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushahidi http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_to_add_research_mega-tool_fo… === Media === [Wikipedia Signpost] - New edition of Wikipedia Signpost has been published. In this edition you can find stories: Foundation reports on research, Kenya trip, Mumbai Wikiconference, 9/11 anniversary casts its shadow on the wiki, A minimalist makeover and so on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-09-… === Events and meetups === [21 August - 6 October] - Stewards election. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2 ** [21 August - 6 October] - Questions to candidates. **: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2/Questions ** [15 September - 6 October] - Voting. **: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2/Guidelines/en#Vote… [14-16 September] - [New Orleans Hackathon] - New Orleans Hackathon will take place between October 14th and 16th. http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2011/09/01/0 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/NOLA_Hackathon [16 September] - Hong Kong 57 meetup http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Hong_Kong/57 [16-25 September] - Wikipedia Takes Mittelhessen, Germany http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_Mittelhessen [17 September] - Wikipedia Takes Barcelona will be held on September 17th. http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquip%C3%A8dia:Wikipedia_Takes_Barcelona [17 September] - Wiki Takes Amersfoot (Netherlands) will take place on September 17th. http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ontmoeten#Amersfoort_17_september [17 September] - Wikipedia takes Fremantle (Australia) will be held on September 17th. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Fremantle [17 September] - Manchester meetup http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Manchester [17 September] - Berkeley Wikipedia Meetup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Berkeley [18 September] - Wikipedia Takes Andorra http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquip%C3%A8dia:Viquip%C3%A8dia_prem_Andorra [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.pl http://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 [30 September] - The last day of the project Wiki Loves Monuments for this year is September 30th. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2011 [1 October] - A Backstage Pass tour is an event aimed at sharing the expertise of real-world cultural institutions with our wiki-expertise. Wikimedia UK organizes it at Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, UK. http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Backstage_Pass [1 October] - Washington DC meetup #23. Wiki DC board elections. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/DC_23 : Meetups are filled from Wikipedia:Meetup page at English Wikipedia. Please, add your meetup there and it will be published by Wikizine. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup) : GLAM-related events are held on Outreach Wiki. If you add your GLAM-related event there, it will be published in Wikizine. (http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Events) : For other events, please post them on our events page or send us email with short description of your event. (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/Events) === Quote === "United we stand; divided we fall." Aesop in "The Four Oxen and the Lion", Fables, also known as "The Lion and the Bulls" http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aesop ////////////////////////////////////////// @@@@@@@@ Wikizine seeks editors @@@@@@@@@ °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° Editor(s): Millosh Corrector(s): Nathan Support: Walter Contact: http://report.wikizine.org Website: http://www.wikizine.org °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° @@@@@@@@@ Wikizine seeks editors @@@@@@@@ ////////////////////////////////////////// Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly inspired or directly copied from other sources. Those sources are listed above at "Sources-Attributions". Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]]. Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

12 years, 7 months

EN Wikizine - Year: 2011 Week: 37 Number: 127

by EN Wikizine

****************************************** __ __ _ _ _ _ / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __ ___ \ \/ \/ / | |/ / |_ / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ /| | <| |/ /| | | | | __/ \/ \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___| .org Year: 2011 Week: 37 Number: 127 ****************************************** An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community ////////////////////////////////////////// === Wikizine === [Editorial] - As Walter said in the previous edition, I took initiative and there are some changes in the Wikizine concept. But, more about them on Friday, in Talk Edition of Wikizine! Milos. [Your reports] - Post your news for the next edition of Wikizine on Meta or in our Google form. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/EN2011-128 http://tinyurl.com/3w8wg5j === Request for Comments === [ISO 639-1 => ISO 639-3] - User:とある白い猫 has started discussion about moving Wikimedia projects with ISO 639-1 code in the name (like "en") to ISO 639-3 code (like "eng"). The discussion was held in 2008 on Bugzilla, as well. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_language_ISO_639-1_%E2%86%92_639-3_prop… https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14010 === Movement === [Wiki Loves Monuments] - Wiki Loves Monuments launched last week. Press release published: Make European Cultural Heritage Accessible to the World. http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu/2011/09/06/make-european-cultural-heritage… === Technical news === [Wikidroid for Wikipedia] - Positive analysis about (likely) proprietary software "Wikidroid for Wikipedia" published on Android Pit. http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/tests/test/392588/Wikidroid-for-Wikipe… === Foundation === [Image filter "referendum" over] - It said to us what we already know: Wikimedians are multicultural and want to allow themselves to change their mind. However, no consensus emerged in relation to the most important question: should images be filtered at all? The survey questions were not asked in a form allowing "yes/no" answers; participants were asked to indicate the importance of some features on a scale. "Referendum" turnout was around 3%: ~700,000 emails were sent to eligible users, ~24,000 respondents expressed their opinions. (In comparison, Board elections have 10-15% turnout.) The next step is to analyze those numbers. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_filter_referendum/Results/en [GLAM report] - WMF's GLAM initiative published August 2011 reports from USA, UK, Canada, Spain, Germany, Mexico and Israel. http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/August_2011 [Wikipedia Editor Satisfaction Index] - Mani Pande and Ayush Khanna from WMF introduced a new measurement, the Wikipedia Editor Satisfaction Index. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/02/introducing-wikipedia-editor-satisfact… === Chapters === [WMF representatives in chapters' boards?] - The initiative for Wikimedia Brazil presented the idea to have a WMF appointed member of their chapter Board. After Ray Saintonge noted that it's not quite regular, Jimmy Wales supported the idea, which, in turn, sparked long discussion about (un)acceptable WMF influence over chapters. http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/246958 === Science === [Gender Bias] - In the Volume 5 for 2011, International Journal of Communication published a paper by Joseph Reagle and Lauren Rhue called "Gender Bias in Wikipedia and Britannica". http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/777/591 (pdf) [Investigating editing anxiety in new users] - A project by Dr. Benjamin R. Cowan and Professor Russell Beale has been added to the Research directory. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Investigating_editing_anxiety_in_ne… [Research committee meeting] - RCom held a meeting on September 2nd. Notes from the meeting are available on Wikimedia Etherpad. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Meetings/Meeting_2011-09-… http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/RCom201109 [Virtual community research] - Stuart Easterling, WMF Virtual Community History Fellow published an update on Virtual community history research of Wikipedia in Spanish. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/02/update-on-virtual-community-history-re… === Media === [Wikipedia Signpost] - New edition of Wikipedia Signpost has been published. In this edition you can find stories: Riding with WikiProject London Transport, The copyright crisis, and why we should care, Britannica and Wikipedia like "apples and chairs", Should anyone who's anyone get an article? etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-09-… === Events and meetups === [21 August - 6 October] - Stewards election. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2 ** [21 August - 6 October] - Questions to candidates. **: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2/Questions ** [15 September - 6 October] - Voting. **: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2/Guidelines/en#Vote… [10 September] - Wiki Takes Amsterdam will be held on September 10th. http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ontmoeten#Amsterdam:_Zaterdag_10_sep… [10 September] - Kolkata7 meetup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Kolkata/Kolkata7 [11 September] - London 49 meetup http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/London/49 [14 September] - Workshop for GLAMs at Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, UK will be held on September 14th. http://museumnetworkwarwickshire.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/something-wiki-th… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Art_Gallery_and_Museum [14 September] - Amical Viquipèdia and Foundation Joan Miró organize the contest for improving articles about Joan Miró, on September 14th. http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquiprojecte:Mir%C3%B3 http://www.viquimedia.cat/ http://www.fundaciomiro-bcn.org/ [14-16 September] - [New Orleans Hackathon] - New Orleans Hackathon will take place between October 14th and 16th. http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2011/09/01/0 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/NOLA_Hackathon [15 September] - Wiki Wildlife Bristol, an event focused on writing about endangered species for Wikipedia, will take place on September 15th. http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Wildlife_Bristol [16 September] - Hong Kong 57 meetup http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Hong_Kong/57 [17 September] - Wikipedia Takes Barcelona will be held on September 17th. http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquip%C3%A8dia:Wikipedia_Takes_Barcelona [17 September] - Wiki Takes Amersfoort (Netherlands) will take place on September 17th. http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ontmoeten#Amersfoort_17_september [17 September] - Wikipedia takes Fremantle (Australia) will be held on September 17th. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Fremantle [17 September] - Manchester meetup http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Manchester [17 September] - Berkeley Wikipedia Meetup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Berkeley [24 September] - Wiki Takes de Zaan (Netherlands) will be held on September 24th. http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ontmoeten#Zaanstreek_24_september [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.pl http://tinyurl.com/42tkjub (Google translate) [30 September] - The last day of the project Wiki Loves Monuments for this year is September 30th. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2011 : Meetups are filled from Wikipedia:Meetup page at English Wikipedia. Please, add your meetup there and it will be published by Wikizine. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup) : GLAM-related events are held on Outreach Wiki. If you add your GLAM-related event there, it will be published in Wikizine. (http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Events) : For other events, please post them on our events page or send us email with short description of your event. (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/Events) ////////////////////////////////////////// @@@@@@@@ Wikizine seeks editors @@@@@@@@@ °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° Editor(s): Millosh Corrector(s): Nathan Support: Walter Contact: http://report.wikizine.org Website: http://www.wikizine.org °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° @@@@@@@@@ Wikizine seeks editors @@@@@@@@ ////////////////////////////////////////// Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly inspired or directly copied from other sources. Those sources are listed above at "Sources-Attributions". Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]]. Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

12 years, 7 months

EN Wikizine - Year: 2011 Week: 36 Number: 126

by EN Wikizine

****************************************** __ __ _ _ _ _ / / /\ \ (_) | _(_)___(_)_ __ ___ \ \/ \/ / | |/ / |_ / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ /| | <| |/ /| | | | | __/ \/ \/ |_|_|\_\_/___|_|_| |_|\___| .org Year: 2011 Week: 36 Number: 126 ****************************************** An independent internal news bulletin for the members of the Wikimedia community ////////////////////////////////////////// === Wikizine === [Wikizine] - you may have have noticed changes to Wikizine in the most recent editions. This is under the impulse of user Millosh who has taken the lead in relaunching Wikizine. We love to hear your ideas and feedback about this. http://report.wikizine.org [Your reports] - Post your news for the next edition of Wikizine on Meta or in our Google form. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine/EN2011-127 http://tinyurl.com/3pjq9yg === Technical news === [Wikipedia for Android 1.0] - A non-free software called "Wikipedia for Android 1.0" has been published. It doesn't look to be affiliated with the WMF. http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/download-review/2105274/wikipedia-android [Engineering report] - Wikimedia engineering report for August 2011 published. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/09/01/wikimedia-engineering-august-2011-repo… === Request for help === [Tech help] - Tech volunteers needed for Hurricane Irene relief. http://philippebeaudette.com/crisiscommons-tech-help-needed/ === Foundation === [Report for July] - Wikimedia Foundation published report for July 2011. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_July_2011 [Editors survey] - Wikimedia Foundation published report for editors survey for April 2011. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/08/29/report-for-editor-survey-april-2011/ === Chapters === [Silver Knowledge Project] - Wikimedia Germany has a project "Projekt Silberwissen" or "Silver Knowledge Project", which aims to teach older people how to contribute to Wikimedia projects. Between July 1st and 3rd the first such project was held in the city of Ulm. http://blog.wikimedia.de/2011/08/29/neues-aus-dem-projekt-silberwissen/ http://tinyurl.com/3r2vt43 (Google translate) ==== Chapters reports ==== [Wikimedia Germany] - Wikimedia Germany published report for July 2011. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Deutsch… [Wikimedia Israel] - Wikimedia Israel published report for August 2011. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Israel/… [Wikimedia Hungary] - Wikimedia Hungary published report for June and July 2011. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikim%E9dia_Magya… http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikim%E9dia_Magya… [Wikimedia Austria] - Wikimedia Austria published report for August 2011. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_%D6ster… === Community === [Blogs about Wikimedia translators] - Philippe Beaudette suggests reading a blog post series about Wikimedia translators by Julie McDonough Dolmaya http://philippebeaudette.com/great-series-of-blog-posts-about-wikimedia-tra… http://mcdonough-dolmaya.ca/2011/ [Language committee] - Language committee has published the August 2011 report http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Reports/2011-08 === Events === [Stewards election] - Candidate submission will last until September 7th. Voting will be held between September 15th and October 6th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2011-2 [Wiki Loves Monuments] - Wiki Loves Monuments takes off. http://www.wikilovesmonuments.eu/2011/09/01/wiki-loves-monuments-takes-off/ [New Orleans Hackathon] - In a letter to Wikizine editors, Sumana Harihareswara informs us about a New Orleans Hackathon, which would take place between October 14th and 16th: "We've now chosen a focus for the New Orleans Wikimedia/MediaWiki developers' days! The theme of this event: "the infrastructure of innovation". We're going to improve and discuss the Wikimedia Labs projects infrastructure and other stuff that makes it easier for anyone to supercharge Wikimedia with awesomeness. We're going to work on our gadgets/extensions/tools support, authorization/authentication strategy, dev-ops virtualization, and general training and hacking. It's mostly going to be dev sprints and bugsmashing, with some discussion and workshops. The event is open to anyone who wants to come and contribute, and is an opportunity to spend time with senior MediaWiki developers & ops engineers, write beautiful code, and learn about the latest developments." http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2011/09/01/0 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/NOLA_Hackathon === Meetups === [Hong Kong 57] - September 16, 2011 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Hong_Kong/57 [Manchester wikimeet] - September 17, 2011 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Manchester [Berkeley Wikipedia Meetup] - September 17, 2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Berkeley (Meetups section is filled from Wikipedia:Meetup page at English Wikipedia. Please, add your meetup there and it will be published by Wikizine.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup === Media === [Wikipedia Signpost] - A new edition of Wikipedia Signpost has been published. In this edition you can find stories such as: Effective collaboration leads to earlier article promotion, Deleted revisions in the English Wikipedia, Wikipedia and open-access repositories, Quality of featured articles doesn't always impress readers, and more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-08-… === In the news === [8 minutes] - Wikipedia needed just 8 minutes to cover an earthquake in Virginia on August 23rd. http://www.hindustantimes.com/Wikipedia-aftershock-in-eight-minutes/Article… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Virginia_earthquake [Hudong] - The biggest single-language encyclopedia, Chinese Hudong, raised 100M RMB (15.6M USD). http://technode.com/2011/08/27/hudong-china%E2%80%99s-wikipedia-obtains-us1… http://www.hudong.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudong [Jimmy Wales on China] - Jimmy Wales interviewed by the Huffington Post, talks about China. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/08/29/wikipedias-jimmy-wales-sp_n_9412… [User:Hylian Auree and Hurricane Irene] - Daily Dot reports about 17 year old Wikipedian Hylian Auree, who was the most active editor on the Wikipedia article about Hurricane Irene. http://www.dailydot.com/news/wikipedia-hurricane-irene-teenager/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hylian_Auree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Irene_%282011%29 [Selling links or not?] - WMF's Sustaining corporate donors page presented in a sensationalistic way: "Wikipedia Selling Links For $5000". http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Sustaining_corporate_donors http://www.boom-online.co.uk/wikipedia-selling-links-for-5000 [Positive Psychology News on Wikipedia] - Positive Psychology News author Shannon Polly calls on university professors to assign students to work on Wikipedia. http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/shannon-polly/2011082619017 === From Wikipedia === [Santa Claus Conquers the Martians] - "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" is a 1964 movie considered as one of the worst movies in the history of cinematography. This holiday staple was the creation of Nicholas Webster. When Martian children get to see Santa Claus only on TV, their parents decide to abduct Santa to make them happy. Like many others in this category, it has been featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000. The film is cited on a 10-worst list in The Book of Lists, in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. It is also known for starring a very young Pia Zadora. Cinematic Titanic released a production of the movie in November 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_Conquers_the_Martians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_worst [Southern barbarian trade period] - Nanban trade or Southern barbarian trade period in Japanese history extends from the arrival of the first Europeans (Portuguese) to Japan in 1543, to their near-total exclusion from the archipelago in 1614, under the promulgation of the "Sakoku" Seclusion Edicts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanban_trade [Holocene extinction] - The Holocene extinction refers to the extinction of species during the present Holocene epoch (since around 10,000 BC) generally from the impact of humans. The large number of extinctions span numerous families of plants and animals including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and arthropods; a sizeable fraction of these extinctions are occurring in the rainforests. 875 extinctions occurring between 1500 and 2009 have been documented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction === Quote === "Look horses! ... Not pretty,. Really not pretty." -- POV of a 2-year old girl about the current line of "My Little Pony" as seen in a toy shop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Little_Pony ////////////////////////////////////////// °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° Editor(s): Millosh Corrector(s): Nathan Thanks to: Sumana Support: Walter Contact: http://report.wikizine.org Website: http://www.wikizine.org °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° ////////////////////////////////////////// Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling. Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly inspired or directly copied from other sources. Those sources are listed above at "Sources-Attributions". Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]]. Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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Announce-l September 2011