Hi Folks,
We encourage each and everyone of you to create a program submission. You can submit an interactive workshop or panel, a lecture, a short lighting talk or a poster for our dedicated poster session. Submissions are catered to both onsite and online (live or pre-recorded) or a hybrid combination. We at the Core Organizing Team would like to see a program submission related to incubator, indigenous languages, and small language projects!
The theme for this year's Wikimania is Diversity, Collaboration, Future. Topics that strengthen collaboration on improving the Wikimedia Incubator, increased participation, content contribution on incubator projects are topics we like to see this year. It is great way to see participants collaborate with each other. There is also a spacious Wikimania Expo space where interactive activities like tutorials and demonstrations can be performed.
For participants joining virtually, we also have allocated online hours for you too to allow you to participate & present.
Session submissions for Wikimania 2023 are open until 28 March.
Visit the following links for further info:
Wiki page: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Program/Submissions
Diff post: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/28/be-part-of-the-wikimania-2023-program/
Program Submission Form: https://pretalx.com/wm2023/cfp
Kind regards,
Butch Bustria
Chair, Program Subcommittee
Event lead, ESEAP Wikimania 2023 Core Organizing Team
Dear Users,
I have the great honour to inform you that the Call for Proposals for WikiIndaba 2018 is now open. WikiIndaba 2018 is the 3rd conference of African Wikimedia movement and will give to participants the opportunity to share their Wikimedia-related experience and skills with a wide and active African Wikimedia audience. The conference will be held in Tunisia from 16 to 18 March 2018. If you want to participate to WikiIndaba and share your works and thoughts with African Wikimedians, feel free to submit your proposal in https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2018/Submissions. The deadline for giving proposals will be January 15th, 2018.
If you need a scholarship to attend WikiIndaba 2018, you can apply to it in https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdJJ2I0FBqp4SuiW5ypj-9lnLaAidUmhMs….
Looking forward to seeing you in Tunis next March.
Yours Sincerely,
Houcemeddine Turki
Felix Nartey
Isla Haddow-Flood
Dear Mr.,I thank you for your interest in our work. Even if it has not developed online in these months, it has certainly developed offline.The problem of Script has been solved as SIL International has recognized Tunisian Arabizi as a Latin Script for Tunisian. So, we can create the Tunisian WIkipedia in Latin Script mainly because it is the most used writing method online. I have seen the discussion of the committee in http://langcom.wikimedia.narkive.com/OjenAzCc/languages-that-are-arabic. I have to tell Mr. Gerard Meijssen that Arabizi can be converted to Arabic Script if we add to it the guidelines I created and that are explained in the work about Tunisian Arabic in English Wikipedia. So, I can developed a slightly modified version of Arabizi that is convertible to Arabic Script in months. However, I need to have the test wiki changed to LTR and I also need to change the Latin Script name of Tunisian as Tounsi.Yours Sincerely,Houcemeddine Turki
Greetings,
I am pleased to announce that nominations are now being accepted for the
2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections. This year the Board and the FDC Staff
are looking for a diverse set of candidates from regions and projects that
are traditionally under-represented on the board and in the movement as
well as candidates with experience in technology, product or finance. To
this end they have published letters
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Call_fo…>
describing
what they think is needed and, recognizing that those who know the
community the best are the community themselves, the election
committee is accepting
nominations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015#Informa…>
for
community members you think should run and will reach out to those
nominated to provide them with information about the job and the election
process.
This year, elections are being held for the following roles:
*Board of Trustees*
The Board of Trustees is the decision-making body that is ultimately
responsible for the long term sustainability of the Foundation, so we value
wide input into its selection. There are three positions being filled.
More information about this role can be found at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Board_e….
*Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC)*
The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) makes recommendations about how to
allocate Wikimedia movement funds to eligible entities. There are five
positions being filled. More information about this role can be found at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/FDC_ele…
.
*Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) Ombud*
The FDC Ombud receives complaints and feedback about the FDC process,
investigates complaints at the request of the Board of Trustees, and
summarizes the investigations and feedback for the Board of Trustees on an
annual basis. One position is being filled. More information about this
role can be found at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/FDC_Omb…
.
The candidacy submission phase lasts from 00:00 UTC April 20 to 23:59 UTC
May 5 for the Board and from 00:00 UTCApril 20 to 23:59 UTC April 30 for
the FDC and FDC Ombudsperson. This year, we are accepting both
self-nominations and nominations of others. More information on this
election and the nomination process can be found at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015.
Please feel free to post a note about the election on your project's
village pump. Any questions related to the election can be posted on the
talk page on Meta, or sent to the election committee's mailing list,
board-elections(a)wikimedia.org
On behalf of the Elections Committee,
-Gregory Varnum (User:Varnent)
Coordinator, 2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee
Good day,
I'd like to announce you the creation of a new Wikimedia mailing list
dedicated to languages-related topics: languages(a)lists.wikimedia.org
You can subscribe to it at this link:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/languages
Thanks,
JP Béland
alias Amqui
The version on-wiki can be found on
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incubator:News/2011_report
For the first time, an end-of-the-year review of all important events that
affected Incubator has been compiled:
Incubator (http://incubator.wikimedia.org) is a wiki of the Wikimedia
Foundation which serves as a platform where anyone can build up a a new
language edition of a Wikimedia project (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks,
Wikinews and Wikiquote) that does not yet have its own subdomain, provided
that it is a recognized language. These so-called "test wikis" on Incubator
can be used like (nearly) any other real wiki. When the community desires
so and there is enough activity, they can request to move to an own
subdomain through the requests for new languages process.
Wikisource and Wikiversity are not mentioned above, as their tests belong
to Old Wikisource (http://wikisource.org) and Beta Wikiversity (
http://beta.wikiversity.org). Regarding test wikis, this report will
however focus on Incubator mainly.
The Language committee reviews these requests, deciding about the
eligibility of languages and determining whether test wikis are deemed
active enough to sustain activity on an own subdomain.
As it is widely known, the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia was celebrated on
January 15th; but this year was also the fifth birthday of Incubator, which
was created on 2 June 2006.
====Site creations====
12 new language subdomains of Wikimedia projects were created in 2011.
In January, Rusyn Wikipedia has been created, and in March Latgalian
Wikipedia, Kabardian Wikipedia and Albanian Wikinews. Three Wikisources
were also created, in Sanskrit, Yakut and Esperanto, after a successful
testing phase on Old Wikisource. Greek Wikinews got its own subdomain in
April. In July, the Mingrelian Wikipedia and from outside of Incubator
Arabic Wikiversity have been created. In September, Oriya Wiktionary was
re-opened; this was the first time that a closed wiki became so active
again on Incubator, so that the subdomain could be opened again. The last
wiki created in this year was the Northern Sotho Wikipedia in November,
which was interestingly the largest indigenous South African language
Wikipedia even though it was the only one still on Incubator.
Upcoming projects are Veps Wikipedia and Western Punjabi Wiktionary, which
were approved and are currently waiting for creation, while Tachelhit and
Lezgian Wikipedia are still awaiting content verification.
See http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incubator:Site_creation_log for
links to the projects.
====Policy issues====
'''Closing projects''' SPQRobin made a proposal for a Policy on closing
projects in February. Proposals for closing projects (
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects) had no fixed
rules before, but were more or less simply votes; sometimes users came by
and made a "decision" by counting the votes and filing a bug accordingly.
After the policy proposal had been elaborated further, it was adopted by
Langcom and the Board of Trustees in May/June. The "Closing projects
policy" now defines several reasons for closing as either valid or invalid.
The decision on closing projects is now within the responsibility of the
Langcom and Board.
First Langcom actions about closing projects in happened in August; and
currently the 2nd round is ongoing. See the proposal page on Meta for
details.
'''Kichwa language''': On Incubator, a group of users started building a
test Wikipedia in Kichwa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kichwa_language), an
Ecuadorian standard of Quechua. This "Unified Kichwa", however, is not
included in the ISO 639 standard which Wikimedia uses for determining
whether a language is acceptable or not. A temporary code is used now; a
solution is pending.
'''Berber languages''': Several Berber languages have their test wiki, and
there is also effort to start a Standard Berber test wiki, which also lacks
a valid code. There are also technical issues because in addition to Latin,
the Tifinagh script is used which lacks proper software support. Having two
scripts also requires script conversion.
====Language Commitee====
In May, the Language Committee held its first real-life meeting in Berlin.
We discussed a lot of topics, including linguistic issues, simple projects,
... We also made some decisions: the LangCom's activities are now more open
by allowing observers. Robin volunteered to write monthly reports for the
public.
In November, several LangCom members who also work for WMF and/or are a
developer (Amir, Robin, Gerard, Santhosh) went to the Hackathon in Mumbai,
India (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/India_Hackathon_2011). Software tools
(Narayam input method and WebFonts) were improved for Indic languages, but
can also be used for other languages; they make it possible to type
non-Latin scripts without having an appropriate keyboard available.
Wikimedia Australia and Wikimedia Indonesia are collaborating with the
language committee to organise a 2012 Languages Conference in Indonesia.
More info:
http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Proposal:2012_Languages_conference
====Technical improvements====
A new MediaWiki extension has been developed for Incubator, aptly called
"WikimediaIncubator" (
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WikimediaIncubator). It was
enabled for the first time on 6 June, allowing users to set a test wiki
preference (similar to the language preference), and to view a number of
special pages, including Special:RecentChanges, on a per-test-wiki basis in
order to make this more convenient and less confusing. The extension is
continuously being improved. Some other features which should be mentioned
are: Checks to help users create pages (correctly) according to the
"sorting system" of Incubator and the introduction of automatic "Welcome
pages" for every possible project of every valid language. These pages
contain information for people how they can start a new Wikipedia language
version there & are adapted to each language and project and are
translatable.
This last function is synergetic with a new feature added in December:
Instead of showing a 404 error page, the red links on Special:SiteMatrix
now redirect to the respective Welcome page on Incubator, e.g.
http://ss.wikiquote.org. Interwiki links are also possible e.g.
<nowiki>[[xyz:Page]] on en.wikipedia links to</nowiki>
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/xyz/Page"
====Plans for 2012====
For 2012, we hope to simplify the processes for requesting a new subdomain
and to improve Incubator's usability. Therefore it will be easier for
people to contribute here, resulting in an increased participation in new
language versions. Unfortunately, our documentation is very poor at the
moment, so that will be in our focus very much. It is also planned to gain
more feedback from users about how the Incubator phase and wiki creation
process could be made easier and more attractive.
See the wiki version here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Reports/2011-11
This is the language committee report for November 2011. Previous month no
e-mail was sent because there was nothing to report, other than the
creation of the Northern Sotho Wikipedia.
===Committee===
* Several members (Amir, Robin, Gerard, Santhosh) went to the Hackathon in
Mumbai, India. <http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/India_Hackathon_2011>
===Approvals===
* The Veps Wikipedia and Western Punjabi Wiktionary are approved and
waiting for creation (bugs 32510 and 32511 respectively).
===Requests===
* Discussion about the Mapudungun Wikipedia and its orthography issue.
* Amir contacted the Ingush State University for an analysis of the Ingush
content at Incubator. They told that the content is quite different from
standard literary Ingush.
===Other===
* Discussion about Moldovan and its closed Wikipedia.
* Discussion about the dialogue on <
http://www.newtactics.org/en/thread/what-steps-need-be-taken-underrepresent…>
and more specifically about the Songhay language(s) which is classified as
"collective" which we didn't allow so far. <
http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=son>
See the wiki version here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Reports/2011-09
This is the language committee report for September 2011.
=== Committee ===
* There will be a Hackathon in Mumbai, India (19-20 November) which
focuses partially on language support. Several members will
participate. More info:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/India_Hackathon_2011
=== Approvals ===
* The Oriya Wiktionary (wt/or) has been re-opened. It is the first
time that a closed wiki is unlocked. Though the requirements were not
met, it was approved because there will be a workshop in Bhubaneswar,
India where the Oriya projects will be promoted and because re-opening
a wiki is easy.
* The Northern Sotho Wikipedia (wp/nso) has been approved, but waiting
for creation (bug 30882).
* The Lezgi Wikipedia (wp/lez) and Tachelhit Wikipedia (wp/shi) can be
approved if someone who can verify the content is found.
=== Related ===
* The language code "als" (assigned to Tosk Albanian) is misused by
Alemannic [gsw]. The als.wikipedia.org should be moved (see bug
23215), but User:Terfili submitted an ISO 639-3 change request to
create an Alemannic macrolanguage "aeg" including the current code
"gsw". If that passes, the wiki would likely be moved to
aeg.wikipedia.org. Change request:
http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/chg_detail.asp?id=2011-180&lang=aeg
Dear Chapter Representative(s) and Wikipedians,
Please treat this invitation as a personal
invite from the Indian WikiCommunity to yourselves and your community to attend
the first annual national WikiConference India scheduled to take place
between 18 and 20 November at the University of Mumbai’s Fort Campus.
The event is being co-hosted by the
community and the chapter and this would be a wonderful opportunity for Indian
Wikipedians to interact with all of you. Further, we would appreciate any help
that could be extended by yourselves to make this conference a success.
Do let us know of any requirements you may
have. Kindly confirm the above at the earliest to allow us to schedule
everything in.
Meta Page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2011
Kind
Regards,