I am wandering is it a local policy on en: (and some other Wikibooks)
or, like on Wikipedia, it is a global policy?
Yes, this is reasonable if we are talking only about manuals and
school books. However, I would like to see, for example, a book about
web servers comparison and I don't think that it is reasonable to stop
people writing such kinds of books. Also, I'd like to see essays and
even fiction books on Wikibooks, too. Of course, with defining what
kind of books would be able not to be NPOV and NOR (for example, I
don't think that a book about history may be POV) and with marking
such books as OR and POV.
If it is locally related to en:, projects in other languages may not
follow such rules. However, it would be better to have a global policy
with definitions what may and what may not be OR and/or POV.
I think that it is better to have strong Wikibookian communities with
a lot of fiction on Wikibooks then much smaller communities without
fiction on Wikibooks.
I know that it sounds hereticly :) However, I would like to see a good
skilled (amateur) astronomer who prefer to write SF on Wikibooks. He
may start to write a book about astronomy through some time.
I wonder what the folks on Wikisource and Wikibooks think about this
proposition .. I haven't received any feedback on it on foundation-l.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Apr 27, 2007 3:13 PM
Subject: Proposal: LiteratePrograms.org as Wikimedia Project
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
I would like to propose (as a community member) that
http://en.literateprograms.org/
be merged into the Wikimedia Foundation family of projects. I have
spoken with the founder of LiteratePrograms, Derrick Coetzee, and he
would agree to such a merger.
LP documents computer program source code with in-line explanations
beyond simple source comments. Using a special extension, all code
belonging to an example program can be downloaded as a package with
ease. It is, in my opinion, ideally positioned to become a wonderful
learning resource for budding programmers in any programming language.
The structure of LP is fundamentally different from any existing
Wikimedia project. Yet, it is an educational project with great value.
LP currently uses the MIT/X11 license, which is similar to CC-BY, but
more suitable for source code; I believe this makes sense as these
snippets are typically so small that they should not be encumbered
further with copyleft.
WMF would be able to give the project sustainable hosting and exposure
to a vast community. What do you think? If there is no consensus, I'd
be willing to organize a community poll as we did for other projects,
but I really see very little that speaks against LP becoming part of
the WMF project family.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
I'm (re)sending this to lots of lists -- people, we need more
submissions! Please be bold in sending us your papers -- we'd love to
see you in Taiwan this year. :-)
Please forward to other relevant lists as well! See
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation/distribution
for the ones we've already covered.
Erik
- - - -
Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikipedia and the other
Wikimedia Foundation projects. It is a community event, which is also
open to the public and to researchers. This year's conference will be
held from August 3-5, 2007 in Taipei, Taiwan at Chien Tan Overseas
Youth Activity Center. For more information, please visit the
Wikimania site:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/
Send your submissions through:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission
We are accepting submissions for posters, presentations, workshops,
and discussion groups. We are also accepting nominations for speakers
and speaker panels, and suggestions for other activities. Please note
the details below and be bold in your submissions!
== Important dates ==
* 1 March – 30 April: Submission
* 1 May – 31 May: Feedback and notification of acceptance
* 3 – 5 Aug 2007 : Wikimania
== Conference Themes ==
Submissions should address one or more of the following themes:
* Wikimedia Communities – Interesting projects and particularities
within the communities (we explicitly invite you to present your local
Wikimedia project's community!); policy creation within individual
projects; conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and
identity; multilingualism, languages and cultures; social studies.
* Free Content – Open access to information; ways to gather and
distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in
education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality and
usability; copyright laws and other legal areas that interfere with
Wikimedia projects.
* Technical infrastructure – Issues related to MediaWiki
development and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; new ideas for
development (including usable case studies from other wikis or similar
projects).
Your topic must be related to Wikimedia projects and its communities
or to the creation of free content in general.
== Types of Submissions ==
We are seeking submissions for
* presentations (10–30 minute talks with optional short or full papers)
* posters (printed presentations or visual displays that can stand on their own)
* workshops (30–120 minute session with more involvement of the audience)
* panels (group of 2-5 speakers to discuss on a specific subject)
* Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) (45-60 minute informal meetup of group
discussion on a particular topic)
* artistic artifacts (plays, competitions, comedy, visualizations, or
other representations of some aspect of the projects)
== Guidelines ==
Wikimania is organized by volunteers, so please help us to minimize
wasted effort by following these guidelines carefully before
submitting and be sure not to forget anything that is mentioned here.
All submissions must explicitly include the following:
* an English title
* a short English abstract of 50 to 100 words. The abstracts should be
provided as plain text, and not as file attachments. This abstract
will be used as public description of your submission in the
conference program
* a detailed description (or full paper) of at least one page (300
words or more). This description will not be published unless you want
it, but used for reviewing your submission. Give an overview of the
areas to be covered or taught. State clearly the relevance to the
Wikimedia projects and whether submission concerns a specific wiki
project. You may use any language, but we strongly suggest English or
Chinese. Full descriptions may include a link to a full paper or
slides in HTML or PDF, if available.
* full name, email address, and a short bio of 1–3 sentences for each
author. You may also add wiki usernames and nicknames.
* the type of submission (presentation, poster, workshop, panel, BoF, artistic)
* the language(s) you are going to talk in (or the language of your poster)
Please tell us with your submission whether you will attend to
Wikimania (a) surely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is
accepted, or (d) only if we provide travel and/or accommodation.
Additionally, please specify:
* the target audience you are going to reach and what previous
knowledge is needed
* special requirements (such as equipment for a workshop or panel) if needed
* images or sketches of the poster or artistic artifact if available
* for panel submissions short biographies of each suggested panelist
* whether the presentation is intended to be a specific length.
* BoF proposals should describe the significance of and community
interest in the topic, and name the proposed discussion leader(s).
For poster sessions there are additional guidelines:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Poster_session
Please note that all submissions must be dual licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License version 1.2 or later and the Creative
Commons Attribution License.
== Submissions ==
Once you are sure you have included all of the required information,
please send your submission by the respective deadline through our
submission system:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission
Please do not send submissions by email. If you need help for
translating your work please visit our translation help page.
Questions, but not submissions, may be directed to cfp(a)wikimedia.org.
== Hacking Days ==
Before the main conference there will also be informal Hacking days
for MediaWiki developers who are familiar with the software, If you
are interested in joining it, please visit:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Hacking_Days_Extra_2007
== See also ==
* About the venue: http://www.cyh.org.tw/
* Brainstorming page for program ideas:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program_Ideas
* Editable list of attendees: http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees
* WikiSym 2007 (October 21-23, 2007, Montreal), an alternative wiki
conference: http://www.wikisym.org/ws2007/
I've started the following page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Toolset
to collect a list of open source tools & open formats that are
commonly used to support Wikimedia projects. Mainly, this is for
external tools, rather than those developed within our community,
though I don't mind if it is expanded to cover both.
The purpose of having this page is to better inform decision-making
processes on all levels:
* directing volunteers who want to help us to work on particularly
useful open source projects
* directing editors to tools that help them with their day-to-day work
* possibly, even (when the Foundation is a bit more sustainable)
considering awarding development grants to some of them, or at least
helping them to pursue them by endorsing their grant proposals to
other organizations
* identifying key "missing pieces" that are not covered or not covered
well by the existing toolset (this might be a separate list).
I know many of you use specialized tools that are not well known.
There are also sure to be glaring omissions in the current list. I
would therefore appreciate all help to complete it.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic