Textbook-l February 2008

textbook-l@lists.wikimedia.org

8 participants
6 discussions

Wiki to LaTeX (and PDF) converter
by Derbeth 01 Mar '08

01 Mar '08

I have created an improved version of Hagindaz's Wiki2LaTeX (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Hagindaz/Wiki2LaTeX) tool, which helps creating PDF versions of books. It can download the whole book with images and automatically generate LaTeX source code, which can be directly translated into a PDF file. Still, some knowledge of LaTeX is required, but the tool can greatly reduce time of preparing PDF version of a textbook. Currently it supports output in two languages (Polish and English), but adding support for new ones is quite easy. The description of the program can be found at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Derbeth/javaLatex. Example output is here: http://pl.wikibooks.org/wiki/Grafika:C.pdf. -- Derbeth Jabber id: derbeth(a)jabber.wp.pl Wikisłownik to więcej niż słownik! Sprawdź: http://pl.wiktionary.org/ Opera - the fastest browser on Earth! http://www.opera.com/

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Mike Irwin has Passed away
by JACKIE R IRWIN 29 Feb '08

29 Feb '08

To All at Wikimedia/Wikepedia, I know that Mike was very involved in Wikipedia and I'm doing my best to notify all the lists that he had threaded to of his passing. On Tuesday, February 26, 2008, Mike was walking and had a heart attack and passed away. To all of those who knew him online, I wanted to pass this information on. Mike loved the online communities and I hope that those of you who corresponded with him will pass this information on to others. Thank you, Ray Irwin (Mike's Twin Brother.)

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Fwd: FW: APC IR handbook: getting on wikibooks
by Andrew Whitworth 27 Feb '08

27 Feb '08

I received an email this morning from Frederick Noronha, one of the contacts at the UNDP who helped to oversee the UNDP-APDIP book donations. He is so pleased with the way the donations went, and how well the situation is working out for them, that he is trying to set us up with other NGOs who have books that would be ripe for donationg to Wikibooks. Currently, he is trying to arrange donations from APC.org: http://www.apc.org http://www.apc.org/books/index.shtml of their ebooks to Wikibooks. Looking through the list, I think this donation might only contain a few books (most other listed publications are not books at all), but it's a demonstration that we are starting to get some serious recognition from some cool groups. Below is the email that he sent to me this morning. I have already replied with some answers to the easy questions. I have removed email addresses and other contact information from this email because I dont know if these people want that information archived on the mailing list. I would be happy to provide that contact information to anybody who was interested in getting in touch with this group, and helping with this project. One question that I could not answer is the attitude towards book donations of this caliber of the other Wikibooks language projects, specifically FR and ES. I assume, blindly, that these projects would accept such donations and possibly assist with the upload effort. However, I like to find out for certain. Do we have any fluent French and Spanish speakers who would be willing to ask about this issue on the respective projects? Also, it seems that the books to be donated are in PDF format. Does there exist a GOOD conversion utility from PDF to wiki format? Barring that, is there a good conversion utility from PDF to DOC, DOCBOOK, or ODT format (because openoffice can export from these types to MediaWiki)? If not, we will need to do the formatting and uploading manually, which isn't going to be pleasant. Maybe we could ask the guys at Wikisource if they had any good utilities for this task. --Andrew Whitworth > Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:49 +0530 > Subject: Re: APC IR handbook: getting on wikibooks > Dear Andrew, > > We're making progress on this, and it would be really nice to get > APC.org's books up on Wikibooks. My personal view is that such actions > could trigger off a wider trend among NGOs (and others) who realise > the relevance of such a process. > > Below is Karen Higgs's post, which is self-explanatory. Could you > kindly let me know if this would meet the needs of Wikibooks? Let's > try and best see how we can meet one another's specific requirements > in a way that both sides feel that we've done something positive at > the end of the day. Thanks! FN > > On 21/02/2008, Karen Higgs wrote: > > dear fn > > > > how are you doing? > > > > i'm very happy to tell you that i had a long chat with Andrew Rens, an > > IP/open content lawyer while i was in South Africa to unravel the > > situation with our publications and sharing on wikibooks. > > > > He advised us that there is NO problem whatsoever with us applying > > multiple licences to any publication. > > > > We "apply" the licences by adding them to the appropriate section of our > > website where the books are located. > > > > So we can now get moving! > > > > I would like you to work with Kelly, our intern, on this. She will > > ensure that the necessary licensing information is added to the APC site. > > > > Can wikibooks use the information in pdf format? That is what we have. > > > > The pdfs have the following licensing information: > > EN - "copyleft" 2003 > > ES - creative commons attribution-non commercial 2.0 2005 > > FR - creative commons attribution-non commercial 2.5 2003 > > > > What text do you propose we add to the website bestowing the FDL that > > wikibooks wants? That reference is what wikibooks can point to as the > > relevant licensing. > > > > Do they want the three language versions - EN, FR and ES? That is what > > we would like to give them. > > > > Btw, Kelly is on leave now until next week. > > > > All the best and thanks for keeping this going > > Kah

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Wikimania 2008 - Call for participation
by Mark (Markie) 23 Feb '08

23 Feb '08

Hi Sorry for the spam like email but this is just an email to let you all know about the Wikimania 2008 Call for Participation. I have included this below, and the page can also be found on the Wikimania wiki @ http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation. Please do forward this onto any local project mailing lists or anyone else who may be interested in this. Also there are translations in the following languages: de/Deutsch<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Call_for_Participation…> es/ <http://tr_1203787823173>Español<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Call_for_Participation…> fr/ <http://tr_1203787823178>Français<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Call_for_Participation…> ja/日本語<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Call_for_Participation…> pt/Português<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Call_for_Participation…> sv/Svenska<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Call_for_Participation…> zh/ <http://tr_1203787823208>中文<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Call_for_Participation…>. More translations are always welcomed and appreciated, so please see the translation page<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Translation/Call_for_Parti…>to help out. Many thanks Mark (User:Markie) Call for Participation [image: Image:Wikimania logo with text 2.svg]<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Wikimania_logo_with_text…> Wikimania <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimania> is an annual global event devoted to Wikimedia <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Main_Page>projects around the globe (including Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_page>, Wikibooks<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/b:en:Main_page>, Wikisource <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/s:en:Main_page>, Wikinews<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/n:Main_page>, Wiktionary <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikt:en:Main_page>, Wikiversity<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/v:en:Main_page>, Wikiquote <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/q:en:Main_page>, Wikispecies<http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_page>, and Wikimedia Commons <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_page>) and for its editors and users to gather, meet each other, exchange ideas, and report on research and projects. It is a community event, which is also open to the public and to researchers. This year's conference will be held from *July 17-19, 2008* in Alexandria <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria>, Egypt<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt>at the new Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotheca_Alexandrina>). [image: The Wikimedia Foundation projects]<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikimedia_logo_family.png> For more information, please visit the Wikimania 2008 Home page at http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org We are accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open spaces, and artistic artifacts. Please carefully follow the submission guidelines below. Submissions can be sent via the following link: https://wikimedia.pentabarf.org/submission/wikimania2008 Important dates - 1 February – 16 March : Submission - 17 March – 30 April : Review, feedback and notification of acceptance - 17 – 19 July 2008 : *Wikimania* Conference Tracks Submissions should address one or more of the following themes: Wikimedia Communities Interesting projects and particularities within the communities; policy creation within individual projects; conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and identity; multi-lingualism, languages and cultures; social studies. We explicitly invite you to discuss your local Wikimedia project's community. Free Knowledge 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. Free Content in the Middle-East/Africa. Technical infrastructure Issues related to MediaWiki development and extensions; Wikimedia's technical infrastructure; new ideas for development (including case studies from other wikis or similar projects). Scientific track Academic papers about massively collaborative work, open and free content creation, community dynamics, the social or economic aspects of the Wikimedia projects, and other topics related to Wikimedia projects. Papers submitted to the scientific track will be peer reviewed by a reviewing committee regarding their novelty, rigour, and estimated impact, and accepted or rejected based on these reviews. The papers will be published in proceedings afterwards, and depending on the number and the quality of the submissions, a journal special issue may be pursued. Scientific track papers must be in English, and must not exceed 7,500 words (or 15 pages LNCS). Your topic must be related either to the Wikimedia projects and their communities, or to the creation of free content in general. Types of Submissions We are seeking submissions for - presentations (10–30 minute talks with discussion afterwards) - workshops/open discussions (60–120 minute session with a discussion leader and more involvement of the audience) - panels (group of 2-5 speakers to discuss on a specific subject) - posters (printed presentations or visual displays that can stand on their own) - artistic artifacts (plays, competitions, comedy, visualizations, or other representations of some aspect of the projects) In addition there will the possibility to give lightning talks<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lightning_talks>(5 minute short presentations). These will be organized on the Wikimania 2008 wiki without need to submit via the submission system. Submission Guidelines Wikimania is organized by volunteers, so please help us minimize wasted effort by submitting via the submission<http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission>system and following these guidelines. All submissions MUST explicitly include the following: 1. an English "Event title" 2. a short English "Abstract" of your event in 50 to 100 words. The abstract will be used for the public schedule. 3. the "Track" your submission fits in best (Wikimedia Communities, Free Knowledge, Technical infrastructure, or Scientific) 4. the "Event type" (presentation, workshop, panel, poster, artistic...) 5. information about the speaker (full name, email, a short description of at least 2 sentences...) 6. for submissions to the scientific track: set "Submission of paper for proceedings" to "yes" and upload a paper instead of the "Description" below as "Attachment". Papers must be in English, and must not exceed 7,500 words. In addition you can add some more information like a a subtitle of the event, an image (will be resized to 128x128px) and private "Submission notes" for reviewers and conference organisation. In particular you should give: - a more detailed "Description" of your event in English or Arabic. The description is essential for review: please give an overview of the areas to be covered or taught. The better you describe your submission, the more likely it will get accepted. State clearly the relevance to the Wikimedia projects and whether submission concerns a specific wiki project. You can also include links. The description will later be used for the public schedule but you can edit it before. - special requirements (such as equipment for a workshop or panel) if needed - the language used for presentation - whether you want to submit a paper for proceedings - whether you want to submit presentation slides - whether the presentation is intended to be a specific length - the target audience you are going to reach and what previous knowledge is needed - images or sketches of the poster or artistic artifact if available - for panel submissions a suggested moderator and short biographies of each suggested panelist In the "Submission notes" you should tell us 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. You can also add yourself to the public list of attendees at the Wikimania 2008 wiki: http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees 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! By submitting for Wikimania 2008 you agree to this condition. For more information see the submission guidelines at http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission Submissions Once you are sure you have included all of the required information, please send your submission before the respective deadline through our *submission system*: https://wikimedia.pentabarf.org/submission See also - About the venue: http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Venue - Brainstorming page for program ideas: http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program_ideas - Editable list of attendees: http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees

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2008 Non-technical Wishlist
by Andrew Whitworth 15 Feb '08

15 Feb '08

This is something that is inspired by Florence's post to foundation-l about her personal wishlist for 2008. I know that I'm severely late in posting a continuation of that idea, so I apologize if people are already past their new years resolution phases. This is a list of things that I would like to see Wikibookians focus on for the 2008 year. Of course, this is just a personal list, and I would love to hear what other people are interested in too. These don't appear in any particular order, so the top isn't necessarily the highest priority (it's just the first thing that fell out of my head). 1) Actively solicit book donations. This one might be a little bit controversial, because the goal of any wiki project (with Wikisource as a possible exception) is to generate new content, not just consolidate old content. However, book donations allow us to start with books of decent quality, and update/expand/improve them. This is especially useful for authors who have written free books a long time ago, and have not been able to maintain them themselves. Receiving book donations will help to improve our public image, and will help create the perception that we have plenty of ready-to-use high-quality books, not just a series of works in progress. 2) Look for "friends" and "partners". I know the foundation has a policy (or at least I seem to remember that it used to) against forming official partnerships, but that doesnt mean we can't find like-minded organizations and open pathways for communication and possibly collaboration. Some sites that immediately come to mind are libsuccess.org and textbookrevolution.org. It has been discussed before, but we should be aiming to get our best core books pre-loaded onto OLPC laptops. These are just a few of many possibly collaborations we could form. We can share GFDL-based content and contributors between many such "friends". 3) Quality. This was a big deal for Florence, and it should be a big deal for us too. I would like to break this down into three sub-components: 3a) Focused collaborations. We no longer have the COTM program for many reasons. However, we should try to encourage groups of contributors to focus attentions, even if on a weekly basis, on particular books. These groups could proof-read, fact-check, and simply improve books, especially in preparation for PDF creation or some other form of "publishing". Most Wikibookians are, as is my perception, authors and not editors. We don't have the large corps of copyeditors that WP has, and as a result our books do not benefit from the endless tweaks and improvements that their articles do. The idea of "Wikiprojects" have been dismissed in the past, but we need these or some other way to organize people and give them a sense of focus and purpose. 3b) Stable Versions. We've talked about this endlessly in the past, and I'm sure there is more talk still. If we want our core audience, school classrooms, to use our books, we need to provide them with versions which are immutable for the duration of a term, and which are known to be of a relatively high quality. Veropedia serves a purpose like this for Wikipedia articles, and maybe we need to either collaborate with the Veropedians, or create our own site with a similar purpose. Maybe, if we can sell the idea well enough, we could get the foundation to help out with a stable.en.wikibooks.org, where we could upload stabilized versions of books. Notice that the automatic PDF generation functions, and the "wiki-to-print" feature aren't going to solve this problem, because they don't guarantee that pages will remain immutable: a PDF generated today may be far different from a PDF generated tomorrow. 3c) Core subjects. A combination of several other points listed above, we need to seriously improve the quality of books on core topics. Devising even a list of such books (books that currently exist, or books which do not currently exist but which we need) would be an excellent start. Through collaboration, book donations, and various other methods, we need to increase the quality of books in core topics, produce stable versions from them, and find ways to put these books into a classroom. 4) Make inroads into the classroom. Class projects have been immensely successful for us, and have generated some of our best books. We should try hard to advertise wikibooks as being a suitable platform for these projects, and try to attract more groups to our site. Beyond students writing books, we also need students to read our books as well. With high-quality, stable versions of books, we will be in a position to "sell" them to the students and teachers who need them most. For large districts, being able to save even 50$ per child per year would be a financial miracle. Or, schools who have traditionally avoided costs by reusing old books year after year could be given the opportunity to upgrade their entire curricula for free. This would be an excellent collaboration opportunity for some of our sister projects, as as WV and WS as well. 5) Documentation and Usability: We need a better way to describe who we are and what we do. We need help pages or help books that are easily accessible, easy to navigate, and easy to read. In addition, we need to develop more tools to help automate the most important tasks. Let's face it: new users have a lot that they need to know before they can start their first book or project. People should be able to sit down and start writing a book, without having to (a) take the time to learn how to do all the necessary book-formatting by hand, or (b) make a large series of mistakes that need to be corrected later. Maybe we need to make a lot of complicated tools using Javascript. Maybe we need to hassle the devs to give us books-specific extensions, or maybe we need to write our own extensions. Maybe we need to get on the tool server and start setting up tools on there that people can use. Maybe we need a different solution entirely. The fact is that there's a barrier to entry on our site because the documentation is generally poor, and because the learning curve is much steeper then it is at wikipedia. I really do believe that Wikibooks is in a great position right now. We've done a lot of work in the previous years, and we have a great project. That said, there are a few more hurdles that we need to pass before our full potential as a free textbook resource can be realized. I would like to see 2008 be the year that we really come into our own. --Andrew Whitworth

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Fwd: [Wikimania-program] Wikimania 2008: Call for Participation
by Mark (Markie) 02 Feb '08

02 Feb '08

hey all forwarding in case some of you didnt get this please do forward on many thanks mark ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Casey Brown <cbrown1023.ml(a)gmail.com> Date: Feb 2, 2008 2:15 PM Subject: [Wikimania-program] Wikimania 2008: Call for Participation To: "Wikimania general list (open subscription)" < wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List < foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, English Wikipedia < wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, English Wikipedia < wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Program committee list < wikimania-program(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Please circulate this call among Wikimedia communities, researchers and other people that may be interested! This call is also online at http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation == Wikimania 2008: Call for Participation == [[w:Wikimania|Wikimania]] is an annual global event devoted to [[foundation:Main Page|Wikimedia]] projects around the globe (including [[w:Main page|Wikipedia]], [[:w:b:en:Main page|Wikibooks]], [[:w:s:en:Main page|Wikisource]], [[:en:n:Main page|Wikinews]], [[:w:wikt:en:Main page|Wiktionary]], [[:w:v:en:Main page|Wikiversity]], [[:m:q:en:Main page|Wikiquote]], [[:species:Main page|Wikispecies]], and [[:commons:Main page|Wikimedia Commons]]) and for its editors and users to gather, meet each other, exchange ideas, and report on research and projects. It is a community event, which is also open to the public and to researchers. This year's conference will be held from '''July 17-19, 2008''' in [[w:Alexandria|Alexandria]], [[w:Egypt|Egypt]] at the new Library of Alexandria ([[w:Bibliotheca Alexandrina|Bibliotheca Alexandrina]]). For more information, please visit the Wikimania 2008 Home page at http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org We are accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open spaces, and artistic artifacts. Please carefully follow the submission guidelines below. Submissions can be sent via the following link: :https://wikimedia.pentabarf.org/submission/wikimania2008 === Important dates === * 1 February – 16 March : Submission * 17 March – 30 April : Review, feedback and notification of acceptance * 17 – 19 July 2007 : '''Wikimania''' === Conference Tracks === Submissions should address one or more of the following themes: ; Wikimedia Communities : Interesting projects and particularities within the communities; policy creation within individual projects; conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and identity; multi-lingualism, languages and cultures; social studies. We explicitly invite you to discuss your local Wikimedia project's community. ; Free Knowledge : 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. Free Content in the Middle-East/Africa. ; Technical infrastructure : Issues related to MediaWiki development and extensions; Wikimedia's technical infrastructure; new ideas for development (including case studies from other wikis or similar projects). ; Scientific track : Papers about massively collaborative work, open and free content creation, community dynamics, the social or economic aspects of the Wikimedia projects, and other topics related to Wikimedia projects. Papers submitted to the scientific track will be peer reviewed by a reviewing committee regarding their novelty, rigour, and estimated impact, and accepted or rejected based on these reviews. The papers will be published in proceedings afterwards, and depending on the number and the quality of the submissions, a journal special issue may be pursued. Scientific track papers must be in English, and must not exceed 7,500 words (or 15 pages LNCS). Your topic must be related either to the Wikimedia projects and their communities, or to the creation of free content in general. === Types of Submissions === We are seeking submissions for * presentations (10–30 minute talks with discussion afterwards) * workshops (60–120 minute session with more involvement of the audience) * panels (group of 2-5 speakers to discuss on a specific subject) * posters (printed presentations or visual displays that can stand on their own) * artistic artifacts (plays, competitions, comedy, visualizations, or other representations of some aspect of the projects) In addition there will the possibility to give [[lightning talks]] (5 minute short presentations). These will be organized on the Wikimania 2008 wiki without need to submit via the submission system. === Submission Guidelines === Wikimania is organized by volunteers, so please help us minimize wasted effort by submitting via the [[submission]] system and following these guidelines. All submissions MUST explicitly include the following: # an English "Event title" # a short English "Abstract" of your event in 50 to 100 words. The abstract will be used for the public schedule. # the "Track" your submission fits in best (Wikimedia Communities, Free Knowledge, Technical infrastructure, or Scientific) # the "Event type" (presentation, workshop, panel, poster, artistic...) # information about the speaker (full name, email, a short description of at least 2 sentences...) # for submissions to the scientific track: set "Submission of paper for proceedings" to "yes" and upload a paper instead of the "Description" below as "Attachment". Papers must be in English, and must not exceed 7,500 words. In addition you can add some more information like a a subtitle of the event, an image (will be resized to 128x128px) and private "Submission notes" for reviewers and conference organisation. In particular you should give: * a more detailed "Description" of your event in English or Arabic. The description is essential for review: please give an overview of the areas to be covered or taught. The better you describe your submission, the more likely it will get accepted. State clearly the relevance to the Wikimedia projects and whether submission concerns a specific wiki project. You can also include links. The description will later be used for the public schedule but you can edit it before. * special requirements (such as equipment for a workshop or panel) if needed * the language used for presentation * whether you want to submit a paper for proceedings * whether you want to submit presentation slides * whether the presentation is intended to be a specific length * the target audience you are going to reach and what previous knowledge is needed * images or sketches of the poster or artistic artifact if available * for panel submissions a suggested moderator and short biographies of each suggested panelist In the "Submission notes" you should tell us 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. You can also add yourself to the public list of attendees at the Wikimania 2008 wiki: http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees 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! By submitting for Wikimania 2008 you agree to this condition. For more information see the submission guidelines at http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission ===Submissions=== Once you are sure you have included all of the required information, please send your submission before the respective deadline through our '''submission system''': :https://wikimedia.pentabarf.org/submission == See also == * About the venue: http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Venue * Brainstorming page for program ideas: http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program_ideas * Editable list of attendees: http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees _______________________________________________ Wikimania-program mailing list Wikimania-program(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-program

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Textbook-l February 2008