I have to made a amendment to my comment - power supply may not be a suitable topic - I almost forget the rule which Josh set down. I can't think of something which can link power supply and cultural heritage. But I can still link water supply and transportation with culture - In China, we have the ancient irrigation system of Dujiangyan. Ancient Chinese do business with people from Asians, and even Europeans. The overland and maritime Silk Road served as the route of transportation for the merchants. 

Cheers, 

2013/8/19 ±ç©¾©ú <sprconan@gmail.com>

Hi, everyone.

Sorry for my English proficiency - I used about 3 days to read all emails here.

I am not a participant of this dialogue until now. As I am concerned about the scheme, I am here to voice about my opinions about it.

First, I will talk about the listing issue. Josh had stated that wiki communities in Asia can either submit a country list or a language list of article for collaboration/translation. I think the issue can be controversial:

1. If we choose to submit a country list, then only those cultural/biological things which are known nationwide is to be promoted. Regional cultures will fall apart. Also, listing by country may trigger some political debates about the sovereignty of some places - I will stop here and provide no more explanations. You know that.
2. Though a list by language maybe a better option, I can still find some problems - take Mainland China as a example. When Cantonese, Wu dialect and Zhuang language have their own Wikipedia, some dialects still don't have their Wikipedia (e.g. Hunan dialect and Manchu language). Then some regional culture will be promoted, when others don't. It seems that some regional cultures will be privileged in this circumstance. Also, how about those commonalities of these regional cultures (e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese culture)? I remember Craig has said that doing this will bring more volunteer for us. I had think for that - How will we coordinate and arrange their work/duties? How can we administrate a user group with a numbers of members? I once talk with another Chinese Wikipedian during the Wikimania, and we agreed that more volunteers can make a big task (e.g. improve/create articles in Wikipedia; in this case, our scheme) easier to finish, but also a potential source of controversies and debates.

I don't have a firm stance for which option should be adopted. I just think that each regional communities can adopt either one based on their actual situation. Maybe some will submit a national list, some will submit article lists by languages - that's okay, no problem.

For the number of articles for collaboration per 3 month - in my viewpoint - 12-13 is already enough - one per week. Each community should nominate 10 articles per country or 2-3 articles per language# for collaboration. For other arrangements, I agree the merged suggestion mentioned by Josh. I don't know how the work efficiency of our colleagues is. Nevertheless, I just want to remind all that we should not overestimate our actual ability.

Though Francis, our colleague from Hong Kong suggested that we can choose the weekly article by counting the clickthrough rates, but I think that's not good - do we prefer choosing an article randomly or by its time order/controversial nature?

For the topic, Nature, climate, culture and customs are acceptable. Transportation, water supply and electric network can also be a topic - e.g. the article Cebu Bus Rapid Transit has not being updated for a year (until when I was read for the last time). Some may say that comparing with nature and culture, these topic is more related to the politics. But I'll say it's not like that - even the government of each country in Asia should have its policy about the nature and culture! But of course, political topics are to be avoided (and administrative unit also?).

Up to now, I still think that the scheme can be operated with the assistance of the corresponding Wikiprojects and COTW projects in the participating Wikipedias. They provide volunteers and resources, as well as the list of articles which is waiting to be improved. Well-developed Wikiprojects can also provide manpower. Though, I still doubt that will it able to build momentum for the Wikiprojects/COTW project's future development.

One last thing. I don't think that we should be too optimistic to comment it as something which can surely connect the knowledge related to all region/countries in Asia. As we have discussed before, Each Wikipedian community is free to join or quit the program. Then, we cannot ignore the reality that not every community is willing to do so. Also, have we inform our colleagues from Central Asia, Middle East or Vietnam? If they are not informed, then the things go on. Though more Wikipedias' participation of the program means we may have the chance to achieve more, not all communities is looking forward, especially the smaller ones - as the manpower and resources they have is not enough to maintain such a commitment for the scheme.

That's my opinion, and thank you to read for it. Feel free to discuss about that.

Cheers, 

Kevin

(known as Spring Roll Conan in Wikimedia projects)

#: National community may submit lists in several regional languages (eg. Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam... for India, Indonesian, Javanese, Sundanese... for Indonesia). If 10 per language, the work we have to do will be heavy, thus I suggest to reduce the number for the nominated articles per language to pursue a more modest quantity of works we have to do.

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