I've created a list for the Wikimedia Commons project:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
There are already 1.5 gigabytes of media in the archive after just two
months in existence. It is quite clear that this thing will become huge,
if we let it, and the task to organize this growing heap of media is
massive. I also think that the Commons could become a focal point of
creative activity by photographers, artists and other creators, but this
will require some rethinking to make it as easy as possible to participate
for people with no wiki foreknowledge. That's why I foresee the need for a
discussion list alongside the wiki as we have it with other projects.
The mailing list is multilingual. We'll try to use markers like [en] and
[de] in the subject lines and encourage people to translate messages into
other languages.
Regards,
Erik
R�sum� en fran�ais : je prend des vacances pour d�m�nager.
After months spent to find a new house, then very stressful weeks fighting with banks, insurrance and other administrative tasks, my family and I are now in the middle of the most physical part of it, moving.
For those interested, we are moving from a small flat in a rather noisy street in the middle of Clermont Ferrand, to a rather big house in a tiny city (Malintrat... no use looking in the encyclopedia... yet) about 20mn away. The house is at the end of Malintrat, with nearby corn, wheat, sunflower and beet fields. Slightly further is a beet factory (expect pictures of this oddity... it is the most southernish beet factory in France...). The nearest bigger city is Aulnat, where our international airport stands (international... with at least 5 non french destinations... Amsterdam included).
The house has 5 rooms, a big living room, one kitchen, 2 bathrooms, one cellar (which will be used as a cellar...), 2 rooms for washing machines and other heating devices, 2 garages, huge terrasse and balcony (to host smokers).
Add a pond with a waterlily and some fishes, several neat trees, a bunch of nearly dead rose bushes, and a big previously-vegetable-garden-now-a-place-full-of-weeds (expect an article on lumbago). There is certainly gardening work to provide...
In any cases, there is enough place to host anyone visiting.
Currently, there is no city gaz, no city sewage, no heating yet (and snow is expected today...)... But normally, the DSL internet connection is possible ! (this is the first thing I checked after visiting the house... wikiholic indeed).
Still, I expect that my current phone line will be cut between today and saturday, and the internet connection must be built before entering into service. Since France is a rather underdevelopped country, it takes between 5 to 8 days *after* the phone line enters into service.
Immediate consequence : I will be on forced wikivacations (which is a very good idea actually) from today or tomorrow till possibly the 20th. I will be able to check my personal email as soon as the 16th when back to work, but since I limit myself to email activity from my work place, I won't check wiki, nor mailing lists (I do not receive mails from mailing lists except for wikimediafr-l), nor blogs, and I won't be on irc. If you need to join me, please do so at my personal email adress.
More long lasting consequence : I was home for lunch everyday, since my working place was near my appartment. That allowed me to be on irc. This won't be the case anymore. I will use lunch time for email answering, grant writing, and any other external activities which do not require access to wiki. I am not worried for lack of activity, but I regret I won't read you guys as much.
Besides, since I will live in a "castle", the computer wont be in the main room anymore, so I wont be able to type on irc, stir dinner in the pan, drop washing power on the floor, and supervise kids schoolwork at the same time and place. On the bright side, the family should welcome a new computer by 2005, hence reducing human competition for access. (expect new bugs as I will explore new OS system and new browser though).
Next deadline is Rotterdam where I will spent the week end of the 27th. I look forward meeting many of you.
Cheers. Anthere
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com
I blocked Lysdexia for 24 hours for vandalism (putting excess sic
everywhere) and trolling (just not caring for comments made on her talk
page).
Angela notes that I should not block her since I am involved.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Lysdexia indeed damaged some of the articles I
wrote and made fun of me, so I may be involved indeed.
On the other hand, I consider the case is not a conflict between her and
I, or an edit war, but just that she is not behaving properly.
If anyone feels like removing the block, fine, but in this case, I hope
that this person will try to talk to her seriously. It is not okay to
add [sic] instead of correcting a spelling mistake. It is not okay to
make fun of our english.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Article_validation&curid=7289&…
Look at the bottom of the article.
I do not want to revert this, because there are many typo correction.
There is good and bad in what Dyslexia does. I do not want to revert and
remove her corrections.
If anyone has a suggestion, I am ready to listen to it.
Anthere
Hi
This didn't go through the first time, so I am sending it again.
This is just a heads-up that the Wikijunior project has moved to its natural
home on Wikibooks. To remind everyone, the project is intended to produce
colorful, child-friendly books about important topics that are also of interest to
kids ages 7-12. We are in the earliest stages of getting the project off the
ground, and would be glad to hear your ideas, suggestions, comments,
criticisms (okay, maybe not criticisms), and everything else you have to say.
We are also eager to find graphic artists, illustrators, and cartoonists to
help make these books as appealing as possible.
While we are working on these books in English, we plan on having parallel
series in various languages. Especially important now are French and Spanish,
though other languages are also possible. There may be some grant money
available to produce similar projects in minority languages.
Finally, the best judges of these booklets will be kids. If you have kids--or
if you can borrow, buy, or steal a kid for a couple of hours--ask them what
they think about the projects as they evolve. What would they like to see? What
do they like? What do they dislike? They are probably a lot more astute when
it comes to things like this than a bunch of adults.
To visit Wikijunior, go to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior.
Danny
Hello,
In february 2005 a meeting will take place in France.
www.tic21.com
The meeting topic is �new technologies and sustainable development�. It will last two days.
The program and the speakers have now been established. http://www.tic21.com/intro.php?Page=programme.htm&PHPSESSID=10338cd0a3fd3d5…
Wikipedia will not be part of the speakers.
However, I suspect our project might be mentionned by some participants. So, it would still be beneficial that there is a participant of Wikipedia over there, and if so, essential that we have a mini stand and poster/leaflets on it, so that participants to the congress who hear about Wikipedia will have a place to go to know more. Best would be an internet connection or a computer with Wikipedia on it.
Who could mention Wikipedia ?
Well, first the organiser itself possibly, Michel Giran, since we had the opportunity to meet, and since he asked me to participate to the last tic21 newsletter.
Second, there are participants from La Fing, and in particular of Denis Pansu, who is one of the foundator of Wikimedia France (http://www.fing.org/)
I could also mention Stefan Jensen - EEA � GEMET, who is working with Gerard on including GEMET data in Wiktionary (http://www.eionet.eu.int/GEMET)
Bruno Oudet -Minist�re des Affaires �trang�res (France), Conseiller sp�cial pour le SMSI is very aware and interested in Wikipedia as well. I met him last spring in Lyon, Yann also met him several times and will participate to Autrans organised by Bruno in january. (http://autrans.crao.net/index.php/BrunoOudet)
Daniel MATHIEU -Association Tela Botanica, Pr�sident. Is also currently in relation with the French Wikipedia for content collaboration. (http://www.tela-botanica.org/)
I think all 5 at least could mention Wikipedia and redirect people to us.
Who is participating to this meeting ?
Many people, and many important people.
Among other
J�r�me Bind� - UNESCO, Sous-Directeur g�n�ral
�ric GUILLON - Comit� 21, Pr�sident
Margot Wallstr�m - Communaut� europ�enne, Vice-pr�sidente
Serge LEPELTIER - Ministre de l��cologie et du d�veloppement durable (France)
Rabia ABDELKRIM - ENDA (S�n�gal),
Dominique DESAUNAY - Radio France Internationale, Journaliste
Thierry Gaudin -Prospectiviste / chercheur (http://www.gaudin.org/)
Guy HaScoet -Acad�mie du d�veloppement durable (also a notable politician in France)
Fabienne Rubert -�ditions Nathan, Directeur d�veloppement et des relations ext�rieures (Edition Nathan is a major publisher in France)
Etc�
Why do I think it is important that Wikipedia is at this meeting ?
Potentially, there are some people with which we could cooperate (exchange content, get more visibility�). At the minimum, it would help the french wikipedia to get better known by organisations giving grants.
But mostly, it would be positive I think, that such people working at the Unesco, Comit� 21, European community, etc� get to hear more about us.
Now, the problem is that as most congress, it is not free, and as more and more congress, even the mini-stand is not free either. It would cost 500 euros for a mini stand, and 300 euros for congress access (I think the 500 include the congress access, but I am just not sure). There are some trip costs of course, perhaps 120 euros for train and hotel. And naturally the costs of leaflets and poster printing for the stand. Business cards would also be a good idea. I suspect that makes the overall costs over 1000 euros.
I would like very much to go to this meeting. Both because I am interested myself (I work in sustainable agriculture), and because I think it can be beneficial to Wikipedia. I am ready to take 2/3 days off to go there and ready to participate to the costs myself, but 1000 is just too high for me.
I have tried to get access for free, till now with no success. It is not really a french tradition to invite people :-). I also looked a bit for money to fund this, till now, no success either. But there are 3 months left, so it is not desperate :-) There are a limited number of stand though.
I am well aware that we should not have to pay to be heard, and that it would not be acceptable to pay the access with donators money.
However, I think this is one event which would be worthwhile to participate to and I am ready to give it time so that it is the most beneficial for our project. So, if any one has an idea of who I could contact to ask for funds for this, public or private grants, please do contact me. I am interested in any suggestion.
Aside from access and trip costs, I would like that we discuss participation of foundation and french association to printing costs of any promotional documents.
Anthere
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com
There is an ongoing vote on the Wikimedia Commons logo at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Logo/Vote
You need an account on the Commons to vote. Some people complained that
not enough people have had an opportunity to hear about this. I disagree -
it's a project-internal vote - but I've nevertheless extended the deadline
by another week. I've also contacted the designer of the currently winning
logo regarding copyright transfer to the foundation.
Jimbo: The "This vote should be regarded as an inconclusive, unofficial
informal poll with no particular weight" comment on Commons:Logo is not
helpful. Please remove it at your discretion or clarify what else needs to
be done.
Regards,
Erik
Hi
This is just a heads-up that the Wikijunior project has moved to its natural
home on Wikibooks. To remind everyone, the project is intended to produce
colorful, child-friendly books about important topics that are also of interest to
kids ages 7-12. We are in the earliest stages of getting the project off the
ground, and would be glad to hear your ideas, suggestions, comments,
criticisms (okay, maybe not criticisms), and everything else you have to say.
We are also eager to find graphic artists, illustrators, and cartoonists to
help make these books as appealing as possible.
While we are working on these books in English, we plan on having parallel
series in various languages. Especially important now are French and Spanish,
though other languages are also possible. There may be some grant money
available to produce similar projects in minority languages.
Finally, the best judges of these booklets will be kids. If you have kids--or
if you can borrow, buy, or steal a kid for a couple of hours--ask them what
they think about the projects as they evolve. What would they like to see? What
do they like? What do they dislike? They are probably a lot more astute when
it comes to things like this than a bunch of adults.
To visit Wikijunior, go to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior.
Danny
I think the licence situation with the text in the MediaWiki namespace
needs to be clarified.
The messages were originally part of MediaWiki, so are presumably GPL.
However, people are editing them on Wikipedia, and other sites, under
the impression that all of their edits are GFDL.
Many of the changes are not creative enough to be copyrightable, but
for some messages significant changes have occurred. Compare, for
example, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=MediaWiki:Noarticletext&oldid=31…
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Noarticletext
Is it possible for a notice to be added to the entire namespace that
edits should be made under the GPL? Or would it make more sense to
have edits be PD so the language.php files can be updated from the
MediaWiki namespace without needing to worry about the licence terms?
What should happen to the existing edits that have been made by people
unaware that their edits ought to be GPL? Is there a solution other
than reverting to the default text?
I have copied this message to
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:MediaWiki_namespace#Licensing_issues
for those who prefer to reply on the wiki.
Angela.
The second point is this one.
A lot of the opposition on the wikinews project is
related to
* dividing community forces (stretching human
resources)
* reduced number of editors will mean less chance for
npov
* breaking news-pressure will push editors to publish
quickly, while nearly 4 years of experience show us
only time and number of editors allow us to approach
npov. As best said by Maha_ts ''Establishing NPOV
within the short time span required for news reporting
will almost be impossible, to any degree of fairness
and accuracy''
* fear of legal issues (consider setting up a legal
team at the same time than wikinews)
* and mostly, concerns on original reporting.
So, overall, though I think the idea of wikinews is
great, and should become a major hit, I think that we
need
- that rules be collectively worked on, so that
concerns voiced by non-supporters are taken into
account. For this, I hope that many editors join the
future project so that we all work on it.
- possibly to get some journalists involved in the
project, so that we get more (or different)
perspective. There are some journalists interested in
wikipedia, and who would feel ready to discuss the
project with us. Or even to join it.
For this reason, and after several discussions here
and there, given the controversial nature of the
project and its likelyhood to get in the sunlights of
media immediately upon its creation (contrarywise to
wikipedia, which had time to polish before it become
known), I would suggest that we try to contact some
interested journalists and possibly have them join a
sort of advisory board. What do you think ?
Anthere
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Y! Messenger - Communicate in real time. Download now.
http://messenger.yahoo.com