Hi,
I've updated the Wikipedia/Wikimedia shop at
http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia
There's a few new Wikipedia products, including an updated tile coaster
with the new skin. There's also a new section of products featuring the
Wikimedia Foundation logo.
Regards,
Erik
The fundraising drive for this quarter will be held later this month,
possibly to coincide with "Wikipedia Day" (January 21) as Daniel
proposed last month.
Before this launches, it would be nice to have some more responses to
the questions I put at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_drive and also additions of
any other fundraising ideas at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_ideas
The way the site notice is used could be improved before the next
drive. The message used was very bland and could be made more
motivational. This should be decided very soon to allow time for
translations to occur before the drive starts. Will it be possible to
have a real-time display of donations during the drive? Are any
developers willing to work on this before mid-January?
How the drive is going to be advertised besides the site notices needs
to be considered. Will it be possible to combine this with a press
release? Perhaps something about the fourth anniversary of Wikipedia?
We hope to have a system of membership set up by this date so that, as
well as making donations, people can become members of the Foundation,
and choose to make regular payments if they wish. Tim Starling is
currently working on creating the database we need for this, along
with membership options in the user preferences. The budget for this
quarter will also be created before the fundraising drive, with
details of proposed hardware purchases so donors know where their
money is going.
Improvements to the fundraising pages at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising are also welcome.
Comments can be made at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_site_feedback since the page
is not openly editable.
Angela.
Hello,
First of all, I wish a happy new year to all who may
be concerned.
This year, I spent Christmas and New Year Eve in an
unusual way, since I was in the Sahara desert (south
of Algeria) for 15 days, as an ecotourist.
I had a real great time over there, which I will share
with Wikipedia in trying to improve many articles
related to the areas I went to, as well as with many
pictures.
However, I wished to share a couple of additional
things/thoughts with you. About languages and
education.
I spent a little while in Tamanrasset, and discussed
with some of it inhabitants, men and women. It is a
strange situation, as it cannot be said that people
are "poor", in the sense that most have the basics
which allow them to live quite happily. The city is
growing pretty fast (50 000 unhabitants), but is not
sustainable for its water, nor for its food, nor for
most of its industrial goods. Most of it is imported
from the north of Algeria. The city is essentially
living from camels, goats and sheep... and tourism in
the surroundings of course. While the city is shared
by many ethnies and different nationalities, most
people over there are muslims. They speak a mixture of
Tuareg language (tamazight or tamahaq) and some local
arab which can hardly be recognised by those of us
French who learned classical arab in France.
One thing surprised me greatly. I thought the majority
of Algerians could be said to speak French (since
Algeria was previously a french colony). Well, I
discovered over there that if all adults have notions
of french language, many of them are very very far
from fluent. I could speak to no kids under 15, even
though I was told that all of them start learning
french language at school from the age of 8 (?). So, I
went for a little check and discovered that according
to statistics, about 62% of Algerian speak decent
french (enough for communication), and this number
have been increasing in the past years.
Now, Tamanrasset is in the most southern part of
Algeria, so rather far away from France, though there
is still obviously strong French influence. People I
met talked with one another in Tamahaq, talk with
other Tamanrasset people in a southern arab, speak
with us in french, and receive education in classical
arab. Guys ! these people manage roughly 4 languages !
When France left Algeria, the whole educational system
was in french language; the algerian government tried
to switch entirely to classical arab over the years,
even though there were at that time not enough
teachers knowledgeable in classical arab, even though
most Algerians do not manage well classical arab, even
though there were no educational books in classical
arab to teach children. Over the years, the government
has tried to impose more and more classical arab, to
the dismay of all those speaking berberes languages
(such as the Touareg). From my friends in Algers, I
know that university education is still partly in
french, in particular in scientific and technical
domains. But from what I understood, the algerian
educational system is in great part a failure, as it
is taught in a language that many Algerian do not
manage well, as it results in diplomas of little value
on european or american market, and as many students
end up secondary school with such a poor knowledge in
french that they are unable to come to french
universities or even to follow well algerian
university classes. Possibly, knowing more of english
language might help but it seems currently limited.
Two things raised my attention greatly.
First, a university is currently being built in
Tamanrasset. For now, students usually go to Algers to
follow upper studies (about 1500 km away, which
evidently implies only quite wealthy people can afford
this).
Second, as we crossed villages in the mountains, we
were surrounded by kids, from 6 to 12. Only the eldest
could really communicate a bit with us. We had some
pens for them, which we distributed. But it was not
really what they were looking for. The youngest wanted
paper mostly. But all asked for books. Only books. Not
food, nor money, nor sweets, only books. And they
wanted books in french language. I told them "but you
can't read french". But this is what they wanted
nevertheless.
When I asked to my favorite guide, he told me "they
learn french at school, a little bit, but they have no
opportunity to practice. Except for a few tourists,
who could they talk french to ? At least, with books,
they can learn a bit".
I suspect the school probably only has a couple of
worn out ones. Possibly only a couple of worn out
books in arab as well.
I dig a couple of my son books to give them. Not much.
If I had guessed, it would have been easy to bring a
few more.
As I understood, analphabetism is rising over there,
especially among girls. If the kids do not speak
french, their access to university is limited. And the
main economical resource of the area is tourism, most
tourists being french speaking.
Computers in these villages is out of question. They
have electricity but I doubt a computer could survive
long in such an environment (I spent two hours in the
local gendarmerie, they have desks, paper, pens and
sand). However, most of our youngest guides had an
email adress and went on the net thanks to cybercafes
in Tamanrasset.
There might be things to do no ?
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Hi everyone
I would like to add a little to this discussion.
I am from South Africa, which is one of the African
countries in better shape, though things are not
completely rosey.
Africa, in general, is in a bad way (really bad
depending on where you look, Darfur, Congo, Liberia,
etc.) but I think that for once there is really a glimmer
of hope. For the first time African's have been trying,
I'll admit success is still way off, to solve Africa's
problems. Its not possible to do it alone but the mindset
has finally changed. I am prepared to discuss this at length but
its not the purpose of my email - I just want to set a scene.
In Southern Africa there is peace for the first time. Angola's
civil war very recently ended, Namibia is peaceful, Botswana has no
prospects of war, Mozambique fought itself to a standstill and now
there is peace (peace != schools, money, infrastructure etc.), Swaziland
and Lesotho are also peaceful and so is South Africa. Zimbabwe has
some issues but largely Southern Africa is stable and so now is the
prime opportunity to lay a foundation for lasting peace which will hopefully
spread north.
How does this tie in with your discussion, well I feel that a key
area for solid peace is to stimulate education - Africa needs teachers,
doctors, engineers, nurses etc. and the best thing for Africa is that
they come from Africa and not be visitors as part of an international
aid program (I think that aid is very necessary but its just not a sustainable
solution).
So languages and education - well an organisation like wikimedia can help
a stack with education. No computers in rural villages I agree but I have shown
that (http://www.nongnu.org/fhsst) science textbooks can be reduced in cost
by an order of magnitude. This can only help stretch those limited education
budgets in Africa much further. The content we have written as part of FHSST
will be migrated into WikiBooks very soon - I am working on it but Latex2Wiki
isn't the simplest mapping I've ever seen.
Due to the colonies that once existed free textbooks in English, French and Portuguese
could make a huge impact across Africa. If they are cheap (we estimate $3 per copy of
our Physics book - hard colour cover and bound) then its easier to distribute
them, raise enough money and save money for training of teachers and other resources.
WikiBooks and its large user base could very quickly help to produce such texts which
could really make a difference ( I would start in Southern Africa where things are more stable
and then move North).
And we are workign from the inside - we are an organisation within AFrica
releasing books - its not a case of Europeans rocking up (again ;) and telling
everyone how its supposed to be done.
Just my 2 cents worth (well maybe a bit more).
Cheers,
Mark
>/ Anthere wrote:
/>/
/>>/ (...)
/>>/
/>>/ all asked for books. Only books. Not
/>>/ food, nor money, nor sweets, only books. And they
/>>/ wanted books in french language. I told them "but you
/>>/ can't read french". But this is what they wanted
/>>/ nevertheless.
/>>/
/>>/ (...)
/>>/
/>>/ Computers in these villages is out of question. They
/>>/ have electricity but I doubt a computer could survive
/>>/ long in such an environment (I spent two hours in the
/>>/ local gendarmerie, they have desks, paper, pens and
/>>/ sand). However, most of our youngest guides had an
/>>/ email adress and went on the net thanks to cybercafes
/>>/ in Tamanrasset.
/>>/
/>>/ There might be things to do no ?
/
On 5 Jan 2005, at 14:58, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
>/ This is absolutely fascinating to me. Just really fascinating.
/>/
/>/ I think this is the kind of knowledge we have to have, knowledge of
/>/ real conditions in real places, in order to be able to help
/>/ effectively.
/>/
/>/ --Jimbo
/
Seconded.
Caution may be advised however:
If, say, we get something going and distribute books ''from France'',
this could easily be seen by local (Algerian) politicians/nationalists
as "some French-American organization is trying to subvert our
education system by hijacking our children's literacy development."
Very bad mojo/karma/blood. Yes, I agree with Anthere's (implied)
suggestions, but if we even try to do something, we should be very
diplomatic about it and thread very carefully. Make sure our
non-affiliation and charitable nature is very much known and possibly
involve the (Algerian) national through local government and/or kindly
ask them for advice or even permission. Make sure our attitude does NOT
get to be: "What a crappy country and f*&ked-up government/education
system. Heck, we can do this SO much better." And make sure local (ie.
Algerian) people KNOW that that's not our attitude. Just asking people
nicely and showing them that we fully respect them will often work
wonders. And make sure that they know that they can become Wikipedians,
too.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
www.ropersonline.com
--
--
Mark Horner
Jabber/AIM/Yahoo: marknewlyn
Co-author:
http://www.nongnu.org/fhssthttp://savannah.gnu.org/projects/fhsst
"Life is but a seg-fault away ...
Life received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x42074d40 in calloc () from /lib/i686/liblife.so.6"
We'll hold a board meeting in the next few days/weeks, and need your
feedback on the agenda. Please comment or add anything you feel is
important.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda
We'll probably mostly focus on the new budget, and since most of our
income goes in hardware, any help from the developers would be helpful
(thanks James for the detailed email on wikitech).
Some editors woudl really like that a privacy statement be adopted, so I
also invite you to review
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Draft_privacy_policy till you like it.
In echo of Angela previous mail, any help on the next fundraising is
welcome as well.
Thanks
Anthere
To the list members,
I am sorry this was the wrong place to post this type
of question. Forgive me.
Jim K.
P.S. I figured out the posted question.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good.
http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com
Hello again
>One major problem that is not mentioned, is how do you know when someone
>is between 8 and 16 years old, except when they tell you. I am long
>past 16, but what's to prevent me from saying that I qualify. How can
>this be reconciled with the right to edit anonymously, which is one of
>the important features of a wiki.
>
>Ec
I really don´t see this problem. adults should work in that Wiki but they
don´t have to get the control of it, that´s the point. There is no problem
if some adults write articles for the project. You will always have the
problem of Trolls and other folk, but I think it can be managed if enough
"normal" users will control the Wiki. In my opinion it´s easier to handle
than the NPOV-problem in Winkinews or the non-scientitific systematics in
Wikispecies (sorry, I´m phylogenist).
>Yea.
>Plus, there's the danger of pedophiles happily (ab)using such a place
>as a grooming ground.
>It's bad enough that Wikipedia had to face past (or still ongoing?)
>onslaughts by POV crusading pedophiles seeking to sneak their sexually
>deviant views into the mainstream. Or am I too paranoid and
>pessimistic?
>
>-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
> www.ropersonline.com
I think, this way to look at the project ist too paranoid, but you´re right
if you say we need a mechanism to handle the chance of sexual and perverse
stuff. I think, there are great differences in how to handle in the
different languages so germans normally are very liberal with Sex. There
has to be a discussion about the problem and there has to be a result to
handle it, but I don´t see that it isn´t to handle. Maybe I´m too optimistic?
Greetings
Achim aka Necrophorus
Hi,
Is there a way to create external links like,
rtsp://www.example.com/media.rm? http, ftp, and
mailto seem to work, but not rtsp. Is there a file I
can edit to enable this?
Thank you for your help.
Jim K.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
All your favorites on one personal page � Try My Yahoo!
http://my.yahoo.com
Hi,
After one conference is finished, we can now move to the preparations
for the next one. In Berlin we had a round of talks about the planning
of wikimania and I'll try to summarize here what is done and what needs
to be done the next weeks.
Before christmas, we did the reservation for the Haus der Jugend, 300
beds and most of their conference rooms from 4th to 8th August 2005.
Mark this date in red or '''bold''' in your calendar ;-)
Brion created a mailinglist for the planning of wikimania. I'd like to
invite everyone willing to help with the organisation to join:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-planning-l
For next week a meeting on IRC is planned - there was some confusion
about the date, so I propose the 12th or 14th January 20:00 UTC.
Comment on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Main_Page when you
have time. I'll fill the agenda during the next days.
At the 21C3 we had a brainstorming about planned sessions and which
speakers to invite. Sj has the informations on his notebook and will
start to work on it when he is back home.
For this, I encourage everyone to help drafting the call for papers and
when finished, translating it in as many languages as possible:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Call_for_papers
Ideas for speakers and panels are welcome on:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Speakers
On the 21C3 we also found someone willing to help us finding
interpreters for the conference so that we can make it truely multilingual.
There are several concurring banner versions on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Banner
Please comment on it - there should be only one official banner we later
spread.
Next steps are:
* budget plan (jimbo & elian)
* contacting potential sponsors and getting money (danny & jimbo)
Thanks to Patrick from german wikipedia, the German Library Association
will lend us their support. We are already in contact with some other
organisation, too.
Brion volunteered for programming the registration system. There are a
few points to discuss first and I encourage your input:
From the Haus der Jugend, we got a fixed price for all the beds
irregarding if double rooms or 8-bed rooms.
There are several questions: shall we just set up a fixed fee or rate
rooms in several categories?
I'd also like to know what you think about having fees for the
conference - although the final decision probably depends on our budget
plan and the sponsorship agreements. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the
conference makes some profit in the end - we can use the money for more
servers ;-)
I put some notes on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Register
The wikimania website will be probably best located at
wikimania.wikimedia.org (the domain wikimania.org is already taken and
I'm not sure if we need an extra domain for the conference)
Friends of mine from the CCC will help us with the network. Planning for
this started at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Network
The most pressing problem is still the last mile - the connection to the
Haus der Jugend. We tried to get a radio link but the leaders of the
Haus der Jugend don't seem to happy about this and it would need some
official permission. @akl: any news about this?
Last thing: in Berlin the idea came up for a next mediawiki developer
meeting, to do some hacking together in the days before or after the
conference. I just want to mention it here that we can include this in
the planning (we probably need to book a workshop room & some beds for
these days, too).
greetings,
elian
Dear all,
I want to start a new Wikiproject called Wikikids. After a starting phase
it should be a Wikipedia from children for children. The following proposal
I posted at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids an
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikikids but
there seems to be no reaction. It would be great if we can discuss this at
the projects discussion page at Meta.
Wikikids should be a Wikipedia-version for children aged between eight an
sixteen years. After a starting phase when adults will construct the Wiki
together with children it should be a Wikipedia from children for children.
The idea is to have articles in a simple language without much scientific
words and other stuff. The themes should be specific for children´s interests.
The idea occured in the german Wikipedia a couple of months ago. There are
a lot of ideas and problems to discuss as well. But there´s no way to solve
them in a theoretical way so it will be perfect to have a start and take a
look what will grow in it.
The starting phase
As a new project Wikikids will have the same starting problems any other
project has too. It is thought, that Wikikids will be a Wikipedia in the
full control of kids between 8 and 16 years old and also the sysos of this
project will be children too. At the starting phase there will be some
adults to help constructing the Wiki and get a start in writing the
articles, but that should be as long as there are enough children to take
control. From that time on, adults will be allowed to write articles
inbetween the rules of Wikikids (first of all: simple language), but they
will be users like any others under the control of children administration.
Problems
There are some problems to be discussed, but I think, it will be possible
to handle them. For example there should be the problems of
* what is an encyclopedia, what kind of aricles should be find in an
encyclopedia?
* how about the copyrights of articles and pictures?
* ...
Articles
A lot of articles should be interesting for children and should be found in
the Wikikids. Some examples may be:
* Information about school
* Sports
* Animals
* Collecting Stamps etc.
* Computer and Computergames
* Games like "Magic, The Gathering", "Pokémon" ...
* Musik and Bands
* Television
* Love (how about Sex fundamentals)
Internationality
Like all other Wikimedia projects this project should be an international
linkd one. For a start, there would be a german project (there are enough
people to start) an maybe an englisch one, bur it will grow like Wikipedia.
Interwiki should be able to other Wikikids and Wikipedia.
Greetings from Berlin, Germany
Achim Raschka aka Necrophorus