Wikimedia-l November 2005

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

75 participants
102 discussions

[Foundation-l] Personal Apology RE: Wikibooks
by Robert Scott Horning 26 Nov '05

26 Nov '05

Mr. Wales, Thank you for your apology. Really. I am perhaps taking this whole thing overboard way too much. I really do have the best interests at heart with what is going on for Wikibooks, and what I have enjoyed the most there is actually sitting down and writing textbooks. While I've been involved with the politics of Wikibooks as well, my heart is with trying to write content. I believe in that mission, and while I may differ with you on the philosophy that other content besides strictly textbooks should exist on that project, I do support the concept of an "open source" collaboratively written textbook, such as what is happening on Wikibooks, and elsewhere to a lesser degree such as Benjamin Crowell's Light and Matter on http://lightandmatter.com One of the motiviations that I have had for this project is that I am the father of six children, and I'm living in a state where the rising costs of textbooks is being particularly felt locally. My children are often using textbooks that are 10-15 years old and have scribbles in them from almost a full generation of school children, because the local schools can't afford to replace these books. There was one local school that was built brand new, but because the school district was really stretching it budget for the construction they couldn't afford to buy any books, either for the library or for the classrooms, including textbooks. The ones they finally got were discarded from another school district that were updating their textbooks, together with a community book drive for the grade school library that finally got at least a few books in there. One of my goals to be involved with Wikibooks was to try and make textbooks for children where I am living to be much more affordable. There is no reason why a science textbook for sixth grade should cost 60 or 70 dollars, yet they do. I'm not talking some obscure 3rd world country, but right here in America where we both live. I've also benefited in the past from cheap or free "textbooks" in a professional capacity as well. By profession, I'm a software engineer, and I've had what would best be called an unorthodox educational experience to say the least to get to the point for where I'm at. I picked up much of my knowledge by experimentation on a number of computer systems that were made available to children while I was growing up, including on-line technical manuals and early predecessors to IRC chatrooms. I had an e-mail address 30 year ago and got my first piece of spam about the same time. Using those early systems I was able to learn techniques and concepts that often my professors in college had no idea about until after I demonstrated the idea. I got an "F" from one professor because he thought I was a smart-ass and because the professor couldn't get the computer to do the things I made it do. I feel I am getting old enough that I need to start passing on the knowledge that I've gained over the years to the next generation, and Wikibooks has provided me with a forum to be able to accomplish this goal. In the process of learning more about Wikibooks and its organization, I've also come to know more about the Wikimedia Foundation and how Wikipedia was started. I do want to thank you for starting Wikipedia, and having the vision to see that perhaps the Wiki concept could be applied to other areas of human knowledge as well. I know other people were also involved, but you have been giving it the encouragement that it has needed as well. The early financial backing is also something that I don't think anybody is going to forget, and thanks for that as well. I am going to take a break for now from what I've been doing on Wikibooks, and scale back my activities. Still, with your apology and some retrospect on my part, I'm going to continue to be involved in some small part. I've often said that even ordinary users on Wikimedia projects can do extraordinary things. I'll try to prove that point by doing it. I'm also sorry that I had to be such a pain in your side. And I apologize for the facist comment. That was made in a moment of passion and I should have measured my comments that way in a much better tone. Dredging up painful memories of an awful world experience 60 years ago and casting you as a participant of a truly evil group of people was really over the top, and I promise that I will never do that again. As far as the White Nationalism and associated group of Wikibooks is concerned, I hope you understand that all I'm trying to suggest is that there could be an interesting Wikibook about the topic, and I completely agree with your assessment regarding a Neutral Point of View being essential when presenting things of that nature. I was an outspoken critic of that Wikibook when it appeared, and to be honest I don't even understand the mentality of the people who actually believe that stuff. The only point we differ on is how it should be dealt with when content like that appears, and this is really a very minor point to be arguing over. We both agree it should have been removed as it was written, and I was not willing myself to make it into a NPOV book. Life is too short, and I have other things I would rather do. I also want to thank you on one point with Wikibooks as well: There was a need to "clean house" and get the Wikibooks community to pay attention to the out right silly books that have somehow been ingrained within the Wikibooks project. This whole thing has caused the debate over what the direction of Wikibooks should be, and I geuninely hope that Wikibooks becomes a better place. Looking at things like Alexa rankings and citations around the internet, Wikibooks is about to really come out from behind the shadow of its bigger cousin of Wikipedia and become something truly remarkable. -- Robert Scott Horning

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[Foundation-l] Vote to create Wikiversity Vote
by Robert Scott Horning 26 Nov '05

26 Nov '05

This is a reminder/formal notice that the voting period for the creation of Wikiversity is now over, and that the proposal to create Wikiversity as a new Wikimedia sister project is now being submitted to the Wikimedia Foundation board for a formal review, as per guidelines outlined on this page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_project_policy and the time table I submitted previously on: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AWikiversity#Wikiversity "Relaunch" --- The participation IMHO have been outstanding, with one of the largest user interest surveys that I have been able to find with over 300 Wikimedia contributors weighing in to voice their opinions on the subject, both for and against the proposal. There is quite a body of opinion there for the Foundation board to work with to try and come up with their own opinion on the subject. I hope this vote has been viewed as a success at least in terms of getting people interested in a future direction for Wikimedia projects and that the energy particularly of the supporters of Wikiversity will translate into active participation with the project in some form. I could use some help from an admin on Meta to "freeze" the voting pages, unless the board doesn't mind continued voting for the next few days. It isn't that big of a deal, but essentially the voting is over and there is no real reason to continue. There has been some "policing" of the votes, and a few duplicates, but I think members of the board are intelligent enough to figure out what is going on and can come to reasonable conclusions about what direction to go regardless of the raw numbers. Preliminary raw count was approval of Wikiversity by a vote of 208 in favor to 86 against (voting before November 1st... a few votes did come in afterward) and that ratio has been roughly consistant throughout the entire voting process, generally 2:1 in favor. See this page for the current vote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Vote/en (also in other languages besides English) -- Robert Scott Horning

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[Foundation-l] Wikisource Licence Terms
by David Newton 25 Nov '05

25 Nov '05

As has become apparent recently there is considerable confusion possible when reading the text of the Wikisource copyright page at [[Wikisource: Copyright]]. It is not clear whether only GFDL works, GFDL-compatible works and public domain works can be posted at the site, or whether any licence that allows relatively free reproduction can be used. We need this situation cleared up. I am therefore proposing to re-write the offending bits of the Wikisource copyright page to remove the ambiguity. Since this is a serious step for the project I thought it sensible to post here and see what the level of agreement is with what I am proposing to do. I will also post an equivalent message to the Scriptorium. What I am proposing to do is to re-word the licensing page to make it clear that the documents themselves are licensed separately from the content of the site. That means that things on talk pages, the Scriptorium, Community Portal and similar will be under the GFDL as per Wikipedia. However, the documents themselves will be licensed according to conditions appropriate to their source. That means that works that are public domain in the United States should be noted as such with a template at the top or bottom of the page, whichever is felt most appropriate. It means that works that carry different licensing conditions from the GFDL and that have licences that are incompatible with the GFDL can be noted as such. Such a step will open up Wikisource to a large number of possibilities of hosting that are currently not open and it will also clear up a considerable amount of confusion. What do you think? David Newton

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[Foundation-l] Re: A proposal for new language creation
by Michael Snow 25 Nov '05

25 Nov '05

Joanot Martorell wrote: >2005/11/22, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>: > > >>2. To discourage the creation of new Wikipedia editions in dialects >>which do not significantly differ from existing Wikipedias. We want to >>keep from being hoaxed, and from falling into political traps. >> >>For dialects, then, we want to require a much higher threshold before >>allowing the wikipedia -- we need a good reason to start it. A >>"Bavarian" Wikipedia proposal would need a much much stronger rationale >>before we start it than "German". Obviously. >> >> >This point isn't enough to clarify when whe should or should not create a new >dialect wikipedia, because it's using the unique criteria of interlegibility. >By exemple, Catalan (my native lang) and Occitan are mutually interlegible in >text written, or between Neapolitan and Italian. And for some persons >Portuguese and Spanish are interlegible too, but they are considered as >independent languages. I think that perhaps the point to consider the inclusion >of a new dialect wikipedia would be better moving around the >exclusionist-inclusionist poles. > > I don't think we're talking about an interlegibility criterion here, at least that's not how I understand Jimbo's proposal. Certainly nobody objects to separate wikis for the Scandinavian languages. The issue is not whether native speakers of one language can read material in another language. It's whether there are native speakers who actually read and write in this as a literary language at all, as opposed to reading and writing in some "other" language of which theirs is merely a dialect. Expanding on Jimbo's point, here's the problem with dialect Wikipedias (leaving aside, for a moment, the thorny problem of deciding whether something is a dialect or a language). Dialects tend to be in a similar position to constructed languages, in that they have no pre-existing literature and their orthography has to be invented to a significant degree. When the standards these establish are missing, we really have no factual basis from which to write in such a language. Inventing spelling or grammar while you write the encyclopedia, just like inventing facts while you write the encyclopedia, is perpetrating an intellectual fraud and a hoax. However, both dialects and constructed languages of long standing may develop their own literature and a more or less standard orthography, which would enable us to accept them as potential Wikipedia languages. --Michael Snow

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[Foundation-l] A proposal for new language creation
by Joanot Martorell 25 Nov '05

25 Nov '05

2005/11/22, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com>: > 2. To discourage the creation of new Wikipedia editions in dialects > which do not significantly differ from existing Wikipedias. We want to > keep from being hoaxed, and from falling into political traps. > > For dialects, then, we want to require a much higher threshold before > allowing the wikipedia -- we need a good reason to start it. A > "Bavarian" Wikipedia proposal would need a much much stronger rationale > before we start it than "German". Obviously. This point isn't enough to clarify when whe should or should not create a new dialect wikipedia, because it's using the unique criteria of interlegibility. By exemple, Catalan (my native lang) and Occitan are mutually interlegible in text written, or between Neapolitan and Italian. And for some persons Portuguese and Spanish are interlegible too, but they are considered as independent languages. I think that perhaps the point to consider the inclusion of a new dialect wikipedia would be better moving around the exclusionist-inclusionist poles. I mean when you want a new wiki in a dialect with important linguistic particularities that today are being actually assumed as "proper" of another language, so you wouldn't need a Wikipedia if there exists a Wikipedia in those language. In this case, wikimedia should adopt an exclusionist attitude. But when you want a new wiki in a dialect with particularities wich are being rejected (or considered as "bizarre", etc.) or aren't assumed as "proper" by the most nearest languages, perhaps you and your linguistic community would need a Wikipedia. In this case, wikimedia should adopt an inclusionist attitude. Let's see a practical and real exemple. If we see the cases about a new wikipedias proposals in Murcian and in Andalusian, most people who are opposing these are Spanish-speakers, but the reasons are different. In the case of Andalusian, Spanish-speakers opposers are saying that "Andalusian was always considered as a developed form of Spanish" (that is, the most possible future form of Spanish language). They are being "inclusionist" with Andalusian dialect, accepting the andalusian particularities as proper. In opposition of it, about Murcian, Spanish-speakers opposers are saying that writting "Murcian is a bizarre/coloquially/speech/deformed Spanish used in Murcia region". It would mean also that they perhaps have some interlegibility difficulties, and aren't assuming as "proper" form. So they are being "exclusionist" with Murcian. And, according to exclusionist-inclusionist poles, Wikimedia would be able to have a exclusionist attitude with Andalusian, but being inclusionist with Murcian. Of course, it's only my own opinion. Cheers! Joanot Martorell, (not real name, but real person) -- Viquipèdia, l'enciclopèdia lliure. http://ca.wikipedia.org

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials
by Any File 25 Nov '05

25 Nov '05

Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote: > > So an organization cannot, without permission of government-sanctioned > > bodies, send people to observe and report on events? We're not talking > > about official government press passes here (the U.S. analog is > > state-issued passes), simply a piece of paper that indicates the person > > in question has the sanction of Wikinews to report on their behalf. > > People are free to ignore that piece of paper of course, and demand > > something government-issued, but are you saying that the mere act of > > issuing that piece of paper is illegal, > > I am just saying that not only can it be illegal, but also that it will > certainly engage the liability of the foundation. > > Unions accreditating journalists will certainly be mad at it (as in > France), and it would picture the foundation as a liable editor rather > as a not-liable publisher. > Would make thing easier if the the word journalist is never used? What the matter if a person is just accredited as external (unprofesional) collaborator? Form Italian laws being unprofessional there is no need to be register (actualle there is not the need to pay the fee to be register) as journalist and being declared that is an external collaborator (and not an employed by the newsagency) should limit very much any action againt the comunity or the foundaton. By the way wikinews editor act just exactly like an external unprofessional collaborator. The only difference is that they made it for free and that there is not a editor-board approvation (actually this last point is not irrivelant) About an eventual legal reponsability of the foundation a possible (but unfortunately not free of charge) solution would be to required accredited Wikinewsers to have an insurance to cover their civil responsabilities and foundation civil responsabilities. As for any other thng like this it would very interesting to know what legislation is in acts (since every country could claim that their own legislation should be consider valid). AnyFile

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[Foundation-l] RE:New language policy
by pikola Thierry 24 Nov '05

24 Nov '05

According to the point 2 in http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages the language proposed must have a standard writing system. If we approve the creation of Wikipedias such as Andalusian Spanish, we would create a Wikipedia where the users will have to create their own standard. This would be a huge contradiction with the Wikipedia principle against including original research, because the Wikipedia itself would become a linguistic research project in order to ellaborate a standard written form of the Spanish speech from Andalusia. Wikimedia community should decide which role new Wikipedias play on new writing systems creation. Another problem of creating such Wikipedia is that the great majority of Andalusian speakers don't feel that they talk a different language than the rest of the Spanish speakers. Therefore, Wikimedia would become a non neutral part on the sociolinguistic discussion about language identity of Andalusian speakers. If we create an Andalusian Wikipedia we would agree on the claim that Andalusian is a separate language from Spanish. Another funny thing which should happen is that, taking into account that latinoamerican Spanish has significantly evolved from Andalusian Spanish, then, all the latinoamerican Spanish speakers should learn this special new writing system used in Wikipedia, adopting it to their local Spanish variation. Therefore they should actually be members of the Andalusian Wikipedia. Then Andalucian will become one of the largest languages of the world ;oD (half kidding) Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I really think that Wikimedia Foundation should take much into account two points: Speakers identity and existence of a standard writing on that language. I think that Wikimedia should not be active part of language creation, neither of language identity discusion. Thank you, Javier Carro. ___________________________________________________________________________ Appel audio GRATUIT partout dans le monde avec le nouveau Yahoo! Messenger Téléchargez cette version sur http://fr.messenger.yahoo.com

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[Foundation-l] Wikisource and the Handbook of Mathematical Functions
by kelvSYC 24 Nov '05

24 Nov '05

Sorry if I'm in the wrong list in this matter, but I'm just too lazy to subscribe to the Wikisource list just for the sake of one message. Anyways, I want to add the Handbook of Mathematical Functions (or a wikified version therein) by Abramowitz and Stegun in Wikisource, but I am not too sure whether legal issues would preclude its inclusion. According to [[w:Abramowitz and Stegun]], it is not protected by copyright, as it is a product of American government employees acting in official capacity, but it has been commercially reproduced. Free copies of the handbook are available online, according to its external links version. Advice on the matter is greatly appreciated.

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[Foundation-l] RE:New language policy
by Joanot Martorell 24 Nov '05

24 Nov '05

Hi to all! First of all, I apologize for any inconvenience because my English isn't quite fine. In spite of my handicap on language skillness, I want to participate in this debate from my own point of view. I've supported the creation of a Wikipedia in Murcian, but I've opposed another one for Wikipedia in Andalusian, because several reasons. I would like tell us my reasons which perhaps may be contribute in the point of view about a revision of the policy on new wikipedias in another language. For people who doesn't know yet who I am, I'm presenting myself as a high contributor on Wikipedia in Catalan. I like also naming it as Wikipedia in Valencian, as I often do it sometimes in somewhere. But I wouldn't support the creation of a separate version of any Wikipedia in Valencian. Why?. When you have a Wikipedia in a language wich is being "inclusive", you don't need another Wikipedia in your own language/modality/dialect. Actually, valencian particularities are a lot (i.e. lexicon, morphology on verbs, etc.), and some of them are little known for Catalan-speaker and non-Valencian people. But today it isn't being any kind of problem on Wikipedia in Catalan, because not only all of this Valencian varieties are welcome, but also there is a policy language wich are encouraging to use (and demanding to respect the existing of) particularities in articles about specific Valencian subject. So, if someone was proposing a separate Valencian version, I would oppose it because it's needed, and because the only one difference between "Catalan/Valencian" and "Valencian separated" would be only a different writting norms, but the same words, the same contents, etc... It would be a duplicated content of the same cultural matter. These were the same reasons that I've opposed a Wikipedia in Andalusian, but I've supported a Wikipedia in Murcian. In my own opinion, actually Andalusian varieties are being (and could be) welcome in Wikipedia in Spanish (Castillian). By exemple, the word in Castillian Spanish "charcutería" (chorcery) in Andalusian Spanish is "chacina", and this word is admitted generally as a Spanish word. The only difference would be the pronounciation, and because of it the proposers are remarking on a different writting norms. It isn't needed a wiki in Andalusian because there is already a wiki wich is being inclusive with Andalusian varieties. In front of it, I've supported a Wikipedia in Murcian because these varieties aren't (and could'nt be) welcome in Wikipedia in Spanish. In fact, Spanish-speakers always are rejecting the Murcian varieties because it's generally considered as a "bizarre" form of Spanish language. In any dictionary of Spanish language you could find words in murcian such as "boria" (fog, "niebla" in Spanish), "bezón" (twister, "gemelo"), etc... (neither in Wikipedia in Spanish). In adding of Valencian language, I'm also a Spanish-speaker, and I wouldn't accept those words as Spanish. And the proposers of a wiki in Murcian aren't saying anything about a different writtin norms, actually the principal promoter was saying that ***it would be written in Spanish writting norms***, altough adapted a bit to their pronounciation. It is needed a wiki in Murcian because there aren't any wiki wich would be able to be inclusive with Murcian varieties. In fact, Wikipedia in Spanish are being exclusionist on it, as it was exclusionist also with another dialects/languages such as Aragonese and Asturian (have already their own wiki), wich are more closest to Spanish than Murcian. Concluding, I think that the wikimedia should be inclusionist to every language/dialect/modality in the case these are being rejected in all projects of Wikimedia, specially if these are rejected by the projects wich are in the most nearest languages. And wikimedia should be exclusionist if a language/dialect/modality are being included already on one of its projects. Cheers! Joanot Martorell (not real name, but real person) -- Viquipèdia, l'enciclopèdia lliure. http://ca.wikipedia.org

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[Foundation-l] FW: [DIGLIB] Library of Congress plans world digital library
by Jakob 24 Nov '05

24 Nov '05

Hi, Her are some other people also trying to collect the knowledge of the world. We should get more in contact with them (for instance a presentation by LOC's activities at Wikimania 2006). -----Original Message----- From: Terry Kuny [mailto:terry@kuny.ca] Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 4:04 AM To: DIGLIB Subject: [DIGLIB] Library of Congress plans world digital library Library of Congress plans world digital library 22 Nov 2005 02:08 ET By Eric Auchard SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Library of Congress is kicking off a campaign on Tuesday to work with other nation's libraries to build a World Digital Library, starting with a $3 million donation from Google Inc. Librarian of Congress James Billington said he is looking to attract further private funding to develop bilingual projects, featuring millions of unique objects, with libraries in China, India, the Muslim world and other nations. This builds on major existing digital documentary projects by the Library of Congress -- one preserving an online record of Americana and another documenting ties between the United States and Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain. "The World Digital Library is an attempt to go beyond Europe and the Americas...into cultures where the majority of the world is," Billington told Reuters in a telephone interview. As an example, Billington said the Library of Congress is in discussions with the national library of Egypt to include a collection of great Islamic scientific works from the 10th through the 16th Century in the World Digital Library. "We are trying to do a documentary record of other great cultures of the world. How much we will be able to do will depend on how many additional partners we attract," he said. Over the past decade, the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress has digitized more than ten million items to create a documentary record of Americana. A link is located at: http://www.loc.gov/memory/. These include manuscripts, maps, audiovisual recordings, cartoons, caricatures, posters, documentary photographs, music, and, to a lesser extent, historic books. The World Digital Library would draw on a similar variety of multimedia objects. A second project, known as the Global Gateway and introduced in 2000, involves collaborations with five national libraries in Europe and Brazil that focus on documenting ties between each of those countries and U.S. culture. (http://international.loc.gov/intldl/find/digital_collaborations.html/) GLOBAL CULTURES By contrast, the World Digital Library will focus on creating records of global cultures. The Library of Congress will contribute its own body of works to a blended collection with other countries. More than half of the printed volumes in the Library of Congress are in languages other than English. "It will deal with the culture of those people rather than with our contacts as Americans with those cultures," Billington said. Web search company Google has agreed to work with the Library of Congress on developing standards for indexing the digital collections and by providing computer equipment. The Library of Congress push adds momentum to a variety of competing projects by leading Internet companies and some of the world's greatest libraries to make available online a range of historic literature, audio recordings and film archives. The plans unveiled over the past year mark the most sustained drive yet to make good on the vision of Internet pioneers to open the world's library collections to a global online audience. The dream suffered from a lack of funding and the distractions of the dot-com era's get-rick-quick schemes. Among these are a major push by Google with five major academic libraries to digitize their book collections. Meanwhile, the Open Content Alliance, backed by Yahoo Inc. , Microsoft Corp. , the non-profit Internet Archive and other major libraries, is looking to create an online clearinghouse for historic books, audio and films. The Google Print project has been met with lawsuits by the New York-based Authors Guild and five U.S. publishers who are seeking to block Google's plan to create an online card catalog of copyright works in the collections of its library partners. (Editing by Anthony Barker. Tel: +1 415 677 3919; eric.auchard(a)reuters.com)

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Wikimedia-l November 2005