I¹m fairly new on Wikimedia, and even more so to this mailing list--but I¹m
sure you¹ve heard plenty of this before, so I¹ll get right to it.
I was directed to this list to enquire about starting new Wikis in the
Shavian alphabet, especially a Wikipedia and maybe Wikinews. I'm not sure
this is entirely appropriate for Wikimedia since it will just be English
spelled phonemically (or phonetically, if you prefer). But such
considerations don't seem to preclude other Wikis, such as Simple English or
Tok Pisin (not quite English, I know), so I thought I'd give it a try.
I want to verify before discussing this in mind-numbing detail (putting
everyone to sleep) that I am indeed in the right place and that there can
perhaps be some consideration for Shavian on Wikimedia. I can assure you
that the support is there, and Shavian users can be expected to use and edit
Wikis in Shavian when possible.
Regards,
Joe
heyo...
i really can't belive it - there're people who
actually care enough to help and are constantly block
and don't give up...
sounds to me like you have some quality support here -
i don't know that many other places where people would
insist to donate their time and efforts where they
seem to _not be welcome_...
and for gods sake, it's a wiki - from my expirience
vandalism can be undone by users... (that and 1001
other reasons why it doesn't make the least sense on a
wiki... o_O)
ohh well...
(did i mention that it makes no sense?)
__________________________________
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Hoi,
I have written a proposal on grants.wikimedia.org In it you find a
proposal for spending as much as we can get from UNESCO under their IFAP
program. To ask for this grant we HAVE to apply before the 20th of Februari.
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/ifapprojects/manuals/instructions.pdf is
the PDF with the instructions that we have to comply with.
One issue is that we have to involve the national IFAP committees .. :(
I do not see how this can be done practically) This will have to be
discussed how this is to be done practically..
One answer that can be given is, that we are already working towards our
goals.
The money we ask for will give our efforts a shot in the arm. There are
two considerations: When we apply for this grant, we will have to spend
the money according to how we apply for the grant. This means that we
have to do this, criticism from any and all not withstanding. Another
thing is that by asking for grants, we let big donors decide how we
spend money and we will have admin because of it. It makes sense to
allow our smaller donors also to have this spending power. Please read
"Donations: putting your money where your mouth is" on Meta..
Thanks,
Gerard
---- Forwarded message from "Walter Vermeir ." <walter(a)wikipedia.be> ----
> Hi,
>
> This shop is selling stuff from opensource projects;
> http://openstuff.net
>
> There are in Belgium, good central point for Europa.
>
> Question; can we ask or someone of the board of the are willing to sell
> Wikimdia/Wikipedia-stuff on there shop?
>
> When we need t-shirts, posters or so then we can just order them. At
> least
> for use in Europa. And users of Wikipedia whot like to have one can
> order
> also. Or Wikipedia must create there own internal production and
> distribution channel for this stuff and earn more money. But that can
> give
> problems to do.
>
> Greetings,
> [[w:nl:gebruiker:Walter]]
Dear members of Wikipedia-l and Foundation-l,
I asked for creation of Võro Wikipedia last month in foundation-l and request page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#V.C3.B5ro_Wikiped….
Angela forwarded it also to the Wikipedia-l.
It was proposed in the discussion that the code for Võro Wikipedia could be for the first time "fiu-vro" or "fiu-voro". There
was no serious objections against creating.
Does somebody know when the Võro Wikipedia will be created?
(By the way: on what the creation depends, who and when decides it?)
What else should be done by me before?
Regards
Sulev (Võrok)
2.02.2005 20:11:58, Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> kirot':
>Forwarding from foundation-l to wikipedia-l since there was no
>reaction on that list....
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>From: Sulev Iva <juvasul(a)ut.ee>
>Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 19:43:52 +0200
>Subject: [Foundation-l] Võro Vikipeediä
>To: foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org
>
>
>Dear members of the foundaton,
>I'm a user of Estonian (Võrok) and English Wikipedia (Võrolang) and a
>native speaker,
>researcher and activist of the Võro language spoken in Estonia. Võro
>(native name Võro
>or Võro kiil´) belongs to the Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric
>languages. It has about
>70.000 speakers mostly in southern Estonia.
>Language codes (not yet official) are Vro and Vr. See more about Võro in
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Võro and http://www.wi.ee/.
>
>I and my friends would like to begin with Võro language Wikipedia. We
>can translate
>Estonian language file to Võro (actually we have already started) and begin with
>creation of new articles. Of course your objection may be that there are too few
>speakers of Võro. Yes, but the speakers are quite active and
>computerized people and
>the Võro language community needs an encyclopedia in their own
>language. I'm sure the
>number of potential editors in Võro is not smaller than the Kashoub,
>Cornish, Gaelic,
>Faroese or Saami's or many other small languages' one. I have
>discussed the idea of
>Võro Wikipedia with Estonian Wikipedia developers: Andres, Ker, Klaus etc.
>(http://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipeedia:Community_Portal#V.C3.B5rukeelne_Wi…).
>They are supporting the idea and will help us. I hope you will support us too.
>Best regards, Võrolang -- 80.235.61.143 11:33, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
I seem to recall that there were negotiations underway at some point
with the owner of wikimedia.com on transferring that domain name to the
Foundation. To this day, there is no content under the domain, not even
ads, just a German "Under construction" notice. I would like to inquire
what the outcome of the past negotiations was. If they failed, is there
any chance that we can get the domain by virtue of owning the trademark
rights to "Wikimedia", and the domain name not being used in any other
way by its owner?
My interest is primarily that I would like the Foundation site to move
from wikimediafoundation.org to wikimedia.org - a domain which is
currently just an ugly portal site, but also a subdomain of Meta, the
Wikimedia Commons, and the mailing lists. I think having the foundation
site there could help to strengthen the Wikimedia brand identity, but
when that was discussed in the past, the problem that we do not hold the
.com was the main (only?) reason not to do it.
So, to get the ball rolling, what's the situation? If I can help by
getting in touch with the owner, I'll see what I can do. Are we willing
to pay for the domain, or does it have to come for free? Legal
proceedings cost money, too, so if the owner is happy with a small fee,
that might be the least troublesome approach.
On a different note, yes, Wikimedia and Wikipedia are very confusingly
similar. Individually, our naming choices have been good, but taken
together, they're a mess. I think it's too late to rename Wikimedia,
with international organizations in place and 2 million Google hits on
that name. The best way to deal with that problem, in my opinion, is to
give a short explanation on the wikimedia.org page (which would then be
the foundation page), with a small icon and a link to Wikipedia.
All best,
Erik
Local uploads have been disabled on the English Wikinews from the start.
Uploads are only possible through the Wikimedia Commons. This is meant
to make the upload of "fair use" images as well as images under other
non-free licenses impossible, and generally encourage use of the
Commons. The decision to disable uploads on the English Wikinews was
made in accord with Jimmy. Uploads on the other wikis were only enabled
to begin with in order to allow them to replace the logo. Since that has
now happened, local uploads are disabled there as well.
In order to nicely integrate a link to the Commons into the sidebar, I
suggest using [[MediaWiki:Currentevents]] as well as
[[MediaWiki:Currentevents-url]], which are pointless in Wikinews anyway
since the entire wiki is about Current Events. You can point those
directly to [[Commons:Special:Upload]], which will then put users on the
Commons upload form if they are logged in.
The decision to disable uploads is not permanent and subject to change.
The reasoning behind this decision is as follows. Wikinews is a project
which directly competes with major news organizations, magazines and
newspapers. It also allows and encourages commercial use of its content.
Fair use of photos from a news agency, for example, is very difficult to
justify under these circumstances. But regardless of the legal
arguments, there is also the practical argument that Wikinews will soon
be perceived as a threat, because most of its stories are based on
reporting done by others -- and we give it away for free, while they
charge money. These people will eventually try to stop us by all means
necessary.
There is a distinct possibility that we will face issues similar to SCO
v. Linux, where a competitor accuses us of stealing content -- even if
we didn't. Fair use, being so volatile in its definition, makes a
successful attack more likely and opens us up to additional legal risks.
That is why uploads will not be enabled until it is fully clear under
what circumstances non-free licenses can be allowed.
Work is currently being done on the English Wikinews to formulate a
"fair use" policy. I encourage other Wikinews editions to do the same.
Fair use on Wikinews could encompass things like logos, graphics,
screenshots -- or photos that have not been produced by competing
organizations and companies. Once that policy is written, we shall
submit it to the Board for approval and possibly legal review. If it
passes that review, uploads will be re-enabled. The same goes for all
the other Wikinews editions.
In the meantime, I ask you to only upload images under free licenses or
in the public domain, directly to the Wikimedia Commons. Uploading them
there does not affect the image syntax at all -- you can use them like
you would use a local image. But they will not show up in Wikinews
Recent Changes.
If the Board would like this decision to be reverted, please let me
know. Otherwise I will coordinate the next steps as described.
All best,
Erik
With the recent votes on the Wikinews logo it occurred to me how much
better it would be if we could do such votes using a proportional
preference voting system like STV (Single Transferable Vote). I had a
look around and noticed that there is at least one web browser-based
STV counting software package out there which is open source and
written in PHP.
It would be interesting to see if we could adapt this for use in
MediaWiki to handle inputs from multiple users over multiple days.
http://www.demochoice.org/
Christiaan
This page was sent to you by: rose.parks(a)att.net.
Apologies... This is the first article from Thursday's Times. As Ever, Ruth Ifcher
TECHNOLOGY / CIRCUITS | February 10, 2005
The Unassociated Press
By AARON WEISS
Wikinews, an experiment in collaborative news gathering, is gaining in popularity. But the central question about the Wikinews effort is its credibility.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/technology/circuits/10wiki.html?ex=110878…
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