Just FYI :-)
The German Verein has just received a legal opinion they ordered some
time ago, concerning various legal issues for wikipedia and German law.
It turns out that, according to the legal opinion, German law prohibits
the collection of quotes, or quotes as such, if they are not used in a
context.
That would mean the German wikiquote project's legal status is shaky at
best. (IANAL)
The German PDF with the legal opinion is at [1], and as wiki code at [2].
Magnus
[1] http://www.wikimedia.de/files/Rechtsfragen_Maerz_2005.pdf
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Rechtsfragen_M%C3%A4rz_2005
Now that the info-en email address is on the "contact us" pages, the
amount of mail is increasing, and we need more help.
We are looking for a long-standing contributor with a good knowledge of
the English Wikipedia and its policies and procedures. You should also
have a working knowledge of other projects. You need to have infinite
patience to reply to the same newbie questions time after time, and a
friendly and helpful style of writing. Most important is the ability
not to laugh at people who write to tell us we have a massive security
hole - an edit link on each page!!!11!.
Being active on IRC is an advantage - it makes a real difference to be
able to talk over the tricky ones sometimes.
Pay is at the usual Wikipedia rate of lots of good feeling and all the
cookies you can eat.
Hopefully there will be a big rush of applicants for this wonderful job,
and I will ask those volunteering to answer a few mails to see if you
have the style we are looking for. Jimbo will have the final say though.
Please mail me directly rather than replying to the list if you are
interested.
Thanks,
sannse
p.s. I lied about the cookies
First off, my credentials:
[[en:User:Brian0918]]
Administrator
11,754 edits
Short version: There is a huge battle going on in which VFDers on WP,
WS, and Commons are pushing user-compiled lists from one project to
another. In each case, they are saying the lists belong on one of the
other 3 projects. Almost nobody is saying that these lists don't belong
anywhere, but nobody can decide on where they belong. It also doesn't
help that nobody on one project accepts the outcome of another project's
VFD (an outcome which may have said to transwiki to this project) as a
reason to keep it on this project.
Long version: There has been an ongoing battle between Wikipedia,
Wikisource, and Commons over the fate of user-compiled, well-sourced
lists. Specifically, I'm talking about lists of victims of disasters. It
all started with the [[List of General Slocum victims]] and [[List of
victims of the 1913 Great Lakes storm]]. The first appears to have only
one source, but is not a copyvio nor direct copy of an original source,
while the second was compiled by me for Wikipedia (originally), and
required more research than most people put into 5 featured articles...
Anyways, the first was VFDd from Wikipedia, with a few suggestions that
it should be transwiki'd to Wikisource:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/List_of_General_S…
These suggestions led to both myself and the creator of the first list
to move our lists over to Wikisource. My list was subsequently VFD'd
from Wikisource, and a VFD was also instituted for ALL such
user-compiled lists. Both of these VFDs are still open, I think:
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Proposed_deletions#March_2005http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium#Remove_Tables_and_Lists_f…
At Wikisource, the opinion seems to be that these lists belong either at
Wikipedia or Commons (yes, Commons does accept text, read the Main
Page). Following these suggestions, we subsequently copied these lists
over to Commons in the event that they suddenly disappeared from
Wikisource......
And, of course, they are now up for deletion on Commons, where the
opinion has been less favorable (they don't like being the "last
choice" for things deleted from elsewhere), although many have expressed
the opinion that these lists do in fact belong on Wikipedia.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#List_of_victim…http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Deletion_requests#List_of_Genera…
Meanwhile, on Wikipedia, an Undelete request was instituted (by myself,
I think) for the General Slocum list, but the majority are saying that
it doesn't belong on Wikipedia, but on Commons or Wikisource.
Summary: As Stevertigo said: "Theres no sense in people batting this
thing about. Clearly it belongs at source or [WP]... There needs to be
some policy against batting things around."
First of all: sorry for crossposting to all lists, but I need to reach
as many people as possible.
There are two things I would like to talk about and maybe this mail is
going to be quite long.
At this stage I took over part of the translation's organisation (or all
of it? we'll see ...)
There are some problems involved when it comes to translations for
wikimania - on one hand we will have people that know how to edit and
that go simply there and edit an article on the other hand we will work
with translators who don't know how to do this and therefore they
receive the article and send it back to me - then their work needs to be
copied and pasted into the wiki.
Therefore I created a page where to collect the names of people who work
for wikimania and a yahoogroup to assure that every article is only
translated once.
The translator's list can be find here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translators_that_are_willing_to_co-operate
It is organised by language combinations. I also added myself, but
really I suppose I won't have much time to translate since I will need
the time for organisational tasks.
The translator's list is on yahoo: wikimaniatrans(a)yahoogroups.com
I am inserting all translators there since all articles that need
translation are posted there. The first translator who answers to the
list with "I am doing this translation EN-IT" (just to make an example)
will translate that language combination of that particular article - so
all other translators know that this work is being done.
So if you are interested in co-operating for translations, please add
yourself to the list and subscribe to the yahoo-group. If you won't do
this yourself: just send me a mail indicating
Language combinations
Name
e-mail
Website (if any)
As to the reporters: to be faster in our work it would be great if you
sent me a note with the link as soon as your article is online and ready
for translation. I know that this is not the normal "wiki-way" but we
have to deal with people that are not used to wikis and we don't have
the time to teach them how to work there.
Please drop me a note so that I know you before (it would be great).
As to admins: please post the message that we are on search for
translators in your Beer Parlours and ask people who are interested to
contact me by e-mail (either sabine_cretella(a)yahoo.it or
s.cretella(a)wordsandmore.it) - I understand German, Italian, English,
French, Spanish and write German, Italian, English - I approximatively
understand some more languages, but it is not the case to guess what is
written in this situation, so please bear with me and accept these
limits :-)
For now that's all - the more we are the better we will be and the less
work anyone will do - if there's someone who would like to help with the
copy/paste upload: please let me know.
Ciao!!!!
Sabine
*****
Sabine Cretella
Translations
s.cretella(a)wordsandmore.it
skype: sabinecretella
___________________________________
Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB
http://mail.yahoo.it
Hoi,
Yesterday there was a meeting at Kennisnet in the Netherlands. As a
meeting it was a success. You may know that Kennisnet has a portal
function for educational content for the Dutch primary, secondary
schools and for vocational training. Kennisnet has now been actively
involved with the Wikimedia Foundation for over half a year, many
activities have resulted from this the hosting of servers for the WMF
the Queen Beatrix project to name a few.
The character of this meeting was very different; it was about how to
use Wiki content and Wiki technology in education. The Queen Beatrix
project was the first content squarely aimed to get direct involvement
from the students in Dutch education and in a way it was good and in a
way it was not. As it was so abundantly clear that this was coming much
of the content was created by the nl.Wikipedians before the project even
started. From a traffic point of view it is not all that bad, even
nl.wiktionary gets attention from the Kennisnet project, its access page
is on the 41st place of the frequently requested articles. Kennisnet has
its own statistics, and it can inform us how much traffic their project
gets and how many people find their way to our content.
Technically, it was discussed if it would be beneficial for schools to
have their own wikis. It was discussed if a wiki could/should replace a
school website, this idea was basically rejected. It is not relevant as
it is up to the school as it sees fit. If it makes for schools to have
their own wiki, it will be because it has a place in the curriculum and
it is approached as a tool. To get the active participation of schools,
educational content needs to be prepared; one of the essential parts of
this content will be instructional material on how to use a wiki.
There were several ways a wiki can be used; one is to have some basic
content, a framework that is a base for the work that is to be done
during the year. Another is to have it as a platform for creating the
"School newspaper" as it is great at creating collaborative content.
When students are to do their homework, wiki content can be used to
inform them what the homework is, it can even be used to have the
student do the homework.
The featured articles and articles of the day were considered for
translation exercises. Not only has this its application as just a good
text but it was also considered to ask students to translate articles
from and to the language that is being studied. The existence of
interwiki links was considered as a way to know if an article already
exists so that the "best" translation could be used for upload.
Wiktionary content was considered; as often the meanings translations
are missing it may be something that students can be asked to work on.
Defining a word is often a difficult exercise.
One technology that is often needed in schools is video material. It was
repeated that Kennisnet has the ability to stream content and is willing
to use this technology to be used for the Wikimedia Foundation. For the
WMF the use of "Open/Free" technology is a requirement; the software
will be changed to host ogg video material. Hosting the formats that are
in widespread us can already be done.
Waerth did send a mail asking if Kennisnet would be willing to pay for
access to statistical content. Kennisnet, the portal organisation it is,
cannot fulfil such a request. There was however a discussion on how such
data would be best hosted. Localisation and versioning were discussed.
When you have statistical content, you want to know the date and the
source of the content. アムステルダム, 암스테르담 and Амстердам have the
same statistics it makes little sense to store this in many projects.
Consequently the possibilities that Wikidata offer for this type of
information and the possibilities that the Ultimate Wiktionary offer for
localisation need to be considered. Kennisnet might consider helping
with the creation of the infrastructure for such a project.
One recurring theme in the discussion was the creation of a Dutch an
encyclopaedic project by and for kids. Often the Wikipedia articles are
difficult and they do not necessarily inform kids in their own language
and address their needs. For Kennisnet, giving an editorial hand in such
a project is something that would seriously be considered.
One fun thing was the never-ending need of summaries of novels and
poetry. The American “Cliffs notes” are known for these. The strategies
of using summaries to fake real expertise were discussed. One of the
best strategies is also very time consuming so much so that reading the
book was considered an equally good strategy.. Summaries can be part of
the Wikipedias however, as the requirement of students is somewhat
different, discussing the book etc is rather relevant.. It might be
considered to have a Wikisummaries projects..
This is my recollection of this event I hope that the other participants
will give it a read and improve on it. I hope it will spark some
interest and discussion by all those who are involved in the combination
Wiki and education.
Thanks,
GerardM
What is being proposed on that is not so "far away" then one might
think. There are at least two official projects in that direction (even
more if you search for it - there are also some minor ones by single
persons).
1) University of Limerick, Ireland - I may not talk about this as it is
in its beginnings and the creator of the project asked me not to talk
about it for the moment.
2) A commercial project that sees the realisation of such a database in
approx 5 year's time then marekting it and selling it to translator's
(great - our the transator's category has every year less income due to
the market and we shall spend more and more every year due to the
"necessities" of the customers) - more about this in clientside news
(Global Intelligence Newsletter) - sorry I don't have the url here at
the moment.
These projects are similar and different at the same time - but they
have one common goal: creation of a data repository for
localisation/translation.
Wikidata already allows to create this - we already have the tools
others are still working on - it is more than just a valid project.
I presume the university will have a look at wikidata as soon as it is
possible and if it is favourable we should consider co-operation between
all these interested parties - of course the commercial side will not be
too fond of this developments.
xml, tmx and tbx play a huge role in this as well - but sorry, it would
go too far to explain all these interactions here right now. If you want
to read more about this please refer to http://www.lisa.org
Ciao, Sabine
p.s. Martin, please correct me if there's something wrong in here.
___________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger: chiamate gratuite in tutto il mondo
http://it.beta.messenger.yahoo.com
Potentially interesting. *Not* run by archive.org; the organizer was
just spamming the archivists list. Perhaps someone free can attend
and report back?
SJ
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Samuel Klein <sjklein(a)hcs.harvard.edu>
Date: Jul 26, 2005 12:51 PM
Subject: [archivists] Announcement: Online Conference about eBooks
and Digital Audiobooks (fwd)
To: 2.718281828(a)gmail.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 09:43:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tom Peters <tapinformation(a)yahoo.com>
To: archivists(a)yahoogroups.com, archivists-talk(a)yahoogroups.com
Subject: [archivists] Announcement: Online Conference about eBooks and
Digital Audiobooks
This announcement is being sent to several lists, with apologies
extended to those who receive multiple copies.
You are invited to attend an online conference about books, ebooks,
and digital audiobooks to be held on Thursday, July 28, 2005 (early
Friday morning in Australasia). There is no cost to register, and
there is no registration deadline. Already over 185 librarians,
information technologists, ebook and digital audiobook users,
publishers, and others from across the U.S. and around the world have
registered to attend this innovative online conference.
To participate all you need is an Internet-connected computer running
a Microsoft Windows operating system (Windows 98 or later), Mac OS X,
or Linux. If in addition to text-chatting you wish to communicate via
voice-over-IP, you need to have a microphone connected to--or embedded
in--your computer.
The homepage for the conference website is:
http://www.planetlibrary.info/lgleindex.htm
The direct link to the conference registration page is:
http://www.planetlibrary.info/tinc?key=opjmI0gx&formname=LGLEregister200507
If you want to test your connection prior to the day of the online
conference, here is the link to one of the online conference rooms:
http://67.19.231.218/v4/login.asp?r=7c4d784b&p=0
Access to this room is available 24/7 from now until the conclusion of
the conference. Please note: The first time you enter one of these
online meeting rooms, the operating system you are using may ask for
your permission to download and automatically install a small, safe
software plug-in.
In addition to vendor exhibits and opportunities for informal
networking, this conference will feature the following outstanding
speakers:
Mark Beatty from WILS: Wilsconsin Library Services
Lori Bell (Director of the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center):
An Introduction to Digital Audiobooks
Charlotte Johnson (Director of User Services at Lovejoy Library,
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville), and William Harroff
(Reference and Information Technologies Librarian, Holman Library,
McKendree College):
(r)Evolutionary (e)Books
Asra Nomani (Author of the new book Standing Alone in Mecca, one
woman's pilgrimage to reclaim the rightful role of women in Islam):
Interview and Online Book Signing
Jon Noring from the OpenReader Consortium, a cooperative project to
create a universal, open standards digital publication distribution
format.
David Rothman from TeleRead, an organization dedicated to bringing
ebooks home and advocating for well-stocked national digital
libraries.
Blake Squires from Findaway, Inc., which will begin selling the
Playaway self-contained digital audiobook device in October.
Juliet Sutherland from Distributed Proofreaders, supporting the
digitization of public domain books.
Lori Watrous-deVersterre from LibraryCity, dedicated to bringing
ebooks to online communities in the Carnegie tradition.
Claudia Weissman from OverDrive, a leading digital book and digital
audiobook vendor for libraries and retailers.
This online conference is part of Let's Go Library Expo, a planned
series of online conferences on timely topics related to librarianship
and information technology. Please watch for announcements of future
conferences in this series.
It is being organized by:
Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center
North Suburban Library System near Chicago
Alliance Library System in Central Illinois
TAP Information Services near Kansas City
The conference is sponsored by:
OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), a leading digital book and digital
audiobook vendor for libraries and retailers.
For more information please visit the conference website
(http://www.planetlibrary.info/lgleindex.htm) or contact Tom Peters
from TAP Information Services (tpeters(a)tapinformation.com). Thank
you!
Tom Peters
TAP Information Services
1000 SW 23rd Street
Blue Springs, MO 64015
phone: 816-228-6406
email: tapinformation(a)yahoo.com
web: www.tapinformation.com
TAP Information Services provides a wide variety of high quality
planning, consulting, research, and assessment services
supporting libraries, library consortia, government agencies,
professional associations, and other information-intensive
organizations.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archivists/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
archivists-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
--
++SJ
Yesterday I did an interview for a prospective radio show with a young
woman called Clara Long, who is putting together something to sell to US
public radio. She's already interviewed Jimbo and Larry Sanger, then me (as
a Wikipedian who was in London) and after me spoke to Robert McHenry (the
public toilet guy from Britannica).
I rambled for about ten minutes - the community process, answering
criticisms of quality ("you're familiar with Larry and Robert's criticisms
of Wikipedia, how would you answer them?") by vaporwaring the planned
article rating feature (on hold 'cos Brion doesn't like the current code)
and criticisms of the process by pointing out that just because you can't
see inside the Britannica sausage factory doesn't mean it isn't as much or
more of one. The other question was whether articles always improve with
time - I said there is ever-more *detail*, and what tends to happen is that
you have a well-written article, people add stuff, it makes the article
clunky, then someone else edits it for flow. So articles may well be
middling for writing quality, but will tend to have lots of detailed
information.
I completely forgot to mention Wikinews (particularly egregious as she was
talking about Wikimedia, not just Wikipedia - so I didn't have a chance to
push our scoop on the London bombings!), but did consistently refer to en:
as *English* Wikipedia :-) I also pointed James Forrester at her. She says
she'll let us know when she sells the show somewhere.
- d.
As you all know, Wikibooks was originally intended for textbooks and
other instructional material. But why do many users (meta and
wikipedians in particular) think that Wikibooks is a dumping ground
for all their book-length stuff even if it is non-instructional in
nature (which would be grounds for deletion on [[WB:WIN]])?
It's an interesting discussion on Wikibooks right now about how
Wikibookians see ourselves vs how others see Wikibooks, all having
started from the controversial deletion of a book, itself forked from
Wikipedia over an edit war, which also raised the question on whether
Wikibooks should allow limited forms of Wikipedia forking as a book
foundation (currently this is not allowed due to [[WB:WIN]] - WB is
not an in-depth encyclopedia on any subject).
It also ties in to the question of how effective Wikibooks is in
enforcing its policies: WB has about 9000 users (as listed by the
special page), but only 25 are admins (and among the 25, 2 are
bureaucrats). Even if 1000 users are active on WB (a very
conservative estimate), that's still too much for 25 users (assuming
they are all active) to handle. Making things noticeably worse is
that policies on WB are either unilaterily implemented or are stuck
in a limbo since few will make a consensus (there are also many
issues on WB that the MediaWiki software cannot address, such as
finding the book that a given module is associated with).
Anyways, I want the Wikimedia community at large to comment on how
they think of Wikibooks and its purpose, and that's why I've posted a
message here.