Hi,
Debian and Mozilla had a struggle about using Mozillas Trademarks in
Debian if the software and logos are changed but the name is not.[1]
This should also apply to Wikipedia if people want to distribute
Wikipedia content or modified parts then they cannot just call it
"Wikipedia" - I just wanted to clarify and give an example because many
people think that the our name and logos are as free as the content.
Greetings,
Jakob
[1] For instance http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS3364701970.html
Wikimédia France has installed a portal at www.wikitheque.fr (and had
obtained .com and .org in order to prevent squatting).
This portal provides task-oriented directions for finding images and
text content on Commons and Wikisource, with the help of Wikipedia (we
may in the future extend this to friendly third-party sites with libre
content).
Examples of tasks include: I'm looking for a photograph of an animal,
where do I look? I only know the French common name of that species,
what do I do?
The idea is to address the needs of e.g. teachers and schoolchildren
with step-by-step instructions.
This portal is now not much developed, but we aim to make it bigger.
In order to preemptively address a few obvious questions:
* This portal will not provide content; content will all be on other
sites (Commons, Wikisource etc.).
* This portal is not editable as a wiki because there would be
difficulties with that:
** The wiki interface may scare "normal" people - too many buttons.
** We cannot afford vandalism on a portal for welcoming e.g. schoolchildren.
** We might use a "closed" wiki but it's a heavier solution than the
current one.
-- DM
I just set-up www.wikimedia.co.nr.
It should take a day or two to be live.
Feel free to send feedback!
---------------------------------
Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com
It's previously been mentioned that we will be starting a public
fundraiser at some point in the near future. In anticipation of that, I
can pass on some good news.
For the primary method by which we receive funds (PayPal), we will be
able to accept donations in ten new currencies that they are now
supporting. These include Czech korunas, Danish krone, Hong Kong
dollars, Hungarian florints, New Zealand dollars, Norwegian krone,
Polish zloty, Singapore dollars, Swedish krone, and Swiss francs. This
is in addition to the six currencies that were accepted in the last
fundraiser: euros, pounds, yen, and three kinds of dollars (Australian,
Canadian, and US).
While I don't know in each individual instance how PayPal compares with
MoneyBookers (the other online option available), either in terms of
fees or popularity in those countries, this is obviously welcome news.
The translation team has started work on getting the relevant pages
updated, but I'm sure they would welcome help from people who aren't
already involved. It would be especially nice to get a Danish
translation of the fundraising page, since that's the one currency here
whose language currently seems to be missing entirely. Please feel free
to spread the word in the community.
--Michael Snow
Couldn't there be set up a better place than the MediaWiki-l mailing list,
where feature proposals can be made? A page on Meta with a structure like
the project proposals page?
I suggest the following policy:
When a Wikinews edition has seen no new stories for 8 weeks, the wiki
is locked and a site notice is added: "This Wikinews edition is
currently inactive. If you are interested in working on it, please
indicate so on [[m:Wikinews/Reactivate an edition]]." (In the correct
language, of course.) Instead of just 5 votes, you would need 10
Wikimedians to sign the reactivation pledge.
Inactive editions could also be removed from the interlanguage link
list on the Main Pages, but that would be optional if it's too much
maintenance.
There are currently a few Wikinewses that meet this criterion. In
general our setup policy tends to at least determine whether there's a
general interest but that doesn't ensure that people keep posting.
Without such a policy, I think we are just turning these sites into
magnets for vandalism and spam, as well as making Wikinews look
unprofessional (a news site with news that are a year old isn't much
of one). An open recognition that an edition is dead seems preferable
to me.
Wikinews is of course very special in this regard because it doesn't
really matter that much if a Wikipedia edition is dead for a couple of
months, but for Wikinews, it is a very obvious sign that the critical
mass is not there.
Does this policy proposal sound reasonable?
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
Here is a specific one that hopefully would even be possible within our
current budget:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code2000
This is an amazing labour of love by one person, James Kass, and distributed
as shareware for a meagre $5.
As far as I know there is no font file that comes close in breadth of
coverage,
except perhaps for MsArialUnicode, which is a 25 Mb font file from
Microsoft, and not free nor shareware :(
Erik Zachte