A second public meeting of the special projects committee will take
place tomorrow at 20:00 UTC. The agenda will include processes for
new project development, community input and feedback, and ways the
committee can be more effective. Additional agenda items, or specific
ideas for discussion, can be added to the Meta-wiki (see link below).
* Time : Sunday, September 3, 2006. 20:00 UTC (16:00 EST / 22:00 CET)
* Location:
IRC -- #wikimedia-spcomm on irc.freenode.net
Meta -- http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee/Meetings
(for agenda, attendee list, and commentary)
--SJ
As an admin on Anarchopedia, one guy asked me to open "disability
Anarchopedia". You can see our talk on the page
http://eng.anarchopedia.org/index.php/User_talk:Millosh#Dear_Millosh.2C
(from this heading to the rest of the page).
Hm. There is no problem to open one or more MediaWikis, but the same
MediaWiki engine would to nothing. I was thinking about changing of
Monobook skin, but it seems that it is not enough.
As this is not only Anarchopedia-related question; as well as it
should be implemented on Wikimedian projects, too; as well as this is
important issue -- I would like to hear is there any good solution for
people with disabilities so they can be able to equally contribute to
MediaWiki projects?
I was thinking about using Emacs (it has wiki interface and I am sure
that I found that it has some interfaces for persons with
disabilities), but Emacs is too complex...
Is there anything else which can be used? If not, is there a people
who are willing to work on such issue? If not, may WMF fund a project
with aim to solve this problem?
My thanks to the Wikimedia Foundation for providing comprehensive
Swahili Grammar and Language Reference Materials
for grammar and rule set construction for WikiTrans (they arrived
today). I will begin work on the grammar and verb tensing rules starting
next weekend. These materials provide a good foundation for the
application of Martin's grammar and parsing programs.
I will attempt to have reasonable closure on the Swahili Machine
translation by end of Autumn.
Jeff
For a long long time it has been the operative assumption that the
Wikimedia Foundation carries the legal liability, and if things go
really really badly wrong, the foundation would sacrifice itself, so
the community, and the content itself could continue elsewhere.
There has however been gradual development of the foundations
structures in two ways that seem to indicate that this operative
assumption (not being anywhere formally enunciated, except in the
tangible fact of working under the GFDL) may not last forever.
Firstly there is the building of increasingly robust defensive
bulwarks against litigation and other forms that the foundation could
be seriously harmed. This is something which is clearly an unequivocal
good in what ever operative assumption the Foundation labors under,
and should continue no matter what. The question on this front rather
is, whether there exists now, or will exist in the foreseeable future,
a sufficient level of robustness for these defenses that the need to
keep the Foundation as expendable, discardable isn't relevant anymore
from a standpoint of necessity?
The other facet of the question is the speed at which the organs of
the foundation develop into integral parts of how our whole greater
endeavour operates. Note I am not saying indispensible in the sense
that those particular organs are locked into place (we are a long way
from that yet), but integral in the sense that should the highly
unlikely eventuality of having to start again occur (as the GFDL
allows), _something_ would have fill their functions in the operation
of the restarted endeavour.
The problem (or non-problem, as the facts may obtain) here lies on
what philosophy do we adopt toward this earlier operative assumption
of sacrificability?
Do we find on reflection, that we have already crossed the Rubicon,
that although theoretically the work could be restarted elsewhere, the
disruption would be high enough, that it is wisest to abandon all
worry about the possibility of sacrificing the Foundation, and
concentrate on making the Foundation functional without regard to what
things it might lock us into, and speed up construction of legal and
other defensive bulwarks into a kind of Fortress Wikimedia Foundation?
Or should we seriously consider examining every new thing the
Foundation takes onto its plate, making doubly sure that it is
something that would compromise our ability to just chuck the
Foundation away like the tail of a lizard, and trust we will have the
resources to grow a new tail, there being no vital organs in it.
Or can someone in one swift stroke demonstrate that all the above is
entirely inconsequential? For me, that would be a great relief, and
good enough.
--
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro
Candidate for Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation in the
September 2006 elections.
(Forwarded from translators-l)
Hello all,
Election has begun. Please vote now.
To sysops, if you don't subscribe translators-l. For the Election, we
have to update two MediaWiki messages, advised Tim Staring.
------
> boardvote_notqualified:
You are not qualified to vote in this election. You need to have made
$3 edits before $2, you have made $1. Also, your first edit was at $4,
it needs to be before $5.
(or a verbose version, if it fits your culture ... thanks to Shim-phone)
Sorry, you are not qualified to vote in this election here on the
English Wikipedia. You need to have made $3 edits here before $2, you
have made $1. Also, your first edit on this wiki was at $4, it needs
to be before $5.
You may be eligible to vote on another Wikimedia project where you are
active. If so, please visit that project and try again. Thank you!
> boardvote_notloggedin:
You are not logged in. To vote, you must use an account with at least
$1 contributions before $2, and with a first edit before $3.
------
Those changes could be done automatically by MediaWiki default, or
not. Anyway, it would be nice to prepare translations of those
messages in my opinion.
Other MediaWiki:Boardvote_* files have not to be changed, unless they
wasn't been translated. If it is your case, consider put the English
version to those two messages first, and then do translation somewhere
else, in one page ideally, and set them on your wiki later. That would
take only 30 minutes or so.
As for those two messages, you can see them on meta too:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_UI_text_2006
If you feel at ease, you can work on that page.
Cheers,
--
Kizu Naoko
Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
* vivemus, mea Lesbia, amemus *
I am pleased to announce that WMF has hired Mark Bergsma to serve as
Networking Coordinator for the Foundation. Due to Mark's continuing
studies, the position will be part-time. Mark has distinguished himself
with his work on the Wikimedia infrastructure. In light of the recent
concerns about network reliability, network independence, etc.,
dedicated manpower for this function is critical. We welcome him and
look forward to his work in the future.
-Brad
Brad Patrick
General Counsel & Interim Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
bradp.wmf(a)gmail.com
727-231-0101
I'm not sure the authors of this book about "how mass collaboration
changes everything" have ever heard of Nomic, but they have a cute web
address, a remarkably familiar cover image and font-choice, and are
looking for better title suggestions.
Perhaps someone should send them cover-image suggestions as well. (Or
perhaps, as they seem to have developed a 3D model of a suitable
globe, there could be an exchange -- license to use that cover for a
3D model of the real WP logo... which would be handy.)
SJ
Hello Wikimedians,
We the Election Officials hereby clarify how votes from blocked
accounts will be treated. This is not overruling anything previous, in
our opinion, but is rather writing down of oral tradition of Election
Officials. In the current Board Election, the Election Officials will
count the votes from blocked users as follows:
1. Users indefinitely banned or blocked from any Wikimedia project may
not vote in the Wikimedia Foundation Board elections. This means they
may not vote using the blocked account or from any other account they
may hold on a Wikimedia project.
2. Users temporarily banned or blocked from any Wikimedia project may
not vote from the blocked or banned account for the duration it is
blocked. However, they may vote from any other project on which they
are eligible to vote, or they may vote after their block either
expires or is removed if the election is still open.
3. Election officials may strike votes from users who do not meet the
eligibility criteria described above. Officials may find disqualified
voters by searching manually, by technical filtering (to be provided
by developer(s) if possible), or by third-party reports (see the
below).
4. Any Wikimedia user is invited to report questionable votes to the
Election Officials. To ensure the authenticity of the reports, we
highly recommend that bureaucrats or admins of a local wiki make the
reports, and we appreciate the assistance of local wiki admins in
checking such questionable votes. Admins of local wikis are welcome to
report on projects other than the ones on which they are
administrators; however, local admins are expected to be the most
reliable source of such information.
Thank you for your input and ideas on this issue. We hope all eligible
voters participate in the coming election starting September 1!
Wikimedia Election Committee, 2006
Essjay, Datrio, Aphaia