Hello,
I am happy to relay that Wikimedia Commons now has over two million
files. This is around 11 months after we reached one million. Since
March 2007 we routinely have over 100,000 files uploaded every single
month. It is becoming more and more common to have over 5,000 files in
a single day.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Press_releases/2M
This is not much of a traditional press release but will be
interesting for Wikimedians who are not closely involved with Commons
(and maybe those who are, too). It lists some recent innovations and
tools that we have introduced to improve the quality and ease of
access of the Commons collection.
I expect most people here are aware of the Picture of the Year
competition, and Quality Images, and the Mayflower search engine (
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tangotango/mayflower/ ), and the improved
Ogg video/audio playback thanks to Tim Starling.
A couple of features people may not be aware of:
- geocoding - every picture that is geotagged gets a little "Earth"
icon and clicking on it launches a map that shows the image located on
the map, as well as other geotagged images nearby. It's really cool.
The geocoding folk are very innovative and welcoming so if you are
interested in helping them out or just finding out other cool ways
this can be used, please talk to them.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Geocoding
- category RSS feeds - thanks to Magnus Manske each category now has a
RSS feed for new files that get added to that category. If you are
interested in some topic X and it has a category, you can keep tabs on
what new files get added to it without having to go to Commons to
check all the time. Just add the RSS feed link (it's on the category
page under the toolbox) to your favourite feed reader.
A full list of types of feeds available is here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Feeds
The 2M mark draws some comparison with English Wikipedia which
recently passed the same milestone. However the comparison is not
really valid. Where Wikipedia may expect basically one topic == one
article (give or take section expension such as 'History of X' having
its own article instead of just 'X'), Commons would hope to have one
topic == dozens of files.
Commons is still a very young project and it is both exciting and
scary to imagine what it will be like with 10M files.
By #files we are the largest project. ;)
By #users we are the 8th largest project.
By #edits we are the 9th largest project.
It is a very interesting time to be involved with Commons. We face
many social and technical problems that are yet to be resolved. Are
our current processes for dealing with things (eg: uploading, tagging
as copyvio, deletion discussion, deletion, adminship) scaling well -
will they continue to cope or will they get overloaded? How can we
face the joint challenges of welcoming new users on one hand and yet
tackling the never-ending stream of copyvios on the other? How can we
provide equal opportunity for our users to participate regardless of
the languages they do or don't speak?
The social problems are ours to ponder, yet I can't help feeling that
our work is made more difficult by using inappropriate tools.
MediaWiki is a great tool for writing an encyclopedia in a single
language, but it has some significant shortcomings when used in a
multilingual media-based environment that only become more problematic
as Commons gets larger. Therefore I sincerely hope that the Foundation
will consider hiring or contracting developers specifically for
problems that affect Commons, within the next couple of years.
regards,
Brianna
user:pfctdayelise
... that every time community input is asked on a subject by a board
member, little to none is given?
And why is it that every time the same things that were put up for
discussion are said "approved' or "official" suddenly everyone finds
something to say?
Shouldn't it be the other around?
Delphine
--
~notafish
NB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to
this address will probably get lost.
So I see...we (homosexuals etc) have to hide who we are and what we are
proud of...so homosexuals don't get hurt or arrested. Wonderful...I will
make sure to bring a mask or 2 to conceal anything that might suggest I
am gay. Because thats what it feels like I ans any other homosexual has
to do to make this trip work. Thats wrong, unfair and it discrimination.
I am also not happy with the fact that this is sounding more and more
like a political conference than anything and thats not right. If you
want to make Wikimania political, then don't get involved. And then to
have Jimbo make a speech title that can get a lot into a lot of
trouble....take the political mess somewhere else. This is a media
conference, not an election.
Anyone can go and no one should have to be afraid of their own safety.
Wikimania should be something for everyone, not the elite. Stop this
discrimination.
Jason Safoutin
There is a recent discussion about true "Open Access" which includes
IMHO the permission of re-use. The most appropriate license for
scholarly works is CC-BY which allows use esp. at Commons. See my
comment on a PLoS Biology article at
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=read-response&doi=10.1371…
Klaus Graf
Hello,
Sorry to disturb discussions on Wikimania, I just wanted to point to two
links of documents I read in the past few days.
The first was mentionned to me by one of the co-author of the book.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Social_and_Cultural_Foundations_of_American_Ed…
I think it is very interesting to read. I actually learned a lot, and
some of it is MUCH more informed than the Wikipedia articles (see for
example the pages related to philosophy of education in the wikibooks
and on the english wikipedia).
It is a collection of essays written by students, under the benevolent
dictatorship of their teachers. Some is really of good quality.
On the other hand, I found quite "light" the pages dedicated to
"technology and education". One may perceive quite well that there is
very little documentation and litterature on the topic (so the students
did not always knew what to say). It is quite amuzing to see that 2
amongst 4 basically only mention Word, Excel and Powerpoint as
"technologies that might be use in education". I push the point a bit
far, but hardly :-)
The second is on wikiversity. It is actually a feature course, which is
why I found it...
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Filmmaking
It is very very very cool stuff.
That's all folks :-)
ant
foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 12:33:50 +0200
> From: MeMo <moamen(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Reboot on LGBT/Egypt issue (was Re:
> [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happen in Alexandria, Egypt)
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <e0a36fa80710140333p351e721h84d273c85a47df99(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> OK .. people
> there is something that i need to clarify
> you r talking like once a gay man enters the an Egyptian airport he will be
> arrested 'for being gay' the imprisoned and tortured .. i must say that this
> is TOTALY wrong.
> the only case that a gay or a straight person might get arrested is for
> doing a direct sexual act in a public place - a street or instance - and
> this apply to both heterosexual and homosexuals a like .. other than that
> there is no problem if you already have a partner.
> as renting a hotel room with you partner or holding his hand is no problem
> at all simply because those acts are common in Egypt ..
> men do hold each others hand and friends do rent rooms together without
> being considered gay or harassing them in any mean .
>
>
>
Really? Read this link: <http://www.gaymiddleeast.com/country/egypt>
then tell me that its not true. Not to mention
<http://hrw.org/reports/2004/egypt0304/> at Human Rights Watch. And no
one ever said that every homosexual will be arrested the second they get
off the plane. What has been being said is that the risk is too high to
take the chance in a country that forbids it in every way regardless if
its in a hotel or not.
Jason Safoutin
Well I am going to put my two cents in because I have read just about
enough.
Here is why I am entirely opposed to Wikimania being in Egypt.
1) Since the announcement of this, the LGBT wikimedians have expressed
grave concern. As mentioned previously, this is a regime in which
"opresses" homosexuals and imprisons them. Me being gay, I am not sure I
would want to risk that. Not to mention my partner, if I had one and he
came, but yet the WMF states that they picked Egypt because of its
"geo-diversity
<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimania-l/2007-October/000719.html>."
2) Human rights and "free" speech (free being the key word). Why hold a
conference of a foundation that is based entirely on FREE media when
that country and the government don't even support free speech? Why in
an country that limits the rights of women and humans in general? What
is so "free" about that?
3) Egypt is in too close proximity to several areas which are in a near
constant war: Israel and Palestine, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and
Afghanistan...not to mention holding this is the Middle East puts (for
the most part) Americans at risk and the rest at risk for a prime target
of violence or an attack. Was safety considered when making this decision?
4) Who are these people on the "jury"? I mean I know their names, but
who are they. Are they wealthy? Travel the world frequently? Seems like
it because in my opinion this place was picked because it was somewhere
they decided it would be nice to visit. More than half of all
wikimedians will likely NOT be able to afford the trip, in some cases
from literally on the other side of the globe. Might as well rob a bank
for the finances.
5) The "jury" was composed of, from what I see, 12 individuals who in
some way or another "work" for WMF (and that does NOT necessarily mean
getting paid). I see IMO a conflict of interest. The other 2 seem to be
just contributers, which is what most of this jury should have been
composed of. After all this is a conference for all Wikis.
I am NOT against ever having a Wikimania in the Middle East or
eventually in Egypt. But right now, it's not the right time. We need to
think about how diverse our contributers are and base a decision off
that. In my opinion there are a lot better, safer and more
"geo-diversed" places than somewhere where there is a potential for
people to be injured or killed or go broke just getting there.
Jason Safoutin, (a.k.a. DragonFire1024 on en.wikinews)
I have a good relations with Sreten Ugricic, director of National
Library of Serbia [1]. So, we are able to make a lot of things there.
However, I realized that possibilities for cooperation with the
library are much bigger then possibilities of Wikimedian community in
Belgrade. Between 5 and 10 Wikimedians and CC-ians who are willing to
work on that are enough just for very small cooperation projects.
So, there are two major questions:
- What are your ideas for cooperation?
- Do you have ideas how to help?
For now, it is too early to organize any kind of meeting. I would like
to hear your ideas (of course, AFAIK, brainstorming inside of the
Serbian community is ongoing).
Note that National Library of Serbia is a large one. Not so big as
Congress Library, but big enough. There are a lot of important books,
some of the important books exist only there etc.
They are in the process of digitalization, they are even developing
their own software (based on free software), and they are one of the
richest cultural institutions in Serbia.
Because of that ideas shouldn't be limited on "borrow us a book which
we need" and similar. It may go up to the cooperation between WMF and
NLS on some globally important project.
BTW, you may think about other cultural institutions from Serbia which
have data which are globally important. For example, AFAIK, Yugoslav
Film Archive [2] has the second largest film archive in the world.
However, for all such projects participation of the global Wikimedian
community is necessary because we are operating with the same 10-20
people for all projects.
[1] - http://www.nbs.bg.ac.yu/index.php?change_lang=en
[2] - http://www.kinoteka.org.yu/ (in Serbian)
Hi everyone.
I am working on documentation for Wikimania, and I'm trying to compile
better statistics for people who have tried and haven't been able to attend
because they were turned down for or were otherwise unable to get a visa to
the country where the conference was held.
Theodoranian summarized the situation for Taipei pretty well in a previous
mail. For Boston, I'm still going through emails and records but my memory
is that 2 speakers from Brazil couldn't get visas in time, 1 wikimedian from
India was explicitly rejected, and I know there were others as well.
So please help me out, fellow organizers and attendees -- if you remember
what happened for 2005, 2006 or 2007 or you attempted to get a visa to come
to a Wikimania and couldn't, let me know off list.
thanks!
-- phoebe
Do you know the Agile development and the Agile Manifesto? It's a best
practice in the Software Engineering.
I could see that there are strong similarities with Wikipedia processes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development#Principles_behind_a…
Agile Manifesto
Are there some researches which already have analyzed these similarities?
Ilario
========
Wikimedia CH board's member
Wikimedia Italia member