Wikimedia-l October 2007

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

139 participants
122 discussions

[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Commons reaches 2 million files
by Brianna Laugher 18 Oct '07

18 Oct '07

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

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[Foundation-l] Why is it...
by Delphine Ménard 18 Oct '07

18 Oct '07

... 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.

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Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 will happen in Alexandria, Egypt
by Jason Safoutin 18 Oct '07

18 Oct '07

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

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[Foundation-l] Re-use of scholarly content
by Klaus Graf 17 Oct '07

17 Oct '07

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

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[Foundation-l] two links
by Florence Devouard 15 Oct '07

15 Oct '07

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

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Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 43, Issue 74
by Jason Safoutin 14 Oct '07

14 Oct '07

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

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2008 will happen, in Alexandria, Egypt
by Jason Safoutin 14 Oct '07

14 Oct '07

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)

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[Foundation-l] National library of Serbia and Wikimedian projects: call for ideas
by Milos Rancic 14 Oct '07

14 Oct '07

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)

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[Foundation-l] Wikimania and visas
by phoebe ayers 14 Oct '07

14 Oct '07

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

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[Foundation-l] Agile Wikipedia?
by Ilario Valdelli 14 Oct '07

14 Oct '07

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

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Wikimedia-l October 2007