On the Moldavian Wikipedia it says for over a month "This wiki has been
closed for now." Is there any outlook on whether 'for now' means 'for ever'
or that it will be re-opened at some time? I am asking because I want to
know what to do with the interwiki for the bot. If the wiki is closed down
for good, I intend to remove them silently; if it will be opened up again
some time soon, I want to keep them in the same way as to 'normal'
Wikipedias.
--
Andre Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
I have read the numerous comments on the fact that we should be
planning Wikimania well in advance, and I fully agree that choosing
the city for Wikimania 2008 sometime at the end of 2006 or beginning
of 2007 makes perfect sense, and we have started working on it.
Just for the record though, Wikimania 2006 was only the second
edition, and I wish people would remember that when planning 2006, we
did not even know whether it was going to happen at all. So please
keep that in perspective. There is room for improvement, and I believe
Wikimedia has done a good job in trying to keep everyting into
consideration for the next editions.
On the subject of size. I am personally not in favour of an
*international Wikimedia conference* (keywords international and
Wikimedia) that will hold more than 500 people, ever. The reason for
this were clear last year, but even clearer this year, ie. opening the
conference to 1000 people makes it, in my opinion, lose the
"Wikimedia" touch, by bringing many people in who have in the end
nothing to do with Wikimedia. Mind you, I find the interaction with
other organisations and people with different web, collaborative,
knowledge experiences very fruitful and interesting, but this year
showed a trend that I wish we did not facilitate too much. There were
many many local (as in US) people who had but a far fetched interest
in our projects, and thus did not pertain to the "Wikimedia Community"
or had no intention of ever pertaining to it.
My dream is that Wikimedia got their hands on enough money in due time
to provide scholarships to far away contributors wherever they may be
and make sure that the core attendance of the conference is filled
with Wikimedians.
Basically the real question is what do we want Wikimania to be? Is it
the ultimate wiki conference? Is it the Wikimedia conference? Is it a
free knowledge or access to knowledge conference? Is it an open source
conference? Is it all of that? Some of that?
In my opinion, and in an ideal world, Wikimania would probably almost
be booked solid before registration even happens, because we have
managed to bring in all the people that count in the Wikimedia
community.
I would hate to see Wikimania be taken away from the Wikimedians. I
would hate for it to be so big that you would not have a clue who this
or that person is, or worse, that some people would come to Wikimania
and ask "what is Wikipedia?".
I believe we have shown the world that we can put together interesting
programs and that we should use this opportunity to make sure we
provide different events, aiming at different publics. I would love to
see a Wikimedia Academic Conference, or a Wikimedia Wiki Practices
Conference. I would also love to see more regional Wikimedia
conferences, such as the Chinese and Dutch edition this year who would
bring together people who did not make it to the international
conference or who need to concentrate in a language or on specific
projects.
In short, I do not think that Wikimania would benefit from becoming a
huge thing that everyone would attend because they happened to be in
the neighborhood.
Delphine
--
~notafish
(This message contains my personal opinions, not those of the subcommittee.)
Hello,
The policy is not at fault for the delays. A slightly different
version was ready four months ago; the unfortunate problem is that the
subcommittee is ill-suited for policy development, which is best
accomplished by a proactive editor with changes by others through the
wiki process. The subcommittee is much better suited to actually
processing requests, but we still have to get the policy development
out of the way first.
I've said this so many times I'm starting to doubt whether it's
possible, but it should not take much longer. Assuming nobody suddenly
notices another all-important problem and forces a full halt, we
should begin processing requests within a week or two.
Although the current delays are unacceptable, please be careful not to
mistakenly hearken back to the good old days before the subcommittee;
it was common for a request to take over a year, be approved and
archived, and forgotten (without being created) forever more until a
subcommittee came along and replaced the old process. For example, see
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Cook_Is…>,
proposed in July 2005 and still open as of December 2006, when the
subcommittee closed it along with other old requests.
Feedback on the policy would be much appreciated. Is there anything in
particular you oppose or dislike?
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
> From: "Mark Williamson" <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
> But for new languages, I do not think it is a good idea anymore to
> have a committee. I supported the idea in the beginning, but I have
> seen NO REAL ACTION and 0 agreement between members. No new Wikipedias
> have been formed since the creation of this committee, while certain
> test Wikis are bursting at their seams!!! (Kabyle, Latgalian, Lower
> Sorbian, Crimean Tatar, Saterfrisian).
>
> The Incubator Wiki was not made to hold such large projects. It was
> made to hold proto-projects, not a web of standalone projects (like
> Wikia).
>
> Also, I am strongly against the "new proposal policy" by Pathoschild.
>
> While I do see a problem with a voting system, I ALSO see a problem
> with a system where it takes ten thousand years for a Wiki to get
> approved!!!
>
http://muslimwikipedia.com/mw/index.php/Main_Page
>From the intro page
http://www.muslimwikipedia.com/mw/index.php/MuslimWikipedia:Introduction
-
"Firstly there are guidelines, such as all work has to be sourced and
referenced.
Secondly the MuslimWikipedia has a NPOV policy, i.e this isn't the
place for Peoples points of view.
Thirdly the MuslimWikipedia is to present Islam, its History, its
people, its tenets, its faith, its ideas in a POSITIVE light, and
hence negative views of Islam are against the Muslim Wikipedias
policies."
Good going matching points two and three, guys.
- d.
Seen as category pages work even if they DO contain no text, treating them
in the same way as a nonexistent article is unhelpful (especially to newer
users who only think they see a broken link). I was thinking that perhaps
category links could be red if they contain only the page they are linked
from, blue otherwise. Text on a category page is largely unneeded.
Just an idea. Thanks :).
Hello,
Casey Brown a écrit :
>>Is your point that we should remove all "fair use images", causing the
>>articles to be without an image making someone donate a free one?
>>
>>Cbrown1023
>
> Close I would suggest replaceing them with this (click the image):
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet
Great!
But better still, propose to upload the image to Commons. ;o)
Regards,
Yann
geniice in #wikipedia posted this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28news%29#Robert_Mugab…
I notified #wikimedia and got the response I should post it here.
Content is as follow:
Yesterday in the House of Commons, [[James Duddridge]] MP asked the
following question of [[Ian McCartney]], government minister.
[http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/04.htm]
(link will change soon)
"Can the Minister confirm that [[Robert Mugabe]]'s daughter, Bona
Mugabe, is currently studying at the London School of Economics, and
if so, can he say who is paying?"
The reply "On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I
understand that that is the case. On the second part, I am not certain
so I cannot answer. I will write to the hon. Gentleman and place a
copy in the Library of the House. In response to the hon. Member for
Cotswold I said, without prompting, that we should seriously consider
extending the travel ban to children and other members of the family."
This made the news, with several dozen stories
[http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=uk&q=bona+mugabe].
Subsequently, it appears this is completely false. Here's an account
which shows the retraction and also official anger from Zimbabwe
[http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/chatunga5.16183.html],
*"Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, Zimbabwe's Minister of Information told New
Zimbabwe.com that the original claims by McCartney were "part of the
many lies they have been peddling about Zimbabwe".
*He said: "This is just one of a thousand lies they have been peddling
against Zimbabwe. The British government continues to make so many
statements which are untrue, obnoxious and concocted.
*"I am glad to note that the minister has withdrawn his false claims.
He should be embarrassed with himself and his government. But we
prefer to let him stew in his malicious lies which must be positioned
in the bigger plot to unsettle the elected government of Zimbabwe."
The story has been officially denied by the London School of Economics
- she is not studying there, but nonetheless the result of the false
story is that [http://www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,,2043658,00.html]
the travel ban against Mugabe's family will be extended.
Now this part is somewhat speculative, but it appears likely, given
that the story is entirely false, and that Mugabe's daughter is NOT
studying at LSE at all, that the original source of the false
information is Wikipedia. An anonymous IP, using the Swedish ISP Labs2
inserted the following text on 4th November
2006:[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Mugabe&diff=85665104…
"Their children however are not included to the EU travel sanctions,
in fact Bona Mugabe has entered an elite social sciences university
([[London School of Economics]]) in the [[United Kingdom]] in
September 2006 Formerly [http://www.lse.ac.uk/directory/students/ LSE
Student Email Directory] now only accessible through
[https://lfylive.lse.ac.uk/lfy/up/uPortal/render.userLayoutRootNode.uP
LSE for You] "
In fact the student directory is fully publicly accessible - "LSE for
You" access isn't required, and Mugabe's name is not there.
This information remained in the article, untouched until it was
removed by another anonymous IP with no other edits
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Mugabe&diff=115342005&oldi…],
on March 15th. But this time the anon IP was in the LSE itself
[http://whois.domaintools.com/158.143.22.118], and likely able to
verify the truth of the Swedish IP's claim.
The information is still still in many wikipedia mirrors, such as
answers.com[http://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&hl=en&q=bona+mugabe+london+school+economics&meta=]
In summary, it appears that we have an entirely baseless claim that
remained in wikipedia for five months (the information was added back
yesterday, but following the initial news stories, not the dodgy claim
about the email directory), and is still extant on the web in mirrors.
This claim has I believe led an MP to make a question in Parliament,
followed by a false statement by a minister, and now a minor
diplomatic incident. This is the only plausible explanation, as
statements in wikipedia tend to be treated as knowledge, so anyone
reading the article (such as an MP) between November and March 15 (or
still now, on mirror sites), would 'know' that Bona Mugabe was at the
LSE, handy 'knowledge' for use in Parliamentary debates on Zimbabwe.
The other explanation, that LSE is lying, and that Bona Mugabe is
actually studying there, is implausible as there are thousands of
students there, and it would be implausible that following an official
denial, one of those students (at what is a Universities known for its
politics) would not call their bluff. There's just no way they could
lie about this. [[User:Nssdfdsfds|Nssdfdsfds]] 08:38, 27 March 2007
(UTC)
::And the ''other other'' explanation is that there are vast potential
sources of misinformation in the world outside of Wikipedia. It does
not seem unlikely that this is just a rumor which both the article
poster and the MP heard.--[[User:Pharos|Pharos]] 01:10, 29 March 2007
(UTC)
:It is also of course possible that the IP was going off of a rumour
on another website or thought he'd seen her, or whatever, rather than
that he deliberately made it up. But we probably are the ones
incidentally to blame for publicizing it. Not really much we can do
about that sort of thing though, other than try futilely to convince
people that we aren't supposed to be perfect. --[[User:tjstrf|tjstrf]]
<small>[[User talk:tjstrf|talk]]</small> 01:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
::A google search shows no sources for the information outside of
Wikipedia. [[User:Nssdfdsfds|Nssdfdsfds]] 13:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello everybody!
On 11/13 last year the formation of a subcommittee concerning the approval
of wikis in new languages etc. was announced on this list.
Back then, I was pleased to see that a few users committed themselves to
taking care of multilingualism issues in Wikimedia's projects.
Today, I am disappointed to see that the committee is inoperable.
It is a pitiful fact that since its creation the language subcommittee has
achieved virtually *zero *as to the advancement of multilingualism (which is
a central pillar in Wikimedia's mission to spread knowledge worldwide).
Even without counting the huge number of requests for new languages the
subcommittee simply swept away upon its formation, despite the fact that
some of them had previously been approved by the Community (cf.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Old_requests_for_new_languages),
requests are just piling up big time and nothing ever happens (cf.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages).
One of the main arguments in favor of having a small group of specialized
people instead of the whole community decide certain things would be to make
things run more efficiently, in other words: speedier. Yet what's really
happening is exactly the opposite: we're about to see *the longest period
without a single new Wikipedia ever!!*
**
What has happened?
Has the number of requests for new languages dropped significantly? - Not
really. Wikipedia's reputation around the world is steadily rising and more
and more people from various regions of the globe want to start an edition
in their own language (but we don't let them).
Are the requests sloppier than they used to be? - Quite the contrary! The
quality of most requests is higher than ever before (just have a look at how
requests looked three years ago, let alone the Incubator activities) and
editors are now preparing new editions with a lot of conscientiousness (yet
we don't value that).
So what *is *the reason for this total deadlock? In plain words, I would say
it is *a language subcommittee not caring enough *about our fellow users who
want to increase the value of Wikimedia's projects and help us on our
mission for free knowledge by providing content in additional languages.
What good is a language committee that never ever enables new languages?
What do I mean by "not caring enough"? - I mean that obviously the
subcommittee or most of its members 1. seem to applying the (all-in-all
sensible) rules they set up too morosley (i. e. not for the benefit of but
rather against multilinguistic progress) and 2. seem to be failing in
adequately supporting people who want to start new wikis. Because if it
weren't that way highly promising projects like the e. g. Kabyle, Sakha or
Crimean Tatar Wikipedias would long be up and running and would be valuable
new members of the Wikimedia family of projects by now.
What's even worse is that the subcommittee members themselves don't agree on
which rules are in force (cf.
http://langcom.wikimedia.org/wiki/Archives/2007-03-23). Pathoschild holds
that full localization is not mandatory before final approval (and luckily
he still seems to remember what Wikipedia is all about and that we're
supposed to be an open project, even to those who don't happen to have a
computer science diploma), Berto d'Sera takes a "localization or death"
stand and GerardM writes something secret.
Dear Language Subcommittee Members, please stop preventing multilingualism
and start enabling and supporting it!
Thank y'all for taking the time to read this!
Arbeo