Hello James,
This email made my day. I think your ideas -- reworking Meta:Index and
the Main Page, fixing Babel and Metapub to be about language and general
discussion, popularizing the interface-language selection option, and
giving translations their own wiki -- to clear up Meta/Meta-RC and also to
help focus translation functions -- are all excellent. I have suggested a
separate translation wiki in the past, and would be glad to help set such
a thing up.
Perhaps a good way to start would be with discussiong a babel/metapub/babylon
reorganization on those pages and talk pages, and then having this discussion
move to the resulting "about meta" talk page... since mailing lists are rarely
the best place to launch a wiki cleanup campaign.
There have been other efforts to date; as pointed out elsewhere you
should coordinate this with the older efforts at WM:OM (it had lots of
enthusiasm, and lots of en:wp participants, but not enough input from
active meta contributors at the time, or from people from other language
wikis or non-wikipedia projects... some of the work done through that
effort, including the categorization and image cleanup, were really
fantastic).
--SJ
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007, James Hare wrote:
> Hello Wiki folk,
>
> After approximately two and a half months of inactivity, I have decided to
> return to Foundation-l. And today, I would like to address something: an
> overhaul of Meta.
>
> The Wikimedia Meta-Wiki is, in my opinion, the portal of things relevant to
> every single involved member of Wikimedia projects. All of them. Yet, Meta
> is not quite to my standard. I remember some time ago there was an effort
> for cleaning up, but that seems to have turned to dust. This won't be some
> fancy project, this is just what I am thinking about and I want to see if
> you all get where I am heading at.
>
> 1) The current primary navigation system, [[Meta:Index]], is looking unhappy
> with needless branching out. I could probably do this on my own, but I was
> thinking that Meta:Index should be condensed as much as possible and -be
> restricted to functions on Meta only-. Things for other projects can have a
> similar navigation page. Likewise, the Meta:Index page should link to each
> of the language categories. Additionally, I would like to see the Index page
> more prominently featured on Meta.
>
> 2) The three messageboard pages -- Meta:Babel, Metapub, and Meta:Babylon --
> have very terrible names, considering their purposes. You'd think Meta:Babel
> would be about languages, but it's about Meta. You'd think Metapub would be
> able Meta, but it's about the WMF in general. Meta:Babylon may hint towards
> the idea of languages, but Meta:Babel sounds like a better candidate. I
> discuss this more here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Renaming_some_pages
>
> 3) The Main Page is a bit big. It's not really a problem, but some things
> could be transitioned over to Meta:Index or similar pages.
>
> 4) The feature where you get to select a language and then the interface is
> in that language is really cool -- but I think its implementation should be
> more conspicuous. For registered users, if they haven't selected their
> language(s) of preference yet, they should be able to set the options in
> Preferences. When this feature becomes available, there should be a message
> in the Sitenotice advertising such a thing. For anonymous users, it could be
> cookie-based; if there is no evidence that there is cache of Meta since the
> implementation of such a feature, then before they could view any other
> pages, they must set their language of preference first. This way, it is out
> in the open, and there is little possibility for confusion.
>
> 5) I've heard about discussion of this, but I think the translation
> functions of Meta should be moved to their own wiki. It would operate a lot
> more efficiently (more main page space could be dedicated to translation),
> and through special features made for translation wikis, it would be much
> more convenient as well. A translation community, so-to-speak, could
> establish a presence on such a wiki.
>
> These are ideas to consider. Additionally, I have thought of an idea
> involving streamlining communication throughout the Foundation, but I'll
> have more information on that later.
>
> Sincerely,
> MessedRocker
> (you can call me James)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
In a message dated 4/6/2007 2:35:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
beesley(a)gmail.com writes:
Perhaps we should also have a rule that results won't be leaked to
candidates this time. Or even not made available to anyone at all
until the end of the voting period. The situation with the last
election was a disgrace.
The best way would be to have a completely outside organization audit the
elections.
Danny
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
I completely agree with Delphine on this.
Danny
In a message dated 4/6/2007 2:19:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
notafishz(a)gmail.com writes:
Yes. Any length of time should include both a week-end and some
week-days. But this is a great proposal too. I would cap it at 4 to 7
days
Delphine
************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
(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.
Hello,
I think you are overstating the complexity of localization. Although I
originally opposed the requirement, I've changed my mind after I
discussed with various other users and watched the great work done by
the Kabyle community.
Mark has pointed out the difficulties of editing language files, such
as the necessity to escape conflicting characters, but this is not
relevant to modern localization. Users need only register an account
on the BetaWiki, get translator access, and edit wiki pages through a
Special:Allmessages-link interface (see links). No unusual technical
knowledge is needed, particularly since the language subcommittee
offers guidance and answers to all communities currently localizing.
A good example of the process is the Kabyle Wikipedia community, which
is testing the prototypical localization process. In just four days,
with a relatively small community having (I assume) no unusual
technical knowledge, with only *one* user assigned translator access
(by decision of the Kabyle community), they have translated nearly the
*entire* MediaWiki interface.
Consider: just a few normal users, nearly done after four days. Their
Wikipedia will benefit from complete readiness, with no localization
difficulties in the future. The proposed Kabyle Wiktionary will be
completely localized from the start. The MediaWiki software will be
available in Kabyle for the whole world.
So, this is why I no longer agree with your arguments that it is a
cruel and unusual requirement.
* Kabyle discussion:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Ka…
* Kabyle localization interface:
http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Toiminnot:Translate?x=1&msgclass=core&s…
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
Hi,
I would like to receive clarification regarding images which their owner had
given explicit permission to use the images on
(1) Hebrew Wikimeida only, or
(2) Wikimedia projects only.
I happen to remember that the first option - images by permission to use in
Hebrew Wikimeida only are not allowed. What about the second option?
Thanks,
Yoni Weiden
aka Yonidebest(a)he.wiki
Hello,
The process on the multilingual Wikisource domain is not covered by
the language subcommittee yet; you'll notice that there is a redundant
process at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RFL#Wikisource>. The
secondary processes will eventually be merged into the Meta process
(probably a combination of both, not simply removing one), but we want
to make sure that the latter is working at a reasonable efficiency
first. As your sarcasm indicates you already know, we've had some
difficulty starting up.
I would suggest continuing to follow the Wikisource process, since the
request is there. This process is the same as it was on Meta until the
reform: file a bug request following community approval, and it might
be done eventually. I'm sorry that we can't do anything more at the
moment, but we're busy catching up on requests (for many projects,
*not* only Wikipedias) that were filed through the subcommittee
process in the transitional period.
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
(This message is not an official statement of the language subcommittee.)
> From: "Luiz Augusto" <lugusto(a)gmail.com>
> Hi
>
> There is a successful and old request for opening a new wiki not yet
> fulfilled. Language prevention/creation committee/subcommittee or
> whatever/anything else, please forgive the MessagexXX.php paranoia and see
> requests for non-Wikipedias wikis a while.
>
> # [[:oldwikisource:]] have a [[Wikisource:Language domain requests]] page.
> # This page have at least one successful request for a new Wikisource wiki:
> Tamil Wikisource (ta.wikisource)
> ## This have a large community support:
> http://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wikisource:Language_domain_requests…
> ## This have "incubator" pages: http://wikisource.org/wiki/Category:Tamil
> ## This have a bugzilla request:
> http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6982
> ## The MessagesTa.php is avaiable at MediaWiki SVN repository
> ## There is someone interested on editing in this non-existing exactly now:
> http://wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3A-jkb-&diff=215093&oldid…
> ## I've asked about it on the langcom wiki yesterday but no one
> apparentlyhave read it.
>
> And, if the language prevention/creation committee/subcommittee or
> whatever/anything else isn't happy to increase the current amount of
> Wikimedia wikis, I found a good solution: open the ta.wikisource and close
> the ang.wikisource. No, no one have deleted the MessagesAng.php from
> subversion, this apparently has never created, but you can find a vote to
> close that wiki with large community support at:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Ol…
>
> Best regards
> [[:m:User:555]]
>
--
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
Hi,
some of you might already know it from IRC or the news. The
Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus AG, publishing some of the
best-known general purpose encyclopedias in the German language has
started a web site last year that contains the full text of the
"Meyers Taschenlexikon", a paperback small-to-medium size reference
work mostly aimed at students. lexikon.meyers.de is the url. In the
first weeks of its existence, they "forgot" to mention that this site
is running MediaWiki (stripped of any Wiki functions).
In fall 2006, I met the CEO of the electronic/online department of
Brockhaus during the book fair in Frankfurt on a discussion panel. He
promised to release all the modifications they did to MediaWiki under
the GPL. A few weeks ago, they set up an SVN server where they had
published those modifications
http://lexikon.meyers.de/meyers/Meyers-SVN
The description says GPL 2.0.
(didn't I mention this earlier on somewhere else? Sorry, if this is a dupe)
Mathias