Hello, bon jour, guten tag, saluton, etc.
I can't greet everyone fairly, because I don't speak 200-odd languages.
Unfortunately, MediaWiki doesn't, either, and that's what this email's
all about.
I'm well aware that foundation-l has had a recent, er, "heated
discussion" about internationalising the software with respect to
starting new wikis, and I'd rather not stir up a beehive with regards
to that.
We've got some fantastic people working on the internationalisation
front for MediaWiki; credit must go to Niklas Laxström for his
patient, unending work in this field. I'd also like to mention Rotem
Liss, who has been providing updates for the Hebrew language for a
long period, now, as well as our volunteers giving us updates in
German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese; a big, firm "thanks" is in
order.
The problem is that we don't have all the bases covered; there are
vast numbers of languages not being maintained, and that's a bit of a
problem for a software product that's supporting an organisation with
international goals in mind.
While individual communities can and do perform translations in their
MediaWiki namespaces, reliance on this means that each new wiki we
launch needs to perform this step, as opposed to having the interface
available in their language, from the fore. I believe that not having
software that speaks to you in your language is an immense barrier to
contribution.
I'd therefore like to rally a call to arms; we need translators!
Thanks to (again, what an i18n legend this dude is) Nikerabbit's work
on Betawiki (http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/) means we will (I
hope) soon have a clean extension on the Wikimedia Incubator which
will make this stuff easier; it's the same process as editing the
MediaWiki namespace now, except what we get out of it allows us to
tweak and bundle up the translations into the right form for MediaWiki
to use.
Of course, if you're able to get to grips with our message file format
and you can work a Subversion client, you are more than welcome to
update the localisation for your language, or indeed, any other
language you feel you can contribute to, and submit patches. If you
submit on a consistent and regular basis, then commit access is also
forthcoming - we're grateful for people who can speak languages we
can't, who can help us out in a major area.
Contributions to MediaWiki internationalisation fall under the GNU
GPL, which is for all intents and purposes, ideologically similar to
the GNU FDL. If you are the maintainer of a language, you will be
credited for it, and you *will* have our immense respect and
gratitude, as well as that of all our users.
There's a guide to getting started with internationalisation at
http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Translating:Intro, and anyone
interested in helping out is strongly recommended to contact (look,
shall we just make him the official i18n co-ordinator?) Nikerabbit;
who can often be found on IRC (#mediawiki, irc.freenode.net).
Thank you for your attention, and I apologise for cross-posting,
Rob Church
MediaWiki developer
>-----Original Message-----
>From: wiki_tomos(a)inter7.jp [mailto:wiki_tomos@inter7.jp]
>Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 11:33 PM
>To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [Foundation-l] check user...
>
>I think check user generates certain legal risk to the Foundation especially
>when he is a minor.
>
>Wikimedia Foundation has a privacy policy. It seems the Foundation is
>expressively promising that certain information will not be released
>to the third party unless specific conditions are met.
>
>And here, "third party release" does not include, at least the
>way I read the privacy policy, release of personal information
>from Wikimedia Foundation to a check user. It suggests that,
>at least in the context of privacy policy, the check users are
>insiders for the Foundation, not a third party.
>
>This, in turn, means that the Foundation has a legal responsibility
>to make check users to understand and follow its privacy policy.
>
>So when check user breaks the promise - i.e. violate the Foundation's
>privacy policy, one may question if the Foundation is partly responsible
>for the violation.
>
>If a check user is legally a minor, he may be able to legally get away with
>breaking promises he has made, including the compliance with privacy policy.
>I am not sure if minors really are less reliable than adults, but if they
>are equally unreliable, then the Foundation is more responsible for minors'
>violation of privacy policy than adults.
>
>So, not because minors are less reliable, but because adults can bear
>more legal risk when they abuse their check user privilege, it is legally
>safer for the Foundation to limit the check user to adults.
>
>How significant this difference? That is perhaps open to debate.
>
>I personally think that the better course of action to mitigate the
>legal risk is to treat check users as outsiders in the privacy policy.
>
>I am not a lawyer, so be reminded that my reasoning could be flawed..
>
>
>Best,
>
>
>Tomos
Your legal reasoning is fine, although a parent could sign off on the legal liability. I think our problem is not with allowing a 15 year old to do responsible work, but with the understandable skepticism we will face if we ever have to explain it to a court or in the public press.
Fred
I think check user generates certain legal risk to the Foundation especially
when he is a minor.
Wikimedia Foundation has a privacy policy. It seems the Foundation is
expressively promising that certain information will not be released
to the third party unless specific conditions are met.
And here, "third party release" does not include, at least the
way I read the privacy policy, release of personal information
from Wikimedia Foundation to a check user. It suggests that,
at least in the context of privacy policy, the check users are
insiders for the Foundation, not a third party.
This, in turn, means that the Foundation has a legal responsibility
to make check users to understand and follow its privacy policy.
So when check user breaks the promise - i.e. violate the Foundation's
privacy policy, one may question if the Foundation is partly responsible
for the violation.
If a check user is legally a minor, he may be able to legally get away with
breaking promises he has made, including the compliance with privacy policy.
I am not sure if minors really are less reliable than adults, but if they
are equally unreliable, then the Foundation is more responsible for minors'
violation of privacy policy than adults.
So, not because minors are less reliable, but because adults can bear
more legal risk when they abuse their check user privilege, it is legally
safer for the Foundation to limit the check user to adults.
How significant this difference? That is perhaps open to debate.
I personally think that the better course of action to mitigate the
legal risk is to treat check users as outsiders in the privacy policy.
I am not a lawyer, so be reminded that my reasoning could be flawed..
Best,
Tomos
Hello there,
New [[m:Translation requests]] is launched today (thank you for your
advice, the editors who advised me not to do on April 1st :) at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TR
The newly introduced features are including:
- Submission page and instruction, which would make your submission easier.
- [[m:Translations]] page integrated completely.
-- All coming requests will be put into [[m:cateogory:Open requests
for translation]], which generates a list of requests by
DynamicPageList Extension.
-- All languages can have now their own translation request list. If
you don't find your favorite language list on
[[m:Translations#Requests by language]], please add it :)
-- [[m:Translation FAQ]] is now available ... your input will be welcome.
Some templates like [[m:Template:Translation requests/curreqs]] will
have been unused. TR subpages for special interests including
[[TR/WMF]] will be gradually reformed and turned into sorts of portal.
But those are not fixed, and always open for your ideas.
There might be still something to fix. Please help improving the newly
launching portal: if you find it uncomfortable, sorry for your
inconvenience - but please turn it whatever you feel nice, it is a
wiki!
Comments will be welcome on [[m:Talk:Translation requests]] as well
this mailing list.
Links mentioned on the above:
TR: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TR
Talk: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Translation requests
Submission: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/Request_submission
Translations (all open requests should be found there):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translations
FAQ: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_FAQ
TR/WMF: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TR/WMF
Cheers,
--
KIZU Naoko
Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
* habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *
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)
I've started the following page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Toolset
to collect a list of open source tools & open formats that are
commonly used to support Wikimedia projects. Mainly, this is for
external tools, rather than those developed within our community,
though I don't mind if it is expanded to cover both.
The purpose of having this page is to better inform decision-making
processes on all levels:
* directing volunteers who want to help us to work on particularly
useful open source projects
* directing editors to tools that help them with their day-to-day work
* possibly, even (when the Foundation is a bit more sustainable)
considering awarding development grants to some of them, or at least
helping them to pursue them by endorsing their grant proposals to
other organizations
* identifying key "missing pieces" that are not covered or not covered
well by the existing toolset (this might be a separate list).
I know many of you use specialized tools that are not well known.
There are also sure to be glaring omissions in the current list. I
would therefore appreciate all help to complete it.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
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
I have been compiling a machine compiled lexicon created from link and
disambiguation pages from the XML dumps. Oddly, the associations
contained in [[ARTICLE_NAME | NAME]] form a comprehesive "real time"
thesauraus of common associations used by current English Speakers in
Wikipedia, and perhaps comprise the worlds largest and most comprehesive
Thesaurus on the planet emedded within the mesh of these links within
the dumps.
While going through the dumps and constructing associative link maps of
all these expressions, I have noticed a serious issue with embdded
linking with proper names. It appears there may be a robot running
somewhere that is associating Proper Names listed in articles about
relationships between people
by linking blindly to any entry in Wikipedia that matches a name in an
article.
Some of the content may create controversy to post examples here, so I
will complete the thesaurus compilation, and folks should go through the
encyclopedia. Articles about movies stars and other "gossipy" type
articles seem to have the highest errors linking proper names to
unrelated people without proper disambiguation pages. It could be
interpreted as violations of WP:BLP and some of the error linkages could
be troublesome for the foundation.
Whomever is running bots that link between articles should look at
proper name links based on categories and check into this. I found a
large number of these types of errors. They are subtle, but will most
probably show up when browsing through articles unless you can analyze
the link targets and relationships in the dumps.
Jeff
Hello community,
You will find below a report on the state of the Foundation and at the
end of the email, a collection of links on previous reports and
announcements.
The board just had a meeting in the WMF office, in Florida.
It is actually a bit strange that I report on it, because I actually
missed most of the board meeting itself :-)
The board meeting was planned to be on friday, saturday and sunday.
Except for Jimbo, currently travelling in Japan, all board members were
supposed to be there, but I was planned only to get there on friday
afternoon.
What happened is that Global Warming caught me in New York, where I got
stuck in an ugly ice storm, which cause the airport to close for 24
hours. I will not comment on hotel availabilities in Newark, nor about
how Continental Airlines handle their customers in such crisis cases,
but I will try to fly through other cities in the future... In any
cases, I could only join at the end of saturday.
During that week, the office was really populated, as it also hosted two
other meetings, one dedicated to Quality (might be worthwhile to ask
Greg to make a report on this one...), and another meeting of the tech
team. Delphine was also in Florida for several days.
==Passed resolutions==
May be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#March_2007
Essentially, there were
* adoption are the license policy
* approval of hardware purchase
* approval to hire Bastique
* approval to have Rob work full time rather than full time, to help in
the office
* approval to hire a legal coordinator
==Other discussions==
Several other discussions occured on various topics, some of them being
confidential (sorry guys).
What can be mentionned probably is this:
* work on a travel policy (nothing very fancy to report)
* work on a policy for reimbursement (nothing very fancy to report)
* further work on license issues (details confidential)
* study of some collaboration propositions (details confidential)
* study around brand licensing (not surprisingly since we are in the top
of most recognised brands, we get some propositions from branding
companies. Brand licensing is probably one of our best assets to collect
money for the development of the projects in the future, so we should be
careful about what we do on the topic. Brand licensing has also various
ramifications, in particular in our relationships with chapters).
* approval of two new advisory board members
* discussion about a future CTO or a tech project leader. No conclusion
at the moment.
Last, a significant part of the meeting was dedicated to the ED issue.
As you are aware probably, the WMF doesnot have any more an executive
director. At the same time, we started a search with a company, in order
to hire our future ED. The search company voiced concerns about the
involvement of the board in executive issues (too high to their opinion)
and the difficulties a new ED would meet, due to the confusion between
the role of the ED and the role of the board.
Accordingly, the issue of an interim director was discussed (no decision
was really made). And we spent sunday morning in defining a list of
tasks that ought to be taken care of, giving to each of them a notion of
priority and a notion of importance, and for each of them, defining
whether the task should be under the ED role or the board job.
For your information,
Do it soon and is important
* Coordinate legal activities (ED)
* Job description for all (ED)
* Personnel needs (ED)
Do it soon (but not necessarily very important)
* Data Gathering (ED)
* Fundraising Planning (ED)
* Board Skills and Expansion and Election (board)
* Short term budget (COO)
* Wikimania Finances (ED)
* Tech stuff in office (ED)
Important (but not necessarily to do immediately)
* Brand Strategy (board)
* Business Development Strategy (board)
* Technical Management (ED)
Followed many other points, with less support either as important or as
urgent (but not entirely non important nor not urgent at all, I just
listed the MOST important and/or urgent from our perspective).
Note that looking for an ED is not even listed above - I guess it was so
important and urgent that we even forgot to mention it :-)
As I was explaining, we have no ED. Which means that the points listed
above as ED issues will either be left unfixed until we have one, or
will have to be dealt with by someone else (undefined). We might make an
exception and hire a legal coordinator, because this is a critical issue.
Thanks
Florence Devouard
==links==
*http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-March/028158.html
(thoughts on staff issues)
*http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-March/028385.html
(Bastique as volunteer coordinator)
*
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-February/027477.html
(Announcement concerning the ED search firm)
*
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-January/027269.html
(explanation of the differences between CEO, COO and Board)
*http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-February/027478.html
(Brad moving to GC job)
*
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-January/027268.html
(Announcement of Carolyn becoming COO)
*
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-January/026515.html
(4 wishes for year 2007... including reorganisation and financial
considerations)
*
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-January/027171.html
(Welcome to Sandy)
*
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-February/027455.html
(Welcome to chapter coordinator)
Hello,
The Language Prevention (sub)Committee would like to announce that the
Kabyle Wikipedia has entered the localization stage. Once the primary
interface messages are translated, the subcommittee will recommend the
creation of the Kabyle Wikipedia to the board.
The Kabyle Wikipedia will be the first new wiki approved by the
subcommittee, so we've asked the Kabyle community to help tweak the
process for future requests. Based on this discussion, we have made it
unnecessary to translate the entire interface: 327 messages are
currently listed as unnecessary, and users have been invited to
suggest others.
The Language Prevention (sub)Committee is profoundly sorry for failing
to prevent the upcoming creation of the Kabyle Wikipedia, and is in
particular sorry for projecting a far quicker processing rate once the
procedure has been tested.
Yours cordially,
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
* request: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Kabyle
* localization discussion:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Ka…
Note: This message is only partially tongue-in-cheek (try to guess
which parts ;) ) and is not an official statement of the language
subcommittee.