Hoi,
I have asked and received permission to forward to you all this most
excellent bit of news.
The linguist list, is a most excellent resource for people interested in the
field of linguistics. As I mentioned some time ago they have had a funding
drive and in that funding drive they asked for a certain amount of money in
a given amount of days and they would then have a project on Wikipedia to
learn what needs doing to get better coverage for the field of linguistics.
What you will read in this mail that the total community of linguists are
asked to cooperate. I am really thrilled as it will also get us more
linguists interested in what we do. My hope is that a fraction will be
interested in the languages that they care for and help it become more
relevant. As a member of the "language prevention committee", I love to get
more knowledgeable people involved in our smaller projects. If it means that
we get more requests for more projects we will really feel embarrassed with
all the new projects we will have to approve because of the quality of the
Incubator content and the quality of the linguistic arguments why we should
approve yet another language :)
NB Is this not a really clever way of raising money; give us this much in
this time frame and we will then do this as a bonus...
Thanks,
GerardM
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: LINGUIST Network <linguist(a)linguistlist.org>
Date: Jun 18, 2007 6:53 PM
Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
To: LINGUIST(a)listserv.linguistlist.org
LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831. Mon Jun 18 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.
Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar(a)linguistlist.org>
Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry(a)linguistlist.org>
Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project
<reviews(a)linguistlist.org>
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/
The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University,
and donations from subscribers and publishers.
Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyer(a)linguistlist.org>
================================================================
To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at
http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html
===========================Directory==============================
1)
Date: 18-Jun-2007
From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org >
Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:49:35
From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org >
Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers
Dear subscribers,
As you may recall, one of our Fund Drive 2007 campaigns was called the
"Wikipedia Update Vote." We asked our viewers to consider earmarking their
donations to organize an update project on linguistics entries in the
English-language Wikipedia. You can find more background information on this
at:
http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/wikipedia/index.cfm.
The speed with which we met our goal, thanks to the interest and generosity
of
our readers, was a sure sign that the linguistics community was enthusiastic
about the idea. Now that summer is upon us, and some of you may have a bit
more
leisure time, we are hoping that you will be able to help us get started on
the
Wikipedia project. The LINGUIST List's role in this project is a purely
organizational one. We will:
*Help, with your input, to identify major gaps in the Wikipedia materials or
pages that need improvement;
*Compile a list of linguistics pages that Wikipedia editors have identified
as
"in need of attention from an expert on the subject" or " does not cite any
references or sources," etc;
*Send out periodical calls for volunteer contributors on specific topics or
articles;
*Provide simple instructions on how to upload your entries into Wikipedia;
*Keep track of our project Wikipedians;
*Keep track of revisions and new entries;
*Work with Wikimedia Foundation to publicize the linguistics community's
efforts.
We hope you are as enthusiastic about this effort as we are. Just to help us
all
get started looking at Wikipedia more critically, and to easily identify an
area
needing improvement, we suggest that you take a look at the List of
Linguists
page at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguists. M
Many people are not listed there; others need to have more facts and
information
added. If you would like to participate in this exciting update effort,
please
respond by sending an email to LINGUIST Editor Hannah Morales at
hannah(a)linguistlist.org, suggesting what your role might be or which
linguistics
entries you feel should be updated or added. Some linguists who saw our
campaign
on the Internet have already written us with specific suggestions, which we
will
share with you soon.
This update project will take major time and effort on all our parts. The
end
result will be a much richer internet resource of information on the breadth
and
depth of the field of linguistics. Our efforts should also stimulate
prospective
students to consider studying linguistics and to educate a wider public on
what
we do. Please consider participating.
Sincerely,
Hannah Morales
Editor, Wikipedia Update Project
Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable
-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831
Hoi,
There is a request for a Wikipedia in Ancient Greek. This request has so far
been denied. A lot of words have been used about it. Many people maintain
their positions and do not for whatever reason consider the arguments of
others.
In my opinion their are a few roadblocks.
- Ancient Greek is an ancient language - the policy does not allow for
it
- Text in ancient Greek written today about contemporary subjects
require the reconstruction of Ancient Greek.
- it requires the use of existing words for concepts that did
not exist at the time when the language was alive
- neologisms will be needed to describe things that did not
exist at the time when the language was alive
- modern texts will not represent the language as it used to be
- Constructed and by inference reconstructed languages are effectively
not permitted
We can change the policy if there are sufficient arguments, when we agree on
a need.
When a text is written in reconstructed ancient Greek, and when it is
clearly stated that it is NOT the ancient Greek of bygone days, it can be
obvious that it is a great tool to learn skills to read and write ancient
Greek but that it is in itself not Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek as a
language is ancient. I have had a word with people who are involved in the
working group that deals with the ISO-639, I have had a word with someone
from SIL and it is clear that a proposal for a code for "Ancient Greek
reconstructed" will be considered for the ISO-639-3. For the ISO-639-6 a
code is likely to be given because a clear use for this code can be given.
We can apply for a code and as it has a use bigger then Wikipedia alone it
clearly has merit.
With modern texts clearly labelled as distinct from the original language,
it will be obvious that innovations a writers needs for his writing are
legitimate.
This leaves the fact that constructed and reconstructed languages are not
permitted because of the notion that mother tongue users are required. In my
opinion, this has always been only a gesture to those people who are dead
set against any and all constructed languages. In the policies there is
something vague "*it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as
determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language
subcommittee <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_subcommittee>)."* It
is vague because even though the policy talks about a discussion, it is
killed off immediately by stating "The proposal has a sufficient number of
living native speakers to form a viable community and audience." In my
opinion, this discussion for criteria for the acceptance of constructed or
reconstructed languages has not happened. Proposals for objective criteria
have been ignored.
In essence, to be clear about it:
- We can get a code for reconstructed languages.
- We need to change the policy to allow for reconstructed and
constructed languages
We need to do both in order to move forward.
The proposal for objective criteria for constructed and reconstructed
languages is in a nutshell:
- The language must have an ISO-639-3 code
- We need full WMF localisation from the start
- The language must be sufficiently expressive for writing a modern
encyclopaedia
- The Incubator project must have sufficiently large articles that
demonstrate both the language and its ability to write about a wide range of
topics
- A sufficiently large group of editors must be part of the Incubator
project
Thanks,
GerardM
Dear All,Sorry for bringing up a possibly old and closed issue, but could
someone explain to me that why was the GFDL with a possible migration to
CC-BY-SA 3.0 or later[1[ chosen as the site license for the Hungarian (and
I guess some others as well, created at the same time) Wikinews?
Wasn't the CC-BY used by the older Wikinewses a deliberate decision to give
Wikinews an extra opennes and connectivity with other news outlets (I
personally see a bigger chance for some newsproducer agreeing to license
their work under either CC-BY or less likely CC-BY-SA than GFDL or even GFDL
with a possible migration)?
Is the current license compatible with Wikipedia (I am thinking that the
added migration clause makes the project incompatible with GFDL sites that
are not also double licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 or later)?
Thanks,
Bence Damokos
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Licensing_clause_for_new_wikis
We're wrapping up the survey in most languages today. According to
statistics which I have not validated, we have received more than
115,000 questionnaires. I'm very pleased by this high response rate,
which bodes well for future surveys.
We expect first results to be published within the next eight weeks.
We've learned a lot through this process, and I am very grateful for
all the help and feedback, and of course for everyone who took the
time to go through the survey and forgave its imperfections. We'll try
to take all feedback into account as we begin interpreting the
results.
The following languages will continue running for a week or two
because they had a late launch or a low response rate:
Chinese (Simplified /Traditional)
Japanese
Afrikaans
Bahasa Indonesia
Greek
Esperanto
Thanks again for all help,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
For quick background, it's pretty painful to rename a database in our
system, and we currently have a lot of bits in our configuration that
make automatic relationships between the database name and the domain
name, so this has delayed renaming of some language subdomains for a while.
It's not impossible to have them be different, just fairly awkward. :)
I'd like to get these done soon, but before we get started, I want to
make sure the queue is complete and ready to go. I've currently got four
language code renames that I see being requested...
== Aromanian ==
roa-rup.wikipedia.org -> rup.wikipedia.orgroa-rup.wiktionary.org -> rup.wiktionary.orghttps://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15988
ISO-639-2 code 'rup' was added in September 2005, and can supersede the
generic 'roa' code with 'rup' subtag.
This seems pretty uncontroversial. Existing domains and interwikis would
be redirected.
== Low German ==
nds.wikipedia.org -> nds-de.wikipedia.orgnds.wikibooks.org -> nds-de.wikibooks.orgnds.wikiquote.org -> nds-de.wikiquote.orgnds.wiktionary.org -> nds-de.wiktionary.orghttps://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8540
Reasoning: Disambiguation of country variants to create a portal site
(nds-nl.wikipedia.org exists as well).
The original request is almost 2 years old and didn't seem to have any
clear consensus; is this still desired?
Creating a portal site could cause difficulties with URL compatibility,
and I don't really recommend making this change without clear consensus
from the community there.
Note that nds.wikipedia.org includes a link on the front page to
nds-nl.wikipedia.org.
== Moldovan ==
mo.wikipedia.org -> mo-cyrl.wikipedia.orgmo.wiktionary.org -> mo-cyrl.wiktionary.org
The official Moldovan language is the same as Romanian, using Latin
script and same orthography as on ro.wikipedia.org. Latin script was
officially adopted in 1989, replacing Soviet-era Cyrillic script; use of
Cyrillic script is still "official" in an unrecognized,
lightly-populated breakaway region but if people there use it, they
don't seem to edit Wikipedia...
The 'mo' language code has been officially deprecated from ISO 639-1/2
as of November 3, 2008; "Moldovan" in general use is just Romanian, and
is covered by ro.wikipedia.org.
mo.wikipedia.org has not actually been edited since December 2006.
mo.wiktionary.org seems to have.... 4 definition pages, which only
contain translations (no definitions!) Being inactive, these projects
could be closed in addition to / instead of the rename.
Use of tag 'mo-cyrl' would follow existing IANA-registered language
subtags such as 'bs-Cyrl' and 'bs-Latn' for Cyrillic and Latin script
variants.
Most likely, for compatibility we would redirect the existing 'mo' URLs
to the new 'mo-cyrl' ones, but they would now be visibly marked by the
subtag as being "yes we know, it's Cyrillic here". If we're going to
lock the site as well, adding a sitenotice pointing to the Romanian wiki
is probably wise.
== Belorusian "old orthography" ==
be-x-old.wikipedia.org -> be-tarask.wikipedia.orghttps://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9823
Some time ago we swapped around the Belorusian Wikipedia, moving the
previous version which was primarily using a non-official orthography,
from 'be' to 'be-x-old', and re-establishing be.wikipedia.org using the
official state orthography.
There was later a request to rename 'be-x-old' (using a non-standard
code) to 'be-tarask', a IANA-registered subtag which is rather more
descriptive. IMHO this change should not be terribly controversial -- if
we're not closing it, we may as well give it its official RFC
4646-registered code.
Old domain and interwikis would be redirected.
-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
Hello.
I'd like to know how migration to CC-BY-SA will be done.
1. Which one will discussion (or vote) for migration to CC-BY-SA be held,
globally, or locally?
2. If vote will be held globally, when will vote start?
Please answer the above questions. Thank you.
--
김우진
Woojin Kim
New wikistats reports have been published today, for the first time since
May 2008. The reports have been generated on the new wikistats server
Bayes, which is operational since a few weeks. The dump process itself had
been restarted some weeks earlier, new dumps are now available for all 700+
wiki projects (with the English Wikipedia as the usual exception). From now
on the wikistats reports will be updated much more frequently. The actual
processing of any new dump starts soon after the dump becomes available,
results will be stored in intermediate files. Once a week updated reports
will be published.
Much more on this at http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/12/wikistats-is-back/
Happy holidays everyone.
Erik Zachte
As we're approaching the end of the year, I wanted to give an update on
where we stand in terms of the appointed seats on the Board of Trustees.
As you may know, we have two positions up for renewal (along with
Jimmy's position as Community Founder Trustee), and two additional
positions open for appointment. The existing seats this involves are
those of Jan-Bart de Vreede, our Vice Chair, and Stu West, our Treasurer.
The Nominating Committee has been working to take a large list of names
- generated by drawing on ideas from the community, staff, and board -
and identify potential candidates for the appointed seats using criteria
developed with the board's guidance. We've worked down to a relatively
short list and are in the process of reaching out to a variety of people
on that list to see which of these possibilities seem like the best fit
for the Wikimedia Foundation. We're not quite at the point of
recommending finalists to the board for consideration yet, as our
ambitious timetable had hoped, but things are moving along and I hope we
can fill one or two of the new positions in the coming months. I think
it's more important that we find suitable candidates, people who bring
appropriate expertise and appreciate our mission, than simply filling
them based on an artificial deadline.
In the meantime, Jan-Bart and Stu's appointments were both set to
expire, but both expressed an interest in serving for another year. The
Nominating Committee felt that their experience would benefit Wikimedia
in addition to any expertise found in the rest of the pool, and that
having some continuity would be valuable to the foundation. So at the
committee's recommendation, the other members of the board voted
unanimously to reappoint Jan-Bart and Stu to their seats for 2009. We
also had a unanimous vote to reappoint Jimmy Wales to his position as
Community Founder Trustee.
Please join me in thanking Jan-Bart and Stu (and Jimmy too, for that
matter) for their efforts and their willingness to continue to serve. I
am glad to be keeping them as colleagues in the coming year, and look
forward to seeing the development of the Wikimedia projects during that
time.
--Michael Snow