Wikimedia-l December 2008

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132 participants
80 discussions

[Foundation-l] Wikistats is back
by Erik Zachte 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

John: > For the "Page Views" data on some projects, the May data > looks unusually lower than the June data; > could it be that the May data isn't > a complete month for some projects? Yes, that is indeed the case. I will omit the incomplete month on subsequent reports. Erik Zachte

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[Foundation-l] Europeana
by Milos Rancic 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

Europeana (http://www.europeana.eu/) is working again. I think that it has a lot of useful (PD) materials.

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikimediaau-l] CC licensing implemented for the ABS
by David Gerard 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

w00t! Perhaps we can do a data dump of .au localities as well to be combed through by en:wp editors ... (no, NOT making rambot articles automatically, human consideration ;-) - d. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jessica Coates <j2.coates(a)qut.edu.au> Date: 2008/12/23 Subject: [Wikimediaau-l] CC licensing implemented for the ABS To: "cc-au(a)lists.ibiblio.org" <cc-au(a)lists.ibiblio.org>, "cc-community(a)lists.ibiblio.org" <cc-community(a)lists.ibiblio.org>, "cc-nz(a)lists.ibiblio.org" <cc-nz(a)lists.ibiblio.org>, "cci(a)lists.ibiblio.org" <cci(a)lists.ibiblio.org>, "asia-commons(a)googlegroups.org" <asia-commons(a)googlegroups.org>, "wikimediaau-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org" <wikimediaau-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Those following the post a few weeks ago about the announcement by the Australian Bureau of Statistics that they were going to release their material under a Creative Commons licence will be pleased to know that it's happened. All content on the ABS website (other than logos and other trade marked content) is now marked as CC BY - including all census data, economy data, fact sheets, analysis, press releases etc. Hopefully this will just be the start of a general move towards open access by the Australian public sector. For more information see http://creativecommons.org.au/node/207 _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Mediawiki-i18n] Betawiki staff thank you and season greetings
by Gerard Meijssen 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

Hoi, Given that some of our Betawiki localisers have not provided us with their e-mail address and given that this is an open call to contribute to our end of your localisation effort, I forward this mail to you all. Help us to end 2008 with a bang and in the process you can help yourself or the Wikimedia Foundation to some bucks.. Thanks and happy holidays, GerardM ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Siebrand Mazeland Date: 2008/12/24 Subject: [Mediawiki-i18n] Betawiki staff thank you and season greetings To: mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org, translators-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Dear translators, developers, and other subscribers, As Betawiki staff we would like to thank you very much for your continued support making MediaWiki projects succeed, and hope on good health for you and your loved ones, and your continued contributions for 2009. End of December 2007 Siebrand formulated localisation goals for MediaWiki For 2008[1]. They were ambitious. Really ambitious, and it looks like the four goals that were set are not going to be met. However, us Betawiki staff do not give up without a fight. There is still one more week left before the year ends, and because of that we would like to give you an incentive. == 1,000 Euro bounty == Together with Stichting Open Progress[2] we are able to make available 1,000 Euro, to be divided between all translators that will make 500 or more new translations for MediaWiki or its extensions before the end of the year. In the past week there have been 5 users that made more than 500 translations, so that is quite an incentive, we think! If you are eligible to claim your share of the bounty, please do that at the designated page[3]. Please note if you would like to receive your cut, have us donate it to the Wikimedia Foundation on your behalf, or if you do not claim it, in which case Stichting Open Progress will repurpose it. We wish you happy and productive holidays and hope to see you (re)visit Betawiki often! Betawiki Staff[4] [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2007-December/000571.html [2] http://openprogress.org/Stichting_Open_Progress [3] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Language_project/500claim [4] http://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=staff _______________________________________________ Mediawiki-i18n mailing list Mediawiki-i18n(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-i18n

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[Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
by Delirium 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

I assume most of you at least occasionally read one of the Wikimedia websites so probably saw this in a sitenotice, but I thought it was a very well done appeal, concisely highlighting exactly what we do, why it's different than what most people do, and why we're worth donating to, so worth pointing out: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en Worriers about the perennial suggestions to put advertising somewhere on the site(s) might also like what appears to be the closest to a no-ads pledge I've seen so far: "Like a national park or a school, we don't believe advertising should have a place in Wikipedia". -Mark

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[Foundation-l] The new iteration
by Milos Rancic 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

Anybody alive? The iteration goes like: * I start to talk about low activity on the list. * Erik mentions that new step toward license migration has been happened. * Others get some idea to talk about. * The new iteration of discussion begins. So, let's try: This list became dead once again!

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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
by toddmallen＠gmail.com 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

It works and isn't terribly invasive, and realistically financial difficulty will find sympathy right now. I think it's brilliant. -----Original Message----- From: "Erik Moeller" <erik(a)wikimedia.org> Subj: Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal Date: Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:00 pm Size: 3K To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> 2008/12/23 effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>: > Up to now, I kinda liked the fundraiser. Although they are very shouty for > what I'm used to (I dislike the red button for instance and the somewhat > agressive tone), I think this last change in message could use a *little* > step back. Please use a slightly smaller font, an slightly less shouty text. > To me it really reads like " wow, now we're really desperate, PLEASE COME > READ THIS ** APPEAL". I would really appreciate it if this last banner would > be done a little less in a way that comes to me (justified or not) as > "typical American"... Within the last 24 hours, we've raised a total of $283,859. That's more than 10 times as much as we made during a typical weekday in the last few days of the fundraiser, and the single highest day on record for community gifts. We don't know yet how steep the inevitable drop-off will be, but it's obvious that the appeal is working beyond everyone's expectations. I think it's worth noting that this tenfold increase has been possible without the use of additional pixel real estate, without scrolling marquees, interstitials, or other serious interruptions of the Wikipedia reader/editor experience. All it took were less than 60 characters of text on each page in a highly visible font, linking to a personal appeal that makes our case in more detail. We should ask ourselves why it is that based on the previous sitenotices, 9 in 10 people who would be clearly willing to give to us, did not do so. There seem to be at least three principal reasons for that: * The previous messages were below the visibility threshold for most people: They considered them to be an unimportant part of the page that should be ignored. * The previous messages did not, clearly enough, make a case for giving. They appealed to people who instantly "get" the non-profit donation model, but not to those for whom Wikipedia is essentially the same as any other website. The appeal directly addresses this distinction, to the satisfaction of a great number of people. * Because it's a personal appeal, rather than an impersonal donation message, the letter seems more likely to resonate with people. Regardless of how the numbers will hold up, it's clear that these are important lessons to take away: The appeal, compared to some of our other site-notices, was trivial to implement. It's more important to communicate clearly and in a personal manner what we're trying to do than to focus on widgets & designs. Yes, more so than before, this appeal communicates a sense of urgency. As it should: We still have a revenue gap of $1.75M to just cover our expenses for the fiscal year (let alone increase our reserve). We're in the middle of the worst financial crisis in our lifetime; companies are failing or laying off staff around us. If people's reaction is "I don't want Wikipedia to go away - I better donate", that's not a bad thing. Obviously we should try to work out any remaining display glitches. And I'm sure over time we'll find a "happy medium" when it comes to aspects like font size, color, etc. But more importantly, we should try to translate this appeal into as many languages as possible, as it's currently just running in the English language wikis. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l --- message truncated ---

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[Foundation-l] 2008 Annual Fundraiser - Going into Phase 2
by Erik Zachte 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

> For those who haven't seen it yet: > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics Very neat! Looking at tab 2 (Number of contributions): In 2007 from day 14 and onwards the number of gifts per day more than doubled. Is it known why that happened? Just curious. Erik Zachte

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Image tagging: 33 months later
by David Gerard 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

FYI, the state of local image uploads on en:wp. How's your wiki doing? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Wagner <carnildo(a)gmail.com> Date: 2008/12/23 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Image tagging: 33 months later To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Back in March of 2006, I did a check of image uploading. The results were, to put it bluntly, appalling. I've re-done the check with a new batch of 1,945 images. This covers a little over two days' uploading, where the original set was 1,866 images uploaded in a little over 24 hours. For 1,945 images uploaded and not later deleted, 1,960 license tags were applied. 858 images, or 44%, were tagged with a non-free content tag, up from 40% in 2006. with album covers and logos making up slightly more than half. The vast numbers of promotional photos that were uploaded in 2006 are nowhere to be seen: only 20 images were so tagged. At least 917 images (47%) were tagged with a free-content license tag, up from 41% in 2006. The most popular tags are PD-Self (334 images), GFDL (250 images), and Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike (221 images) Only 176 images (9%) did not have a license tag, a vast improvement over 2006, when 26% were untagged. 500 of the images were checked for tag correctness. Things are looking *much* better than they were in March 2006: of the 494 tags applied, 35 (7%) were clearly incorrect, and 34 invalid fair-use claims were made. In 2006, the error rates were 22% incorrect and 16% invalid fair-use claims. The most-misused tag by count is the self-creation tag (at least 21 images were not self-created), with the GFDL/CC-BY-SA-3.0 dual-license tag especially problematic. By proportion, it's CC-BY-3.0 (5 out of 12 incorrect). On the non-free content side of things, the problematic tags are {{non-free television screenshot}} (6 out of 10 used to illustrate a person's biography), {{non-free audio sample}} (3 out of 4 samples were over-long), and {{non-free promotional}} (2 out of 3 images were clearly replaceable). As before, album covers and logos tended to be used correctly (74 out of 84 and 46 out of 57, respectively). 28 out of 254 free-content tags were incorrect, compared to 7 out of 205 non-free-content tags. Breaking non-free content down by type of media and getting rid of the generic "fair use" tags ("promotional", "fair use", etc.) seems to have worked wonderfully. We still need to do something about people uploading images with incorrect information, but it's far less of a problem than it used to be. -- Mark [[User:Carnildo]] _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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[Foundation-l] Emphasis on "edit"
by Milos Rancic 22 Dec '08

22 Dec '08

Many times we raised the issue that many (maybe majority of) users of Wikimedia content don't realize that it is possible to edit pages on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Last time I was talking about it a couple of days ago, during the conference in Belgrade, with a Polish Wikimedian, Marcin Cieslak. I was thinking about some big button "edit" on every page. And, by accident, I realized now that Polish Wikinews emphasized their "edit" button [1]. I think that this may be a good thing for the beginning for all Wikimedian projects. Maybe, it should be even a default in MonoBook skin on MediaWiki. [1] - http://pl.wikinews.org/wiki/Strona_g%C5%82%C3%B3wna

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Wikimedia-l December 2008