Wikimedia-l August 2008

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

115 participants
74 discussions

Re: [Foundation-l] Arabic, a non native language
by Crazy Lover 12 Aug '08

12 Aug '08

<<< ----- Original Message ---- From: Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 10:07:11 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Arabic, a non native language That's not true. Although the vast majority of Arabs are raised on a local variety, there are a small number whose native language is indeed Modern Standard Arabic. Imagine, perhaps, that their father is a well-educated Moroccan and their mother is a well-educated Syrian, and they were raised in Yemen. Mark >>> You are supposing. in the example, It is more realistic that the children express in a vernacular form of one of his parents; or merge both vernacular; or express in yemen vernacular (example: it's reported, some children in USA, whose hispanic parents express every time in spanish at home, have as native language english, and are absolutely incompetent in spanish, adopt the vernacular language of the country when they raise). and finally standard arabic has arcaic grammar, is nearer to classic arabic than to the vernacular ones. It's neccesary to learn at school, as medieval europeans learn latin.

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[Foundation-l] Philip Greenspun illustration project Round 1 is now open
by Brianna Laugher 11 Aug '08

11 Aug '08

Hi all, I am happy to announce that Round 1 of the Philip Greenspun illustration project (PGIP) is now open. The request list is published here: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/Round_…> It will run for two months. Then in conjunction with Cary and Erik we will assess how Round 1 went, adjust as necessary and (with any luck :)) carry on with Round 2. In case you are wondering "What is PGIP?", it's a project that was enabled by a donation of Philip Greenspun to the Wikimedia Foundation for the purpose of creating illustrations. The original community announcement by Cary was here <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-November/034531.html> and the central place for all PGIP info has been on meta, here: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project> So basically it's 1) collect requests for illustrations and 2) pay people to make them. If you are interested in the project and/or interested in creating illustrations, please join the mailing list: <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/greenspun-illustrations> and please also check out the information on meta. If you are wondering why it took like ten months, I wrote a bit of an explanation here. <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/R….> I will probably have more to say over the next couple of weeks about ways people can help. For now, I'd just like your help spreading the word to any illustrators you know that might not have heard of this project yet. thanks, Brianna user:pfctdayelise -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

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[Foundation-l] It is high time we decided upon global Wikimedianprinciples
by Dror K 09 Aug '08

09 Aug '08

Hello, Currently we have very few global principles for the Wikimeian projects, namely the GFDL principle and maybe the NPOV principle. We have many recommendations listed on the Meta, which are not taken seriously in many projects. Wikimedia projects have grown tremendously, and in my opinion, it has become crucial that the list of principles governing all projects be a little more detailed. I suggest a few basic recommendations become obligatory. For example, [[meta:Polls are evil]] should become mandatory as a guideline to all projects. This article is very important as it put into practice the NPOV principle as well as the desicion-by-consensus and the differentiation between facts and views principles. I suppose there are other recommendation of this kind that should become mandatory guidelines. I am not suggesting a constitution or a full rule book. I do suggest to carefully single out several basic principles, since the projects' autonomy is a bit too wide, especially as we want to promote cross-contributions between projects. Dror _______________________________________________ Internal-l mailing list Internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-l

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[Foundation-l] Nominating Committee organized
by Michael Snow 09 Aug '08

09 Aug '08

I am happy to report on our progress in filling out the Board of Trustees with members who bring additional skills and expertise to help the Wikimedia Foundation in its work. We have filled the membership of the Nominating Committee and are ready to begin work. The committee will consist of: * Ting Chen, our newly elected board member * Milos Rancic * Birgitte SB * Melissa Hagemann, from the Advisory Board * Sue Gardner, our Executive Director * and myself. Thanks again to all those who expressed interest in helping with the process. Initially, once the committee has been briefed, it will work on identifying the types of expertise that are most needed and developing criteria to evaluate candidates. At that point, we will more actively solicit suggestions for potential board members, including recommendations from the community. But if you have input that would be useful as we look to strengthen the board's skills, feel free to contact us at any stage of the process. --Michael Snow

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimania2008 sessions videos are now available
by damian＠igluve.org 07 Aug '08

07 Aug '08

This is awesome. Really good work! :). Damian.

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[Foundation-l] Back to China
by Ting Chen 07 Aug '08

07 Aug '08

No comment for the image. http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=&q=%E7%BB%B4%E5%9F%BA%E7%99%BE%E… Ting. -- GMX startet ShortView.de. Hier findest Du Leute mit Deinen Interessen! Jetzt dabei sein: http://www.shortview.de/wasistshortview.php?mc=sv_ext_mf@gmx

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[Foundation-l] Wikimania2008 sessions videos are now available
by Moushira Elamrawy 07 Aug '08

07 Aug '08

Hello Dears, Wikimania 2008 sessions are now available here: http://www.bibalex.org/isis/Frontend/archive/Archive_Movie.aspx Videos of 77 sessions are available in MPG format, this is mainly for download; I am afraid no preview is available. Enjoy:) Thanks for your patience, Moushira

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[Foundation-l] Wikimania2008 sessions videos are now available
by Erik Zachte 06 Aug '08

06 Aug '08

Awesome! Wikimania attendees can now relive part of the experience and catch up on missed presentations. But much more importantly it allows those that could not attend to become participants after all. Moushira and others, many thanks! Erik Zachte

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[Foundation-l] Audience measurement data
by Stu West 06 Aug '08

06 Aug '08

At Wikimania I gave a short lightening talk on some recently donated data from an audience measurement company called comScore. A few people suggested that I send around a summary so I put together a page on meta at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stu/comScore_data_on_Wikimedia. Here are some highlights of comScore's estimates for June 2008: - over 250 million users accessed at least one of our projects (29% of all internet users!) - combined, our projects are the #5 web "property" in the world - we had the highest "reach" in Latin America, where 41% of internet users visited at least one of our projects - we had the lowest reach in Asia (20%). Jay Walsh on the staff is managing the comScore relationship overall, Erik Zachte is helping drive the statistical analysis, and a volunteer named Josh Holman has a lot of experience with comScore data. Feel free to reach out to any of us with questions. -stu ================= Stu West stu(a)wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stu

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Re: [Foundation-l] Volunteer Council - some thoughts after a discussion on Wikimania
by Geoffrey Plourde 04 Aug '08

04 Aug '08

Would it be possible to set up a separate mailing list dedicated to the Volunteer Council? ----- Original Message ---- From: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> To: effeietsanders(a)gmail.com; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Sunday, August 3, 2008 8:32:34 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Volunteer Council - some thoughts after a discussion on Wikimania Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: > effe iets anders wrote: >> Dear all, >> >> as some of you might have noticed, there was a discussion scheduled >> during Wikimania about the volunteer council. The discussion was well >> visited, with 40-50 attendees (all seats were taken and some people >> standing in the back) I lead this discussion, and would like to give a >> little follow up on it. >> >> First of all, I would like to shortly summarize what I think were the >> most important conclusions from this discussion. Please note that when >> I say agreed, I did not mean this was a formal decision, but a common >> agreement between the attending people in that particular part of the >> discussion. This has no binding status, but should be seen as a clear >> indication of what might be consensus on a wider scale as well. >> Since you say below that you would like feed-back, I will give as I am able. Though you indicate that there is a plausible (how clear, reasonable people may likely allowably disagree) possibility that the discussion reflects even a wider community feeling, I do hope that you will not limit your approach to the community to this E-Mail to the foundation list (particularly if the effort is to be one of grass-roots, it is good to make the approach where the grass-roots are - and they are not on this mailing list). Even if voting will not be necessary for seeding a movement that intends to grow and build; and justify itself through its fruits and concrete effects... Even then, I hope you will not be tardy in involving any people who view the direction of the movement worthy of exploring. >> Besides that, it was also agreed that it would not be workable to let >> a small committee (council) do everything we would like it to do. It >> is unlikely that a small group of people can maintain contact with a >> large number of communities, and solve all the issues which might >> require more specialized and dedicated working groups. It was >> suggested to come up with several councils for all these tasks, but >> after a while it was more or less widely agreed upon that it would >> probably be most workable to have one council, which would appoint >> working groups or committees (temporary or continuous) to take care of >> specific issues. >> Personally I think that is the sane way to work, though with the caveat that the experience of the Board of Trustees needs to be learned from. Before deciding how the relationships between working groups and committees are structured with relation to the Council as a Whole, it should be well worthwhile to study which approaches worked between the Board of Trustees and its various appendant Committees, and which were not the best successes there, and which their structures were, and the relation between the chosen way to structure and act in concord, and the success thereof. >> Right now, I see little added value for a voting process. I would >> appreciate some input on that though. >> I believe that for the initial members, we don't need popular >> wikipedians, we don't need icons, we need stable and available people, >> who are willing to cooperate and compromise, who are willing to >> coordinate and communicate, who are willing to share and listen to the >> community. What we need is a wide variety of volunteers. Not per se in >> gender and nationality, or even language, but more in opinions and >> ways of thinking. We need some people who are active in the chapters, >> but also who are not so active there, we need a technical volunteer, >> we need someone involved with wiki approval policies perhaps, we need >> someone who is active in the stewards corner, some people who are >> speaking a non-english language and many other criteria. We will most >> likely not be able to create a full variety, but my personal belief is >> that we should try to work this out as much as possible. >> >> The next step would be, in my humble opinion, analog to the creation >> of the enwiki arbcom, which was also initially appointed. Elections >> every XX months for a part of the council. This would be up to the >> council actually to decide upon probably, but I see unfortunately not >> many other ways to keep the community directly involved in this >> process. The exact details would have to be worked out later on of >> course. >> >> For all this, we would need someone to guide these processes. We need >> someone more or less neutral (not a candidate or staff member for >> instance) to set up such a group, and help to work to a set of >> definitions and goals. After that, it is up to the council to work >> things out. >> >> Another option is to appoint the group of people I selected earlier on >> for the Provisional Council resolution, and keep things moving of >> course :) >> Here of course is the biggest hurdle you have to face. How do you justify the status as a grass-roots movement and not as a "cabal". This is something you will have to think long and hard about. You won't have any easy answers. The easy answers will be totally wrong, I guarantee you. >> I would appreciate some input of course. However, please be aware that >> this is a raw draft of what I think here, but that it has been built >> upon the many many discussions that have been there. >> >> With kind regards, >> >> Lodewijk >> I hope you won't see anything in my views as a criticism, for none is intended. Every word was just given in terms of aiding you in your reflections. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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Wikimedia-l August 2008