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
As far as anyone not subscribed to this listserv can tell, the
proposal to migrate Wikipedia to Creative Commons is dead in the
water. Despite requests for an update on-wiki, no updates have come
from the Foundation since January. Looking at the archives here, it
looks like the last update was from Erik Möller on February 3rd in
which he said that he was hoping to "get some survey data this week,
and move quickly after that." Was the survey conducted? Is there a new
target date for the proposal? I'll be happy to post an update on-wiki
if someone will provide some information as to what the hold-up is. I
hope this email doesn't come across as critical or confrontational.
I'm simply trying to bridge the communication gap between the
Foundation and the community on this important issue. Thanks for your
attention.
Ryan Kaldari
I am rather disturbed at the discussion on meta here:-
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Si…
about closing this project and I am surpried that the issue has not come
up here. While the consensus is clearly against closure, so it likely
will not happen, there are issues. Is this kind of discussion on Meta
really the best way to handle this kind of issue? I am particularly
concerned about the suggestion that only meta regulars (with more than
100 edits there) can contribute. This prevents or at least discourages
the users of Simple from going to Meta to comment. I also wonder whether
Simple editors really know about this issue, although I see it is
mentioned on their main page.
There is also a similar discussion about closing the Simple Wiktionary.
These issues need a much wider and intelligent debate than they are
receiving. They are too important for there to be any chance that they
just dissappear one day, with most people not knowing about it.
Brian.
--
Brian Salter-Duke b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au
[[User:Bduke]] is single user account with en:Wikipedia main account.
Also on Meta-Wiki, Wikiversity, fr:Wikipedia and others.
Treasurer, Wikimedia Australia Inc, Go Wikimedia Australia Inc, Go!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Charles Ainsworth <cla68(a)yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 9:04 AM
Subject: Judd Bagley presentation on Wikipedia
To: foundation-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
If you aren't familiar with the history behind this episode, Judd
Bagley was banned from en.Wikipedia for trying to out a financial
journalist who had created several user accounts in Wikipedia to
promote naked short selling. Partly as a result of his experience,
Bagley has created a presentation which he gave recently to a class of
business students at the University of Texas. The presentation is
here - http://antisocialmedia.net/lecture1/player.html.
The first part of the presentation concerns the efforts by several
individuals in the finance industry to manipulate the Internet to
promote naked short selling (NSS). Starting on slide 52, Bagley
describes an attempt by one of the NSS proponents to use Wikipedia as
a promotional tool for himself as well as for NSS. Bagley then
describes what happened when he attempted to intervene.
I believe that personally hearing Bagley's experiences and lessons
learned would be of benefit for the WMF. I suggest that the WMF
consider inviting Bagley to give his presentation to WMF's staff and
boardmembers. I believe that Bagley's contact information is
available on his website- http://antisocialmedia.net/.
Charles Ainsworth (Cla68 on en.Wikipedia)
--
Michael Bimmler
mbimmler(a)gmail.com
It's my understanding from the relicensing FAQ that we will be dual
licensing GFDL images in addition to text. It seems this will present
a unique problem, however, since images and media files are licensed
individually by the uploader rather than bulk licensed like Wikipedia
text. How would the relicensing of these files actually be
accomplished? I can imagine several approaches, none of them easy:
1. Bot Solution - On all File pages on all projects, bot replace all
instances of {{Self|GFDL}} (or the project equivalent) with
{{Self|GFDL|cc-by-sa}} and add {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} to all pages which
include {{GFDL}} but no CC license templates.
2. Template Modification Solution - On all projects, replace {{GFDL}}
with a new notice that includes both GFDL and CC-by-sa. Then rely on
volunteers or file owners to eventually remove any duplicate notices
due to other license templates included on the pages.
3. Template Replacement Solution - On all projects, replace {{GFDL}}
with a redirect to {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}}. (In other words, a clean
migration rather than dual licensing.) Then rely on volunteers or file
owners to eventually remove any duplicate notices due to other license
templates included on the pages. This would also logically entail
disallowing GFDL for future media uploads.
4. User Solution - Ask all file owners to dual license their files
before August 1st.
Personally, I favor option 3 although it may be the most
controversial. Here is my reasoning:
1. The GFDL was never meant for images and is especially ill-suited
for them as a free license. If people were actually required to
include 5 pages of license text in order to use an image from
Wikipedia (like the license says), no one would ever actually reuse
images from Wikipedia. Thus it is a free license in name only and does
not meet the goals of the WMF or the community.
2. The terms of the GFDL are never actually enforced for images (with
a notable exception I'll talk about), thus it weakens the GFDL license
and the concept of free licenses in general, since people start
assuming they can be routinely ignored. Thus the "wink-and-nod" of
GFDL non-enforcement is most pronounced and most problematic for
images.
3. The only times the GFDL is actually enforced for images are for
professional photographers who use the GFDL as a "back-door"
non-commercial non-free license. Many of Wikipedia most well-known
photographers (the ones who have dozens of featured pictures) license
their images exclusively under the GFDL (often 1.2-only). When those
images are then reused by commercial websites, the photographers
contact the sites, inform them of the onerous terms of the GFDL and
then offer the sites exclusive commercial licenses for a fee. Thus
they basically use Wikipedia as a commercial marketing tool for their
photographs (in violation of the spirit of the project). This practice
is well known among the english Wikipedia photography community.
I've added this issue as an open question to the relicensing FAQ page on meta.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Hello all!
In order to meet the Foundation's growing needs, we are searching for a
couple more volunteers to help manage Wikimedia's email response system,
commonly referred to as OTRS. The volunteer shall be responsible for
accepting or declining requests for assistance and managing queues,
helping with reporting and closing inactive accounts. This is a
cross-project endeavor, and the candidate should be able to distinguish
useful contributors who may be applying from multiple projects in
different languages as well as responding to emails on his/her own.
Details can be found at
<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Volunteering:Email_response_team_leader>.
The position has an official close date of 13.03.2009, but will remain
open should no suitable candidates come forward.
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
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As there doesn't seem to be any meta or local wiki page for this I thought
I'd send this here. I've been testing the new PDF versions and they're
pretty cool. I have a concerns about general layout and format though:
- The article title appear at the top of all pages. this looks bad on the
first page because there's a small title at the top and a much bigger title
underneath. One of them needs to be removed from the first page.
- Alternate text for images appears instead of the caption,
*including*the "alt=" bit.
- A lot of tables don't look anyhting like they do in the article
- Because infoboxes are huge and pictures in them are right aligned they
take up a tiny bit of the bottom left corner of the infobox image field, the
rest is blank
- images such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:North.svg which are
basically tiny 17px icons with arrows on them show up HUGE, taking up whole
pages and throwing hte text out of line.
- For multiple articles in the same book the next article should always
start a fresh page. Having the title at the bottom and no text then loads of
text with no title on the next page isn't great.
Overall though I like the knew feature what do you guys think?
