Wikimedia-l February 2009

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

125 participants
73 discussions

[Foundation-l] .YU domain transition
by Nikola Smolenski 17 Feb '09

17 Feb '09

I would like to draw Wikimedians' attention to the problem of expiring .yu top level domain. As is known, .yu top level domain ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.yu ) is being replaced with .rs and .me TLDs. This means that all web pages under .yu domain will stop working, including all 46102 that are linked from various Wikimedia projects: some will stop as soon as March, while all will stop in October. This further means that readers of Wikimedia projects will not be able to access information that is now available to them, either if a domain is used as an external link or if it is used as an article reference. Especially the latter is very important since, with massive link loss, a large number of references could no longer be evaluated by the readers and editors. To solve this problem, I have made a statistics of .yu domain use on Wikimedia projects ( http://toolserver.org/~nikola/yustats.tar.bz2 ) and, with its help, replaced at least the most common links on Serbian Wikipedia with their appropriate equivalents. However, given that I am not able to do the same on other projects, I would like to attract attention of people who are willing to help and can do necessary botwork to fix as many soon-to-be broken links as possible. Please reply if you can help in any way or have any other advice. If you are a bot operator, you can do it easily with the standard pywikipediabot. Here is a sample command I used: python replace.py -weblink:webrzs.statserb.sr.gov.yu "webrzs.statserb.sr.gov.yu" "webrzs.stat.gov.rs" ==The domains== This is a list of domains that are already search/replaced on Serbian Wikipedia. This list includes most of the most common domains and covered perhaps a quarter of all links (even while not counting webrzs.statserb.sr.gov.yu that was included via a few templates). {| !From!To |- ||webrzs.statserb.sr.gov.yu||webrzs.stat.gov.rs |- ||www.rastko.org.yu||www.rastko.org.rs |- ||www.reprezentacija.co.yu||www.reprezentacija.rs |- ||www.blic.co.yu||www.blic.co.rs |- ||www.beograd.org.yu||www.beograd.org.rs |- ||arhiva.glas-javnosti.co.yu||arhiva.glas-javnosti.rs |- ||www.srpsko-nasledje.co.yu||www.srpsko-nasledje.co.rs |- ||www.dnevnik.co.yu||www.dnevnik.rs |- ||www.srbija.sr.gov.yu||www.srbija.gov.rs |- ||www.kurir-info.co.yu/Arhiva||arhiva.kurir-info.rs/Arhiva |- ||www.kurir-info.co.yu/arhiva||arhiva.kurir-info.rs/arhiva |- ||www.kurir-info.co.yu||www.kurir-info.rs |- ||arhiva.kurir-info.co.yu||arhiva.kurir-info.rs |- ||www.prvaliga.co.yu||www.prvaliga.rs |- ||www.mitropolija.cg.yu||www.mitropolija.me |- ||www.spc.yu/sr||www.spc.rs/sr |- ||www.sk.co.yu||www.sk.co.rs |- ||www.ekoforum.org.yu||www.ekoforum.org |- ||www.svevlad.org.yu||www.svevlad.org.rs |- ||www.posta.co.yu||www.posta.rs |- ||www.glas-javnosti.co.yu||www.glas-javnosti.rs |- ||www.fscg.cg.yu||www.fscg.co.me |- ||ww1.rts.co.yu/euro||ww1.rts.co.rs/euro |}

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[Foundation-l] History splitting (main namespace)
by Emanuele Casadio 17 Feb '09

17 Feb '09

Hi there. We've got a problem on it.wikipedia. Recently a sysop tried to delete the page [[it:Football Club Internazionale Milano]] in order to hide a vandalism that should not be available on the history page (copyright violation, blasphemies, personal information, etc) but the page reached 5000 edits, so he got an error. I tried looking all over meta for a precedent but I wasn't able to find any. We don't have an ''oversight'' user group on it.wikipedia, and as I can see from the discussions, the community doesn't want any. So, the problem now is: "how can we remove a certain vandalism from the history"? "Bingo, history splitting" someone said... We (literally) call this procedure "un-historizing" a page. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, so I'll try to explain how it works. There is a page called [[ABC]] and it has a lot of versions. We move this page to [[ABC/History up to <DATE>]], block this page; then we manually copy the last revision to the [[ABC]] page and put in the "edit summary" box a sentence like: "This page was ''un-historized''. To see the old history go there: [[ABC/History up to <date>]]". This would be a great idea but, wait a minute... will this procedure be GFDL-compliant? I believe that the local community has to be free to decide about local policies, but when there is the risk that a local policy might not be GFDL-compliant, I think that asking before acting is a reasonable approach. Sincerely, -- FollowTheMedia (it-N, en-2)

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Re: [Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2008 voting now open
by Brianna Laugher 17 Feb '09

17 Feb '09

2009/2/17 Florence Devouard <Anthere9(a)yahoo.com>: > Hello, > > I did not even realise it had not been announced and I already voted a > few days ago :-) > My two cents > > * great images. Really top stuff > * but the voting system... SO unpractical :-( If you voted early, I think the voting system has been improved since then. You should take another look (while logged in!). There is just little buttons and text fields below each image to let you vote and leave a comment, and if you have already voted you get a message "You have already voted for this image". I think it's really great. > I have meant to ask what happened with the toolserver (or the team > dealing with the toolserver) so that it could not be used this year ? Bryan & I ran the comp last year, and were too busy to commit to running it this year. This year I am just a cheerleader. ;) I think it was just difficult communicating all the needed info about galleries, etc, because Bryan wasn't too involved. In future years if Bryan is involved or someone else comfortable with the toolserver that software can be used again, if they want. > Alternatively, if you really want to keep voting pages separately for > each image, it would have been easier to vote on a separate page rather > than at the bottom of the description page (long to load + generous > scrolling of numerous languages description). I think the voting actually does happen on a separate page, it just has a huge introduction in many languages. :) A good place to leave comments for the organisers (and future organisers) to see, would be <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Picture_of_the_Year/2008>. cheers Brianna -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

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[Foundation-l] Wikipedia signpost: new issue and changes
by phoebe ayers 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

I'm pleased to announce the newest issue of the The Wikipedia Signpost: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost which has several important changes: * A new editor: User:Sageross has agreed to take over as editor in chief from User:Ral315, who was editor from Sept. 2005-Dec. 2008. Ral315 did an amazing job in keeping the Signpost going for so long and we are all very grateful for all his hard work. * A new look: with a design led by User:Pretzels, the main page of the 'Post is redesigned. * New coverage: The Signpost plans to cover more community news, both from within the English Wikipedia and from the whole family of other Wikipedias and Wikimedia projects. For instance, this issue contains a story on the Commons Picture of the year contest. This issue also debuts a new feature: The "Discussion Reports And Miscellaneous Articulations" (DRAMA) report, which covers ongoing discussion threads that are happening on en:wp. We all know it's tough to keep up with all the interesting discussions that happen, and it's our hope that the Signpost can play a role in making these conversations more accessible to busy editors. This new feature will be refined over the coming weeks and suggestions are welcome. * As always, to keep this project going contributors are needed. If you know of something interesting going on out there in wiki-land, either on en:wp or on another Wikimedia project, or if you have an idea for a story, please leave us a note on the Tipline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggesti…. We want to hear about milestones, events, contests and any other community news. General comments or suggestions can be left here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost. On behalf of Signpost writers, thanks for reading the Signpost! -- Phoebe

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[Foundation-l] Upcoming break
by Jon 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Friends, I'm going into the field for the next three weeks. This means that I won't have internet for about four weeks. I've been particularly inactive for the past two weeks, in preparation for the field I've not had much time. I've brought everything I'm involved with on the foundation and on local projects to a orderly pause as far as my involvement goes. I expect to return sometime in late March. Very best, Jon -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkmZoyoACgkQ6+ro8Pm1AtXFrwCfW3EumwljQm0jzKUWsQB4obwe AgMAn2cUVICrsHa7zeinTCaebSJl9E7B =i5Za -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year 2008 voting now open
by Brianna Laugher 16 Feb '09

16 Feb '09

Hi, I didn't see it announced yet, so here goes - voting for the 2008 Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year is now open. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2008> Voting eligibility: all Wikimedians who were registered before 1 January 2009 and with at least 200 edits on any Wikimedia project (at time of voting) Voting period: Round 1 closes on Feb 26. Images: There are 501 images, which were made Featured Pictures during 2008. They are arranged into 11 categories (14 galleries). The top 10% from each category will go to Round 2, the final round. There will be category winners as well as the overall "picture of the year". More coverage: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-02-16/Common…> cheers, Brianna -- They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment: http://modernthings.org/

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[Foundation-l] How to dismantle a language committee
by Mohamed Magdy 14 Feb '09

14 Feb '09

Hi all, I would like to propose the dismantling of the language committee and creating a new one (not including Gerard, of course). Why? Because it is chronically malfunctioning. Manifested in: # Gerard is forcing all his opinion, anything else is going nowhere. # Other members don't really care and leave it, unfortunately for us, to Gerard. Background: I read about how unfair the LangCom before but I didn't really care because it wasn't affecting a language I care about. Then came the dreadful proposal for a dialect Wikipedia in my dialect, Egyptian dialect. At first, I wasn't sure in the beginning if I should support it or not, then I became sure if this should happen, it shouldn't happen on a platform like Wikipedia (for many reasons laid out in detail in the proposal page). I don't care if Ghaly and company (the people who made the proposal) started that on an independent website (Wikia or on an own domain for their campaign) but on Wikimedia, we should do the right thing (I hope). The proposal was approved (Gerard requires that you have the relevant ISO code and everything from there could be done, he is a bit annoyed now becuase of all the current proposals for dialect Wikipedias which were brought up by the Egyptian dialect Wikipedia proposal) and the technical team had no option but to create the wiki because Gerard gave it his blessings and the foundation didn't say a word (I heard that people were happy at Wikimania (Florence?) because of that proposal but I fail to understand why the Egyptian people there didn't express their opinion about it (it was in Egypt :!). Trivia (I like structure but..): * Gerard is talking about how good the localization of the Egyptian dialect, well, that is a natural thing when the localization is a matter of copy-pasting Arabic translation and converting it to a slang form or English words in Arabic (nothing wrong at all in that of course, we do it all the time, but we don't do it for the sake of looking hip (there is a certain language charisma we have in Egypt, that is, if you can speak English and mix English with Arabic to look cool. don't know if other countries have it), we do it only to introduce new words that we are unable to find their equivalent in Arabic (e.g. Acetylcysteine which is أسيتيل سيستئين in Arabic, basically English (latin) in Arabic). * May be ISO is wrong: why people are taking ISO codes as absolute, don't-discuss matter? in our case, we have 22 dialects of Arabic and the pathetic decision to call them languages of the supposedly "Macro" language Arabic, that is nonsense and it should be amended, not the blind (if not stupid) opinion of making all these sorts of dialectical projects ( http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=ara). I tried to contact the ISO, they say to contact the local office in my country ( http://www.eos.org.eg), and as always, they have dead emails, don't know about the phone numbers, I'm not even sure that anyone there would listen to a word of mine, besides, I wish to see changes before my expiry date is due. * Gerard have the false delusion of protecting the freedom of Egyptians and taking us out of illiteracy into the light of knowledge by making a new Wikipedia in slang and dialect. well, you are *wrong*, you are doing quite the opposite and other people are helping you alas. hope you understand that someday. * Wave of ignorance: a new wave of ignorance are upon us and I don't like Wikipedia being part of it. * Did you know that when I tell people about this new Wikipedia, the consiperacy theory of the west dividing us is brought up? like it wasn't enough that the ar.wiki isn't appreciated because of the several issues we have. no, now we have another big issue created because of the carelessness of some people. arz.wiki is a regression, making people think of Wikipedia as an enemy is a regression. * Did you know that what was rejected before, is being done on that arz.wiki? I'm talking about Arabic in latin characters Wikipedia. they have no objections there if you write Arabic in latin (a big no no in ar.wiki or any another respectable venue). dialect writing/Arabic in latin writing is for fun only, nothing serious. * They have a template on arz.wiki which is placed on articles copied from ar.wiki that says ~"this article needs more egyptianizing" like the one on uncyclopedia "this article needs to be more uncyclopediac" or something like that (sorry for the lack of links). * I think it would be doable to make a tab that Egyptianizes (or any other dialect) the Arabic article, that is, if we have some sort of conversion memory, that is if the dialect is stable (or standard), the dialect differs from a place to another, from a muhafazah to another ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhafazah). if anyone knows the technical method we could make a trial instead of the great mess of dialect Wikipedias. I'm not too sure about this compromise yet. So, to sum it up: # Dissolve the current committee and make a new one of people who care. # Make all the discussions of the committee public and allow community members to comment and the committee really reads what they have to say. # Make sure that Gerard isn't on the new committee. # Treat ISO codes flexibly, they could be amended, they could be ignored if appropriate. # Undo the arz.wiki. Pardon the long email, but I had to say what I have on that important issue, may be the new year would bring something else besides massacres. --alnokta

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[Foundation-l] Wikibooks community-building meeting
by Mike.lifeguard 14 Feb '09

14 Feb '09

I've been thinking some about community-building in Wikibooks - I think it's among one of the more important tasks we need to face. To get the ball rolling somewhat, Whiteknight and I were tossing around some ideas earlier - one that we agreed on was that having a meeting to get wider input and brainstorming on issues of community-building would be beneficial for Wikibooks. I had suggested either setting up a Skype conference, or we could just organize a time to get people together in #wikibooks on irc.freenode.net. We'd set up a roster of topics to cover and just fire around ideas for a while. I'd like to invite anyone interested in particpating to do so - including people from outside Wikibooks: if you're involved with a like-minded organization, or if you're involved with community-building within Wikimedia or related projects, or if you're just interested in listening, it'd be great to have you join us. If you're interested, please reply with any comments, but in particular include: * Whether you'd prefer to have the meeting via Skype or in IRC * What timezone & availability you have (I'm thinking next Friday or Saturday, probably) * Any further ideas you have for community-building in Wikibooks To get us started, Whiteknight and I were discussing reaching out to universities and other charities for book donations on specific topics (such as a book on cancer from an organization which deals with breast cancer) as well as recruiting editors from their volunteer pools. Suggestions for similar topics to discuss would of course be welcome. I hope to hear back from some Wikibooks regulars, but also people from the wider Wikimedia community. I've sent this to both textbook-l and foundation-l and (I hope) I've set reply-to to textbook-l. Thanks, -Mike.lifeguard ---- Mike.lifeguard mikelifeguard(a)fastmail.fm

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[Foundation-l] Steward elections: summary, week one
by Jesse (Pathoschild) 13 Feb '09

13 Feb '09

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[Foundation-l] A kind of organisation for transnational Wikipedias
by Ziko van Dijk 13 Feb '09

13 Feb '09

Hello, There are some language versions of Wikipedia who have no relation to a chapter or cannot create a chapter, or where a chapter would not be suitable. Examples: - nation-less languages such as Latin, Esperanto - diaspora languages or Wikipedia communities, such as Kurdish, Swahili Sometimes it would be useful to have a kind of organisation for these language editions, not chapters, but something else, for PR purposes, contacts with language institutions etc. Kind regard Ziko -- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde

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Wikimedia-l February 2009