This is a reminder. The deadline for applications is on February 22 (in
about 1 week). Please forward this call to people you might think to be
interested and might make a good candidate.
Kind regards,
Lodewijk
=====
Dear all,
As some of you will know, the Chapters Committee [1] is a Wikimedia
Foundation board-appointed committee that is mainly responsible for
the preparation of approval of new chapters. Currently, there are six
members in the committee, and we are asking for candidates to increase
the membership again.
The chapters committee mainly reviews applications for the forming of
a chapter on legibility and viability and reviews the bylaws of the
organization. This requires communication with chapter candidates all
over the world. Sometimes are applications straight forward and is the
job mainly about reviewing the bylaws and ensuring stability in the
long term that way, sometimes it involves more complex conversations
about whether there are for example enough people involved in the
candidate chapter. At the end of the process, the committee advices
the board of the WMF on the decision to approve the chapter or not.
The board makes the formal decision, but usually follows the advice.
Key skills/experience that we are looking for in new members, are typically:
* willing to work in a sometimes bureaucratic process (reviewing
bylaws is boring)
* 1-2 hour per week (on average) available
* internationally oriented
* Good communication skills in English
* Communication skills in other major world languages are a plus
* able to work and communicate with other cultures
* a strong understanding of the structure and work of both
chapters and the WMF
* experience with or in an active chapter
* an active position in a chapter is a plus
The number of applications is increasing and help is wanted! You can
send your applications with your name, contact data, experience and
motivation to the ChapCom email address, chaptercommittee-l AT lists
DOT wikimedia DOT org before February 22. The applications will be
considered by the current members (in cooperation with the WMF) and
the proposal for the new membership will be reviewed by the Board
before acceptence. I hope for many suitable applications. If you have
any questions, please don't hesitate to email me privately.
With kind regards,
Lodewijk Gelauff
Member, Chapters Committee
[1]: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee
For anyone in the UK (or willing to visit the UK ;-) that hasn't seen
the below, please take a look. Apologies for the cross-posting. This
event is also hosting Wikimedia UK's AGM, so it is fairly
important. ;-) Please distribute it to anyone else that you think
might be interested.
Thanks,
Mike
Begin forwarded message:
> From: joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet(a)hotmail.co.uk>
> Date: 25 February 2010 12:01:55 GMT
> Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] Open Knowledge Conferece - Wikimedia Track
> (Call for Participation)
> Reply-To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> This year Wikimedia UK is partnering with the Open Knowledge
> Foundation in the organisation of the 2010 Open Knowledge
> Conference ("OKCon"), an interdisciplinary conference that brings
> together individuals from across the open knowledge spectrum for a
> day of presentations and workshops.
>
>
> At this year's conference, Wikimedia UK will be supporting and
> organising a track dedicated to the projects and communities
> central to Wikimedia.
>
>
> We need your help to create an exciting and interesting track that
> will inspire and challenge Wikimedians and others alike. Could you
> give a presentation or host a discussion on a Wikimedia theme? Any
> subject relevant to the Wikimedia communities, free content or
> Wikimedia UK are welcome.
> Timeline
> February 25 (Thursday): Submissions will open
> March 28 (Sunday) 23:59 UTC: Closure of submission dates
> April 7 (Wednesday): Notification of acceptance of submission
> April 24 (Saturday): Open Knowledge Conference 2010
>
> If you wish to participate but with good reason cannot meet one of
> the above deadlines please email conferences(a)wikimedia.org.uk
> before the deadline as it may be possible to accomodate late
> submissions Themes Submissions should address one or more of the
> following themes:
>
>
> Wikimedia Communities - Interesting projects and characteristics
> within the communities; policy creation; conflict resolution and
> community dynamics; reputation and identity; multilingualism,
> languages and cultures; the development of Wikimedia UK.
> Free Content - Open access to information; ways to gather and
> distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in
> education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality
> and usability; copyright laws and their interaction with Wikimedia
> projects.
> Culture and Heritage - Ideas for potential partnerships, building
> on previous partnerships and the legal, technical and resource
> issues that are barriers to such partnerships.
> Technical infrastructure - Issues related to MediaWiki development
> and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; the Toolserver; the
> Usability Project; new ideas for development (including Usability
> case studies from other wikis or similar projects).
> Submission Guidelines Please email submissions to
> conferences(a)wikimedia.org.uk. Please email the following details,
> all in English:
> Title:
> Theme: Closest category from above for your submission.
> Abstract: 50-100 words summarising the topic
> Summary: Detailed description of the topic - 300 words or more. May
> contain a link to a more details.
> Contact information: Email/Telephone and whether we may publish
> these details
> Additional Information:
> 1-3 sentence biography of the author(s).
> any special requirements (e.g. flipchart; OHP. A digital
> presentation will be assumed as standard)
> whether you will attend the 2010 Open Knowledge Conference (a)
> definitely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is accepted.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Does Wikipedia's principles need consensus of the community?
There is not consensus of the community, but does somebody pass if
filled out the page with "Policy"?
Hello everyone! How come the number of articles in each language Wikipedia is so different? I
mean, in English, 3,000,000 or so articles. Spanish, about 600,000 articles. Don't
encyclopedias deserve to be the same size, no matter what language? Why don't they have
automatic translator bots to make all Wikipedias equal? That's my suggestion,
translator bots for Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks and all other sites part of the
Wikimedia wiki farm.
Hi everyone,
The next strategic planning office hours are:
Tuesday from 20:00-21:00 UTC, which is:
Tuesday, 12-1pm PST
Tuesday, 3pm-4pm EST
There has been a lot of tremendous work on the strategy wiki the past
few months, and Task Forces are finishing up their work.
Office hours will be a great opportunity to discuss the work that's
happened as well as the work to come.
As always, you can access the chat by going to
https://webchat.freenode.net and filling in a username and the channel
name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a
security warning. It's fine. More details at:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
Thanks! Hope to see many of you there.
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Thanks for your reply.
It seems to me that in past debate there were two separate issues:
1. Do creation of a wiki require that there be *native* speakers for
the language to be considered "living"?
2. Opposition to neologisms in classical languages, most forcefully
and staunchly stated by Gerard.
1. With the full acceptance of Latin/Esperanto into the Wikimedia, it
seems that the first question has been put to rest ("no"), despite the
current text of the language policy.
2. Regarding the second issue, there seems to be an inner contradiction:
>A general test for having interface in MediaWiki in some language is:
>Would the translation of the word "file" [computer meaning] be
>understandable for native speakers or for those who are/were using
>that language as a medium for communication? (I didn't want to say
>"would it be a neologism" as all new words in all languages are
>neologisms, but, in fact, this is about neologisms. They are
>acceptable in a living language, but they are not in a dead language.)
>This is true for Latin, but not for Ancient Greek. At least, in this
>moment of time.
>A general test for having Wikipedia (and thus the full set of
>Wikimedia projects) in some language is: Would you able to write an
>article about thermodynamics in that language without using
>neologisms? Or about train? Again, this is true for Latin, but not for
>Ancient Greek nor Coptic.
But if neologisms are acceptable in living languages that don't have a
word for "file" then they should also be acceptable in a living classical
language that doesn't have a word for "file"!
That being as it may, please realize that very opposition to neologisms
in classical languages is unfortunately a Language Committee dogma
that is not accepted by much of the community. This includes, by the
way, some of the most highly educated and linguistically talented
contributors within the Wikimedia community, and denies them an
appropriate place to work within our framework.
While all of us respect the linguistic expertise of Gerard and other
members of the Committee (in particular, I have great admiration
for his tireless work promoting smaller languages), their opinions
on this issue are subject to debate by others within opinions no less
informed, and the Committee should not be making decisions about
such a basic principle unilaterally.
Dovi
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 5:18 AM, Aphaia <aphaia(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I find here a wrong assupmtion.
> First wrong assumption is "Written Chinese is not very different for
> millenniums", they aren't same, and consequently Edo period Japanese
> who were taught Classical Chinese already found difficulty to
> understand the contemporary which was similar to the modern one.
> Second wrong assumption is "person who knows Classical Chinese has to
> know modern Chinese." In East Asia, Classical Chinese had been lingua
> franca of the literate for millenniums, and there are many written
> sources, the earliest of them are dated at mid 19th C. And it is still
> taught in some countries including Japan. I, as a highly educated
> Japanese, read Classical Chinese to some extent, but I don't
> understand modern Chinese beyond the tourist level. I know many people
> who can enjoy zh-classical-Wikipedia but cannot (modern) zhwiki.
> So I object your statement and it wouldn't be just a fork of ZhWS but
> preferable to be a multilingual project.
Yes, we have problems with Chinese languages and it is not just about
Classical Chinese. And if you have some good sinologist around, please
connect me with him or her.
The logic behind rejecting Classical Chinese Wikisource is:
1) Wikisource can have sources in various languages. It is useful not
to duplicate efforts with living languages (and put Japanese text on
French Wikisource), but, for example, the logical place for texts in
Slavenoserbian [1] is Serbian Wikisource. Relation between Anglo-Saxon
and English is similar. According to this premise, Classical Chinese
should go to Chinese Wikisource.
2) Just those ancient languages which are significantly different
structurally in *written form* (as Wikimedia projects are still about
written language) should be considered for having a separate
Wikisource. According to this, Slavenoserbian and Anglo-Saxon would
get projects, while it will be problematic for Classical Chinese: it
looks to me that native Chinese speakers treat Classical Chinese as
not so different, while other East Asians treat it so.
3) Just those ancient languages which don't have modern language which
speakers consist approximately a superset of those who know that
classical language -- should be considered for having a separate
project. Every single person who knows Slavoserbian knows Serbian,
which is true for Anglo-Saxon, too. But, it is not true for Classical
Chinese.
4) Just those ancient languages which had significant productions
should be considered to have separate Wikisource. Anglo-Saxon had
significant production, Slavoserbian had, and, of course, Classical
Chinese had, too.
5) We need [default] interface in a living language. The most logical
choice for Classical Chinese is modern Chinese written in Traditional
Hanji. In conjunction with (1) and (2), it would create a subset-fork
of Chinese Wikisource.
BTW, we are in a wiki world. Everything is changeable, but we need
good reasons for changes. I would like to hear answers/confirmations
on the next questions/claims:
a) For Chinese speakers: Do you consider Classical Chinese as a
language different from your native one or you are fully able to read
Classical Chinese texts? Probably, it is somewhere in the middle, but,
please, explain it.
b) I suppose that it is not so hard to make a link from Japanese
Wikipedia to some text on Chinese Wikisource. Actually, it would be
similar if it would be about a separate Classical Chinese Wikisource.
c) Are Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean etc. Wikimedian are able to
contribute to Chinese Wikisource. If not, what is the problem?
Other thoughs are welcome, as well.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoserbian
This announcement is a very positive step forward! The members of the language committee deserve great
credit for their willingness to re-think these proposals. I am truly grateful, and I'm sure many others who put
great effort into trying to improve the language proposal policy last year are grateful as well.
To my mind, the most important thing by far in the announcement has to do with Latin (alongside Esperanto).
Here the rules themselves were never really the issue, but rather the ability to make a reasonable evaluation of
"special" languages on a case-by-case basis. Latin is "special" because on the one hand it has a popular
reputation as the ultimate "dead" language in Western culture. But on the other hand in reality it is very much
alive in literature and culture (both academic and popular), in the discourse of living religious communities (the
Catholic Church), and even to a degree in science (e.g. medicine, zoology). The decision to reconsider Latin as
a living language, thus finally giving it full legitimacy among the Wikimedia projects, is of crucial importance!
Thank you.
Given this evaluation of Latin, a re-evaluation of classical Greek might also be in order. While not as popular as
Latin, nevertheless like Latin it too is still very much alive in literature and culture (both academic and popular)
and in the discourse of living religious communities (the Orthodox Church), though far less so in science.
Also important and positive is the official decision to allow Wikisources for ancient languages, and sometimes
Wikiquotes, based on case-by-case evaluations. I'm not fully convinced that the default interface should always
be English as a requirement (since those studying a rich literature should be able to create and handle an
appropriate native interface), but ultimately I don't think the question of default interface language is a very
important one. Rather, what is truly important and positive is the willingness to consider such languages on a
case-by-case basis and arrive at a reasonable conclusion regarding each one. From this perspective, the
conclusions reached about Wikisources/Wikiquotes in Coptic, classical Greek, and classical Chinese all seem
eminently reasonable.
Dovi
Does Wikipedia's principles need consensus of the community?
There is not consensus of the community, but does somebody pass if
filled out the page with "Policy"?
On 8 March 2010 00:14, Tyler <programmer651(a)comcast.net> wrote:
> That's not what I asked. I said, in 2001, Wikipedia was founded, right? The earliest edit in >edit history is 2002. What was the home page in 2001 then?
>
Nope oldest edit is 2001:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:UuU&oldid=291430
--
geni