I can’t imagine virtual reality playing a main role in an encyclopedia.
But I see a lot of possibilities in creating learning materials.
When people enroll a real live learning program they are paying for 3
things: For acquiring knowledge; for somebody (or some process) guiding and
motivating them; and for a certificate crediting the knowledge they have
acquired.
Virtual reality certainly could help in creating virtual environments
guiding and motivating people in the process of acquiring knowledge.
Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 16:36:06 +0200
> From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] MMORPG and Wikimedia
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <j2x846221521005060736g98d23555g73f6c0465b08b43e(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> The MMORPG Ryzom goes Free Software [1]. Although it was just a matter
> of time, this event is very important for shaping our future. MMORPG
> is virtual reality and VR worlds will be [a significant part of] our
> future.
>
> Wikimedia should join FSF and Winch Gate Properties in shaping the future.
>
> [1] - http://dev.ryzom.com/news/13
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update.
The main news is that the team had a meeting this week with Danese and
Erik to discuss rollout plans. Everybody concurs that we're close enough
to launch to start a few release-related activities:
1) Starting a discussion with the enwiki community about how they'd like
to handle the use of the feature once it's live,
2) Writing the release documentation,
3) Preparing for media interest,
4) Doing a final performance evaluation, and
5) Allocating engineering time to handle the rollout.
This will pull in a variety of people, all of whom we're excited to have
involved, including Tim, Jay, Moka, Rob L., Rob H, and even Mike G. a
bit. Adam has also offered us to help us solve some cross-browser CSS
issues that have been confounding us, for which we are grateful. Keep an
eye out for activity relating to these efforts in the coming days and weeks.
The actual release schedule depends on a number of factors, including
the results of testing, the speed with which we resolve a couple of
remaining UI difficulties, and the extent to which community testing on
Labs turns up new issues.
Speaking of which, if you'd like to try out the current software, you
can do so here:
http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Lest you think it has achieved perfection, both Tango and Eper turned up
interesting issues just this week. Thanks to them and the other testers!
To see what we've changed this week, there's a list here:
http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Flagged_Protection_upd…
To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and
Backlog:
http://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/46157
We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter
until this goes live on the English Wikipedia.
William
P.S. On a personal note, after a dozen years of consulting, I've decided
to join an early-stage web startup. Post launch, once things are running
approximately smoothly, I'll be handing off my duties to Rob Lanphier,
aka User:RobLa. I would ask everybody to be nice to him so I can safely
make my escape, but there's no need; he's been around this place since
2001. But you should still be nice to him because he's a good guy who
loves Wikipedia.
---------- Original Message ----------
From: George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com>
Let me pose this a different way, however. Take UI entirely out of
the picture - the Wikimedia Foundation is all about supporting
projects that gather and create information for the public good,
presenting that to the public, and creating software to encourage
that.
------
There was a time when the Wikimedia Foundation, or rather those involved with the various sister projects, were interested in some leading edge and bleeding edge stuff. Considerable experimentation was encouraged and some amazing things happened that pushed ideas and concepts to some pretty interesting extremes.
Much of what we know today as Wikipedia certainly wouldn't exist today. I got started in this whole mess back in the days when Gnupedia was rolled into Nupedia and those two communities merged together. I remember numerous discussions on even trying to come up with how to edit content, what sort of raw standards ought to be invoked, and how to get participants to show up and contribute what they knew. Using a wiki in a democratic fashion was actually a rather novel concept, and in fact brought in a whole new group of users. Seriously, with this sort of attitude, Wikipedia would have never even been tried in the first place. I am so glad this particular mindset was not in place back in those days.
I've also been involved in working on the various sister projects, and even helped to get Wikiversity going in the first place. Indeed, one of the founding missions of Wikiversity was explicitly to try out new technology, to "conduct original research" on various levels. Yes, I know that was a sticking point with the board of trustees when Wikiversity was started too, so it wasn't entirely without controversy. Still, there are various sorts of original research that has been happening that is tied to the Wikimedia community... some of which are directly supported by the Foundation and others that are instead in the periphery and more side projects of a sub-set of the larger community. Some are rather well known, and others are much more obscure.
Fine, I'll admit this is more of a research project to see if anything could be done here, and there is no guarantee that much may come from this. I'm not even suggesting that the WMF ought to give even modest support in the form of server space for experimentation on this concept or even permitting a wiki page that would act as a central community message board and idea center for something like this. That is something that can or can't happen, but it sort of seems rough that the idea is dismissed completely out of hand before it is even started in the first place. It is also unfortunate that even discussion about what sorts of ideas might be useful under such a project is shut down before the discussion starts at all.
-- Robert Horning
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To whom it may concern,
Can you, or someone you know, help guide Wikimedia Foundation through
the next exciting steps of its strategic development and growth?
The Wikimedia Chapters are looking for two candidates to sit on the
Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees for 2 years commencing in
July 2010. The new board members will be faced with the challenge of
helping decide the future direction of the only top-10 internet
property that is run by a non-profit organisation. The Wikimedia
websites are constructed by hundreds of thousands of volunteers
world-wide, supported by a small but growing number of staff and an
international network of chapters.
The successful candidates will most importantly be committed to the
Wikimedia mission and willing to work with the various stakeholders of
the Wikimedia movement, including the volunteers and the chapters that
provide essential support for the movement. They will have the time to
do this, with the appropriate communication skills (including a good
standard of English) and ability to work as a team. They will also be
able and willing to travel, and have an international attitude.
The candidates will ideally be open-minded with experience of
international affairs and governance techniques. They will have good
communication skills, as well the ability to think strategically and
to work independently as well as part of a team.
The process that will be followed for this selection can be viewed
here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/Process
All nominations must be sent to the moderator (Thomas Dalton from
Wikimedia UK) and deputy moderator (José Spierts from Wikimedia
Nederlands) by 23:59 UTC 17th May. If you would like to nominate
yourself or someone else, please see the instructions here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/Nominate
The chapters wish to locate truly excellent board members and believe
that can best be done if there are a large number of varied and
quality candidates to consider. Therefore, the chapters ask that
everyone that thinks they, or someone they know, would be a good board
member submit a nomination. They also ask that this call for
candidates be distributed as widely as possible on mailing lists,
village pumps, blogs, etc..
Best regards,
Thomas Dalton,
Moderator
[This was a passing comment I made on wikien-l, but it's a reasonably
serious topic for consideration in how the wikisphere works.]
No matter how much work is put into flagged revisions on en:wp, it is
100% certain that it will be greeted with deafening whinging.
This is not a reason not to make it as good as possible, but the
complaint is a certainty. Anyone who's been around Wikipedia or
Wikimedia long enough can see this is what will happen. There is no
change that will not be greeted with complaint, significant or petty.
1. Is this a bug or a feature?
2. If it isn't a feature, how can we make it into one? 'Cos we really need to.
(AGK suggests Special:Complain or Extension:Whine.)
- d.
FYI.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: 2010/5/5
Subject: [Announcement] Howie Fung joins Wikimedia
To: wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hello all,
I'm pleased to announce that Howie Fung, who has been supporting us as
a consultant since October 2009, is joining the Wikimedia Foundation
as Senior Product Manager. In the immediate future, Howie will
continue to support the deployment of our user experience
improvements, as well as the continuing development and deployment of
the FlaggedRevs extension for the English Wikipedia. In the longer
term, Howie will help us to build Wikimedia's product development
roadmap by commissioning and assessing research and analytics, and by
engaging in broad consultative processes.
Most recently, Howie was Senior Product Manager at Rhapsody,
where he helped grow the music site's traffic five-fold within the the
first year
on the basis of extensive customer research, including web analytics,
focus groups, user testing, and customer surveys. Prior to that, Howie
was Product Manager at eBay, prioritizing features based on business
objectives, usability studies, and economic impact. Howie has more
than 15 years of experience in product management, business analysis
and strategy, technology evaluation, and team incubation. He has an
MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and a Bachelor of Science in
Chemical Engineering from Stanford University.
As a consultant, Howie completed several key projects, including the
survey of former contributors [1], the analysis of feedback from the
user experience beta [2], and extensive analysis of the user
interface, workflows and terminology used in the FlaggedRevs
extension. He has also supported Wikimedia's five-year business
planning process. We're very pleased that Howie is joining Wikimedia's
permanent staff: please join me in welcoming him!
All best,
Erik
[1] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Former_Contributors_Survey_Results
[2] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hoi,
Given that this was published two hours ago and, not published on
Foundation-l, I forward it. It is rather intriguing. I am interested to
learn what the community thinks of this and, if this is another en.wp only
project.
Thanks,
GerardM
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Frank Schulenburg <fschulenburg(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: 5 May 2010 19:50
Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] Public Policy Initiative
To: WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hi all,
I am pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation received a generous
grant from the Stanton Foundation for a 17-month pilot program that will
help inform how to best engage new contributors in the improvement of
subject-specific articles on Wikipedia. The Stanton Foundation also supports
the Wikipedia Usability Initiative and other Wikimedia activities; we are
very grateful for this ongoing support and interest. A public announcement
of this grant will follow later this week.
Subject-matter experts have always been valued Wikipedia contributors, and a
key goal of this initiative is to facilitate their collaboration with and
among the Wikipedia editing community. We will experiment with different
methods of using Wikipedia as a teaching and learning tool in universities,
and ways to provide incentives and support participation by students,
teachers, and volunteers. The overarching goal of this project, called the
Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative, is to effectively increase the quality
of public policy articles on Wikipedia, and to support Wikimedia Chapters
with a model for working with universities to enhance other topic areas.
We have chosen the particular subject area of public policy because this
topic area is interdisciplinary, and requires collaboration among many
fields (including history, economics, law, and various social and hard
sciences). We also believe this subject area is underdeveloped on Wikipedia
and therefore offers a big opportunity for improvement. Furthermore we
recognize that public policy articles may pose special problems -- they may
center on issues and debates that are more controversial and less settled
than other articles in the sciences or in the humanities. We feel that if we
can succeed with public policy articles, other topic areas can be improved
based on this model.
This is a completely new and exciting model for outreach with subject matter
experts on Wikipedia. It's also a first for the Wikimedia Foundation, and
something we hope will lead us towards new best practices and a solid
foundation to better collaborate with our volunteers and with academic and
institutional partners.
During the 17-month time frame of the project timeline, the Initiative will
be led by a project team at the Wikimedia Foundation working with two keys
groups of volunteer Wikipedia editors: "Campus Ambassadors" doing
in-classroom training and face-to-face evangelizing, and "Online
Ambassadors" providing online support, coaching and mentoring. The Wikipedia
volunteers will support university classes, students and professors as they
engage in quality improvement of public policy articles on Wikipedia.
The execution of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will take a phased
approach. This will include the recruitment of an advisory Steering
Committee of public policy experts, establishment of quality measures,
baseline assessment of the current quality of public policy articles, and
development of educational and training materials specific to this project.
We will then pilot quality improvement activities with 3-5 schools during
the fall and winter of 2010, learn from the experiences of the pilot
schools, and scale up to run work with an additional 7-12 schools during the
spring of 2011. The project will culminate in a conference at which best
practices will be shared and prizes awarded.
We believe that the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative will both improve
public policy content during the duration of the project, and also produce
information and infrastructure that could inform the design and development
of a long term sustainable model.
The Foundation will more publicly announce this new initiative later this
week with a press release, but we wanted to give everyone advance notice and
share these job openings.
The Public Policy Initiative will be led by Rod Dunican, our Education
Programs Manager. Pete Forsyth and I will remain closely engaged as the
project unfolds, and we will build a project team specifically around the
initiative. We invite you to have a look at the current job openings:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings
For more information, click the links below to review:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative_project_detailshttp://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative_FAQ
If you have further questions about the Initiative or the current job
openings, please contact rdunican[at]wikimedia[dot]org
Thanks for your interest,
Frank Schulenburg, Public Outreach
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately
directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia
Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
_______________________________________________
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
-------- Messaggio Originale --------
Oggetto: [Communia] Europeana launches its Public Domain Charter
Data: Tue, 4 May 2010 07:13:58 -0600
Da: bernardo parrella <berny(a)cybermesa.com>
A: communia(a)lists.communia-project.eu
The Europeana Foundation has published a policy statement, the Public
Domain Charter, to highlight the value of public domain content in
the knowledge economy. It alerts Europe's museums, libraries,
archives and audiovisual collections to the fact that digitisation of
Public Domain content does not create new rights in it.
The document highlights the Public Domain as a "shared resource that
underpins contemporary societies" and it "provides a historically
developed balance to the rights of creators protected by copyright."
This initiative strengthens the recently-launched Public Domain
Manifesto goal to protect today's cultural landscape particularly
relevant to education, cultural heritage and scientific research --
thus ensuring that it can continue to function in a meaningful way.
The Public Domain Charter is currently available as a pdf download in
English, French, German, Spanish, and Polish.
More info:
http://communia-project.eu/node/406http://version1.europeana.eu/web/europeana-project/publications
Sorry if this has been posted or announced before or somewhere else, but I
just noticed it. For anyone out there with an iPhone, the official Wikipedia
App has been updated to version 2.0 as of last week:
http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/wikipedia-mobile/id324715238?mt=8
As it says in the release notes "now with maps, bookmarks and near-complete
redesign"
Maps!! For me, the killer aspect of Wikipedia+mobile has got to be the
ability to find articles that are about things nearby me - so great job
getting this standard in the official app. Here's hoping the mobile
interface continues to flourish on different platforms, localisations and
with ever shinier and faster-loading features :-)
Thanks guys,
-Liam [[witty lama]]
wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata