(Just poking foundation-l, please continue with discussion at
wiktionary-l, or, better, at Meta [1])
During Wikimania I asked Gerard Meijssen would he be willing to give
OmegaWiki to Wikimedia. He said that he doesn't have anything against
it: software is free, content is free. More precisely, he told to me
"Take it!" :)
My initial idea was that it would be the best to replace all
Wiktionaries with OmegaWiki. However, the last day of Wikimania I was
talking with one Swedish guy who is working on Swedish Wiktionary. He
has complained that philologists like more open form for writing
dictionary. Thus, my suggestion is to adopt OmegaWiki as one of
Wiktionaries, probably as http://wiktionary.org/, similarly to the
multilingual Wikisource.
And, of course, before possible adoption we need discussion and some
software improvements of Wikidata extension.
[1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Adopt_OmegaWiki
* * *
As multilingual projects are not in the scope of the [[Language
committee]], before the implementation (or not) of the idea, community
should discuss about it.
[http://www.omegawiki.org/ OmegaWiki] is a formal multilingual
dictionary based on MediaWiki extension
[[:mw:Extension:Wikidata|Wikidata]].
No matter would it be the only Wiktionary or it would be just one of
the Wiktionaries, OmegaWiki would raise quality of Wiktionaries. At
the other side, the project would get much more attention as a
Wikimedia project.
Wikidata extension should be improved (from user experience and
linguistic points of view) before implementation as Wikimedia project.
[[User:GerardM|Gerard Meijssen]], the founder of OmegaWiki project,
doesn't have anything against adopting it as a Wikimedia project.
== Advantages and disadvantages of adopting OmegaWiki ==
=== Advantages ===
* It is possible to create one billion entries per Wiktionary: All
synthetic languages could import at least ~10M of words, but probably
more if all common phrases are counted. Thus, it means that we need
just 100 synthetic or polysynthetic languages to create one billion
entries per Wiktionary. This is very large number and while it is
possible to keep technically one such project, presently it is hardly
possible to keep a number of projects with more than billion of
entries.
* It is structured formally.
* ...
=== Disadvantages ===
* Philologists like more open form for dictionaries.
* OmegaWiki is distant from the wiki principle. Software fixes should
make it closer.
* ...
== How to adopt OmegaWiki ==
* Instead of all Wiktionaries.
* As www.wiktionary.org, like www.wikisource.org is the place for
multilingual Wikisource.
* As mul.wiktionary.org (ISO 639-5 code for multilingual entities)
* ...?
== Minimums for adopting OmegaWiki ==
=== If OmegaWiki replaces all Wiktionaries ===
* Evaluation of software by linguists and adding necessary linguistic features.
* Fixing bugs in software if needed.
* Adding all needed features to satisfy philological needs.
* Importing all data from Wiktionaries.
=== If OmegaWiki becomes one of the Wiktionaries ===
* Evaluation of software by linguists and adding necessary linguistic features.
* Fixing bugs in software if needed.
== Licensing ==
OmegaWiki licences are CC-BY and GFDL. It is a bit of pleonasm, as
CC-BY is a subset of GFDL (and CC-BY-SA as well).
* Licensing should probably stay CC-BY, not CC-BY-SA. There is a legal
problem of copyrighting words, phrases, sentences and definitions,
which mean that it would be probably better to leave the least
restrictive license as the OmegaWiki license.
* ...
[[Category:Requests for comments]]
News from the front.
A very bad and unfair unbalance of power was established in favor of
English on Wikimedia Commons in 2005-2006, requiring people from the
world to work for the benefit of the English language community.
In that ocean of unfairness, there was a small island where you could
find comfort and grace : biological taxa: the names of animals and
plants. For centuries the scientific community had been used to using
latin, creating a space where scientists from the world are nearer to
being equals, everybody needing to leave her/his native tongue and use
a foreign language. Wikimedia Commons had decided to name categories
accordingly.
I have discovered a few days ago that someone, probably in good faith
and unaware of this language policy, created [[:Category:Animals by
common named groups]] which is a container for English-named
biological taxa, at the end of 2008.
Now I find people pushing for this container and English named wild
animal species. So the front line is broken.
More reading at :
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Category:Wolveshttp://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projet:Biologie/Le_caf%C3%A9_des_biologistes#C…
There have been a number of proposals floated in the Wikimedia
community over the years to build a wiki-based project for collecting
journal citation information. For those interested in that topic, you
might want to check out the University of Prince Edward Island's
"knowledge for all" project proposal -- it proposes to build an open
universal citation index (to serve as an alternative to the many
hundreds of proprietary citation index products that libraries
currently buy). This of course is not the first attempt at this
problem, but it's an interesting proposal that's getting a bit of buzz
in the library community.
http://library.upei.ca/k4all
-- phoebe
--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *
As the most of you know, TED has affiliate program called TEDx. I am
organizing TEDxBelgrade events. The first one was in Saturday.
There are two important points for us: (1) even local conferences
could be very inspiring and (2) there is online documentation how to
make them.
As Wikimedia bureaucrat by profession, I was very carefully reading
TED's documentation and I was insisting to implement all of them.
(Coordinating organizational network in non-hierarchical manner was
also possible thanks to my Wikimedian background.) TED's documentation
[1] is very good and I suggest to all Wikimedians who organize events
to read it. Some adaptation is needed just for places with not a lot
of technical infrastructure. In other words, all present Wikimedia
chapters could implement TED's recommendations as they are.
I expected just an ordinary event, with good and bad sides. However,
just carefully selected speakers, working with them and regular
implementation of the rest is enough to create an event about which
participants would talk during the next days as an extraordinary
event.
Our conferences don't need to be about great big and small ideas. They
are about knowledge in general. But, it is also possible to create
interesting and inspiring events about knowledge. There is a set of
small techniques which makes difference between boring and very
interesting [scientific] event.
I think that all Wikimedia chapters are able to do that. I suggest to
all of Wikimedia organizations to organize their own TEDx even or
events according to TED's recommendations. If anyone needs help, just
email me.
[1] - http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/351
On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 1:41 PM, Ting Chen <tchen(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> Today, here in Gdansk, at the meeting of the Board of Trustees during the sixth annual Wikimania Conference, the Board made some important changes. I'm pleased to share this news with you. The Foundation will be issuing a public announcement shortly as well.
>
> Every year at Wikimania, the Wikimedia Board appoints its officers for the coming year. This year we have changes to each of the Officer roles. As of today's meeting, I was fortunate to be appointed Chair of the Board - and I'm grateful to have the support of the Board in this new role.. Stuart West was appointed Vice-chair (and continues as Board Treasurer), and Samuel Klein becomes Board Secretary.
>
> Also, the Wikimedia chapters have made their selections for the two chapters-selected Board seats. Arne Klempert has been reappointed to his seat, and Phoebe Ayers has also been appointed to join the Board.
>
> This means that Michael Snow will be leaving the Board: he has been invited to join the Advisory Board, and the Board warmly thanks him for his service.
>
> Michael Snow has been a tireless and dedicated leader of this Board, and the whole Wikimedia movement, over the past two years. I want to express my sincere thanks to him on behalf of the Board and all of the Wikimedia community. I am also excited to congratulate and welcome Phoebe Ayers to the Board, and also to congratulate Arne Klempert for his re-appoitment to the Board in a Chapter-appointed seat.
>
> There are 10 seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees and according to the Foundation's bylaws, three members are elected by the Wikimedia community, two members are selected by the Wikimedia chapters, a Community Founder seat held by Jimmy Wales, and four members appointed by the Board itself to provide additional, specific expertise. Currently all seats on the Board of Trustees are filled.
>
> This is the first time that the official Chapters selection process has been carried out. Members of Wikimedia's global chapters, made a call for nominations for new members and voted to elect their two members. In this year's election nine candidates from the Wikimedia community originally stepped forward. Two of those candidates stepped out of the process, leaving seven candidates for selection by the Chapters.
>
> All of the officer appointments are effective immediately, and we are pleased to welcome Phoebe to the Board right away.
>
> I'd like to thank the Chapters for their thoughtful work in convening a process and carrying out their voting process. I would also like to thank all of the candidates who stepped forward for with their nominations.
>
> I'm looking forward to an incredible year ahead. We have an ambitious plan for the Foundation and the projects over the next year, and we have a tremendous group to tackle a busy year ahead.
>
> Sincerely,
> Ting
Thanks Ting.
I am now back home after Wikimania, and can finally sit down to write
this note. I am honored and humbled to be selected as a Trustee; it's
a big responsibility, and I am looking forward to the challenge.
Thank you to the chapters for selecting me, and to Michael for his
great leadership over the past couple of years. This change has
happened rather quickly, in that we were all informed of the chapters'
decision the day before Wikimania began, while the Board was in the
middle of their annual meeting (meanwhile, I was busy running WikiSym
across town, which led to quite a hectic day for me!) But everyone has
been absolutely professional and welcoming during this transition, and
as a community member and now new board member I am very glad to see a
functional process in action for choosing new board members and
officers; congratulations to Ting on becoming chair.
One unfortunate side effect however of standing for a
chapters-selected seat, rather than running in the community
elections, is that community members don't generally have a chance to
ask questions of the candidate or engage in discussion with them. To
try and remedy this I did make my candidate statement and answers
public [1]; and I welcome further questions, thoughts, criticism and
discussion. I'm glad to chat any time, and I'm always especially glad
to meet Wikimedians I don't already know, so please feel free to
introduce yourself to me and share your thoughts about Wikimedia.
I do not promise, of course, to have ready swift or simple answers to
hard questions. This is a tremendously complex and exciting time for
Wikimedia, with a great deal of experimentation and new projects going
on, and there's a lot that I need to learn very quickly. But I do hope
to bring a strong community perspective to the Board's ongoing work of
strategic leadership. In all of my projects within Wikimedia to date,
from organizing Wikimania to doing outreach to writing documentation,
I have tried to focus on improving communication and building
community, and I hope that I can continue to do so on the Board.
Going to Wikimania, as I have done six times now, and meeting so many
new people -- from new and curious contributors to devoted Wikimedians
-- always gives me a thrill, and reminds me why I want to be involved
in this organization. I am excited to have the chance to work with
such a dynamic, thoughtful group of people during this period in
Wikimedia's history, and I intend to do the very best job I can in
this new role to help keep Wikimedia awesome.
best,
phoebe
1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Phoebe/board_questions
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* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *
Sorry -- is there a question outstanding? I know Nathan posted some questions about the annual plan (which I think Veronique'll answer, and if she she doesn't I will). If there was something else, I think it slipped right past me.
Thanks,
Sue
------Original Message------
From: Thomas Dalton
Sender: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
ReplyTo: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Privacy etc - merging data
Sent: 17 Jul 2010 07:05
On 17 July 2010 13:53, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> wrote:
> I'd rather not speculate about what happens or the intent before someone
> from the WMF who is responsible for this clarifies the statement. I hope we
> all can hold ourselves from guessing and seeking logic until that moment.
This is foundation-l... your hope is misplaced!
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I am assuming that people will be warned and asked for permission in advance
to combine these databases? I for one would definitely have strong
objections against merging donation and edit data. Donations are real life,
edits are wikipedia-universe. Although I do realize that it is much more
convenient for staff to have this data combined, I find this objectionable
from the privacy point of view. (putting this in a new thread to seperate
discussions a bit) I am not sure of legal requirements in this field in the
US - but I hope Wikipedia will always adhere to also for example European
principles in this regard whether it is maybe or maybe not legally obliged
to.
Best,
Lodewijk
2010/7/16 Philippe Beaudette <pbeaudette(a)wikimedia.org>
> Hiya -
>
> I asked Danese, who is currently buried under about 20 pounds of stuff
> after coming back from Wikimania, to further describe the stakeholder
> database. Her response is:
>
> Sue has a vision for a single master database that tracks our
> interactions with movement participants. It is intended to help us
> better respond to requests from individuals by joining all the info we
> have from prior interactions with that person. This will be
> particularly important as we grow the staff, because current
> onboarding time requires long "buddy system" pairings with existing
> staff to teach how to best interact. So for instance, if you have had
> a Wikipedia account since 2005, have made enough edits to become, say,
> an Admin, have uploaded 100 images to Commons, have been a donor every
> year and have responded helpfully to many OTRS requests, there should
> be a quick way for a new staffer to learn those facts. All of this
> information is available to the staff now, just not in an aggregated
> place.
>
> Danese
>
>
>
> On Jul 15, 2010, at 12:41 PM, Excirial wrote:
>
> > I have gone trough the report, and immediately noted the extremely
> > strong
> > growth of the foundation in terms of personal (Nearly doubling the
> > amount
> > two years in a row). Generally i am not a fan of such fast growth as
> > it
> > often leads to bloating; but seeing the the rest of the plan looks
> > fine i
> > presume i am just viewing things to black and white.
> >
> > One particular detail in the "Top Spending Increases, continued"
> > section
> > raised some question marks for me though. There is a 2.6 million
> > dollar
> > increase in the "Other tech staffing and stakeholder database"
> > category. I
> > can understand the 10 new tech position and the annualization of
> > existing
> > tech salaries paid by this increase, but what role will the
> > stakeholder
> > database have? The description, "development of a database to track
> > relationships with all stakeholders including readers, editors,
> > donors,
> > other volunteers, etc." is rather vague and includes no real
> > indication as
> > to its purpose. What exactly will it track, and what will the
> > information be
> > used for? Since there are so many editors on-wiki i doubt that this
> > will be
> > used as a full-fledged CRM (customer relationship management) system
> > used to
> > track literally everything. All i can imagine is that it could track
> > top
> > level community issues such as flagged revisions or OTRS complains.
> >
> > Anyone who has some more information on this system? I'm quite
> > interested to
> > be honest.
> >
> > Kind regards,
> > ~Excirial
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 8:20 PM, Oliver Keyes
> > <scire.facias(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> >> Now if we only had some kind of mobile device which could be given
> >> to such
> >> institutions containing a copy! :P.
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 6:28 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <
> >> cimonavaro(a)gmail.com
> >>> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Samuel Klein wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Every national and regional library should have a local copy of
> >>> Wikimedia.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> With a full history dump?
> >>>
> >>> ;-)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Yours,
> >>>
> >>> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
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> >>>
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> >>
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