Google has attempted to answer the question of how many books exist in
a very interesting blog post.
http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2010/08/books-of-world-stand-up-and-be-count…
Why am I posting this to Foundation-l?
Well, one of the things it reveals is the difficulty of answering this
question and I hope that it has some relation to Wikimedia projects;
in particular, I didn't know that multiple books (entirely unrelated
books) have shared ISBNs. So, if nothing else, it might impact...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ISBN
And I also thought that Google's attempt to catologue all books was
parallel to our goal of... well, I'm not sure that we ever say we're
attempting to catalogue ALL knowledge... but we seem to be making a
decent fist of it so far.
Nevertheless, I confess that I'm still not sure I should be posting
this to Foundation-l... and it strikes me that perhaps the only
guidance I can find on what should be posted could perhaps be fleshed
out a little more:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Apologies if this email strikes you as cruft.
Still, damn interesting blog post, eh?
Dear all,
I have checked in my in box but it seems that this mailing list has
not received this news.
The Italian project wiki@home supported by Italian chapter and the
Wikinotizie has organized an interview some months ago with Mr.Umberto
Eco who is a philosopher and literary critic known outside Italy for
the novel "The Name of the Rose".
A translation can be found here:
http://it.wikinews.org/wiki/Intervista_a_Umberto_Eco/Traduzione
The reaction of the Italian network has been very positive
(http://stats.grok.se/it.n/201006/Intervista_a_Umberto_Eco).
The interview is interesting because Mr.Eco is a big cultural point of
reference in the Italian environment and he is very curious of
Wikipedia's movement.
Ilario
Hi all;
Some days ago I was contacted in my user talk in Spanish Wikipedia about a
request for deletion in German Wikipedia.[1] An user opened a request for
deletion[2] for an user edits ranking[3] which my bot updates regularly in
German Wikipedia (also in many more projects[4][5]). Finally, the German
version of this ranking it was deleted some days ago.
I don't speak German, but, using a translator, I can understand that the
reason for the deletion was that German Wikipedia has got a "local privacy
policy" whichs avoid generating statistics of users which are not listed in
an opt-in page.[6]
The number of edits is a public number. For example, you can know my number
of edits in German Wikipedia, looking at[7][8], and the "official" top users
in[9]. So, what is the problem? data privacy or that this list was saved in
German Wikipedia?
Also, reading the Privacy Policy[10] of the Wikimedia Foundation, you can
see:
User contributions are also aggregated and publicly available. User
contributions are aggregated according to their registration and login
status. Data on user contributions, such as the times at which users edited
and the number of edits they have made, are publicly available via user
contributions lists, and in aggregated forms published by other users.
The privacy policy is clear. Your number of edits is public. And it can be
published in aggregated forms by other uses. And if you edit Wikipedia, you
accept the Privacy Policy. Also, on the top of the Privacy Policy page you
can read:
The content of this page is an official policy approved by the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees. This policy may not be circumvented, eroded,
or ignored on local Wikimedia projects.
But now, German Wikipedia has an "official local privacy policy" which is
opposed to that.
Finally, I would like to know what is the position of the Wikimedia
Foundation on this. I think that it is an important question, for users, for
researchers and for curious people.
Thanks,
emijrp
[1]
http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Usuario_Discusi%C3%B3n:Emijrp&dif…
[2]
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:L%C3%B6schkandidaten/24._Juli_2010#B…
[3]
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Emijrp/List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_…
[4]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Emijrp/List_of_Wikimedians_by_number_of…
[5] Look at the interwikis:
http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebruiker:Emijrp/List_of_Wikipedians_by_number…
[6] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Beitragszahlen/Opt-In
[7]
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=users&ususers=Emijrp&us…
[8] http://toolserver.org/~vvv/sulutil.php?user=Emijrp
[9] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaDE.htm#wikipedians
[10] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy
All of you that have such a keen interest, deep knowledge and great
insights in matters of privacy, what is public and non-public, are
cordially invited to lend some of your expertise to my humble request
for comment:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Public_or_non-public_pe…
Everybody else is also very much welcome. Your comment is just as
important for me as that of all those that post to this list put
together. Yes, I mean YOU, who were always too busy, too shy or too
intimidated to voice your opinion. This is YOUR chance to be heard,
to voice your opinion. Once you get started, nothing and nobody will stop you.
I regret not having a problem of planetary scope, but small is the
nature of most of our daily obstacles, namely those any common mortal
has to face at the Portuguese Wikipedia.
Sincerely,
Virgilio A. P. Machado (Vapmachado)
P.S. Please don't take this message too seriously. My invitation is
plain and simple: I would like to hear from you all. Here, on the
page listed above, through my e-mail. Even attempts to insult me are
welcome. No guaranty you'll succeed though (here I go again...)
Erik,
Will critics of less-than-best-practices within the Wikimedia Foundation be
considered for invitation to the Wikimedia Research Committee, or is there
some sort of loyalty "litmus test" going to be applied?
I've sent my self-nomination by private e-mail anyway, but I thought a
public clarification of this question would be a helpful learning.
Thanks,
Greg
--
Gregory Kohs
Hi all,
some of you might know the "Signpost", a community-written and
community-edited newspaper, based on the English Wikipedia and
covering stories, events and reports related to Wikipedia, its sister
projects and the Wikimedia Foundation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/About
The first issue came out on January 10, 2005 and it has been appearing
(more or less) weekly ever since then, with a new issue due every
Monday.
While coverage of events on the English Wikipedia forms an important
part of the "Signpost", our "News and notes", "In the news" and
"Technology Report" sections regularly contain many news items that
are relevant for other Wikipedias, or all Foundation projects. In June
(around the time when Sage Ross left as editor-in-chief to take up his
current job at the WMF, and I stepped into the breach), we had a lot
of discussions about new ideas for the Signpost, including proposals
to provide translations of our Foundation-wide coverage, or even
moving it to Meta. While this still seemed a bit ambitious, there was
consensus to emphasize our interwiki coverage more, and it was
subsequently renamed from "Wikipedia Signpost" to "Signpost".
[Commercial break: If you are an experienced member of a WMF
project/community and would like to contribute to one of our "Sister
project" stories, covering its history, characteristics and recent
major events, contact us at this email address or at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:POST/TIPS .] And at Wikimania last
month, I talked to a lot of Wikimedians who are not primarily active
on the English Wikipedia, but nevertheless know, read and appreciate
the Signpost.
On the other hand, there is currently no other independent publication
(at least not in English) which regularly covers or summarizes
WMF-related news. Wikizine was very informative and even had several
translated editions, but has been inactive since the beginning of this
year. Wikipedia Weekly was a well-informed podcast disussing much
Foundation news, but there hasn't been a new episode since October
2009. Veterans might recall the Wikimedia Quarto, which had some
excellent content and was widely translated, but stopped after three
issues in 2004/2005. Of course there are other things which are useful
for staying up to date, like the blog planets or Phoebe's earlier list
summaries for this list, but they don't replace journalism-style news
reporting.
Following a suggestion by Phoebe, I am going to try out sending
announcements of new Signpost issues to this list, containing brief
headline summaries and links (see accompanying posting for the current
issue). We hope that this will provide valuable and on-topic
information for people interested in the kind of topics that are being
discussed here, and perhaps it could also help to get more people
involved in providing reader-oriented coverage of news from WMF
projects to the whole Wikimedia community.
Regards, HaeB
--
Wikipedia Signpost Staff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost
I am thinking about making Wikimania 2011 as awesome as possible and
here's a little something that bothered me.
Wikimania 2010 was my first. It was a lot of fun to meet Wikimedians
from around the world. I also think that a lot of new ideas were born
thanks to the personal meetings in Gdansk, at least some of which may
grow to successful projects. Maybe it will be smarter use of machine
translation, maybe outreach to underprivileged languages, maybe
accessibility improvements. Maybe other things.
But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any
proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal
meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually
beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can
anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were
born thanks to past Wikimanias?
I am sure that they exist and that i use their fruits every day
without realizing it.
--
אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
Amir Elisha Aharoni
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
"We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/us/03fbi.html?hpw
The FBI sent a cease & desist letter to the WMF demanding the removal
of the FBI seal from the English Wikipedia; Mike replied with, in the
words of the New York Times, "a primer on the law." Well done, Mike.
~Nathan
It is with deep regret that I tell you I will be leaving the staff of
the Wikimedia Foundation at the end of December.
I'm leaving the staff, but I will continue to be involved with the
Wikimedia movement as a volunteer, both as a contributor and in the
organization of the annual Wikimania conference. Much of my work with
Wikimedia will continue, except now I will be doing it as a volunteer
rather than as a paid staff person.
The Wikimedia Foundation is not planning to hire another volunteer
coordinator to look after the specific range of work I've been doing, so
if you are unsure about who will handle things I have been responsible
for, please feel free to ask me, and we'll work it out over the next
several months.
I have decided to continue my education and have begun the process of
enrolling in post-graduate studies to pursue a theological path that
I've been considering for many years.
I have very much enjoyed my time with the Wikimedia Foundation, and I
look forward to continuing to work alongside you all, as a Wikimedia
volunteer. I enjoy working with each and every one of you.
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation