Wikimedia-l January 2011

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

138 participants
87 discussions

[Foundation-l] Reminder: Scholarship applications for Wikimania 2011 to end on January 31st
by Harel Cain 28 Jan '11

28 Jan '11

Hi all, This is just a reminder that the main scholarship application process for Wikimania 2011 will end on January 31st at 23:59 UTC. Applications received after that time will be discarded [see note]. If you or any of your friends were planning to apply for a scholarship but haven't done so yet, I would advise you to do so now, before it's too late. Even though we already received many hundreds of applications, we will be sorry to see anyone left out just because he or she missed the application deadline. All information about scholarships and how to apply for them is at http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships. Note: Wikimedia Austria and Wikimedia Switzerland have announced separate scholarship programs for people in their respective countries. Applications for those will be made through the same website and will remain open till February 28th, 2011. Other chapters might follow suit soon, so stay alert for announcements from your local chapter. Regards, Harel Cain Wikimania 2011 local team

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[Foundation-l] Making wikimediafoundation.org more open to contributions
by MZMcBride 28 Jan '11

28 Jan '11

Hi. When wikimediafoundation.org was first established (as a fishbowl wiki), there were concerns expressed about its lack of open editing. For one of the most prominent wiki and community-based organizations to have a closed site for its non-profit foundation is rather silly and anachronistic. The wiki was created before extensions like FlaggedRevs existed, but even today with these extensions theoretically capable of allowing outside contributions with moderation, there are still relevant and serious concerns about features that are enabled at wikimediafoundation.org, such as allowing raw HTML to be used. Since 2004, a page has existed at Meta-Wiki to allow outsiders to comment and discuss wikimediafoundation.org called "Foundation wiki feedback".[1] In the spirit of being bold, I've taken a number of steps to correct what I view as deficiencies in the current contribution system, all of which I'll outline in this e-mail. If anyone has objections to these changes, they're more than welcome to revert them and we can discuss ways to improve the overall situation.[2] Probably the most noticeable change I made was modifying the "view source" tab and title to "contribute".[3][4][5] There are two ideas behind this change: (1) to encourage people to contribute (whether it's typo fixes, accuracy problems, etc.); and (2) to create a middle ground between "edit" and "view source". It seems unreasonable that a user would ever click "view source" to make a helpful comment about a page, but we don't want to change the tab to something like "edit" if the user doesn't have the necessary permissions to edit the page. The primary entry point to Meta-Wiki's "Foundation wiki feedback" should be through the edit screen, so encouraging users to reach that screen is important. "View source" simply doesn't achieve this goal. The next change I made was to modify the message that users see above the textarea on wikimediafoundation.org if they don't have permission to edit. Rather than the default (bland) messages, I customized the message and made it a bit more colorful and friendlier.[6][7][8] I also included two prominent buttons in the message: one button is to report a problem with that specific page; the other button is to report a problem with the site in general. Clicking either button will load Meta-Wiki's "Foundation wiki feedback" page with a new section and auto-fill the section title. It's also possible to customize the message that users view above the textarea at Meta-Wiki based on whether they're clicking the buttons from wikimediafoundation.org, but I've left that for a later date. Obviously I'm not a great designer, but this is a vast improvement when you compare the before and after pictures: * before: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMFwiki-edit-before.png * after: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMFwiki-edit-after.png Then I headed over to Meta-Wiki to make some changes there. First, I killed the "Foundation wiki feedback/admin" subpage, as it caused confusion, clutter, and was rarely used.[9] I merged all of the header content into the single "Foundation wiki feedback/Header" template and simplified it.[10] I also made the page generally less obnoxious: * before: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FWF-view-before.png * after: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FWF-view-after.png The final changes were to the editnotice above the textarea at Meta-Wiki: * before: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FWF-edit-before.png * after: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FWF-edit-after.png Hopefully these changes will encourage more participation and engagement. In addition to these changes, I've filed a bug in Bugzilla to work on ways to make wikimediafoundation.org more open to outside contributions.[11] MZMcBride [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_wiki_feedback [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle [3] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Viewsource [4] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Viewsourcefor [5] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Vector-view-viewsource [6] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Template:Contribute [7] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Permissionserrorstext [8] http://wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Permissionserrorstext-withaction [9] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_wiki_feedback/admin [10] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_wiki_feedback/Header [11] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27006

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[Foundation-l] Something simultaneously really cool and a complete copyvio
by Matthew Del Buono 28 Jan '11

28 Jan '11

A friend showed me this thing "qwiki" today which appears to pull text from Wikipedia and images from various sources (commons, what have you) to produce a movie out of any Wikipedia article. An interesting example: http://www.qwiki.com/q/#!/Hood_River,_Oregon I love the concept, and they do announce that the content is licensed under CC-SA, so assuming someone sets them straight I'm sure they'll be glad to do the actual attribution that they're required to do. I just think it's a really neat concept, and it seems to be working quite well. -- Matthew P. Del Buono

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: First Call for Papers WikiSym 2011
by Ryan Lomonaco 28 Jan '11

28 Jan '11

Forwarding to the list on behalf of a non-member. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Finn Aarup Nielsen <fn(a)imm.dtu.dk> Date: Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 12:31 PM Subject: First Call for Papers WikiSym 2011 To: foundation-l-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org CALL FOR PAPERS - WikiSym 2011 - 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration October 3-5, 2011 | Mountain View, California http://www.wikisym.org/ws2011 The International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym) is the premier conference on open collaboration and related technologies. In 2011, WikiSym celebrates its 7th year of scholarly, technical and community innovation in Mountain View, California at the Microsoft Research Campus in Silicon Valley. Submissions are invited for the following categories, further details are available on the conference website: http://www.wikisym.org/ws2011/submitting:start * Research Papers, Panels, Workshop: April 1 * Posters, Demos: May 13 * Notification of Acceptance: June 17 The conference program will include a peer-reviewed research track, as well as workshops, a doctoral consortium, invited keynotes and panel speakers. Evening social events will follow, because wiki folks know the value of a good party for sparking conversation and collaboration. As always, Open Space, a participant-organized track will also run throughout the conference. Many of the most innovative technology companies in the world have a presence in Mountain View, which makes it an ideal venue for hatching new ideas and thoughtful debate about collaborative computing among technologists, researchers, educators, and activists. Topics appropriate for research submissions include all aspects of the people, tools, contexts, and content that comprise open collaboration systems. For example: * Collaboration tools and processes * Social and cultural aspects of collaboration * Collaboration beyond text: images, video, sound, etc. * Communities and workgroups * Knowledge and information production * New media literacies * Uses and impact of wikis and open resources in specific fields, such as - Education/Open Educational Resources - Law/Intellectual Property - Journalism - Art - Science - Publishing - Business - Entertainment In addition to research and development topics, WikiSym also invites innovative proposals for wiki-style art and performance. Felipe Ortega, Conference Chair University Rey Juan Carlos http://felipeortega.net/ Andrea Forte, Program Chair Drexel University http://www.andreaforte.net/

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[Foundation-l] Questions about new Fellow
by Achal Prabhala 27 Jan '11

27 Jan '11

Greetings, I'm happy to tell you a little more about myself and the scope of this short-term research project I'm undertaking, and I'm as happy to assume that you fully intended for your messages to come across as decorous and rational. I've been on the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation for some time now, and there have been large periods where I've done nothing, and many periods when I've done a lot. This, I suspect, is the case for many fellow Advisory Board members; overall, I can say for myself that it's been a rewarding and interesting experience. I'm involved in various aspects of the Wikimedia movement - from helping to organise communities in India and South Africa to looking at broader, more global questions around the work of the Chapters Committee and the possibility of other kinds of affiliation that might usefully exist within our world. All of this work, as it should be, is completely open and transparent, and is in no way forced or mandated. Funnily enough, I wasn't very involved with the strategic 5-year plan; I started off trying to look at what community members from India might want to do, but the exercise didn't get very far, and I sort of gave up in between. I'm glad it went forward with the help of a whole lot of others from India, and I'm glad it exists, but I haven't even read what it says yet. So I'm forced to confess (like Shaw almost said) that reports of my influence are greatly exaggerated. I am, however, involved on a daily basis with all kinds of work that is related to the movement, and I'm delighted to be of use to you. As for me, I work on intellectual property rights as a researcher, and I also write. I've worked in India, Guyana and South Africa, mostly as an activist on access to medicines and access to knowledge; I am now engaged in writing a larger piece of work that is unrelated to intellectual property. Now to the project. I see that neither of you gentlemen has any thoughts on it, and I welcome your engagement. The problem with oral knowledge vs. published knowledge is an old one, and there are many interesting ways in which the sum of published material in the world reflects the order of the world. For us, unfortunately, it also means that in some cases, to make Wikipedias work in languages where scholarly publishing is not that strong is a difficult task. This problem applies not just to languages with a primarily oral tradition (such as many of those in circulation in sub-Saharan Africa today) but also for those with a non-Latin written tradition but with a lower output of published material (like many South Asian languages today). What excites me about this is that I am interested in the idea of 'legitimate' knowledge - and the manner in which our ideas of authenticity, reliability and certification can be shaped and changed in our own lifetimes. This spirit of consistent reinvention, I think, is central to the idea of Wikipedia and everything else that comes under the umbrella of our movement. I have a fairly good understanding of the academic literature on this subject; I've had excellent discussions with Wikipedians working in languages across India and South Africa where this is a tangible problem; and working together with them, I think we can make a useful contribution to this topic, or at least mark a starting point from which to make this movement truly inclusive, plural and global. I'm looking forward to it very much. As I am certain you are too. Fondest wishes, etc. Achal -------------------------------------------- *whothis* whothith at gmail.com <mailto:foundation-l%40lists.wikimedia.org?Subject=%5BFoundation-l%5D%20Ques…> /Thu Jan 20 08:46:08 UTC 2011/ * Previous message: [Foundation-l] Questions about new Fellow <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-January/063500.html> * *Messages sorted by:* [ date ] <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-January/date.html#63…> [ thread ] <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-January/thread.html#…> [ subject ] <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-January/subject.html…> [ author ] <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-January/author.html#…> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I agree with what he said. After looking him up, the only qualification I can find of this person is that he's on the advisory board, No idea, how he got there and for how long is his "term", makes me think that maybe there is a Cabal. Most places mirror his description on the Advisory Board page. I am tired of seeing the same names, doing the rounds over and over again, from groups to committees to fellowships to whatever that comes next. Will anyone else from the Advisory board or maybe even the board, past or present members included, going to receive a "fellowship" now? Does it matter that they are mostly unknown by the community, obviously not. E. Forrester On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 12:23 PM, MZMcBride<z at mzmcbride.com <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l>> wrote: >/ Hi. />/ />/ As Daniel noted in his earlier e-mail to the list, Achal Prabhala is now a />/ Wikimedia Fellow.[1] I actually missed this announcement as it didn't hit />/ wikimediaannounce-l or this list (foundation-l), it apparently only got />/ posted to the blog, but that's not really here nor there. />/ />/ There have been rumblings about some of the surrounding circumstances that />/ I />/ think warrant consideration and discussion. Achal is a member of the />/ Advisory Board[2] but isn't very active in wikis/open source. A few />/ questions pop up in my head. Is there a concern about such an individual />/ being a Wikimedia Fellow? That is, someone who's not particularly attached />/ to wikis/open source? All of the other Wikimedia Fellows have fairly strong />/ editing backgrounds. The edits by Achal seem to be rather sparse: />/ http://toolserver.org/~vvv/sulutil.php?user=Aprabhala <http://toolserver.org/%7Evvv/sulutil.php?user=Aprabhala> />/ />/ More importantly, is there a concern about an Advisory Board member being />/ chosen as a Wikimedia Fellow? Is there a conflict of interest there? Is />/ there a concern about the appearance of impropriety? />/ />/ Achal has a growing influence on Wikimedia, particularly its new operations />/ in India. This has included being part of the hiring decisions, etc. This />/ is />/ more of a consultant role, making his selection as a Wikimedia Fellow even />/ stranger. And his growing influence and power in such a big part of />/ Wikimedia's five-year strategy is making people wary. I think conversation />/ and engagement (on this list and elsewhere) would be very good in a number />/ of ways. />/ />/ MZMcBride />/ />/ [1]http://blog.wikimedia.org/?p=2748 />/ [2]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board />/ />/ />/ />/ _______________________________________________ />/ foundation-l mailing list />/ foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l> />/ Unsubscribe:https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l />/ /

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[Foundation-l] Reminder: IRC office hours with Sue Gardner this morning at 18:00 UTC
by Steven Walling 27 Jan '11

27 Jan '11

Hi all, Just a quick reminder that in an hour or so, we'll be having our first IRC office hours since December with Sue Gardner in #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net. More info at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours Steven Walling Fellow at the Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org

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[Foundation-l] [Infographic] Wikipedia and its history
by Christophe Henner 27 Jan '11

27 Jan '11

Hey, This is a video infographic about Wikipedia and its history. Enjoy :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXD1TRGafQ0&feature=player_embedded# -- Christophe

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikimediaindia-l] Malayalam wikipedia crossed the 10 Lakh/1 million edits milestone
by Jyothis Edathoot 27 Jan '11

27 Jan '11

FYI. Regards, Jyothis. http://www.Jyothis.net http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis I am the first customer of http://www.netdotnet.com woods are lovely dark and deep, but i have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep and lines to go before I press sleep completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) / resources) + ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Shiju Alex <shijualexonline(a)gmail.com> Date: 2011/1/25 Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Malayalam wikipedia crossed the 10 Lakh/1 million edits milestone To: "Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia." < wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Dear All, I am happy to announce that Malayalam wikipedia has crossed the *10 Lakh (1 million) edits* milestone on *2011 January 22*. Malayalam wikipedia is the *first Indian language wikipedia to cross the 10 Lakh milestone*. With almost 250 active editors<http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%…>Malayalam wiki community continues to be one of the most active Indian Wiki community. That is the the main reason behind this achievement. Malayalam wikipedia also has the *most number of edits per article *(more than 30) among all theIndian wikis. The information about the *total number of the edits* in some of the major active wikis is provided below. Language wikipedia Number of edits since the wiki is set up Malayalam 1002375 Hindi 913612 Tamil 688891 Marathi 665774 Telugu 578760 Urdu 376948 Kannada 186771 Gujarati 133134 Sanskrit 101517 Data is collected on 2011 January 24. Thanks Shiju Alex ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anoop <anoop.ind(a)gmail.com> Date: 2011/1/25 Subject: [Wikiml-l] മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയിൽ 10 ലക്ഷം എഡിറ്റുകൾ To: Malayalam wiki project mailing list <wikiml-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> സുഹൃത്തുക്കളേ, ഒരു സന്തോഷ വാർത്ത നിങ്ങളെ എല്ലാവരെയും അറിയിക്കുകയാണ്. മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയിൽ 10 ലക്ഷം തിരുത്തലുകൾ (Edits) തികഞ്ഞിരിക്കുന്നു. ഇക്കഴിഞ്ഞ ജനുവരി 22-നായിരുന്നു 10 ലക്ഷം തിരുത്തലുകൾ തികഞ്ഞത്. ഈ കടമ്പ കടക്കുന്ന അമ്പത്തി ഒന്നാമത്തെ വിക്കിപീഡിയയാണ് മലയാളം[1]. ഈ കടമ്പ കടന്ന ഏക ഇന്ത്യൻ വിക്കിപീഡിയയും മലയാളമാണ്[1]. ലേഖനങ്ങളുടെ എണ്ണം വർദ്ധിപ്പിക്കുക എന്നത് പ്രാഥമികമായ ലക്ഷ്യമാക്കാതെ, കാമ്പുള്ള ലേഖനങ്ങൾ സൃഷ്ടിക്കുക എന്ന ലക്ഷ്യത്തോടെ പ്രവർത്തിക്കുന്നതിന്റെ ഫലമായാണ് ഏറ്റവും കൂടുതൽ ഡെപ്ത് ഉള്ള ഇന്ത്യൻ വിക്കിപീഡിയയും ഏറ്റവും കൂടുതൽ തിരുത്തലുകൾ നടത്തിയ ഇന്ത്യൻ വിക്കിപീഡിയയും മലയാളമായത്. ഈ സ്ഥാനം എന്നെന്നും നിലനിർത്തിപ്പോരാൻ നിങ്ങൾ ഓരോരുത്തരുടെയും സഹകരണം ആവശ്യമാണ്. മറ്റു പ്രധാന ഇന്ത്യൻ ഭാഷാ വിക്കിപീഡിയയിലെ തിരുത്തലുകളുടെ എണ്ണം കാണുക. *ഭാഷ (language)* * തിരുത്തലുകളുടെ എണ്ണം (Number of edits since wiki is set up) * മലയാളം (Malayalam) 1002375 ബംഗാളി (bengali) 922606 ഹിന്ദി (Hindi) 913612 തമിഴ് (Tamil) 688891 മറാത്തി (Marathi) 665774 തെലുഗ് (Telugu) 578760 ഉർദു (Urdu) 376948 കന്നഡ (Kannada) 186771 ഗുജറാത്തി (Gujarati) 133134 സംസ്കൃതം (Sanskrit) 101517 [1] ഈ നേട്ടത്തിൽ പങ്കാളിയായ എല്ലാവർക്കും നന്ദി. *അവലംബം* 1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias അനൂപ് _______________________________________________ Wikiml-l is the mailing list for Malayalam Wikimedia Projects email: Wikiml-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Website: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiml-l _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l

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Re: [Foundation-l] Questions about new Fellow
by WJhonson＠aol.com 27 Jan '11

27 Jan '11

In a message dated 1/20/2011 11:37:00 AM Pacific Standard Time, dgerard(a)gmail.com writes: > There's a lot of knowledge in fields which > everyone assumes, and which are transmitted academically, but not in a > format that teenage en:wp admins can grasp in five seconds. > Knowledge transmitted academically, but not actually ever published? For example?

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[Foundation-l] Slowness, error messages, and being logged out, since around January 15
by SlimVirgin 27 Jan '11

27 Jan '11

A few editors on the English Wikipedia have been noticing a problem since around January 15 of "connection timed out" messages, very slow performance, and being logged out. Preview is getting hard to use because so slow, or failing entirely, and some edits are not being saved. Some discussion here -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#Slownes… Does anyone know whether there's work going on that might be causing it? Sarah

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Wikimedia-l January 2011