Hi all,
Last weekend we had a discussion about how to 'sell' the importance of
Wikipedia to economics-focused people (a.k.a. politicians etc), and the
question came up on how much Wikipedia contributes to the global economy.
Many people access it daily, and the information they get from that might
help them to run businesses, be more efficient etc. Third world countries
(and maybe even the rest of the world) might have better educated people
thanks to Wikipedia, which might make better and more efficient workers,
higher literacy and cheaper university educations.
Has there been any scientific (or other) research on the effect Wikipedia
has (or had) on the world economy, or even the economy of a specific
country/region? There are some numbers what Wikipedia would be 'worth' if
it were a commercial company, but that is not what I'm looking for. What is
Wikipedia worth to society, the way it currently runs.
Alternatively, are there similar studies to other knowledge compendiums, or
even 'the internet'?
Thanks for any pointers!
Lodewijk
Hi all,
I've started a page on meta for Wikimedia Gadget
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Gadgets
This page serves for people participating of the Wikimedia movement to
brainstorm on news cool, fun and interesting Wikimedia gadgets. The
ideas can discussed in several languages on the talk page to
facilitate each local group to speak their ideas in their local
language, if necessary. The idea is to expand the possibilities on
what we have so far in the Wikimedia Shop <http://shop.wikimedia.org/>
and other local groups shops using the global community ideas and help
local groups to outreach Wikimedia projects.
A lot of times someone saw a Wikipedia backpack I have and they found
really cool - people find these kind of things cool. This can help
also local groups to develop their own things to outreach Wikimedia
projects. Also, several times, I was faced in discussions with
colleagues on possible new gadgets beyond those produced by Wikimedia
Foundation, like a Wikipedia flip flop, for instance. Or when
volunteers in Brazil organized a challenge with a initial idea to give
some new gadgetd, like these ones in this news about this activity
<http://blogs.estadao.com.br/link/positivo-quer-wikipedia-offline-em-computa…>.
I do think this can also help to outreach other less known Wikimedia
Projects. For instance, when a cool banner was made here in Brazil
<https://docs.google.com/file/d/1c3Op5hG6ugo6gsQdmG7MzuG5jXyj_YJjYkcZ61DLi2a…>
by volunteers to use at events, I've heard more than once people
saying they didn't know other projects and that that was really cool.
As another example, I've just discovered a cool t-shirt of Wikimedia
Sweeden for the Wikipedia education program
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_i_utbildning_tshirt.jpg>
and their local shop <http://wikimediasverige.spreadshirt.se/> with
original and creative products.
I hope this can bring new ideas and new gadgets. Please, make comments
in the wiki page.
Tom
Hi there,
I guess you might be interested to hear that Direction Centrale du
Renseignement Intérieur (Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence,
DCRI), a French intelligence agency that reports directly to the
Ministry of the Interior, has apparently forced a French Wikipedia
administrator to delete an article that in their opinion—as I
understand it—revelead classified information deemed very harmful to
the French national defence ("compromission du secret de la Défense
nationale").
Interestingly, they contacted the WMF legal team with a request to
remove (delete? suppress?) this article a couple of weeks before that,
but were refused after failing to provide further information on why
the article should be removed (in the words of a Foundation legal
counsel).
Undounted by that, they approached the said administrator — who
operates under his real name, so I guess it was pretty easy to track
him — and asked him to delete this article, a request which he
obliged. (The article has since been restored by a different
administrator). As far as I understand, the version of the article
they wanted to have deleted was
<https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=81104004>.
I guess that when an intelligence agency asks their citizen to remove
information from Wikipedia citing the penal code (article 413-11 of
the French penal code in this case), it is something worth sharing (no
harm intended).
Further reading in English:
* <https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=91703508>
* <https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=91705235>
--
Tomasz W. Kozłowski
a.k.a. [[user:odder]]
Greetings, everybody
This PLoS One paper about Wikipedia community had been cited by the
traditional press:
Jessica J. Neff, David Laniado, Karolin E. Kappler, Yana Volkovich, Pablo
Aragón, Andreas Kaltenbrunner
*Jointly They Edit: Examining the Impact of Community Identification on
Political Interaction in Wikipedia*
Our results indicate that users who proclaim their political affiliation
within the community tend to proclaim their identity as a ‘Wikipedian’ even
more loudly. It seems that the shared identity of ‘being Wikipedian’ may be
strong enough to triumph over other potentially divisive facets of personal
identity, such as political affiliation.
Regards
Victoria
Hi all,
I am happy to inform you that the Affiliations Committee has recognized a
new Wikimedia User Group yesterday: Esperanto kaj Libera
Scio<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_kaj_Libera_Scio>(Esperanto
and free knowledge).
Please give them a warm welcome.
Some background information follows:
== Esperanto kaj Libera Scio ==
Esperanto kaj Libera
Scio<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_kaj_Libera_Scio> is
a group of Wikimedians who speak Esperanto. Their focus is to unite
Esperanto speaking persons who edit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia
projects, or want to support Free Knowledge in other ways.
Its activities include among others participating at Esperanto language
events promoting Wikimedia projects, organizing Wikimedia workshops, trying
to recruit new volunteers and technical cooperation on creating a
translation gadget for the Esperanto Wikipedia.
The Affiliations Committee's recognition is valid until 30 April 2014.
== Wikimedia User Groups ==
Wikimedia User Groups are one of the three new types of affiliations
created last year to empower volunteers wanting to conduct offline work.
User group status is meant to be an easy form of affiliation, where the
main requirements are an agreed goal, plans for offline work, at least
three people participating and a public wiki page with all the relevant
information).
User groups are by default non-incorporated, although they may choose to
incorporate (this is not the case with this group).
One of the requirements of the status, and especially of its renewal is to
publish a short report of activities at least once a year.
Under the movement roles
recommendations<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_affiliation_models/User_Groups>
, user groups are to be recognized in a quick and easy process directly by
the Affiliations Committee, for a fixed, renewable time-period and they are
to enjoy limited trademark use and simplified access to grants.
Best regards,
Bence Damokos
Chair, Affiliatons Committee
