Hello, everyone.
(this is an announcement in my capacity as a volunteer.)
Inspired by a lightning talk at the recent CEE Meeting[1] by our colleague
Lars Aronsson, I made a little command-line tool to automate batch
recording of pronunciations of words by native speakers, for uploading to
Commons and integration into Wiktionary etc. It is called *pronuncify*, is
written in Ruby and uses the sox(1) tool, and should work on any modern
Linux (and possibly OS X) machine. It is available here[2], with
instructions.
I was then asked about a Windows version, and agreed to attempt one. This
version is called *pronuncify.net <http://pronuncify.net>*, and is a .NET
gooey GUI version of the same tool, with slightly different functions. It
is available here[3], with instructions.
Both tools require word-list files in plaintext, with one word (or phrase)
per line. Both tools name the files according to the standard established
in [[commons:Category:Pronunciation]], and convert them to Ogg Vorbis for
you, so they are ready to upload.
In the future, I may add OAuth-based direct uploading to Commons. If you
run into difficulties, please file issues on GitHub, for the appropriate
tool. Feedback is welcome.
A.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Meeting_2015/Programme/Lightn…
[2] https://github.com/abartov/pronuncify
[3] https://github.com/abartov/Pronuncify.net
--
Asaf Bartov
Hi,
After reading an interesting related discussion on GenderGap, I have
queried the top 10 users of the thanks feature last month, on both the
English Wikipedia and Commons. Snapshot image attached and report link
below.
Perhaps someone might think of a suitable barnstar and award these
folks for "being nice"? :-)
Link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:F%C3%A6/sandbox&oldid=1…
P.S. This is a long query to run, taking 20 to 30 minutes due to the
nature of the logging tables. However if someone wanted to make a
monthly summary on-wiki somewhere, part of an active "be nice"
campaign, I would be happy to set up an automated monthly report (if
someone discovers this is already reported somewhere, that's cool we
can use that).
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Hello,
this is my first post to this list. I think Wikipedia is a great project
and am impressed by how well it works. It seems the (lack of) funding of
the project is one of the more severe threats to its continued success.
Since (I assume) the biggest cost is the maintenance of servers, I wonder
if there are there any plans of making Wikipedia decentralised.
Let me elaborate. I'm thinking of a system where many users each would
store a small part of the encyclopedia. A user wanting to look up or edit
an article connects to another user who has a copy of that article. When an
article is updated the update is sent to all other users (that are online)
responsible for storing that article.
Are there any efforts to accomplish this? Would it be feasible?
Best,
Erik
Hoi,
At Wikidata we often find issues with data imported from a Wikipedia. Lists
have been produced with these issues on the Wikipedia involved and arguably
they do present issues with the quality of Wikipedia or Wikidata for that
matter. So far hardly anything resulted from such outreach.
When Wikipedia is a black box, not communicating about with the outside
world, at some stage the situation becomes toxic. At this moment there are
already those at Wikidata that argue not to bother about Wikipedia quality
because in their view, Wikipedians do not care about its own quality.
Arguably known issues with quality are the easiest to solve.
There are many ways to approach this subject. It is indeed a quality issue
both for Wikidata and Wikipedia. It can be seen as a research issue; how to
deal with quality and how do such mechanisms function if at all.
I blogged about it..
Thanks,
GerardM
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2015/11/what-kind-of-box-is-wikipedia.ht…
Hello everyone,
As you may have heard, I joined the Wikimedia Foundation last Monday as the
VP of Human Resources. I am so excited to be here and help to the best of
my abilities.
One of the projects that I am currently focusing on is adding two members
to our board of trustees. I wanted to reach out to you and ask you to
nominate candidates that you think should be considered.
I am attaching a role description that will provide more insight into what
the ideal candidates for these two board slots would be. If someone you
know comes to mind, please send the name of the candidate including some
information regarding why you think they would be great. Also let me know
if you know that person is interested in the position and can afford the
time commitment the role will require or if it’s someone you think may be
great but are unsure if they are interested or would have time to commit.
Please email nominations to board-nominations(a)lists.wikimedia.org by next
Wednesday, Sept 30th. I understand that this is a short notice and not much
time to nominate, but we need to find someone that can start in Nov and we
need to contact, screen, interview, etc before then.
Thank you in advance for your nominations and have a wonderful weekend!
Warmest regards,
Boryana
At some point of time, the best you could do is to reach for a
superstition and hope it will work. It doesn't matter how it will be
explained after, but at this point of time, it's only that
superstition which matters.
My particular superstition is that Brane would be able to see his
eulogy and that we'll be able to laugh together. You know, it's a rare
opportunity to see how your eulogy would look like, so I hope I am
giving it to him.
An hour ago I heard that he is in critical condition. At first, I was
thinking what should I write after he dies. Then, I realized that I
should write it now and post it after. Then, it's come into my mind
that I should send it immediately as, at least, I could think about
reading with him this eulogy and your comments after he recovers.
Since August 2014 he is struggling with bone cancer. His curse is that
his body is so strong, that chemotherapy is not working yet.
Paradoxically, we hope that his body is weak enough now that it will
finally accept chemotherapy. Monday would be crucial day for him.
He is one of those "invisible" Wikimedians who actually contributed
significantly to our movement. Some of you, mostly those who visited
Belgrade, know him.
He is one of the founders of Wikimedia Serbia. It's a pity that he is
in this condition while WMRS is preparing to celebrate its 10th
anniversary. Here is our photo from the founding assembly [1].
Presently, he is a board member of Wikimedia Serbia.
His epic fight for copyright correctness on Serbian Wikipedia created
the foundations of the present day strict copyright rules. It's a
great achievement for a project of such size and it was possible just
because of him.
While he was active editor, he was highly trusted Wikipedian and he
was administrator, bureaucrat and checkuser on Serbian Wikipedia, as
well as on a number of of other projects in Serbian language.
Alpha software for transliteration between Cyrillic and Latin scripts
of Serbian language in MediaWiki was his work. That was the basis for
the future implementation. It was the first software of that kind
implemented in one web engine.
He is my close friend. Besides a lot of things which he did, which
will be mentioned at appropriate time, I want to say that many things
which I did wouldn't be possible without his contribution.
He is now very exhausted and he won't be able to read this today or
tomorrow. However, I am sure he will be able to read it on Monday,
after he recovers a bit. So, your support matters, no matter of my
superstitious reasons for sending this email.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/wikimedia.rs/photos/a.826279217387658.1073741828.2…
Dear all,
It is an honor to announce that the Affiliations Committee has resolved
[1] recognizing the Wikimedia User Group China as a Wikimedia User
Group; their main focus areas are getting more chinese people know and
use Wikipedia, encouraging people to become contributors to the
different Wikimedia projects, and maintain the community healthy and
growing. Let's welcome the newest member of the family of affiliates
-and the fourth from the Sinosphere!
Regards,
Carlos
1:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Wikimedi…
--
"*Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua
junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain."
Carlos M. Colina
Vicepresidente, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 |
www.wikimedia.org.ve <http://wikimedia.org.ve>
Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Affiliations Committee
Phone: +972-52-4869915
Twitter: @maor_x
Dear friends and colleague,
I would to share with you the post we published on Wikimedia Blog (November
13, 2015) [1]. It describes how WMIL works with few *Wiktionary* volunteers
in a process of revitalization of *Wiktionary* community. I believe it
could be useful case study for those of you who deal with similar issues.
I would be happy to provide more info. to anyone who is interested
Michal
[1]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/13/hebrew-wiktionary-community-revitaliz…
*Regards,*
*Michal Lester,*
*Executive DirectorWikimedia Israel*
*http://www.wikimedia.org.il <http://www.wikimedia.org.il/> *
*972-50-8996046 ; 972-77-751-6032 *