Wikimedia-l December 2021

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

78 participants
52 discussions

Creating new Wikidata items for all Commons categories
by Mike Peel 20 Dec '21

20 Dec '21

Hi all, Over the last few years, over 3.6 million Wikimedia Commons categories have gained an infobox that displays information from Wikidata in the reader's language. I would like to see this expanded so that all Commons categories have a multilingual infobox. I've started an RfC about this at: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Requests_for_comment/Creating_new_Wi… If you're interested in this topic, please comment there. Thanks, Mike

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Announcing an academic conference on Wikipedia translation
by Mark SHUTTLEWORTH 20 Dec '21

20 Dec '21

Dear friends and colleagues Please permit me to publicise an academic conference that we're holding at Hong Kong Baptist University on 15-17 December 2021. The conference will be an ideal forum in which to discuss research methodologies, issues of collaborativity, theoretical frameworks that have proven valuable for the study of Wikipedia translation, the use of Wikipedia in the translation classroom and by translation professionals, and the nature of Wikipedia translation and how it differs not only from other more traditional types of translation but also from other newly emerging types. While the conference's main focus is interlingual translation within the online encyclopaedia, we are also interested in research into the multilingual Wikipedia that makes no explicit reference to translation issues. The conference will be online, face-to-face or mixed mode, depending on prevailing circumstances. Please see the conference website at https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/ for full details and the Call for Papers. I hope to see some of you there! Mark Professor Mark Shuttleworth 夏致遠 Department of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies Hong Kong Baptist University Phone: +852 3411 6641 http://www.tran.hkbu.edu.hk https://ctn.hkbu.edu.hk/wikiconf2021/ -- Disclaimer This message (including any attachments) may contain confidential information intended for a specific individual and/or purpose. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message and notify the sender and the University immediately. Any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is prohibited as it may be unlawful. In addition, the University specifically denies any responsibility for the accuracy or quality of information obtained through University E-mail Facilities. Any views and opinions expressed in the email(s) are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the University. The University accepts no liability whatsoever for any losses or damages that may be incurred or caused to any party as a result of the use of such information.

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Member management system
by Heather Knox 19 Dec '21

19 Dec '21

Kia ora koutou (greetings to everyone),The Aotearoa New Zealand User Group is working on creating an incorporated society and applying to become a chapter. We are looking for an open source member management system which would enable us to store member details, record membership payments, record membership history (e.g. periods of memberships, type of membership), export lists of names and contact details and create email lists or send emails to groups of members. Is any affiliate using a member management system which they would recommend we investigate?Many thanks,Heather (for the Aotearoa NZ User Group)

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Affiliations Committee (AffCom) Member and Advisor Elections Announcement - January 2022
by Jeffrey Keefer 19 Dec '21

19 Dec '21

Hi Everyone - The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) [1] – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing and sustaining Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is seeking new members and advisors! We invite you to consider applying. AffCom Members The committee consists of five to fifteen members, selected at least once every year, to serve two-year terms. Requirements and responsibilities for serving on AffCom may be found here [2]. The deadline to post your application on the nomination page [3] is 31 January 2022. AffCom Advisors We are looking for advisors who are excited by the challenge of empowering volunteers to get organized and form communities that further our mission around the world. In exchange, committee advisors selected will gain the experience of supporting their world-wide colleagues to develop their communities as well as personal development in guiding organizational development, facilitating affiliate partnerships, and professional communications. Requirements and responsibilities for serving as AffCom advisors may be found here [4]. The deadline to post your submission on the nomination page [5] is 31 January 2022. If you have any questions, please contact me and/or the committee as a whole by sending email to affcom[at]wikimedia[dot]org. We are happy to answer questions about our work if this helps people decide to apply. Please distribute this announcement among your networks. Good luck to all the candidates! On behalf of the committee, ----- Jeffrey Keefer Secretary, Affiliations Committee [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Translations/Call_fo… <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Translations/Call_fo…> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Candidates/January_2… <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Candidates/January_2…> [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Translations/Call_fo… <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Translations/Call_fo…> [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Advisors/2022 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Advisors/2022>

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Translating Wikipedia articles
by Ziko van Dijk 19 Dec '21

19 Dec '21

Hello, I would like to share some experiences with the Content Translation tool when I translated an article from German to English Wikipedia. There are issues that could need a movement wide discussion, especially: the use of references, and the use of automatic translation. Links: About the tool: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation My article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_Crisis_1850 (The subject is a conflict in the German history of the 19th century.) 1. Why use the tool at all? In general, I am quite impressed with the tool as it is now. It saves me the hassle to deal with Wikidata, as the link is made automatically. It also makes it easy to use the pictures in the original article. Sometimes, the tool even manages to translate an internal link to another Wikipedia article. (In many other cases, I had to do the linking manually, as "Otto von Manteuffel" was not recognised as the same person as in the already existing article [[en:Otto Theodor von Manteuffel]].) I also like that the tool saves my edits, so that I can continue translating another day without having to save the text externally. 2. What about automatic translation? I decided to make use of automatic translation, name "deepl.com" as this website does an excellent job (at least between the languages that I understand). The main reason for me is to save time: the website knows many English terms I would have to look up. It is not just about the terms but also the correct prepositions etc. Also: is it "campsite" or "camp site"? The automatic translation, still, is not perfect, and I would never advise to use it without checking each and every sentence. You always have to read carefully the original paragraph and then the proposed translation. At that occasion, I consult my online dictionary a lot. And, frankly, when I translate from a foreign language (such English) to my native language (German), I don't use the automatic translation but create the German text all by myself. My own wording may differ significantly from the original, because it is my goal to create a readable German article, not to preserve the original text with all its details and difficulties. Usual problems with the automatic translation of deepl.com are: * a strange wording, even the omission of whole words * a misunderstanding of the original text; for example, the original German article in this case dealt with the "Confederation" and the "Union" in Germany 1850, and deepl.com at one occasion wrote "Confederation" where it should have been "Union" * Deepl.com does not always recognize proper scientific terms. Also, in some cases, the German term differs from the usual one in English, e.g. the "German Dualism" is usually called the "Austrian-Prussian rivalry" in English. * Deepl.com sometimes translated "Kurhessen" to "Kurhessen", in other cases to "Electoral Hesse", in others to "Electorate of Hesse". All of these translations are correct, but I decided to use only "Kurhessen" in the final text. So in general, I think that the translations from deepl.com are often astonishingly great. But you have to check them carefully. 3. Should we integrate automatic translation into the tool? As you know, many Wikipedia language versions do not allow for the use of automatic translation within our tool. The main reason: some people deliver articles without a clean-up. The result are unreadable or misleading new articles in, e.g., English Wikipedia. (In German Wikipedia, we call unreadable articles "Babel Fish accidents".) But should the discussion end here? For example, we might want to allow automatic translation for those editors who actually do the clean-up. Why not giving the permission to editors who apply for the right to use automatic translation within the tool? Should an editor indeed deliver bad translations, the editor could still loose this right. By the way, I made use of deepl.com translations by simply copying+pasting the paragraphs. Alas, I had to do this for every single paragraph which is quite a hassle. It would have saved me a lot of work if I was allowed to copy and paste whole article texts, or have an integrated automatic translation option. 4. What was the major problem when using the tool? The tool had a problem to deal with the references in the original article. The original article had 14 footnotes, and the tool indicated a problem with 3 references ("template problem"). I did not understand the problem because the article did not use specific templates for the footnotes. I decidede to publish the new English article anyway. - The result? All references lacked in the English article. I had to add them manually, which I found quite inconvenient. We would need a unified system how to deal with references in general, for all Wikipedias. This system should be easy to use and allow an easy re-use in other language versions. 5. How good an article was the final text? Then, the English article needed some more clean-up: a line too much, a missing heading (my fault) etc. But that's okay. I also changed the English text by adding some information about the historical situation described. English readers may have less background knowledge than German readers, and German Wikipedia has some articles with additional information that lack in English Wikipedia. Conclusion: Yes, I recommend to use the content translation tool (provided by the WMF) and automatic translation (provided, in this case, by deepl.com). It saves time. But the issues I mentioned prevent me from translating more articles. Kind regards, Ziko -- Dr. Ziko van Dijk / zikovandijk.de Autor von "Wikis und die Wikipedia verstehen" "Niederlande & Deutschland": https://www.youtube.com/ZikovanDijk

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Join the International Jury Team for the Months of African Cinema Contest
by Eben Mlay 17 Dec '21

17 Dec '21

Greetings from Afrocine Project, It is already the end of the Months of African Cinema global contest and a lot has been achieved! We have been able to get over 4,000 articles created in 16 languages! We are about to constitute the International Jury team, which will consist of members from all the languages that participated in the global contest/edit-a-thon. If you would like to join us in the Jury team, please let us know by 31 December 2021 by filling this form.[1] Thanks for all your contributions this year and congratulations to you! Together we are bridging the content gap and improving on the systemic bias, in-respect of the African continent. Regards, Ebenezer Mlay Community Liaison – Afrocine project https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScrt_xGsVNV1rJthKrEQvRlPOTAlgTU0Iz…

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Wikianswers
by Adam Sobieski 17 Dec '21

17 Dec '21

I am pleased to share with you a new proposal for a Wikimedia project: Wikianswers. The project intends to integrate artificial intelligence question-answering systems with a wiki question-and-answer platform. Like similar projects, users will receive one or more answers to their questions from artificial intelligence question-answering systems, but, unlike other projects, they will subsequently be able to edit those answers, as well as any provided explanations and argumentation, per wiki technology. User-corrected content could later be utilized to retrain the question-answering systems. The proposed project aims to provide value as a new resource for users and as training data for multiple artificial intelligence systems. While the proposed project can provide users with answers across various question domains, a scenario of interest to me is that of moral question answering. I hope that this scenario is also of some interest to you. The hyperlink to the project proposal: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikianswers . Thank you for any ideas, comments, questions, or suggestions with which to improve the project proposal. Thank you for taking the time to express your support of or opposition to the proposed new project. Best regards, Adam Sobieski http://www.phoster.com

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Save the date! Coolest Tool Award 2021: Friday, January 14th, 17:00 UTC
by Andre Klapper 17 Dec '21

17 Dec '21

Hi everyone! The second edition of the Coolest Tool Award https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coolest_Tool_Award will happen online on Friday 14 January 2022 at 17:00 UTC! See https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1642179615 for your timezone. The awarded tools will be showcased in a virtual event, with broadcasted video and chat channels for socializing. We will send more details and links soon. Save the date, and join us celebrating the great work volunteer developers do for the Wikimedia communities. We hope to see you there! andre, for the Coolest Tool Academy 2021 -- Andre Klapper (he/him) | Bugwrangler / Developer Advocate https://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/

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Wikimedia Foundation External Audit and FAQ for the fiscal year ending 30 June 2021
by Jaime Villagomez 16 Dec '21

16 Dec '21

Dear all, We want to inform you that the Wikimedia Foundation’s Independent Auditors’ Report for the fiscal year ending 30 June 2021 is now published and available at: https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/. We have also posted on Meta-Wiki answers to frequently asked questions (“FAQ”) about the Independent Auditors’ Report: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audi…, in addition to our standard practice of documenting and publishing the Audit Committee meeting minutes regarding the review and approval of the Independent Auditors’ Report by the Audit Committee - a board subcommittee. The external audit is conducted annually by an independent third-party audit firm (KPMG) as a part of our financial oversight and provides an overview of basic information about the organization's financial position and its financial activities. Please contact me or Shelby Langan (<slangan(a)wikimedia.org>) via email, or ask a question on the talk page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial… if you have any questions. Saludos, Jaime Jaime Villagomez Chief Financial Officer Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate. <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>*

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[Wikimedia Announcements] This Month in GLAM: November 2021
by The 'This Month in GLAM' team 16 Dec '21

16 Dec '21

*This Month in GLAM* is a monthly newsletter documenting recent happenings within the GLAM project, such as content donations, residencies, events and more. GLAM is an acronym of *G*alleries, *L*ibraries, *A*rchives and *M*useums. You can find more information on the project at glamwiki.org. *This Month in GLAM – Issue XI, Volume XI – November 2021* ------------------------------ From the team: Migration from Outreach to Meta: your opinion is needed http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/F… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> France report: Study day on open content; Open content GLAM report http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/F… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> India report: Second proofread competition ended on Bengali Wikisource in collaboration with the British Library http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/I… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> Italy report: Traing course and conference in November http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/I… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> Serbia report: GLAMorous November http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/S… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> Sweden report: Art, design and history from the museums of Göteborg; Maps in the National Archives of Sweden http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/S… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> UK report: Khalili Collections http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/outreach:GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/C… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/outreach:GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/…> Ukraine report: Aricle contest for librarians «Local cultural heritage and prominent people» http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/U… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> USA report: Smithsonian demos new Wiki API Connector tool and other meetups http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/U… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> Content Partnerships Hub report: We continue building for the hub; SDC for fun and profit: detecting bad coordinates; Needs assessment – video recorded interviews; Improving ISA http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/C… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> WMF GLAM report: Wikisource birthday celebration, Community Tech Wishlist, and upcoming conversation about courses for GLAM professionals http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/W… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> Calendar: December's GLAM events http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/E… <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Contents/…> ------------------------------ About *This Month in GLAM* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/About <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/About> Single page view http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Single <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/November_2021/Single> Twitter http://twitter.com/ThisMonthinGLAM <https://twitter.com/ThisMonthinGLAM> Add your story / Work on the next edition http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/Newsroom <https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/Newsroom> -- Romaine For the *This Month in GLAM* team http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list -- wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikimediaannounce-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

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Wikimedia-l December 2021