Re: [Wikimedia-l] conversations between WMF and non-English projects

-- Ryan User:Rjd0060 On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Ziko van Dijk vandijk@wmnederland.nl wrote: > Hello, > I repeat my proposal that every wiki-website ("project") should > install a (international) contact person, and these contact persons > should be following a mailing list with specified information for > them. They inform the wiki-website-community about important issues on > the village pump or via another way. > We have seen that purely informal positions (the self-appointed > "ambassadors") don't work. > Kind regards > Ziko > > > > 2012/8/4 Tilman Bayer tbayer@wikimedia.org: >> On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Amir E. Aharoni >> amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> In the 2012-13 WMF plan document I saw an interesting thing: >>> "We’ve hosted key community stakeholders such as English Wikipedia’s >>> ArbCom and Portuguese Wikipedia’s top contributors, in an effort to >>> better understand and respond to issues they're facing." (page 41). >>> >>> I was very happy to read this. In general, I hope that such focused >>> meetings will be held with more language communities. I don't think >>> that I need to explain why :) >>> >>> I don't know how did the meeting with the Portuguese Wikipedians go; >>> I >>> suppose that it was good. I don't remember that I read anything about >>> it in blogs or mailing lists, but I may have missed it. >> Apart from the one post linked by Steven >> (https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/22/brazil-meetups-march/ ), the >> Wikimedia blog has seen several other posts about other meetings of >> WMF with Portuguese Wikipedia contributors in Brasil: >> >> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/02/20/brazil-campus-party/ >> >> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/11/brazil-recruiting-and-partnership-with... >> >> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/10/19/brazil-trip-3/ >> >> See also the recurring Brazil Catalyst section in the monthly WMF reports. >> >>> Maybe what I'm >>> about to write is known already, but I'll say it anyway. >>> >>> An important thing in such meetings is to have a community member who >>> contributes to the Wikipedia in that language AND to the English >>> Wikipedia. This is needed because the Foundation people are probably >>> familiar with policies, customs and jargon in the English Wikipedia. >>> Even simple terms, like "Village Pump", are not necessarily familiar >>> to people who primarily edit in other languages; not all Wikipedias >>> have ArbComs; not all Wikipedias prohibit voting; etc. Such a person >>> will be able to "translate" between the English Wikipedia terms and >>> the local Wikipedia terms. Without such a person misunderstandings >>> will definitely happen, even if everybody knows the English language >>> well. >> You are of course right that it is important to be aware of the >> differences between the many language versions of Wikipedia. But it >> might be worth knowing that the WMF's Brazil Catalyst project >> (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil ) has >> been run out of Brazil by a native speaker of Portuguese for quite >> some time now, with a WMF contractor who has been editing on the >> Portuguese Wikipedia and (less frequently) the English Wikipedia since >> 2006. I'm not sure about the validity of your conjectures with regard >> to them. >> >> And even before that, there had been in-depth efforts by WMF to >> understand the local community, see e.g. >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Catalyst_Project/Community_Interviews >> >> -- >> Tilman Bayer >> Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) >> Wikimedia Foundation >> IRC (Freenode): HaeB >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list >> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > > > -- > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland > dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter > http://wmnederland.nl/ > > Wikimedia Nederland > Postbus 167 > 3500 AD Utrecht > ----------------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l