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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"
(Milos Rancic)
2. Re: Wikisource and reCAPTCHA (Samuel Klein)
3. Re: Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"
(Samuel Klein)
4. Re: Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"
(Birgitte SB)
5. Re: Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"
(Mark Williamson)
6. Re: Wikisource and reCAPTCHA (Andre Engels)
7. Re: [Wikimedia Announcements] Board resolution commissioning
study and recommendations (Ray Saintonge)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 01:06:25 +0200
From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language -
one Wikipedia"
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
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<AANLkTinUDX4CYVX6DBVIGOtH8mjl2u5WudJKHiGAKw9V(a)mail.gmail.com>
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On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 12:26 AM, Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote:
as if we were dumb. I have heard (and I am not an
expert) from many
people the idea that you will get what you give, meaning that if you
treat an adolescent as if they were a criminal, they will often become
a criminal; it seems to me that if we treat children as dumber
versions of adult human beings, they will grow up to be just that.
(again, I'm not an expert)
A kind of virtuous circle and vicious circle. Dumb adults are creating
dumb articles because they think that their children are dumb, which
in turn transforms children into dumb adults ;)
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:43:00 -0400
From: Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikisource and reCAPTCHA
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
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On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 11:16 AM, James Forrester <james(a)jdforrester.org> wrote:
On 24 June 2010 15:37, Samuel Klein
<meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I love those proofreading features, and the new
default layout for a
book's pages and TOC. ?Wikisource is becoming AWESOME.
Ahem. Even more awesome, you mean. :-)
It used to be just lowercase awesome... THINGS HAVE CHANGED. >:-)
Disclaimer - my PGDP account dates from 2004, but
I only get involved
in fits every couple of years.
Could you ask some of the wiki-savvy continuously active proofreaders
to join this discussion for a little while? I like the work PGDP
does, and bet we can find a way to support and amplify it.
SJ
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:51:33 -0400
From: Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language -
one Wikipedia"
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
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On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 3:19 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The fact that 10 years old child probably
doesn't know what density
means, doesn't mean that she or he can't read about that on
encyclopedia.
Of course. Children who specialize in a topic often make excellent
teachers, and sometimes featured-article writers. I like Greg's
notion of defining the project in terms of "expected level of
education" of the reader, not age. Almost everyone may want to refer
to a simplified reference for topics that confuse them -- and there is
a niche of popularizers of {science, mathematics, economics} who do
just that, for readers of all ages. Some of them win the highest
literary awards for their work.
One data point on language complexity:
In Peru, I work with families and teachers in rural areas with little
access to books or references, whose children have a snapshot of
Spanish Wikipedia (offline, on their OLPC laptop). For perhaps
100,000 families and teachers, this is their primary general
reference.
The teachers like this and use it; it is part of a national
project-based curriculum for grades 3-5.
http://www.perueduca.edu.pe/olpc/OLPC_fichasfasc.html
But the teachers there also asked for a simpler-language project in
Spanish, and a simple project in English to help students with
language learning.
My personal responsibility for creating a
Wikijunior project
would be much higher than for creating a Wikinews project.
Yes. We should definitely lay the groundwork well, as Ziko says. But
there are good projects underway today and doing this, in spanish,
french, and dutch. Some of the organizers of those projects have
contributed to the Wikikids proposal on meta. We can start by
directing energies there, finding out what Vikidia has learned running
projects in French and Spanish, what their standards for
project-creation are, and how we can help them.
SJ
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:25:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language -
one Wikipedia"
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <606274.71969.qm(a)web113706.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
--- On Thu, 6/24/10, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language - one
Wikipedia"
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 6:06 PM
On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 12:26 AM,
Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
as if we were dumb. I have heard (and I am not
an
expert) from many
people the idea that you will get what you give,
meaning that if you
treat an adolescent as if they were a criminal,
they
will often become
a criminal; it seems to me that if we treat
children
as dumber
versions of adult human beings, they will grow up
to
be just that.
(again, I'm not an expert)
A kind of virtuous circle and vicious circle. Dumb adults
are creating
dumb articles because they think that their children are
dumb, which
in turn transforms children into dumb adults ;)
I think you all are getting rather sidetracked over the details of content of some
proposed project that I do not believe you are actually interested in joining. Surely any
detailed decisions as exactly how to approach writing medical articles for children would
be an internal conclusion. The real issue here is what merits the creation of a new wiki
versus some specific project being setup as subset of an existing wiki.
I have come the conclusion the biggest factor leading to success of a new wiki is a large
enough community with a strong sense of a separate mission. If all you have is a small
group of hard core content editors you will be more successful as subset of an existing
wiki, if one is so kind enough to make room for you. One thing that happens in a small
wiki is all the happy energy which was geared towards the content must be siphoned off
into seemingly endless administration tasks. It takes a while for the community to grow
enough to overcome that deficit. I would not recommend anyone to be in a hurry to make
their own new space. The longer you can use an existing wiki to experiment with the your
project the stronger you can grow your community, and maybe you can find a way to
permanently fit within the existing scope while meeting the needs of your specific
mission. If you can it do that it will greatly improve your ability to work on content. I
would
advise this group that as exciting as having their own Wikipedia must sound, they might
be more successful as a project within de.WP or de.WB And even if they are dead-set on an
independent wiki, they will benefit from starting within an existing structure to grow a
good sized proof of concept.
Birgitte SB
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:09:13 -0700
From: Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language -
one Wikipedia"
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<AANLkTikpefpnslNgtGYGtlSI4_VnWnEOIymp9p4Wlutu(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Birgitte, what I am discussing is whether or no t I see any merit in
this idea at all. Thanks.
On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 5:25 PM, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
--- On Thu, 6/24/10, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language - one
Wikipedia"
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 6:06 PM
On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 12:26 AM,
Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
as if we were dumb. I have heard (and I am not
an
expert) from many
people the idea that you will get what you give,
meaning that if you
treat an adolescent as if they were a criminal,
they
will often become
a criminal; it seems to me that if we treat
children
as dumber
versions of adult human beings, they will grow up
to
be just that.
(again, I'm not an expert)
A kind of virtuous circle and vicious circle. Dumb adults
are creating
dumb articles because they think that their children are
dumb, which
in turn transforms children into dumb adults ;)
I think you all are getting rather sidetracked over the details of content of some
proposed project that I do not believe you are actually interested in joining. ?Surely any
detailed decisions as exactly how to approach writing medical articles for children would
be an internal conclusion. The real issue here is what merits the creation of a new wiki
versus some specific project being setup as subset of an existing wiki.
I have come the conclusion the biggest factor leading to success of a new wiki is a large
enough community with a strong sense of a separate mission. ?If all you have is a small
group of hard core content editors you will be more successful as subset of an existing
wiki, if one is so kind enough to make room for you. ?One thing that happens in a small
wiki is all the happy energy which was geared towards the content must be siphoned off
into seemingly endless administration tasks. It takes a while for the community to grow
enough to overcome that deficit. ?I would not recommend anyone to be in a hurry to make
their own new space. ?The longer you can use an existing wiki to experiment with the your
project the stronger you can grow your community, and maybe you can find a way to
permanently fit within the existing scope while meeting the needs of your specific
mission. ?If you can it do that it will greatly improve your ability to work on content. I
would
?advise this group that as exciting as having their own Wikipedia must sound, they might
be more successful as a project within de.WP or de.WB And even if they are dead-set on an
independent wiki, they will benefit from starting within an existing structure to grow a
good sized proof of concept.
Birgitte SB
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------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:13:57 +0200
From: Andre Engels <andreengels(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikisource and reCAPTCHA
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<AANLkTik1Phpcg-hKyGYqfSHngEX-I-aAg5nhaKbi0IwB(a)mail.gmail.com>
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On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 4:37 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I love those proofreading features, and the new
default layout for a
book's pages and TOC. ?Wikisource is becoming AWESOME.
Do we have PGDP contributors who can weigh on on how similar the
processes are? ?Is there a way for us to actually merge workflows with
them?
I am quite active on PGDP, but not on Wikisource, so I can tell about
how things work there, but not on how similar it is to Wikisource.
Typical about the PGDP workflow are an emphasis on quality above
quantity (exemplified in running not 1 or 2 but 3 rounds of human
checking of the OCR result - correctness in copying is well above
99.99% for most books) and work being done in page-size chunks rather
than whole books, chapters, paragraphs, sentences, words or whatever
else one could think of.
There's a number of people involved, although people can and often do
fill several roles for one book.
First, there is the Content Provider (CP).
He or she first contacts Project Gutenberg to get a clearance. This is
basically a statement from PG that they believe the work is out of
copyright. In general, US copyright is what is taken into account for
this, although there are also servers in other countries (Canada and
Australia as far as I know), which publish some material that is out
of copyright in those countries even if it is not in the US. Such
works do not go through PGDP, but may go through its sister projects
DPCanada or DPEurope.
Next, the CP will scan the book, or harvest the scans from the web,
and run OCR on them. They will usually also write a description of the
book for the proofreaders, so those can see whether they are
interested. The scans and the OCR are uploaded to the PGDP servers,
and the project is handed over to the Project Manager (PM) (although
in most cases CP and PM are the same person).
The Project Manager is responsible for the project in the next stages.
This means:
* specifying the rules and guidelines that are to be followed when
proofreading the book, at least there where those differ from the
standard guidelines
* answer questions by proofreaders
* keep the good and bad words lists up to date. These are used in
wordcheck (a kind of spellchecker) so that words are considered
correct or incorrect by it
The project then goes through a number of rounds. The standard number
is 5 rounds, of which 3 are proofreading and 2 are formatting, but it
is possible for the PM to make a request to skip one or more rounds or
go through a round twice.
In the first three, proofreading, rounds, a proofreader requests one
page at a time, compares the OCR output (or the previous proofreader's
output) with the scan, and changes the text to correspond to the scan.
In the first round (P1) everyone can do this, the second round (P2) is
only accessible to those who have been at the site some time and done
a certain amount of pages (21 days and 300 pages, if I recall
correctly), for the third round (P3) one has to qualify. For
qualification one's P2 pages are checked (using the subsequent edits
of P3). The norm is that one should not leave more than one error per
five pages.
After the three (or two or four) rounds of proofing, the foofing
(formatting) rounds are gone through. In these, again a proofreader
(now called formatter) requests and edits one page at the time, but
where the proofreaders dealt with copying the text as precisely as
possible, the formatter will deal with all other aspects of the work.
They denote when text is italic, bold or otherwise in a special
format, which texts are chapter headers, how tables are laid out,
etcetera. Here there are two rounds, although the second one can be
skipped or a round duplicated, like before. The first formatting round
(F1) has the same entrance restrictions as P2, F2 has a qualification
system comparable to P3.
After this, the PM gives the book on to the Post-Processor (PP).
Again, this is often the same person, but not always. In some other
cases, the PP has already been appointed, in others it will sit in a
pool until picked up by a willing PP. The PP does all that is needed
to get from the F2 output to something that can be put on Project
Gutenberg: they recombine the pages into one work, move stuff around
where needed, change the formatters' mark-up in something that's more
appropriate for reading, in most cases generate an HTML version,
etcetera.
A PP that has already post-processed several books in a good way can
then send it to PG. In other cases, the book will then go to the PPV
(Post-Processing Verifier), an experienced PP, who checks the PP's
work, and gives them hints on what should be improved or makes those
improvements themselves.
Finally, if the PP or PPV sends the book to PG, there is a whitewasher
who checks the book once again; however, that is outside the scope of
this (already too long) description, because it belongs to PG's
process rather than PGDP's.
To stop the rounds from overcrowding with books, there are queues for
each round, containing books that are ready to enter the round, but
have not yet done so. To keep some variety, there are different queues
by language and/or subject type. A problem with this has been that the
later rounds, having less manpower because of the higher standards
required, could not keep up with P1 and F1. There has been work to do
something about it, and the P2 queues have been brought down to decent
size, but in P3 and F2 books can literally sit in the queues for
years, and PP still is a bottleneck as well.
--
Andr? Engels, andreengels(a)gmail.com
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:42:26 -0700
From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Board resolution
commissioning study and recommendations
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <4C2433B2.80404(a)telus.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
David Gerard wrote:
On 24 June 2010 19:28, Michael Snow
<wikipedia(a)verizon.net> wrote:
That's the meaning, definitely, same as it
was in the previous board
statement. I would observe, too, that for material on user pages, if
you're even going to ask whether it's educational, what is it going to
educate people about? That particular user, presumably. And in that
context, it's pretty hard to rule out any kind of self-expression that
person has chosen as not being educational about them. It may be
inappropriate for other reasons, such as community policy or social
concerns, but this wouldn't really be a basis for enforcing that.
Nevertheless - if you're going to make official statements like this,
you can't assume that hundreds of thousands of people are all going to
interpret them the same way, as you seem to have here.
Precisely. We already have too many people ready and willing to take a
common sense idea and turn it into rigid policy.
Ec
------------------------------
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