There are 732 editable wikis on Wikimedia and nearly all of them are active in some way. Just a year ago, these wikis were getting hit by loads of spambots and malbots and barely any community to fight them, but since then we have seen changes in smaller wikis. Apart from maybe 15-20 wikis, I can safely say that most wikis are active and as Jimbo mentioned somewhere, it will be good to learn another language as your second tongue, preferably those that are spoken a lot more.We spend so much time on these language wikipedias, we should atleast try to learn something from it :)
On 12/2/08, foundation-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org foundation-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
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Today's Topics:
- Re: 80% of our projects are failing (Finn Rindahl)
- Re: 80% of our projects are failing (Fajro)
- Re: 80% of our projects are failing (Thomas Dalton)
- Re: 80% of our projects are failing (Thomas Dalton)
- Re: 80% of our projects are failing (Pedro Sanchez)
- Re: 80% of our projects are failing (Gerard Meijssen)
- Re: 80% of our projects are failing (Finn Rindahl)
- Re: 80% of our projects are failing (geni)
Message: 1 Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 20:44:25 +0100 From: "Finn Rindahl" finnrindwiki@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 23e544110812011144x3701732ew17b253f88d27c599@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I'd like to ecco (is that an eEnglish word..?) Michael Finney here. Most people who engage them self in a small language wikimedia projects will sooner or later participate in projects like en:wp and commons as well - and thus both learn more about the "facts of reality" as well as communicating with others in a (for them) foreign language.
They may of course also learn the not so pleasant fact of reality that native English speakers unfortunately sometimes come across as a rather arrogant lot (an attitude also unfortunately often also adapted by dutch/scandinavians etc who often are more comfortable using English than other language groups - I've been arrogant myself at times)
Finn Rindahl (mainly nowiki&commons)
2008/12/1 Michael Finney finney.md@gmail.com
Jimbo: Thank you for your comments. As a person who manages a small wiki project and two language forks from it, I found some of the comments very disturbing... almost frightening that such exist. Your comments re-affirm my confidence in the Wikimedia Foundation and its purpose.
Thanks.
Mike
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 1:24 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Geni wrote:
"The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world " first line of the mission statement. By actively promoting minority languages you lock more people into them which is not consistent with trying to empower them.
I wrote:
I do not share geni's views at all.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
It doesn't seem that anyone does...
I should add at the same time that I think that it is a good thing for people to try to learn a relevant global language in addition to their local language, with the choice depending upon personal context.
In many parts of the world and for many people, English is an excellent choice of a second language. In other parts of the world (Francophone Africa for example), French is an excellent choice. Chinese might be good for some people. Russian for others. Hindi for others. There are many variables.
And I hope that Wikipedia is helpful to people both in learning about the facts of reality (usually most comfortably done in your mother tongue) and in learning another language. I don't see these goals as being in competition at all, but rather mutually reinforcing.
--Jimbo
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Message: 2 Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 17:45:07 -0200 From: Fajro faigos@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 78eaa86e0812011145q59c3589ct50c26c3ea013b9aa@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 5:24 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
It doesn't seem that anyone does...
I should add at the same time that I think that it is a good thing for people to try to learn a relevant global language in addition to their local language, with the choice depending upon personal context.
In many parts of the world and for many people, English is an excellent choice of a second language. In other parts of the world (Francophone Africa for example), French is an excellent choice. Chinese might be good for some people. Russian for others. Hindi for others. There are many variables.
Don't forget Esperanto.
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Michael Finney finney.md@gmail.com wrote:
Jimbo: Thank you for your comments. As a person who manages a small wiki project and two language forks from it, I found some of the comments very disturbing... almost frightening that such exist. Your comments re-affirm my confidence in the Wikimedia Foundation and its purpose.
Some of those comments was openly promoting ethnocide and linguistic discrimination and aparently nobody noticed it.
I knew that wikimedia was a little anglocentric, but this is too much.
-- ? ?ajro ? IM: fajro@jabber.org Lernu! - http://www.lernu.net Wikimedia Argentina - http://www.wikimedia.org.ar
Message: 3 Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 19:48:13 +0000 From: "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: a4359dff0812011148p5621873yf7d84dfc9a26c7a9@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Don't forget Esperanto.
Since when has Esperanto been a global language? It was a failed attempt at creating one, that's all. There is very little point in anyone learning it except for the fun of it (if you enjoy that sort of thing).
Message: 4 Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 19:48:49 +0000 From: "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: a4359dff0812011148l2bc27619r6b5d999e292011a0@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
2008/12/1 Finn Rindahl finnrindwiki@gmail.com:
I'd like to ecco (is that an eEnglish word..?) Michael Finney here.
I think you mean "echo" - to repeat what he said.
Message: 5 Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 13:51:35 -0600 From: "Pedro Sanchez" pdsanchez@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 9ac45b70812011151r69e71ff1u774702570c5fcad@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 1:44 PM, Finn Rindahl finnrindwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I'd like to ecco (is that an eEnglish word..?) Michael Finney here. Most people who engage them self in a small language wikimedia projects will sooner or later participate in projects like en:wp and commons as well - and thus both learn more about the "facts of reality" as well as communicating with others in a (for them) foreign language.
An also a fair share of people who initially engage into enwip ant he alike, eventually decide to migrate to smaller projects.
Message: 6 Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 20:53:23 +0100 From: "Gerard Meijssen" gerard.meijssen@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 41a006820812011153k5071e06x13c67c5e4012e849@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hoi, When usability improvements are to be implemented, it will change the dynamics of a project. It is easy to argue why the smaller projects need more content and more contributors. It is also easy to argue the same for the bigger and biggest projects. When a skin becomes available with a BIG button saying "Create new article", there will be loud voices explaining why it is a bad idea. Arguments that make sense up to a point.
It is important to start thinking in terms of: when it becomes easier to contribute to a MediaWiki project, what are the implications. I am of the opinion that this will be on balance beneficial. But that is just me.
I have not been addressing the board. I am grateful if the board takes an interest but I would prefer it when the WMF organisation takes up the baton. At most and at best the board can give usability more of a priority, but I would not be surprised if the organisation is ready to give usability more priority without Board involvement. The timing would not be that bad as the new developers are getting experienced and I expect that most of the work associated with the fund raiser is done.
If you are a developer, I would LOVE you to have a look at the code. I would love to see proposals for a skin that does include a "CreatePage" button. I would love you to fix the bugs that have been identified by MinuteElectron. I am sure that there is enough that you can do to make usability an issue that we are now starting to address. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/1 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com
Thanks for that, Gerard. In other terms I suppose my question would be this: You've identified a problem (usability, particularly in languages with the smallest or least technologically wealthy communities) and a partial solution (usability extensions developed by UNICEF). Your post, though, had the tone of hoping that readers would offer assistance of some sort - so what assistance would you like? Was your post aimed primarily at the Board, or is there something that other people could be doing as well?
Nathan
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, The software has been tested but not all extensions are considered ready for WMF production. I am establishing contacts with, among others, people at UNICEF to make sure that we identify the outstanding issues carefully and fix them efficiently. Given that the CreatePage extension requires
changes
to the skin, it may make sense to consider using a superset of monobook
(I
do not know how feasible this is).
Given that the software is already being localised at Betawiki, we do not need to restrict ourselves to English. I understand that UNICEF uses some of their software in Swahili :) I would love to consider Swahili for this
...
Kennisnet is interested in this functionality, that would make Dutch an option. It needs to be clear that it is not only Wikipedia projects that will benefit.
The benefits from a more useable interface have little to do with a "simple" approach. Newbies are not able to contribute. Our need for more contributors and content is most dire in our smallest projects. Personally I am not
that
interested in using "simple" as a test environment. From my perspective,
it
should be there for all the projects that want it. Obviously, when this extension is localised first, it will be more effective.
When we are to test this in a Wikimedia Wiki, we need to get involvement from Brion. It would help a lot when the WMF actively takes part in this collaboration and make usability a priority. Thanks, GerardM
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Message: 7 Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 21:02:34 +0100 From: "Finn Rindahl" finnrindwiki@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 23e544110812011202p73ea39a8v9effa24b44b8d11b@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
@Pedro :Yep, it's a two way interaction that I believe benefits all projects (sort of human interwiki)
@Thomas:Echo would be the English word, thanks. "Ecco" however is also correct eEnglish, ref. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guerilla_non-eEnglish_spelling_and_grammar_ca.... (Note to self: Irony should be avvoided in online communication, especially when writing foreignly)
@Gerard: Yes, there will be a lot of loud voices, but in the end we'll manage to work out this as an improvement to help new (and perhaps older) users as well. There was A LOT of load voices at Commons when (what I still hope is) a more userfriendly uploadsystem was launched, but it seems to be working just fine ;)
We may get more nonsense articles going straight to speedy deletion, but the way to raise the quality of wikip/media is certainly not to avvoid maiking it easier for people to edit,
Finn R
2008/12/1 Pedro Sanchez pdsanchez@gmail.com
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 1:44 PM, Finn Rindahl finnrindwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I'd like to ecco (is that an eEnglish word..?) Michael Finney here. Most people who engage them self in a small language wikimedia projects will sooner or later participate in projects like en:wp and commons as well -
and
thus both learn more about the "facts of reality" as well as
communicating
with others in a (for them) foreign language.
An also a fair share of people who initially engage into enwip ant he alike, eventually decide to migrate to smaller projects.
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Message: 8 Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 20:11:19 +0000 From: geni geniice@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: f80608430812011211l148b4b48sde52fd4c92cc5ca3@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
2008/12/1 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
Hoi, There is no point in usability studies when the lessons learned are not applied. At the Boston Wikimania there was another person who had done studies on usability and MediaWiki. She even presented about it at the "Hacker days"...
The problem is the info tends to be around it an easy to access and search form.
As to Commons, it is effectively useless to the people that do not speak English.
Really? Even with the extensive uselang stuff in say german?
-- geni
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End of foundation-l Digest, Vol 57, Issue 8
I actually think that what is being discussed is a wrong division. Let me give my point of view, which I have discussed on several occasions with kv75, a ru.wp admin. We can roughly divide all content of Wikipedia (I am less familiar with other projects) into three big groups. Let us call them "pop-content", "common-knowledge content" and "expert content".
"Common knowledge" is a collection of topics a person with some education has something to say about. Those include biographies, history, geography, movies, books etc. I guess this is what most of the posters in this thread have in mind. And here we indeed need many languagues, since, for instance, an article on a certain book of Agnon is best written frist by a Hebrew speaker, and eventually translated into different languages, and supplemented by an info on various traslations. This clearly helps to spread the knowledge among people speaking different languages. And in this context, "fails" means just an inactive project, with no editors able to build up this kind of content. It does not mean that say in a year such editors would appear.
"Pop" is the information on the subjects like computer games, animation series ets. It is sometimes considered to be of low-level, but we should remember that 90% of our editors (and may be also readers) are only interested in this type of information. And the hope is that they initially get attracted by this type of articles but eventually get grown up and start also contributiong to the articles on other subjects. Also, most of them only speak their mothertongue, especially those active in bigger-language (say with more than 1M speakers) projects.
Finally, "Expert" are the articles which can only be contributed by editors having special education: science, some humanities, some social sciences. I am a university professor in physics, and I can indeed confirm what has been previously written (by geni?) that in physics everything (well, almost everything) is published in English, all conferences are in English, and those who do not speak English can not effectively compete. But the "expert articles" are in a pitiful state, even on en.wp! This means that in this direction so far we failed as the whole project. Not 80%, but 100% failed. And indeed I believe that here the best articles should be created on en.wp and eventually get translated (if it is at all possible, for instance, in Russian the notions invented after 1990s may just not exist, I am not sure), but the main problem here is not the language communication but the lack of competent editors creating such content in the first place.
Cheers Yaroslav
There are 732 editable wikis on Wikimedia and nearly all of them are active in some way. Just a year ago, these wikis were getting hit by loads of spambots and malbots and barely any community to fight them, but since then we have seen changes in smaller wikis. Apart from maybe 15-20 wikis, I can safely say that most wikis are active and as Jimbo mentioned somewhere, it will be good to learn another language as your second tongue, preferably those that are spoken a lot more.We spend so much time on these language wikipedias, we should atleast try to learn something from it :)
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