On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 1:19 AM, FRED BAUDER &lt;fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net&gt; wrote: problems. This is what the AROWF system from last year's Google Summer of code was supposed to show how to support: https://priyankamandikal.github.io/posts/gsoc-2016-project-overview/ <https://priyankamandikal.github.io/posts/gsoc-2016-project-overview/>This year the CMUSphinx project is building an interactive voice-response computer-aided instruction system which teaches people how to use the AROWF system (and in the process tries to teach how to resolve NPOV disputes, out of date statements, and a few other backlog categories it tracks) while at the same time remediating spoken English pronunciation. I am currently consulting at a company in Beijing which has 23 million customers in China's K-6 public schools, They have offered to help collect some of the data required to build this system, and the GSoC student assigned to it has been doing pretty well. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a million dollars some time around 2006. Is anything on the horizon? What could we do? Many things; one of them would be to get our act together and become a true leader in software and content localization. Currently we are proud about maintaining MediaWiki, a piece of software that is probably translated to more languages than any other, and that is great, but: 1. Our software localization tooling, excellent as it is, didn't become the industry standard, even though it could with better packaging. Why is it important? Because a Wikipedia in a given language doesn't exist in isolation—it exists in an environment of other programs, sites, platforms, and media. There was a (relatively) thriving software localization community in the Catalan language already in the 1990s (!), so it's not surprising that Catalan Wikipedia was the first to start after English, and is among the most successful Wikimedia projects now. Making software localization better for everybody will bring computer usage to the whole world, and we can be the leaders in it, rather than leaving it to the corporations. 2. We have the theoretical ability to write articles in any language of the world, but not everybody actually does it. Some language communities need stronger nudges than others to get going: Training about translation and scientific writing, developing terminology, developing spelling dictionaries, developing keyboards that allow convenient typing, literacy programs, etc. In a lot of languages the Bible is the only published book; this happened thanks to donations from people who want to spread their religion around the world. If it can be done with the Bible, it can be done with an encyclopedia. 3. We are influencing public policy in the area of copyright law, but we should be influencing public policy around the whole world to make localized computing and content more accessible. Lobbying needs resources. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_ movement/2017/Cycle_2/A_Truly_Global_Movement#Governments_ and_computer_vendors:_Accessibility_to_localization_technology -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com ‪“We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬ 2017-05-17 20:08 GMT+03:00 David Cuenca Tudela &lt;dacuetu(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: much an _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

With that amount of money, we could probably put an end on closed science in less than a decade, and make open access and open science the new standard. There's already a lot of efforts going on, but incumbent publishers are much more rich and resourceful. Lobbying, advocacy, outreach could do a lot, from our part. We are probably better equipped to coordinate bottom-up efforts (hackathons, tools and whatnot), and we would be better suited for the whole diplomatic/political/top-down side of it. Making open science the new standard would be a goal to itself and leverage for other results. We'd end up with a lot more free content for Wikimedia projects, probably better advocacy and outreach for us in Universities and research centers. We would spread and promote the Mertonian norms of science¹, which are already our values. Also, there's a fair chance for this new open science standard to sustain itself, as in the current system scientists and researchers *already* do research, publish and review for free.² A new paradigm for science and research could also be very important for developing countries, in which scientists are often required to adequate to mainstream science (eg. they are not able to research areas which would benefit their local community, like local diseases). Aubrey ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertonian_norms ² of course they are paid by their institutions, but the "act of publishing" and the whole scholarship workflow is "embedded" and already paid for. On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:38 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il&gt; wrote: together we probably the platforms, and the book; done resources. most and _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

I love it, although I suspect that 1B wouldn't be enough. The industry of for-profit academic publishing is probably worth much more than that, and it won't give up easily. Not that I don't support the general idea, but the resistance will be hard.

That is an interesting idea! Maybe we should be working on modelling the Bible better on Wikidata and cross-referencing it to dictionaries and all other religious texts. If it is so important for literacy, it may help unite efforts on labelling in Wikidata. I have no idea how many words are used in the Bible, but hopefully it will cover a lot of basic ground in any language. If the 2bn falls through I bet we could ask the Vatican for a grant to Wikidatafy the entire Catholic encyclopedia. On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:38 PM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il&gt; wrote: together we probably the platforms, and the book; done resources. most and _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Heh, I remember Mr Wales asking what could the movement do with a million dollars some time around 2006.

Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?