I've created [[Wikimedia in Scotland]] on the WM UK wiki, and would really appreciate if someone could create a specific Common.css page for it.
Required is [[MediaWiki:Common.css/Wikimedia in Scotland]] with the following content:
#p-logo a { background-image: url('http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2d/Wikimedia_in_Scotla...') !important; }
Once a hard refresh is done, this should then cause the Wikimedia in Scotland graphic I've created to be displayed as the Wiki logo for that page only.
Ideally, we then 'tart up' this page a little and have the new scotwiki.org domain point to it. With help from Peter Weiss, I've a QRcode which includes a Saltire and points to scotwiki.org.
If we're to make use of this, then I believe one of the key functions of the page should be to encourage people to create accounts to upload images, and to perhaps join WMUK.
Scotland is, largely, in need of a drive to recruit contributors who venture outside when the daystar is visible; or, tap into the wide international visitor base, get them improving the quantity and quality of images, then expand coverage across multiple languages.
I'll be discussing this further with Fae on Friday and Saturday, but my gut instinct is to start with images. The number of people I see - apparently on holiday - and lugging round £4K+ of camera equipment in Edinburgh is almost-frightening. Bringing such people into the WMF fold just seems sensible. rather than a photo they share with friends and family for 20-30 views per month, they can end up with thousands of views and encourage others to build and translate content around quality images.
Brian McNeil.
Sorry to ask such a tangential question, but what is WMUK's position on non-English wikis that might be suitable for a Scottish audience (e.g. Scots)? Will it seek to actively promote interest in them?
-- Harry (User:Jarry1250)
On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:20 PM, Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
I've created [[Wikimedia in Scotland]] on the WM UK wiki, and would really appreciate if someone could create a specific Common.css page for it.
Required is [[MediaWiki:Common.css/Wikimedia in Scotland]] with the following content:
#p-logo a { background-image: url('http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2d/Wikimedia_in_Scotla...') !important; }
Once a hard refresh is done, this should then cause the Wikimedia in Scotland graphic I've created to be displayed as the Wiki logo for that page only.
Ideally, we then 'tart up' this page a little and have the new scotwiki.org domain point to it. With help from Peter Weiss, I've a QRcode which includes a Saltire and points to scotwiki.org.
If we're to make use of this, then I believe one of the key functions of the page should be to encourage people to create accounts to upload images, and to perhaps join WMUK.
Scotland is, largely, in need of a drive to recruit contributors who venture outside when the daystar is visible; or, tap into the wide international visitor base, get them improving the quantity and quality of images, then expand coverage across multiple languages.
I'll be discussing this further with Fae on Friday and Saturday, but my gut instinct is to start with images. The number of people I see - apparently on holiday - and lugging round £4K+ of camera equipment in Edinburgh is almost-frightening. Bringing such people into the WMF fold just seems sensible. rather than a photo they share with friends and family for 20-30 views per month, they can end up with thousands of views and encourage others to build and translate content around quality images.
Brian McNeil.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil - Accredited Reporter. Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 28 Sep 2011, at 09:58, Harry Burt wrote:
Sorry to ask such a tangential question, but what is WMUK's position on non-English wikis that might be suitable for a Scottish audience (e.g. Scots)? Will it seek to actively promote interest in them?
In general, yes, most definitely.
In reality, we need to have speakers of the language, and people from the appropriate geography, involved so that it's not just English people promoting them. ;-) Finding those people has proved to be very tricky in the past (as is currently being demonstrated by the few people that have signed up or left apologies for the Edinburgh wikimeet this Saturday, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Edinburgh_3 ).
Thanks, Mike
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 10:02 AM, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
In general, yes, most definitely.
In reality, we need to have speakers of the language, and people from the appropriate geography, involved so that it's not just English people promoting them. ;-)
Fair enough. It is a fairly controversial stance though (not with me, I should point out). Has the rationale being expounded somewhere?
-- Harry (User:Jarry1250)
On 28 September 2011 10:20, Harry Burt harryaburt@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 10:02 AM, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
In general, yes, most definitely.
In reality, we need to have speakers of the language, and people from the appropriate geography, involved so that it's not just English people promoting them. ;-)
Fair enough. It is a fairly controversial stance though (not with me, I should point out). Has the rationale being expounded somewhere?
I don't think it's particularly controversial. The logistical problems involved with trying to promote a project in a language you don't speak are enough to make it an unwise venture.
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 11:54, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think it's particularly controversial. The logistical problems involved with trying to promote a project in a language you don't speak are enough to make it an unwise venture.
As WMUK, we can enable people to do so, and we can be aware of multi-lingual outreach. There's no reason WMUK should equal English, and no reason it should equal English, Welsh, Scots/Gaelic. Our mission is promoting free knowledge and the mission of the Wikimedia movement in whatever way is practical in the UK.
Say we had access to a library in Britain that had substantial material on Latin American history primarily in the languages of those nations (Spanish and Portugese). Say we then had the opportunity to go and help them learn how to edit Wikipedia and add texts to Wikisource and images to Commons: it may end up that they are going to primarily edit ptwiki or eswiki or ptwikisource, but that's fine. If it seems like a good opportunity to further the mission of the Wikimedia movement and it is practical to do it with our funding and whatever.
Anyway, that's my opinion.
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
Say we had access to a library in Britain that had substantial material on Latin American history primarily in the languages of those nations (Spanish and Portugese). Say we then had the opportunity to go and help them learn how to edit Wikipedia and add texts to Wikisource and images to Commons: it may end up that they are going to primarily edit ptwiki or eswiki or ptwikisource, but that's fine. If it seems like a good opportunity to further the mission of the Wikimedia movement and it is practical to do it with our funding and whatever.
Yes. But the point is, some people question whether (e.g.) the Scots Wikipedia is actually useful at all, since very few people prefer to read and write in Scots over English. And hence my original question about whether or not WMUK/the board/individuals consider investing their limited resources in projects which support such wikis to be worthwhile.
I think it is clear that views differ, and so the answer is "we'll look at projects on a case-by-case basis" :)
-- Harry
The same could be said of Welsh, or Latin, or a handful of other languages with a dedicated Wikipedia. I'm on the fence as to the usefulness of these projects, but I thought I'd just point out that there are a few of them. ;) Harry (HJ Mitchell)
________________________________ From: Harry Burt harryaburt@gmail.com To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, 28 September 2011, 13:32 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] A little wiki "hacking"
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
Say we had access to a library in Britain that had substantial material on Latin American history primarily in the languages of those nations (Spanish and Portugese). Say we then had the opportunity to go and help them learn how to edit Wikipedia and add texts to Wikisource and images to Commons: it may end up that they are going to primarily edit ptwiki or eswiki or ptwikisource, but that's fine. If it seems like a good opportunity to further the mission of the Wikimedia movement and it is practical to do it with our funding and whatever.
Yes. But the point is, some people question whether (e.g.) the Scots Wikipedia is actually useful at all, since very few people prefer to read and write in Scots over English. And hence my original question about whether or not WMUK/the board/individuals consider investing their limited resources in projects which support such wikis to be worthwhile.
I think it is clear that views differ, and so the answer is "we'll look at projects on a case-by-case basis" :)
-- Harry
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 1:45 PM, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com wrote:
The same could be said of Welsh, or Latin, or a handful of other languages with a dedicated Wikipedia. I'm on the fence as to the usefulness of these projects, but I thought I'd just point out that there are a few of them. ;)
Harry (HJ Mitchell)
Oh, sure. But Scots is the most marginal case of the lot, I think, which is why I was reminded of it by the original post.
-- Harry (User:Jarry1250)
Hi,
I agree with Tom that WMUK supports open knowledge across all the projects, that includes the Tamil Wikipedia as well as the Welsh and Scots one.
As a trustee I'm keen that we can demonstrate our commitment to diversity and international collaboration. That's one of the reasons we were excited to have bragging rights for the Derby Museum articles existing in 100+ languages and for the V&A museum to involve live collaboration in multiple languages in multiple countries.
As part of the GLAM UK task force I am also interested in developing a sustainable GLAM network of e-volunteers. As there is significant interest in Welsh, Scots and Gaelic (Scottish and Irish) these are specific opportunities to support new Wikimedians for local languages. Rather than being tempted to pre-judge importance based on whether any particular language version of Wikipedia being currently weak, I suggest we prioritise our support based on genuine community interest. If more people living in the UK come forward wanting to do an exciting project on the Somalian Wikipedia, that will probably get more of our attention and be more of a priority for any funding than a proposal for a Welsh project with only one supporter.
I agree that the Scots Wikipedia needs improvement, that makes it a great opportunity for a spontaneous proposal for funding from a group of Wikimedians with Scots language skills which the board can then judge on its own merits, I can assure you that all the trustees would love to receive such proposals.
Cheers, Fae -- http://enwp.org/user_talk:fae Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/faetags
Being a founding sysop of the Cantonese Wikipedia and a member of WMHK, I've had experience handling skepticism towards regional language Wikipedias.
Where speakers of that language (both first and second) are concerned, I think it is the chapter's duty to promote the project rather than feed the skepticism. It is important for the chapter to make clear to the public the Wikimedia movement's position about regional languages and projects in those languages. On Sep 28, 2011 2:26 PM, "Fae" faenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
I agree with Tom that WMUK supports open knowledge across all the projects, that includes the Tamil Wikipedia as well as the Welsh and Scots one.
As a trustee I'm keen that we can demonstrate our commitment to diversity and international collaboration. That's one of the reasons we were excited to have bragging rights for the Derby Museum articles existing in 100+ languages and for the V&A museum to involve live collaboration in multiple languages in multiple countries.
As part of the GLAM UK task force I am also interested in developing a sustainable GLAM network of e-volunteers. As there is significant interest in Welsh, Scots and Gaelic (Scottish and Irish) these are specific opportunities to support new Wikimedians for local languages. Rather than being tempted to pre-judge importance based on whether any particular language version of Wikipedia being currently weak, I suggest we prioritise our support based on genuine community interest. If more people living in the UK come forward wanting to do an exciting project on the Somalian Wikipedia, that will probably get more of our attention and be more of a priority for any funding than a proposal for a Welsh project with only one supporter.
I agree that the Scots Wikipedia needs improvement, that makes it a great opportunity for a spontaneous proposal for funding from a group of Wikimedians with Scots language skills which the board can then judge on its own merits, I can assure you that all the trustees would love to receive such proposals.
Cheers, Fae -- http://enwp.org/user_talk:fae Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/faetags
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 28 September 2011 16:13, Deryck Chan deryckchan@gmail.com wrote:
Being a founding sysop of the Cantonese Wikipedia and a member of WMHK, I've had experience handling skepticism towards regional language Wikipedias.
Where speakers of that language (both first and second) are concerned, I think it is the chapter's duty to promote the project rather than feed the skepticism. It is important for the chapter to make clear to the public the Wikimedia movement's position about regional languages and projects in those languages.
I fully agree.
The British governement has made various commitments with regard to regional languages in the UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_Kingdom#Status
and the regional language versions of Wikipedia are one very real way of helping promote the wider use of these languages.
Andrew [[User:BabelStone]]
On 28 September 2011 13:53, Harry Burt harryaburt@gmail.com wrote:
Oh, sure. But Scots is the most marginal case of the lot, I think, which is why I was reminded of it by the original post.
I agree that it is debatable whether some of the marginal wikipedias have much value, although in the case of Scots it is perhaps because it is generally quite understandable to most English speakers that makes the Scots Wikipedia seem less useful than say Welsh or Irish Wikipedias.
http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_leid
However, I do think that Wikimedia UK ought to offer support and encouragement to other language wikis with UK connections if needed. The following is a list of other language Wikipedias that could be considered to come under the purview of Wikimedia UK:
Simple English http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simple_English_Wikipedia 73,631 articles
Welsh http://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymraeg 33,944 articles
Irish http://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaeilge 13,294 articles
Scottish Gaelic http://gd.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A0idhlig 8,459 articles
Scots http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_leid 7,153 articles
Manx http://gv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelg 3,900 articles
Norman (including Guernésiais, Jèrriais and Sercquiais) http://nrm.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normaund 3,473 articles
Anglo-Saxon http://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englisc_spr%C7%A3c 2,720 articles
Cornish http://kw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernewek 2,188 articles
Andrew [[User:BabelStone]]
On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 13:53 +0100, Harry Burt wrote:
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 1:45 PM, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com wrote:
The same could be said of Welsh, or Latin, or a handful of other languages with a dedicated Wikipedia. I'm on the fence as to the usefulness of these projects, but I thought I'd just point out that there are a few of them. ;)
Harry (HJ Mitchell)
Oh, sure. But Scots is the most marginal case of the lot, I think, which is why I was reminded of it by the original post.
I'm going to chime in here onHarry's post, as-opposed to getting further down the rabbit hole on this discussion.
I live in Edinburgh. I am surrounded by people who speak Scots. They don't even know they do so. If you mention Scots as a language to them, they *might* think of the poetry of Rabbie Burns. If they're smart, they may say they speak a Scottish dialect of English.
Personally, I would say the difference between Scots and British English is more than the difference between Brit.Eng and U.S.Eng, but less than the difference back to Shakespearean English.
I'd go as far as saying you can only call it a distinct language if you're one of the people south of the border who demanded subtitles for Rab C. Nesbitt.
Whether or not the sco language code is justified, is a point I'll defer to linguists on. As I say, Burns is the best-known example of it, and I've no passion to glorify the poetic musings of an ex-tax collector.
Brian McNeil.
Edinburgh probably isn't very representative of the lot. Bring on the Glaswegians and Aberdeen Dorics! My classmate from Aberdeen claims clearly that he's *bilingual* in Doric [Scots] and English, as do most natives of Aberdeen. I think there are lots of native Scots speakers who realise Scots is different enough from English that it has become a different language, and it's our job to promote their awareness of a Scots Wikipedia.
However, for those in Edinburgh who aren't sure whether they're speaking Scots or just Scottish English, I agree that pushing them to contribute or read a Scots Wikipedia isn't the best of ideas.
(Re geonotices) Geonotices are opt-out rather than opt-in. However, geolocation often isn't very good in the UK, and it's possible that your IP is tagged to the wrong place all the time.
On 29 September 2011 22:17, Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.orgwrote:
On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 13:53 +0100, Harry Burt wrote:
On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 1:45 PM, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com
wrote:
The same could be said of Welsh, or Latin, or a handful of other
languages
with a dedicated Wikipedia. I'm on the fence as to the usefulness of
these
projects, but I thought I'd just point out that there are a few of
them. ;)
Harry (HJ Mitchell)
Oh, sure. But Scots is the most marginal case of the lot, I think, which is why I was reminded of it by the original post.
I'm going to chime in here onHarry's post, as-opposed to getting further down the rabbit hole on this discussion.
I live in Edinburgh. I am surrounded by people who speak Scots. They don't even know they do so. If you mention Scots as a language to them, they *might* think of the poetry of Rabbie Burns. If they're smart, they may say they speak a Scottish dialect of English.
Personally, I would say the difference between Scots and British English is more than the difference between Brit.Eng and U.S.Eng, but less than the difference back to Shakespearean English.
I'd go as far as saying you can only call it a distinct language if you're one of the people south of the border who demanded subtitles for Rab C. Nesbitt.
Whether or not the sco language code is justified, is a point I'll defer to linguists on. As I say, Burns is the best-known example of it, and I've no passion to glorify the poetic musings of an ex-tax collector.
Brian McNeil.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil - Accredited Reporter. Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 29 September 2011 22:29, Deryck Chan deryckchan@gmail.com wrote:
Edinburgh probably isn't very representative of the lot. Bring on the Glaswegians and Aberdeen Dorics! My classmate from Aberdeen claims clearly that he's *bilingual* in Doric [Scots] and English, as do most natives of Aberdeen. I think there are lots of native Scots speakers who realise Scots is different enough from English that it has become a different language, and it's our job to promote their awareness of a Scots Wikipedia.
Except the history suggests the reverse Scots was a separate language that has largely merged into English.
On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 10:02 +0100, Michael Peel wrote:
On 28 Sep 2011, at 09:58, Harry Burt wrote:
Sorry to ask such a tangential question, but what is WMUK's position on non-English wikis that might be suitable for a Scottish audience (e.g. Scots)? Will it seek to actively promote interest in them?
In general, yes, most definitely.
In reality, we need to have speakers of the language, and people from the appropriate geography, involved so that it's not just English people promoting them. ;-) Finding those people has proved to be very tricky in the past (as is currently being demonstrated by the few people that have signed up or left apologies for the Edinburgh wikimeet this Saturday, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Edinburgh_3 ).
Mike,
I think I've identified the biggest problem there: Geonotices are opt-in only. I've *never* been presented with one, and I'm not even sure where I'd enable such.
That is,... stupid (yes, being my notoriously blunt self). Whilst the WMF does not want to irk people to the extent Facebook does with their perpetual extreme makeovers, there is nothing wrong with saying "we have a real-world event in your area, click here to view, or here to disable such notices".
We could easily be missing dozens of people with 4-figure-plus edit counts because it might be intrusive to tell them fellow Wikimedians are in the area.
Incidentally, Rock Drum has done a great job on tarting up the Wikimedia in Scotland page! Kudos are due there.
Brian McNeil.
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org