We have about 60 characters (3 lines of 23 characters) physical space on the memory stick production of the schools wikipedia on which to place some message. We are struggling with ideas.
The following are possible messages to include:
20 million words 34000 pictures, equivalent to a 20 volume encyclopaedia
checked content from the English Wikipedia
making Wikipedia content accessible offline
making Wikipedia content accessible to child safe users
Wikipedia arranged by National Curriculum topic
What do people think the most critical messages are?
The (4G) memory sticks are a bit more expensive than DVDs (they cost around £6 loaded and printed) but we think they will work better than DVDs. We won't charge for either but might just use DVDs for all the copies people request by post.
Thoughts welcome
Andrew
2008/10/16 Andrew Cates Andrew@soschildren.org:
making Wikipedia content accessible to child safe users
This one doesn't actualy scan too well.
"checked content from the English Wikipedia" would probably get you the most interest along with wikipedia offline.
2008/10/16 Andrew Cates Andrew@soschildren.org:
What do people think the most critical messages are?
Getting the word "Wikipedia" in is essential, I think; it's got sufficient name-recognition to be worthwhile.
The (4G) memory sticks are a bit more expensive than DVDs (they cost around £6 loaded and printed) but we think they will work better than DVDs. We won't charge for either but might just use DVDs for all the copies people request by post.
DVDs will remain around, is the thing, whilst 4G memory sticks might easily get wiped and reused. I may be sounding overly cynical here :-)
Are these to be sent to schools on spec, or on their request?
On Thu, October 16, 2008 14:53, Andrew Gray wrote:
DVDs will remain around, is the thing, whilst 4G memory sticks might easily get wiped and reused. I may be sounding overly cynical here :-)
This was my first thought too. Just as the BBC wiped loads of tv programmes to re-use the tapes then later wished they hadn't so a school might decide to "re-use" the keydrive (or a student might think it is 'fun') so I'd push the DVD as the primary option by a long way as it is guaranteed to stay around (hell I've just discovered a load of data CDs from the mid-90s which are still usable)
Alison
2008/10/16 Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com:
On Thu, October 16, 2008 14:53, Andrew Gray wrote:
DVDs will remain around, is the thing, whilst 4G memory sticks might easily get wiped and reused. I may be sounding overly cynical here :-)
This was my first thought too. Just as the BBC wiped loads of tv programmes to re-use the tapes then later wished they hadn't so a school might decide to "re-use" the keydrive (or a student might think it is 'fun') so I'd push the DVD as the primary option by a long way as it is guaranteed to stay around (hell I've just discovered a load of data CDs from the mid-90s which are still usable)
Isn't there something you can do to memory sticks to make them read-only? Remove a tab or something (that may only be some sticks). It can probably be undone, but would reduce the chance of them being overwritten. I find USB memory sticks are far more convenient than DVDs - I can see people that often use computers without internet connections (or connections which filter Wikipedia) carrying one on their keyring so they always have it to hand. You couldn't do that with a DVD.
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 5:09 PM, Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com wrote:
On Thu, October 16, 2008 14:53, Andrew Gray wrote:
DVDs will remain around, is the thing, whilst 4G memory sticks might easily get wiped and reused. I may be sounding overly cynical here :-)
This was my first thought too. Just as the BBC wiped loads of tv programmes to re-use the tapes then later wished they hadn't so a school might decide to "re-use" the keydrive (or a student might think it is 'fun') so I'd push the DVD as the primary option by a long way as it is guaranteed to stay around (hell I've just discovered a load of data CDs from the mid-90s which are still usable)
Presuming this will be available for download, the information could always be copied back onto the drive if it's writeable...
2008/10/16 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
Presuming this will be available for download, the information could always be copied back onto the drive if it's writeable...
Mmm. I'm not concerned about them losing the information - except inasmuch that if it's not to hand they're less likely to use it - just the prospect that half the recipients will promptly go "ooh, a £10 memory stick, I could really use one of those".
This is all handy but doesn't answer my question on what phrasing to use.
In answer to the advice, people who ask can be sent DVDs which we will burn in thousands. These are more expensive than downloads but more accessible.
Memory sticks will be sent out to a few journalists to review (in which case the balance of risk that they wipe and keep is ok), to warm schools which we already know have it on their intranet and possibly to some other Wikipedia folk who have a known track record of going around schools (in Bangalore or whereever) and loading them onto a lot of computers and intranets. Oh and possibly the new UK WP board if they want.
Andrew
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 6:12 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
2008/10/16 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
Presuming this will be available for download, the information could always be copied back onto the drive if it's writeable...
Mmm. I'm not concerned about them losing the information - except inasmuch that if it's not to hand they're less likely to use it - just the prospect that half the recipients will promptly go "ooh, a £10 memory stick, I could really use one of those".
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
2008/10/16 Andrew Cates Andrew@soschildren.org:
This is all handy but doesn't answer my question on what phrasing to use.
This is because we like answering the easy questions you didn't ask rather than the hard ones you did ask ;-)
I'm ambivalent on what ought to go on there, but I'd suggest a number of articles rather than a number of words, and to make sure to have the word "Wikipedia" on it, emphasised if possible. People know what it is; they've heard of it and they know what it signifies, so we get to save a lot of explanatory verbiage that way.
Would "Wikipedia offline - 45,000 checked articles and images" fit?
Memory sticks will be sent out to a few journalists to review (in which case the balance of risk that they wipe and keep is ok), to warm schools which we already know have it on their intranet and possibly to some other Wikipedia folk who have a known track record of going around schools (in Bangalore or whereever) and loading them onto a lot of computers and intranets. Oh and possibly the new UK WP board if they want.
Excellent, this is the approach I was hoping you were going to tell us you were using :-)
2008/10/16 Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com:
Would "Wikipedia offline - 45,000 checked articles and images" fit?
(where, of course, "45,000" is replaced by whatever the actual number is)
If I was a teacher considering whether to teach using Wikipedia, I suspect that my main concern would be the child-friendliness and trustworthiness. So - I think that the most important thing to get in is that it is checked. Beyond that, it's good to know there's plenty on there.
Do schools need information available offline? Presumably, there's an advantage for them, and that's why we're sending it out - if so, then we should mention that it's offline.
So - I like Andrew Gray's suggestion: "Wikipedia offline - xx,000 checked articles and images".
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
2008/10/16 Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com:
Would "Wikipedia offline - 45,000 checked articles and images" fit?
(where, of course, "45,000" is replaced by whatever the actual number is)
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Would "Wikipedia offline - 45,000 checked articles and images" fit?
What does "checked" mean? Verified accurate? (I presume not.) Child-friendly?
Better to be precise if possible.
2008/10/16 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Would "Wikipedia offline - 45,000 checked articles and images" fit?
What does "checked" mean? Verified accurate? (I presume not.) Child-friendly?
Better to be precise if possible.
It depends on quite how the collection *is* checked, which I'm not entirely sure about. But in many ways, a snappy description on the outside and then a detailed precise explanation once you start it up seems to be the best way to go...
thanx for help. Gone for
Curriculum-based offline Wikipedia: 40,000 child-checked articles & images
The other angles (that we are basically making Wikipedia content more accessible) we will cover in press release and accompanying letters.
Since you ask on "checking", the checking was such a labour of love I am not even sure we will manage it again. For the record, we had volunteers who were a mixture of students, ex-schools teachers and a few other professionals who went through the version histories of articles, choose two versions by "credible" editors reasonably apart (a month and edits by five editors) , checked the diffs for vandalism, choose the better version, skim read the article, noted sections or text strings for deletion if they looked dubious (do parsnips really induce photosensitivity which is unsourced?). We also took a conscious decision to remove most info about sexual orientation and scandal in biogs, also reduce the volume in year pages of serial killers and terrorist acts to try to get good news/bad news in kilter. A reasonable sample of each volunteers work was double checked by one of two office staff. In some cases (the year pages for example) the volunteers were pretty thorough in checking facts at least for consistency with Wikipedia biogs and we corrected WP a fair bit. In others a recent version by a good quality editor with no vandalism in diffs versus a month earlier was used without much challenge. We then ran a rude word checker and re-choose or deleted where we hit c*** f*** p**** (except birth control and a couple of others) incest (except Anne Boleyn where it was on her death warrant) and a couple of other strings. The only problem with this is some quotations in biogs are now inaccurate to the tune of missing redundant "f***ing". Such is life.
I notice already one teachers discussion forum has a teacher congratulating us on getting the difficult part of the Inca history correct "unlike the main Wikipedia". Of course, that was just version selection to a good editor.
Andrew
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 9:17 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
2008/10/16 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Would "Wikipedia offline - 45,000 checked articles and images" fit?
What does "checked" mean? Verified accurate? (I presume not.) Child-friendly?
Better to be precise if possible.
It depends on quite how the collection *is* checked, which I'm not entirely sure about. But in many ways, a snappy description on the outside and then a detailed precise explanation once you start it up seems to be the best way to go...
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 8:43 AM, Andrew Cates Andrew@soschildren.org wrote:
Since you ask on "checking", the checking was such a labour of love I am not even sure we will manage it again. For the record, we had volunteers who were a mixture of students, ex-schools teachers and a few other professionals who went through the version histories of articles, choose two versions by "credible" editors reasonably apart (a month and edits by five editors) , checked the diffs for vandalism, choose the better version, skim read the article, noted sections or text strings for deletion if they looked dubious (do parsnips really induce photosensitivity which is unsourced?). We also took a conscious decision to remove most info about sexual orientation and scandal in biogs, also reduce the volume in year pages of serial killers and terrorist acts to try to get good news/bad news in kilter. A reasonable sample of each volunteers work was double checked by one of two office staff. In some cases (the year pages for example) the volunteers were pretty thorough in checking facts at least for consistency with Wikipedia biogs and we corrected WP a fair bit. In others a recent version by a good quality editor with no vandalism in diffs versus a month earlier was used without much challenge. We then ran a rude word checker and re-choose or deleted where we hit c*** f*** p**** (except birth control and a couple of others) incest (except Anne Boleyn where it was on her death warrant) and a couple of other strings. The only problem with this is some quotations in biogs are now inaccurate to the tune of missing redundant "f***ing". Such is life.
I notice already one teachers discussion forum has a teacher congratulating us on getting the difficult part of the Inca history correct "unlike the main Wikipedia". Of course, that was just version selection to a good editor.
Wow, that's pretty amazing! /me is highly impressed
2008/10/17 Andrew Cates Andrew@soschildren.org:
thanx for help. Gone for
Curriculum-based offline Wikipedia: 40,000 child-checked articles & images
It's probably too late now, but I'd quibble this sounds like the children did the checking ;-)
Is that 40,000 articles with images, or 40,000 articles plus images in total?
I notice already one teachers discussion forum has a teacher congratulating us on getting the difficult part of the Inca history correct "unlike the main Wikipedia". Of course, that was just version selection to a good editor.
Ha! Might be worth noting that on the discussion page, someone'll be pleased...
Hi Andrew,
Since you ask 5500 articles 34500 images 20 million words. We think this would fill 20+ volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica. You cannot go much further on a DVD or 4Gb memory stick unless you do what the Release Version people are doing and only include thumbnails of the images without image pages. We include the full image page cos we think the licence requires it but in the end we have scaled down the images to below full resolution but much better than thumbnail.
This is the third time around so we've had a couple of years to work out what to do. If you want to smile though go to http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/schools-wikipedia.org and add www.citizendium.org as the second graph for comparison. Given we are mainly offline to be ahead of them online has a certain sugary feeling.
Agree about child checked but we hesitated on child-friendly because the reading age of a lot of it is too high (16+).
Andrew
On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 10:22 AM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
2008/10/17 Andrew Cates Andrew@soschildren.org:
thanx for help. Gone for
Curriculum-based offline Wikipedia: 40,000 child-checked articles & images
It's probably too late now, but I'd quibble this sounds like the children did the checking ;-)
Is that 40,000 articles with images, or 40,000 articles plus images in total?
I notice already one teachers discussion forum has a teacher congratulating us on getting the difficult part of the Inca history correct "unlike the main Wikipedia". Of course, that was just version selection to a good editor.
Ha! Might be worth noting that on the discussion page, someone'll be pleased...
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
2008/10/17 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
Agree about child checked but we hesitated on child-friendly because the reading age of a lot of it is too high (16+).
"child-suitable"?
Child-safe? is shorter
2008/10/17 geni geniice@gmail.com:
2008/10/17 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
Agree about child checked but we hesitated on child-friendly because the reading age of a lot of it is too high (16+).
"child-suitable"?
Child-safe? is shorter
There are two sides to something being good for children, though. It needs to be "safe" (personally, I have more faith in children's abilities to deal with the fact that Mr X had an affair with his pool-boy, but I understand the creators wanting to avoid controversy and get the content used rather than using it as a means to campaign against censorship) and it also needs to be understandable by children. "Child-safe" only covers the first of those, "child-suitable" covers both. (I understand the reluctance to call it "friendly", but I think "suitable" is ok since it means children should be able to copy with it rather than meaning they will find it easy to work with.)
Checked content might be going to far, and child safe doesn't explain what age we are checking for.
Howabout: "Screened, PG rated content 2007 edition of Wikipedia." - I'm assuming the screening process wasn't aiming for a U rating.
Regards
WereSpielChequers
dahsun@yahoo.com
--- On Thu, 16/10/08, Andrew Cates Andrew@soschildren.org wrote:
From: Andrew Cates Andrew@soschildren.org Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikipedia for Schools (memory stick) To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Thursday, 16 October, 2008, 12:18 PM We have about 60 characters (3 lines of 23 characters) physical space on the memory stick production of the schools wikipedia on which to place some message. We are struggling with ideas.
The following are possible messages to include:
20 million words 34000 pictures, equivalent to a 20 volume encyclopaedia
checked content from the English Wikipedia
making Wikipedia content accessible offline
making Wikipedia content accessible to child safe users
Wikipedia arranged by National Curriculum topic
What do people think the most critical messages are?
The (4G) memory sticks are a bit more expensive than DVDs (they cost around £6 loaded and printed) but we think they will work better than DVDs. We won't charge for either but might just use DVDs for all the copies people request by post.
Thoughts welcome
Andrew
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