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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Dec 18, 2007 5:29 AM
Subject: [Foundation-l] Announcing Erik Moeller as Wikimedia Deputy Director
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi folks,
I am delighted to announce Erik Moeller as Deputy Director of the Wikimedia
Foundation. Erik will take up his new responsibilities in our San Francisco
headquarters beginning January 10, and will report directly to me. As part
of this transition, and as you know already from Florence's announcement
yesterday, Erik has resigned from his role as Board member.
Erik is well-known in the Wikimedia community. A twice-elected board member,
he has been active in the projects since 2001. Through his six years of
volunteer participation, he has made thousands of edits and uploads,
contributed to the MediaWiki software, helped launch Wikinews and Commons,
and supported the organization in numerous other ways. He is also the author
of "Die heimliche Medienrevolution," one of the first books to include an
in-depth analysis of wiki collaboration.
Most recently, Erik has been Chief Technology Officer of Stichting Open
Progress, where he managed a decentralized team of developers in the
implementation of OmegaWiki, a collaborative ontology database. He also
provides hosting for several wiki communities, including WikiEducator.org,
and has project-managed other wiki software development projects such as the
LiquidThreads discussion system.
Our chief technical officer, Brion Vibber, will report to Erik. In addition,
I will be delegating specific projects to him, and he will act on my behalf
when I am traveling or otherwise unavailable. He will also play an important
role in orienting the new San Francisco staff, and helping them to
understand the processes, history and values of the Wikimedia projects.
Since I joined the Foundation in June, I have been impressed with Erik's
commitment, hard work and evangelism on behalf of Wikimedia. I know he will
now be able to make an even greater contribution to what we do, and I'm very
pleased he's agreed to join the staff in the new office.
Please join me in welcoming Erik to the staff of the foundation.
Sue Gardner
Executive Director,
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
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Thomas Dalton wrote:
>It's an excellent point. I thought about it a few months ago and
>considered proposing a new policy banning anything under a week old
>from being included in Wikipedia articles (actually, it was a little
>more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it). It would help
>Wikinews, and would also reduce the number of articles which are a
>succession of "As June 2006 ..." paragraphs. Current events are not
>encyclopaedic and it's impossible to write a good encyclopaedia
>article as soon as something happens, since all the required sources
>haven't been written yet (you have a handful of newspaper articles
>which you can simply rewrite and that's it). I ended up not proposing
>it because I didn't think I was enthusiastic enough about it to
>survive the torture of trying to get it approved. Anyone think it's
>worth a shot?
First off, this sounds like an excellent idea for all language variants of
Wikipedia to consider and perhaps adopt. Obvious exceptions would be things
like deaths where you don't wait to put the appropriate date in the
Wikipedia article - but you don't turn it into an obituary either. You do
the obit. on Wikinews, and *you can prepare that in advance* on Wikinews.
[This may sound gruesome, but in reality someone could start a prepared
story for Terry Pratchett's obit today as he's announced he has early-onset
Alzheimer's. The media reports and quotes from the man made today will be
relevant to the final article when he does pass on.]
Scaling back to something less ambitious would be linking directly from the
Wikipedia main page's in the news section to appropriate Wikinews articles.
At the moment, at least on en., Wikinews has one link in the in the news
section which leads to the main page. This simple step might encourage more
Wikipedians to dip their toe in the Wikinews waters and see that it can be a
little different contributing on a sister project, perhaps even what some
may have experienced when Wikipedia was much smaller and there was more
uncharted territory to explore.
I'd be delighted to see anything done that raises the profile of Wikinews on
Wikipedia and encourages people to try another project. A
Wikipedian-specific introduction would be a start as citation methods differ
and there needs to be a big warning that everything published appears on the
main page (this may change if we're getting 50 articles a day). So, if you
want to progress on this my first suggestion is to find some victims, er...
Wikipedians :) who can be persuaded to give Wikinews a shot. Then a
structure and set of messages can be developed to make it easier for
Wikipedians to transition to writing news and later incorporating it into
Wikipedia when things have calmed down and the event can be considered
historical.
If you raise anything on Wikipedia about this, please let at least myself
know - or bring it up on the Wikinews-l list. I'd like to encourage some of
our editors who are more frequent Wikipedia editors than myself to give
input.
Brian McNeil
From the previous message:
> - We may take their longer news (between one and three during working
> days) for en.wn, see rss feed [1]. (This will go into the separate
> thread.)
> - Actually, they offered to us the whole bulletin in English with one
> day of delay, too. (This will go into the separate thread.)
1) Please, look at RSS feed [1] and tell me how do you want to parse it.
Texts are not short and have a specific structure. I suppose that the
process should be:
1. Putting news as is, without "published" category.
2. Fix the news and add "published" category.
However, note that I need (a lot of) help for the second phase. I'll
check news from time to time, but the program will check for new news
hourly...
I'll make a new bot account ("Millbot-Beta") for adding news. I'll
implement a similar method like on Serbian Wikinews [2] (with a page
which would be used for debugging messages). This account shouldn't have
a bot flag.
I'll organize "debug" page in such way that anyone who is willing to
take care about this would be able to get RSS/Atom feed from the history
page.
2) Please, tell me what do you think: do we need or not Beta's bulletin
with one day of delay?
[1] - http://www.beta.co.yu/rssen.asp
[2] - like this one:
http://sr.wikinews.org/wiki/Корисник:Millbot/хронологија/децембар-2007
(Please, use "reply to all" for replying. If some of you are not
subscribed to wikinews-l, please subscribe.)
Yesterday I was on meeting with director of Beta news agency and Beta's
manager for Internet. According to our informal agreement a year and a
half ago, we made yesterday a formal agreement:
- We may take their short news (a couple per day) for sr.wn (see rss
feed [1]).
- We may take their longer news (between one and three during working
days) for en.wn, see rss feed [2]. (This will go into the separate thread.)
- Actually, they offered to us the whole bulletin in English with one
day of delay, too. (This will go into the separate thread.)
- They have a clear knowledge about what CC-BY 2.5 is (as I mentioned,
news which they are giving on Internet are used de facto under CC-BY).
I'll send to them how their permissions should look like and, they will
print it, sign it and send it to permissions-<whatever>@wikimedia.org.
- Wikimedia Serbia may sign some kind of agreement with Beta, which
should be discussed.
- If we have some other ideas, they are open to listen and if it is not
against their interests, I am sure that they will agree with that.
[1] - http://www.beta.co.yu/rssvd.asp
[2] - http://www.beta.co.yu/rssen.asp
This is from the Wikimania-l mailing list.
--
Thunderhead
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Thunderheadhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thunderhead
_______________________________________________
DISCLAIMER: I hold no official position in the Wikimedia
Foundation. This message expresses the views of a single
Wikimedia user and not necessarily the community at large.
> Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 18:26:50 +0200
> From: Mido <mido.architect(a)gmail.com>
> To: "Wikimania general list" <wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2008 date & first IRC public meeting
>
> Hello all,
>
> I'm pleased to announce that Wikimania 2008 happening in Alexandria will be
> from 19th to 21st of July 2008.
> The Conference will run for 3 days, side events and sechdule shall be
> announced before the conference begins.
> Registration for Wikimania will be opened in early march, call for papers
> will begin in February and Scholarship application will likely begin early
> next year.
>
> You're all invited to be part of the online team responsible for website
> maintenance, streaming, etc..
> We're holding our first public meeting online on Wikimania 2008 IRC channel
> on Thursday 13th Dec, at 18:00 UTC. Agenda will include but not limited to:
> Messaging and slogans for the conference, we didn't yet decide the main
> theme of the conference and how it will be presented in Egypt or worldwide,
> your input will be greatly appreciated.
> See you in Alexandria :)
>
> On behalf of the organizing team,
> Mohamed Ibrahim [[Mido]]
> Lead coordinator for Wikimania 2008
>
> --
> - Arabic Wikipedia: http://ar.wikipedia.org/ "Share your knowledge"
The last time that we discussed our IRC channel, we didn't
really come up with a formal consensus for our IRC channel
guidelines. I think that we should come up with a formal decision
about our channels and status.
On a side note, I will have limited internet for the next few days,
so please excuse my lack of availability.
--
Thunderhead
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Thunderheadhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thunderhead
_______________________________________________
DISCLAIMER: I hold no official position in the Wikimedia
Foundation. This message expresses the views of a single
Wikimedia user and not necessarily the community at large.
Please, whoever is maintaining the Wikinews Reports blog, resize the
images properly - dragging them in Blogger is not going to actually
change the physical size of the image, and will mean that Planet
Wikimedia will show them in their full size (not to mention the
bandwidth requirements).
If this keeps happening I _will_ have to remove the feed from the
planet aggregator. :-(
Erik
On 12/4/07, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org> wrote:
> My first thought on this was that a private wiki is required,
> embargoed.wikinews.org or similar. Yet, the story up on Slashdot at the
> moment, and accusations of a Cabal-esque secret mailing list would not be
> mitigated by opening another private channel for communication and
> cooperation. I cannot think of alternatives that would meet the needs of
> these situations unfortunately.
I don't see any issue with this, and I support a private wiki for the
Wikinews community. :-) I've worked on sensitive materials for
Wikinews myself, and found it awkward to have to put all information
in public. The only question would be the rules governing access -
perhaps that could be tied to accreditation?
> Moving on from that, and on to a related item; one that has probably been
> asked by 1 in 5 of every new Wikinewsies that sticks around. "Why aren't we
> listed on Google News?" The simple answer is we have no editorial control.
> With an "anyone can edit" approach we fail some of the criteria Google
> applies when approving or declining potential sources.
That's what they told me when I met them two years ago. I tried to
re-establish contact, but their staff has changed, and the new person
hasn't gotten back to me yet. The reasons for exclusion that they gave
to me then may no longer apply.
In any case, I do support Wikinews being among the first wikis trying
out FlaggedRevs; it makes obvious sense.
The other thing I think we need for Wikinews is much better RSS
support. I started a small project proposal at MicroPledge for this:
http://micropledge.com/projects/namespacenews-extension-for-mediawiki
Perhaps the Wikinews community can do some dedicated fundraising work
for tech improvements like this?
--
Toward Peace, Love & Progress:
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
-----Original Message-----
From: wmfcc-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wmfcc-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mathias Schindler
Sent: 05 December 2007 17:16
To: Communications Committee
Subject: [Wmfcc-l] [PRESS] Magazine hails German Wikipedia as better
thanencyclopaedia
http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1378822.php/Magazine_hails_G
erman_Wikipedia_as_better_than_encyclopaedia
Tech News
Magazine hails German Wikipedia as better than encyclopaedia
Dec 5, 2007, 14:44 GMT
Hamburg - The German version of the do-it-yourself online reference
work Wikipedia is better than Germany's most prestigious commercial
encyclopaedia, the weekly magazine Stern asserted Wednesday.
It engaged WIK, a research institute, to compare 50 randomly chosen
articles from Wikipedia with 50 matching articles in the regularly
updated online version, www.brockhaus.de, of the Brockhaus, Germany's
equivalent of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Wikipedia is a website which can be altered by anyone who notices a
mistake or wants to improve the information displayed, provided the
contributor presents sufficient documentary evidence to back up the
new information.
Stern said the Wikipedia's average rating was 1.7 on a scale where 0
is best and 5 is worst. The Brockhaus rated 2.7 on the same measure.
The articles were assessed for accuracy, completeness, how up to date
they were and how easy they were to read.
In 43 matches, the Wikipedia article was judged the winner.
The cooperative project trumped by being up with the news. It gave
Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti's death date the next day, but
Brockhaus had not noted this even weeks later. But Stern said
Wikipedia also had the lead in accuracy.
The German-language section of Wikipedia, numbering 673,000 articles,
is the second biggest after the English version (2,115,000).
Bilingual readers say the German articles tend to be more formal than
the English ones. The German editors often delete subjects they
consider unimportant, such as lists, details of manual skills or
television show plots.
(c) 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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