Wikipedia-l August 2003

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78 participants
166 discussions

Re: Wikipedia-l Digest, Vol 1, Issue 1304
by Anthere 29 Aug '03

29 Aug '03

Message: 7 Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 14:11:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Mayer <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: logo To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikipedia.org Message-ID: <20030828211146.52979.qmail(a)web12802.mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Anthere wrote: >Erik, I find 7 days to be a very short time >(again, not to insist too much, but school >has not restarted yet, many people are still >on holidays, sorry Mav :-)). Is there a >special reason you chose such a short time ? Either Europeans take too many holidays or Americans don't take enough of them. :-) Either way, 7 days is not enough. --mav Dare I add something ? Perhaps you guys know that some european countries are suffering economical troubles right now. Among which Germany and France. We are old nations, and in spite of my peers trying to make three babies instead of two, we will have problems financing...hum...our parents retirements (ours, likely, will not exist at all :-) It is my understanding Germany suggested an off day be removed, which could bring some immediate money from working revenues for one day among 365 days. It is also my understanding that german people accepted that. Now, our crazy politicians have decided to import the same thing in France and to "steal" one of our beautiful off-day in may (may is a very pleasurable month). One guy even suggested removing two. Grrrrr. Debate is upon the day which will be removed. Either it is a catholic celebration day Or it is the WWII commemoration day I wonder which one would be best... __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Languages
by Anthere 29 Aug '03

29 Aug '03

Message: 9 Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 12:36:26 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Languages To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikipedia.org Message-ID: <3F4D083A.4050302(a)telus.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed >In Canada a genocidal policy that forced more than a >generation of first >nations children into residential schools where they >were forbidden to use their own language has put many >of these languages in desparate >situations. There may not be a critical mass of >population for keeping some of these languages and >cultures alive. We can provide space for a >Kootenayan language Wikipedia, but what good is that >if there is no-one around with the ability to write in >that language? The elders may be >the only ones with a functional knowlege of the >language, but these elders are no different from the >elders of other societies who are >overwhelmed by anything having to do with computers. Every little bit can help perhaps. What else would you suggest we can do ? We did the same with our languages, breton, basque, corse... The french unity is not so much relying on political unity, than cultural, linguistic and religious (less and less now of course, but the principles running the society are christian based even if we are a laic state). To achieve that unity, in the past time, kids also were hit at school if they talk their "home-language" (patois). There are now a wikipedia is occitan and one in breton. >PS: the English for "decennie" is "decade" <font size=-2>Merci</font> >>The Encyclopedia is not translated and will not be >>translated in other languages. Each language is free >>'''in''' its own creativity. Articles from one >language can >>influence another language. But they are not copies. >I changed "of" to "in" in your comment, Anthere. "Of" >would suggest >that a language is somehow liberated from its own >creativity. :-(((( >Your message contains a very important subtlety. If I >could translate >this text into Cree the result would not be in Cree; >it would be in >English with Cree words. There exists a pervasively >naïve and >simplistic view about translations that it is just a >matter of changing >words that have a one to one correspondence. Some >topics, notably >technical ones, can survive that transition very well, >but topics that >are closely linked to culture fare rather badly. So true. Some topics, I cannot even translate from english to french because I do not know the french words for these. By the Ec... the definition for "sect" seems to be notably different from our "secte". Someone changed the international link and now our "secte" is linked with your "cult". What do you think ? Translations are important, and words leading to others as well. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

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First logo voting stage
by erik_moeller＠gmx.de 28 Aug '03

28 Aug '03

The first voting stage for the new Wikipedia logo has begun: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote has begun. Please add your signature under up to 10 logos. The 10 logos with the highest number of votes will then enter the final voting stage. The deadline for the first stage is September 5, 20:00 UTC. With over 130 logos and many variants we have lots of excellent candidates to choose from. Thanks to everyone who contributed! Regards, Erik

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Re: logo
by Daniel Mayer 28 Aug '03

28 Aug '03

Anthere wrote: >Erik, I find 7 days to be a very short time >(again, not to insist too much, but school >has not restarted yet, many people are still >on holidays, sorry Mav :-)). Is there a >special reason you chose such a short time ? Either Europeans take too many holidays or Americans don't take enough of them. :-) Either way, 7 days is not enough. --mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

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Languages
by Merritt L. Perkins 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you want to include Encyclopedia articles on all languages. There are so many obscure languages that you cannot expect to include them all. What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated into? I think that you should choose languages that would have many readers. High German, French and Spanish for example. There is a difference between this French spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken in Spain and in Mexico. There are special characters used to write the languages. Basque, Maori, and Manx would have few readers. The language should be easily written from a computer keyboard. This would exclude Arabic and Chinese. There must be some way to write them but I dont know how. It may require a special keyboard and software. The head of the modern language department of a large German university may be fluent in several languages and able to teach about subjects from the Kavala to Xenophons Anabasis. He may have served in the Army and be familiar with Army terminology and idioms, but not familiar with submarines, ships, or airplanes. The translator should be a native speaker thoroughly familiar with the subject of the article and may choose to write his own article instead of translating the existing article. I find no objection to including articles written or translated into Icelandic, Hungarian, or any other language even though there would be few readers. Readers need to know where to find them Merritt L. Perkins

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Languages
by Merritt L. Perkins 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

What language should be used in the Encyclopedia? The English language used in the UK and other parts of the world differs from that used in North America. Translating an encyclopedia into another language is an overwhelming project. It should be done by someone who translates it into his native language. One approach might be to follow each paragraph in English by the paragraph translated into the other language. This could be tried out gradually, adding more and more of an article and then starting on a few other articles I have had correspondence in English with more than 50 people all over the world. Some of them were fluent in two or three other languages. In one place on the island of Borneo there are no roads so people travel by boat on crocodile infested rivers. In Malawi one family sleeps standing up when it rains because the roof leaks. In poor countries some families could not afford to operate a computer even though it was given to them. Their diets are poor, they have no shoes, and sanitation is bad. They might be able to use computers in schools and libraries. Schools or libraries would need to have several computers that can connect to the Internet so that each user would have time enough to use one It takes too long to read a long Encyclopedia entry while connected to the Internet so there should be a way to copy it so that it can be read later. It seems like a great idea to record the encyclopedia on a CD but by the time we can make a copy (an hour) it would be out of date. When a prominent person dies his article needs to be changed, when a government changes or a building is destroyed the encyclopedia needs to be updated. Subjects that have only an obscure mention should have their own article, other articles should be brought up date or deleted, new articles added. This was dictated with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7. Sometimes it works perfectly, at other times it prints out things that are not said or after the material is edited it inserts things on its own. Spell check changes things that are correct to something else. This was formatted as text. Merritt L. Perkins

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Re: Wikipedia e-mail
by Kurt Kawohl 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jason Richey" <jasonr(a)bomis.com> To: "Kkawohl" <kkawohl1(a)cox.net> Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 4:23 PM Subject: Re: Wikipedia e-mail > I fear I am not the person with whom you should discuss this matter. > My suggestion is that you post this mail to the mailing list > (wikipedia-l(a)wikipedia.org). > > Jason Richey > > Kkawohl wrote: > > > > > Please voice your opinion on deletion. > > > > 21st Century Transcendentalism is not a religion and does not advocate (request belief, membership or anything else) anything; it stands for religious rationality in the 21st Century. If Wikipedia can describe what atheists, Christianity, Islam, Bokononism thinks then why can not I as a 21st Century Transcendentalist describe what I think? Bias, maybe? > > > > "Transcendentalism Today Org." with Kurt Kawohl as its founder has been accepted by and is a member of: > > IONS - Institute of Noetic Sciences, > > World Interfaith Congress, > > United Communities of Spirit, > > Alliance for Spiritual Community, > > Interfaith Voices for Peace And Justice, > > [[user:kkawohl]] > > > > > > > > -- > "Jason C. Richey" <jasonr(a)bomis.com> >

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The GNU LFDL idea (was Re: Controversial user nicknames)
by Daniel Mayer 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

Cross post with Wikipedia-l (please respond there) Delirium wrote: >I think this whole thing is unfortunate though, >and it's becoming increasingly clear that the >GFDL exactly as written isn't *really* what >we want to do. I think most Wikipedians would >be happier with a license that required Wikipedia >to be credited rather than five authors. As it >stands now, the republisher *has* to credit five >authors, but does *not* have to credit Wikipedia >at all. They could give it their own name and >not mention its connection to us at all, as long >as they list the authors properly. I think most >of us would prefer the opposite -- that they be >required to credit Wikipedia, and not be required >to credit the individual authors. But this would >require a license change, which may be impossible >at this point. 1) This is more appropriate for Wikipedia-L 2) On Textbook-L we are already talking about persuading the GNU people make a FDL 2.0 that states that anything licensed under the GNU FDL 2.0 or later that does /not/ have invariant sections or cover texts, can also be licensed under a "GNU LFDL" which would be written more along the lines of the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License (and the LFDL would also explicitly state that any LFDL text can be used under the CC-Att/SA, the GNU FDL 2.0 or later or, of course, the LFDL). The idea is to dump the GNU FDL and its problems and relicense all Wikimedia content under the less restrictive and less complex LFDL. See the archives: Look for the "wikiversity licensing" thread at http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2003-August/subject.html#sta… Which reminds me again; we really need a Wikimedia-l mailing list to talk about these types of Wikimedia-wide issues and also discus new project ideas like Wikiversity. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) See also: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/legalcode (a copyleft content license) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

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Re: Languages
by Anthere 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

Merritt L. Perkins wrote: >What languages? All languages! Do you mean that you want to include >Encyclopedia articles on all languages. There are so many obscure >languages that you cannot expect to include them all. Yes, ideally, all languages I read a great reduction of spoken languages was expected over the next decennies. If Wikipedia can help make some of them stay alive, so much the best. it was expected >What languages should the Encyclopedia be translated into? I think that >you should choose languages that would have many readers. High German, >French and Spanish for example. There is a difference between this French >spoken in France and in Canada, in the Spanish spoken in Spain and in >Mexico. The Encyclopedia is not translated and will not be translated in other languages. Each language is free of its own creativity. Articles from one language can influence another language. But they are not copies. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com

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sharing results from Wikipedia online survey
by Fernanda Viegas 27 Aug '03

27 Aug '03

Dear Wikipedians, We have been getting great responses to our online survey of Wikipedia use and we would like to compile the results and share them with you. Even though the survey is anonymous, we would still only show numerical averages of people's responses. For privacy reasons we would not show anyone's long answers. Would a page on Meta-Wikipedia be a good option for sharing the results with the community? If you haven't taken the survey yet, please do so, we're still gathering data!http://smg.media.mit.edu/survey/wikipedia.html If you have already taken the survey, our many thanks for your participation. - Fernanda Viegas http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/ sociable media group mit media laboratory

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Wikipedia-l August 2003