I believe there has to be some principles in minor language Wikipedias.
Setting up an encyclopedia is not just about self expression, it has to
serve public good. Moreover, proposals and actual performances have to
stand some very basic prima facie scrutiny.
If a language has 1000 speakers. Only 100 can read (most of them use
another mainstream language). And only 10 of them can write (the writing
system could be difficult, e.g. Egyptian hieroglyph). And only 5 of them
sre active contributors. The five of them would become the de facto
knowledge controllers.
If each user of that language uses a mainstream language Wikipedia, it
will be good. However, to those who consult that minor Wikipedia, he or
she could be mislead by inaccurate information (e.g. bias, mistake,
outdated materials ...). Because that minor Wikipedia is written most by
a handful of people (possibly friends of similar backgrounds), it
becomes much more unlikely that a mistake could be corrected.
Even if that user knows there's a mistake, he or she may not be able to
correct it. Many minor languages users are not fluent speakers. Some may
not know how to type that particular script.
And the limited active contributors also may have a very restricted
knowledge base. The five of them may not know much about astronomy for
example. They may translate. They could make mistakes. They could also
selectively translate less important parts of an article because they
may not know much about the mathematics, physics, chemistry, history ...
about that subject. Unless they can ask others to join, their works may
not be trusted.
In case the user knows how to double check, it may not be a problem.
However, if a user still has to consult a mainstream language source, it
makes that minor Wikipedia less relevant. And if the user cannot read
another language and failed to find another minor language source, the
bug-ridden Wikipedia could do more harm than good. An encyclopedia has
to serve a public good to justify its existence.
It is a bad idea to setup encyclopedias in so many languages. I don't
mind if anyone wants to start a Wiki in Pig Latin or Nadsat. You can
easily auto translate English into these two artificial languages. But
for many minor languages, it may be not feasible. The few articles could
be untrustworthy. Wikipedia is not a language conservation project. The
reason why people trust English Wikipedia is because of the number of
contributors and fact checkers. We don't want this site to become the
largest source of rumor.
I think it will be good if they contribute to the Wiktionary.
Besides the number of active regular contributors, they may need sources
of reference materials and public domain sources. In English, you have
the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, Project Gutenberg, CIA Fact Book and
many other online materials. It is easy to build many pages without much
efforts and mistakes in most major languages. They have so many printed
reference materials. To many minor languages, they have very few books
other than a language textbook, the Bible or an out-of-print dictionary.
It is really not a very good idea that they start an encyclopedia
project at this moment.
Jiaqing Bao
Hello all,
Happy New Year! And on another topic, does anyone have a blank
map without names of the Indian Ocean Region? I'd like to put one up on
[[ang]] in Anglo-Saxon.
Thanks,
James
there was a menu in my sysop options which searched all wikipedias for a
specific ip, which made it possible - but still pretty tiresome - to find
the spam of certain individuals and spambots across several wikipedias and
fix it even after months of harm.
now it seems this option's gone. is it a new local setting, or there's a
hidden reason behind it? now I can only do what I used to do: revert on my
home wikipedia and pray for others to spot it (which they sometimes do, most
often not).
would be nice to have it again, maybe even with smarter functionality.
(actual jerk was
http://hu.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Speci%C3%A1lis:Contributions&targ…
)
[[:en:user:grin]]
A few months ago, I wrote on my user page about how
thefreedictionary.com was set to overtake wikipedia.org as the
most-visited (according to Alexa) of the sites providing
Wikipedia-created content.
(Go to
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=medium&y=r…
and then type thefreedictionary.com into the compare box to see how
close they came to overtaking us at the end of October, when I wrote my
note).
GOOD NEWS: Over the last two months, thefreedictionary.com has lost
massive amounts of ground to us.
I suspect a lot of this is to do with Google. Thefreedictionary.com
really worked the Google algorithm well for a long time, returning way
ahead of Wikipedia and mirrors time after time in searches. I suspect
that the algorithm has changed to Wikipedia's advantage - we are picking
up more readers than ever - this should make sure we continue to pick up
contributors, thus improving the resource even more quickly.
Pete/Pcb21
PS. Wikipedia.org is now listed in the top 100 English language websites
by Alexa - a newish entry at number 98. (Yes this is a bit of a swizz,
because only 61% of page views are on wikipedia.org are of English
pages, but hey it is cool anyway!)
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=lang&lang=en
Hi, I am creating a local portal based on wikimedia wiki. Now in
wiktionary we use a template to link the page automatically to wikipedia:
=== ''Vedi anche'' ===
Per informazioni aggiuntive su {{PAGENAME}} vedi
[[w:{{PAGENAME}}|Wikipedia]]
I tried to transfor this for my portal, but strange things come out
=== ''Vedi anche'' ===
Per informazioni aggiuntive su {{PAGENAME}} vedi
[http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/{{PAGENAME}} Wikipedia]
(Link to the template:
http://wesolveitnet.com/maiori/index.php?title=Template:-wikipedia-it-)
You can see an example here:
http://wesolveitnet.com/maiori/index.php?title=Roberto_Rossellini
It seems as if Roberto is seen as the link where to go and Rossellini is
shown together with "Wikipedia" as the link to klick on.
How should this link be built in order to have it work correctly?
And I'd also like to use this mail to wish you a happy 2005
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Felice_Anno_Nuovo%21
Ciao, Sabine
--
Sabine Cretella
s.cretella(a)wordsandmore.it
Phone: +39-340-1809828
Skype: callto://sabinecretella
Meetingplace for translators
www.wesolveitnet.com
Wikipedia is singled out for praise for its super-timely coverage of
the Indian Ocean quake, leaving Wikinews eating dust and "dramatic"
headlines. Will there be a journalist-encyclopedist showdown? Will
Wikiaddicts start cancelling other appointments when they learn of
crucial updates to important articles? (Do they already?)
Meanwhile 'wiki' continues to infect mainstream vocabulary, in
preparation for the upcoming Year of the Wiki. And better editing
tools are coming out every week, thanks to both MediaWiki updates (did
you know that 'what links here' now works for categories?) and
third-party plugins.
Happy new year!
+sj+
==Wikipedia, Disasters and Wikinews==
eSchool News, ed-tech Insider Will Richardson, 12-28.
'The Future of News Right Now'
Of all the ways that the Read/Write Web is changing our lives,
one of the most profound is in the ways we access and consume
the news... when I [want] a more complete picture of the story,
I still don't go to the Times. Instead, I go to Wikipedia... I
know there is some debate about the veracity of the information
there. But take a minute to check out the Wikipedia entry on
the tsunami event and tell me you aren't amazed. [It's
getting] 75 edits an hour. In fact I found out there that the
toll had reached some 55,000 before it even came through my
[news] aggregator.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/eti/2004/12/000426.php
Guardian Unlimited, Neil McIntosh, 12-30.
'Wikipedia on the Indian Ocean earthquake'
[T]he ever-impressive Wikipedia is compiling a mammoth entry
on the unfolding disaster. He points out the first draft was
written within 24 hours of the waves hitting shore; it's
certainly an impressive effort.
Meanwhile, Wikinews - the recently-launched sister site to
Wikipedia - is running the dramatic headline "New tsunamis to
hit India today...'
http://tinyurl.com/4jz26
== Other tidbits about wikis and wikipedia ==
The NYT listed 'wiki' among 14 "would-be words that rose to
prominence" this year, along with 'spim', 'bangalored', and
'podcasting'. That's ridonkulous. But then none could accuse
compiler Grant Barrett of knowing where his towel is.
http://tinyurl.com/68ngs
And Val Souza continues to promote wikis in his column in India's
Express Computer 'zine. He throws in a good word for Wikipedia but
leaves MediaWiki out of his list of wikis to install at home.
Wikipedia has detractors too, as I discovered when I
received anonymous mail condemning me for "pushing"
Wikipedia in my previous column...
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20041227/edit02.shtml
Finally, Daily Yomiuri online says WP offers "nothing less than a
glimpse into a potential future model of publishing."
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20041228wo61.htm
== New Tools ==
(as seen on wikitech-l !) Axel Kramer released a beta of the Eclipse
Wikipedia Editor Plugin in time for Christmas.
http://tinyurl.com/5qaog
General tools information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools
--
Hi all,
I remember earlier somebody brought up the issue of bringing back intlwiki-l.
Currently, language discussions seem to dominate here, and I think
that frankly there are some people here who don't want to get those
discussions in their inbox.
This is just an idea I'm floating to see how people feel, I have no
strong feelings either way.
Mark