All,
Index Data, maker of free software tools for
bibliographic data exchange (in particular through the
[[Z39.50]] protocol) has started indexing several open
content projects, including Wikipedia:
http://www.indexdata.dk/opencontent/
The integration with Wikipedia is very basic, however,
and the only useful article metadata that can really
be extracted at this point is the article title. I'd
like to suggest that we consider allowing the
association of Wikipedia categories with something
like [[Library of Congress Subject Headings]] (I think
something like this was going to be an eventual fruit
of WiktionaryZ). Though doing so would not
immediately enhance Wikipedia functionally, it would
help Wikipedia conform to the very established
standards and tools in the library sciences world and
therefore enhance its availability to the many people
doing their research primarily through such
mechanisms.
-----------------
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 09:12:34 -0500
From: Sebastian Hammer <quinn(a)indexdata.com>
Subject: [Yazlist] Open Content and SRU/Z39.50
Hi guys,
this is a follow-up to an earlier announcement on this
list. We've now
completed the initial setup of our Z/SRU targets for
several open
content sites, specifically the Open Content Alliance,
Wikipedia, DMOZ,
and Project Gutenberg. Our hope is that exposing these
resources through
open information retrieval protocols will allow
libraries and others to
more easily integrate them into applications, portals,
and internet sites.
More details are available at
http://www.indexdata.dk/opencontent/ .
To keep people abreast of new developments, and to
stimulate discussion
about the use and sharing of open content resources in
this way, we have
created a new mailing list. Signup information at
http://lists.indexdata.dk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oclist/
. We will be
using this list to announce the availablility of new
targets, changes to
setups, etc.
We sincerely hope that you will find these resources
useful, and that
you'll discover new ways to integrate this exciting
content into the way
you deliver services to your users.
All the best,
--Sebastian
--
Sebastian Hammer, Index Data
____________________________________________________________________________________
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http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=156753
Reaching the next billion
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales seems focused on taking his online 'free
to edit encyclopedia' to everyone, as the world talks about his plans
to take on Google
S SHYAMALA
Posted online: Monday, March 05, 2007 at 2301 hours IST
Send Feedback E-mail this story Print this story
He rewrote the rules of encyclopedia business. And online search
engines seem to be the next on target. But Wikipedia founder Jimmy
Wales seems occupied with taking his 'free to edit' encyclopedia to
everyone in the world. He is headed to Japan after mingling with
Indian bloggers and wiki professionals at an unconference (where crowd
participates in the discussion instead of just the speaker talking,
just like his Wikipedia). "We have to think of how to take it to every
corner of the world," he says.
India and Indian languages, for instance, are already getting a bigger
foothold on wikipedia, which ranks among the ten most visited sites
globally. You could find detailed information in a small, relatively
unknown town of India, thanks to the software created by IT
professional, Ganesh Krishnamurthy for about 5,000 Indian towns and
cities. "This wikibot is one of the examples of users making efficient
use of the basic tool and platform to create their own wikis, says
Jimmy.
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And expanding Wikipedia to the next billion people is on top of his
mind, even as he continues to refuse advertisements. "Every time we
turn down an advertisement offer, we remind ourselves that this money
could have gone into taking the access to developing countries. This
is one of the things I challenge people sitting in a wealthy country
with a broadband connection, he recently confirmed in a podcast from
Chennai.
"We have to be clear that we are turning ads down for a good reason.
And that's a stand for now. Project of a free wikipedia is a long-term
project and that 's a decision we take every year; every month," he
clarifies. Many in the industry believe that textlinks in Wikipedia
could fetch a fortune. His not-for-profit online encyclopedia gets
seven billion page views each month in more than five million multiple
language entries.
Here to attend India's first Wikicamp unconference, he also
kick-started an open book on the subject. "The most special feature is
that this book will be authored collaboratively by people worldwide.
These are people who have helped organise or attended unconferences
around the world. It will be written openly on a wiki," informs
Wikicamp organiser, Kiruba Shankar. Within days of the launch, 59
people from eight different cities have joined in.
Doesn't uncontrolled access to articles lead to vandalism and
self-promotion? Jimmy agrees but says such acts are duly corrected by
other users. Plagiarised copies can be easily found out because the
style of writing, which is unlike the encyclopedia style, betrays the
article, he adds.
Moreover, users take pride in publishing their own work rather than
copying material, Jimmy says.
Apart from the encyclopedia, Jimmy has also spearheaded a for-profit
organisation called Wikia, which is a repository of journals,
magazines, opinions and a library. The team is also working on
creating an open-source search engine to be called Wikiasearch, Jimmy
says.
Though there are a few proprietary players in the search space, they
lack innovations in the search methodologies, he says.
With open source, users will be able to create their own search
engines from the basic tool, he adds. Wikipedia communities can also
be involved to flag the best articles that will be given top priority
while returning search results, he says.
--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.orghttp://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
What bloggers are saying about Goa: http://planet.goa-india.org/
[Crossposted on many lists]
Hello,
The press team of the Foundation is currently building a press list file and
gathering contact information of journalists and editors of all the major
media (newspapers, magazines, radio, tv) around the world. The aim is to
improve our communication and be able to reach people from all over the
world (not only people from the US and not only people from English-speaking
countries).
We are requesting help from the whole community to gather this information.
We have the chance to have a global community of users and volunteers and we
need to take advantage of this chance. Please help us by sending contact
information of journalists and editors you know or from your country.
The basic information are :
Name of the journalist:
First name:
Email:
Name and type of the media: (for instance "CNN, worldwide news TV channel")
Any other information about each contact is welcome (area of concentration,
coverage, schedule...).
Please send the information you have got to: press at wikimedia dot org and
*do not answer this email*, I will probably not get the emails since I am
not subscribed to all lists I have posted to.
Thanks for your help!
--
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
http://www.wikimedia.org
On 3/5/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote:
> There are two parts to the suggestion: 1) marking some statements with
> a "verified credentials" tag, and 2) a "policy of gentle (or firm)
> discouragement for people to make claims like those that EssJay made,
> unless they are willing to back them up".
I'm cross-posting this to wikipedia-l and foundation-l, because it may
very well become a Foundation-level issue at some point.
I would support the following:
1) Any user can ask for his or her professional credentials to be verified.
2) Making up professional credentials is prohibited, and may result in
a ban. (This may or may not be covered by existing policy, but judging
from the Essjay case, it is probably not sufficiently clear.) This is
independent of whether or not the user asks for credentials to be
verified. We may investigate claims that are dubious when they are
pointed out to us.
3) Any user trusted on admin level or higher who makes a statement of
credentials on their user page must have them verified through a team
of volunteers designated to this role by the Wikimedia Foundation (we
may want to involve the chapters if this becomes international). The
process of verification could be similar to what Citizendium uses,
i.e.:
a) have an existing, credentialed user vouch for the credentials to be
correct based on personal knowledge,
b) respond to an email associated with a reliable institution, and
point us to a web page of that institution where their credentials are
listed,
c) point to someone associated with a reliable institution we can
contact to verify the credentials.
We may extend this to regular users if it proves to scale well.
4) Users with verified credentials will get a little "Verified
credentials on <date>" marker on their user page, nothing more. This
marker would ideally be independent of the wikitext of the page, and
set in the user table instead.
I am opposed to any marker of edit contributions and such -- users who
care about credentials can look them up, those who do not care should
not be bothered by them in discussions or contributions.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
Hello,
Perhaps some of you are aware of the formation of the Langcom.
Also, you may be aware of the recent reform of the language proposal process.
However, what you may not be aware of is that the Language Committee
is taking a while to actually get underway and to the point where they
can excersise control over the creation of new Wikis.
Despite that, it seems that they are already looked to as an authority
in this area, while they do not act as such.
There are several new Wikipedia requests which were uncontroversial
when first posed. Many of dozens of voices of support, and have
thriving tests on the Incubator.
However, their requests were deleted by PathosChild who said that they
would have to remake them, which they have. So far, no proposals for
Wikipedias in new languages have been _approved_ under the new
proposal process, despite its having been around for several months
now. They just sit there. And sit there. And sit there some more.
I think it's about time something happened. I think it's about time we
welcomed these people -- the Kabyles, the Latgalians, the Lower
Sorbians, the Crimeans, and all the others -- into our Wikipedia
family. They have waited long enough. Why can't somebody do something?
Why do they have to wait for the langcom to get underway? For all we
know, that could take years.
Mark
--
Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/contentions/index.php/johnson/202
The Anarchy of Wikipedia
Daniel Johnson - 3.1.2007 - 9:13AM
Michael J. Lewis makes a fair point about Wikipedia: we have all used
it as a short-cut from time to time, and, provided that information
from it is checked and cross-referenced, it has its legitimate uses.
But he does not go far enough in commenting on its accuracy.
The site is the repository not merely of inaccuracy but of
disinformation on a vast scale. It is a minefield for those whom
Nietzsche called "die Halbgebildeten," the half-educated. According to
Tom Gross, Wikipedia recently deleted an entry that claimed "the bones
of Palestinian children" were one of five ingredients used by Jews to
make unleavened bread for Passover. Though the editors promised to be
more vigilant in the future, it is troubling that an Islamist version
of this ancient anti-Semitic blood libel could be posted on this most
popular of online resources for any length of time at all.
By chance, I discovered that the entry about me also included hostile,
anonymously authored material. At my request, it was removed without
question by the editors of Wikipedia. But what if I had not noticed
it, or had been dead or otherwise unable to lodge a protest?
I am alarmed by the notion that authoritative reference works such as
Britannica have been replaced by a "people's encyclopedia" based on a
primitive form of epistemological and moral relativism. Some people
know more than others, and works of reference are there to disseminate
the knowledge of the few to the many. In the realm of truth, Wikipedia
has replaced democracy with anarchy.
--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.orghttp://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
What bloggers are saying about Goa: http://planet.goa-india.org/
http://media.www.kstatecollegian.com/media/storage/paper1022/news/2007/03/0…
Wikipedia doesn't get enough respect
By: Jonas Hogg
Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Opinion
Staff Editorial
Daily Forty-Niner (Cal State-Long Beach)
Among the many under-appreciated and misunderstood resources in our
world, Wikipedia.com ranks high on the list.
It is abused by college students, damned by professors and generally
shunned among the 30-and-older intellectual crowd. Now, according to
an article in the Feb. 21 issue of The New York Times, it has been
banned altogether from a history department at Middlebury College in
Vermont. This move, while shocking, is disappointing for the wrong
reasons - students should never use this Web site as their sole
source.
It is a bit embarrassing that college students would even dare to use
Wikipedia as their only source. For those readers who are not yet up
to speed on the hotly debated Web site, Wikipedia is an online
voluntary encyclopedia that allows readers to submit their own entries
and alter others, usually without restriction. The "voluntary" aspect
is what doesn't jibe with many academics who believe the openness of
Wikipedia can cause incorrect information to seep into the site,
corrupting its validity.
In the case of Middlebury College, the misinformation already has
infiltrated the Web site and, consequentially, students' papers.
According to the article, six students allowed an egregious historical
error into their papers by using Wikipedia for their papers on the
Shimabara Rebellion of 17th-century Japan.
The mistake these students made was not their use of the Web site, but
that they used it as their only source. Wikipedia is a fantastic
resource for primary information and a great starting place for
research.
If users need a brief overview of an issue, they often can find it on
Wikipedia and get a very basic and superficial understanding of a
topic, which can help when doing further research. Some entries,
however, go into greater detail than some Wikipedia skeptics might
give them credit for.
Also, many of Wikipedia's entries are sourced from other, incredibly
useful links to credible Web sites that could be used in essays as
valid sources. Some even copy information from reliable sources and
paste it onto Wikipedia pages. Both Wikipedia's fatal flaw and its
charm are rooted in the same characteristic: the ease with which
readers can change the content of the Web site.
According to a July 31, 2006, article in The New Yorker, Wikipedia's
millionth entry was one sentence on Jordanhill, an obscure train
station in Glasgow, Scotland. According to the article, within 24
hours, the entry was edited more than 400 times by dozens of people
who knew obscure information, like the fact Jordanhill train station
is the "1,029th busiest train station in the United Kingdom" and that
it "no longer has a staffed ticket counter."
One aspect of Wikipedia that might be hard to change is that certain
subjects are not well-known, and people with expertise probably aren't
devoting much time to updating a Wikipedia entry, as was the case with
Middlebury College and 17th century Japanese history.
But, according to the entry on Wikipedia, "An investigation by Nature
(a scholarly journal) compared Wikipedia to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica and suggested a similar level of accuracy."
The only solution to the poor editing and lack of content for which
Wikipedia is criticized is for more people to use it. The more people
use the Web site, the more people may feel compelled to improve its
content and coverage of an issue.
--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.orghttp://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
What bloggers are saying about Goa: http://planet.goa-india.org/
Hi there, documentary fans-
Currently traveling the world shooting the documentary "Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story", director Nic Hill makes it to Chennai, India, where he and his small crew from Underdog Productions meet up with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. There they rock the first ever Indian WikiCamp (http://wikicamp.in), an "UnConference" where wiki enthusiasts from all over the country gather to "harness the power of Wikis."
In the spirit of that harnessing, check out the 'making-of' podcast and join in on the first-ever "crowd-sourced" documentary here: www.wikidocumentary.org
Thanks!
-WikiDoc
_____________________________
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On 3/5/07, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey(a)wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> This is going to be nightmarish to police and run. Not to mention you
> have to have a
> signed release from the person in order to obtain access to this level
> of personal information.
I'm not sure I've provided enough context to fully explain the
proposal. The idea is not to _require_ anything, but to only ask for
confirmation if people make the claim _themselves_, and then only for
people in positions of trust, or those whose credentials have been
called into question. Anyone is free to reach any level of trust
without professional credentials.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
"An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic