I would like to remind those of you who are bloggers to consider
joining Planet Wikimedia, which has grown nicely in recent weeks:
http://en.planet.wikimedia.org/
(Polish also active, German about to go live)
It shows recent wiki-tagged posts from Wikimedians on one page. You
can add your blog by putting a request for inclusion on:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planet_Wikimedia
Included blogs should tag their wiki-related posts, or be exclusively
about the topic. This policy has made Planet Wikimedia, in my opinion,
highly on topic and useful, and I would love to see it scale to
hundreds of blogs eventually. Hence, no exceptions. ;-)
For those of you from smaller projects: Think of this as an excellent
opportunity to promote the best work your project is doing, to get new
people excited about it. As an example of this principle, take a look
what some English Wikinewsies are doing in the "Original Reporting"
group blog: http://wikinewsreports.blogspot.com/
If you don't have a blog yet, you can set one up easily, e.g. at:
http://wordpress.com/ or http://blogger.com
--
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 all,
I'm writing this on my mobile from the pediatrics ward of the hospital...
Rushed to the emergency room Saturday night for abdominal pain far
worse and in a different area than I am used to (I have [[Ulcerative
colitis]]), blood tests revealed elevated pancreatic enzymes and I was
diagnosed with pancreatitis. Hopefully I'll be fine within a few
weeks, but I wanted to explain in advance my absence, and to explain
to those sad and to the (hopefully few) happy that it'll be a while
before i return.
Best,
Mark Williamson
--
Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.
There are some serious issues on Romanian Wikipedia, where a few Nazis
have been taking over lots of articles, while the admins are
supporting and defending them.
I tried arguing, but it's useless with such a horde of freaks.
The issue is spread on dozens of articles and I choose for example,
one of them, the article on Zionism:
http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sionism
The article on Zionism is completely written from an anti-semitic POV,
and it even has a section of comparison between Zionism and Fascism,
one about propaganda in the "corporatist press" and one about "ethnic
purification".
Here are some excerpts:
"Zionism is not Judaism, not Semitism (sic!), but a racist ideology which
glorifies violence, just like Fascism"
"the Jewish Romanians of Bessarabia betrayed the interests of their
country"
"later, Zionism got a fascist "colour". Vladimir Jabotinsky is an ideologue
of terrorism, while the first modern terrorist state, Bolshevik Russia..."
"when their leave was refused, the same Bolshevik-Zionist-anti-nationals
become refuseniks, then neo-conservatives by leaving directly to America,
where they promote Zionist wars."
There's absolutely nothing that can be kept from that article. Everything
is just the lowest kind of anti-semitic propaganda.
So I tried to revert to an older explaining that it's written from a
neo-nazi POV. I got a warning for that, it was reverted and protected.
I don't want to waste my time negotiating with Nazis. Any solution,
apart from stopping editing Romanian Wikipedia?
>-----Original Message-----
>From: John Kavalos [mailto:johnkavalos@gmail.com]
>Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 04:49 AM
>To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [Wikipedia-l] From Romanian Wikipedia, the Nazi Encyclopedia
>
>There are some serious issues on Romanian Wikipedia, where a few Nazis
>have been taking over lots of articles, while the admins are
>supporting and defending them.
>
>I tried arguing, but it's useless with such a horde of freaks.
>
>The issue is spread on dozens of articles and I choose for example,
>one of them, the article on Zionism:
>
>http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sionism
>
>The article on Zionism is completely written from an anti-semitic POV,
>and it even has a section of comparison between Zionism and Fascism,
>one about propaganda in the "corporatist press" and one about "ethnic
>purification".
>
>Here are some excerpts:
>
>"Zionism is not Judaism, not Semitism (sic!), but a racist ideology which
>glorifies violence, just like Fascism"
>
>"the Jewish Romanians of Bessarabia betrayed the interests of their
>country"
>
>"later, Zionism got a fascist "colour". Vladimir Jabotinsky is an ideologue
>of terrorism, while the first modern terrorist state, Bolshevik Russia..."
>
>"when their leave was refused, the same Bolshevik-Zionist-anti-nationals
>become refuseniks, then neo-conservatives by leaving directly to America,
>where they promote Zionist wars."
>
>There's absolutely nothing that can be kept from that article. Everything
>is just the lowest kind of anti-semitic propaganda.
>
>So I tried to revert to an older explaining that it's written from a
>neo-nazi POV. I got a warning for that, it was reverted and protected.
>
>I don't want to waste my time negotiating with Nazis. Any solution,
>apart from stopping editing Romanian Wikipedia?
The solution is broader participation by Romanian speakers. So don't give up and don't engage in a meltdown on the site. Continue to advance alternate versions of the disputed articles, but don't overdo it.
The Foundation may chose to intervene, as I doubt this is an isolated problem.
Fred
I understand that this is a planned feature for the MediaWiki software.
I heard recently that a co-founder of Wikipedia has become highly
dissatisfied with it on account of it containing so many factual errors that
it was useless (and beyond repair), and he's quite right - this is a major
issue that needs to be addressed. Obviously, the ability to mark
revisions is the perfect solution. If there was a way to pick out a revision
as being error-free (I assume, synonymous with "stable"), Wikipedia could
potentially progress towards being an academically-citable encyclopedia.
I was just wondering who would feasibly *do* the marking as a stable
revision? Obviously if this can be done by any users then there will be no
advantage to it (as just the same liability toward inserting errors will
transfer into a liability towards marking stable revisions which aren't
actually stable). If you restrict it to registered users then there will
still be no advantage, as even long-time registered users often vandalise
and get things wrong. If you restrict it to admins then there will be too
few of them.
The real problem is that it will take proper peer-reviewing - by experts -
to really mark an article as "stable" in the sense of containing none of the
errors and mistakes that caused the aforementioned co-founder to give up on
Wikipedia. Obviously this is because any average editor (even an admin) is
not necessarily qualified to declare an article error-free. Certainly, if
nothing else, it will take expert-reviewing to bring an article up to
"citable" standards.
So how do we currently suppose this will all work? Will the Foundation hire
experts to check articles? Will we rely on expert volunteers contacting the
Foundation so that they can be given "expert" accounts that can mark stable
revisions? Or will we just allow long-time trusted editors to mark versions
as stable, which leaves us in the same position of not knowing whether the
article is *mistakenly* stable or not?
One feasible way I can see this as working is defining an arbitrary amount,
say 100, that has to be reached for an article to become stable. If one
person marks a revision as stable, it gets +1, and if they are a more
trusted editor (been around for longer, done more major non-reverted edits)
then it may get +5. If someone marks it as unstable it gets -5 (weighting
towards holding back). And so on. Then if the article reaches 100 it becomes
stable. This method roughly solves the problem of there being vandal or
mistaken stable articles, but assumes that one revision of an article will
stick around for long enough to be evaluated in this manner. Will we have to
freeze the page after an admin puts it into "evaluation mode", or perhaps
set it aside into a subsidiary page where it is evaluated, after that
revision has been nominated for Stable Revision Evaluation? Obviously this
is all a very tricky issue because we're dealing with a wiki!
I was just wondering what people thought of these issues, and what plans
there are, if there are any.
I happened to be just passing through the University of Technology,
Sydney (UTS) and tried editing the Wikipedia there. This is the
message I got:
secure login
This account or IP address has been blocked from editing.
You were blocked by Proxy blocker for the following reason (see our
blocking policy):
Your IP address has been blocked because it is an open proxy. Please
contact your Internet service provider or tech support and inform them
of this serious security problem. Editing Wikipedia through an open
proxy is not allowed; see this policy for details.
Your IP address is 138.25.2.22.
I asked IT support, but they said it was unlikely to change, because
35,000 students had to be catered to (and I guess, they have their way
of accessing the server).
All the same, isn't it sad that the students who might want to
contribute to the Wikipedia can't do so? Is there some solution?
Regards, FN (based otherwise in Goa, India)
--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.orghttp://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
Konkani Wikipedia (under incubation) needs your help!
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kok
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Frederick Noronha [mailto:fred@bytesforall.org]
>Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 03:35 AM
>To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia references a source of anxiety (The Australian)
>
>Wikipedia references a source of anxiety (The Australian)
>Academe's concern is misplaced, writes Eric Raunchway...
>
>Quote:
>
>The history department at Middlebury College in Vermont, the US, has
>banned students' citation of Wikipedia, saying the free online
>encyclopedia that anyone can edit "suffers inevitably from
>inaccuracies deriving in large measure from its unique manner of
>compilation."
>
>What's at stake here isn't error. It's how we in the professional
>knowledge business greet our new overlords: the plain people of the
>internet. Right now, we're lobbing fibs at them of just the kind the
>internet is good at puncturing and, indeed, of just the kind the
>losing side used the last time our civilisation endured a revolution
>in the ownership of knowledge.
>
>Wikipedia's founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales agrees with the Middlebury
>historians. "Basically, they are recommending exactly what we
>suggested: students shouldn't be citing encyclopedias. I would hope
>they wouldn't be citing Encyclopaedia Britannica, either." All
>encyclopedias stand several degrees of separation away from the events
>on which they report.
>
>But by "barring Wikipedia citations without mentioning other
>encyclopedias", as Middlebury American studies professor Jason Mittell
>says, "it would seem that their problem is with the Wiki, not the
>pedia"....
>
>Close quote.
>
>THE AUSTRALIAN, Wed, Apr 11, 2007 Page 36 (Higher Education)
I was watching the Evening News on ABC the other night and out of Peter Jenning's mouth came a bunch of garbage about how making ethanol from corn was going to increase the price of food: bread, pork, etc were all going to rise in price due to production of ethanol. No analysis of the corn market, alternative sources of supply, of the general worldwide depression of agriculture that has existed since the horse was abandoned for the motor vehicle. No mention that doubling of the price of corn would only result in a few cent price rise of a loaf of bread. (most of the costs are due to production and distribution).
I listened to how wrong and poor the information was and contemplated the wiki world, where such biased garbage would have a half-life of only a few minutes. I've been a captive audience in a few college classes that were no better. They got you, keep you in the dark and feed you horseshit.
Fred
Wikipedia references a source of anxiety (The Australian)
Academe's concern is misplaced, writes Eric Raunchway...
Quote:
The history department at Middlebury College in Vermont, the US, has
banned students' citation of Wikipedia, saying the free online
encyclopedia that anyone can edit "suffers inevitably from
inaccuracies deriving in large measure from its unique manner of
compilation."
What's at stake here isn't error. It's how we in the professional
knowledge business greet our new overlords: the plain people of the
internet. Right now, we're lobbing fibs at them of just the kind the
internet is good at puncturing and, indeed, of just the kind the
losing side used the last time our civilisation endured a revolution
in the ownership of knowledge.
Wikipedia's founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales agrees with the Middlebury
historians. "Basically, they are recommending exactly what we
suggested: students shouldn't be citing encyclopedias. I would hope
they wouldn't be citing Encyclopaedia Britannica, either." All
encyclopedias stand several degrees of separation away from the events
on which they report.
But by "barring Wikipedia citations without mentioning other
encyclopedias", as Middlebury American studies professor Jason Mittell
says, "it would seem that their problem is with the Wiki, not the
pedia"....
Close quote.
THE AUSTRALIAN, Wed, Apr 11, 2007 Page 36 (Higher Education)
--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.orghttp://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
Konkani Wikipedia (under incubation) needs your help!
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kok
[cross-posted to Foundation-l, Wikipedia-l and WikiEN-l]
Well, after a couple of snags that pushed back the release dates, Wikipedia 0.5 is finally available for commercial distribution. Thanks to Linterweb, one of the long-term goals of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team in the English Wikipedia has been accomplished.
The release consists of an eclectic selection of 1964 articles, selected over a period of one year, which span from Art to Zeus. It draws heavily on the English Wikipedia’s featured article base, to have it also be a showcase of the best of our work. The CD is available at http://www.wikipediaondvd.com, and sells for approximately €12 ($15 USD, £8.50) with part of the sales going directly to the Wikimedia Foundation. The CD is also publicly viewable online, and the CD’s ISO file is available as well.
Either way, as the number "0.5" indicates, we are not done; static releases, just like Wikipedia itself, are not finished, as they are works in progress. We're starting work on Version 0.7 soon, and as everything else on Wikipedia, "more eyes are always more better" (the bad grammar is intentional ;) ). After v0.7, if things go as planned, we intend to finally publish Wikipedia Version 1.0 and accomplish our goal. But we need everyone’s help.
As part of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, I hope that you will enjoy and use our work, and we hope to provide you with more news of this kind soon.
Titoxd.