Pursuant to KQ's suggestions, I've started a page on the English wikipedia:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Embassy
This is indended to serve a few purposes:
* Summarize current cross-language issues (software conversion, interface localization, interlanguage linking, ...?)
* Link to the equivalent embassy page on the other language wikis (please make them!)
* Link to the Intlwiki-L list, reminding that it's available
* List 'Wikipedia Ambassadors': polyglots who can keep an eye on discussions across the various wikis and lists they frequent and act as go-betweens and representatives when big decisions are being made.
On this last, I'm assuming that in general there is at least one person on each language wiki who's already participating in at least one other-language wiki and can keep an eye on the local embassy without too much trouble. The embassy can thus serve as a communications post for people who need to deal with that specific wiki; drop a message there and somebody hopefully can decode and reply to it, or else find the specific ambassador you need and contact them directly.
I look forward to expanding this system, and hope it turns out useful!
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion VIBBER wrote:
Pursuant to KQ's suggestions, I've started a page on the English wikipedia:
A good idea be would it not be better to use the meta-wikipedia for this ? Now it is used to put stuff on that is out of please on the English wikipedia. I see a future for the Meta - wikipedia as the central conectionpoint between all wikipedias. A truly international, multi-lingual wiki for essays and other non-encycopedia stuff but also as the centre for international co-ordination. For Embassys or some respresantation. You can make different "Main Page"s on the same wiki. Somthing like this; http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Hoofdpagina
I think there will be more active in the Embassy pages if the are all on 1 wiki. Then there are only only 2 wikipedias to monitor. . If the Embassy pages are all on the home-wikipedias i think some will be forgotten and the traffic, if any, will only be downstream from the English to the others but not upstream.
giskart
Giskart wrote:
Brion VIBBER wrote:
Pursuant to KQ's suggestions, I've started a page on the English wikipedia:
and now Esperanto: http://eo.wikipedia.com/wiki/Vikipedia_Ambasadorejo
A good idea be would it not be better to use the meta-wikipedia for this ? Now it is used to put stuff on that is out of please on the English wikipedia. I see a future for the Meta - wikipedia as the central conectionpoint between all wikipedias. A truly international, multi-lingual wiki for essays and other non-encycopedia stuff but also as the centre for international co-ordination. For Embassys or some respresantation. You can make different "Main Page"s on the same wiki. Somthing like this; http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Hoofdpagina
I think there will be more active in the Embassy pages if the are all on 1 wiki. Then there are only only 2 wikipedias to monitor. . If the Embassy pages are all on the home-wikipedias i think some will be forgotten and the traffic, if any, will only be downstream from the English to the others but not upstream.
My experience with Meta has been that I check it somewhere between very rarely and never, which makes it useless for me for discussion or site announcements. On the other hand, the wikis I participate in *editing* I check rather regularly (en, eo quite frequently, fr at least few times a week; I check de for the bug reports page), and so I'm much more likely to notice big news / help requests / policy discussions there. Likewise the mailing lists (eg intlwiki-l) come directly to my inbox once I've subscribed, so it's tough to ignore them.
I doubt I'm alone in this, so I would expect to have an easier time getting ahold of, say, the French wikipedia community by writing on a page on the French wiki which will appear to all French wikipedians in their RecentChanges list than by writing on a page on meta which if I'm lucky someone (an "ambassador") will remember to check. If I want to get ahold of _everyone's_ attention, that's what intlwiki-l is for. The people who are subscribed to these mailing lists (the "ambassadors") are guaranteed to receive that, and they can then make sure there is appropriate local discussion on their home wikis and that everybody's voices are heard on the mailing list.
Someone unable or intimidated to post directly to the big list can leave a request at their local "embassy", which the local ambassador can send on to the mailing list.
But you're welcome to prove me wrong, I've been hoping we could do something useful with meta for a long time. :)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
I've been getting errors like the following on an occasional basis for the last week or so. Might it be that we're not yet out of the woods on the server load issue?
*Warning*: open(/tmp/sess_d951b98b197c77c47e75c3217ffce7cd, O_RDWR) failed: Too many open files in system (23) in */usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml* on line *7*
*Warning*: Failed opening 'Setup.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in */usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml* on line *12*
*Fatal error*: Undefined class name 'outputpage' in */usr/local/apache/htdocs/w/wiki.phtml* on line *14*
*Warning*: open(/tmp/sess_d951b98b197c77c47e75c3217ffce7cd, O_RDWR) failed: Too many open files in system (23) in *Unknown* on line *0*
*Warning*: Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/tmp) in *Unknown* on line *0*
Yes, that sounds good to me. We'll see how it can work. I'll do the page on the fr.wiki tomorrow :-) How are the phase III switching going on ?
I have a question, hum, two very hypothetical questions maybe - is it possible that the software propose different special pages depending on the wiki? This being with the potential idea that this page on homewikis could be a special page, so helping access. If the page is burried ina 3 levels hierarchy, wikipedians wont check it. But though that page could interest us, it would not interest en.wiki. So, how much of this might be possible. I said might :-) - is it possible to watch several wikis from the same place ? I know there's the issue of confusion if it's a common list, or the issue of the multiplication of lists (could be solved by a drop-down (?) menu anyway. The core question is just, is it possible ?
--- Brion VIBBER brion@pobox.com wrote:
Pursuant to KQ's suggestions, I've started a page on the English wikipedia:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Embassy
This is indended to serve a few purposes:
- Summarize current cross-language issues (software
conversion, interface localization, interlanguage linking, ...?)
- Link to the equivalent embassy page on the other
language wikis (please make them!)
- Link to the Intlwiki-L list, reminding that it's
available
- List 'Wikipedia Ambassadors': polyglots who can
keep an eye on discussions across the various wikis and lists they frequent and act as go-betweens and representatives when big decisions are being made.
On this last, I'm assuming that in general there is at least one person on each language wiki who's already participating in at least one other-language wiki and can keep an eye on the local embassy without too much trouble. The embassy can thus serve as a communications post for people who need to deal with that specific wiki; drop a message there and somebody hopefully can decode and reply to it, or else find the specific ambassador you need and contact them directly.
I look forward to expanding this system, and hope it turns out useful!
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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