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.org
Year: 2007 Week: 38 Special edition
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An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
//////////////////////////////////////////
=== Request for help ===
Dear readers,
Almost two years ago I started with Wikizine. The very first message
send out about it was also a "special edition". That was to present
Wikizine, what it was all about.
http://en.wikizine.org/2005/10/year-2005-week41-special-edition.html
This one now is not to explain what Wikizine is.
Wikizine is not totally unsuccessful. The number of readers has only
go up since its existence, slowly yes, but up nevertheless. The rare
feedback has been positive.
It was my intention to create a platform with Wikizine to bring
together the most relevant information, news, from all Wikimedia
projects and languages. I felt, and still do, that there is a need for
that.
I hoped that after some time a network of reporters of the various
wikis, languages, projects, would form who could bring there news to
the larger community by means of Wikizine. And also that the would
people step up to join me in creating Wikizine.
This largely did not happened. In the last two years some people have
volunteered and helped with making Wikizine. But that where far to
few, who did not a lot and only for a to short time to have any real
impact.
Wikizine was and is still a one man show. I have made all editions
until now of Wikizine. I can not continue like this. It has become
more difficult with every edition for me to bring myself to get the
next one ready. The time it was fun is long gone. The frequency of the
editions has become more and more erratic. And the quality is falling.
I need people who are willing to work substantially on Wikizine. And
not only today but on the long term. Finding news, writing it in the
draft; constructing Wikizine. If you like to help please contact me;
walter AT wikizine.org
Request for help for Wikizine has been send out before, only not so
explicit like now. This is also the first time I send it to
non-Wikizine channels.
The responds the previous times was always nearly zero. I do not
expect anything else this time. Surprise me.
Greetings,
Walter Vermeir
The editor-founder of Wikizine
//////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Walter
Contact: reply or http://report.wikizine.org
Website: http://www.wikizine.org
//////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy,
validity and especially but not limited to,
correct grammar and spelling.
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]],
and is not a publication of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikizine is a weekly publication as long as there is noteworthy news
(and time)
Content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
[Please translate this announcement into other languages.]
Wikipedia's roots in the more conservative Nupedia project are reflected by
many in-depth discussions we've had over the years about quality assurance,
filtering, and labeling.
In her "4 wishes for the year 2007" [1], Wikimedia Foundation Chair
Florence Devouard also identified "reliability" as a key goal for the
Wikimedia Foundation. Today we're taking two small steps towards that
goal:
* the launch of http://quality.wikimedia.org/ as a portal targeting
readers and volunteers to summarize key information about current
quality initiatives, combined with
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiquality as a more in-depth
description of our plans,
* the opening of wikiquality-l as a mailing list for related discussions:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiquality-l
Notably, these pages describe our current plans with regard to the
"FlaggedRevs" extension, a MediaWiki extension developed by Aaron
Schulz and Jörg Baach (with financial support from Wikimedia
Deutschland e.V.) which makes it possible to identify revisions of
articles that are known to be of a certain quality, and to change the
default view based on that information.
The public beta of this feature (initially on dummy websites, i.e. not
production environments) will begin as soon as a security review of
the current code has been completed (expected later this month). In
the meantime, please give your feedback on the quality.wikimedia.org
portal, add translations, and subscribe to wikiquality-l to join
future discussions about the specifics of any particular initiative.
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/4_wishes_for_year_2007
Sincerely,
Erik Möller
Board member, Wikimedia Foundation
Hi, again a crosspost :-)
Today I am here to ask you for your help with photos. We prepared two
example messages you can forward to friends and family below. Of course
we would like to see photos from all of you and you can see examples
here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/wikilove
What I myself experienced is that it is much easier to take the camera,
take some white paper and something to write when you meet people and
ask them if they love Wikipedia, Wikinews or whichever project - then
ask them to write it down and take a picture.
When it comes to uploading them to flickr and you don't want to do it
yourself, I suppose we will be able to organise it asking the community
for help.
Please use the various wiki-meetings around to take pictures and to ask
others to do the same. If you are at university or school things should
be quite easy, if you have a mobile phone that can take pictures or you
simply take your camera with you for one day and "do".
I hope we will be able to see your photo online soon then :-)
Cheers, Sabine
p.s. don't forget to ask others to do the same.
*****
Proposed texts (please adapt them according to your community and the
country where you live - we know that things can differ a lot from one
place to the other):
*Version 1*
Are you a Wikipedian fanatic? Do you ever wonder how you operated
without Wikipedia. Then show your wiki love! Post your picture depicting
why you love Wikipedia to the Wikilove Flickr group. Pictures can be
funny, creative, emotional, deep, or anything you want them to be!
Additionally, forward this email to your family and friends, and ask
them to do the same :) http://www.flickr.com/groups/wikilove/
*Version 2*
Are you a Wikipedian fanatic? Do you ever wonder how you operated
without Wikipedia? Then show your love by posting your pictures to the
official Wikipedia Flickr group! Pics can be funny, creative, or
anything you want them to be.
If you are camera shy, then simply check out the cool pics that have
already been posted.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/wikilove/
PanImages Image Search Tool Speaks Hundreds Of Languages
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/news/2007/09/12/panimages-image-search-too…
quote:
PanImages' powerful brains were created by scanning more than 350
machine-readable online dictionaries. Some of these were
"wiktionaries," online multilingual dictionaries written by
volunteers. The PanImages software scans these dictionaries and uses
an algorithm to check the accuracy of the results. It then assembles
the results in a matrix that allows translation in combinations that
may never have been attempted — for instance, from Gujarati to
Lithuanian.
The actual search engine is here:
http://www.panimages.org/index.jsp?displang=eng
And the research paper detailing the algorithm and method is here:
http://turing.cs.washington.edu/papers/EtzioniMTSummit07.pdf
An idea to use Wiktionary or interwiki links to improve image search
for Commons has long been kicked around. Maybe we could collaborate
with them to improve the Mayflower search engine for Commons? (Or else
ask them to index upload.wikimedia.org and pay attention to license
metadata :)) After all, we supplied them with all this useful data for
free.
cheers,
Brianna
--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/
For those who don't read my blog - just forwarding to various lists in
English and if needed, please forward it to the various project lists.
Thank you!!!
Sabine
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Well, dealing with the Fundraiser 2007 I am trying to involve the whole
of the communities. But that seems easier that it really is ... one
things: oh well, there are the village pumps and you just go around them
... or you go through the mailing lists (but not all projects have one)
... or in the worst case you use the various chat rooms ... well no, it
does not really work ... a really well structured communication in this
specific moment is not possible - and in some way we should think about
a solution.
Village pumps:
I am getting step by step to them - there is no all comprehensive page -
but even if there was there is one huge problem: they are structured
very different from one project to the other. Often I posted "somewhere"
without even understanding if it was the right place ... some have extra
pages for messages written in a different language from theirs (but then
again: there you don't reach a maximum number of people who maybe would
help). Some have different sectors for different themes ... but again:
there you don't reach all potential people, just the part of them that
goes to the "general" village pump page. Uhmmmmmm ...... not sure how to
sort this out ... and no: I would be agains a page for special
"foundation information" since again it would be read by only a part of
the users/editors and these would probably be more or less the same ones
who read foundation list ....
Now I asked for a bot that can help us to add new sections to specific
pages within the pywikipediabot framework - this would at least make one
part of it easier, not having to go around all projects, but still the
"how to communicate effectively" problem remains ....
For now, until we maybe get a better solution, I would like to ask
people from the various projects to check the page where I list the
village pumps
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/Village_Pumps> and
change the links I have there to the page where they want to have the
messages added - for all projects please - this will help all of us to
live an easier wiki-life. During the next days I will then make another
round around the various Village Pumps asking people to correct the link
on the page above if necessary.
I am sorry, but for now I don't see a different way to get this on the way.
And please: all links to all projects are needed - also the smallest
ones ... they all have the same relevance.
Thanks!!!
--
Posted By Sabine Cretella to words & more
<http://sabinecretella.blogspot.com/2007/09/fundraiser-2007-communication-wi…>
at 9/08/2007 02:35:00 PM
Hi, again we need your help :-)
Now we have a group on Flickr where people can express why they love the
wikimedia projects - more about this here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/WikiLove_campaign
We need the translation of a short text (see link above) in the
following languages:
* English (well that is of course already done - it is just for
completion)
* French
* German
* Italian
* Korean
* Portuguese
* Spanish
* Traditional Chinese
It would be great if some of you could help :-) and maybe pass the
information on to the relevant Village Pumps and discussion lists.
Thank you!!!
Sabine
*****
Sabine Cretella
PM Fundraiser 2007
scretella(a)wikimedia.org
skype:sabinecretella
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:SabineCretella