[Wikimedia-l] Report about a great collaboration between Wikimedia France and a french ministry

[Adrienne Alix]

Hello,

I want to share with you a very great work made on several Wikimedia
projects in the previous weeks in collaboration between Wikim=C3=A9dia Fran=
ce
and the General Delegation for French Languages and Languages of France (
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9l%C3%A9gation_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale_%C3%A0=
_la_langue_fran%C3%A7aise_et_
aux_langues_de_France-
DGLFLF), a department dedicated to the Languages in the French
Ministry
of Culture.
This collaboration is (imho) an example of what we can do with an
administration, and a source for contributors.

In may 2011 Wikim=C3=A9dia France was asked by the DGLFLF to write a report
about french language on the wikimedia projects. Some volunteers of the
chapter have doing this report, which was well received, up to be shared
with all the deputies of the French Parliament (in a general report about
the state of the french language) and frequently cited by the french
ministry of culture to show the importance of being present on the
internets to sustain a language.

After that, we were contacted again by the DGLFLF about the regional and
native languages of France (called "Langues de France" --> Languages of
France). We were invited in a big conference in Cayenne (french Guyana) on
december 2011. I was with Guillaume G., a volunteer, at this conference
called "General estates of the mulilinguism in the overseas" to explain
Wikimedia projects, with conferences and workshops.

The DGLFLF was very interested by our way of work and the philosophy of the
Wikimedia movement. After the conference we have discussed together and
decided to publish the acts of the conference by collaborative work on a
Wikimedia project : Wikibooks. You can see the result here (not totally
finished) :
http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/%C3%89tats_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9raux_du_multilinguism=
e_dans_les_outre-mer(and<http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/%C3%89tats_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9raux_du_multilinguism=e_dans_les_outre-mer%28and>
the linked pages)

We trained to contribute for 10 people from the DGLFLF and other
departments of the Ministry of Culture. They have now more than 500
contributions on Wikibooks, and they contribute on Wikipedia now. The idea
was to publish on Wikibooks to make a lot of links to Wikipedia,
illustrations from Commons etc, to promote the contribution for people
interested for the languages issues : linking to Wikipedia is a good way to
promote the contributions. Content about French overseas territories and
native languages is not so good and we (DGLFLF and WMFR) do a real effort
to promote better contributions.

Since one year, the DGLFLF has decided to publish its content with a free
license, especially made for open-data and open-content for the french
administration, the Etalab license (it is like au CC-BY license). After
they have published the content about the General Estates with this
license, we have uploaded the content on Wikim=C3=A9dia Commons. It is good=
 to
illustrate the Wikibooks, but now it is free for you too, to reuse and
share on the different Wikimedia projects, especially Wikipedia (to enrich
the articles about languages of France).

* We have all the videos of the Conference : more than 12 hours of
scientifical content about multilinguism and french languages :
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Videos_from_the_%C3%89tats_g%C3%=
A9n%C3%A9raux_du_multilinguisme_dans_les_outre-mer

* We have content produced by the DGLFLF about the different languages :
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Linguistic_card_from_the_%C3%89t=
ats_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9raux_du_multilinguisme_dans_les_outre-mer

* We also have a great kind of content : 18 audio files with languages of
the overseas (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:%C3%89tats_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9raux_du=
_multilinguisme_dans_les_outre-mer<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:%C3%89tats_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9raux_du=_multilinguisme_dans_les_outre-mer>
).
Some languages are spoken by a lot of people, especially for the Cara=C3=AF=
b
Islands, but some other are from very little languages, without written,
and with a very little number of locutors, like the "Nemi", a language
non-written from New-Caledonia, spoken by less than 300 people. And we have
a small part of this language now on Wikim=C3=A9dia Commons ! (
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nouvelle_Cal%C3%A9donie_Gilbert_Th%C=
3%A9in_Nemi.ogg).
We work to have other files of content about native languages like that.

So the reason to share with you this very nice collaboration is double :

* First I want to share a project which is - for me - an example of what we
can do with an administration when they are open to free culture and free
share of knowledge. It is a real pleasure for me to work like that and
share this good experience with you. And I hope that it could be benefit
for you and your discussions with your administrations to have an example
of a good project, in an other sector than GLAM or education, about free
knowledge.
* Secondly I wanted to share this links with you because it is a good
content for the projects and if we reuse a lot this content, it will be an
example for other administrations, in France and maybe in other countries,
to do like the General Delegation for French Language and Languages of
France.

All the best,


Adrienne


-- 
Adrienne Alix
Director of programs - Wikimedia France
Twitter : @AdrienneAlix
adrienne.alix at wikimedia.fr | 07.62.92.42.01
http://www.wikimedia.fr