http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation hourly 1 1901-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://gmane.org/img/gmane-25t.png http://gmane.org http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44169 <pre>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8560469.stm We're the biggest non-profit website in the world. That sounds like argument for us to get the prize money to me. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Thomas Dalton 2010-03-10T23:31:47 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44163 <pre>Hello everyone! How come the number of articles in each language Wikipedia is so different? I mean, in English, 3,000,000 or so articles. Spanish, about 600,000 articles. Don't encyclopedias deserve to be the same size, no matter what language? Why don't they have automatic translator bots to make all Wikipedias equal? That's my suggestion, translator bots for Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks and all other sites part of the Wikimedia wiki farm. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Tyler 2010-03-08T23:54:26 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44152 <pre> Yes, we have problems with Chinese languages and it is not just about Classical Chinese. And if you have some good sinologist around, please connect me with him or her. The logic behind rejecting Classical Chinese Wikisource is: 1) Wikisource can have sources in various languages. It is useful not to duplicate efforts with living languages (and put Japanese text on French Wikisource), but, for example, the logical place for texts in Slavenoserbian [1] is Serbian Wikisource. Relation between Anglo-Saxon and English is similar. According to this premise, Classical Chinese should go to Chinese Wikisource. 2) Just those ancient languages which are significantly different structurally in *written form* (as Wikimedia projects are still about written language) should be considered for having a separate Wikisource. According to this, Slavenoserbian and Anglo-Saxon would get projects, while it will be problematic for Classical Chinese: it looks to me that native Chinese speakers treat Classical Chinese as not so different, while other East Asians treat it so. 3) Just those ancient languages which don't have modern language which speakers consist approximately a superset of those who know that classical language -- should be considered for having a separate project. Every single person who knows Slavoserbian knows Serbian, which is true for Anglo-Saxon, too. But, it is not true for Classical Chinese. 4) Just those ancient languages which had significant productions should be considered to have separate Wikisource. Anglo-Saxon had significant production, Slavoserbian had, and, of course, Classical Chinese had, too. 5) We need [default] interface in a living language. The most logical choice for Classical Chinese is modern Chinese written in Traditional Hanji. In conjunction with (1) and (2), it would create a subset-fork of Chinese Wikisource. BTW, we are in a wiki world. Everything is changeable, but we need good reasons for changes. I would like to hear answers/confirmations on the next questions/claims: a) For Chinese speakers: Do you consider Classical Chinese as a language different from your native one or you are fully able to read Classical Chinese texts? Probably, it is somewhere in the middle, but, please, explain it. b) I suppose that it is not so hard to make a link from Japanese Wikipedia to some text on Chinese Wikisource. Actually, it would be similar if it would be about a separate Classical Chinese Wikisource. c) Are Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean etc. Wikimedian are able to contribute to Chinese Wikisource. If not, what is the problem? Other thoughs are welcome, as well. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoserbian _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Milos Rancic 2010-03-08T12:42:04 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44143 <pre>Does Wikipedia's principles need consensus of the community? There is not consensus of the community, but does somebody pass if filled out the page with "Policy"? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> kigen2700nen-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org 2010-03-08T02:55:47 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44141 <pre>Does Wikipedia's principles need consensus of the community? There is not consensus of the community, but does somebody pass if filled out the page with "Policy"? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> kigen2700nen-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org 2010-03-08T01:42:18 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44130 <pre>How do you edit Wikipedia anonymously? When I click "edit this page", a blank edit box appears, and the page, including wiki markup, appears below the box. And, just for my info, how many of you on this list have heard of Uncyclopedia? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Tyler 2010-03-07T23:17:54 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44125 <pre>This issue was discussed a number of times here. As some changes has happened, you should know that. Requests for Wikisource in Ancient Greek and Coptic have became eligible, as well as request for Ancient Greek Wikiquote. The condition for those projects is to keep default interface in English. Rationale: Both languages have large amount of texts and it is reasonable to keep them separately. At the other side, languages are not living, which means that interface can't be written in those languages. As the heritage written in those languages belong to the whole humanity, there is no common modern language for those who use those languages in scientific or cultural purposes, and English is world's lingua franca, the default interface should be in English. Consequences: All requests will be considered on case by case basis. For some ancient languages there is a sense to have separate Wikisource and Wikiquote, for some it is reasonably to have just Wikisource, for some it is not. And it is because of various reasons. For example, request for Wikisource in Classical Chinese has been rejected. Written Chinese is not very different for millenniums and WS in Classical Chinese would have interface in modern Chinese (probably, in Traditional Hanji), as person who knows Classical Chinese has to know modern Chinese. Thus, it would be just a fork of Chinese Wikisource. The other example which would be rejected is Wikisource in Old Church Slavonic. There are less than 20 preserved documents written in Old Church Slavonic and thus there is no need to create a project for such amount of texts. At the other side, Church Slavonic Wikisource would have sense and the default interface would be in Russian -- as the most of those who know to read Church Slavonic, know to read Russian, too. Requests for Wikisource and Wikinews in Esperanto have became eligible, too. Esperanto projects are treated as projects in any other language, as Esperanto is a living language. Rationale: Esperanto is a living language with significant number of native speakers. Consequences: Esperanto is an exceptional case for artificial languages. It is the only artificial language which has significant culture behind itself, as well as there are numerous examples of Esperanto as a native language. As it is a living language, it can have the full set of Wikimedia projects. The only comparable case with Esperanto is Latin, although Latin is not an artificial language. As it is a living language, it can get the full set of projects. Request for Wikipedia in Ancient Hebrew has been rejected. It is not possible to have article about train in Ancient Hebrew and it is not living language, which means that article about train won't be created at all. Consequences: It is not possible to get Wikipedia in ancient language. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Milos Rancic 2010-03-07T17:58:57 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44123 <pre>I heard that you have the biggest encyclopedia in the world. Is it true that there are no other English encyclopedias with about 3,000,000 articles? And what are the top 7 MediaWiki wikis as far ar number of articles? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Tyler 2010-03-07T17:22:38 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44118 <pre>It writes in Japanese. I am not good at English. time is necessary for the reply. I say, user "山吹色の御菓子" of Wikipedia Japanese version. It questions as case of the entire Wikipedia. There is Wikipedia 's principles in Wikipedia English version. Can this be freely changed by the participant's discretion in each language version? Is it possible to make the one that principle and guidelines that existed in Wikipedia English version was purely Copy and Paste principle and guidelines even if the community doesn't agree? Is principle and guidelines in which the community doesn't agree effective? In Wikipedia Japanese version, the document with the template of principle and guidelines up to the present time was operated from the start without obtaining the mutual agreement of the community. In Wikipedia Japanese version, the participant was doing principle and guidelines without permission until 2007. The community simply solved by the decision by majority without understanding Wikipedia 's principles until February, 2010. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> kigen2700nen-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org 2010-03-06T13:54:46 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44106 <pre>I cannot speak English very much. It is the ’山吹色の御菓子’ the wikipedia Japanese edition user. There is doubt in a policy and a guideline. The Japanese edition did copy and paste of a document of the English version and used it. Are a policy without the agreement and the guideline effective in community? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> akio chiba 2010-03-06T05:14:46 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44038 <pre>Hoi, Last week Thursday there was no localisation for the Malayalam wikipedi, it did not have a mobile main page.. Today it is the first language of India that has the best support we can offer to mobile telephones. According to many, the mobile phone will generate much of our future traffic.. I hope and expect that India will amaze us and grow a vibrant and rich community for all its languages. Thanks, GerardM http://ml.m.wikipedia.org _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Gerard Meijssen 2010-03-02T20:55:58 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44031 <pre>The recent 6-month financial report indicates at the end of 2008, there was $6.67 million sitting in a savings account. At the end of 2009, it's $12.56 million. Do individual contributors and organizations who are donating to the Wikimedia Foundation realize that nearly $6 million of last year's funds were simply put into the bank? Do you think donors think this is an important mission, to build up the savings account? </pre> Gregory Kohs 2010-03-02T04:37:19 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44025 <pre>Hello Folks, I am pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation Mid-Year Financial Statements (covering the period July 1 through December 31, 2009) are now posted to the WMF website at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports#2009-2010_fiscal_year We have also posted answers to anticipated questions: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports/July_2009_to_December_2009_Mid-Year_FAQ The upshot is: The Wikimedia Foundation's financial situation continues to be strong; we have met our overall revenue goal for the year and projections say that we will exceed plan by about 50%. Expenses were underspent at the beginning of the year but are catching up and we project expenses to be close to the original plan, maybe a little higher. Please feel free to email with any questions or concerns you have. Veronique Kessler _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Veronique Kessler 2010-03-02T02:27:34 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44018 <pre>Erik Möller -- You're the second-in-command at the Wikimedia Foundation and one of the people most directly responsible for Wikimedia's technology. FlaggedRevisions has been promised on the English Wikipedia for months and months and months. What's the hold-up? MZMcBride _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> MZMcBride 2010-03-02T01:17:06 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/44015 <pre>Hello all, our very positive revenue perspective (we have already exceeded our fundraising targets for the fiscal year, and received the additional $2M from Google) allows us to do something we've hoped to be able to do: make our investment in user experience work permanent, as opposed to releasing most of the current user experience team and ending the project. It makes obvious sense for any major website to have a permanent team focused on user experience improvements in the broadest sense. This includes eliminating obvious barriers to entry, but beyond that, we want to improve the experience as a whole for both readers and editors. We're now referring to this work as "user experience" (UX) work, which includes usability. Naoko will be Head of UX Programs, while Trevor will be the lead front-end developer on the team. Congratulations to both of them. :-) Naoko is currently assessing the remaining contracts and will share further information as these decisions are finalized. In the immediate future post-April, we'll be concerned with tying up loose ends from the usability initiative, and finishing functionality that we had to put in the parking lot. We'll work on a roadmap and staffing plan for 2010-11 and beyond as part of our business planning process. Our long-term focus will be determined in significant part based on the recommendations from the strategic planning process; see especially the community health recommendations: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Recommendations/Community_health While we haven't finalized priorities, the single biggest piece of work is likely going to be the transition to a rich-text editor as the default editing environment for all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. But, user experience to us also means assessing how people self-organize and communicate in Wikimedia projects, how they get stuff done, and how they read and navigate our projects. Even among the areas of work we've already identified, there's enough to keep us busy for many years. :-) Please note that the original usability initiative hasn't concluded yet. The team is working on its final release, which will include some of the most-anticipated changes, including collapsing of templates to simplify the editing interface, and the production release of the new feature-set to all users. As always, we'll continue to communicate progress through &lt;http://blog.wikimedia.org/&gt; and &lt;http://techblog.wikimedia.org/&gt;, and feedback and participation is welcome at &lt;http://usability.wikimedia.org/&gt;. All best, Erik </pre> Erik Moeller 2010-03-02T00:14:15 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/43968 <pre>It's a simple question: what the fuck is the hold-up for FlaggedRevisions on the English Wikipedia? Thanks, MZMcBride z&lt; at &gt;mzmcbride.com _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> MZMcBride 2010-02-28T23:26:31 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/43963 <pre>_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> church.of.emacs.ml 2010-02-28T12:42:12 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/43950 <pre>I am cleaning Requests for new languages [1] at Meta. Some of the requests are clearly out of the Language committee scope, and they need wider discussion for concluding them. One of such requests is for multilingual Wiktionary [2]. Please, discuss here (at foundation-l; I am sending this message to wiktionary-l to poke those who are not at foundation-l) or on wiki at the page [2]. [1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages [2] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wiktionary_multilingual _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Milos Rancic 2010-02-27T17:32:41 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/43945 <pre>Dear folks at Wikimedia, Thank you for existing! You are responsible for the encyclopedia I use every time I need an encyclopedia! So, you publish an encyclopedia (Wikipedia), a dictionary (Wiktionary), an archive of news articles (Wikinews), online classes (Wikiversity), online textbooks (Wikibooks), online non-educational books (Wikisource), lists of quotes by people or shows or whatever (Wikiquote), an encyclopedia of living things (Wiki Species), a meta-wiki that no one knows the reason for (Meta), a place where all files on the wikis are placed (The Commons), and a site I don't know why the deuce it exists (The Wikimedia incubator). I was just wondering, how would you like to start an almanac, guys? That would be neat, a wiki almanac. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Tyler 2010-02-27T16:02:49 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/43944 <pre>Not WMF-related, but a project I think many here would find sympathy with: http://librivox.org/2010/02/24/librivox-needs-your-help/ They do public-domain audio recordings of public-domain books. The audio files are hosted by ibiblio.org, but the rest runs on a server of their own. They need $20k for the hosting. US tax-deductible donations are being taken by the Internet Archive on their behalf. - d. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> David Gerard 2010-02-27T15:28:13 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/43936 <pre>I've been part of the strategy process these last few months and will continue to contribute to the wiki ( strategy.wikimedia.org ). I've been talking to strategy facilitator Philippe and one of the things that's come up and is still being discussed [1] is who will be responsible for putting various ideas raised by the strategy process into practice. I *think* it's almost inevitable that a side-effect of strat is that some volunteers will want to discuss ideas with WMF staff; it's acknowledged that the role of the WMF, of chapters and of volunteers overlap to some degree and while discussion may clarify this to some extent I think Strategy volunteers will be wanting to communicate with WMF staff more than they had done previously... I know I will. All of which led me to look at the foundation's staff page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff And what I noticed was that whereas, for example, Sue Gardner and Erik Moller have wiki-linked job titles - which you can click to see their respective responsibilities - there are quite a few staff entries that do not. It occurs to me that if every effort were made to put the role/responsibilities of ALL staff on the wiki it would really help people to address their ideas to the people most able to help. Which brings me to a further point; the staff page has wiki-linked names which take you to a user page and its associated talk page. Is the talk page the advised way to contact a staff member directly? Or is one discouraged from attempting to contact staff directly in general? Are the mailing lists the approved way of getting through to the WMF? Or should we direct everything through Cary as Volunteer Coordinator? I think answers to these questions will be very useful to strategy volunteers and so I'd like permission (or explicit advice not) to paste up the response on the Strategy wiki. Don't panic: I don't foresee a sudden tidal wave of stuff being thrown at WMF staff. And, anyway, they all knew there was going to be a strategy, so I guess they're prepared :o) [1] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Task_force/Movement_Roles / http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Movement_Roles User:Bodnotbod &lt; at &gt; en:wp / strategy.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r&lt; at &gt;public.gmane.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l </pre> Bod Notbod 2010-02-26T00:32:51 Search the mailing list at Gmane query http://search.gmane.org/?group=$group=gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation