Hello everyone,
*About the Offline UserGroup*
There have been many efforts to distribute offline snapshots to places
with little connectivity, via schoolservers, wikireaders, and
pocket-sized servers that run on batteries.
* We created astatic content initiative
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Static_content_group>early on;
* Anoffline mailing list
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l>has been
around for many years;
* Kiwix has provided a stable toolchain for creating and viewing
offline snapshots;
* At various times (2011-12, 2016-) the WMF has staffed or supported
offline teams testing and developing toolchains for translation and
article selection, including one simply called "Offline".
* A number of community grants from WMFR, WMDE, WMF and other
foundations have supported offline deployments and focused
translations for that purpose.
This user group is a shared community for people using the mailing list
and developing any of these related initiatives!
*Objectives of the UserGroup*
+ Consolidate and support offline snapshots of wiki knowledge, and
deployments of them in schools, clinics, and rural communities.
+ Update and maintain theoffline projects portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline_projects>here on Meta.
+ Advocate for better distribution of and awareness of offline
wikis, in all parts of the world where internet access is
restricted, expensive, or unavailable: including schools, clinics,
prisons, refugee camps, disaster areas.
*Activities*
* Development of offline distributions with Kiwix
* Support for editors compiling modern snapshots of wikipedia, such as
WP 1.0
* Offline distributions to rural clinics, schools, and libraries
* Offline editing with WikiFundi
* Development of synchronizing solutions
* Past events: 2017 offline hackathon in NY
* Future events: Offline meetup @ Wikimania, Kiwix hackathon
*Membership ***Following the last update during Wikimedia Summit regarding WMF board seats selection [1], the UserGroup needs to clarify its membership.
For those already members in 2018, please confirm whether you are still a
member of the Offline UserGroup in 2019.
If you were not yet a member and want to be, add your name ;)
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_for_offline_wikis#Membership_in_2019
Anthere
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