Re: [Foundation-l] iBooks vs. wBooks?

[Magnus Manske]

Hi Gerard,

if you read my original email, I do emphasise Apple's "walled garden",
and my proposal is specifically *not* to put our contents there.
Rather, I would like us to take advantage of the breach in the
"educational material" monopol that Apple will undoubtedly create, by
generating our own pure-HTML5 books (which I call "wBooks" to
differentiate from Apples "iBooks"), which would work on all tablets
(and probably phones), not just the iPad.

Cheers,
Magnus

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 10:42 PM, Gerard Meijssen
 wrote:
> Hoi,
> The EULA currently in use prohibits the use of material that is offered
> anywhere except in the Apple store. They have also broken the mold of the
> standard. Consequently adopting the Apple model would technically support
> Apple devices.
>
> Both reasons are enough not to use Apple at all in an education setting and
> for material available under a free license.
> Thanks,
>     Gerard
>
> On 25 January 2012 23:12, Gregory Varnum  wrote:
>
>> I'm confused by what you mean by "walled garden".  If this were the same
>> as the App Store model where they have a custom iOS app format and their
>> store is the only place to get it - that would make sense to me.  That
>> doesn't seem to be the case here..
>>
>> My understanding was the ebooks created with iBook Author works in any
>> ebooks store that supports HTML5 standards.  I've been testing some ebooks
>> we threw together on lots of devices (almost all non-Apple) with no
>> problems.  We've even turned some of them into interactive web pages.
>>
>> I haven't heard of this software breaking the current standard so much as
>> further enabling HTML5 within it - but I could be wrong.
>>
>> -greg
>>
>>
>> On Jan 25, 2012, at 4:16 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>
>> > Hoi,
>> > I think we should not support Apple in breaking the standard and in
>> > preventing us from using our work anywhere else. We take pride in being
>> > freely licensed and there is no excuse for the walled garden approach
>> taken
>> > by Apple. There is also no excuse for us endorsing this behaviour.
>> >
>> > Obviously as what we do is freely licensed or public domain you can do
>> > whatever as long as the license requirements are maintained. I am sure
>> that
>> > as a consequence you cannot legally publish in Apple's walled garden. I
>> > hate to see anything done in this area that is endorsed by the Wikimedia
>> > Foundation.
>> > Thanks,
>> >     Gerard
>> >
>> > On 20 January 2012 10:46, Magnus Manske 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> (This mail is focused on books, but the topic is of more general
>> >> interest IMHO, thus foundation-l)
>> >>
>> >> Hi all,
>> >>
>> >> I just saw the "iBooks Author" news:
>> >>
>> >>
>> http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/19/a-closer-look-at-ibooks-author-textbooks-and-exclusivity/
>> >>
>> >> Of course, all these pretty books will be only available in the Apple
>> >> paywalled garden.
>> >>
>> >> So I thought: As they use basically HTML5 (plus a few proprietary
>> >> libraries), could we produce such interactive, tablet/phone-enabled
>> >> e-books ("wBooks" as in "Wikimedia":-) from free content? I believe
>> >> the answer is yes, though it might be quite a push technologically
>> >> (just to be clear, I am speaking of the books here, not of the
>> >> authoring software).
>> >>
>> >> Also: Should we? I believe the answer is yes as well, for two reasons.
>> >> One, Apples work here might (yet again) set a new standard, which
>> >> means everything falling short of that standard will be neglected by
>> >> the target audience, which runs counter to our declared goal of
>> >> disseminating free knowledge; standing still might well mean falling
>> >> behind. Another reason is the opportunity that Apple creates for us
>> >> here: Once such e-books become accepted as general teaching tools in
>> >> schools, it will be much easier to switch from Apple-only, costly
>> >> books to run-everywhere, free books; they might just win the
>> >> "technology battle" for us.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> What do you think?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> Magnus
>> >>
>> >> ___

[Foundation-l] iBooks vs. wBooks?

[Magnus Manske]

(This mail is focused on books, but the topic is of more general
interest IMHO, thus foundation-l)

Hi all,

I just saw the "iBooks Author" news:
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/19/a-closer-look-at-ibooks-author-textbooks-and-exclusivity/

Of course, all these pretty books will be only available in the Apple
paywalled garden.

So I thought: As they use basically HTML5 (plus a few proprietary
libraries), could we produce such interactive, tablet/phone-enabled
e-books ("wBooks" as in "Wikimedia":-) from free content? I believe
the answer is yes, though it might be quite a push technologically
(just to be clear, I am speaking of the books here, not of the
authoring software).

Also: Should we? I believe the answer is yes as well, for two reasons.
One, Apples work here might (yet again) set a new standard, which
means everything falling short of that standard will be neglected by
the target audience, which runs counter to our declared goal of
disseminating free knowledge; standing still might well mean falling
behind. Another reason is the opportunity that Apple creates for us
here: Once such e-books become accepted as general teaching tools in
schools, it will be much easier to switch from Apple-only, costly
books to run-everywhere, free books; they might just win the
"technology battle" for us.


What do you think?


Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Newbie recruitment: referencing

[Magnus Manske]

On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 9:49 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 2 November 2011 21:41, Nathan  wrote:
>
>> I knew it looked so obvious someone must've already tried to do it.
>> See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ProveIt.jpg and
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ProveIt_GT. This is a GUI reference
>> adding interface that shows up while editing (i.e., after you click
>> "edit this page.") It's a gadget currently available to everyone.
>> A gadget is certainly handy and I'll be using ProveIt from now on,
>> but... it doesn't help people who are not logged in or have never
>> edited before, it's not widely publicised, etc. etc.
>
>
> This needs polishing into some sort of newbie-usable tool and
> deployment as soon as can be managed. (i.e. before the WYSIWYG of our
> dreams.)

Go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MyPage/common.js
and insert
importScript('User:Magnus Manske/insertref.js');

You'll get an "Insert reference" link in your toolbox. Select some
(best plain, unique) text in the normal page (not the edit page!),
click the link, paste the reference, choose to insert left or right of
the selection, in edit mode click save, done.

This has been sitting there since March 2009. It's probably not what
you want "as is", but the concept could be married up with the Proveit
interface, and the "save" could be done via API, so you never ever see
the edit page.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] 10th wiki-birthdays?

[Magnus Manske]

On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 10:10 PM, Tom Morris  wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 01:39, Kim Bruning  wrote:
>> And now for something completely different. :-)
>>
>> Who here has already had their 10th wikibirthday, and who will have it soon?
>>
>> Seems like an excuse  for a party :-)
>>

First recorded edit : July 28, 2001
(https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&dir=prev&target=Magnus+Manske)

Now get off my lawn ;-)

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[Foundation-l] H2G2 "to be disposed of"

[Magnus Manske]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12265173

Anything worth salvaging?

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Re: [Foundation-l] Happy Birthday Wikipedia, from Jimmy Wales

[Magnus Manske]

On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 6:01 PM, Jay Walsh  wrote:
> Birthday wishes from Jimmy on our blog, with embedded video greetings.

Implemented as Flash. Oh the irony ;-)

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Re: [Foundation-l] Old Wikipedia backups discovered

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 9:49 PM, Henning Schlottmann
 wrote:
> Hi Magnus,
>
> On 14.12.2010 22:35, Magnus Manske wrote:
>> On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 8:36 PM, Henning Schlottmann
>>  wrote:
>>> On 14.12.2010 16:54, Tim Starling wrote:
>>>> I was looking through some old files in our SourceForge project. I
>>>> opened a file called wiki.tar.gz, and inside were three complete
>>>> backups of the text of Wikipedia, from February, March and August 2001!
>>>
>>> That's wonderful news. Is this for enWP only or were all languages in
>>> one database back then?
>>
>> There was only English back in the day...
>
> Not true. The first other languages were introduced on March 15 and
> could be part of this archive if the different Wikipedias were in one
> database under UseMod.

My earliest recorded entry in de.wikipedia dates September 2001 (and I
have a low two-digit user ID, which was created upon the switch to
MediaWiki), so there seem to be some versions missing indeed. Do you
know the oldest preserved esit on de.wp?

> Do you remember how this worked?

AFAIR, every language had its own UseMod setup. My import script only
took the last version; Brion later wrote one that filled in the
previous ones from the stored diffs.

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Old Wikipedia backups discovered

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 8:36 PM, Henning Schlottmann
 wrote:
> On 14.12.2010 16:54, Tim Starling wrote:
>> I was looking through some old files in our SourceForge project. I
>> opened a file called wiki.tar.gz, and inside were three complete
>> backups of the text of Wikipedia, from February, March and August 2001!
>
> That's wonderful news. Is this for enWP only or were all languages in
> one database back then?

There was only English back in the day...

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Re: [Foundation-l] Old Wikipedia backups discovered

[Magnus Manske]

Great news indeed!

Now I can finally figure out when my first edit was :-)

Magnus



On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Tim Starling  wrote:
> I was looking through some old files in our SourceForge project. I
> opened a file called wiki.tar.gz, and inside were three complete
> backups of the text of Wikipedia, from February, March and August 2001!
>
> This is exciting, because there is lots of article history in here
> which was assumed to be lost forever.
>
> I've long been interested in Wikipedia's history, and I've tried in
> the past to locate such backups. I asked various people who might have
> had one. I had given up hope.
>
> The history of particularly old Wikipedia articles, as seen in the
> present Wikipedia database, is incomplete, due to Usemod's policy of
> deleting old revisions of pages after about a month. The script which
> Brion wrote to import the article histories from UseMod to MediaWiki
> only fetched those revisions which hadn't been purged yet.
>
> I didn't want to believe that those revisions had been lost forever,
> and I even opened the UseMod source code and stared forlornly at the
> unlink() call. What I (and Brion before) missed is that UseMod appends
> a record of every change made to two files, called diff_log and rclog.
> In these two files is a record of every change made to Wikipedia from
> January 15 to August 17, 2001.
>
> I've put the two log files up on the web, at:
>
> http://noc.wikimedia.org/~tstarling/wikipedia-logs-2001-08-17.7z
>
> The 7-zip archive is only 8.4MB -- much more manageable than today's
> backups.
>
> rclog contains IP addresses. The Usemod software made IP addresses of
> logged-in users public, so the people who made these edits had no
> expectation that their IP address would be kept private. That, coupled
> with the passage of time, makes me think that no harm to user privacy
> can come from releasing these files.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress

[Magnus Manske]

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 11:04 PM,   wrote:
> In a message dated 11/13/2010 11:08:33 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> magnusman...@googlemail.com writes:
>
>
>> 1. Given the limited of number services (one, plus Robert's which I
>> missed in the thread, if it still exists), it probably seemed
>> pointless
>> 2. Any service would have to develop the appropriate interface to
>> MediaWiki first, and also integrate with Wikimedia servers, as far as
>> I can tell; therefore, users adding buttons would be non-functional
>> without Foundation's active help anyway
>> 3. PediaPress might have "bought" a head start with the extension.
>> This is pure speculation on my part, though.
>>
>>
>
> 1) Assumption.  We do not know how many services there might be. Assuming
> there is only one, because one one has been allowed is beating a man with his
> own staff.

Note that I wrote "seemed", not "seems". I trying to list possible
reasons why this facility was created the way it was. That is
different to what it should develop into now.

> 2) This is not true.  Clicking "Make a book out of this page, and hold on
> I'm going to add some more pages to this book" has nothing to do with
> integration.  I can build a list of the pages you choose, right now, with a 
> Php
> script and without any foundation approval.  My button interface might not be
> "pretty" of course, but it would work.

Again, please read carefully. I am not talking about the book "setup",
but about the actual preview/order process. You will note that the
PediaPress button goes to [[Special:Books]], which then redirects to
PediaPress. This, at the moment, requires integration. I does not have
to, but currently it does.

> 3) Under what RFP ?  How was it chosen, how was it vetted, why is the
> process to gain this approval now closed to any rival?

Yet again, with the reading. You did see the words "pure speculation"?


I'm getting tired of having to nitpick this discussion. How about
something practical? It should be feasible to conjure up some
JavaScript to add a new button pointing to another service, though I
suspect some internal magic happens before the PediaPress redirect,
handing the book structure data over. So, back to the basic question:
Which service would be able to take a structured page list and spew
out a book?

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress

[Magnus Manske]

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 6:16 PM,   wrote:
> In a message dated 11/13/2010 9:53:41 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> magnusman...@googlemail.com writes:
>
>
>> I'm all for that. But, did anyone actually ask the Foundation to have
>> his button included there (besides spammers et al.)? It's not like an
>> email is hard to write...
>>
>
> Why should *this* be a Foundation issue in your mind, when adding a source
> to Special Books is not.  To me it's an identical situation.  How is it
> different to you

It's not, in principle, and you just quoted me with "I'm all for that"
(replying to your "citizen modification"), so you know it's not
different to me. I just don't see a reason for drama that it's not
available right now.

I can see three reasons why it is different /in practice/ right now:
1. Given the limited of number services (one, plus Robert's which I
missed in the thread, if it still exists), it probably seemed
pointless
2. Any service would have to develop the appropriate interface to
MediaWiki first, and also integrate with Wikimedia servers, as far as
I can tell; therefore, users adding buttons would be non-functional
without Foundation's active help anyway
3. PediaPress might have "bought" a head start with the extension.
This is pure speculation on my part, though.

Looking at the implementation of the button, it actually has a
"partner" field. So, more "partners" are in the technical design. This
would lead me to conclude that the thing missing to have more partners
for book printing is ... partners.

Unless it's a Foundation-PediaPress conspiracy, and the technical
implementation is just a clever guise. Cue the Morley's smoker...

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress

[Magnus Manske]

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 5:18 PM,   wrote:
> In a message dated 11/13/2010 6:44:18 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> magnusman...@googlemail.com writes:
>
>
>> And if you can find some other publishing entity (printing, DVDs,
>> etc.) that could be used interchangeably for the PediaPress button,
>> and this entity is denied a button next to the PediaPress one, /then/
>> a moral uproar might be justified. So far, I do not believe any such
>> entity has stepped forward.
>>
>
> Disengeneous (if that's how you spell it).

You don't. And insults don't really make your POV more popular.

> Open the location to "citizen modification" and I guarentee you there will
> be another competitor shortly.

I'm all for that. But, did anyone actually ask the Foundation to have
his button included there (besides spammers et al.)? It's not like an
email is hard to write...

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress

[Magnus Manske]

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 8:56 AM, Robert S. Horning
 wrote:
> On 11/12/2010 10:05 AM, Magnus Manske wrote:
>> Wikimedia policy is to use only free software, at least on the
>> "customer-facing" side. That includes the PDF-generation process,
>> which runs on our servers AFAIK.
>>
>> Requiring this from sites we (in essence) link to seems excessive. We
>> link to Google Maps via an intermediate page, similar to PediaPress,
>> and their code is not 100% open source either, last time I looked.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Magnus
>>
>>
>
> The link to Google Maps is certainly not exclusive and includes links to
> other mapping services including government mapping agencies and the
> Open Street Map Project, whose database and toolchain is 100% open
> source.  As a mater of fact, I was introduced to Open Street Map through
> Wikipedia and its link when I was trying to look up the geo coordinates
> on a couple of articles done with the Geotagging Wikiproject.

And if you can find some other publishing entity (printing, DVDs,
etc.) that could be used interchangeably for the PediaPress button,
and this entity is denied a button next to the PediaPress one, /then/
a moral uproar might be justified. So far, I do not believe any such
entity has stepped forward.

Web-only services, like Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap, can be sustained
cheaply enough to be free of charge for the user, which leads to many
alternatives in the "online maps" category. Producing and shipping
physical objects like books is still a business-only market, at least
until everyone has a universal 3D printer sitting on his desk. For
mass-printed books, there are lots of companies, which is why we have
lots of them on out ISBN special page. However, there are relatively
few print-on-demand businesses out there, and a total market of a few
thousand unique books per year is apparently of little interest to all
except one of them. If they want a share, let them have their own
button; otherwise, be glad there is at least one of them, for there
would likely be no PDF and OpenDocument (and soon OpenZIM) export
function without their initiative.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress

[Magnus Manske]

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 1:24 PM, Joe Corneli  wrote:
> What people seem to have been stepping around in this thread so far is
> the fact that Pediapress's software chain includes some components
> that they have NOT released as open source.  There seems to be ongoing
> confusion about this.  If there was an open source toolchain for doing
> what Pediapress currently does, then Wikimedia itself or any third
> party organization or individual could use it to create manuscripts
> suitable for printing, and use any printer they liked to achieve that
> end.  I think the crux of the argument should be: is it OK for
> Wikimedia to have a partnership with a service provider who uses
> closed source software as an integral part of the service they
> provide.  Pediapress sets a precedent that says "yes, that's
> completely fine".  And maybe it is, but it is then just wrong to refer
> to this as an "open source" way of working.

Wikimedia policy is to use only free software, at least on the
"customer-facing" side. That includes the PDF-generation process,
which runs on our servers AFAIK.

Requiring this from sites we (in essence) link to seems excessive. We
link to Google Maps via an intermediate page, similar to PediaPress,
and their code is not 100% open source either, last time I looked.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Should we offer to host citizendium?

[Magnus Manske]

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 8:56 AM, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 12 November 2010 07:56, geni  wrote:
>
>> We should offer to host citizendium on our servers at no cost for a
>> period of 1 (one) year offering a level of support equivalent to our
>> smaller projects. After one year the citizendium community/Editorial
>> Council is expected to have sorted themselves out to the point where
>> they can arrange their own hosting. At which point we lock the
>> database and provide them with the dumps
>
>
> I strongly support this.

+1

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress

[Magnus Manske]

On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 6:37 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> Liam Wyatt wrote:
>> I suspect that the issue lies not with the fact that you are only a couple
>> of clicks away from the PediaPress bookprinting service from every Wikipedia
>> article, but more the fact that the PediaPress system is the *only *service
>> listed on the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Book As Erik
>> mentioned in the previous email, the relationship with PediaPress is
>> non-exclusive and entirely independent from the  "Book Creator" code.
>
> I enjoyed your examples of for-profit companies' products being integrated
> with Wikimedia.
>
> I wonder, if a company like CafePress wanted to sell Wikimedia apparel and
> would donate a percentage of their revenue to Wikimedia, would they get a
> sidebar link (or section) as well? The response from Erik seems to be "well,
> having printed copies of our work makes us feel good," which is perfectly
> fine, but so does a fitted T-shirt with the Wikipedia logo on the front.
> Would a company like CafePress be allowed to have a link in the sidebar to
> their Wikimedia-related products? What are the exact criteria for getting to
> be "only a couple of clicks away" for millions of visitors?

"Wikimedia is owned and operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a
non-profit foundation dedicated to bringing free content to the
world."

For us, PediaPress brings free (as in freedom) content to the world.
CafePress brings T-shirts to the world. You might be able to spot the
difference.

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. We work on it online, because that is
the most efficient and convenient way to do it. I have an offline copy
of it on my iPhone. I have an (outdated) German DVD with a copy. Many
people have WikiReaders. I am sure many people without net access
would be happy with a single-volume Wikipedia V1.0 desk encyclopaedia.

If a company would take the export function and write an open source
extension to produce multi-platform DVDs that allow you to browse a
snapshot of the selected articles, their link should go right next to
the PediaPress one.

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] data centralization for the benefit of small (and also bigger) projects

[Magnus Manske]

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 6:13 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 23 August 2010 17:43, Marcus Buck  wrote:
>
>> Although I'm sure they will establish sub-communities on the new wiki
>> like they did on Commons. E.g. German speakers meet at the Forum
>> () instead of the
>> Village pump. That will happen on a datawiki too and probably these
>> subcommunities will focus on their respective regions, e.g. German
>> speakers will focus on maintaining the town data for places in Germany,
>> Austria, Switzerland etc.
>
>
> I do like this idea very much indeed. What will it take in software
> terms? Something similar to Freebase? Something like Freebase bolted
> onto MediaWiki? OmegaWiki?

I thought transwiki template transclusion is being worked on?

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 11:42 AM, David Gerard  wrote:
> On 27 July 2010 09:36, Shiju Alex  wrote:
>
>> Wiki communities like the biological growth of the wikipedia articles in
>> their wiki. Why English Wikipedia did not start building wikipedia articles
>> using *Encyclopedia Britannica 1911* edition which was available in the
>> public domain?
>
>
> Er, are you saying that it didn't, and that it not doing so proves your point?
>
> Because such a statement is factually inaccurate - en:wp *did* use the
> 1911EB as starter material.

At least for some entries...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:1911

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Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again

[Magnus Manske]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Tisza Gergo  wrote:
> Magnus Manske  writes:
>
>> Basically, this will (on the search page only!) look at the last query
>> run (the one currently in the edit box), check several language
>> editions of Wikipedia for articles from the individual words (in this
>> case, "Pferd" and "Schach"), count how many exist, pick the language
>> with the most hits (in this case, German), and put a link to link to
>> Nikola's tool under the search box. The link pre-fills the source
>> language and query in the tool, which automatically opens the
>> appropriate search page.
>
> Again, I would suggest using Google (or an alternative with open data, if one
> exists) instead of trying to reinvent the wheel:
>
> http://translate.google.com/#auto|en|Pferd%20Schach
> http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlanguage/documentation/#Detect
>
> It might support less languages then we have wikipedias for, but I'm pretty 
> sure
> it would give better results for the major ones.

Well, that's what I suggested a few mails ago in this very thread.
However, people didn't seem to want it.

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Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again

[Magnus Manske]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:17 AM, Tisza Gergo  wrote:
> Samuel Klein  writes:
>
>> I'd like to see such translation tools used to enhance the tags used
>> to identify an image, so that all internet searches can find images by
>> those tags.
>
> I think this stuff should be left for Google. A clever search engine should be
> able to figure out that if you are looking for "Pferd" images, "horse" images
> will also be of interest; and Google is getting clever quickly in this regard.
> (For example, recently Google web search has been offering to translate the
> search phrase to English, and translate the results back to you.)
>
> OTOH, it would be a nice feature to show translated page and category names 
> when
> someone looks at the page with the interface language set to non-English.

OK, technical solution (hackish as usual, but with potential IMHO):

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=Pferd+Schach&withJS=MediaWiki:SearchTranslation.js

Basically, this will (on the search page only!) look at the last query
run (the one currently in the edit box), check several language
editions of Wikipedia for articles from the individual words (in this
case, "Pferd" and "Schach"), count how many exist, pick the language
with the most hits (in this case, German), and put a link to link to
Nikola's tool under the search box. The link pre-fills the source
language and query in the tool, which automatically opens the
appropriate search page.

In essence, clicking on the link gets you to the toolserver and back
to the search, this time in English, without you noticing.

I am checking all the languages the Nikola's tool offers (so no
Estonian), except English (no point, really).

Experimenting, I noticed that even if your original query got you some
results (e.g. "Schaufel"=47), the translation in English will give you
more ("Shovel"=484).

I tried to restrict the language search for the languages accepted by
the browser (so, using 1 or 2 queries instead of 32), but there
appears to be no way in JavaScript to get that information. MediaWiki
could pass it on, though...

Feel free to improve!

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again

[Magnus Manske]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 6:40 AM, Nikola Smolenski  wrote:
> On 06/22/2010 08:07 PM, Magnus Manske wrote:
>>>> I would consider this state as a poor reflection on Commons' accessibility.
>>> Especially as Google image search (imho, the likeliest avenue of searching
>>> for images) gives 130 000 pictures of horses on Commons if searched in
>>> English, zero if searched in Estonian ("hobu"), and while it gives 160 000
>>> results for a Hungarian search ("ló") on the first page only one of it is an
>>> image that resembles a horse.
>>
>> Here's a thought: Enter "hobu" into translate.google.com, leave
>> "source language" on automatic and target on "English", and it will
>> happily translate it into "horse". Could we offer a "translation" link
>> in search? As in, "translate my query into English and try again"? I'm
>> sure we can come to an arrangement with Google (or someone else).
>
> I already made something similar: http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php

Nice! Now it needs language auto-detect, and Estonian for the example
(unless I didn't see it), and, of course, integration into Commons...

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Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 6:52 PM, Bence Damokos  wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 7:42 PM, geni  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> In practice pulling up the wikipedia article on "horse" in your
>> language will cover most cases. There is a fairly good argument to be
>> made that wikipedia is common's best search engine.
>>
>>
>> I would consider this state as a poor reflection on Commons' accessibility.
> Especially as Google image search (imho, the likeliest avenue of searching
> for images) gives 130 000 pictures of horses on Commons if searched in
> English, zero if searched in Estonian ("hobu"), and while it gives 160 000
> results for a Hungarian search ("ló") on the first page only one of it is an
> image that resembles a horse.

Here's a thought: Enter "hobu" into translate.google.com, leave
"source language" on automatic and target on "English", and it will
happily translate it into "horse". Could we offer a "translation" link
in search? As in, "translate my query into English and try again"? I'm
sure we can come to an arrangement with Google (or someone else).

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Usability: page weight

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 2:19 PM, Ryan Lomonaco  wrote:
> Forwarded.
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: Yann Forget 
> Date: Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 6:57 AM
> Subject: Usability: page weight
> To: foundation-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org
>
>
> Hello,
>
> While we are talking about usability issues, I would like to mention
> an issue which was not mentioned up to now : page weight.
>
> I am now surfing most of time with a 3G key with a bandwidth of 16
> KB/s maximum, and often less.
> My experience of Wikimedia sites compared with the other websites I am
> using regularly, GMail and Facebook,
> shows that these load much faster than Wikimedia pages, even if the
> page is mostly empty.
> It seems that these sites use some fancy caching for that.
>
> Page weight is a major hurdle for working on any Wikimedia sites
> affecting users who do not enjoy a broadband connection.
> And I believe that small wikis with non-European languages are more
> affected than others (a study would be interesting here).
> For improving outreach of Wikimedia outside of the Western world,
> improving the page weight should be a priority.
>
> What can be done?

I notice that, when comparing logged-in to logged-out page loading
times, the former is almost twice the latter. This appears to be true
whether I refresh the browser cache or not (tested on Main Page).

A light, JavaScript-free skin for low-bandwidth use might be an
intermediate measure.

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] drive-by site updates

[Magnus Manske]

On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 4:15 PM, Svip  wrote:
> On 16 May 2010 17:14, Svip  wrote:
>> On 16 May 2010 17:12, Magnus Manske  wrote:
>>> On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Amir E. Aharoni
>>>  wrote:
>>>> On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 15:11, Svip  wrote:
>>>>> On 16 May 2010 14:06, Amir E. Aharoni  
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> But the introduction of the new search box that practically can't
>>>>>> search, was not part of the beta and it was a complete surprise. Am i
>>>>>> badly mistaken?
>>>>>
>>>>> After my own attempts, I cannot find any issues with the search box.
>>>>> Could you describe your problems more accurately?  Or better yet, file
>>>>> a bug report about it on https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/
>>>>
>>>> In Vector, search for "begin". You'll get to the page "Begin". There's
>>>> no way to actually search Wikipedia for the word "begin" using this
>>>> search box.
>>>
>>> 
>>> Type "begin" in the box, hit the cursor-up key to select the last rows
>>> in the suggest box, hit enter.
>>
>> 
>> That is /real/ user friendly.  I bet Joe Public can figure that one out.
>
> Also, I apologise for sending this mail out too quick, but your
> suggestion didn't work.  Unless you consider the 'AJAX-suggestions' to
> be 'search' (which it isn't, btw).

Huh. Worked yesterday. Clearly they're changing stuff, just not the
right stuff...

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] drive-by site updates

[Magnus Manske]

On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Amir E. Aharoni
 wrote:
> On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 15:11, Svip  wrote:
>> On 16 May 2010 14:06, Amir E. Aharoni  wrote:
>>
>>> But the introduction of the new search box that practically can't
>>> search, was not part of the beta and it was a complete surprise. Am i
>>> badly mistaken?
>>
>> After my own attempts, I cannot find any issues with the search box.
>> Could you describe your problems more accurately?  Or better yet, file
>> a bug report about it on https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/
>
> In Vector, search for "begin". You'll get to the page "Begin". There's
> no way to actually search Wikipedia for the word "begin" using this
> search box.


Type "begin" in the box, hit the cursor-up key to select the last rows
in the suggest box, hit enter.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Funny news from Poland

[Magnus Manske]

2010/5/13 Tomasz Ganicz :
> Journalist from Poland just started commenting if we really need a
> president who's main source of  knowledge about national security
> comes form Wikipedia :-).

Better than Fox news, I'd wager :-)

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Re: [Foundation-l] Statement on appropriate educational content

[Magnus Manske]

H...

> The vast majority of that material is entirely uncontroversial, but the
> projects do contain material that may be inappropriate or offensive to
> some audiences, such as children or people with religious or cultural
> sensitivities.

Time to delete

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead

I guess...

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Re: [Foundation-l] Mind-boggling (was: Wikipedia e-mail)

[Magnus Manske]

On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 7:14 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> Magnus Manske wrote:
>> Subject: Wikipedia e-mail
>> To: Magnus Manske
>>
>> Dear active administrator,
>>
>> [nonsense]
>
> Why are you forwarding this?

To alert people of this. I see others have done the same, so it's
redundant by now.

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[Foundation-l] Mind-boggling (was: Wikipedia e-mail)

[Magnus Manske]

-- Forwarded message --
From: Genuinelyawikiquizzling <>
Date: Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 6:46 PM
Subject: Wikipedia e-mail
To: Magnus Manske <>


Dear active administrator,

As an advanced user here at wikipedia, I am sure you are familiar with
the corruption and bureaucracy that exists at every level, with the
site effectively being run by a clique of editors who are only looking
out for their own interests. Heck, maybe you are one of them!
Hopefully though you are not, and would be willing to help us restore
fairness and integrity to the project...

We are currently expanding our portfolio of administrator accounts and
perhaps you could consider sharing yours with us - to do so will take
you only two minutes: change the password (if desired) and then reply
to this email with your login details. We'll do the rest!

Thank you for your time and consideration, and naturally do not
hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Kind Regards,

The Wikipedia Freedom Fighters

--
This e-mail was sent by user "Genuinelyawikiquizzling" on the English
Wikipedia to user "Magnus Manske". It has been automatically delivered
and the Wikimedia Foundation cannot be held responsible for its
contents.

The sender has not been given the recipient's email address, or any
information about his/her e-mail account; and the recipient has no
obligation to reply to this e-mail or take any other action that might
disclose his/her identity. For further information on privacy,
security, and replying, as well as abuse and removal from emailing,
see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Email>.

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Re: [Foundation-l] I'm here to request a new Wikimedia project

[Magnus Manske]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 4:02 PM, Tyler  wrote:
> 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.


http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinac

was submitted 2005

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Re: [Foundation-l] At school

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 4:32 PM, William Pietri  wrote:
> On 02/16/2010 02:12 AM, Ziko van Dijk wrote:
>> In general: "Never before people knew so little about something they
>> use so often", as a German journalist said about Wikipedia.
>
> In a strange way, that pleases me; as Danny Hillis says, "What people
> mean by the word technology is the stuff that doesn't work yet." That
> people use Wikipedia regularly without caring about the the inner
> workings is a sign that we've done something right. Of course, it might
> be too right; maybe we'd like people to pay better attention to the
> quality of what they're reading.
>
> Interestingly, the people who make luggage X-ray machines have a similar
> problem: problems are rare enough that the operators get bored and stop
> looking. Their solution is something called Threat Image Projection:
> they randomly add pictures of bad things to images of real bags. When
> the operator notices something dangerous, they press the "threat"
> button. If they don't notice a projected threat, it's counted against
> them. That keeps the operators alert enough that they'll hopefully
> notice real threats.
>
> I'd love to find some way to usefully apply this approach to Wikipedia,
> but haven't come up with anything yet. Perhaps someone here will.

De-admin for failure to pick up simulated vandalism?

/me hides

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Re: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] Danese Cooper joins Wikimedia as CTO

[Magnus Manske]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 8:16 PM, Sue Gardner  wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm delighted to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation's new Chief
> Technical Officer is Danese Cooper, an experienced technology manager
> and open-source evangelist. Danese will start with Wikimedia on
> February 4, 2010.

That means she hasn't looked at the parser code yet! :-)

Welcome, Danese!


Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia and Environment

[Magnus Manske]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 1:22 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
> 2009/12/13 Teofilo :
>
>> But the best is to use no energy at all : see the OLPC project in
>> Afghanistan (A computer with pedals, like the sewing machines of our
>> great-great-great-grand-mothers) (1)
>> (1) 
>> http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/afghanistan/updates_from_olpc_afghanistan_1.html
>
>
> That's the answer! Distributed serving by each volunteer's pedal power!

And you automatically become an admin after 5MW!

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikipedia christmas calendar?

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 6:53 PM, Andrew Gray  wrote:
> 2009/11/2 Nikola Smolenski :
>> Дана Monday 02 November 2009 18:31:50 Andrew Gray написа:
>>> First image is probably your best bet - the odds are reasonably high
>>> it'll be a picture, or something else "representative", in the
>>> conventional top-right slot. Certainly better odds than random
>>> selection!
>>
>> First image could easily be an icon.
>
> Mmm, true. "First image directly invoked in the wikitext", or
> something, I guess.

So, no images from infoboxes, then. (Except those few that actually
require [[File:..]]).

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikipedia christmas calendar?

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:19 PM, Anthony  wrote:
> Are you talking about face detection or facial recognition?  The
> former is implemented in some cell phones.  It's "not that complex".
> The latter is more cutting edge, though surely the NSA has a good
> implementation of it (as do many casinos).
>
> Selecting pictures of people as opposed to bowling statistics would be
> the former, right?

OK, so shouldn't we run this against all of Commons, then? If we could
offer "show me only pictures of people" as a checkbox in search, that
would surely be appreciated (and useful for the calendar thingy as
well;-)

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikipedia christmas calendar?

[Magnus Manske]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 5:03 PM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> 2009/11/2 Magnus Manske :
>>> I think a human selected calendar would be better for actually
>>> publishing, but that's certainly a fun script. Can you add an option
>>> to choose a category so we can have a calendar of Britons, or French,
>>> or mathematicians, or military people, etc.?
>>
>> I could limit the articles used to a ceratin category, but IMHO that
>> would restrict the search too much, that is, either no or a few
>> possible candidates per day.
>
> For large categories, like nationalities, it would probably work. For
> smaller categories you would need to decide what to do with gaps.
>
>>> One bug: I got a graph of Imran Khan's bowling statistics rather than
>>> his portrait...
>>
>> And if you give me code to identify a person's image, I'll be happy to
>> implement it, as would the NSA. As it stands, I chose a random article
>> from e.g. [[November 2]], then chose a random picture from that.
>
> Try the image in the infobox if there is one.

So, either a HTML parser or a new MediaWiki parser to get at the
/variable. Tough choice there :-)

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikipedia christmas calendar?

[Magnus Manske]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:54 PM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> 2009/11/2 Magnus Manske :
>> On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
>>> Olli wrote:
>>>> Date: 2009/10/31
>>>> Subject: Wikipedia christmas calendar?
>>>>
>>>> What about a wikipedia christmas calendar? It can maybe preview some
>>>> articles or something similar. Then it can be multilingual.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Not necessarily just Christmas, but a published calendar for the whole
>>> year.  Wikipedia's date articles are already full of weitd and wonderful
>>> things that happened on this day in history.
>>
>> Or, have a new calender generated automatically on each page reload:
>>
>> http://toolserver.org/~magnus/wikilendar.php?month=11&year=2009
>>
>> (takes a few seconds to parse all these pages and check for suitable images)
>
> I think a human selected calendar would be better for actually
> publishing, but that's certainly a fun script. Can you add an option
> to choose a category so we can have a calendar of Britons, or French,
> or mathematicians, or military people, etc.?

I could limit the articles used to a ceratin category, but IMHO that
would restrict the search too much, that is, either no or a few
possible candidates per day.

> One bug: I got a graph of Imran Khan's bowling statistics rather than
> his portrait...

And if you give me code to identify a person's image, I'll be happy to
implement it, as would the NSA. As it stands, I chose a random article
from e.g. [[November 2]], then chose a random picture from that.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikipedia christmas calendar?

[Magnus Manske]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> Olli wrote:
>> Date: 2009/10/31
>> Subject: Wikipedia christmas calendar?
>>
>> What about a wikipedia christmas calendar? It can maybe preview some
>> articles or something similar. Then it can be multilingual.
>>
>>
> Not necessarily just Christmas, but a published calendar for the whole
> year.  Wikipedia's date articles are already full of weitd and wonderful
> things that happened on this day in history.

Or, have a new calender generated automatically on each page reload:

http://toolserver.org/~magnus/wikilendar.php?month=11&year=2009

(takes a few seconds to parse all these pages and check for suitable images)

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Dumb survey about Commons

[Magnus Manske]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Guillaume Paumier
 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> 2009/10/26 Guillaume Paumier :
>>> One thing I realized, though, was that two questions had an ambiguous
>>> wording: people wonder why they have to give reasons for not using
>>> Commons, or not participating, despite the fact that they said they do.
>>> These questions should read « what is the main reason that limits or
>>> hinders your use/participation ». Unfortunately, we can't change the
>>> survey once it is running.
>>
>> Did you not test the survey? That should have been caught by a fairly
>> small test run (a few dozen people).
>
> Yes, we tested the survey, but with a smaller number of people, because
> of the time constraints (the multimedia usability project really started
> only 2 weeks ago, and the fundraising campaign is going to be the major
> focus of sitenotices from next week to January). And the problem didn't
> appear during the tests.

I got an error during the survey:
Warning: unlink(/srv/org/wikimedia/survey/tmp/template_temp_090626181630.html)
[function.unlink]: Permission denied in
/srv/org/wikimedia/survey/common.php on line 6221

Didn't seem to affect the function, though.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] [ol-discuss] Open Library, Wikisource, and cleaning and translating OCR of Classics

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 7:32 AM, John Vandenberg wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 3:00 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>>...
>> Let's take a practical example.  A classics professor I know (Greg
>> Crane, copied here) has scans of primary source materials, some with
>> approximate or hand-polished OCR, waiting to be uploaded and converted
>> into a useful online resource for editors, translators, and
>> classicists around the world.
>>
>> Where should he and his students post that material?
>
> I am a bit confused.  Are these texts currently hosted at the Perseus
> Digital Library?
>
> If so, they are already a useful online resource. ;-)
>
> If they would like to see these primary sources pushed into the
> Wikimedia community, they would need to upload the images (or DjVu)
> onto Commons, and the text onto Wikisource where the distributed
> proofreading software resides.

I see CC-NC...

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a2003.02.0004

Too bad.

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Upcoming tech hiring: CTO position split

[Magnus Manske]

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 6:17 PM, Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
> High Priest of Mediawiki?

I propose robes as his official outfit, similar to this:
http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Stallman/index.shtml


Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] A heads up

[Magnus Manske]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Gerard
Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> OK, there are *many* pictures of a marc'h on Commons... Now pretend that you
> cannot find what this is in English. Try to find it on Commons.

Noone disputes that this is a problem. And if we had an unlimited
number of volunteers fluent in all languages adding descriptions to
images, it would easily be fixed. But if that were the case, we
wouldn't have this discussion in the first place.

Image descriptions are, first and foremost, limited by the languages a
user (who is willing to write these descriptions) speaks. Of all these
languages, the user will (if he has time and ability to write one or
two descriptions) chose maybe his native one, and the one that will be
useful for most people - English. (And yes, more people speak Chinese,
but few Commons editors do).

Once again, ugly reality triumphs over wishful thinking. At least
until we can get some 10K Indonesian-speaking editors.

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] A heads up

[Magnus Manske]

Hi,

I think the questions to ask are:

* How many Indonesians speak Dutch, compared to those that speak English?

* When you try to translate to Indonesian (a laudable goal), will you
have more chances to find translators with Dutch and English, rather
than with just Dutch?

The (obvious) answers aside, if this is going to be a bulk upload,
maybe it should be planned:
* Gather all images, descriptions, and metadata on a (private) machine
* Find a distinct set of often used key terms / tags
* Translate those into English (and Indonesian, if you have a translator ready)
* Assign (English) categories to tags
* Build image descriptions for upload with both Dutch and English terms

I got another, loosely idea: Could we use the language templates in
the descriptions to build a "missing matrix" of translations, for
translators? I speak English and German; I would like to see images
that only have a German description, and translate it to English. A
special site (toolserver?) could show me the image and the German
description, I enter the English one in a text box, and go to a page
with everything prepared for me, just click save and be done.

Cheers,
Magnus



On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Gerard
Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> How does it help to find material in Commons when you do not know English ??
> Practically it is nice that we spend money on improving the upload facility
> of MediaWiki. In the end it makes no difference when you cannot find the
> images. Functionally Commons is useless as a consequence to all the people
> who do not speak English.
>
> When you reply PLEASE remember what the Wikimedia Foundation is there for..
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> 2009/7/15 Chad 
>
>> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
>> Meijssen wrote:
>> > Hoi,
>> > Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to be
>> > gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
>> >
>> > I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia
>> should
>> > be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up of
>> > material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into
>> English
>> > does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
>> > Thanks,
>> >      GerardM
>> >
>> > 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar 
>> >
>> >> At least the term base should be translated.
>> >> John
>> >>
>> >> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>> >> > Hoi,
>> >> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about
>> making
>> >> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an important
>> >> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a rich
>> >> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about
>> 100.000
>> >> > images.
>> >> >
>> >> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
>> >> unique
>> >> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it
>> will
>> >> come
>> >> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand it
>> the
>> >> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
>> >> translation
>> >> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
>> >> >
>> >> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums in
>> >> the
>> >> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more
>> museums
>> >> in
>> >> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German 
>> While
>> >> we
>> >> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not
>> provide
>> >> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures in
>> >> their
>> >> > language and will help the matching of categories into other
>> languages.
>> >> > Thanks,
>> >> >       GerardM
>> >> > ___
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>> >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> >> > Unsubscribe:
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>> >> >
>> >>
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>>
>> There is certainly a value to having things in English. It aids translation
>> into
>> more languages. It's a lot harder to find people who speak Dutch and
>> Spanish,
>> French and Russian or Greek and Japanese. You're more likely to find people
>> who speak English in addition to their native tongue, which allows them to
>> translate it.
>>
>> -Chad
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] One Wikipedia Per Person (regarding the distribution of and the ability to read Wikipedia)

[Magnus Manske]

On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 7:50 AM, Fajro  wrote:
> And why partner with Google? There are Free alternatives in development:
>
> http://www.apertium.org/
>
> http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Main_Page

I tried this with a "first paragraph" from en.wikipedia, translating
to Spanish and back. Worked surprisingly well, even though it renamed
"New Jersey" to "New Sweater"...

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Murdoch newspaper websites to go paywall -opportunity for citizen journalism!

[Magnus Manske]

On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 11:07 PM, Steven Walling
 wrote:
> At this point in time, the project should act just like any other news
> organization, and never assume that readers are going to flock to them.

How about getting Amazon to offer free Wikinews subscriptions on their
Kindle Newspaper channel? They'd have something they can offer "for
free" (they are already using wikipedia in their search function), and
it might get more people interested in the Kindle newspaper function,
thus portentially increasing (paid) subscriptions for other newspapers
as well.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Usability Study Results (Sneak Preview)

[Magnus Manske]

On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Parul Vora  wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> The Wikipedia Usability Initiative conducted a user research study with
> SF based Bolt Peters in late March to uncover barriers new editors face.
> We are in the process of completing a full report on our methodology,
> process and analysis, but wanted to share with you some of the major
> themes and findings in the meantime

>From what I read, the main problem is that new, eager, serious
contributers surrender between our markup and an overwhelming flood of
descriptions.

I know a new GUI is being worked on. For the moment I hacked the
following JavaScript suggestion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske/newbiehelp.js

This adds a "how?" link into the "edit" tab, and launches a floating
panel with some extremely general content:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edit_how.png

Never mind the wording, the color scheme, or important points I missed :-)

If that were added for all anons by default, it might save the willing
and able some grief.

Just a thought.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Should WMF opt out of Phorm?

[Magnus Manske]

On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 11:03 PM, geni  wrote:
> 2009/4/1 Ryan Kaldari :
>> Yes, but how many of them let you opt out? If we could opt out of the
>> Great Firewall of China, I imagine we would :)
>
> Most of these national firewalls limit the number of ISPs people can
> access through. Blocking them or forcing to https would not present
> too great a challenge.

To revive this discussion, Amazon just submitted its opt-out.

So, unless we care less about the freedom of the Intertubes than Amazon...

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Why is the software out of reach of the community?

[Magnus Manske]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Nikola Smolenski  wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>> The other useful thing that can be done with templates is to
>> standardise the field names in them as much as possible per wiki.
>>
>> The reason? To enhance machine readability of data in them. People are
>> SERIOUSLY INTERESTED in this.
>
> Another useful thing: after an article is parsed, write all the
> templates it uses and their parameters in the database. Even if at first
> it isn't possible to read this data on Wikipedia, Toolserver could do
> wonders with it :)

People (including yours truly) have been asking for this for years...

Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [Commons-l] Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening

[Magnus Manske]

Please don't puts words (or notions) in my mouth.

At the moment, Commons works best for you when you can read/write English.
But if you don't, you can still do simple searches using a dictionary,
and find many useful images.
This fact contradicts your earlier statement that Commons is useless
to non-English speakers.

That's what I said, nothing more.

Magnus


On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 10:27 AM, Gerard Meijssen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hoi,
> An answer like that justifies and inforces the notion that Commons is only
> for those that can read / write English. To me this is not acceptable
> because it degrades Commons to less then what it should be, what it could
> be.
> Thanks,
>  GerardM
>
> 2008/12/9 Magnus Manske <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>> On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 7:23 AM, Gerard Meijssen
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > Hoi,
>> > When people from other projects tell me that this is one of the reasons
>> why
>> > they do not bother with Commons, I have to disbelieve them? Try to find
>> > "paard" and you will not be served in the same way as with "horse" the
>> > search result is inferior. Dutch is not the worst option, try "ίππος"
>>  and
>> > you find nothing. This is Greek and it also means horse.
>>
>> They might not be able to find "ίππος". However, they might be able to
>> use this big list of word pairs called a dictionary to translate
>> "ίππος" into English "horse" and search for that.
>>
>> Not very comfortable, but hardly impossible as you claim.
>>
>> Magnus
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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [Commons-l] Making Wikimedia Commons less frightening

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 7:23 AM, Gerard Meijssen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hoi,
> When people from other projects tell me that this is one of the reasons why
> they do not bother with Commons, I have to disbelieve them? Try to find
> "paard" and you will not be served in the same way as with "horse" the
> search result is inferior. Dutch is not the worst option, try "ίππος"  and
> you find nothing. This is Greek and it also means horse.

They might not be able to find "ίππος". However, they might be able to
use this big list of word pairs called a dictionary to translate
"ίππος" into English "horse" and search for that.

Not very comfortable, but hardly impossible as you claim.

Magnus
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Re: [Foundation-l] Moving towards a more usable MediaWiki

[Magnus Manske]

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hoi,
> They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are
> many people who fail at this.

>From our internal lab/project wiki, I can confirm that people
(including PhDs and professors) keep looking for a "start a new page"
button (or something). Editing a page to create a redlink and then
follow that does not occur to them; it is apparently counter-intuitive
to most. I usually recommend to search for the new article, then click
on the "create an article" link.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [Foundation-l] wikipedia.de shut down

[Magnus Manske]

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 1:21 PM, Bryan Tong Minh
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Apparently the German portal on wikipedia.de has been shut down after
> a legal case. Is there any more information on this?
> http://www.wikipedia.de/

Apparently, some German communist politician was angry about something
in "his" article, so he got a court order to prevent forwarding from
wikipedia.de to de.wikipedia.org.

On his web page, above politician now says he won't proceed further
against the German chapter (who owns wikipedia.de), which might mean
the forwarding can be reestablished soon.

Magnus

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