[Foundation-l] Wiki Travel Guide
The core group of editors at Wikitravel are interested in joining a WMF run Wiki Travel Guide. A proposal for creating such a project has been outlined here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Travel_Guide and would develop from the content currently at wikitravel.org *Wikitravel is currently in 20 languages and in English contains more than 25,000 articles. The content is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. Site readership statistics are not released by Internet Brands, but for travel information the site is consistently highly ranked. It is the largest and most popular freely-licensed, user-contributed travel guide collection. Alexa.com ranks it as the 2637 most popular site on the web with a global reach of 0.0602%. The interwiki links between Wikipedia and Wikitravel highlight the close historic cooperation between the editors of both sites, where users adding travelogue style content to Wikipedia have often been directed to add the content to Wikitravel. Benefits for the WMF: 1) Increase the scope of content offered by the WMF 2) Increase the number of Wikimedians 3) Increase the volume of content for fundraising 4) Provide a separate repository for important travel and tourism information, some of which currently is contained within Wikipedia articles. Benefits for travel content: 1) Reputation of the WMF would increase the editor base. 2) Remove the conflicts between the commercial decisions of the current hosting provider and the community. 3) Would increase the reliability of the site, which is currently running old MediaWiki versions, on poorly performing infrastructure. Benefits for both: 1) Would make it easier for the two sites to direct editors to the better site for the content in question, leading to better focus within articles. 2) Combining the image repositories at Wikimedia Commons would result in greater and easier image availability for both Wikipedia and the travel site, and an increase in both contributors and images.* -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New Project Process (James Heilman)
I would love to see two specific proposals taken up. One is The Wikipedia Journal as discussed here http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Journal_%28A_peer-review_journal_to_allow/encourage_academics_to_write_Wikipedia_articles%29 Currently working on corporate partners for this. And the other is a Wiki Travel Guide as per here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Travel_Guide A great deal of discussion is occurring off line. The question is would the Wikimedia Movement be interested in being involved with developing / hosting of this sort of content. Further details of potential collaborations should be coming out in the next few weeks. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] A university partner for Wikimania
Some academics need conferences to be sponsored by / associated with an academic institution to receive time off and funding to attend conferences. Is this something that Wikimania has ever attempted? Ie. having Wikimania hosted by the local chapter plus a local University? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] CBC getting rid of physical archives
If there is anyone who wishes to take this on in the name of Wikimedia Canada I would be supportive. I know we have a few members in Vancouver who may be interested. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Will Beback
I must disagree with Risker that this is simply a local issue involving a single project or with a previous editor who feels that English Wikipedia can take care of itself. We have a serious lack of editors not only on English Wikipedia but within the project as a whole and this is getting worse rather than better. The foundation has been putting great efforts into attracting editors and Will's case touches on the issue of recruitment and retention of editors to the project as a whole and thus is directly relevant to the WMF. We have had issues with how some admins treat new editors to the movement and it seems we also have issues with how some of our long standing editors are dealt with specifically by Arbcom. If we base our decisions on isolated behavioral matters exclusively without taking into account content issues or the contribution histories of the editors in question this institution will make bad decisions for the project and the movement as a whole. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikipedia Scholarship in Medicine
Seven month ago we at Wikimedia Canada offered a $1000 CAD scholarship to be awarded to the Canadian university student who made the most significant contribution to a disease related article on Wikipedia. The scholarship was promoted using posters placed up at a number of Universities as well as presentations at two Canadian universities. While the efforts garnered some positive press as document here http://wikimedia.ca/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada:About there where no serious applicants. I am unsure why. It could possibly be related to Canadian students being sufficiently wealthy that this was insufficient funding to peak their interest. I am unsure if it would be worth offering it globally next year or expanding those who can apply to high school students as well? Anyway some though for those who consider trying something similar. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Will Beback
We appear to have a problem with Arbcom. We have an editor who has contributed significantly to Wikipedia over the previous 7 years, making more than 100,000 edits and generating a couple of featured articles. Than in a vote of 8 to 4 he is block indefinitely for issues related to a specific religious movement. The foundation is spending large sums in an attempt to attract productive editors to the project. Arbcoms actions seem counterproductive to these efforts. Is it time that we look at rearranging how arbcom works? Issues that have a significant effect on Wikipedia should not be left to a group of 12 but should go to the community for consensus. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Subject: Re: Will Beback
Great now if only that where true. With the vote being 8:4 and my understanding of the situation I am fairly certain it is not. The editors with a medical background on the committee did not support the ban of Will. As this controversy surrounded medical content their positions should be given greater weight. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Making Wikimedia Commons into a central repository of creative commons content
Wikimedia Commons has the potential to become a central repository of creative commons content. There are a large number of other sites running Mediawiki software to partner with. If we could either host their images or allow users of other sites to simultaneously upload to both Commons and the other wiki in question we could increase the rate we are expanding out image content and hopefully bring more people into the movement One idea a number of organizations I have spoken with have agreed to in principle is them altering their websites to allow simultaneous uploading to both Wikimedia Commons and their own site. All these Wikis need is the software which would allow their users to do this. Some host both NC and non NC content. The upload tool could thus give people the option to simultaneously upload to commons if people are willing to release under our license. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Research assistance
I am applying for a summer student to do a Wikipedia Medicine research project through my department at UBC. One potentially project I am looking it is having them review all the edits made to Wikiproject Medicine articles. The student will go through each edit and a) determine if the edit is okay and revert it/fix it if it is not b) determine which edits are made from IP/new users verses long term edits c) calculate the percentage of positive/negative edits from each group d) they will be going over edits from more than one day old thus we will be able to determine how good Wikipedia is at repairing itself. I am thinking of collecting a weeks worth of edits. While we have a list here http://toolserver.org/~tim1357/cgi-bin/wikiproject_watchlist.py?template=WikiProject%20Medicineorder=desclimit=200t=0m=1b=0user=off=0cat=0hip=0q=1 if multiple edits are made to the same page in a single day it only shows the last one. Is it possible to get a list of all edits? If should be possible to work with this list if another is not available. If I am able to get approval and funding from UBC I am hoping to run a second round collecting the same data but with pending changes turned on for a week on all medical articles. This students would be required to handing all pending changes to all medical articles and will be collecting the same data as before. This will allow us to determine 1) if pending changes affects the numbers of IPs editing 2) if and to what degree pending changes reduces the visibility of poor quality content. The proposed student will be either between first and second year or second and third year medicine and will be working 40 hours per week for 6-8 weeks during the summer. If of course the last part of the project does not get approval I will still try to go ahead with the first part and will have the student join me on the Medical Translation Project as discussed here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MED/Translation_project -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikipedia crashes browser
Wikipedia crashes Google chrome every time it logs me out. It appears to log me out every hour even though I have requested that it keep me logged in for 30 days. Has anyone else had this problem and does anyone know how to get it fixed. I posted to couple of places on Wiki a few months ago with little response. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] New partnership: Translators Without Borders and Wikipedia's Wikiproject Medicine
Translators Without Borders and Wikipedia's Wikiproject Medicine would like to announce a partnership to improve the free global access to high quality health information. Wikipedia, as many are aware, is one of the foremost health care information resources. It is freely usable by all people globally and can be re-purposed or changed for other uses as long as Wikipedia is acknowledged and the resulting product is released under a license that allows the same. Wikipedia's 26,000 medical articles receive approximately 150-200 million page views a month in English alone with some content available in over 280 other languages. The top 300 medical articles receive more than 100,000 page views a month[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Popular_pages] and it is used extensively by both health care providers and the lay public with between 50-70% of physicians using it in clinical practice. Availability of high quality content is however limited in many languages. Even in English less than 1% of articles have passed a semi formal peer review process. Our efforts are attempting to both improve the English content and translation articles on humankind's 80 most important health care conditions to as many other languages as possible. This will be for many people the first time high quality health information becomes available in their own language. We are looking for people to both help us at Wikipedia improve articles in English and people to help Translators Without Borders do translation. We are also needing people with both language abilities and the ability or desire to learn how to edit Wikipedia to integrate the translated material back in the Wikipedia edition in question. This project is just beginning and we are planning on caring it out over the next three to five years. If you wish further details or want to become involved feel free to contact me or sign up here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Translation_task_force#People_involved_.28with_language_ability.29 . Also please be extra nice to all the people I am recruiting and give me a heads up if problems are encountered. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Canadian consultation on Trans Pacific
Thanks for the clarification. Yes we at Wikmedia Canada we had discussed starting a Wikisource north of the border due to the benefits of our copyright law. I will send this out to some of our members to see if anyone is interested in taking it on. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Canadian consultation on Trans Pacific
Hey John. Not sure we why at WMC should be interested? Can you explain further... James Heilman Wikimedia Canada On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 5:11 AM, foundation-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.orgwrote: Send foundation-l mailing list submissions to foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to foundation-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org You can reach the person managing the list at foundation-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of foundation-l digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: Spanish website blocking law implemented (emijrp) 2. Re: the limits for fundraising. Was Blnk tag jokes are now obsolete. (Thomas Dalton) 3. Reminder: IRC office hours with the WMF features team, Jan. 4th 2012 (Steven Walling) 4. Re: Spanish website blocking law implemented (Kim Bruning) 5. Re: Spanish website blocking law implemented (Christophe Henner) 6. Re: Spanish website blocking law implemented (Kim Bruning) 7. Canadian consultation on Trans Pacific Partnership (John Vandenberg) 8. Re: A fundraiser for editors (Yaroslav M. Blanter) -- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 20:02:32 +0100 From: emijrp emi...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Spanish website blocking law implemented To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: capgala73se0qbzbbdsvokfk-3q_ctuxju4uxz5frttkmshk...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 http://gigaom.com/2012/01/04/how-spains-version-of-sopa-is-setting-the-web-on-fire/ 2012/1/4 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com emijrp, 04/01/2012 18:59: With this law, a special team in the Ministry of Culture of Spain can block any (for-profit or non-profit) website, from Spain or overseas, that _links_ to copyrighted works. Including Google, Wikipedia or whatever. Without a judge. That's entirely different! For further details, search for an analysis. The slashdot post links end up to a 6 months old WSJ article, is there some more recent one you recommend? (Also Spanish.) Thanks, Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Message: 2 Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 19:13:30 + From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] the limits for fundraising. Was Blnk tag jokes are now obsolete. To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: caltqcce67b9xz5ofpfj1amangegjjoqwuzbrdyf2hzgeq84...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On 4 January 2012 16:24, Oliver Keyes oke...@wikimedia.org wrote: Check the IP history; Jan-Bart added them ;p Now I'm on an actual computer and not trying to go through page histories on my phone, I've taken a closer look. The bit about being truthful was in the initial version. The other bit is the result of edits from several people (including me, although I'm not sure any of my wording survived the process). -- Message: 3 Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:48:03 -0800 From: Steven Walling swall...@wikimedia.org Subject: [Foundation-l] Reminder: IRC office hours with the WMF featuresteam, Jan. 4th 2012 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: CAMryOMW11Gy7EPA=6iUMQsGPe4jmTkGziD8PD=Vgm9Bk=wc...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Reminder that this is happening at 23:00 in #wikimedia-office. -- Forwarded message -- From: Steven Walling swall...@wikimedia.org Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 11:58 AM Subject: IRC office hours with the WMF features team, Jan. 4th 2012 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Hey everyone, Since folks have been asking about it, I wanted to announce that the features development team at the Wikimedia Foundation will be holding an office hours (in #wikimedia-office) about the general past, present, and future of MediaWiki features being worked on here at the WMF. This will be on January 4th, 2012 at 23:00 UTC. Documentation is on Meta for time conversion and IRC how-tos.[1] -- Steven Walling Community Organizer at Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours -- Steven Walling Community Organizer at Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org -- Message: 4 Date: Thu, 5 Jan
Re: [Foundation-l] A fundraiser for editors
I am not suggesting that we use just a simple banner. We need to create something with a picture of a Wikipedian with text like join us in improving the world leading encyclopedia, click here to learn how. Than when people click it will ask them what sort of subject area are you interested in with options like medicine and grammar/copyrediting, etc. After which it would displace important thing people need to now for the topic area or task they have shown interest in. For medicine they would be given guidelines on what are appropriate references and a link to WikiProject medicine where they can post comments. This effort would be supported by the number crunchers at the WMF who would determine which messages received more clicks and which messages resulted in more editors. The banner shown could also be subject area specific where we could test if having a medical student request someone joins us is more effective than having someone with a significant medical condition etc. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] A fundraiser for editors
The fundraiser for money has been working exceedingly well with our number of donors increasing 10 fold since 2008. What we need now is a fundraiser for editors. I meet well educated professionals who use Wikipedia but have no ideas that they can edit it. We need to run a banner with the same energy we use to raise money to raise editor numbers. This idea has been trialed to a limited extent here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Invitation_to_edit but the effort did not have sufficient data crunching behind it to determine if it works. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Image permission
There seems to be a great hurry to delete images even when permission has been obtained from the author in question. Having uploaded many hundreds of images you think people would assume good faith and give a guy a couple of weeks while he is on vacations... -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] New Delhi, India
Wikimedia Canada in collaboration with Wikimedia India and the University of New Delhi is organizing a half day in New Delhi India. Anyone in the area is invited to attend. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Medicine/Delhi_2012 -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Chapters
During these discussions we must keep in mind the laws of the countries involved. I am not a lawyer and thus will leave the specifics to the legal counsel of my chapter (Wikimedia Canada) and the WMF. But from my lay understanding a Canadian chapter is not allowed to just funnel tax deductible donations to an American entity. As a Canadian entity is the only one that is able to give tax deductions to Canadian donors the question is how much difference does this make. We are currently in the process of applying to the Canadian Revenue Agency to get charity status and will have a better understanding of how much difference this makes over the next couple of years. I agree that all within the movement need to be accountable for how money is spent to make sure that there is maximal benefit per dollar. I would be in agreement with the amount of money directly funneled to a chapter being related to how much benefit that chapter generates for the movement (local laws allowing this). If for example bringing tax deductability increases donation by 50% than monies should be split 50/50. If a chapter is not tax deductible there would be less restriction on financial agreements and I see less concerns with keeping finances more centralized (monies going to the WMF and grants being given to the chapters). -- James Heilman, MD, CCFP(EM) Wikipedian, Wikimedia Canada ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] roadmap for WM affiliation
I agree with Keegen's reasoning. We want Wikipedia's name to become more well known which will hopefully attract more editors to the movement. We want to do what coke has done by branding all carbonated drinks with the name coke. Other people are already creating movements such as Health Information for All http://www.hifa2015.org/ We want something similar but for all information. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] roadmap for WM affiliation ; a name for self-identified affiliation
I agree something like Open Knowledge Project would be a more suitable term. Do they have any decals like those of Health on the Net that people could add to their websites? Should there be different degree of inclusiveness depending on non commercial or commercial reuse? I see this as the first step towards a greater sharing of content between sites. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] roadmap for WM affiliation ; a name for self-identified affiliation
This is indeed one of the greatest suggestion I have heard in a long time. Having people add Part of the Wikimedia Movement would benefit both parties. All of us here I think support free knowledge wherever it is found. Allowing our GLAM partners to use this wording and those who are actively collaborating with us would be a start. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] roadmap for WM affiliation ; a name for self-identified affiliation
I have been working on collaborations with a couple of groups including ECGPedia (http://en.ecgpedia.org/) and TRIP Database ( http://www.tripdatabase.com/). Both are fairly well known sites and share our values. They are both interested in working with us in some manner. Is this something I could offer them? Right now ECGpedia is offer us 2000 ECG images and TRIP Database is looking at linking to our high quality medical content thus increasing our exposure. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Invitation to connect on LinkedIn
LinkedIn James Heilman requested to add you as a connection on LinkedIn: -- Srikant, I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - James Accept invitation from James Heilman http://www.linkedin.com/e/-t9tct-gpanplzs-19/kEGYngBeZsro1F93qKeRGrJetgIrKFfJd2o_ToVctvnatuZm/blk/I52787614_75/pmpxnSRJrSdvj4R5fnhv9ClRsDgZp6lQs6lzoQ5AomZIpn8_djtvd34SdPwTczl9bPl1kldqgCdAbP8SdPcMdzcOcPcLrCBxbOYWrSlI/EML_comm_afe/ View invitation from James Heilman http://www.linkedin.com/e/-t9tct-gpanplzs-19/kEGYngBeZsro1F93qKeRGrJetgIrKFfJd2o_ToVctvnatuZm/blk/I52787614_75/0RdRYQcjoTe3sOdkALqnpPbOYWrSlI/svi/ -- DID YOU KNOW you can conduct a more credible and powerful reference check using LinkedIn? Enter the company name and years of employment or the prospective employee to find their colleagues that are also in your network. This provides you with a more balanced set of feedback to evaluate that new hire. http://www.linkedin.com/e/-t9tct-gpanplzs-19/rsr/inv-27/ -- (c) 2011, LinkedIn Corporation ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikipedia Editor and Google Chrome
We need to make sure that people using Google Chrome are able to edit seamlessly. Currently this is not the case. Extra spaces are added. And when the Cite tool built into the browser is used it deletes text. Would love to see the foundation direct more resources to improving the editing tools. Not sure to whom this should be directed. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Blocking of Wikipedia Pages
My hospital IT department has become more draconian as of late. Was attempting to make changes to breast thermography an imaging technique for breast cancer to discover that websense considers it nudity. Had a discussion with IT and they concluded that they can be off no help. What sort of measures is the Wikimedia movement taking to address these sorts of issues? The work around I will be using is the running of TightVNC Portable Edition off of a USB stick to control my home computer over the cloud. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blocking of Wikipedia Pages
I have found another work around. It appears that websense does not block the secure Wikipedia and thus I can edit on that. James Heilman On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 7:06 AM, James Heilman jmh...@gmail.com wrote: My hospital IT department has become more draconian as of late. Was attempting to make changes to breast thermography an imaging technique for breast cancer to discover that websense considers it nudity. Had a discussion with IT and they concluded that they can be off no help. What sort of measures is the Wikimedia movement taking to address these sorts of issues? The work around I will be using is the running of TightVNC Portable Edition off of a USB stick to control my home computer over the cloud. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Blocking of Wikipedia Pages
My local IT got back to me today and agreed to unblock all of Wikipedia for all 25,000 computers they manage. A bit of success for increasing access. IMO Wikimedia needs to stay on top of these issues. I have emailed Websense who created the list my institution uses. We need to work with them so that they create separate categories for health information. Maybe if Websense was contact by the WMF? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Do we even know if there is a Gender Gap
We have heard a great deal lately about a gender gap. Is there really a gender gap? With 93% of editor not marking there gender known per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-02-14/News_and_notes http://refmight it just be that female editors prefer to keep there gender unknown which seems like an equally valid explanation of the results. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Banners inviting people to edit.
Once again our yearly fundraising banners are here. It seem to be working well however we should also inviting people to edit. My logic is this: 1) We invite people to edit 2) This increases the quality of our content 3) Improved quality increases readership 4) Increased readership increases donations -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea
Does Wikimedia currently have a financial problem? It does not appear too. So if the funding model is not broken what are we trying to fix / accomplish with advertising? Wikipedia currently gets hundreds of millions of dollars worth of content from its volunteer editors. Many of us would be a little turned off to say the least if ads starting appearing on the pages we were working on. It is not worth risking our contributors if at this point these finances are not needed. BTW it is enough work already keeping advertising off of Wikipedia pages the last thing we should do is legitimize it. I guess one trial would be to start a separate mirror that allows advertising on Wiki content. A few of these already exist. Moving to something more would require unanimous approval of our editing body IMO. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Attack pages at Encyc. Dramatica
Encyc. Dramatica seems too take pride in creating attack pages regarding Wikipedians. Of course they are exposing themselves to libel suits but looking at some of the rest of their site this seems to be the least of their worries with a great deal of racist content as well as underage pornography. Wondering if we have any measures available to deal with these attacks against Wikipedia? Or have others who have considered this issue feel that attempting anything would 1) be futile 2) just promote the creation / promotion of more such content. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Pending Changes
Decisions at Wikipedia are not based a vote. The majority support Pending Changes and insufficient reasons have been put forwards by those who wish to see it quashed. I would like to thank Erik Moeller for the difficult discussion he has made. It is impossible to make everyone happy sometimes. I support PC for a number of reasons including. 1) Concerns are voiced both by academia and our readership regarding Wikipedia's reliability. Pending changes addresses some of these concerns. Thus there is a good chance that pending changes will not only increase our readership but the number of people who edit. No one wants to put in the work to create something good or excellent just to have it vandalized and left un-repaired. 2) Vandals like to see their work go live. Pending changes stops this and will thus potentially decrease the entire volume of vandalism. Most vandals will not be willing to pit in the effort to get around these measures. 3) We will have a tool to allow the world to seamlessly contribute to a greater part of Wikipedia. Instead of semi protecting some pages ( and thus making it difficult for IPs to contribution ) we can use PC to make Wikipedia more open per our founding principles. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
If we wish to improve the quality of academic articles than we need to increase Wikipedia's ties with academia. Poor coverage of topics exists in all fields. We need to figure out why the academics we have now do contribute and why others do not. What do this group see as barriers to getting involved? We need to liaison or partner more with Universities. Have Wikipedia used more in class projects. So much student work is just filled away to never be look at again after a term has ended. Wikipedia gives student a chance to make lasting changes to an academic field. We need to look at why other wikis are being created such as wikidocs, medpeadia, and radiopedia (there are 87 dealing with science alone) rather than they joining us. Others in academia obviously perceive some problems with our system. Are this preceptions justified? Can we work with these other 87 wiki in a collaborative way to reduce a duplication of effort on similar content? Could we convince some of them to simply join us? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Organization on Wikipedia that deals with content
I agree with Peter's comment that Wikipedia could use some added mechanisms to improve content ( especially controversial content ). We have a lot of great policies however they are often unevenly applied. One mechanism would be to apply more thoroughly the policies we have. A current problem is the difficult there is in bringing in third party input after all other mechanisms have failed on a content issue. We have ArbCom however they only deal with behavior not content. This is something that needs to be addressed so otherwise final arbitration goes to whomever is willing to but in the most effort. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Organization on Wikipedia that deals with content issues.
To address the comments made. The mediation committee does not have formal means of enforcement. This is something maybe we should look at creating. What is needed is a group of people who actively research the topic and come to a tentative and enforceable conclusion. The mediation committee is described as the counterpart to ArbCom but seems to be without teeth. While my experience is mainly with the English Wikipedia the same issues seem to arise in other languages. During the debate over including images of the Rorschach ink blots on Wikipedia the same debate was going on in many other languages. What we have is the occasional small group that unreasonably pushes a one sided promotional point of view to the detriment of the encyclopedia. They often edit on only a single subject area and take up a great deal of resources of editors who are trying to write an encyclopedia. One can go to a number of different places and get a couple of users to comment but none of these comments are ever binding and in a number of debates I have been involved in have been dismissed as uninformed. What is needed is a finding of facts not related to user behaviour but content after a review of the literature. These interpretations with discussion would than be implemented until which time the literature on the subject matter changes. This would allow people to resume productive editing rather than going around in circles for sometimes years generating millions of bits of text and spending hundreds of hours. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Organization on Wikipedia that deals with content issues.
A Committee to Deal with Content Issues Wikipedia does not seem to have any formal arbitration committee that deals with content. I have been involved in a number of cases in which such a committee would be exceedingly useful ( ADHD, Rorschach test, abortion, etc.). Currently I am involved in a dispute regarding the interpretation of the literature regarding Transcendental Meditation (TM) which has been going on for years. There are about 5 editors who admit to being practitioner of TM and only or mainly edit the subject area of TM. They have been using Wikipedia to promote this organization / religion. As they have been reasonably polite no actions were taken during the recent Arbitration case and ArbCom stated that it does not feel they should / are able to address content issues. An RfC was filled with a couple of comments however the TMers felt that the comments were uninformed, insufficiently numerous, and therefore not relevant. An RfC is also not binding and has no method for enforcement. These editors have been taking turns reverting changes they disagree with. The question is should Wikipedia be written by those who are interested in writing a well referenced work of knowledge or by special interests who wish to push a particular point of view. Wikipedia currently does not have an effective method to deal with these types of special interest groups who are set on promotion or advertising. If Wikipedia is ever going to become well respected by academia it needs effective measures to deal with these sort of issue. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Private Wiki
Not sure were to ask this... A group of 20 of us from Wikiproject Medicine are working on a paper to explain the usage of Wikipedia to the medical community. We were working on it in Google documents but they have made some changes to their software that makes it nearly unusable. We wish to return to working in the wiki environment but need to do so in a closed environment until after publication. Anyone here able to set something like this up for us? Or have suggestions were we may do so? We were using a private wiki for a bit but its reliability was limited. Thanks -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Encouraging participation
I have found some of the suggestions for increasing participation strange. Wikipedia is not a MMORG, it is not a social networking site, it is not a file/picture/video hosting service, it is an online encyclopedia. Some people like the first three. However trying to turn Wikipedia into a combination of them is not how we go about writing an encyclopedia. We need to attract people who are interested in writing an encyclopedia and need to drive away / direct to the appropriate venue those who are looking for something different. My suggestion for increasing editor numbers would be to promote Wikipedia at Universities. McGill has a Wikipedia club. Promoting the formation of clubs at other Universities would have a positive influence. Currently most University students are female ( about 55% ) http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20091023110831548 however Asperger syndrome occurs 5 times more frequently in males than females. This might have something to do with the gender ratio we see. :-) -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Encouraging participation
To attract academics this is and must be viewed as a serious endeavor. Yes some aspects such as reverting vandalism could have a fun twist applied to them but the creation of content must remain simple and serious. Wikipedia already has a problem with its image regarding credibility. Things that would affect Wikipedia's image must be carefully considered. I personally do not need further distraction while I edit. Medpedia http://www.medpedia.com/ has more of a facebook appearance to it and for that among other reasons I will not contribute their. We need to keep our goal of writing an encyclopedia first and foremost. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Community, collaboration, and cognitive biases
I think the idea that Aryeh Gregor brought up is incredible. We should follow the strategy use by IBM in helping develop Linux. Open all discussion to the Wikimedia community will bring the power of Wikipedia's collaborative process to the operations of of Wikimedia. Volunteers would get involved in all aspects of Wikimedia from advertising to programing. We have build the greatest encyclopedia in the world now we can build the greatest non profit. I recall reading that IBM improved its participation in the Linux kernel community by getting rid of all internal communications among its kernel developers, meaning they had to use the public project lists to bounce ideas off anyone. James Heilman, MD ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Participation of intellectual professions
I see a number of issues holding professionals back from contributing: 1) Some do not realize that it is possible to edit Wikipedia ( I hear this at work when people ask me how I became an editor ). Maybe we should advertise the fact that yes you too can edit Wikipedia. 2) Many are just not interested. In medicine we have had issues with getting physicians to do continuing medical education. Many just want to do their job and that is it. Contributing to Wikipedia is work. However students are required to do work and I think this is one of the populations which would be easiest to attract. McGill University may have started a Wikipedia club. Promoting these may be useful. 3) A great deal of competition to Wikipedia has sprung up such as Radiopeadia ( which does not allow commercial use of images ), Medpedia ( which only allow professionals to contribute ), and Wikidocs ( which has more technical content ). Each addressing some perceived drawback in Wikipedia. None however has received the viewership of Wikipedia but of course cuts into the pool of available volunteers. Medpedia has partnered with a number of very respected Universities. I think we could learn something for each of these formats such as clarification around image copyright and that CC does not mean you lose the rights to it, greater exposure of the professionals who already contribute, etc. 4) Wikipedia has received negative press in professional publications. We need to address these negativities most of which are false. Currently a number of us at WikiProject Med are writing a paper for publication promoting Wikipedia as a health care information resource. Other subject areas should do the same. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 74, Issue 129
Re: Participation of intellectual professions I see a number of issues holding professionals back from contributing: 1) Some do not realize that it is possible to edit Wikipedia ( I hear this at work when people ask me how I became an editor ). Maybe we should advertise the fact that yes you too can edit Wikipedia. 2) Many are just not interested. In medicine we have had issues with getting physicians to do continuing medical education. Many just want to do their job and that is it. Contributing to Wikipedia is work. However students are required to do work and I think this is one of the populations which would be easiest to attract. McGill University may have started a Wikipedia club. Promoting these may be useful. 3) A great deal of competition to Wikipedia has sprung up such as Radiopeadia ( which does not allow commercial use of images ), Medpedia ( which only allow professionals to contribute ), and Wikidocs ( which has more technical content ). Each addressing some perceived drawback in Wikipedia. None however has received the viewership of Wikipedia but of course cuts into the pool of available volunteers. Medpedia has partnered with a number of very respected Universities. I think we could learn something for each of these formats such as clarification around image copyright and that CC does not mean you lose the rights to it, greater exposure of the professionals who already contribute, etc. 4) Wikipedia has received negative press in professional publications. We need to address these negativities most of which are false. Currently a number of us at WikiProject Med are writing a paper for publication promoting Wikipedia as a health care information resource. Other subject areas should do the same. BTW do we have a WikiProject to address the issue of recruiting editors? I now we have the usability project. James Heilman ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Renaming Flagged Protections
I think the best way of rolling this out if it is possible would be to replace all semi protected articles with flagged protected ordouble check protected. If it works well we could than either add more pages or apply it to all pages. This would make it more seamless, draw less potentially negative media attention, and allow all those who will be dealing with these edits to figure out how the system works. We do not want to end up like the baggage terminal at that new terminal in London. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Banners to increase editors
Having trouble posting. Trying again: We had a banner last year to raise funds for the WMF. Unsure if anyone has suggested this yet but how about running a banner to encourage our readers to: 1) add content 2) correct spelling 3) revert vandalism? I have asked many people about their use of Wikipedia and many are unaware that it is even possible for them to edit. We could have something like Wikipedia is in the public domain that means it belongs to all of us. Please help us expand, protect, and improve it or some such thing? We could either run this sort of message alone or combine it with the fun raiser banner next year? -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Wikidoc
I have been approached by wikidocs about wikipedia and wikidocs working more closely together. A discussion has started here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Wikidoc.org The person who runs wikidocs is interested in discussing things further. http://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/User_talk:C_Michael_Gibson They are run under a similar philosophy as wikipedia. Making some of wikidoc a sister project and combining the rest of it into wikipedia / wikibooks would increase the quality of both. Cheers Doc James __ Connect with friends from any web browser - no download required. Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger for the Web BETA at http://ca.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
