Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

This isn't just a recent thing:

http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Anthony.html
http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Thomas_Dalton.html

Posting a lot isn't necessarily a bad thing though, although in my own
experience, the less I talk the more people listen:

http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Mark_Williamson.html

I went from a high of 154 posts in February 2005, last month I made
just 14. I'm still here, I still read most posts. In fact, I have made
at least one post to this list in every month since September 2004
with only one exception (July 2007) but I expect that people who have
been reading my posts from then until now would agree that I'm doing
more with less.

Mark

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Anthony wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>
>> 2009/8/28 Liam Wyatt :
>> >> Personally, I use an email filter called "my brain". I look at subject
>> >> lines and I don't read emails that don't interest me. It has worked
>> >> for years with great success.
>> >
>> >
>> > Hmm... you must be interested in lots of things then
>>
>> You may want to go through the threads for the last month, say, and
>> see what proportion of them I have contributed to. I have never
>> actually counted, but I suspect it is a minority.
>>
>
> I'm absolutely sure mine is a minority.  There are a lot of important things
> going on right now.  That's why Thomas and I have been so talkative lately.
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Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

A quick correction (at the risk of adding to my post count for this month (-;)

I have not posted to this list every month since September 2004, I was
including posts at Wikipedia-l. However, I think that's pretty
reasonable considering that list is largely dormant and Foundation-l
has widened in scope to absorb it.

skype: node.ue



On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
> This isn't just a recent thing:
>
> http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Anthony.html
> http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Thomas_Dalton.html
>
> Posting a lot isn't necessarily a bad thing though, although in my own
> experience, the less I talk the more people listen:
>
> http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Mark_Williamson.html
>
> I went from a high of 154 posts in February 2005, last month I made
> just 14. I'm still here, I still read most posts. In fact, I have made
> at least one post to this list in every month since September 2004
> with only one exception (July 2007) but I expect that people who have
> been reading my posts from then until now would agree that I'm doing
> more with less.
>
> Mark
>
> On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Anthony wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Thomas Dalton 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> 2009/8/28 Liam Wyatt :
>>> >> Personally, I use an email filter called "my brain". I look at subject
>>> >> lines and I don't read emails that don't interest me. It has worked
>>> >> for years with great success.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Hmm... you must be interested in lots of things then
>>>
>>> You may want to go through the threads for the last month, say, and
>>> see what proportion of them I have contributed to. I have never
>>> actually counted, but I suspect it is a minority.
>>>
>>
>> I'm absolutely sure mine is a minority.  There are a lot of important things
>> going on right now.  That's why Thomas and I have been so talkative lately.
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Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

Exactly. If you write too many messages, you run the risk that the
majority will start to habitually skip over (most of) your messages.

Think of it this way (this is a very simplistic model I think, I'm not
an economist): when the central bank of a country prints too much
currency, this can cause the value of the currency to go down.

Similarly, if there is a famous painter who only made 5 paintings,
they will probably fetch a higher price than if s/he had made 500.
It's fine if you always have something to say but I think we have all
(the more prolific posters here) been guilty of posting two or three
(or more) replies to the same thread at once without waiting for
others when we could have consolidated into a single e-mail.

Also, in my opinion (and yours may be different), although I do have
an opinion on nearly every thread on this list, it is not always
necessary for everybody to know what I think; this is after all a
platform for discussion, not for people to come and find out how I
feel about things.

Mark

skype: node.ue



On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 11:24 PM, Jussi-Ville
Heiskanen wrote:
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> 2009/8/28 Anders Wennersten :
>>
>>> I have only been on this list for a month, but I am confused over what I
>>> read. There are over 700 subscribers, but two, Anthony and Thoams Dalton
>>> is allowed, to generate more then a third of all entries and often just
>>> these two are driving a whole thread discussion. On Wikipedia we all
>>> work hard to work for consensus (all voices are welcome) and stop people
>>> dominating a subject. Why is it allowed for two persons to take over a
>>> list like it is done here?
>>>
>>
>> We haven't taken anything over. There is nothing stopping anyone else
>> from contributing to the discussion as well.
>>
>>
>
> Other than good sense. (Contributing endless reams of text, that is.)
>
>
> Yours,
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

I think it's a bit tricky to impose such a specific limit. I think one
post a day is quite low for what is supposed to be a venue for
discussion - we simply don't have enough people here for that.

However, I think it would be quite reasonable to ask people to try to
moderate themselves. If you are frustrated because the mails are
filling up your inbox, then this is not exactly the solution.
Foundation-l is a relatively high traffic list, even without Anthony
and Thomas Dalton there will be enough e-mails on some days that it
will overwhelm the inboxes of many people who do not use threaded
e-mail software. Although I agree that there is a definite occurance
of over-posting, I do not think we should slow discussion so much just
because it can be inconvenient for people who have not or do not wish
to switch to e-mail systems that are more suitable for high traffic
mailinglists.

Mark

skype: node.ue



On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 1:27 AM, Anders
Wennersten wrote:
> One idea could be to introduce a rule that each user should limit
> his/her entries to maximum one/day and thread
>
> I am sure this would lead to better quality, without stopping valuable
> input, and make the list much more comprehensive and useful. (With this
> rule last days 80 entires would probalbly been limited to something like 20)
>
> foundation-l is a resource that could be made to be of much use and
> importance if just the chattiness was limited
>  Anders
>
>
> Mark Williamson skrev:
>> Exactly. If you write too many messages, you run the risk that the
>> majority will start to habitually skip over (most of) your messages.
>>
>> Think of it this way (this is a very simplistic model I think, I'm not
>> an economist): when the central bank of a country prints too much
>> currency, this can cause the value of the currency to go down.
>>
>> Similarly, if there is a famous painter who only made 5 paintings,
>> they will probably fetch a higher price than if s/he had made 500.
>> It's fine if you always have something to say but I think we have all
>> (the more prolific posters here) been guilty of posting two or three
>> (or more) replies to the same thread at once without waiting for
>> others when we could have consolidated into a single e-mail.
>>
>> Also, in my opinion (and yours may be different), although I do have
>> an opinion on nearly every thread on this list, it is not always
>> necessary for everybody to know what I think; this is after all a
>> platform for discussion, not for people to come and find out how I
>> feel about things.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> skype: node.ue
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 11:24 PM, Jussi-Ville
>> Heiskanen wrote:
>>
>>> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>>
>>>> 2009/8/28 Anders Wennersten :
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I have only been on this list for a month, but I am confused over what I
>>>>> read. There are over 700 subscribers, but two, Anthony and Thoams Dalton
>>>>> is allowed, to generate more then a third of all entries and often just
>>>>> these two are driving a whole thread discussion. On Wikipedia we all
>>>>> work hard to work for consensus (all voices are welcome) and stop people
>>>>> dominating a subject. Why is it allowed for two persons to take over a
>>>>> list like it is done here?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> We haven't taken anything over. There is nothing stopping anyone else
>>>> from contributing to the discussion as well.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Other than good sense. (Contributing endless reams of text, that is.)
>>>
>>>
>>> Yours,
>>>
>>> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

> I'm sure all of you can figure out a way of setting up your email client so
> it can work for you.  If not, the archives are available online.  There's no
> reason you have to have this mailing list emailed to you in the first place.

That's an interesting attitude you have there. You're going to just do
whatever you like and if anybody requests that you modify your
behavior, even if many people ask you to, well, it's their problem and
not yours?

I use Gmail, inbox-flooding isn't such an issue for me here. However,
when I open a thread and begin to read and find there are 30 messages
from you and Thomas Dalton, I tend to skip over them. It's not because
you guys don't have anything valuable to say but rather because your
wisdom is buried in so much text that I don't quite care to fish it
out most of the time unless it's a topic I'm passionate about and want
to be sure I got everything.

You and Thomas are obviously very intelligent and often have good
insights and definitely a lot to bring to conversations but when the
signal-to-noise ratio reaches a certain point it is no longer valuable
to me to wade through the swamp of e-mails.

Of course, you're certainly not obliged to change your habits just so
that I'll read what you write, but I suspect many people feel
similarly.

Mark

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Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

In general, though, I think if we all put you on our personal block
lists, I think that would probably reduce the amount you posted. I
don't like that as an option though because like I said before, you do
contribute good ideas to this list.

Mark

skype: node.ue



On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Anthony wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 6:05 PM, quiddity  wrote:
>>
>> I'd also be interested in how Birgitte's suggestion would work out, if
>> adopted by everyone here: "I wonder if no one responds to [...] for a
>> month how much he will continue to post."
>>
>
> It'd work fine - if no one is interested in discussing something with me I'm
> not going to discuss it.  But that's not the case with the recent burst of
> messages.
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Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

If you're going to tell us what we "need" to do, may we tell you what
you need to do as well? I have a few ideas.

Mark

On 8/31/09, Anthony  wrote:
> What I think I might do is come up with a list of individuals who I am going
> to limit my replies to or reply to privately, because either I rarely reach
> a consensus with them or we rarely discuss things that are interesting to
> anyone else.
> It's a fine line, though.  Personally I don't see what's wrong with treating
> mailing lists a lot like IRC (or, to use a newfangled and even more maligned
> reference, twitter).  I really think people need to get over the fact that
> they don't need to process every single e-mail which appears in their inbox
> when they come back from a week vacation.  They need to pick certain high
> traffic mailing lists, and purge (or archive, if they're fortunate enough to
> have gmail-size storage).  If there were a separate announcement list it
> might be easier for people to accept this fact of reality.
>
> Anyway, if anyone wants to *privately* send me a list of names of people
> they think I should limit my replies to, please do.  You don't have to put
> Thomas on the list.  I know how y'all feel about him already, which doesn't
> mean I agree with it (I haven't decided if he goes on the list or not).
>
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 3:11 AM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>
>> In general, though, I think if we all put you on our personal block
>> lists, I think that would probably reduce the amount you posted. I
>> don't like that as an option though because like I said before, you do
>> contribute good ideas to this list.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> skype: node.ue
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Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday "Our romanian language" in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !

[Mark Williamson]

I think it is fair to say that no language "belongs" to a country, it
belongs to all speakers... what about the hundreds of thousands of
people who write Moldovan in Cyrillic?

Also I'm curious what Geni feels about them - using "mo" to refer to
Cyrillic Moldovan is not, in my view, "inaccurate", although it is not
as specific as perhaps it sh/could be.

Mark

On 8/31/09, Cetateanu Moldovanu  wrote:
>>the world the language that you claim to be "your own" is written in
>
> I said OUR, OUR country, OUR language, OUR latin script and alphabet. Please
> respect us.
>
> "The Moldovan language has often been successfully identified as and called
> Romanian."
> That's very true, that's why I'm asking, that's why I'm (and others
> too) iritated to see "Молдовеняскэ" on your front page, just like in the
> soviet occupation times.
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> French, English, German, Tamil and many other languages are not only
>> spoken
>> in the "country of origin". The Moldovan language has often been
>> successfully identified as and called Romanian. When in this other area of
>> the world the language that you claim to be "your own" is written in
>> Cyrillic then it must be tough on you.
>>
>> Given that for all kinds of reasons the wikipedia you refer to may be
>> removed makes the argument that the language is not yours anyway any less
>> potent.
>> Thanks,
>>  GerardM
>>
>> 2009/8/31 Cetateanu Moldovanu 
>>
>> > Hello everyone,
>> >
>> > 20 years ago on 27 august 1989, 700 000 of moldovans (of a 4 millions
>> > popoulation) went to the center of Chișinău (the capital of Moldova) to
>> the
>> > *Piața Marii Adunări Naționale*, the biggest square in the city, and
>> shout
>> > "limbă alfabet" (language and the alphabet) and for country
>> > independence,
>> > that event is called "Great National Assembly" (Marea Adunare Națională)
>> > which declared it's language "Moldavian" and it's script "LATIN".
>> > (here are a documental movie about this event
>> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BSfmhLOxO0, in the 4th part you can find
>> > that declaration)
>> >
>> > Please respect that wish and delete the cyrllic mo.wikipedia.org that
>> > claims
>> > to be our language, and remove/change the name of our language written
>> > in
>> > cyrllic "Молдовеняскэ" on your first page wikipedia.org.
>> >
>> > Thank you wikipedia.
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Re: [Foundation-l] moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

I've been telling you what I would like you to do. That's quite different.

On 8/31/09, Anthony  wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 10:06 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>
>> If you're going to tell us what we "need" to do, may we tell you what
>> you need to do as well? I have a few ideas.
>>
>> Mark
>
>
> Isn't that what you've been doing this entire thread?  In any case, sure,
> feel free.
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Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday "Our romanian language" in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !

[Mark Williamson]

When you say "that _is_ the _moldovan_ language"... how does Cyrillic
writing make it not Moldovan anymore? Also, there is a very clear
notice at the top directing people to Latin-alphabet content - it's
not as if anybody is actually deprived of being able to read in their
preferred script or is difficult to find.

Mark

On 8/31/09, Peter Gervai  wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 04:10, Mark Williamson wrote:
>> I think it is fair to say that no language "belongs" to a country, it
>> belongs to all speakers... what about the hundreds of thousands of
>> people who write Moldovan in Cyrillic?
>
> According to Wikipedia (the enciclopaedia libre of the internet, did
> you know that? ;)) article
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language:
>
> The standard alphabet is Latin (currently official in the Republic of
> Moldova). Before 1989, also two versions of Cyrillic had been used:
> the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet in 1940-89, and the historical Romanian
> Cyrillic alphabet until 1857. As of 2008[update], the former remains
> in use only in Transnistria.
>
> This suggests that
> 1) language identification 'mo' is written in latin,
> 2) it _is_ the _moldovan_ language,
> 3) it is used by 90% of the population (4 million+).
>
> This hints to me as well that there is a language, which is the same,
> but written in cyrillic script and used in Transnistria (400 000+
> people), but:
> 1) I do not know its ISO code (definitely not "mo"),
> 2) I do not remember the policy to host the same language in different
> scripts, but if we support that, we should follow the already applied
> naming convention (I tend to remember something similar about serbian
> wp?)
>
>> Also I'm curious what Geni feels about them - using "mo" to refer to
>> Cyrillic Moldovan is not, in my view, "inaccurate", although it is not
>> as specific as perhaps it sh/could be.
>
> It discriminates 90% of the speakers against 10% of the speakers, so I
> would call it "inaccurate" as well.
>
> I can understand the frustration of the original poster, based on
> these facts. Especially since I'm well aware that that region is full
> of national pride, even if it ends in violence. Hot headed people. :-)
> --
>  byte-byte,
> grin
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday "Our romanian language" in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !

[Mark Williamson]

2 things as well:

If your language is called "Romanian", as you contend in the topic
line, why do you care about the Moldovan WP? You can't have your cake
and eat it too.

Also, the name of the holiday is not "Our romanian language", it's
just "Our Language", there is very specifically no mention of the name
because this is controversial. Same with the national anthem - not
once does it mention Moldova, Moldovan, Romania, or Romanian, although
it does talk a lot about the beauty of the language. Also it does not
mention alphabets.

Mark

On 8/31/09, Cetateanu Moldovanu  wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> 20 years ago on 27 august 1989, 700 000 of moldovans (of a 4 millions
> popoulation) went to the center of Chișinău (the capital of Moldova) to the
> *Piața Marii Adunări Naționale*, the biggest square in the city, and shout
> "limbă alfabet" (language and the alphabet) and for country independence,
> that event is called "Great National Assembly" (Marea Adunare Națională)
> which declared it's language "Moldavian" and it's script "LATIN".
> (here are a documental movie about this event
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BSfmhLOxO0, in the 4th part you can find
> that declaration)
>
> Please respect that wish and delete the cyrllic mo.wikipedia.org that claims
> to be our language, and remove/change the name of our language written in
> cyrllic "Молдовеняскэ" on your first page wikipedia.org.
>
> Thank you wikipedia.
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Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday "Our romanian language" in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !

[Mark Williamson]

> 2) I do not remember the policy to host the same language in different
> scripts, but if we support that, we should follow the already applied
> naming convention (I tend to remember something similar about serbian
> wp?)

In general the policy is that if we can create a converter we should.
In this case it is possible to create a pretty good conversion system
- there are relatively basic rules although there are exceptions which
could be easily programmed - but I don't anticipate the ro.wp
community would be too thrilled about having an tab to view their
Wikipedia in Cyrillic. If we did so though I imagine that would mostly
resolve this issue once and for all.

Mark

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Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday "Our romanian language" in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !

[Mark Williamson]

You seem to believe that Cyrillic for the language is a purely
historical artefact when in fact it is still used in textbooks for
schoolchildren and learning to read in Transnistria. If Cyrillic
script were no longer in use for Moldovan or used only as a historical
curiosity this would be a dead issue and I doubt anybody would put up
any debate.

As it is stated in the article, it is still the official script
according to the PMR. Whether you recognize them as a country or an
occupying force, it's undeniable that they do have _de facto_ control
over the vast majority of the land between the Nistru river and the
Ukrainian border and that in the Moldovan-medium schools in that area,
the Cyrillic script is mostly used (I believe there are 4 schools
using Latin script?)

As far as "declarations" and it being "declared" the Latin is the only
script used to write Moldovan, that's pretty meaningless in my book.
Governments over the centuries have tried to impose various linguistic
changes. Laws regarding language are not so relevant in our context.
For example, the Russian government has made a law requiring the use
of Cyrillic script for all languages in the territory of the
Federation... however, in our context, such a declaration is
absolutely meaningless. The situation on the ground, not in law books,
is what really matters.

As far as your second e-mail about people trying to erase Russian
influence, it's not so simple as you've made it seem. In Transnistria,
Russia is nearly universally seen as a force for good and there is
little desire among the ethnic Moldovan population there to de-Russify
anything. They fought a war over that essentially.

In (the rest of) Moldova, it's also not quite so simple. There are
some who believe that Moldovans are Romanians and that Moldova and
Romania should be united; there are others who believe Moldovans are
an independent peopel and the country should have a Russia-oriented
foreign policy; there are others still who believe Moldova should
separate itself from both sides. As far as the Latin script goes that
is considered a resolved issue outside of Transnistria however.

I don't think a decision of language should be made based on our
personal feelings about the former Soviet Union or Russia or empires
or colonism or socialism or Stalin, rather on the simple facts of the
situation... which unfortunately nobody can seem to agree on either.

Mark

On 9/1/09, Peter Gervai  wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 08:59, Mark Williamson wrote:
>> When you say "that _is_ the _moldovan_ language"... how does Cyrillic
>> writing make it not Moldovan anymore?
>
> On the contarary: latin script make it not Moldovan language anymore.
>
> It's like saying old english (non latin script) should be used on enwp
> instead of latin, and people may possibly be sent to latin script,
> because how does old english scripting make it not english anymore?
> (Yeah sure I know, it's probably not the very same language anymore,
> but you may possibly see my point about what's defined as official
> language with any given name, and its history. If it has been declared
> that THE Moldavian is written in latin then cyrillic script isn't
> today's Moldavian language anymore. It is a historical language, like
> many converted from national to latin scripts in the recent decades.)
>
>> Also, there is a very clear
>> notice at the top directing people to Latin-alphabet content - it's
>> not as if anybody is actually deprived of being able to read in their
>> preferred script or is difficult to find.
>
> I ain't no Moldavian but I'd guess here the priorities are exchanged.
> Default should be latin script and it may direct anyone to historical
> spelling by cyrillic. And if there's one-to-one relation betwen
> cyrillic and latin script then we should make it automagic.
>
> Peter
>
> ps: I'm not against preserving cyrillic writing, but as it's been
> mentioned: it doesn't match the language code. should be at least
> renamed. as far as I see, which is maybe not much.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday "Our romanian language" in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !

[Mark Williamson]

I thought the previous consensus was that this project was to be moved
to a different domain - although outright deletion has been suggested
by quite a few people I can't see where that was ever agreed to.

Mark

On 9/1/09, Gerard Meijssen  wrote:
> Hoi,
> It is equally abundantly clear that the emotions run high whenever this
> issue is raised. There is one difference between this closure and all the
> others. When this project will be closed, it will not go to the incubator
> but will be deleted. This is in marked contrast with all the others.
>
> If I were a developer, I would not choose to do this job. I had to be TOLD
> to do the job. There is nothing positive about closing projects.
> Thanks,
>  GerardM
>
> 2009/9/1 Bence Damokos 
>
>> I think it has been stated before on this list, that
>> mo.wikipedia.orgshould
>> be moved, alongside some other projects waiting to be removed and the
>> staff
>> developers seemed agreable to this apart from the fact that they didn't
>> devote time for the necessary background work (moving and recreating
>> databases, copying files, testing that nothing is broken, etc.)
>>
>> Previously it has also been stated that the Meta page for closing down
>> projects is useless (there is no power behind it, nor is there any people
>> or
>> committe tasked with monitoring and implementing any community consensus
>> that would come out from this page).
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Bence Damokos
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Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday "Our romanian language" in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !

[Mark Williamson]

It's more complex than that I think.

"mo" was deleted from the list of ISO codes relatively recently; when
the Wiki was created it was a valid ISO code.

Now, "ro" applies to "Romanian", for which Moldovan is supposed to be
an alternative name, however it seems inappropriate (although it may
be technically correct at this point, the abrupt deletion of the code
has mixed up my mind a lot) to call it a Romanian Wikipedia.

As far as Peter's e-mail goes: there are no exact statistics, I don't
think, for such political ideas however as of the last census, the
majority reported speaking Moldovan (rather than Romanian); in the
cities this was reversed however (as I recall). Electoral politics can
also be a rough indicator of opinion and in that regard those who are
Romanophiles and those who are Russophiles or independentists seem to
be about equal in number. Whether or not Moldovans and Romanians are
the same "people" and whether the language should be called Romanian
or Moldovan is a hot topic in the country and a source of much
contention.

Also, the majority of Moldovans seems to be against union with Romania
despite the fact that this would very likely be in their interests
economically. I am certainly no expert on Hungary by any means but
obviously the end of the Soviet era has left very differing results. I
believe the opinion towards Russia and Russification in Poland is
almost the opposite as that in Belarus, it's unreasonable to fit every
country to the same mold. Some in Moldova still yearn for the old days
of the USSR, and I can understand why they would in their case - they
are currently the poorest country in Europe (besides Kosovo, if you
consider it a country) and are really struggling. There are certainly
those who, while they may not have been big fans of all Soviet
policies, are nostalgic for many aspects of the era.

Like I said, it is a complex issue. Also, from what I have heard (and
this may be incorrect), the US Library of Congress deleted the MO code
without consulting with any Moldovan authority which seems
inappropriate. Imagine the outcry if those "experts" were to delete
SR, HR, and BS codes in favor of SH without consulting any local
authority?

Mark

On 9/1/09, Andre Engels  wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 12:45 PM, Andrew
> Turvey wrote:
>
>> - The iso code for Romanian/Moldavian is ro. "mo", which was the ISO code
>> for Moldavian in the Cyrillic script is now deprecated. There is no ISO
>> code for Cyrillic script Moldavian.
>
> ISO 639 codes are about languages, not scripts. The code "ro" would
> apply to both scripts.
>
>> - Where ISO 639-1 codes exist we use them to name the Wikipedia. However,
>> we do have other encyclopedias for languages which don't have ISO codes.
>> Examples are http://ang.wikipedia.org - the Anglo Saxon encyclopedia which
>> uses some non-latin characters (e.g. Ƿ for "th")
>
> In those cases, when available, we use an ISO 639-3 code. All our
> 3-letter language names are ISO 639-3 codes with the exception of
> als:, which should probably be moved to gsw:. If there is also no ISO
> 639-3 code, a code is used of the form xxx-yyy, where xxx is the code
> for the language, or if no clear language applies, the language group
> to which the 'language' belongs, and yyy is some sort of denotation.
> existing examples are be-x-old with a language, zh-minnan with a
> metalanguage and roa-rup and fiu-vro with a language group.
>
>> - mo.wp should be moved to something other than "mo" - perhaps mocy?
>
> I don't know the rules for this, but I would expect it to be either
> ro-cyr or ro-x-cyr
>
>> - Finally, I don't see any reason why the community can't address with
>> this issue by discussion and consensus. There's no need for the foundation
>> to get involved, at least at this stage.
>
> The foundation holds technical control over the wikipedia domains;
> nothing can be done but by the foundation to for example rename a
> wiki.
>
>
> --
> André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday "Our romanian language" in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !

[Mark Williamson]

It certainly should, ideally, be the same Wikipedia - in my opinion
the ideal situation would have a converter on ro.wp. However, I don't
think most Romanian Wikipedians would approve of this (as I mentioned
earlier in the thread).

Mark

On 9/1/09, Peter Gervai  wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 07:04, Mark Williamson wrote:
>> I thought the previous consensus was that this project was to be moved
>> to a different domain - although outright deletion has been suggested
>> by quite a few people I can't see where that was ever agreed to.
>
> Stats briefing:
> 51 active, 850 registered editors, 401 content pages and total 2300
> pages, 31 uploaded files.
>
> Looks like it's not really inactive, so I'd agree to move it to mo-cyr
> or something, there seem to be demand for it.
>
> grin
>
> ps: Mark&Gerard, thanks for the background! I guess then as a language
> it ought to go together with Romanian. The real problem is that I'm
> not sure whether the editors from this two region could work together
> at all, like obviously mo admins should be sysopped on ro wp, etc...
> Not sure whether any parties would like that to see to happen. :-P
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] 31 august, 20 years of our national holiday "Our romanian language" in Moldova, mo.wikipedia still in cyrillic !

[Mark Williamson]

No, they most certainly would not. However it's a bit of a moot point
as if I recall correctly there were only 1 or 2 admins and they've
both left since.

Mark

On 9/1/09, Peter Gervai  wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 08:29, Mark Williamson wrote:
>> It certainly should, ideally, be the same Wikipedia - in my opinion
>> the ideal situation would have a converter on ro.wp. However, I don't
>> think most Romanian Wikipedians would approve of this (as I mentioned
>> earlier in the thread).
>
> A worrying sidenote: cheking the page
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Moldovan_Wikipedia#Motion_to_end_discussion
>
> seem to reveal that most of the people go for deletion of the mowp are
> Romanians. Would they support to have old mowp admins as rowp admins,
> wouldn't they?
>
> g
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] WMF seeking to sub-lease office space?

[Mark Williamson]

On 9/4/09, Anthony  wrote:
> I think so too, but I'd rather hear it from Erik than hear your guess or
> guess at it myself.

I'd rather go through a thread without seeing a one-word message
indicating bewilderment at what was quite obviouisly a joke... but
then, the world revolves around me about as much as it revolves around
you (=not at all).

Mark

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Re: [Foundation-l] Moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

>>> -Document wanted behavior rules on meta in the same way as on wikipedia
>>> (wp:et, wp:not, no chat, do not overload etc)
>
> What wikipedia? I have no idea what the en.wp rules are for discussions,
> and I do not wnat to be blocked on this list for not having this idea. On
> ru.wp, my home project, we may very well use different rules.

I believe what was meant by this is that we should codify policies the
same way that all large Wikipedias have codified policies, NOT that we
should adopt the same policies as en.wp or any other for that matter.

Mark

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Re: [Foundation-l] Moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Pavlo Shevelo  wrote:
> Or you mean 'codification' as 'put all rules systematically/structured
> and in written'?
> If so it's exactly the basic proposal of Anders Wennersten:

That's usually what codification means :-)

Mark

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Re: [Foundation-l] Moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

> But please, not on this list.  This list is fine as it is.

Says who?

Mark

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Re: [Foundation-l] Moderate this list

[Mark Williamson]

Fine for whom? Fine for you? It comes as no surprise to me and
probably to anybody else that you are "fine" with the "lack of formal
structured posting rules".

You made 77 posts to this list last month, surpassed only by Thomas
Dalton at 98. Compare 3rd and 4th place: 57 for GerardM and 40 for
Greg Maxwell. That 20 post difference between you and GerardM is what
is making people notice you and I think also one of the reasons people
want change on this list.

Mark

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Anthony  wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 3:41 AM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>
>> > But please, not on this list.  This list is fine as it is.
>>
>> Says who?
>
>
> Presumably whoever wrote that statement.
>
> But I'd like to clarify it.  I think we could use more active
> administrators, who actively participate in the discussions to helps form
> them into more useful ones.  The part that I'm saying is fine is the lack of
> formal structured posting rules.
>
> It'd be nice if an admin would step into this thread and clarify how much
> discussion s/he'd like on the topic, what the goals are that we're trying to
> reach with this thread, etc, rather than come in 5 days later and lock the
> thread or throw down the ban hammer.  Ideally we need people people actively
> facilitating discussion, and these people need to have the power to enforce
> things in the rare case that need be (mainly because otherwise we get
> discussions like this one where some people say one thing and some people
> say the opposite, and it's impossible to please everyone).  Setting rules on
> how many words/times/whatever you can post isn't going to take the place of
> an active facilitator.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Mark Williamson]

People are complaining to whoever is in charge of the venue.

skype: node.ue



On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 7:31 AM, Anthony  wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 9:36 PM, Austin Hair  wrote:
>>
>> A mailing list, however, is different.  A mailing list is a
>> conversation.  Everyone's been in a conversation where a single person
>> dominated, and no matter how smart or charismatic or entertaining he
>> may be, dominating a conversation minimizes the chance for other
>> people to contribute and makes it less useful.
>>
>
> I think it's great when one smart or entertaining person dominates a
> conversation.  I'm much more interested in hearing from that one person than
> equally from the 50 participants.  If that person is not smart (if my
> purpose for participating is to learn) or entertaining (if my purpose for
> participating is to have fun), I complain to whoever is in charge of the
> venue, or I leave (assuming it's not a conversation I'm required to attend,
> anyway).
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Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation

[Mark Williamson]

How am I heckling you? I'm just stating the facts. There's no need for
this to turn into a fight.



On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Anthony  wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>
>> People are complaining to whoever is in charge of the venue.
>>
>
> And if the person in charge of the venue considers me to be a net detriment,
> I hope and expect that I will be asked, privately, to leave, at which point
> I will comply.
>
> There's no need to heckle me on-list.  Take your complaints to the people in
> charge.  CC me if you're willing to.  I'll abide by the decision of the
> people in charge.  Not by whoever heckles me the loudest.
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Re: [Foundation-l] It's not article count, it's editors

[Mark Williamson]

Might also be interesting to see views/hour/million speakers.
skype: node.ue


On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 2:31 PM, David Gerard  wrote:

> From Erik Zachte:
>
> http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/09/partipication-level-a-new-metric/
>
> Hmm. Anyone want to change the front page of www.wikipedia.orgaccordingly?  
> ;-)
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Improving foundation-l

[Mark Williamson]

How do others feel? This is not the first time we've had this discussion.
Some people agree with you, many don't. Also, I don't think anyone is
surprised that you agree.

Mark

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Anthony  wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 5:05 PM,  wrote:
> >
> > The entire page is founded on unsubstantiated and generic complaints
> > which all lists share.
>
>
> I agree.  But that page was created by one of this list's moderators, so
> it's not quite so simple as just ignoring it.  So how do others feel?  Do
> the current list moderators agree with the conclusion reached by you and
> me?
>  Or is there further discussion that needs to occur first?
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Re: [Foundation-l] the use of foundation-l

[Mark Williamson]

There is already a statistics page,
http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/Index.html
skype: node.ue


On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 1:13 AM,  wrote:

> In a message dated 11/7/2009 11:28:13 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> gerard.meijs...@gmail.com writes:
>
>
> > Please read it as an appeal to reply to foundation-l in moderation.
> > Please
> > read it as an appeal to post liberally to this list as we do not have an
> > alternative.>>
> > ---
> >
> >
>
> Speaking of self-moderation., a google search on
> Foundation-l "gerard meijssen" shows
>
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&;
>
> rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=7zN&num=50&q=foundation-l+%22gerard+Meijssen%22&lr=&
> aq=f&oq=&aqi=
>
> 33,000 pages
>
> Is there a way to create a chart showing how many messages each poster has
> posted to the list?  Also Gerard I think if you're going to use an argument
> about the value of those people who *aren't* posting, we need to know who
> they are.  Perhaps we don't want them to post either.
>
> Until we get some hard facts on the issue, how is any decision supposed to
> be able to be reached?
>
> W.J.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] the use of foundation-l

[Mark Williamson]

Gerard may post quite a bit, but in general his posts serve a purpose. Many
people on this list seem to write just to see their words, that is to say,
they seem repeat information and attempt to reply to every e-mail. This is
not constructive and it is not conducive to the expansion of knowledge.

To be on the Power Poster list is a bad thing for some, but it is not a
shameful thing by itself certainly. If you have a lot of useful things to
say, that's not so bad.

Mark

skype: node.ue


On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 1:29 AM, Gerard Meijssen
wrote:

> Hoi,
> If you want statistics, you do not have to google ... there are our own
> statistics ...
> http://www.infodisiac.com/Wikipedia/ScanMail/_PowerPosters.html I am a
> power
> poster and that often does not feel good. However, it is beside the point.
>
> I am on a conference and it is from people who are essential to this
> conference that I have this information. Now if you think that you need to
> pass judgement on this, you have a self centred world. That is very much
> part of the issue. The issue is that the context of the issue IS clear from
> my original post. I will not damage these people by naming them.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> 2009/11/8 
>
> > In a message dated 11/7/2009 11:28:13 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> > gerard.meijs...@gmail.com writes:
> >
> >
> > > Please read it as an appeal to reply to foundation-l in moderation.
> > > Please
> > > read it as an appeal to post liberally to this list as we do not have
> an
> > > alternative.>>
> > > ---
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Speaking of self-moderation., a google search on
> > Foundation-l "gerard meijssen" shows
> >
> > http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&;
> >
> >
> rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=7zN&num=50&q=foundation-l+%22gerard+Meijssen%22&lr=&
> > aq=f&oq=&aqi=<
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&%0Arls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=7zN&num=50&q=foundation-l+%22gerard+Meijssen%22&lr=&%0Aaq=f&oq=&aqi=
> >
> >
> > 33,000 pages
> >
> > Is there a way to create a chart showing how many messages each poster
> has
> > posted to the list?  Also Gerard I think if you're going to use an
> argument
> > about the value of those people who *aren't* posting, we need to know who
> > they are.  Perhaps we don't want them to post either.
> >
> > Until we get some hard facts on the issue, how is any decision supposed
> to
> > be able to be reached?
> >
> > W.J.
> >
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Re: [Foundation-l] Everything okay?

[Mark Williamson]

Half a day? Is that really so bad? I would be worried if there were no posts
for a week. Obviously there isn't as much traffic as before but I would
personally wait longer before sending out e-mails asking why there are no
messages.

Mark


On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 8:18 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:

> No posts in over half a day. Is everyone simply scared?
>
> MZMcBride
> pub...@mzmcbride.com
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] advertising craigslist

[Mark Williamson]

It's certainly free publicity for Craigslist, one way or the other. Anybody
who does not know what Craigslist is now will see it every time they see the
banner, may google it or look it up on WP to find out what it is, and start
using it.

Any time we put the name of any kind of person or organization there, that
is free publicity so I think it is imperative that we think about what
effect that publicity will have in the end. If we put a quote from Nelson
Mandela there, for example, it isn't very likely that he will get any money
or website traffic or any quantifiable benefit from our banner. If we put an
impassioned plea from "The CEO of Webbooks.com", it is very possible that
will result in additional traffic and exposure for that website.

Although the banner is not intended as an ad, I must admit that when I saw
it I instantly disliked it. If it were up to me, it would not be there. I
can certainly understand the reasons for keeping it up and I also don't
think this is a terrible situation or anything so I won't argue about this
but I wanted to make it known that Geni isn't the only one of the opinion
that it's not a good thing.

Mark

skype: node.ue


On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Philippe Beaudette <
pbeaude...@wikimedia.org> wrote:

>
> On Dec 14, 2009, at 9:50 PM, geni wrote:
>
> > I see we have taken to advertising craigslist. Would anyone care to
> > explain why?
>
>
>
> I fail to understand how acknowledging the existence of a company
> founded by an advisory board member who kindly consents to begging for
> money on our behalf constitutes advertising for it?  Would the banner
> have been as effective if it had said "Craig asks you to support..."?
>
> Geez.
> 
> Philippe Beaudette
> Facilitator, Strategy Project
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> phili...@wikimedia.org
>
> mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
>
> Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
> the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] advertising craigslist

[Mark Williamson]

Key phrase for me in this e-mail was "CraigsList itself is a for-profit",
despite the fact that it was hidden in a parenthetical remark after lots of
glowing praise... The "Craigslist Foundation" is not Craigslist.

According to the Wikipedia article on Craigslist:

"The company does not formally disclose financial or ownership information.
Analysts and commentators have reported varying figures for its annual
revenue, ranging from $10 million in 2004, $20 million in 2005, and $25
million in 2006 to possibly $150 million in 2007"

"It is believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster, and eBay
(the three board members). eBay owns approximately 25%, and Newmark is
believed to own the largest stake."

We put the name of a for-profit organization flashing across the top of the
site... What you said: "In spite of huge web traffic, Craigslist is run with
a staff of 32 and carries no ads, and Craig founded a non-profit
organization, the Craigslist Foundation, to support other non-profits."
seems like it is intended to distract the reader from the truth, which is
that Craigslist is for profit and owned partly by corporations like eBay.

Mark

skype: node.ue


On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Erik Moeller  wrote:

> Just as a bit of general background for this thread:
>
> The Craig Newmark banner is currently running at 20% on the English
> Wikipedia. It's a pilot to see how our audience responds to
> endorsements and testimonials by third parties. (So far, it is doing
> reasonably well, but not fantastically so; we will likely move on to
> different messages soon.) We're not running a large endorsement
> campaign this year, but we wanted to at least get some data on a
> banner of this type to help us determine whether we want to run more
> such messages in the future.
>
> We approached Craig and asked him whether he would help us with this,
> and he generously agreed. We chose Craig because he represents, to
> many people, a philosophy of the web that is comparable to ours. In
> spite of huge web traffic, Craigslist is run with a staff of 32 and
> carries no ads, and Craig founded a non-profit organization, the
> Craigslist Foundation, to support other non-profits. (CraigsList
> itself is a for-profit.) We're pleased that Craig has joined our
> Advisory Board, and we're happy he agreed to this endorsement.  That
> said, any kind of personal endorsement can certainly polarize.
>
> If, in future, we decide to run more such endorsements, we'll likely
> want to come up with a rich mix of different kinds of people with very
> different backgrounds, both to appeal to different segments of our
> audience, and to get a better understanding of the overall trends.
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] advertising craigslist

[Mark Williamson]

Is it really anti-capitalist to be against giving Craigslist free publicity?

Mark

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 7:30 AM, Nathan  wrote:

> Personally, I'm glad the Foundation doesn't have the reflexively
> absolutist anti-capitalist stance that some on this list would like
> them to have. Happy to see an endorsement from Craig Newmark. Now, if
> it were Tiger Woods...
>
> Nathan
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] advertising craigslist

[Mark Williamson]

If that's true, I am even more against this... what does that say about us?

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Anthony  wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 1:12 AM, Mark Williamson 
> wrote:
>
> > It's certainly free publicity for Craigslist, one way or the other.
>
>
> Who says it's free?  I assume Mr. Newmark made a significant donation.
>
> Maybe that assumption is wrong, though.
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Re: [Foundation-l] advertising craigslist

[Mark Williamson]

Overly simplifying, indeed. How did you arrive at the $40 estimate? Are you
trying to convert the 15K pageviews in 1 day into a dollar value?

Do you think that when people see advertisements on TV, they all immediately
flock to websites to look up the product? No, of course not, only a minority
of them will, but the web traffic isn't what the advertisers are paying for.
It is the message, they are paying to get their name out there in a certain
context.

This is great publicity for Craigslist and it would be silly to measure the
impact by the number of pageviews for our own page on Craigslist. I think
the point Geni was trying to make is that it has indeed raised some interest
in Craigslist, rather than just helping WMF.

Mark

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 11:58 AM, William Pietri wrote:

> Interesting! If I read that right, the Craigslist page on Wikipedia got
> an extra 15k pageviews or so. As a comparison, my rough guess is that
> Craigslist gets 100m pageviews/day. I base that on these numbers:
>
> http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOrigins.htm
> http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/craigslist.org+wikipedia.org
>
> Assuming the estimate of circa $100m in annual revenues, and making a
> number of other overly simplifying assumptions, the ballpark financial
> advantage to Craigslist for Craig Newmark's appearance here is about
> $40, or 13 seconds worth of revenues.
>
> William
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from?

[Mark Williamson]

Ethnologue has numbers for all languages although their information is often
outdated or not 100% accurate, it is sufficient if you're doing a list with
many languages.


On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 1:24 AM, Nikola Smolenski  wrote:

> Erik Zachte wrote:
> > Today I released 4 new reports, which all focus on:
> >
> > Where do our readers come from?
> >
> >   http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j
>
> Excellent and extremely useful! A big thank you! :)
>
> A few questions:
>
> Could we get this for other projects?
>
> At Wikipedia Page Views Per Country - Overview, could you in future
> include number of Internet users (f.e. from
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users
> ) and number of views per Internet user? IMO, this is more useful than
> population and could identify countries where Wikipedia should be
> "advertised".
>
> At pages Wikipedia Page Views By Country - Breakdown and Wikipedia Page
> Views By Country - Trends, could you include more languages (ideally all
> languages)? Perhaps by making a separate page for every country? For
> example, I'd like to know data for all minority languages of Serbia.
>
> It would also be interesting to somehow show this data together with
> size of the Wikipedia and number of language speakers per country but I
> don't see how exactly (and I don't know how to find the number of
> language speakers).
>
> Perhaps I will do some of this manually, but just this time! :)
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from?

[Mark Williamson]

I think there are two main factors influencing this:

# Fluency of the Internet-using population of a country in English. In a
country like Japan, basic English is widespread but real reading
comprehension on the level necessary for reading WP articles is not (as far
as I know at least). Scandinavians, on the other hand, fall at the other end
of the spectrum - according to Wikipedia, 89% of Swedes have a "working
knowledge" of English.

# Quality of the native Wikipedia - if I can speak some English, would it be
worth it to me to look for articles in English instead of my native language
due to greater quality or completeness of the English Wikipedia? If I'm
German, I have much less motivation to read articles in English than if my
native language is Burmese. Of course, this is in purely relative terms -
people in Arab countries preferring English to Arabic for Wikipedia does not
mean that the Arabic Wikipedia is of poor quality, it just means that users
feel that the English Wikipedia is a more reliable or complete resource in
some way.

Mark

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 2:40 AM, Andre Engels  wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 5:27 AM, Erik Zachte 
> wrote:
> > Today I released 4 new reports, which all focus on:
> >
> > Where do our readers come from?
> >
> >
> >
> >   http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j
>
> Going through the countries, another remarkable result in my opinion
> is the Ukraine - Ukrainian is not a small language by any means, yet
> Wikipedia visitors tend to be drawn to the Russian Wikipedia instead.
>
> Also, the Q3-Q4 comparison for most countries shows a shift from
> English to the 'vernacular'. Do you have data on this from a longer
> period of time? That is, is this part of an ongoing shift, or is it a
> seasonal effect (perhaps having to do with Q3 containing the school
> holidays in most countries?
>
> To quantify this, I have taken the 50 largest countries, excluding
> languages where English is the main language (United States, United
> Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, Philippines, Singapore, Ireland,
> New Zealand, South Africa). For all countries I have compared the
> percentage going to the main language Wikipedia and those going to the
> English Wikipedia (in the Ukrainian case: the Russian Wikipedia), and
> also the 'swing' (in the way the term is used in UK politics, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_%28United_Kingdom%29) from English
> to the local language (or in the reverse direction, if it is
> negative). For countries such as Spain and Belgium which have more
> than one local language, the similar data with all local languages are
> also given.
>
> Japan: Japanese 92.2% over English (swing -0.4%)
> Germany: German 72.2% over English (swing 1.5%)
> France: French 67.5% over English (swing 4.1%)
> Poland: Polish 71.5% over English (swing 4.0%)
> Italy: Italian 71.5% over English (swing 4.7%)
> Mexico: Spanish 71.5% over English (swing 3.4%)
> Brazil: Portuguese 67.7% over English (swing 1.1%)
> Spain: Spanish 60.3% over English (swing 7.0%) - vernaculars 64.4%
> over English (swing 8.6%)
> Netherlands: Dutch 10.4% over English (swing 6.6%)
> Russia: Russian 70.2% over English (swing 4.9%)
> Sweden: Swedish 13.8% over English (swing 8.1%)
> Switzerland: German 36.6% over English (swing 2.1%) - vernaculars
> 55.0% over English (swing 2.7%)
> Austria: German 65.1% over English (swing -1.1%)
> Finland: Finnish 24.7% over English (swing 2.2%) - vernaculars 26.8%
> over English (swing 2.8%)
> China: Chinese 4.8% over English (swing -7.3%)
> Turkey: Turkish 48.7% over English (swing 11.7%)
> Belgium: Dutch 9.5% over English (swing 9.2%) - vernaculars 40.1% over
> English (swing 9.6%)
> Argentina: Spanish 66.2% over English (swing 1.2%)
> Norway: Norwegian (Bokmal) 0.9% UNDER English (swing 14.4%) -
> vernaculars 0.1% over English (swing 14.5%)
> Colombia: Spanish 56.3% over English (swing -3.8%)
> Czech Republic: Czech 44.3% over English (swing 10.2%)
> Hong Kong: Chinese equal to English (swing 1.0%) - vernaculars 1.4%
> over English (swing 1.2%)
> Taiwan: Chinese 45.5% over English (swing 3.7%) - vernaculars 45.7%
> over English (swing 3.7%)
> Chile: Spanish 60.6% over English (swing -2.0%)
> Israel: Hebrew 10.9% over English (swing 3.9%) - vernaculars 12.8%
> over English (swing 3.9%)
> Indonesia: Indonesian 10.2% over English (swing 8.5%) - vernaculars
> 11.3% over English (swing 8.4%)
> Portugal: Portuguese 11.9% over English (swing 2.2%)
> South Korea: Korean 2.7% over English (swing 12.8%)
> Malaysia: Malay 74.5% UNDER English (swing -1.0%)
> Peru: Spanish 74.5% over English (swing 2.1%)
> Venezuela: Spanish 77.5% over English (swing 11.1%)
> Ukraine: Ukrainian 56.6% UNDER RUSSIAN (swing 4.4%)
> Romania: Romanian 21.7% UNDER English (swing 12.6%) - vernaculars
> 18.5% UNDER English (swing 13.4%)
> Thailand: Thai 18.9% over English (swing -3.5%)
> Denmark: Danish 12.3% UNDER English (swing 10.7%)
> Hungary: Hungarian 23.8% over English (swing 6.1%)

foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org

[Mark Williamson]

I notice in that list both Belarusian Wikipedias are listed just as
"Belarusian Wikipedia". It would be very informative to know which is which
and to have visitor statistics on both :-)

skype: node.ue


On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 3:39 PM, Erik Zachte wrote:

> Here is a Q&A on all issues raised:
> Q=question/R=Remark, A=answer
>
> I put the more general questions on top.
>
> Cheers, Erik Zachte
>
> --
>
> Q: Nikola Smolenski
> Is it first time these reports are published?
>
> A:
> Yes, expect trend report to grow by accretion over time.
> Other reports will be built from data for recent (6) months only
>
> --
>
> R: Andrew Gray
> Andrew explains why distribution of page requests over countries favors
> Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries:
> 'Some Wikipedias - the ones which insist on only-free-images - do not use
> local uploads at all.'
>
> A:
> Thanks for explaining this unexpected distribution of page views on
> Commons,
> I had no idea.
>
> Spain   30.0%
> USA 29.2%
> Brazil  8.5%
> Argentina   4.8%
> Mexico  3.9%
> Germany 3.3%
> France  2.1%
> Venezuela   1.9%
> Chile   1.4%
> Costa Rica  1.4%
> Italy   1.4%
> Uruguay 1.2%
> Colombia1.2%
> Portugal1.1%
>
> --
>
> R: Mark Williamson
>
> Two main factors influencing choice of Wikipedia language:
> # Fluency of the Internet-using population of a country in English.
> # Quality of the native Wikipedia.
>
> A:
> Like you say. Many Scandinavians (and Dutch people I might add) probably
> switch between English and local content all the time.
> Personally I tend to look at English Wp first I many instances, because of
> obviously richer content and larger depth.
>
> --
>
> Q: Ziko van Dijk
> Why are 40 % of the visitors of ksh.WP (the dialect of Cologne) from Japan.
> Why are 25 % of the visitors of eu.WP (Basque) from Poland?
>
> Q: Andre Engels
> I think bots are a likely explanation in the eu case
> (unless Erik is using an algorithm that filters out bots)
>
> A:
> KSH used to be code for Kashmir. Still not Japan, but much closer than
> Cologne.
> Maybe Japanese mountaineers caused this spike ? (only half kidding)
>
> As for eu.wp: Would Polish presume there also is a European Wikipedia? Just
> a guess.
>
> I do filter bots
>
> --
>
> R: Teun Spaans
> For trends, I would expect a bar indicating upward or downward trend, not a
> percentage bar.
>
> A:
> We can have both, a notion of importance and of change: I might color code
> cells as I do already in e.g. [1]
> This way large fluctuations really stand out. Let's first collect more
> history.
>
> [1] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthly.htm
>
>
> --
>
> Q: Nikola Smolenski
> Could we get this for other projects?
>
> A:
> This question is of course not unexpected.
> One consideration is we need a certain sample size to make numbers
> significant.
> For other projects, with far less traffic, few country/language pairs would
> be backed by sufficient data.
> See also below on extending the current reports with more table rows.
>
> --
>
> Q: Nikola Smolenski:
> Please include at Wikipedia Page Views Per Country - Overview [1] number of
> Internet users from [2], and number of views per Internet user?
>
> [1] http://tinyurl.com/yk43aq6
> [2] http://tinyurl.com/yfv5bwn
>
> A:
> Done
>
> --
>
> R: Nikola Smolenski
> It is obvious why Slovene Wikipedia is highly visited in Sierra Leone, and
> Serbian in Suriname; URLs do matter :)
> Although, I don't understand why so much. I would expect this distribution
> by visitors, perhaps, but not by visits.
>
> A:
> Very interesting observation! So people from Sierra Leone try
> 'sl.wikipedia.org'.
> Why people from Surinam go to 'sr.wikimedia.org' is only slightly less
> obvious to me, but apparently is happens
>
> For countries with just a few hits in the sampled log the distinction
> between visitors and visits gets blurred.
>
> --
>
> R: Andre Engels
> Ukrainian is not a small language by any means, yet Wikipedia visitors tend
> to be drawn to the Russian Wikipedia instead.
>
> A: Yes but article growth in Ukrainian Wikipedia has been speeding up in
> r

foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org

[Mark Williamson]

Sociolinguistic situations around the world are very complex I think. In
especially former European colonies, of which Kenya is but one example, the
language of the former colonial power often has a unique position in
society.

It is not surprising to me that the English Wikipedia is so popular compared
to any other in Kenya, but it is quite a bit more surprising that Korean,
Romanian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Iranian, etc. users prefer the English
Wikipedia.

Mark

On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 2:25 AM, Ziko van Dijk wrote:

> Dear Erik,
>
> Maybe there is a dirty Polish word looked up by many Polish pupils,
> and when they Google it they come to eu.WP because a Basque word
> accidentally is alike? :-)
>
> I am looking now for the interest in the native / the English
> Wikipedia in specific countries. It might be important how localized
> the software in general is. If you live in, say, Kenya, and your
> computer has Windows in English, the Internet Explorer and everything
> is oriented to English, and you google your home town in an English
> language Google, it is probable that you will get the Wikipedia
> article in English and not in Swahili.
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
>
> 2010/1/16 Mark Williamson :
> > I notice in that list both Belarusian Wikipedias are listed just as
> > "Belarusian Wikipedia". It would be very informative to know which is
> which
> > and to have visitor statistics on both :-)
> >
> > skype: node.ue
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 3:39 PM, Erik Zachte  >wrote:
> >
> >> Here is a Q&A on all issues raised:
> >> Q=question/R=Remark, A=answer
> >>
> >> I put the more general questions on top.
> >>
> >> Cheers, Erik Zachte
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Q: Nikola Smolenski
> >> Is it first time these reports are published?
> >>
> >> A:
> >> Yes, expect trend report to grow by accretion over time.
> >> Other reports will be built from data for recent (6) months only
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> R: Andrew Gray
> >> Andrew explains why distribution of page requests over countries favors
> >> Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries:
> >> 'Some Wikipedias - the ones which insist on only-free-images - do not
> use
> >> local uploads at all.'
> >>
> >> A:
> >> Thanks for explaining this unexpected distribution of page views on
> >> Commons,
> >> I had no idea.
> >>
> >> Spain   30.0%
> >> USA 29.2%
> >> Brazil  8.5%
> >> Argentina   4.8%
> >> Mexico  3.9%
> >> Germany 3.3%
> >> France  2.1%
> >> Venezuela   1.9%
> >> Chile   1.4%
> >> Costa Rica  1.4%
> >> Italy   1.4%
> >> Uruguay 1.2%
> >> Colombia1.2%
> >> Portugal1.1%
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> R: Mark Williamson
> >>
> >> Two main factors influencing choice of Wikipedia language:
> >> # Fluency of the Internet-using population of a country in English.
> >> # Quality of the native Wikipedia.
> >>
> >> A:
> >> Like you say. Many Scandinavians (and Dutch people I might add) probably
> >> switch between English and local content all the time.
> >> Personally I tend to look at English Wp first I many instances, because
> of
> >> obviously richer content and larger depth.
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Q: Ziko van Dijk
> >> Why are 40 % of the visitors of ksh.WP (the dialect of Cologne) from
> Japan.
> >> Why are 25 % of the visitors of eu.WP (Basque) from Poland?
> >>
> >> Q: Andre Engels
> >> I think bots are a likely explanation in the eu case
> >> (unless Erik is using an algorithm that filters out bots)
> >>
> >> A:
> >> KSH used to be code for Kashmir. Still not Japan, but much closer than
> >> Cologne.
> >> Maybe Japanese mountaineers caused this spike ? (only half kidding)
> >>
> >> As for eu.wp: Would Polish presume there also is a European Wikipedia?
> Just
> >> a guess.
> >>
> >> I do filter bots
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> R: Teun Spaans
> >> For trends, I would expect a bar indicating upward or downward trend,
> not a
>

[Foundation-l] Fwd: Pt-Portuguese Wikipedia

[Mark Williamson]

skype: node.ue


-- Forwarded message --
From: Manuel Coutinho 
Date: Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 9:28 AM
Subject: Pt-Portuguese Wikipedia
To: node...@gmail.com


Dear Node,

It has come to my attention quite some time ago that the Portuguese version
of wikipedia is being overrun with articles written in Brazilian Portuguese,
some of which I have corrected myself but the problem has, long since grown
out of control.
I'm writting to suggest the creation of a new version of wikipedia in
Portuguese from Portugal, in an attempt to provide Portuguese users with
articles written in their correct version of the dialect.
I don't know why this hasn't been already implemented since the language
options on the control panel when you create a new wikipedia user create
that distinction already.
I hope that you take this under consideration and provide me with the
guidelines to start this project.
I'm sure that i will be able to find supporters that are willing to start
the process of translating already existing articles as well as creating new
ones.

Thank you very much.

Yours trully,

Manuel A. C. Coutinho
Designer de Comunicação
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
InstantDesign* Comunicação e Equipamento
www.instdesign.com

T +351 93 479 90 66
i...@instdesign.com
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Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: Pt-Portuguese Wikipedia

[Mark Williamson]

I think there are two options: Meta and pt.wp itself. My personal opinion is
that it does not need to be bilingual, but that is of course up to you.

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 5:17 PM, Virgilio A. P. Machado wrote:

> Thanks Chad. I know that, but what kind of page (what title)? Where?
> Would it be alright to be bilingual?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Virgilio A. P. Machado
>
>
> At 23:25 23-03-2010, you wrote:
> >It requires you to take initiative to start the page and try to draw
> >others into a discussion. You don't need anyone's permission to do
> >that. Also, I think it was (briefly) glossed over before, but there
> >/is/ the Language Converter code in MediaWiki that could be
> >leveraged to help some here. I don't think it's necessarily a magic
> >bullet, but it's worth exploring. I know nothing in Portuguese, so I
> >don't really grasp how widespread the discrepancies are, but I
> >assume there's rules to describe them. Social solutions are also
> >helpful, like the aforementioned American/British and Cyrillic/Latin
> >issues mentioned earlier in the thread. A combination of social and
> >technical solutions might just help bring some closure to this
> >issue. -Chad ___
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Re: [Foundation-l] deployment of Vector to other languages -

[Mark Williamson]

Speaking of which, I'd like to use this opportunity to re-express my
EXTREME dissatisfaction with the hidden-by-default interwiki links.
This almost defeats the entire purpose of interwikis - that is, to let
people know that the article exists in their language as well. If my
native language is Afrikaans, for example, it's not reasonable for me
to "assume" that every article I view in en.wp is also available in
that language, so it will always be a pleasant surprise to see a link
there. However, if it's not shown by default, I'll probably just miss
it every time. This new "feature" is potentially extremely harmful to
many non-English Wikipedias.

Mark

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Amir E. Aharoni
 wrote:
> I have a few questions about the deployment of Vector in Wikipedias in
> other languages.
>
> 1. When does the Foundation plan to perform the switch?
>
> 2. At least two major features which were not included in the Beta,
> were enabled in the English Wikipedia: the new search box with "Go"
> and "Search" buttons and the collapsible sidebar which hides
> interlanguage links by default. A significant number of users in
> en.wikipedia expressed their dissatisfaction with them and with the
> fact that they were introduced by surprise. They are still not a part
> of the Beta in other languages. Will they be enabled in other
> languages when they are switched to Vector?
>
> 3. Did anyone consider appointing "Vector migration czars" in
> Wikipedias in other languages? Because despite what some people might
> think, quite a lot of speakers of other languages don't bother looking
> at en.wikipedia and WMF blogs and mailing lists. I wrote a little
> about the good (IMHO) and the bad (IMHO) features about Vector in the
> Village Pumps of Wikipedias in languages that i know - Hebrew, Russian
> and Catalan. I can report that there are a couple of JavaScript gurus
> in he.wikipedia who have a positive attitude towards Vector and who
> gradually adapt the gadgets to it, and there are a few other JS gurus
> who hate Vector and who don't want to bother about it and recommend
> everyone to stay with Monobook. (Although my attitude may seem
> negative, i actually belong to the first camp.) The situation is
> similar in the Russian Wikipedia.
>
> 4. Finally, does the Foundation plan to gather any other feedback from
> other language Wikipedias except the "Beta retention rate"?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> --
> אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> Amir Elisha Aharoni
>
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
>
> "We're living in pieces,
>  I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2

[Mark Williamson]

Aryeh, imagine someone links you to an article on physics at
ka.wikipedia. If there were a link that said "English", you'd know
what that meant, but if there's just a button that says "ენები"
(Georgian for "Languages"), how are you going to know to click that
rather than any of the other words on the page that to you probably
appear little more than gibberish? (assuming you don't read Georgian -
if I'm wrong, substitute it for any language that you don't know)

Mark


On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Aryeh Gregor
 wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 6:30 PM, Aryeh Gregor
>  wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 5:51 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
>>> You can attempt a weighted cost comparison:    Num_interwiki_users *
>>> Cost_of_hiding   vs   Everyone_else * Cost_of_clutter.    But even
>>> that will inevitably lead to bad conclusions for some issues because
>>> the costs are usually not linear things:   A tiny benefit to a hundred
>>> million people wouldn't justify making wikipedia very hard to use for
>>> a hundred thousand,  ... because a zillion tiny benefits can often
>>> never really offset a smaller number of big costs.
>>
>> They can't?  Why not?
>
> . . . well, I can expand on this a bit.  Wikipedia's goals can be
> summarized as "Give people access to free knowledge".  This can be
> measured lots of different ways, of course.  But I see no reason why
> they shouldn't all scale more or less linearly in the number of people
> affected.  If we can get an extra piece of useful information to a
> billion people over the course of a year, why isn't that a billion
> times better on average than getting an extra piece of useful
> information to one person, for any definition of "useful"?  If it
> isn't exactly a billion times, why should we believe that it's less
> than a billion (as you seem to suggest) rather than more?
>
> Cost-benefit analyses involving death are the same.  People would like
> to claim that lives and money are incommensurable, say, but that's
> patently false.  No one would advocate spending a trillion dollars to
> save one person's life -- if nothing else, you could save many
> people's lives for the same amount.  Even if your only goal is to save
> lives in the short term, a life is worth *at most* X dollars, because
> you can straightforwardly exchange dollars for lives saved.  In
> practice, X is probably less than 1,000 if you spend it right.
>
> When you deal with everyday situations, then saying "lives and money
> are incommensurable" is a good enough approximation.  It doesn't work
> if you have lots of lives, or lots of money, or ways to exchange lives
> and money that don't come up in everyday situations.
>
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 6:28 PM, Noein  wrote:
>> When you enter your car and drive to your destination, you make hundreds
>> of gestures but use only once the key, at the beginning.
>
> And it would be a mistake to omit the keyhole altogether, or to make
> it hard to find if you look.  But there's no need to make it as
> obtrusive and easy to reach as the steering wheel or the pedals.
> Indeed, you shouldn't, because that would take away attention and
> space from things that are more often used.
>
>> A probable scenario: people reaching wikipedia on a foreign language
>> click just once on the correct language, then may browse hundreds of
>> articles without changing the language again.
>
> Is this probable?  What are people's reasons for using interlanguage
> links?  How many people miss them now that they're collapsed -- among
> the readership as a whole, not the extremely vocal and committed
> editors who read foundation-l and will find them easily anyway?
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2

[Mark Williamson]

That's not good enough. First of all, people who don't speak a
language won't recognize the text "see other languages", or even
"languages". Could you pick the word "ენები" out of a page full of
text in a foreign language and understand that clicking it would lead
you to a link to the English version of an article?

The reason your proposal to use geolocation or browser language is not
good enough is that would still result in reducing the visibility of
many, many Wikipedias. I think there are many users who would prefer
to read articles in Catalan whose default browser language is set to
ES, and geolocation will probably not solve that problem either.

I think it is a mistake to hide ANY interwikis. "clutter" is not a
huge sacrifice for people to make to vastly increase INTERNATIONAL
usability.

M.

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Howie Fung  wrote:
> Per Erik M.'s previous post, we're working on a compromise solution
> whereby we show a list based on user's most likely language(s), probably
> based on browser, and then a "see other languages" link which would
> expand to give all the other langauages.  We're also looking at changing
> the word "Languages" into something that's more descriptive of what the
> links actually do.
>
> I've created the following page for more discussion/proposals on the topic:
>
> http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Opinion:_Language_Links
>
> Howie
>
> On 6/3/10 4:41 PM, David Goodman wrote:
>> It would be nice to actually have a place at the usability wiki to
>> discuss this.
>>
>> My own view is that the actual list of languages was the ideal
>> interface object in   fulfilling many purposes (as discussed in the
>> posts above) and implying multiple levels of understanding without the
>> need for explanation or discussion. For example, that it   varied
>> authomatically from article to article   showed the overall level of
>> progress on the multiple projects.
>>
>> In showing Wikipedia to new users this list was always noticed and
>> proved a very expressive statement.
>>
>> The attitude shown by Trevor's reply speaks for itself in terms of the
>> relationship between the "internal" experts and  the community. I
>> think that it was his wording that induced me to finally post on the
>> issue.
>>
>>
>>> I fixed it (it's a one-line change), but Trevor reverted it:
>>>
 This goes against an intentional design
 decision. To discuss that decision further and submit proposals to change 
 this
 design please contact Howie Fung  or visit
 http://usability.wikimedia.org

>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2

[Mark Williamson]

> Or you could simply restore the one-line code modification that
> provided the default behavior requested by the community (pending
> evidence that an alternative setup is beneficial).

Seconded. Just bring them back already. This is an imaginary problem
you've come up with here. The community is pretty much literally
begging for their return and I think we've offered a lot of very good
arguments. Is this going to be the day that Wikipedia jumped the shark
and users' opinions stopped counting? Please don't let it be.

M.

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Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a BadIdea, part 2

[Mark Williamson]

+1. I must admit I have been a bit surprised/shocked/irritated by the
tone of the comments from some of those involved with the usability
initiative. I always thought that Wikimedia valued community
decision-making, but now I'm being told that my "feedback" is greatly
appreciated and will be taken into consideration. That kind of
attitude is what I was referring to earlier in this thread when I
wondered to myself if Wikipedia had "jumped the shark"[1]. I am
convinced that the unique organizational structure of our
organization, in which the community has historically been given a
very high level of authority in the decision-making process, is one of
the key elements of our success. Are we going to let that go over the
issue of UI usability? Have we entered a new chapter in our history as
a community in which we, the people who have helped build this
project, no longer get to help make the important decisions by
contributing our ideas and venting our frustrations? Let me be the
first to say that I am extraordinarily saddened at this thought.

-m.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark


On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 3:37 PM, David Levy  wrote:
>> Sue Gardner wrote:
>>> Feedback is great, but it irritates me when people start using words
>>> like "stupid" -- that's what I was responding to.
>>
>> Perhaps you misread the context.  Austin wrote the word "stupid" as a
>> hypothetical example of nonconstructive commentary that should be
>> avoided.  No one has hurled an insult.
>
> Moreover "feedback" can itself be perceived as an insult.
>
> Imagine that someone cleaning your office took your important
> paperwork and dumped it in a bin.  You complain— "Hey we need that
> stuff to be accessible!" and they retort  "Thank you for your
> _feedback_. We'll consider it during our future cleaning plans".
>
> We're not just providing feedback here. We're collectively making a
> decision, as we've always done, thank you very much.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2

[Mark Williamson]

> "change it back if people complain loudly".  It means someone who
> happens to be in charge of making the decision needs to make a
> judgment call, based on all the evidence they have available.

Aryeh, I was under the (apparently mistaken?) impression that at
Wikipedia, the community makes the decisions, something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mexico.Chis.EZLN.01.jpg

I have seen a chorus of voices against this change, many have
presented good, coherent arguments (despite your claim to the
contrary). The community has spoken and continues speaking.

m.

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Re: [Foundation-l] hiding interlanguage links by default is a Bad Idea, part 2

[Mark Williamson]

One major problem I have with this entire initiative, at least as I
understand it, is that data was only collected from en.wp and mostly
from native English speakers. Wikipedia is not monolingual, although
many of our users are... and it's important to remember that many of
these people are monolingual in languages other than English. Without
further study, we have no way of knowing how many of the conclusions
we may have drawn from the data will still hold true for
non-English-speaking audiences.

I had hoped that the internationalism of our organization would grow,
rather than any sort of increasing centralization and the treatment of
en.wp as a "flagship" project, the capital of the Wikimedia empire. It
is not.

-m.


On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 12:15 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Eugene Eric Kim  wrote:
>> On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 1:00 PM, Gregory Maxwell  wrote:
>>> On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 2:03 PM,   wrote:
 Sorry for top-posting.

 Austin, think about who "everyone" is.  The folks here on foundation-l are 
 not representative of readers.  The job of the user experience team is to 
 try to balance all readers' needs, which is not easy, and will sometimes 
 involve making decisions that not everyone agrees with. People here have 
 given some useful input, but I think it's far from obvious that the user 
 experience team has made a "mistake.". (I'm not really intending to weigh 
 in on this particular issue -- I'm speaking generally.)
>>>
>>> Sue, you appear to be making the assumption that the folks here are
>>> writing from a position of their personal preferences while the
>>> usability team is working on the behalf of the best interests of the
>>> project.
>>>
>>> I don't believe this comparison to be accurate.
>>
>> I agree that this comparison is inaccurate, but I disagree that this
>> was Sue's assumption. All she said was that vocal outcry on a mailing
>> list should not be construed as community consensus. I hope that no
>> one disagrees with this.
>
> "All she said", no. She didn't state that. You're putting words in her mouth.
>
> Perhaps I'm guilty of the same crime. But What Sue said was
>
> "The folks here on foundation-l are not representative of readers.
> The job of the user experience team is to try to balance all readers'
> needs, which is not easy, and will sometimes involve making decisions
> that not everyone agrees with."
>
> I read that as contrasting the purposes of the UX team and the people
> commenting here.  I am unable to determine any other reason for
> bringing these two statements together except for the purpose of
> drawing the comparison I suggested was being made, even with your
> proposed alternative.
>
> We all communicate unclearly at times, — and I am more than willing to
> accept that I saw a comparison there which was not intended.
>
> In the interest of good communication I hope that you will take the
> time to consider how I could have come to the understanding that I
> did.   I'm sure many other people on this list had the same
> understanding.
>
> What we have here is a nearly unanimous response with respect to the
> disposition of the interwiki links. If you'd like me to bring this to
> the larger community I can do so but my understanding was that the
> normal community process was already quashed with respect to this
> change.
>
> While no single forum is indicative of a consensus of the entire
> community, the broadness of the response here is a strong indicator.
>
>
> [snip]
>> The bad thing is the us versus them tone in this and other messages.
>> There is a larger question about ownership and decision-making that is
>> subtle and hard, and we need to continue to work these out. Since I'm
>> going to put myself in the vocal minority and disagree with most of
>> the points in this message, I'll start with what I agree with. :-)
>
> I don't believe that there is anything particularly subtle here.  We
> have many community processes in which foundation staff are welcome to
> contribute to as peers with a common interest.
>
> When you fail to do so you have created the "us" vs "them" by your own 
> actions.
>
> Rather then trying to draw "us" vs "them" lines in the sand, I am in
> fact pleading that the foundation discontinue doing so.
>
> In order to do that I must first acknowledge the division which I
> believe has already formed. [more on this later]
>
>>> I think the people here are speaking up for the sake of the readers,
>>> and for the sake of preserving the best of the existing design
>>> principles used on the site.  I know I am.
>>
>> Absolutely. Assume good faith. I know you and many others feel the
>> same way about the UX team
>
> Absolutely.
>
> I would suggest that the broader community (and not necessarily the
> participants here) has greater experience than the usability team, and
> even the portion of the community represented here has a more diverse
> composition than the UX t

Re: [Foundation-l] Creating articles in small wikipedias based on user requirement

[Mark Williamson]

+1. This would be a SUPER useful tool for all Wikis.
-m.

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 3:54 AM, Shiju Alex  wrote:
> Recently I had a discussion with one of my fellow Malayalam wikipedian (
> http://ml.wikipedia.org) about the creation of new articles in small
> wikipedias like ours. He is one the few users who is keen on creating new
> articles *based on the requirement of our readers*. (Of course we have many
> people who only reads our wiki)
>
> During discussion he raised this interesting point:
>
> Some feature is required in the MediaWiki software that enable us to see a
> list of keywords used most frequently by the users to search for non-exist
> articles. If we get such a list then some users like him can concentrate on
> creating articles using that key words.
>
> Of course, I know that this feature may not be helpful for big wikis like
> English. But for small wikis (especially small non-Latin language wikis),
> this will be of great help. It is almost like* creating wiki articles based
> on user requirement*.
>
>
> I would like to know your opinion regarding the same.
>
>
> Shiju
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Re: [Foundation-l] Creating articles in small wikipedias based on user requirement

[Mark Williamson]

Shiju, just FYI, tool kit can be used by anyone for translation. In
fact, it's good to use because (if you choose the option) it will go
toward improving future machine translation capability for your
language, thus expanding possibilities for monolingual speakers of
your language. In addition, "machine aided translation", in which an
article is translated by machine and then corrections are made, can be
a much speedier yet still accurate way to create articles.

-m.


On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 7:15 PM, Shiju Alex  wrote:
> This topic came up while we were discussing about Google's translation
> effort. Google/Google employees are using Google tool kit to translate
> English Wikipedia articles to many of the Indic language Wikipedias.
>
>
> We are definitely more interested if Google translates these user required
> articles than translating  the English wiki articles about all the american
> pop stars (For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Gaga). Now the
> issue is, we don't have such list to give to Google/Google employees.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 5:56 AM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>
>> +1. This would be a SUPER useful tool for all Wikis.
>> -m.
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 3:54 AM, Shiju Alex 
>> wrote:
>> > Recently I had a discussion with one of my fellow Malayalam wikipedian (
>> > http://ml.wikipedia.org) about the creation of new articles in small
>> > wikipedias like ours. He is one the few users who is keen on creating new
>> > articles *based on the requirement of our readers*. (Of course we have
>> many
>> > people who only reads our wiki)
>> >
>> > During discussion he raised this interesting point:
>> >
>> > Some feature is required in the MediaWiki software that enable us to see
>> a
>> > list of keywords used most frequently by the users to search for
>> non-exist
>> > articles. If we get such a list then some users like him can concentrate
>> on
>> > creating articles using that key words.
>> >
>> > Of course, I know that this feature may not be helpful for big wikis like
>> > English. But for small wikis (especially small non-Latin language wikis),
>> > this will be of great help. It is almost like* creating wiki articles
>> based
>> > on user requirement*.
>> >
>> >
>> > I would like to know your opinion regarding the same.
>> >
>> >
>> > Shiju
>> > ___
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Re: [Foundation-l] Top posting

[Mark Williamson]

I'm very disappointed that this discussion has continued at the
expense of one that I find to be much more important to our projects.
Can all of us go back over there and stop talking about this? Kthx.

m.


On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Domas Mituzas  wrote:
> kthx
>
> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 12:44 PM, Gerard Meijssen
>  wrote:
>> Hoi,
>> An important thread has been derailed by an off topic comment. For your
>> information, and for the somanyth time, top posting comes easy when you use
>> a modern tool like GMAIL. It automatically hides whatever came before. This
>> whole notion has no relevance to me as a consequence.  I get hundreds of
>> mails and the notion that one should be answered differently then others is
>> not easy to consider. I answer to the content to a mail and that is not
>> related to who will receive it.
>>
>> Given that for people who use software that is not as helpful as mine, the
>> experience rates as a nuisance as I appreciate it. It is similar to the use
>> of words or acronyms that are likely not to be understood. For me KTHX is
>> one such, the top rated result makes it a radio station and it took me some
>> time to find that it is likely to mean "Ok, thanks".  The point is not that
>> such words or acronyms should not be used, it is just to indicate that
>> nuisances come in many forms and are a fact of life.
>> Thanks,
>>        GerardM
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Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again

[Mark Williamson]

In addition, I have a feeling that article overstates the English
abilities of the average non-native internet user. Yes, lots of people
have a very (very!) basic command of English, but that is not the same
as functional bilingualism. A user may happen to know the name for a
horse, but what are the chances a casual user from Peru knows the name
for an anteater, a giraffe or a jellyfish?


On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Aphaia  wrote:
> I know a horse, but yesterday it took for me five minutes to remember
> sparrows were the bird's name I would have liked to mention. .
>
> It helps to make this discussion helpful to some extent that native
> English speakers remind it is sometimes not so easy as you the native
> expect foreign learners. It's no sarcasm at all. Really.
>
> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 6:32 PM, Anthony  wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Gerard Meijssen
>> wrote:
>>
>>> When you think that Commons is bad in supporting other languages, try to
>>> find pictures of a horse on the internet in other languages like Estonian,
>>> Nepalese ... It is not the same at all as when you are looking for images
>>> in
>>> English.
>>
>>
>> Don't most Internet users know enough English to be able to search for
>> "pictures of a horse" in English?
>>
>> (According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage),
>> yes...  "Most Internet users speak the English language as a native or
>> secondary language.")
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>
>
>
> --
> KIZU Naoko
> http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
> Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] English language dominationism is striking again

[Mark Williamson]

>> If we consider
>> that current English native speakers mostly already have internet and those
>> without internet are likelier than not to be non-English speakers I would
>> be
>> careful to advocate the unilateral use of English.
>
>
> As would I, though I don't think you mean what you said.

Why not? To me, it means that we're widening the digital divide by
making it so that people who don't have the internet would have little
use for it anyways if it's all written in a language they don't
understand.

m.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"

[Mark Williamson]

Miloš,

I am inclined to agree with you. As someone who is not so far removed
from his own adolescence, I can attest that I've always found
"Children's writing" to be incredibly condescending and even
demeaning. Perhaps I was not a typical child, but ever since about 7
years of age I really hated those books that talked down to children
as if we were dumb. I have heard (and I am not an expert) from many
people the idea that you will get what you give, meaning that if you
treat an adolescent as if they were a criminal, they will often become
a criminal; it seems to me that if we treat children as dumber
versions of adult human beings, they will grow up to be just that.
(again, I'm not an expert)

-m.


On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Milos Rancic  wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Ziko van Dijk  
> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Recently there has been a controversy on Wikipedia in German about
>> extra articles in simple language. Authors of its medical group wanted
>> to create sub pages suitable for children, believing in an urgent
>> need. [1]
>>
>> In the discussion, the question of creating a Wikipedia in simple
>> German came up.
>>
>> As we know, to-day Wikimedia language committee policies prohibit a
>> new Wikipedia in a language that already has a Wikipedia. The
>> existence of a Wikipedia in simple English refers to the fact that it
>> had been created before that policy of 2006.
>>
>> There are a number of ideas and initiatives to create online
>> encyclopedias in "simple language", in and outside the Wikimedia
>> world. Wouldn't it be suitable to reconsider and try to give those
>> initiatives a place? Who else is more capable to create and support
>> such encyclopedias than we are?
>
> Wait!
>
> Writing dumb articles because of thinking that children are dumb is
> dumb. And not just dumb, but deeply ageist and discriminatory.
>
> Considering, for example, Piaget's [1] theory, timeline of cognitive
> development is:
> * The earliest usual learning of writing is around 5.
> * At around 8 children are able to read without problems.
> * At around 10 children cognitive system is almost the same as adult.
> * Between 13 and 15, depending on climate, life conditions and
> culture, and not counting extremes, cognitively there are no children
> anymore, there are young adults. Cognitively, the only difference
> between them and 10-20 years older humans is in experience and
> knowledge.
>
> That means that the target for writing "simple" Wikipedia is for
> children between 8 and 10.
>
> So, I would like to see scientific background *before* mentioning
> "simple" or "junior" or whatever project: For which age should be,
> let's say, Junior Wikipedia? For all minors? For primary school
> minors? One article for those old 7 and 15 years? Considering Simple
> English Wikipedia, this is purely pseudoscientific attempt. Wishful
> thinking of creating family friendly project with dumb language.
>
> But, I am not trying to say that WikiMedia Junior won't be useful.
> Yes, it will be very useful if it would be driven well. However, I am
> deeply skeptical about crowd sourcing of such thing. It will finish as
> Simple Wikipedia, which main purpose is having fun by reading random
> articles on parties -- at the best. At the worst, it will finish like
> Conservapedia with dumb language. Actually, with many dumb languages.
>
> If we really want to go this way, the only relevant approach is by
> finding relevant pedagogues who would lead child contributors. Such
> project has to be very well structured, with year or two of relevant
> work before going online. However, I see this as very unrealistic at
> this moment.
>
> [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"

[Mark Williamson]

I would like to add:

The internal links used on our projects help avoid many of the
problems of not understanding something. As a 13 year old reader of
Wikipedia some seven years ago, if I did not understand something, I
could always click on the link to a page that would explain it to me.
If I were reading the article on [[Earth]] that Ting's quoted and did
not understand what "terrestrial planet" meant... well, there's a link
right there to help me out. Again, young != stupid.

-m.

On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 3:26 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
> Miloš,
>
> I am inclined to agree with you. As someone who is not so far removed
> from his own adolescence, I can attest that I've always found
> "Children's writing" to be incredibly condescending and even
> demeaning. Perhaps I was not a typical child, but ever since about 7
> years of age I really hated those books that talked down to children
> as if we were dumb. I have heard (and I am not an expert) from many
> people the idea that you will get what you give, meaning that if you
> treat an adolescent as if they were a criminal, they will often become
> a criminal; it seems to me that if we treat children as dumber
> versions of adult human beings, they will grow up to be just that.
> (again, I'm not an expert)
>
> -m.
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Milos Rancic  wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Ziko van Dijk  
>> wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> Recently there has been a controversy on Wikipedia in German about
>>> extra articles in simple language. Authors of its medical group wanted
>>> to create sub pages suitable for children, believing in an urgent
>>> need. [1]
>>>
>>> In the discussion, the question of creating a Wikipedia in simple
>>> German came up.
>>>
>>> As we know, to-day Wikimedia language committee policies prohibit a
>>> new Wikipedia in a language that already has a Wikipedia. The
>>> existence of a Wikipedia in simple English refers to the fact that it
>>> had been created before that policy of 2006.
>>>
>>> There are a number of ideas and initiatives to create online
>>> encyclopedias in "simple language", in and outside the Wikimedia
>>> world. Wouldn't it be suitable to reconsider and try to give those
>>> initiatives a place? Who else is more capable to create and support
>>> such encyclopedias than we are?
>>
>> Wait!
>>
>> Writing dumb articles because of thinking that children are dumb is
>> dumb. And not just dumb, but deeply ageist and discriminatory.
>>
>> Considering, for example, Piaget's [1] theory, timeline of cognitive
>> development is:
>> * The earliest usual learning of writing is around 5.
>> * At around 8 children are able to read without problems.
>> * At around 10 children cognitive system is almost the same as adult.
>> * Between 13 and 15, depending on climate, life conditions and
>> culture, and not counting extremes, cognitively there are no children
>> anymore, there are young adults. Cognitively, the only difference
>> between them and 10-20 years older humans is in experience and
>> knowledge.
>>
>> That means that the target for writing "simple" Wikipedia is for
>> children between 8 and 10.
>>
>> So, I would like to see scientific background *before* mentioning
>> "simple" or "junior" or whatever project: For which age should be,
>> let's say, Junior Wikipedia? For all minors? For primary school
>> minors? One article for those old 7 and 15 years? Considering Simple
>> English Wikipedia, this is purely pseudoscientific attempt. Wishful
>> thinking of creating family friendly project with dumb language.
>>
>> But, I am not trying to say that WikiMedia Junior won't be useful.
>> Yes, it will be very useful if it would be driven well. However, I am
>> deeply skeptical about crowd sourcing of such thing. It will finish as
>> Simple Wikipedia, which main purpose is having fun by reading random
>> articles on parties -- at the best. At the worst, it will finish like
>> Conservapedia with dumb language. Actually, with many dumb languages.
>>
>> If we really want to go this way, the only relevant approach is by
>> finding relevant pedagogues who would lead child contributors. Such
>> project has to be very well structured, with year or two of relevant
>> work before going online. However, I see this as very unrealistic at
>> this moment.
>>
>> [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"

[Mark Williamson]

Birgitte, what I am discussing is whether or no t I see any merit in
this idea at all. Thanks.


On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 5:25 PM, Birgitte SB  wrote:
>
>
> --- On Thu, 6/24/10, Milos Rancic  wrote:
>
>> From: Milos Rancic 
>> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language - one 
>> Wikipedia"
>> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" 
>> Date: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 6:06 PM
>> On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 12:26 AM,
>> Mark Williamson 
>> wrote:
>> > as if we were dumb. I have heard (and I am not an
>> expert) from many
>> > people the idea that you will get what you give,
>> meaning that if you
>> > treat an adolescent as if they were a criminal, they
>> will often become
>> > a criminal; it seems to me that if we treat children
>> as dumber
>> > versions of adult human beings, they will grow up to
>> be just that.
>> > (again, I'm not an expert)
>>
>> A kind of virtuous circle and vicious circle. Dumb adults
>> are creating
>> dumb articles because they think that their children are
>> dumb, which
>> in turn transforms children into dumb adults ;)
>
>
> I think you all are getting rather sidetracked over the details of content of 
> some proposed project that I do not believe you are actually interested in 
> joining.  Surely any detailed decisions as exactly how to approach writing 
> medical articles for children would be an internal conclusion. The real issue 
> here is what merits the creation of a new wiki versus some specific project 
> being setup as subset of an existing wiki.
>
> I have come the conclusion the biggest factor leading to success of a new 
> wiki is a large enough community with a strong sense of a separate mission.  
> If all you have is a small group of hard core content editors you will be 
> more successful as subset of an existing wiki, if one is so kind enough to 
> make room for you.  One thing that happens in a small wiki is all the happy 
> energy which was geared towards the content must be siphoned off into 
> seemingly endless administration tasks. It takes a while for the community to 
> grow enough to overcome that deficit.  I would not recommend anyone to be in 
> a hurry to make their own new space.  The longer you can use an existing wiki 
> to experiment with the your project the stronger you can grow your community, 
> and maybe you can find a way to permanently fit within the existing scope 
> while meeting the needs of your specific mission.  If you can it do that it 
> will greatly improve your ability to work on content. I would
>  advise this group that as exciting as having their own Wikipedia must sound, 
> they might be more successful as a project within de.WP or de.WB And even if 
> they are dead-set on an independent wiki, they will benefit from starting 
> within an existing structure to grow a good sized proof of concept.
>
> Birgitte SB
>
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"

[Mark Williamson]

Phoebe, in my humble opinion, this project is a bit different. I think
when we are talking about child development and creating a project for
children, there's no room to screw around or create some amateurish
product. This is something that, if done wrong, could potentially have
a bigger negative impact than if, say, we'd screwed up on Wikinews.

-m.


On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, phoebe ayers  wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 3:37 AM, Milos Rancic  wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 1:51 AM, Samuel Klein  wrote:
>>> Yes.  We should definitely lay the groundwork well, as Ziko says.  But
>>> there are good projects underway today and doing this, in spanish,
>>> french, and dutch.  Some of the organizers of those projects have
>>> contributed to the Wikikids proposal on meta.  We can start by
>>> directing energies there, finding out what Vikidia has learned running
>>> projects in French and Spanish, what their standards for
>>> project-creation are, and how we can help them.
>>
>> If we want to go this way, our task will be complex. I don't think
>> that we should be afraid of it, but I think that the most of
>> participants are underestimating its complexity.
>>
>> There are a number of important questions to be answered before start
>> of such project:
>> * Do we have a consistent pedagogical platform for creating such project?
>> * How can we be sure that we will have enough relevant pedagogues per
>> project? Would we pay them? Or would we create projects with other
>> organizations to have them payed?
>> * Who will be the main editors of the project? Children of any age? Or
>> parents? If parents, I am deeply concerned which social and
>> ideological groups we would attract.
>> * Is it possible to have such Wikipedia-like project, where
>> communities are doing self-regulation? My assumption, based on 6.5
>> years of Wikimedian work, is that it is not possible. (To be more
>> precise: Project per se could be successful in gathering editors, but
>> it will end as Simple English Wikipedia or as Conservapedia.)
>> * Would it be better to find volunteers or hire someone to create a
>> project similar to the printed edition of German Wikipedia? First to
>> create "illustrated Wikipedia for children", then to create Wikipedias
>> for every age of cognitive development.
>> * Do we have any clue how crowd sourcing will work with ages between 8
>> and 15? Even though it would be regulated by pedagogues.
>> * How group dynamics would look like inside of the project with 8
>> years old and 15 years old?
>> * How many pedagogues are able to drive this kind of project? In our
>> civilization, pedagogues are product of Industrial Age education and
>> they are doing Industrial Age teaching, which is in collision with
>> open culture. I think that the right time for relatively open, mass
>> collaboration project will be when those born in 1995, generation
>> grown up on Wikipedia and open culture, become pedagogues. Around
>> 2020. (I am not saying that there are no pedagogues able to do this.
>> However, we don't need a couple of pedagogues, we need strong
>> pedagogical basis to have possibility to create such kind of project.)
>> * etc.
>>
>> We are all amateurs in cognitive development. My two exams in this
>> field makes me an expert on this list. And we don't need just
>> professionals, but extraordinary professionals. And those
>> professionals have to be introduced well in Wikimedia culture.
>>
>>> But the teachers there also asked for a simpler-language project in
>>> Spanish, and a simple project in English to help students with
>>> language learning.
>>
>> In Serbian we say "you are mixing grandmothers and frogs" :)
>>
>> I would add one more important implementation of simple-like project:
>> Controlled language [1] project. It would allow much easier
>> translation between languages.
>>
>> But, those are three different implementations. We would need
>> "Wikimedia for children", "Wikimedia for learning languages" and
>> "Wikimedia for machine translation".
>
> Milos, I think these are all good and valuable questions to ask; any
> new project should be put through such rigorous analysis, especially
> if it is to succeed. As Birgette says, it's hard to build a wiki and
> harder still to build a successful one.
>
> But, to be fair, do we ask such questions of our other projects? I do
> not recall being asked if I was a trained encyclopedia writer or a
> trained journalist when I joined Wikimedia :) Perhaps we should ask
> these kinds of hard questions of a new project, but also realize that
> we may not be able to predict all of the answers ahead of time.
>
> All of our projects have taken as their primary model some standard
> type of work: the encyclopedia, the book of quotations, the dictionary
> -- and then we have gone above and beyond any previous example of the
> genre with each of our projects, through our technological and social
> abilities. There is, similarly, lots of precedent in the world

Re: [Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"

[Mark Williamson]

The difference was that Wikipedia was not made for young people.

If I run a social group for adults and there are issues with children
who visit, I can blame it on their parents and say they should control
them better. If I run a social group for children, I'm now a childcare
provider and have a greater degree of responsibility.

My point is that it should either be done very carefully, by experts
(or at least with their help) and with careful research, or not at
all. I'm not for doing this only halfway.

-m.


On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 4:40 PM, phoebe ayers  wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>> Phoebe, in my humble opinion, this project is a bit different. I think
>> when we are talking about child development and creating a project for
>> children, there's no room to screw around or create some amateurish
>> product. This is something that, if done wrong, could potentially have
>> a bigger negative impact than if, say, we'd screwed up on Wikinews.
>>
>> -m.
>
> Wait, weren't you the one arguing just upthread that wikipedia was
> just fine and dandy for you as an adolescent? Not just wikipedia, but
> wikipedia of 7 years ago, which was far less complete and stable --
> far more amateurish -- than it is today.
>
> I see your argument, but I don't buy it -- lots of kids are
> autodidacts just the same as many adults, and lots of stuff designed
> for kids is crap (including "professional teaching materials"). I
> don't necessarily know that we could do better, but I don't see why
> it's not worth a shot. Are you concerned about controversial material?
> Does your concern go away if the project isn't framed for kids, but
> rather as a simple language version (simple english, german, etc)?
>
> -- phoebe
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] three-letter language codes

[Mark Williamson]

Amir,

I think this is a good idea. For the sake of consistency, we should
choose a single standard to follow rather than a hodge-podge of newer
standards, older (although still valid) standards, and ad hoc codes we
made up on the spot (als, nrm) and custom codes (bat-smg, roa-tara,
roa-rup, fiu-vro, map-bms, be-x-old). It also seems potentially
confusing to me that we have codes that overlap, for example na.wp and
nap.wp, ro.wp and roa-rup.wp, etc.

-m.


On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 1:30 AM, Amir E. Aharoni
 wrote:
> Did anyone ever consider completely migrating WMF projects to
> three-letter language codes? Currently two-letter ISO 639-1 code are
> used whenever possible and three-letter ISO 639-2 or ISO 639-3 codes
> are used when a two-letter code is not available.
>
> Among the three-letter codes currently having Wikipedias are Sicilian
> (scn), Kashubian (csb), Nahuatl (nah), Udmurt (udm) and Mari (mhr).
>
> Using three-letter codes for all languages seems to me like a more
> egalitarian approach.
>
> Two-letter URL's must, of course, be kept as redirects.
>
> Can anyone think about any problems with this?
>
> --
> אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> Amir Elisha Aharoni
>
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
>
> "We're living in pieces,
>  I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Self-determination of language versions in questions of skin?

[Mark Williamson]

Gerard,

I'm not sure such a condescending tone helps anybody. Also, I'm not
sure you've understood the intent of Martin's post. I'm under the
impression he'd only like to put off implementation of Vector in his
community until some problems get worked out, not permanently.
Besides, I think the question here is more fundamental than that.

-m.


On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 12:55 AM, Gerard Meijssen
 wrote:
> Hoi,
> Please read what Tim wrote; he suggested for you to take time and not decide
> in a hurry to move away from vector. Effort will be concentrated on further
> development of vector and support for other skins will consequently be an
> afterthought. Expensive at that.
>
> When you choose to stick to monobook you will have more bugs and issues in
> the long run. As Roan indicated, some new features will just work some
> won't.
> Thanks,
>       GerardM
>
> On 30 June 2010 09:42, Martin Maurer  wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Tim Starling 
>> wrote:
>> > Editor communities do not have any fundamental rights to choose how
>> > MediaWiki is configured. However, the Foundation's goals are closely
>> > aligned with those of the communities, and the Foundation respects the
>> > central role communities play in the success of the projects, and so
>> > the Foundation has usually honoured such configuration requests.
>> >
>> > In this case, I would recommend a process of negotiation. Detail your
>> > concerns in Bugzilla, and give the developers time to respond to them.
>> > A premature vote on the issue would make compromise difficult. The
>> > Foundation has spent a lot of time and money on the Vector skin, and
>> > it would be a pity to see it thrown away.
>> >
>> > -- Tim Starling
>>
>> Thanks for your reply, Tim. No worries, in no case would Vector be
>> 'thrown away'. We are happy that Wikipedia offers not just one skin,
>> the default, but multiple skins, and Vector is certainly appreciated
>> as a new option in the list. Variety and choice in the look and feel
>> of the user interface is one of our great assets. I trust the
>> Foundation sees that the same way. We allow individual users to select
>> and customize their skin, and it might be in the same spirit to allow
>> individual wikis to choose and customize their default skin.
>>
>> Everyone is aware that a lot of time and money has gone into the
>> development of Vector. But none of that would be lost because a) there
>> are many Wikimedia projects in many language versions and Vector seems
>> to enjoy good support elsewhere (correct me if I'm wrong), b) Vector
>> remains a selectable skin in the preferences and many users use it
>> even when it's not the default skin. And surely we will get enough
>> feedback from all over the world to fix reported issues with Vector
>> even when single wiki communities reverted to (or decided to continue
>> to use) Monobook as the default skin for unregistered and newly
>> registered users. And at any time (say in a few months) it would be
>> easy to poll the community again to see which skin they prefer as
>> default now.
>>
>> In no scenario would it mean an end to Vector. It might even help
>> Vector being improved more quickly and extensively than it otherwise
>> would. And it would make a good impression if the Foundation granted
>> communities that choice, I think.
>>
>> Martin
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] [free A113 poon][click hear!][SPAM!]

[Mark Williamson]

I agree... or your think to ideas.
skype: node.ue



2010/7/5 MZMcBride :
> 基建吉 wrote:
>> ΣXD＜Nice idea for disscuss saved.And user block framing Jadge.
>> '''[NEW!!]The rule of seven elevens.'''(or eleven seven)
>> Discuttion to seven article writed one disscuss.
>> One day to max 11 disscuss.(one disscuss to communication or write)
>> (USER block and framed block)
>> And UDER BLOCK vote user blocked to 22hour One suggestion,Apear to 22hour.
>> Do it later.Or your think to Ideas.
>>
>> MOTOI Kenkichi
>
> I think this is the most insightful post to foundation-l in about three
> years.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Boycott in a...@wiki

[Mark Williamson]

Andre, I personally don't have a problem with the mere existence of
the template. I have a huge problem with it appearing at the top of
the mainpage of a Wikipedia.

-m
skype: node.ue



On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 11:17 AM, Andre Engels  wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 8:14 PM, David Gerard  wrote:
>
>> That there is ambiguity at the edges does not disprove NPOV. Day fades
>> into night, but they're different things. This template is blatant
>> advocacy to violate NPOV, and indeed to do so across all Wikimedia
>> sites. They had it up on the main page, too.
>
> So? Apparently the fact that there exists some  template that is not
> NPOV means that we should  be forcing our morals on others and not
> give them any leniency?
>
>> It's reasonably clear that there is a deep and serious discussion very
>> much needed regarding neutral point of view on ace:wp.
>
> And because there is a problem with neutral point of view somewhere we
> should forbid everyone to make a choice for their own?
>
> --
> André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Boycott in a...@wiki

[Mark Williamson]

Because I felt like it? I understand this may be a disturbing issue
for some, but that seemed unnecessarily hostile.

-m

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Andre Engels  wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 11:14 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>> Andre, I personally don't have a problem with the mere existence of
>> the template. I have a huge problem with it appearing at the top of
>> the mainpage of a Wikipedia.
>
> And the reason for telling this to me is what?
>
>
> --
> André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Boycott in a...@wiki

[Mark Williamson]

+1. While I think there are many good arguments against inclusion of
images of Muhammad in Wikipedia, the "false" or "unreliable" does not
seem to be such an argument. We have plenty of images of Jesus and
lots of other famous people of whom we have no photographic or
_primary_ artistic sources...

Also, what's with the venom in some of the posts here?

-m.


On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 10:18 PM, John Vandenberg  wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Fred Bauder  wrote:
>>...
>>
>> That's the issue. Displaying offensive religious images is a big problem,
>> not a tiny little problem that can be brushed under the rug. You're doing
>> something that outrages millions of people and saying, "Hey, tough". And
>> you don't possess, and will never possess, an authentic image of
>> Muhammad.
>
> Are our images of Muhammad any less authentic than our images of St.
> Paul, Jesus or Krishna?
>
> --
> John Vandenberg
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Boycott in a...@wiki

[Mark Williamson]

I was raised areligious and I see a clear difference there. On the one
hand, you're talking about portraying a religious figure on a sex toy;
on the other hand you're just talking about portraying a religious
figure. Just on the grounds of being offensive, I don't think either
should be excluded from WP (we have a page about and an image of Piss
Christ and I'd not be against things far more offensive than that, so
long as they serve an illustrative purpose and their inclusion can be
justified). However, while I think it's perfectly reasonable to
include later depictions (many, though not all, of them from _within_
that particular religious tradition itself in the case of Muhammad) in
the main article on the religious figure, I don't think it's
reasonable to include the buttplugs. I'd have no problem with them
going in the article [[Baby Jesus Buttplugs]], but I can't see how
they can be considered to be more notable than the hundreds of far
more famous depictions of that particular individual. Similarly, I
wouldn't support the inclusion of many of the more recent images of
Muhammad - such as some of the more controversial ones from
Jyllands-Posten - because rather than simply depicting the individual,
they go far beyond that. Many people around the world are offended
(including for religious reasons) by sexual immodesty, yet we have
lots of images of nude people and images demonstrating sexual acts.
Images of certain animals are offensive to certain cultures. Wikipedia
is not censored; to me, that means we use any non-illegal images that
serve to illustrate an article. Despite my lack of reverence for
Jesus, however, I don't think those two cases are analogous.

-m
skype: node.ue



On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 4:15 AM, Fred Bauder  wrote:
>> Excirial wrote:
>>> *First: There are no authentic images of Mohammad extant.*
>>> As already mentioned in a previous response: are there any authentic
>>> images
>>> which display any god or prophet?
>>>
>>
>> Do they not have traditional images that go back millennia? If you
>> depicted images of Shiva as Yoda you'd get a whole load of grief from
>> Hindus, and the Christians were none too pleased about the image of
>> christ being fucked by a Roman Centurian (see Whitehouse v Lemon).
>>
>> Oh and I'll just mention in passing that wikimedia doesn't have nearly
>> enough photos of 'Baby Jesus Butt Plugs', nor are there anywhere near
>> enough drawings of Western politicians engaging in bestiality. I'm sure
>> that there are oodles of those out there, I know an artist friend of
>> mine draw a number of Ronald Reagun sucking a horses dick and shitting
>> nuclear missiles. Perhaps I'll take some scans and add them to:
>>
>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan
>
> Yes, indeed.
>
> What is wrong with using photographs of Baby Jesus Butt Plugs to
> illustrate the article on Jesus? Answer that question and you'll know why
> offensive images of Muhammad are not a good idea. The thing is, we're
> saying, "Hey, come off of it, no real harm is done is there are images of
> Muhammad" Why doesn't the same reasoning apply to the butt plugs? No real
> harm would be done. Or would there?
>
> Fred Bauder
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Boycott in a...@wiki

[Mark Williamson]

Have you seen [[Piss Christ]]? How is that different?


On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 4:40 AM,   wrote:
> John Vandenberg wrote:
>> in the article about Jesus.
>>
>> If you haven't noticed, the images of Muhammad on the core articles
>> relating to Islam are not created by someone who had a bit too much
>> free time on their hands.  The images of Muhammad that we use are
>> images of an object which is held in a university library or museum,
>> _because_they_are_important_.
>>
>
> Those don't appear to be the ones that are being complained about. Its
> the Baby Jesus Butt Plug style ones that they have issue with.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Boycott in a...@wiki

[Mark Williamson]

I'm not sure what's so unreasonable about including an image of an art
work in the article about it. I would not be against the use of the
goatse.cx image in that article, although we'd have to make sure to
not allow it to be used outside of that page (to prevent vandalism).



On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 5:54 AM,   wrote:
> The [[Piss Christ]] article seems to have no real purpose other than to
> display an image that is known to offend. I note that none of the
> references in that article actually display the image and are far more
> informative of the actual controversy surrounding the image. The
> wikipedia article also does not address the image in any way which would
> necessitate displaying it. There is no discussion on the lighting, or
> anything else about the photograph.
>
> One is left wondering why it is that the article [[Goatse.cx]] article
> does not actually show the goatse image.
>
>
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>> Have you seen [[Piss Christ]]? How is that different?
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 4:40 AM,   wrote:
>>> John Vandenberg wrote:
>>>> in the article about Jesus.
>>>>
>>>> If you haven't noticed, the images of Muhammad on the core articles
>>>> relating to Islam are not created by someone who had a bit too much
>>>> free time on their hands.  The images of Muhammad that we use are
>>>> images of an object which is held in a university library or museum,
>>>> _because_they_are_important_.
>>>>
>>> Those don't appear to be the ones that are being complained about. Its
>>> the Baby Jesus Butt Plug style ones that they have issue with.
>>>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Boycott in a...@wiki

[Mark Williamson]

"Wiki-list", the huge glaring difference is that the goatse.cx image
is a pornographic image and we were unable to identify the subject of
it, which raises potential privacy concerns. Please don't accuse me of
hypocrisy as I am personally in favor of including that image in that
article.




On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 11:01 AM,   wrote:
> Excirial wrote:
>> *There is no general Christian prohibition on depicting Christ. In fact it
>> is a generally accepted practice. Generally Muslims don't, and consider it a
>> mark of disrespect to do so. Why offend?*
>>
>> 1) It is a historically important subject which should be covered in an
>> encyclopedia.
>
>
> By all means do so. But there is no reason to include the image. Others
> managed to convey the controversy without doing so. In addition being a
> web page you have the option to provide a link to the image rather than
> embedding it. Its not as if the wikipage actually needs the image at all.
>
>
>> 2) We do not cater to the wishes and desires of any group, no exception. If
>> we cater one, we have to cater a second, then a third and so on and on.
>> 3) Anyone who does not wish to see the images can block them - its a
>> personal choice on whether you do or don't want to see. If there is a
>> problem with their mere existence there is nothing we can do - we can't
>> erase them from history.
>
>
> Do you have some special browser button that enables blocking of
> selected images before visiting a page? Or are you advocating the global
> blocking of all images?
>
>
>> 4) The images may offend millions, but that still leaves billions who aren't
>> offended by them. I would argue that the knowledge needs of the larger group
>> outweigh the issues of the smaller group - especially since we are not
>> forcing anything on the small group. As said in point 3: Images are on
>> specific pages, and even those are accessible since images can be blocked.
>
>
> So why isn't goatse.cx embedded on the shock site page. Gerrard says
> that its because there might be copyright issues but that hasn't been a
> problem in cases of the Mohammed images that the ace group are
> complaining about:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jyllands-Posten-pg3-article-in-Sept-30-2005-edition-of-KulturWeekend-entitled-Muhammeds-ansigt.png
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Everybody_Draw_Mohammed_Day.jpg
>
> using those images has been declared fair-use. Even The Piss Christ
> images is similarly 'fair-used'
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Piss_Christ_by_Serrano_Andres_%281987%29.jpg
>
> So I think I'm going to call you on being totally hypocritical on the
> issue of "the knowledge needs of the larger group outweigh the issues of
> the smaller group", because it is quite simply untrue.
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Boycott in a...@wiki

[Mark Williamson]

Don't censor except when "you" do? That's one of the problems with
this thread, it seems everything's been made personal. I don't censor
anything. I was not involved in the debate about deleting the goatse
image, nor have I been much involved in the Muhammad debate, but I am
a firm believer in non-censorship on WP. It's not as if I saw the
goatse image and said "I need to find a reason for this to be
deleted"; I'd rather it be there than not.

-m



On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 4:36 PM,   wrote:
> Excirial wrote:
>> *Do you have some special browser button that enables blocking of selected
>> images before visiting a page? Or are you advocating the global blocking of
>> all images?*
>>
>> See the FAQ section on
>> Talk:Muhammad,
>> which contains an easy method to hide the images trough CSS, which is a
>> permanent setting that works for all browsers. Since we are discussing that
>> exact page, i thought you would have seen it on the talk page as it is quite
>> prominent. Apologies for not mentioning it earlier.
>>
>
> That only works for people with accounts that have already been
> offended, that speak English, that have managed to find the FAQ, and
> that are computer literate. IOW out of the billion or so target audience
> for offense, about zero.
>
>
>
>> *So why isn't goatse.cx embedded on the shock site page. Gerrard says that
>> its because there might be copyright issues but that hasn't been a problem
>> in cases of the Mohammed images that the ace group are complaining about:*
>>
>> I already linked the relevant discussion above, and i have equally commented
>> on it. To quote myself: "See this
>> discussion,
>> though it may be easier to read the summary that is available on the article
>> talk page . In essence the
>> image was removed under WP:NFCC, with a sidenote that we could not reliably
>> determine who the person being displayed on the photo was, which caused
>> privacy concerns (As in displaying pornographic content of someone who
>> hasn't given clear endorsement for doing so)". In other words, the image
>> more or less suffers from a BLP issue - and you might also note that it
>> wasn't removed because it was deemed offensive.
>
>
> What a complete load of twaddle. NFCC has not stopped the use of Piss
> Christ, nor has it stopped the use of any of the controversial Mohammed
> images. In all those cases a textural description of the image would
> suffice. The person in the goatse image is unidentifiable, and the image
> has been on the web for 10 years. Where are the privacy concerns? So I'm
> still calling bullshit, as it looks that thin justification was simply
> found to remove that image.
>
>
>> *So I think I'm going to call you on being totally hypocritical on the issue
>> of "the knowledge needs of the larger group outweigh the issues of the
>> smaller group", because it is quite simply untrue.*
>> If you believe that such statements will strengthen the argument you make,
>> please do go ahead think of me like that. Personally i would argue that such
>> comments aren't helpful at all because they only serve to create enmity
>> between other parties, and because they scream "AGF"
>
> And how do we assume good faith when images known to cause offense are
> being defended, especially when its not as if they can't be found on any
> one of a 1000 websites. Reposting them serves no value other than give
> the poster and its defenders a warm fuzzy "we're don't censored"
> feeling. Except that you do.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2010_March_29#File:Goatse.fr_homepage.png
>
>> Besides this you
>> might actually want to read the deletion discussion on the Goatse.sx images,
>> so you can see the reason of the verdict for yourself - and you might
>> actually see a reason why i am not exactly being hypocritical.
>
>
> The goatse images was removed for stated reasons that could equally be
> applied to almost any of the controversial images. That those reasons
> aren't applied to the other images smacks of hypocrisy.
>
>
>> Regardless of whether or not this convinces you, i would ask that you keep
>> it friendly. Comments such as the one you just made, along with the previous
>> one further up (*Unless there is evidence to the contrary I'm inclined to
>> believe that *you* have taken a knee jerk islamaphobic stance climbed up a
>> flag p[ole and are currently waving your knickers in the air. I'm interested
>> to see just how you are going to get yourself back down with a modicum of
>> dignity.*) simply aren't productive. Besides, if we start labeling each
>> other it will simply result in less sensible discussion, and more "Digging
>> one's heels in the soil".
>>
>
> And the defenders of these images aren't doing just that? Scrap the
> muslim connection just explain to this Atheis

Re: [Foundation-l] Boycott in a...@wiki

[Mark Williamson]

"You" - again, this is not (or at least it should not) be about ME and
YOU. I did not upload any of those images, I did not vote for (or
against - I didn't know the vote was taking place) the deletion of the
Goatse image, I'm merely stating the reason it was deleted. We have
rules, some of our pages may break those rules, but all that means is
they should be fixed so the rules are applied more consistently.

-m

On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 5:14 PM,   wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>> "Wiki-list", the huge glaring difference is that the goatse.cx image
>> is a pornographic image and we were unable to identify the subject of
>> it, which raises potential privacy concerns. Please don't accuse me of
>> hypocrisy as I am personally in favor of including that image in that
>> article.
>>
>
> And you have identified all the subjects here?
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Vulva
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pubic_hair_%28male%29
>
> I think not.
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

Wikipedias are not for _cultures_, they are for languages. If I and
1,000 other Americans suddenly learnt French (to the point of
native-level fluency) and decided to read and edit the French
Wikipedia, it would "belong" to us just as much as to anybody else.
This came up recently in the debate about the Acehnese Wikipedia. Some
people said that all Acehnese were Muslim (not true - there is a small
community of Acehnese Christians). They said that if anyone is
Christian, they'd be ejected from Acehnese society and therefore no
longer Acehnese. However, they'd not stop speaking the Acehnese
language.

Nobody claims the English WP is for US/Commonwealth cultures only...
this is reasonable when a Wiki is tiny, but as it grows large it's
important that NPOV mean "neutral point of view for EVERYBODY", not
just "a point of view that everybody in OUR country can agree upon",
etc.

-m.

On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 4:06 PM, Cristian Consonni
 wrote:
> 2010/7/24 Casey Brown :
>> On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 4:11 PM, Pavlo Shevelo  
>> wrote:
 These days Google and other translate tools are good enough to use as
 the starting basis for an translated article
>>>
>>> No, it's far not true - at least for such target language as Ukrainian etc.
>>>
>>> So any attempt of "push" translation will be almost the disaster...
>>>
>>
>> ...and we need to remember that most articles are *not* translations
>> of the English article, but are home-grown on the wiki and use their
>> own sources in their own language.
>
> Also don't forget that the same subject can be treated very
> differently among different cultures (even if they are not distant,
> think to French and English).
>
> An article in the English Wikipedia can be a very good basis to start
> a new article, but I don't think that an automated "flooding" of the
> other Wikipedias is a good thing in *any* way.
>
> Cristian
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

Bence, that's a different topic - MAT (Machine Aided Translation), and
in the case of Bengali, I believe simply the use of a translation
memory system. Some of the comments on that page seem to be quite
misinformed, ranging from people who thought Google was inserting
unrevised machine translations into Wikipedia articles (that would be
a disaster), to people suggesting (begging?) Google allow the user
community to localize their UI (they already do - Facebook took the
idea from Google!). Oh, also, somebody protesting the fact that the
Spanish language was not mentioned in the post and suggesting that
such an omission must mean Google hates Spain. I only saw one comment
on that page that didn't make me want to bang my head on the keyboard
(but such is the Internet, right?)

-m.


On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 1:31 PM, Bence Damokos  wrote:
> As far as push translation goes, there are languages where it could almost
> work and where it couldn't. (Consider the experience of the Google team with
> the Bengali Wikipedia -
> http://googletranslate.blogspot.com/2010/07/translating-wikipedia.html )
>
> Bence
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Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 11:03 PM, Casey Brown  wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 1:39 AM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>> Wikipedias are not for _cultures_, they are for languages. If I and
>
> I'm surprised to hear that coming from someone who I thought to be a
> student of languages.  I think you might want to read an
> article from today's Wall Street Journal, about how language
> influences culture (and, one would extrapolate, Wikipedia articles).
> <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575383131592767868.html>

Casey, that's nothing new, nor is it anything I was unaware of. The
debate about whether language influences thought (or vice versa) has
long been a debate within the scholarly community. Please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity for a more detailed
treatment of the subject - there's still no consensus.

Nobody's arguing here that language and culture have no relationship.
What I'm saying is that language does not equal culture. Many people
speak French who are not part of the culture of France, for example
the cities of Libreville and Abidjan in Africa. Many (many!) people
who speak English are not part of the culture of England (or even the
rest of the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia or New Zealand),
including hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of native speakers.

Languages are certainly cultural artifacts, but that does not mean
that they are equivalent. Imagine tomorrow morning everybody in Japan
spoke French and only French and that all Japanese literature and text
suddenly was printed only in French. Would Japanese culture cease to
exist? Not at all. The customs, attitudes, rituals, beliefs and even
the food would not be changed (attitudes is debatable perhaps, but I'm
not a believer of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). Yes, something great
would be lost, an irreplaceable _part_ of the Japanese culture, but
cultures have sometimes persisted in spite language death. Ritual
prayers are sometimes translated to the new language, other times
fossilized in a language now rendered incomprehensible by time, same
goes for geographic and personal names...

I think it's pretty clear at this point that, for example, all 4 of
the regular users of ace.wp are offended by certain images on en.wp. I
don't think it would be a stretch to say that many - probably the vast
majority - of Acehnese speakers would find those images similarly
offensive. Now let's say I've got a toddler and he has an Acehnese
caretaker. This caretaker is monolingual in Acehnese, but they've been
expressly forbidden from mentioning religion.

When this toddler grows up, he'll probably be good enough at Acehnese
and have spoken it early enough in life to be considered a native
speaker... but will he automatically have any inclinations one way or
another about the pictures? Of course not. So, just because the vast
majority of speakers of a language share a cultural background does
NOT mean that the language could only ever be spoken by people who
belong to that culture. Wikipedia versions are very clearly for
languages. the Estonian Wikipedia is the Wikipedia in the Estonian
language, not the Wikipedia for Estonian Culture.

As an example of this, I have a good friend who grew up speaking Akan,
having had a nanny from West Africa. Is my friend a member of the Akan
culture? Not really... does that mean she couldn't be a productive
member of the Akan Wikipedia (if she wanted to be :-( )? No.

If Wikipedias were for cultures, the edits of Macedonians, Chinese,
Italians or Congolese people to en.wp would be somehow less valid that
those of native speakers of English in predominantly Anglophone
societies. Of course, this is not the case.

That's one of the things I like about en.wp - the fact that people who
do not speak English as their primary language form a large portion of
our editors means that things are likely to come out a bit more
balanced. Argentine editors can edit [[Falkland Islands]], for
example. In my humble opinion, this is the way it should be. Language
is a troublesome barrier. Who is to ensure that Turkish or Greek
articles about Cyprus are neutral? I'm not an advocate of a one-world
language, but if we had perfect MT tech, I would be in favor of
everybody collaborating on one massive international WP.

>> 1,000 other Americans suddenly learnt French (to the point of
>> native-level fluency) and decided to read and edit the French
>> Wikipedia, it would "belong" to us just as much as to anybody else.
>> This came up recently in the debate about the Acehnese Wikipedia. Some
>> people said that all Acehnese were Muslim (not true - there is a small
>> community of Acehnese Christians). They said that if anyone is
>> Christian, they'd be ejected from Acehnese society and therefore no
>> longer Acehnese. Howev

Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

I would like to add to this that I think the worst part of this idea
is the assumption that other languages should take articles from
en.wp.

I would be in favor of an international, language-free Wikipedia
if/when perfect (or 99.99% accurate) MT software exists, but that is
not currently the case. My point here is that rather than forcing
English articles on other languages, everybody everywhere speaking any
language should be able to modify the same article and view it in
their native language.

-m.

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 2:59 AM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> stevertigo wrote:
>> Translation between wikis currently exists as a largely pulling
>> paradigm: Someone on the target wiki finds an article in another
>> language (English for example) and then pulls it to their language
>> wiki.
>>
>> These days Google and other translate tools are good enough to use as
>> the starting basis for an translated article, and we can consider how
>> we make use of them in an active way. What is largely a "pull"
>> paradigm can also be a "push" paradigm - we can use translation tools
>> to "push" articles to other wikis.
>>
>> If there are issues, they can be overcome. The fact of the matter is
>> that the vast majority of articles in English can be "pushed" over to
>> other  languages, and fill a need for those topics in those languages.
>>
> This is well suited for the dustbin of terrible ideas.  It ranks right
> up there with the notion that the European colonization of Africa was
> for the sole purpose of civilizing the savages.
>
> Key to the growth of Wikipedias in minority languages is respect for the
> cultures that they encompass, not flooding them with the First-World
> Point of View.  What might be a Neutral Point of View on the English
> Wikipedia is limited by the contributions of English writers.  Those who
> do not understand English may arrive at a different neutrality.  We have
> not yet arrived at a Metapedia that would synthesize a single neutrality
> from all projects.
>
> In addition to bludgeoning these cultures with an imposed neutrality,
> there is also the risk of overwhelming them with sheer volume.  I
> remember only too well the uproar when the large quantity of articles on
> every small community in the United States were botted into en-wp.
> Neutrality was not an issue in that case, but the quantity of unchecked
> material was even if it came from a reliable source.
>
> It's important for the minority language projects to choose what is
> important to them, and what is relevant to their culture.  As useful and
> uncontroversial as many English articles may be in our eyes they may
> still not yet be notable for minority languages.
>
> Ray
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

[Mark Williamson]

Two things:

1) Please define "junk articles". Do you mean articles that you think
nobody in your community wants to read (like, say, an article about an
American singer or actor, for example [[Lady Gaga]]), or do you mean
articles that are written in such a way as to be incomprehensible, or
are filled with linkspam, etc? Or do you mean something else entirely?
Please explain.
2) Community is certainly important, but aren't we here to write an
encyclopedia? I don't think having all links turned blue is a bad
thing at all. In fact, it seems to me that over time, a larger article
base will result in more users joining. Note that I said over time; in
the short term, it may not have much effect.

-m.


On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 11:12 PM, Shiju Alex  wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> Recently there are lot of discussions (in this list also) regarding the
> translation project by Google for some of the big language wikipedias. The
> foundation also seems like approved the efforts of Google. But I am not sure
> whether any one is interested to consult the respective language community
> to know their views.
>
> As far as I know only Tamil, Bengali, and Swahili Wikipedians have raised
> their concerns about Google's project. But, does this means that other
> communities are happy about Google efforts? If there is no active community
> in a wikipedia how can we expect response from communities? If there is no
> response from a community, does that mean that Google can hire some native
> speakers and use machine translation to create articles for that wikipedia?
>
> Now let us go back to a basic question. Does WMF require a wiki community to
> create wikipedia in any language? Or can they utilize the services of
> companies like Google to create wikipedias in N number of languages?
>
> One of the main point raised by the supporters of Google translation is
> that, Google's project is good *for the online version of the language*.That
> might be true. But no body is cared to verify whether it is good for
> Wikipedia.
>
> As pointed out by Ravi in his presentation in Wikimania, (
> http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddpg3qwc_279ghm7kbhs), the Google
> translation of wikipedia articles:
>
>   - will affect the biological growth of a Wikipedia article
>   - will create copy of English wikipedia article in local wikis
>   - it is against some of the basic philosophies of wikipedia
>
> The people outside wiki will definitely benefit from this tool, if Google
> translation tool is developed for each language. I saw the working example
> of this in Poland during Wikimania, when some people who are not good in
> English used google translator to communicate with us. :)
>
> Apart from the points raised by Ravi in his presentation, this will affect
> the community growth.If there is no active wiki community, how can we expect
> them to look after all these junk articles uploaded to wiki every day. When
> all the important article links are already turned blue, how we can expect
> any future potential editors. So according to me, Google's project is
> killing the growth of an active wiki community.
>
> Of course, Tamil Wikipedia is trying to use Google project effectively. But
> only Tamil is doing that since they have an active wiki community*. Many
> Wiki communities are not even aware that such a project is happening in
> their wiki*.
>
> I do not want to point out specific language wikipedas to prove my point.
> But visit the wikipedias (especially wikipedias* that use non-latin scripts*)
> to view the status of google translation project.  Loads of junk articles
> are uploaded to wiki every day. Most of the time the only edit in these
> articles is the edit by its creator and the  inter language wiki bots.
>
> This effort will definitely affect community growth. Kindly see the points
> raised by a Swahali
> Wikipedian.
> Many Swahali users (and other language users) now expect a laptop or some
> other monitory benefits to write in their wikipedia. That affects the
> community growth.
>
> So what is the solution for this? Can we take lessons from
> Tamil/Bengali/Swahili wikipedias and find methods to use this service
> effectively or continue with the current article creation process.
>
> One last question. Is this tool that is developing by Google is an open
> source tool? If not, we need to answer so many questions that may follow.
>
> Regards
>
> Shiju Alex
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shijualex
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Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

[Mark Williamson]

Aphaia, a great deal of confusion has been created with regards to
this project. I hope you'll allow me to attempt to clear it up.

These are NOT articles that were translated directly by Google
Translate. Rather, they were created using Google Translator Toolkit,
which requires human intervention by a speaker of the language -
someone to check and correct every single sentence translated, in the
case of languages where Google already has machine translation, or to
write entirely new _human_ translations, in the cases where no Google
Translate module exists (for example, Tamil), with the aid of
Translation Memory software.

I currently work as a translator and have found that Google Translator
Toolkit is great for speeding up and improving the consistency of
translations, and at least the results of my work are usually better
with it than they would be without (I'm glad for the consistency - if
I'm translating a large document, I'd like to make sure to translate
the same phrases the same way every time they occur rather than using
slightly different wording the second time around). Since they're
revised and corrected by a human, they _should_ have the same level of
grammatical correctness, comprehensibility and translation quality as
a pure human translation. If they don't, this is the fault of the
person using the toolkit, not the software itself.

-m.

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 1:53 AM, Aphaia  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Jon Davis  wrote:
>> I think the answer is "Yes and No".  As with any new
>> project/concept/idea/trial there are pro's and there are con's.  The real
>> question is: Do the pro's outweigh the con's?
>>
>> From just reading what you linked (And not in any way being involved with
>> these language projects) and my own personal experiences of how I work on
>> Wikipedia.  Yes, I think it is a good thing overall.
>>
>> From what I've seen, it is much easier to convince someone who has never
>> edited, to fix grammatical, spelling or other "simple" mistakes.  Generally
>> people don't dive in and write/translate entire articles - it is simply too
>> high of a barrier to entry.  These pre-translated articles give people an
>> "in", they are already there, and have obvious errors that are easy to fix.
>
> In my experience at Transcom and my own as translator, people
> appreciate pre-translated articles only in a good quality, there are
> pre-translations in too bad quality which contains too many obvious
> errors not easy to fix in time frame.
>
> I've seen several requests, both on meta and on language projects,  to
> delete this kind of bad quality "translation" which people think
> better to scratch a new version.
>
> And in my observation Google translation is still in this level in
> many languages. And even if you handle Western languages, unless one
> of them in English, results may be in poor quality (e.g. they cannot
> keep the distinction between tu/vous, du/Sie etc.)
>
> Cheers,
>
>>
>>
>> More "ok" content is better than no content, at least if I have my druthers.
>>
>> -Jon
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 23:12, Shiju Alex  wrote:
>>
>>> Hello All,
>>>
>>> Recently there are lot of discussions (in this list also) regarding the
>>> translation project by Google for some of the big language wikipedias. The
>>> foundation also seems like approved the efforts of Google. But I am not
>>> sure
>>> whether any one is interested to consult the respective language community
>>> to know their views.
>>>
>>> As far as I know only Tamil, Bengali, and Swahili Wikipedians have raised
>>> their concerns about Google's project. But, does this means that other
>>> communities are happy about Google efforts? If there is no active community
>>> in a wikipedia how can we expect response from communities? If there is no
>>> response from a community, does that mean that Google can hire some native
>>> speakers and use machine translation to create articles for that wikipedia?
>>>
>>> Now let us go back to a basic question. Does WMF require a wiki community
>>> to
>>> create wikipedia in any language? Or can they utilize the services of
>>> companies like Google to create wikipedias in N number of languages?
>>>
>>> One of the main point raised by the supporters of Google translation is
>>> that, Google's project is good *for the online version of the
>>> language*.That
>>> might be true. But no body is cared to verify whether it is good for
>>> Wikipedia.
>>>
>>> As pointed out by Ravi in his presentation in Wikimania, (
>>> http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddpg3qwc_279ghm7kbhs), the Google
>>> translation of wikipedia articles:
>>>
>>>   - will affect the biological growth of a Wikipedia article
>>>   - will create copy of English wikipedia article in local wikis
>>>   - it is against some of the basic philosophies of wikipedia
>>>
>>> The people outside wiki will definitely benefit from this tool, if Google
>>> translation tool is developed for each language. I saw the workin

Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

[Mark Williamson]

Aphaia, any machine translation system that produces even remotely
comprehensible results should be able to be used in machine-aided
translation. It is reduced to low utility if the output is complete
gibberish, however this doesn't seem to be the case; regardless, it's
possible to turn off automatic translation and the system can be used
merely as a translation memory system, which would be useful in case
the automatic translation actually did produce gibberish. Still
useful, I think, because it automatically breaks text into segments
and is at least *intended* to preserve formatting (this seems to be an
issue for WP articles) without requiring users to re-type every single
wikilink.

-m.

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 3:47 AM, Aphaia  wrote:
> Thanks for your clarification, Node.ue, I know it because I attended
> their presentation on Wikimania. It is an ambitious project I'd like
> to see it growing, but at this moment they seem to have a serious
> problem in its system. They seem to use English as a stem language,
> and assumes all translations are first done into English and then to
> another language. On the other hand, at least on major non-English
> Western language Wikipedia some amount of translations (1/3 IIRC) are
> not related to English.
>
> If you think it works for you, it's fine, but please be aware it might
> not work for non-English speakers as well as for you.
>
> Cheers,
>
> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>> Aphaia, a great deal of confusion has been created with regards to
>> this project. I hope you'll allow me to attempt to clear it up.
>>
>> These are NOT articles that were translated directly by Google
>> Translate. Rather, they were created using Google Translator Toolkit,
>> which requires human intervention by a speaker of the language -
>> someone to check and correct every single sentence translated, in the
>> case of languages where Google already has machine translation, or to
>> write entirely new _human_ translations, in the cases where no Google
>> Translate module exists (for example, Tamil), with the aid of
>> Translation Memory software.
>>
>> I currently work as a translator and have found that Google Translator
>> Toolkit is great for speeding up and improving the consistency of
>> translations, and at least the results of my work are usually better
>> with it than they would be without (I'm glad for the consistency - if
>> I'm translating a large document, I'd like to make sure to translate
>> the same phrases the same way every time they occur rather than using
>> slightly different wording the second time around). Since they're
>> revised and corrected by a human, they _should_ have the same level of
>> grammatical correctness, comprehensibility and translation quality as
>> a pure human translation. If they don't, this is the fault of the
>> person using the toolkit, not the software itself.
>>
>> -m.
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 1:53 AM, Aphaia  wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Jon Davis  wrote:
>>>> I think the answer is "Yes and No".  As with any new
>>>> project/concept/idea/trial there are pro's and there are con's.  The real
>>>> question is: Do the pro's outweigh the con's?
>>>>
>>>> From just reading what you linked (And not in any way being involved with
>>>> these language projects) and my own personal experiences of how I work on
>>>> Wikipedia.  Yes, I think it is a good thing overall.
>>>>
>>>> From what I've seen, it is much easier to convince someone who has never
>>>> edited, to fix grammatical, spelling or other "simple" mistakes.  Generally
>>>> people don't dive in and write/translate entire articles - it is simply too
>>>> high of a barrier to entry.  These pre-translated articles give people an
>>>> "in", they are already there, and have obvious errors that are easy to fix.
>>>
>>> In my experience at Transcom and my own as translator, people
>>> appreciate pre-translated articles only in a good quality, there are
>>> pre-translations in too bad quality which contains too many obvious
>>> errors not easy to fix in time frame.
>>>
>>> I've seen several requests, both on meta and on language projects,  to
>>> delete this kind of bad quality "translation" which people think
>>> better to scratch a new version.
>>>
>>> And in my observation Google translation is still in this level in
>>> m

Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

[Mark Williamson]

Can we clarify here, are we talking about Google Translate or Google
Translator Toolkit?

-m.

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 3:49 AM, Przykuta  wrote:
>> I've seen several requests, both on meta and on language projects,  to
>> delete this kind of bad quality "translation" which people think
>> better to scratch a new version.
>
> Uhm. In pl wiki google translate is evil. Translations by google translate 
> are deleted (not speedy). Users who use google translate for mass production 
> of articles are blocked.
>
> So, it's generaly problem with copy (articles, ideas etc.) from en wiki (most 
> popular):
>
> http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Enwikizm
>
> "Not all things in en wiki are good. Just don't copy thoughtlessly."
>
> przykuta
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

[Mark Williamson]

Well - this seems a bit confusing. I think Shiju Alex was talking
about the toolkit, but I got the impression you're referring to Google
Translate, which I agree is always unsuitable to produce usable
articles.

-m.

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 4:26 AM, Przykuta  wrote:
> about google translation, I think.
>
> przykuta
>
>
>> Can we clarify here, are we talking about Google Translate or Google
>> Translator Toolkit?
>>
>> -m.
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 3:49 AM, Przykuta  wrote:
>> >> I've seen several requests, both on meta and on language projects,  to
>> >> delete this kind of bad quality "translation" which people think
>> >> better to scratch a new version.
>> >
>> > Uhm. In pl wiki google translate is evil. Translations by google translate 
>> > are deleted (not speedy). Users who use google translate for mass 
>> > production of articles are blocked.
>> >
>> > So, it's generaly problem with copy (articles, ideas etc.) from en wiki 
>> > (most popular):
>> >
>> > http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Enwikizm
>> >
>> > "Not all things in en wiki are good. Just don't copy thoughtlessly."
>> >
>> > przykuta
>> >
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Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

Shiju Alex,

Stevertigo is just one en.wikipedian.

As far as using exact copies goes, I don't know about the policy at
your home wiki, but in many Wikipedias this sort of back-and-forth
translation and trading and sharing of articles has been going on
since day one, not just with English but with other languages as well.
If I see a good article on any Wikipedia in a language I understand
that is lacking in another, I'll happily translate it. I have never
seen this cause problems provided I use proper spelling and grammar
and do not use templates or images that leave red links.

I started out at en.wp in 2001, so I don't think it's unreasonable to
call myself an English Wikipedian (although I'd prefer to think of
myself as an international Wikipedian, with lots of edits at wikis
such as Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Navajo, Haitian and Moldovan). I am
not at all in favor of pushing any sort of articles on anybody, if a
community discusses and reaches consensus to disallow translations
(even ones made by humans, including professionals), that is
absolutely their right, although I don't think it's wise to disallow
people from using material from other Wikipedias.

Google Translator Toolkit is particularly problematic because it
messes up the existing article formatting (one example, it messes up
internal links by putting punctuation marks before double brackets
when they should be after) and it includes incompatible formatting
such as redlinked templates. It also doesn't help that many editors
don't stick around to fix their articles afterwards.

-m.

On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 9:04 PM, Shiju Alex  wrote:
>>
>> really? It's a) not
>> particularly well-written, mostly and b) referenced overwhelmingly to
>>
>>> English-language sources, most of which are, you guessed it.. Western in
>>>
>> nature.
>>
>
> Very much true. Now English Wikipedians want some one to translate and use
> the exact copy of en:wp in all other language wikipedias. And they have the
> support of Google for that.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 5:52 AM, Oliver Keyes wrote:
>
>> "The idea is that most of en.wp's articles are well-enough written, and
>> written in accord with NPOV to a sufficient degree to overcome any
>> such criticism of 'imperial encyclopedism.' - really? It's a) not
>> particularly well-written, mostly and b) referenced overwhelmingly to
>> English-language sources, most of which are, you guessed it.. Western in
>> nature.
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 3:43 AM, stevertigo  wrote:
>>
>> > Mark Williamson  wrote:
>> > > I would like to add to this that I think the worst part of this idea
>> > > is the assumption that other languages should take articles from
>> > > en.wp.
>> >
>> > The idea is that most of en.wp's articles are well-enough written, and
>> > written in accord with NPOV to a sufficient degree to overcome any
>> > such criticism of 'imperial encyclopedism.'
>> >
>> > Mark Williamson  wrote:
>> > > Nobody's arguing here that language and culture have no relationship.
>> > > What I'm saying is that language does not equal culture. Many people
>> > > speak French who are not part of the culture of France, for example
>> > > the cities of Libreville and Abidjan in Africa.
>> >
>> > Africa is an unusual case given that it was so linguistically diverse
>> > to begin with, and that its even moreso in the post-colonial era, when
>> > Arabic, French, English, and Dutch remain prominent marks of
>> > imperialistic influence.
>> >
>> > Ray Saintonge  wrote:
>> > > This is well suited for the dustbin of terrible ideas.  It ranks right
>> > > up there with the notion that the European colonization of Africa was
>> > > for the sole purpose of civilizing the savages.
>> >
>> > This is the 'encyclopedic imperialism' counterargument. I thought I'd
>> > throw it out there. As Bendt noted above, Google has already been
>> > working on it for two years and has had both success and failure. It
>> > bears mentioning that their tools have been improving quite steadily.
>> > A simple test such as /English -> Arabic -> English/ will show that.
>> >
>> > Note that colonialism isnt the issue. It still remains for example a
>> > high priority to teach English in Africa, for the simple reason that
>> > language is almost entirely a tool for communication, and English is
>> > quite good for that purpose.  Its notable that the smaller col

Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 1:36 AM, Shiju Alex  wrote:
>   1. Ban the project of Google as done by the Bengali wiki community (Bad
>   solution, and I am personally against this solution)
>   2. Ask Google to engage wiki community (As happened in the case of Tamil)
>   to find out a working solution. But if there is no active wiki community
>   what Google can do.  But does this mean that Google can continue with the
>   project as they want? (Very difficult solution if there is no active wiki
>   community)
>   3. Find some other solution. For example, Is it possible to upload the
>   translated articles in a separate name space, for example, Google: Let the
>   community decides what needs to be taken to the main/article namespace.
>   4. .
>
> If some solution is not found soon, Google's effort is going to create
> problem in many language wikipedias. The worst result of this effort would
> be the rift between the wiki community and the Google translators (speakers
> of the same language) :(
>
> Shiju

Shiju,

I think you have made some great suggestions here. I'd like to add a
couple of my own:

1) Fix some of the formatting errors with GTTK. Would this really be
so difficult? It seems to me that the breaking of links is a bug that
needs fixing by Google.
2) Implement spelling and punctuation check automatically within GTTK
before posting of the articles.
3) Have GTTK automatically remove broken templates and images, or
require users to translate any templates before a page may be posted.
4) Include a list of most needed articles for people to create, rather
than random articles that will be of little use to local readers. Some
articles, such as those on local topics, have the added benefit of
encouraging more edits and community participation since they tend to
generate more interest from speakers of a language in my experience.

3 of these are things for Google to work on, one is something for us
to work on. I think this is a potentially valuable resource, the
problem is channeling the efforts and energies of these well-meaning
people in the right direction so that local Wikipedias don't end up
full of low-quality, unreadable articles with little hope for
improvement. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

-m.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

Aphaia, Shiju Alex and I are referring to Google Translator Toolkit,
not Google Translate. If the person using the Toolkit uses it as it
was _meant_ to be used, the results should be as good as a human
translation because they've been reviewed and corrected by a human.

-m.


On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 12:42 PM, Aphaia  wrote:
> GT fails. At least for Japanese, it sucks. And that is why I don't
> support it. GT may fit to SVO languages, but for SOV languages, it is
> nothing but a crap.
>
> Imagine to fix a 4000 words of documents whose all lines are sort of
> "all your base is belong to us". It's not a simple thing as you
> imagine - "spelling and punctuation". I admit it has been improved
> (now Free Tibet from English to Japanese is "Furi Tibetto", not former
> "muryo tibetto" (Tibet for gratis) in two years ago - but craps are
> still craps and I don't want to spend my hours for the for-profit
> giant.
>
> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 1:36 AM, Shiju Alex  
>> wrote:
>>>   1. Ban the project of Google as done by the Bengali wiki community (Bad
>>>   solution, and I am personally against this solution)
>>>   2. Ask Google to engage wiki community (As happened in the case of Tamil)
>>>   to find out a working solution. But if there is no active wiki community
>>>   what Google can do.  But does this mean that Google can continue with the
>>>   project as they want? (Very difficult solution if there is no active wiki
>>>   community)
>>>   3. Find some other solution. For example, Is it possible to upload the
>>>   translated articles in a separate name space, for example, Google: Let the
>>>   community decides what needs to be taken to the main/article namespace.
>>>   4. .
>>>
>>> If some solution is not found soon, Google's effort is going to create
>>> problem in many language wikipedias. The worst result of this effort would
>>> be the rift between the wiki community and the Google translators (speakers
>>> of the same language) :(
>>>
>>> Shiju
>>
>> Shiju,
>>
>> I think you have made some great suggestions here. I'd like to add a
>> couple of my own:
>>
>> 1) Fix some of the formatting errors with GTTK. Would this really be
>> so difficult? It seems to me that the breaking of links is a bug that
>> needs fixing by Google.
>> 2) Implement spelling and punctuation check automatically within GTTK
>> before posting of the articles.
>> 3) Have GTTK automatically remove broken templates and images, or
>> require users to translate any templates before a page may be posted.
>> 4) Include a list of most needed articles for people to create, rather
>> than random articles that will be of little use to local readers. Some
>> articles, such as those on local topics, have the added benefit of
>> encouraging more edits and community participation since they tend to
>> generate more interest from speakers of a language in my experience.
>>
>> 3 of these are things for Google to work on, one is something for us
>> to work on. I think this is a potentially valuable resource, the
>> problem is channeling the efforts and energies of these well-meaning
>> people in the right direction so that local Wikipedias don't end up
>> full of low-quality, unreadable articles with little hope for
>> improvement. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
>>
>> -m.
>>
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>
>
> --
> KIZU Naoko
> http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
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>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

[Mark Williamson]

Ziko, again, we are not talking about machine translations; Google
doesn't have machine translation for Bangla, Malayalam, Tamil etc.
yet. This is about translation memory.

One of the things about MAT, whose use in the professional translator
community is still debated but most popular for translations of
time-dependent things like news, is that the original is often a very
rough translation that requires a _lot_ of editing. The biggest
problem is not the toolkit itself (with some exceptions - punctuation
and templates, for example) but the translators who do not bother to
use it properly, creating poor translations with lots of spelling
mistakes and leaving behind a wasteland of poor quality articles.

GTTK can be used as a force of good if someone puts in the appropriate
time and effort; when used _properly_ by a careful, knowledgeable
translator who gives ample time for proofreading, articles created
with it should be virtually indistinguishable from any other article.

It is my thought that the huge problem here is lack of engagement with
communities. Essentially, Google swooped down and started dropping
large amounts of poor quality content on our projects without engaging
the people from those communities. The people in Google's contest also
didn't engage the communities, nor did they respond to requests to
improve their content.

-m.


On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 7:18 AM, Ziko van Dijk  wrote:
> 2010/7/28 Nathan :
>> Just to be sure I understand...
>
> It's good that you ask, indeed. :-)
>
> No, it's not about free software, and the Wikimedians are not too
> snobby or lazy to correct poor language. That is what I frequently do
> in de.WP and eo.WP, and I suppose Ragib and many others as well. The
> point is: The machine translated articles are often so bad that I
> simply don't understand them. I *cannot* correct them, because I don't
> know what they are saying.
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
>
>
> What's happening here is that human
>> beings, using a software tool, are translating articles from the
>> English Wikipedia into a variety of other languages and posting them
>> on the comparatively small Wikipedia projects in these languages. The
>> articles, of unknown intrinsic quality, are usually mid to low quality
>> translations.
>>
>> In the projects with an active community, some have rejected these
>> articles because they are not high quality and because the community
>> refuses to be responsible for fixing punctuation and other errors made
>> by editors who are not members of the community. In the projects
>> without an active community, Wikimedians (who may not speak any of the
>> languages affected by the Google initiative) are objecting for a
>> variety of other reasons - because the software used to assist
>> translation isn't free, because the effort is managed by a commercial
>> organization or because the endeavor wasn't cleared with the Wikimedia
>> community first. Some are also concerned that these new articles will
>> somehow deter new editors from becoming involved, despite clear
>> evidence that a larger base of content attracts more readers, and more
>> readers plus imperfect content leads to more editors.
>>
>> What I find interesting is that few seem to be interested in keeping
>> or improving the translated articles; Google's attempt to provide
>> content in under-served languages is actually offending Wikimedians,
>> despite our ostensible commitment to the same goal. Concerns like
>> bureaucratic pre-approval, using free software, etc. are somehow more
>> important than reaching more people with more content. It all seems
>> strange and un-Wikimedian like to me. Obviously there are things
>> Google should have done differently. Maybe working with them to
>> improve their process should be the focus here?
>>
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>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

Yes, of course if it's not actually reviewed and corrected by a human
it's going to be bad. What I said was that if it's used "as it was
meant to be used", the results should be indistinguishable from a
normal human translation, regardless of the language involved because
all mistakes would be fixed by a person. People often neglect to do
that, but that doesn't make the tool inherently evil.

-m.

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 2:35 PM, Aphaia  wrote:
> Ah, I omitted T, and I meant Toolkit. A toolkit with garbage could be
> called toolkit, but it doesn't change it is useless; it cannot deal
> with syntax properly, i.e. conjugation etc. at this moment.  Intended
> to be "reviewed and corrected by a human" doesn't assure it was really
> "reviewed and corrected by a human" to a sufficient extent. It could
> be enough for your target language, but not for mine. Thanks.
>
> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 5:15 AM, Casey Brown  wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>>> Aphaia, Shiju Alex and I are referring to Google Translator Toolkit,
>>> not Google Translate. If the person using the Toolkit uses it as it
>>> was _meant_ to be used, the results should be as good as a human
>>> translation because they've been reviewed and corrected by a human.
>>
>> But if the program were being used by a human who speaks the language,
>> wouldn't it be *pull* translation and not *push* translation?
>>
>> --
>> Casey Brown
>> Cbrown1023
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

Google is, in my experience, very difficult for "regular" people to
get in touch with. Sometimes, when a product is in beta, they give you
a way to contact them. They used to have an e-mail to contact them at
if you had information about bilingual corpora (I found one online
from the Nunavut parliament for English and Inuktitut, but now it
looks like they've removed the address) so they could use it to
improve Google Translate.

I think they intentionally have a relatively small support staff. I
read somewhere that that had turned out to be a huge problem for the
mobile phone they produced - people might not expect great support for
a huge website like Google, but when they buy electronics, they
certainly do expect to have someone they can call and talk to within
24 hours.

I don't think that's completely unwise, though. I'm sure they get tons
of crackpot e-mails all the time. I was reading an official blog about
Google Translate, and in the post about their Wikipedia contests,
someone wrote an angry comment that google "must hate Spain" because
the Spanish language wasn't mentioned in that particular post. Now
multiply that by millions, and that is part of the reason (or so I
imagine) that Google makes it difficult to contact them.

-m.

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 9:14 AM, Amir E. Aharoni
 wrote:
> Is anyone from Google reading this thread?
>
> Because of this thread i tried to play with the Google Translator Toolkit a
> little and found some technical problems. When i tried to send bug reports
> about them through the "Contact us" form, i received after a few minutes a
> "bounce" message from the translation-editor-supp...@google.com address.
>
> I love reporting bugs, and developers are supposed to love reading them, but
> it looks like i'm stuck here...
>
> 2010/7/27 Mark Williamson 
>
>> Aphaia, Shiju Alex and I are referring to Google Translator Toolkit,
>> not Google Translate. If the person using the Toolkit uses it as it
>> was _meant_ to be used, the results should be as good as a human
>> translation because they've been reviewed and corrected by a human.
>>
>> --
> אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> Amir Elisha Aharoni
>
> http://aharoni.wordpress.com
>
> "We're living in pieces,
>  I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
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Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

[Mark Williamson]

Well, my impression, and I'm by no means an expert in this (I'm not
associated with Google), is that they emphasized quantity over quality
and forgot to mention the importance of community to our projects.

I heard that for the Swahili Wikipedia contest at least, they gave
away prizes... but perhaps they should've included a requirement that
the articles they created be rated as "good" by the community, not
full of errors and nonsense sentences, and that all project
participants who want any chance at winning must respond to all
talkpage messages within 72 hours (or something like that).

I think telling a group of newbies that they'll get a big prize if
they translate the most articles is a recipe for disaster. What
incentive do they have to make sure their translation is of good
quality? What incentive do they have to stick around afterwards?

-m.

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 9:10 AM, Ziko van Dijk  wrote:
> Mark Williamson:
>> GTTK can be used as a force of good if someone puts in the appropriate
>> time and effort; when used _properly_ by a careful, knowledgeable
>
>> It is my thought that the huge problem here is lack of engagement with
>> communities. Essentially, Google swooped down and started dropping
>
> Agreed. Again, in my experience it is quicker and delivers more
> quality to translate by your own. If others have different experiences
> (it may depend on the language), okay. It seems that something went
> very wrong when telling people who to contribute to a Wikipedia
> language version. Could you report more about that, Mark?
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

[Mark Williamson]

I'm not sure that's exactly the question. Rather, by using GTTK,
people are contributing to building [[Translation memory]] for Google,
which they can in turn use to build their statistical models. It's not
that we're using non-free software, but rather that we're contributing
to it.

-m.

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 1:09 PM, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
> Fajro wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:38 PM, Ragib Hasan  wrote:
>>
>>> (The tool used was Google Translation Toolkit. (not Google Translate).
>>> There is a distinction between these two tools. Google Translation
>>> Toolkit (GTT) is a translation-memory based semi-manual translation
>>> tool. That is, it learns translation skills as you gradually translate
>>> articles by hand. Later, this can be used to automate translation.)
>>>
>> Another issue: The resulting translation memory is not free
>
> This is a red herring.  Some real and important issues have been raised
> about machine translations, but this is not one of them.
>
> The fact that the source codes for the translation processes are not
> free does not make the results of such machine translations unfree.  Key
> to anything being copyright is that material must be original and not
> the result of a mechanical process.  Machine translations are mechanical
> processes.  Another person using the same software with the same text
> should have the same results.
>
> It is also important that the allegedly infringing text must have been
> fixed in some medium.  A person issuing a take down order must show, as
> an necessary element of that order, where the material in question was
> previously published.  Two identical texts by different authors need not
> be copies of each other.  With human efforts two such identical texts
> are highly improbable, but this need not be the case with machine
> translation. Indeed if the same software keeps producing different
> results I would question its reliability.
>
> Ray
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

[Mark Williamson]

That's absolutely a problem that should not be overlooked. Despite
what I said in the other thread about content equivalency across
languages, I think this is quite a different issue. A competent
translator must take into account context and fluency, and often
direct translations do not fit, even when they're grammatically
correct. Language is a living organism consisting of more than just
words and grammatical rules, we use lots of idioms and turns of phrase
that are unique to our languages (or even our local dialects).
Ignoring these things in a translation can generally give us output
that is understandable, but not necessarily "good" - it can come out
sounding stilted, awkward and contrived, at best.

The latest version of GTTK allows the merger of segments, i.e. two
sentences in the original can be merged into one and translated
accordingly. However, I think it's important to not lose sight of the
fact that GTTK is just that: a toolkit. It is not the end-all solution
for article creation on any Wiki, nor is it an evil entity that goes
around dumping poor-quality text on our projects. It is what we make
it - I can use GTTK to produce a translation that is a good, prosaic
article if I am willing to put in the time and effort to adapt text
from one language to another, which is really the job of the
translator anyhow.

This doesn't take away from the problem raised by M. Yahia about
community, but I do wonder about that. Informational cannibalism has
been common in our community between languages for a long time,
ranging from borrowed parts of articles to translations of full
articles. This hasn't seemed to be a problem in the past, before GTTK.
What struck me were the phrases "very bad sentence structures" and
"bad jargon translations". Aren't we talking about professional
translators here, people who do this for a living? An excellent
translator should not only know their source language well, they must
also be intimately familiar with the ins and outs of their target
language, beyond just the fact of being a native speaker. If a
translation doesn't sound natural in the target language, that's not
because it's a translation, it's because either 1) it's a poor
translation or 2) it wasn't natural sounding in the source language,
either! In most cases, I'd guess 1) since as a translator I'd rather
compensate for people's grammatical mistakes than attempt to re-render
them in another language.

The key to a great finished translation, in my opinion, is good
proofreading. Before proofreading, your translation is like a block of
unfinished wood. Rough, but still suitable for some uses. After
proofreading, it should be polished. A good translation should leave
the reader unable to tell whether the text was translated or if it was
originally written in the target language, with only very rare
exceptions.

-m.

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 12:37 AM, Ziko van Dijk  wrote:
> Has anybody more information about what Google exactly told the
> people? A link? To whom was this call for participation directed?
> This issue "Translation memory" is another problem, another divergency
> of interests. We Wikipedians want to write good articles in our
> languages, that often means that we do not translate 1:1 but shorten
> and customize. But Google wants 1:1 translations for its Translation
> memory. And, of course, its the big numbers Google is interested in to
> achieve better automatic translations in the end.
> Ziko
>
>
>
> 2010/7/29 Muhammad Yahia :
>> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 6:56 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I heard that for the Swahili Wikipedia contest at least, they gave
>>> away prizes... but perhaps they should've included a requirement that
>>> the articles they created be rated as "good" by the community, not
>>> full of errors and nonsense sentences, and that all project
>>> participants who want any chance at winning must respond to all
>>> talkpage messages within 72 hours (or something like that).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I have been involved with 2 big pushes by Google in the Arabic Wikipedia,
>> one of them was by professional paid translators, the other was done
>> completely by a volunteer organization in collaboration with Google. I
>> supported both efforts heavily. In the latter, they recruited university
>> students mostly to do the work and there was very little to earn beyond
>> recognition. All the problems mentioned above plagued both efforts, and
>> while the second one had slightly better results than the first, the vast
>> amount of translated articles lay ignored in the user space (that's what
>> the consensus on ar.wp was, confine them to their user space until 

Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

> 2) Implement spelling and punctuation check automatically within GTTK before
> posting of the articles.
>
> There is spell check in Translator Toolkit, although it's not available for
> all languages.  We don't have any punctuation checks today and I doubt that
> we can release this anytime soon.  (If it's not available in Google Docs or
> Gmail, then it's unlikely that we'll have it for Translator Toolkit, as
> well, since we use the same infrastructure.)
>
> What's the proposal, though - would you like for us to prevent publishing of
> articles if they have too many spelling errors, or simply warn the user that
> there are X spelling errors?  Any input you can provide on preferred
> behavior would be great.

I would say to force spellcheck before publication, which does not
seem to be the case currently. I think this would be enough - perhaps
a warning as well. I don't know about preventing publication, although
that might work too.

> 3) Have GTTK automatically remove broken templates and images, or require
> users to translate any templates before a page may be posted.
>
> Templates are a bit tricky.  Sometimes, a template in one Wikipedia does not
> exist in another Wikipedia.  Other times, a template in one langauge maps to
> a template in another language but the parameters are different.
>
> Removing broken templates automatically may not work because some templates
> come between words.  If we remove them, the sentences or paragraph may
> become invalid.  We've also considered creating a custom interface for
> localizing templates, but this requires a lot of work.
>
> In the interim, the approach we've taken is to have translators fix the
> templates in Wikipedia when they post the article from Translator Toolkit.
>  When a user clicks on Share > Publish to source page in Translator Toolkit,
> the Wikipedia article is in preview mode --- it's not live.  The idea is
> that if there are any errors, the translator can fix them before saving the
> article.

Well, many translators do fix such problems, but I was just thinking
of some of the problems that I've heard so far with people who do
"drive-by" translations, dropping it on a project and then
disappearing. If translators are careful and do all the work
themselves, templates are an annoyance rather than a real problem.

> 4) Include a list of most needed articles for people to create, rather than
> random articles that will be of little use to local readers. Some articles,
> such as those on local topics, have the added benefit of encouraging more
> edits and community participation since they tend to generate more interest
> from speakers of a language in my experience.
>
> The articles we selected actually weren't really random.  Here's how we
> selected them:
>
> 1. we looked at the top Google searches in the region (e.g., for Tamil, we
> looked at searches in India and I believe Sri Lanka, as well)
> 2. from the top Google searches in the region, we looked at the top, clicked
> Wikipedia articles --- regardless of the language (so we wound up with
> Wikipedia source articles in English, Hindi, and other languages)
> 3. from the top, clicked Wikipedia articles, we looked for articles that
> were either stubs or unavailable in the local language - these are the
> articles that we sent for translation
>
> This selection isn't perfect.  For example, it assumes that the top, clicked
> Wikipedia articles by all users in India/Sri Lanka --- who may be searching
> in English, Hindi, Tamil, or some other language --- are relevant to the
> Tamil community.  To improve this, last month, we met with members of the
> Tamil and Telugu Wikipedias to improve this article selection.  The main
> changes that we agreed on were:

I'm not sure if this project was separate from the Swahili Wikipedia
Challenge, but I'm assuming it was after seeing articles such as
http://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maduka_ya_United_Cigar_Stores (about a
defunct chain of cigar stores in the US) which I doubt were popular
searches in East Africa.

One more idea: Automatically add existing Interwikis links to the new article.

Also, as far as Indic languages go, I would ask if there's any chance
you have any Oriya speakers - with 637 articles, the Oriya Wikipedia
is by far the most anemic of Indic-language Wikipedias, in spite of a
speaker population of 31 million.

-m.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation

[Mark Williamson]

> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>
>> > 2) Implement spelling and punctuation check automatically within GTTK
>> before
>> > posting of the articles.
>> >
>> > There is spell check in Translator Toolkit, although it's not available
>> for
>> > all languages.  We don't have any punctuation checks today and I doubt
>> that
>> > we can release this anytime soon.  (If it's not available in Google Docs
>> or
>> > Gmail, then it's unlikely that we'll have it for Translator Toolkit, as
>> > well, since we use the same infrastructure.)
>> >
>> > What's the proposal, though - would you like for us to prevent publishing
>> of
>> > articles if they have too many spelling errors, or simply warn the user
>> that
>> > there are X spelling errors?  Any input you can provide on preferred
>> > behavior would be great.
>>
>> I would say to force spellcheck before publication, which does not
>> seem to be the case currently. I think this would be enough - perhaps
>> a warning as well. I don't know about preventing publication, although
>> that might work too.
>>
>
> How about this: we pop up a window that says, "Your translation has
> misspelled words: X.  Publish anyway?"
>
> Does that work?

That sounds great to me.

>> Also, as far as Indic languages go, I would ask if there's any chance
>> you have any Oriya speakers - with 637 articles, the Oriya Wikipedia
>> is by far the most anemic of Indic-language Wikipedias, in spite of a
>> speaker population of 31 million.
>>
>>
> Oriya is one of the languages we'd love to work on.  We don't have any
> activity on this today but if you have some Wikipedians who'd like to help
> us get this off the ground, we'd love to get their contact info and we can
> follow up from there.

Unfortunately, there is currently not even an Oriya Wikipedia
community. I think such a project would need to be managed a bit
differently - seeking to either create a community (no reason
participants can't start a community), or to be relatively limited in
scope, or else to have more stringent controls on content quality. I
would love to help with that myself in any way possible.

Another option with a bit more community but still very underdeveloped
is the Punjabi Wikipedia, with 1919 pages. I would recommend
contacting Gman124 or Sukh at that project on their user talk pages or
through the e-mail user function.

-m.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Parallel text alignment (was: Push translation)

[Mark Williamson]

> You won't find many professional translators using GTTK for their work.

[citation needed]

-m.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Parallel text alignment (was: Push translation)

[Mark Williamson]

I read that thread and noticed a lot of confusion. One translator
admitted she never even tried it, but still had lots of negative stuff
to say; more than one person said they found it useful (see
Esperantisto's response), and other people seemed to not realize there
was a difference between Google Translate and Google Translator
Toolkit.

As I said before, I make my living as a translator, these are not
foreign concepts to me. I use GTTK every day in my work and find it to
be very useful. Perhaps you don't find it useful, alright, but some of
us have used it to increase efficiency.

-m.


On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 5:50 PM, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:
> --- On Sun, 8/8/10, Mark Williamson  wrote:
>> > You won't find many professional
>> translators using GTTK for their work.
>>
>> [citation needed]
>
> Professional translators and translation agencies tend to use systems like 
> Trados or Wordfast, building their own translation memories relevant to the 
> (repetitive) work they are doing. Machine translation of any kind, as 
> included in GTTK, is not much used, except in niches.
>
> Another thing: GTTK, even if it were more developed than it is, would not be 
> an option for most professionals, because using it would involve a breach of 
> client confidentiality.
>
> Here is an illustrative article that may be of interest:
>
> http://www.proz.com/translation-articles/articles/270/1/Reflections-of-a-Human-Translator-on-Machine-Translation-Will-MT-Become-the-%26quot;Deus-Ex-Machina%26quot;-Rendering-Humans-Obsolete-in-an-Age-When-%26quot;Deus-Est-Machina%3F%26quot;
>
> It includes an example of a machine translation "obtained from an online 
> search service offering among other things machine translation to its 
> customers". Compare the finished text against the initial output.
>
> Here are some discussions from translator forums:
> http://urd.proz.com/forum/poll_discussion/155006-poll:_have_you_tried_googles_translator_toolkit.html
>
> http://bel.proz.com/forum/internet_for_translators/137161-attention_all_translators_check_out_google_translator_toolkit:_translations_with_a_human_touch.html
>
> A.
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] [Language committee] New member

[Mark Williamson]

Interesting to note the geographic distribution of members of the
committee... hmm...

-m.

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 4:20 AM, Milos Rancic  wrote:
> Our new member is Huib Laurens (meta:User:Huib). His main role is to
> help us in keeping up to date archives of our mailing list [1] and
> other technical things. However, LangCom doesn't have strictly divided
> roles, which means that Huib is a also a full member of LangCom, which
> includes decision making, too.
>
> [1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Archives
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sakha Wikipedia passed 7000 articles

[Mark Williamson]

I think it has been proven many times over now that the Language
Committee works in mysterious ways with little or no community
oversight or input, essentially a self-appointed committee of
"experts", mostly from similar linguistic backgrounds, handing down
judgements about the rest of the world's languages from their
overwhelmingly European ivory tower. It seems we as a community of
people who care deeply about the future of potential new languages and
the success of existing language versions within our Wikimedia
community have no choice but to watch from the sidelines as they do
what they please.

-m.

On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 12:18 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter  wrote:
>
> On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:29:01 +0300, "Amir E. Aharoni"
>  wrote:
>> Some good news: The Sakha Wiki community keeps being surprisingly
>> active. I don't know this language, but i read the mailing list of
>> that community, which is mostly written in Russian, and often
>> contribute to it (i also asked to migrate that list to Wikimedia
>> servers and it will probably happen soon [1]).
>>
>
> Now it may sound like a joke, but the opening of Sakha Wikipedia had been
> delayed some two years ago because the Language Committee did not believe
> that the Incubator pages have actually been written in Sakha. Now this is
> one of the most dynamic Turkic language projects, and I am proud to be a
> regular editor of this Wiki.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sakha Wikipedia passed 7000 articles

[Mark Williamson]

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Michael Peel  wrote:
> Erm ... huh?
>
> 1) If you're interested in helping, and have experience/knowledge of 
> languages, then get involved with the committee.

I have wanted to be part of the committee since before its inception,
but back then I felt I would probably not be welcome. Now, I'm not
sure what the process is and I'm also unsure as to whether or not I'm
wanted there.

> 2) They're getting things achieved - they're fostering the development of new 
> language projects, making decisions, getting the projects started, and doing 
> this in a very effective way. Compare this with the ineffectual procedure for 
> starting an entirely new project in any language, which hasn't gotten 
> anywhere in the last 3(?) years.

Let's see how many successful language versions of Wikipedia were
started before the language committee was created... hundreds. Now
let's see how many have been created in the last year:

North Frisian (1 speakers in a wealthy Western European country)
Karachay-Balkar (40 speakers in the Caucasus, again, as far as I
can tell, Europe)
Picard (perhaps 50 speakers in another wealthy Western European country)

That's three. It is my firm belief that some of the requirements of
the language committee set the bar too high for new language editions,
requiring infrastructure to be built, interface translated and content
created, all to degrees that seem unnecessary to me. Yes, these
measures often ensure that a new Wiki will be successful within a very
short period of time, but at what cost? The exclusion of dozens of
requests in languages that already have content and community dying to
get started.

> 3) Please point to _recent_ examples where they've made a bad choice (i.e. 
> Klingon doesn't count, as that was before their time). I'm not aware of any.

Inaction and setting the bar too high, as well as excluding Ancient
Greek WP against what seemed at the time to be community consensus
against such exclusion, count as bad decisions for me. Overregulation
of the Incubator, including deletion of painstakingly created content
(for example, the Riverense Portuñol test WP) just because there is no
valid ISO code yet also strikes me as not only counterproductive but
also cruel, although I'm not sure this is within the remit of the
language committee.

> I agree that it's not good that they have a hidden discussion forum; as much 
> as possible of the discussion leading up to a new project should be public, 
> and i can't see a reason for secrecy. Apart from that, though, I don't 
> understand these (somewhat bitchy) comments at all...

Debates about languages have been going on since nearly the beginning
of Wikipedia. This is just a continuation of the same old stuff.

-m.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Farsi wikipedia has reached 100 K article

[Mark Williamson]

Take a look at some of the new football-related articles on the Ewe
Wikipedia. I don't think this is cause for celebration at all:

http://ee.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Beckham
http://ee.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naohiro_Takahara
http://ee.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruud_van_Nistelrooy

I don't see a single word of Ewe... on any of those pages. I don't
think that user even speaks that language. All those pages should be
deleted.

-m.


On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 6:13 PM, phoebe ayers  wrote:
> Congratulations to Farsi and Slovene!
>
> For those who don't know, there's a milestones page here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_News
>
> Which I've always found fascinating to watch (for instance, this month
> Ewe Wikipedia doubled in size, due entirely to football related
> articles by user:footballer; and user:JinJian on Waray-Waray created
> 10,000 articles, bringing it over 100K.)  Amazing.
>
> best,
> Phoebe
>
> On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Mariano Cecowski
>  wrote:
>> Congratulations!
>>
>> So did the Slovene Wikipedia just one week ago.
>> We're right behind you! Though we have half the edits. :|
>>
>> Cheers,
>> MarianoC.-
>>
>> --- El mié 25-ago-10, Mardetanha  escribió:
>>
>>> De: Mardetanha 
>>> Asunto: [Foundation-l] Farsi wikipedia has reached 100 K article
>>> Para: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> Fecha: miércoles, 25 de agosto de 2010, 4:31
>>> Farsi wikipedia has reached 100 K
>>> articles .
>>>
>>> Mardetanha
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> --
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sakha Wikipedia passed 7000 articles

[Mark Williamson]

Two of the biggest remaining problems (of which there are, naturally,
many many many others):

1) Transparency. Maybe some experts fear retaliation - okay, use
pseudonyms or contribute anonymously. Just have someone summarize your
opinion for public archives. Does Gerard fear retaliation? From whom?
Why else does he keep his non-expert opinions hidden?
2) Eurocentrism. Not an accusation to be made lightly, but look at the
geographic composition of the langcom. 9/13 members currently reside
in Europe, another is originally from Europe, 2 from Canada and 1 from
California. Hmm... so the population of Europe is 10% of the Earth's
population, but (nearly) 100% of the population of the LangCom? This
is a huge bias and should not be tolerated within an organization such
as ours which pretends to have an international scope.

-m.

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 2:21 PM, Gerard Meijssen
 wrote:
> Hoi,
> Let us have a sense of history here. When the language committee started,
> there were no linguists or other experts members on the committee. We were
> really happy when we got someone who is part of the standard bodies that are
> relevant to what we do. It meant that we had a way to assess what the
> likelihood was for requests to the standard bodies. The only problem was
> that for professional reasons it is not possible to publish the point of
> views expressed publicly. As this may affect the employability, this is not
> a trivial matter and confidentiality is the only way got relevant and
> significant contributions.
>
> As a consequence, the mailing list for the language committee became
> confidential. At a later date, some members were not happy with a
> confidential list and wanted to make *their* contributions public. I opposed
> this  because it is not that hard to deduce what someone said by the answers
> from others. As a consequence I keep my contributions private to the members
> of the committee.
>
> At a later date we started to seek expert opinion about the contributions in
> the incubator to ensure that contributions were in the language that goes
> with the ISO-639-3 code. The comments of these experts are in some cases
> best kept private. We seek assurances for ourselves so that we can honestly
> inform the WMF board that in our opinion a project in a new language can
> start.
>
> The policy allows for only one Wikipedia per language and, requests by
> people that seek to force one orthography or one script do not find
> acceptance in the policy and by the committee. At that we deliberately keep
> such deliberations outside of the WMF LC and leave it to the standard bodies
> to define what makes a specific language.
>
> If this gives you the impression that there is not that much to discuss, you
> are completely correct.
> Thanks,
>        GerardM
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Re: [Foundation-l] Sakha Wikipedia passed 7000 articles

[Mark Williamson]

I hope nobody gets the impression that I'm just an American sniping at
Europeans. I wouldn't be much happier if it was half Americans and
half Europeans, or even all Americans. The majority of the world's
non-endangered languages are spoken in Asia and Africa, so on a
committee that deals with languages it strikes me as absurd that there
would be 0 representation from these places.

As far as applauding the fact that there is a single person on the
committee who spent most of his life in Israel, I hope you'll excuse
me if I'm not clapping. Having a single member out of 13 that lives
outside Europe/US is not especially encouraging to me, it seems more
like tokenism.

Yaroslav, Europe does have dozens of languages, but it lags behind
literally other continent:

Continent - # of languages - % of world's languages
Africa - 2110 - 30.5%
Americas - 993 - 14.4%
Asia - 2,322 - 33.6%
Europe - 234 - 3.4%
Pacific - 1,250 - 18.1%

Let's keep that in mind here.

-m.

On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 8:11 AM, Michael Snow  wrote:
> Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
>>> 2) Eurocentrism. Not an accusation to be made lightly, but look at the
>>> geographic composition of the langcom. 9/13 members currently reside
>>> in Europe, another is originally from Europe, 2 from Canada and 1 from
>>> California. Hmm... so the population of Europe is 10% of the Earth's
>>> population, but (nearly) 100% of the population of the LangCom? This
>>> is a huge bias and should not be tolerated within an organization such
>>> as ours which pretends to have an international scope.
>>>
>>> -m.
>>>
>>
>> I guess if 75% of the members were from the US nobody would ever complain.
>>
> Hardly. It's not as if there have been no complaints ever about a
> majority of the board being from the US. It would be better if both the
> Americans and the Europeans would cut back on sniping at each other,
> acknowledge that it's unhealthy for either of them to be so
> disproportionately represented, and focus their energies on recruiting
> more people who add real cognitive diversity. That's part of what the
> board and the foundation are trying to do in the context of the
> strategic plan.
>
> --Michael Snow
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] [Language committee] Transparency

[Mark Williamson]

Thank you to everybody who had a part in bringing about this increased
transparency. It is a breath of fresh air for me and hopefully for
everybody else who follows language-related developments on Wikimedia.

-m.

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 9:08 PM, Milos Rancic  wrote:
> As Karen fixed her anonymity issue, archives of the Language committee
> will be public by default starting from September 12th, 2010. We will
> continue to use the same method for the list archives, as it allows us
> to talk about confidential (mostly personal) issues. Previous emails
> will stay as they are, according to the old rules.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Umberto Eco on small languages/dialects Wikipedias (Aristotle article)

[Mark Williamson]

We have heard this type of criticism before, that lower-prestige
varieties or languages that are not "official" or "national" languages
are somehow intrinsically incapable or unsuited to encyclopedic
writing. Article quality on a Wiki is not high or low due to some
intrinsic characteristic or trait of the language variety used, it is
a result of the content not being well-developed. Also, many languages
in a relatively small territory does not mean living in a ghetto; on
the contrary, count how many national languages there are in Europe,
then count how many across all of Latin America, then take a look at
economic indicators and you'll see that there is no necessary
correlation between linguistic diversity and poverty.

-m.

On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 1:49 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
 wrote:
> I suppose you may be interested:
> http://espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio/el-me-aristotil/2134379/18
> But, don't expect it to be an actual usable judgement about those
> projects, because it's more like a pretext to comment some recent
> Italian events.
> A Google translation to English contains "only" 2-3 completely wrong
> sentences.
>
> Nemo
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Umberto Eco on small languages/dialects Wikipedias (Aristotle article)

[Mark Williamson]

In the science of linguistics, standard languages are considered to be
dialects which, simply through historical and political factors,
rather than any intrinsic expressive capabilities, are given added
prestige and wider realms of use than other dialects.

I am not from Italy, but speaking generally about languages and
language varieties around the world, I will say that it is true that
for the most part, any concept that can be expressed in one language
can be expressed in another. In some cases, this may require the use
of loanwords or other lexical adaptations, but there is no such thing
as a language variety that is "unsuited" to discuss politics, science
or philosophy. Just because the variety has not been used for that
kind of thing in the past does not mean it is incapable of expressing
those concepts.

When you say that the "dialect", by which I assume you mean the
nonstandard dialect, is only "for daily and familiar use", this
implies to me that just because this is the usual realm of these
language varieties, that it is impossible or not feasible or desirable
to use them outside of these domains. None of these are true, although
of course "desirable" is an own decision of the speaker.

-m.

On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 4:42 AM, Ilario Valdelli  wrote:
>  On 19.09.2010 13:01, Marcus Buck wrote:
>>    An'n 19.09.2010 11:32, hett Mark Williamson schreven:
>>> We have heard this type of criticism before, that lower-prestige
>>> varieties or languages that are not "official" or "national" languages
>>> are somehow intrinsically incapable or unsuited to encyclopedic
>>> writing. Article quality on a Wiki is not high or low due to some
>>> intrinsic characteristic or trait of the language variety used, it is
>>> a result of the content not being well-developed. Also, many languages
>>> in a relatively small territory does not mean living in a ghetto; on
>>> the contrary, count how many national languages there are in Europe,
>>> then count how many across all of Latin America, then take a look at
>>> economic indicators and you'll see that there is no necessary
>>> correlation between linguistic diversity and poverty.
>>>
>>> -m.
>>
>> Estonian is a nice example. There are only 1.25 million speakers of
>> Estonian. That's a rather low number. Less than the speaker numbers of
>> most of the Italian tongues Eco is talking about (Piedmontese has 2
>> million, Sicilian even 8 million). But the Estonian-speaking society is
>> in no way inferior to other societies. If Siclian or Piedmontese were
>> not suppressed by the Italian standard language and were allowed to
>> establish their own education systems there would be no problem. There
>> would be no "ghettoization".
>>
>> Marcus Buck
>> User:Slomox
>>
>
> The example of Eco is a little bit complex.
>
> In few words: an article about philosophy written in a dialect has not
> the same value of another written in a standard language.
>
> It is normal because any standard language has different registers, the
> dialect has limited registers and in general only for daily and familiar
> use.
>
> The synthesis is in one sentence "Infatti il dialetto, ottimo per il
> comico, il familiare, il concreto quotidiano, il
> nostalgico-sentimentale, e spesso il poetico, alle nostre orecchie
> deprime i contenuti concettuali nati e sviluppatisi in altra lingua"
> which can be translated "The dialect, excellent for the funny, the
> homely things, the daily use, the nostalgic memories, and frequently for
> poetry, lowers in our understanding the conceptual contents  born and
> developed in other language".
>
> It seems to me normal.
>
> The standard Italian has had eight centuries to become the current
> standard language, and the Latin has been used in Italy for a lot of
> time to write scientific and philosophical books (and it is still used
> for ecclesiastic matters).
>
> I understand the position of Eco because for eight centuries no language
> has been ghettoized in Italy, if the Italian standard is used as
> "super-language" probably there is a reason.
>
> The process for a dialect to be a language is long and complex.
>
> In the opposite side the Italian standard is not suitable for familiar
> language: it's a "standard" and aseptic language without "nuances".
>
> If a dialect would be a language, probably it should accept to lose the
> wealth of words and expressions for daily communication.
>
> It is what happened for Rumantsch Grischun and Limba Sarda who are
> "artificial" super-languag