Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2012-01-03 Thread Kang-Hao (Kenny) Lu
I know this is somewhat out of topic. Sorry about that. Technical
discussions should go elsewhere.

(11/12/28 6:39), Yao Ziyuan wrote:
 If Wikipedia can implement the things I talked about so far (topic-specific
 chat rooms, forums, topic-specific resource announcement and discovery)
 right on wikipedia.org, then certainly it's the most ideal solution.

No, it's not. The Web with only one site, wikipedia.org, is not
interesting at all.

 [snip]
 then we have to implement all this on a separate website or as a separate 
 program 
 (Wikipedia Explorer).

s/website/websites/ and that's how the Web behaves already. What might
be missing is the direction for readers of an entry to find the right
place to chat/share. Wikipedia currently implements this as a section,
namely, External Links. Indeed a separate program that aids users to
find the right link among all the links in the external links section
could be useful.

In any case, asking wikipedia.org to become the only place where all the
chatting/sharing happen is just not realistic, and that's not ideal
either in my homble opinion.

(11/12/28 6:51), Yao Ziyuan wrote:
 [snip]
 So instead I'm planning a desktop-based browser that simply browses
 wikipedia.org and provides additional features such as ebook
 creation, creating a FreeNode chat room for the currently browsed
 Wikipedia article, creating a virtual forum in a distributed manner
 by storing each user's posts on a Blogger.com blog

I think it is always better to find existing places for
chatting/sharing. Your program could maintain a community editable
mapping from Wikipedia entries to chat rooms/visual forums.

You mention yet another protocol based on HTTP headers. Believe me,
there are already tons of protocols like that. Reusing an existing one
might give you a better starting use base. Developing your program as a
Flock add-on would have the same effect too. (The ideal situation is
indeed if there's Wikipedia mirrors as playgrounds for MediaWiki extension.)

(11/12/28 6:08), Yao Ziyuan wrote:
 The idea behind this program idea is that I have long felt Wikipedia
 is not just an encyclopedia; it's the biggest ontology (
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science) ) ever
 made on the Web.

Since you mentioned this, if you haven't heard of Semantic
MediaWiki(SMW)[1], an MediaWiki extension, already then you might want
to bring your idea to that community too. If I recall correctly,
Wikipedia couldn't (or hasn't) adopt SMW for performance reason, but
there's a starting project called WikiData[2] from the Germany branch of
Wikipedia Foundation.

[1] http://semantic-mediawiki.org/
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata


Cheers,
Kenny


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[Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Yao Ziyuan
Remember there was MSN Explorer (desktop software) that let you browse MSN
and use MSN services such as Hotmail?

Remember Google Earth (desktop software) that lets you browse the Earth and
provides additional services based on the Earth?

We can also make a Wikipedia Explorer (desktop software) that lets you
browse Wikipedia AND provides an added layer that enables users to:

* Chat/discuss with other users interested in the same topic (Wikipedia
article).
* Announce/find resources related to a topic (products, books, jobs,
anything).
* More.

I intend to see such a Wikipedia Explorer developed, or personally
develop it. Any comments?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Thomas Dalton
On 27 December 2011 21:01, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:
 Remember there was MSN Explorer (desktop software) that let you browse MSN
 and use MSN services such as Hotmail?

 Remember Google Earth (desktop software) that lets you browse the Earth and
 provides additional services based on the Earth?

 We can also make a Wikipedia Explorer (desktop software) that lets you
 browse Wikipedia AND provides an added layer that enables users to:

 * Chat/discuss with other users interested in the same topic (Wikipedia
 article).
 * Announce/find resources related to a topic (products, books, jobs,
 anything).
 * More.

 I intend to see such a Wikipedia Explorer developed, or personally
 develop it. Any comments?

Advertising products and jobs doesn't sound like something the
Wikimedia movement would do, but Wikipedia is under a free license,
which means anyone that wants to make such software is welcome to do
so (although they can't use Wikipedia in the name without the
Wikimedia Foundation's permission, which might not be forthcoming in
this case due to the apparent commercial aspect).

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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread John Du Hart
I personally would prefer to see such new features added directly to
Wikipedia instead of focusing on another product. Remember, this is 2012,
we don't need dedicated software for most things anymore.

On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 4:01 PM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:

 Remember there was MSN Explorer (desktop software) that let you browse MSN
 and use MSN services such as Hotmail?

 Remember Google Earth (desktop software) that lets you browse the Earth and
 provides additional services based on the Earth?

 We can also make a Wikipedia Explorer (desktop software) that lets you
 browse Wikipedia AND provides an added layer that enables users to:

 * Chat/discuss with other users interested in the same topic (Wikipedia
 article).
 * Announce/find resources related to a topic (products, books, jobs,
 anything).
 * More.

 I intend to see such a Wikipedia Explorer developed, or personally
 develop it. Any comments?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Gregory Varnum
I tend to agree that MW focus should be on the web applications - including 
mobile.  However a free (and ad-free) third-party Adobe AIR app that integrates 
new web features with services offered by other sites in ways not otherwise 
allowed by WMF policies - might be interesting for folks that enjoy browsers 
like Flock and such (which I know is a surprisingly large audience)

I'm not personally that socially oriented (beyond sharing things on FB, Twitter 
and G+) - so chat and such wouldn't interest me personally.  As far as the app 
experience, I do occasionally use Mac OS X Dictionary's ability to browse 
Wikipedia from time to time.  That pretty much fills that void for me the few 
times a year I feel it.

-greg aka varnent



On Dec 27, 2011, at 4:15 PM, John Du Hart wrote:

 I personally would prefer to see such new features added directly to
 Wikipedia instead of focusing on another product. Remember, this is 2012,
 we don't need dedicated software for most things anymore.
 
 On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 4:01 PM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Remember there was MSN Explorer (desktop software) that let you browse MSN
 and use MSN services such as Hotmail?
 
 Remember Google Earth (desktop software) that lets you browse the Earth and
 provides additional services based on the Earth?
 
 We can also make a Wikipedia Explorer (desktop software) that lets you
 browse Wikipedia AND provides an added layer that enables users to:
 
 * Chat/discuss with other users interested in the same topic (Wikipedia
 article).
 * Announce/find resources related to a topic (products, books, jobs,
 anything).
 * More.
 
 I intend to see such a Wikipedia Explorer developed, or personally
 develop it. Any comments?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Yao Ziyuan
Besides social features such as chat, discussions and resource
announcement/retrieval, it could also have personal features such as
bookmarks, ebook creation, etc., so that before the program's user base
becomes large enough for its social features to be really useful, a user
can already find the program's personal features useful.

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 5:30 AM, Gregory Varnum ad...@wikiqueer.org wrote:

 I tend to agree that MW focus should be on the web applications -
 including mobile.  However a free (and ad-free) third-party Adobe AIR app
 that integrates new web features with services offered by other sites in
 ways not otherwise allowed by WMF policies - might be interesting for folks
 that enjoy browsers like Flock and such (which I know is a surprisingly
 large audience)

 I'm not personally that socially oriented (beyond sharing things on FB,
 Twitter and G+) - so chat and such wouldn't interest me personally.  As far
 as the app experience, I do occasionally use Mac OS X Dictionary's ability
 to browse Wikipedia from time to time.  That pretty much fills that void
 for me the few times a year I feel it.

 -greg aka varnent



 On Dec 27, 2011, at 4:15 PM, John Du Hart wrote:

  I personally would prefer to see such new features added directly to
  Wikipedia instead of focusing on another product. Remember, this is 2012,
  we don't need dedicated software for most things anymore.
 
  On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 4:01 PM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Remember there was MSN Explorer (desktop software) that let you browse
 MSN
  and use MSN services such as Hotmail?
 
  Remember Google Earth (desktop software) that lets you browse the Earth
 and
  provides additional services based on the Earth?
 
  We can also make a Wikipedia Explorer (desktop software) that lets you
  browse Wikipedia AND provides an added layer that enables users to:
 
  * Chat/discuss with other users interested in the same topic (Wikipedia
  article).
  * Announce/find resources related to a topic (products, books, jobs,
  anything).
  * More.
 
  I intend to see such a Wikipedia Explorer developed, or personally
  develop it. Any comments?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Yao Ziyuan
The idea behind this program idea is that I have long felt Wikipedia is not
just an encyclopedia; it's the biggest ontology (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science) ) ever made on
the Web. Just like GPS (Global Positioning System) gives every location in
this world a unique set of coordinates, Wikipedia gives every concept in
this world a unique ID (which is the concept's Wikipedia article title);
and Wikipedia's link structure can guide you to navigate to a concept even
if you initially don't know the concept's name. Put another way, just like
DNS (Domain Name System) can resolve a domain name to an IP address,
browsing Wikipedia can resolve a felt concept in your mind to a unique
address for that concept (which is the concept's Wikipedia URL).

So Wikipedia is an infrastructure for topic identification and navigation
just like GPS is an infrastructure for location identification and
navigation, and upon this platform there can be a rich ecosystem of
topic-oriented apps. It can revolutionize how people announce and find
stuff (currently we use Google and keywords to announce and find stuff,
like products, but you know keywords have their own limitations, such as
the synonym problem and the problem of catching a complex concept with
keywords, while Wikipedia can always give you a unique ID for your felt
concept, no matter how complex it is).

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 5:30 AM, Gregory Varnum ad...@wikiqueer.org wrote:

 I tend to agree that MW focus should be on the web applications -
 including mobile.  However a free (and ad-free) third-party Adobe AIR app
 that integrates new web features with services offered by other sites in
 ways not otherwise allowed by WMF policies - might be interesting for folks
 that enjoy browsers like Flock and such (which I know is a surprisingly
 large audience)

 I'm not personally that socially oriented (beyond sharing things on FB,
 Twitter and G+) - so chat and such wouldn't interest me personally.  As far
 as the app experience, I do occasionally use Mac OS X Dictionary's ability
 to browse Wikipedia from time to time.  That pretty much fills that void
 for me the few times a year I feel it.

 -greg aka varnent



 On Dec 27, 2011, at 4:15 PM, John Du Hart wrote:

  I personally would prefer to see such new features added directly to
  Wikipedia instead of focusing on another product. Remember, this is 2012,
  we don't need dedicated software for most things anymore.
 
  On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 4:01 PM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Remember there was MSN Explorer (desktop software) that let you browse
 MSN
  and use MSN services such as Hotmail?
 
  Remember Google Earth (desktop software) that lets you browse the Earth
 and
  provides additional services based on the Earth?
 
  We can also make a Wikipedia Explorer (desktop software) that lets you
  browse Wikipedia AND provides an added layer that enables users to:
 
  * Chat/discuss with other users interested in the same topic (Wikipedia
  article).
  * Announce/find resources related to a topic (products, books, jobs,
  anything).
  * More.
 
  I intend to see such a Wikipedia Explorer developed, or personally
  develop it. Any comments?
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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Jürgen Fenn
Am 27. Dezember 2011 22:39 schrieb Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com:
 Besides social features such as chat, discussions and resource
 announcement/retrieval, it could also have personal features such as
 bookmarks, ebook creation, etc., so that before the program's user base
 becomes large enough for its social features to be really useful, a user
 can already find the program's personal features useful.

I suggest the Wikimedia Foundation set up a Diaspora pod and a
StatusNet server for Wikimedia users to communicate. As a Wikipedian I
would like to have my social network accounts on a Wikimedia server.
We could also run an IRC or a Jabber server of our own for chatting.

Regards,
Jürgen.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Yao Ziyuan
In my original message I mentioned a chat room and a forum for every
Wikipedia article. For chat rooms, yes, an IRC server has to be created
(or use an existing IRC network such as FreeNode). For forums, however, we
don't need a centralized forum server. Wikipedia Explorer will help the
user create a blog with Blogger.com, and put all his forum posts on this
blog, and call Google Blog Search to retrieve blog posts associated with a
particular Wikipedia article and then merge them into a forum view.

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 6:08 AM, Jürgen Fenn
schneeschme...@googlemail.comwrote:

 Am 27. Dezember 2011 22:39 schrieb Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com:
  Besides social features such as chat, discussions and resource
  announcement/retrieval, it could also have personal features such as
  bookmarks, ebook creation, etc., so that before the program's user base
  becomes large enough for its social features to be really useful, a user
  can already find the program's personal features useful.

 I suggest the Wikimedia Foundation set up a Diaspora pod and a
 StatusNet server for Wikimedia users to communicate. As a Wikipedian I
 would like to have my social network accounts on a Wikimedia server.
 We could also run an IRC or a Jabber server of our own for chatting.

 Regards,
 Jürgen.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Jürgen Fenn
Am 27. Dezember 2011 23:24 schrieb Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com:
 In my original message I mentioned a chat room and a forum for every
 Wikipedia article. For chat rooms, yes, an IRC server has to be created
 (or use an existing IRC network such as FreeNode). For forums, however, we
 don't need a centralized forum server. Wikipedia Explorer will help the
 user create a blog with Blogger.com, and put all his forum posts on this
 blog, and call Google Blog Search to retrieve blog posts associated with a
 particular Wikipedia article and then merge them into a forum view.

Again: No desktop software, but a cloud solution. Even though I am now
posting from a Google account, we do not need Google or indeed any
other company for that, we can do it ourserves, there are free
alternatives we can set up for the community.

Regards,
Jürgen.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Yao Ziyuan
If Wikipedia can implement the things I talked about so far (topic-specific
chat rooms, forums, topic-specific resource announcement and discovery)
right on wikipedia.org, then certainly it's the most ideal solution. But as
Thomas Dalton said, if Wikimedia Foundation continues to take a purist
stance and only wants to build the encyclopedia itself and ignores the
wonderful potential of Wikipedia as a global infrastructure for topic-based
communication (unlike friend-based communication like social networks)
and topic-based resource sharing (e.g. announcing or finding products,
books, jobs, etc. for a specific topic), then we have to implement all this
on a separate website or as a separate program (Wikipedia Explorer).

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 5:30 AM, Gregory Varnum ad...@wikiqueer.org wrote:

 I tend to agree that MW focus should be on the web applications -
 including mobile.  However a free (and ad-free) third-party Adobe AIR app
 that integrates new web features with services offered by other sites in
 ways not otherwise allowed by WMF policies - might be interesting for folks
 that enjoy browsers like Flock and such (which I know is a surprisingly
 large audience)

 I'm not personally that socially oriented (beyond sharing things on FB,
 Twitter and G+) - so chat and such wouldn't interest me personally.  As far
 as the app experience, I do occasionally use Mac OS X Dictionary's ability
 to browse Wikipedia from time to time.  That pretty much fills that void
 for me the few times a year I feel it.

 -greg aka varnent



 On Dec 27, 2011, at 4:15 PM, John Du Hart wrote:

  I personally would prefer to see such new features added directly to
  Wikipedia instead of focusing on another product. Remember, this is 2012,
  we don't need dedicated software for most things anymore.
 
  On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 4:01 PM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Remember there was MSN Explorer (desktop software) that let you browse
 MSN
  and use MSN services such as Hotmail?
 
  Remember Google Earth (desktop software) that lets you browse the Earth
 and
  provides additional services based on the Earth?
 
  We can also make a Wikipedia Explorer (desktop software) that lets you
  browse Wikipedia AND provides an added layer that enables users to:
 
  * Chat/discuss with other users interested in the same topic (Wikipedia
  article).
  * Announce/find resources related to a topic (products, books, jobs,
  anything).
  * More.
 
  I intend to see such a Wikipedia Explorer developed, or personally
  develop it. Any comments?
  ___
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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Yao Ziyuan
On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 6:35 AM, Jürgen Fenn
schneeschme...@googlemail.comwrote:

 Am 27. Dezember 2011 23:24 schrieb Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com:
  In my original message I mentioned a chat room and a forum for every
  Wikipedia article. For chat rooms, yes, an IRC server has to be created
  (or use an existing IRC network such as FreeNode). For forums, however,
 we
  don't need a centralized forum server. Wikipedia Explorer will help the
  user create a blog with Blogger.com, and put all his forum posts on
 this
  blog, and call Google Blog Search to retrieve blog posts associated with
 a
  particular Wikipedia article and then merge them into a forum view.

 Again: No desktop software, but a cloud solution. Even though I am now
 posting from a Google account, we do not need Google or indeed any
 other company for that, we can do it ourserves, there are free
 alternatives we can set up for the community.


The reason I mentioned desktop software is for server costs reasons. If
wikipedia.org is not going to implement these features, we're supposed to
create another website that:
(1) mirrors Wikipedia's content (text, images, and that's huge, as I've
just checked out how large Wikipedia's image base is now);
(2) provides additional services such as a chat room/forum for every
Wikipedia article.

I'm just an individual in China and I'm not gonna create such a mirror site
and incur global traffic, which will definitely bankrupt me. So instead I'm
planning a desktop-based browser that simply browses wikipedia.org and
provides additional features such as ebook creation, creating a FreeNode
chat room for the currently browsed Wikipedia article, creating a virtual
forum in a distributed manner by storing each user's posts on a
Blogger.com blog and retrieving article-specific posts with Google Blog
Search. All these features won't involve building my own server. LOL!


 Regards,
 Jürgen.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Yao Ziyuan
Actually, I don't think Wikipedia or Wikimedia Foundation has to do
everything. They just need to maintain this platform: Wikipedia, just like
Microsoft just needs to maintain Windows and let third party developers to
develop apps for Windows.

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 6:51 AM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:



 On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 6:35 AM, Jürgen Fenn 
 schneeschme...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Am 27. Dezember 2011 23:24 schrieb Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com:
  In my original message I mentioned a chat room and a forum for every
  Wikipedia article. For chat rooms, yes, an IRC server has to be created
  (or use an existing IRC network such as FreeNode). For forums, however,
 we
  don't need a centralized forum server. Wikipedia Explorer will help the
  user create a blog with Blogger.com, and put all his forum posts on
 this
  blog, and call Google Blog Search to retrieve blog posts associated
 with a
  particular Wikipedia article and then merge them into a forum view.

 Again: No desktop software, but a cloud solution. Even though I am now
 posting from a Google account, we do not need Google or indeed any
 other company for that, we can do it ourserves, there are free
 alternatives we can set up for the community.


 The reason I mentioned desktop software is for server costs reasons. If
 wikipedia.org is not going to implement these features, we're supposed to
 create another website that:
 (1) mirrors Wikipedia's content (text, images, and that's huge, as I've
 just checked out how large Wikipedia's image base is now);
 (2) provides additional services such as a chat room/forum for every
 Wikipedia article.

 I'm just an individual in China and I'm not gonna create such a mirror
 site and incur global traffic, which will definitely bankrupt me. So
 instead I'm planning a desktop-based browser that simply browses
 wikipedia.org and provides additional features such as ebook creation,
 creating a FreeNode chat room for the currently browsed Wikipedia article,
 creating a virtual forum in a distributed manner by storing each user's
 posts on a Blogger.com blog and retrieving article-specific posts with
 Google Blog Search. All these features won't involve building my own
 server. LOL!


 Regards,
 Jürgen.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Yao Ziyuan
For example, instead of putting a forum on every Wikipedia article, we can
let any third party to provide such a forum externally, and Wikipedia just
needs to do a Google query to present these third-party resources (e.g.
forums) to the reader. Let's see an concrete example:

Suppose a third party Uncle Sam wants to provide a forum for discussing
the mobile phone Galaxy Nexus, he can create a resource manifest page
on his forum's server, saying:


// Topic-ID: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_nexus
// Resource-Type: forum
// Title: Uncle Sam's Galaxy Nexus discussion forum
// Description: Discussing issues related to Galaxy Nexus
// URL: http://www.unclesam.com/forums/galaxy_nexus


After he publishes this resource manifest page on his server, Google will
index it, and Wikipedia will be able to retrieve this resource for readers
of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_nexus . It works like this:

Now a person named Alice is reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_nexus . Below the normal encyclopedic
article, Wikipedia will provide a section called Third-party resources.
This section is automatically generated by doing a Google search for the
exact phrase Topic-ID: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_nexus;, which
will list all third-party resources designated for this topic. The
Third-party resources section can also filter these search results by
resource type (e.g. only showing forums), and sort them by date or by
relevance (done by Google).

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 7:02 AM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:

 Actually, I don't think Wikipedia or Wikimedia Foundation has to do
 everything. They just need to maintain this platform: Wikipedia, just like
 Microsoft just needs to maintain Windows and let third party developers to
 develop apps for Windows.


 On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 6:51 AM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:



 On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 6:35 AM, Jürgen Fenn 
 schneeschme...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Am 27. Dezember 2011 23:24 schrieb Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com:
  In my original message I mentioned a chat room and a forum for every
  Wikipedia article. For chat rooms, yes, an IRC server has to be
 created
  (or use an existing IRC network such as FreeNode). For forums,
 however, we
  don't need a centralized forum server. Wikipedia Explorer will help the
  user create a blog with Blogger.com, and put all his forum posts on
 this
  blog, and call Google Blog Search to retrieve blog posts associated
 with a
  particular Wikipedia article and then merge them into a forum view.

 Again: No desktop software, but a cloud solution. Even though I am now
 posting from a Google account, we do not need Google or indeed any
 other company for that, we can do it ourserves, there are free
 alternatives we can set up for the community.


 The reason I mentioned desktop software is for server costs reasons. If
 wikipedia.org is not going to implement these features, we're supposed
 to create another website that:
 (1) mirrors Wikipedia's content (text, images, and that's huge, as I've
 just checked out how large Wikipedia's image base is now);
 (2) provides additional services such as a chat room/forum for every
 Wikipedia article.

 I'm just an individual in China and I'm not gonna create such a mirror
 site and incur global traffic, which will definitely bankrupt me. So
 instead I'm planning a desktop-based browser that simply browses
 wikipedia.org and provides additional features such as ebook creation,
 creating a FreeNode chat room for the currently browsed Wikipedia article,
 creating a virtual forum in a distributed manner by storing each user's
 posts on a Blogger.com blog and retrieving article-specific posts with
 Google Blog Search. All these features won't involve building my own
 server. LOL!


 Regards,
 Jürgen.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Software idea: a Wikipedia Explorer that lets you browse Wikipedia and more

2011-12-27 Thread Yao Ziyuan
Speaking of web applications, why hasn't Wikipedia offered an online ebook
creation tool for Chinese Wikipedia? This would be useful. For example, the
Great Firewall blocks information on a page basis, but if you put hundreds
of pages in a single ebook, one transmission of that ebook will thwart the
Great Firewall hundreds of times.

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 5:30 AM, Gregory Varnum ad...@wikiqueer.org wrote:

 I tend to agree that MW focus should be on the web applications -
 including mobile.  However a free (and ad-free) third-party Adobe AIR app
 that integrates new web features with services offered by other sites in
 ways not otherwise allowed by WMF policies - might be interesting for folks
 that enjoy browsers like Flock and such (which I know is a surprisingly
 large audience)

 I'm not personally that socially oriented (beyond sharing things on FB,
 Twitter and G+) - so chat and such wouldn't interest me personally.  As far
 as the app experience, I do occasionally use Mac OS X Dictionary's ability
 to browse Wikipedia from time to time.  That pretty much fills that void
 for me the few times a year I feel it.

 -greg aka varnent



 On Dec 27, 2011, at 4:15 PM, John Du Hart wrote:

  I personally would prefer to see such new features added directly to
  Wikipedia instead of focusing on another product. Remember, this is 2012,
  we don't need dedicated software for most things anymore.
 
  On Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 4:01 PM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziy...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Remember there was MSN Explorer (desktop software) that let you browse
 MSN
  and use MSN services such as Hotmail?
 
  Remember Google Earth (desktop software) that lets you browse the Earth
 and
  provides additional services based on the Earth?
 
  We can also make a Wikipedia Explorer (desktop software) that lets you
  browse Wikipedia AND provides an added layer that enables users to:
 
  * Chat/discuss with other users interested in the same topic (Wikipedia
  article).
  * Announce/find resources related to a topic (products, books, jobs,
  anything).
  * More.
 
  I intend to see such a Wikipedia Explorer developed, or personally
  develop it. Any comments?
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  John
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