Re: [Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
Hello Amir, hello Casey, Actually I am currently interested in policies of different language versions (article deletion, sources etc.), and thought about reviving the Tell us project for that. Most Wikipedians are busy only in one or two Wikipedias thoroughly, and hardly anyone knows how much the language versions have drifted apart (or not). Kind regards Ziko 2010/7/19 Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il: 2010/7/18 Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org: On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 4:43 AM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: Hello, I'm writing this as the follow-up to Jimmy Wales' Wikimania keynote about small Wikipedias, or, as some people correctly say, Wikipedias in underprivileged languages. (It's strange to use the word small anywhere near Bengali, for example.) Is there some recorded body of knowledge about the existing attempts to engage small language communities? The only thing that i know is the parts with Ndesanjo Macha in The Truth According To Wikipedia. They are very inspiring, but very small. Something that's standing out in my mind, but might not be exactly what you're looking for, is Ziko's Tell us about your Wikipedia project, where Ziko and others tried to get different Wikipedias to share details about themselves and some tough things that they experienced. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tell_us_about_your_Wikipedia That was a first step to a lot of the stuff you're talking about. Actually i started reviving this project a few weeks ago: I translated its main page into Russian so that people from Wikipedias in the minority languages of Russia who don't know English will be able to contribute to it. Thanks for reminding me to advertise it in those Wikipedias' Village Pumps. Versions in French and Spanish may be useful for Africa and Latin America. -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Ziko van Dijk Niederlande ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
Hello, I'm writing this as the follow-up to Jimmy Wales' Wikimania keynote about small Wikipedias, or, as some people correctly say, Wikipedias in underprivileged languages. (It's strange to use the word small anywhere near Bengali, for example.) Is there some recorded body of knowledge about the existing attempts to engage small language communities? The only thing that i know is the parts with Ndesanjo Macha in The Truth According To Wikipedia. They are very inspiring, but very small. Were there any people that, for example, worked with schools that function in underprivileged languages and tried to teach students there to write Wikipedia articles in their language? If there were, can i read, hear or watch their experiences anywhere? -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
Hoi, I have blogged often about this subject. If you want to create a level playing field for languages (the topic of my presentation at Wikimania) you have to make sure that there is a level playing field. While MediaWiki supports many languages there are issues that we have not addressed. Many of these have to do with Unicode needing updates of fonts that do not support the characters needed for a language. Amir, we talked about issues with right to left languages at Wikimania in Gdansk, that is another can of wurms where we need people to pick up the slack. At translatewiki.net we are looking for developers who are able and willing to help solve technical issues that have to do with allowing structures commons to languages. Examples are multiple plural forms, addressing people by their gender, addressing people in a formal or informal way. Once we are able to properly address people either in the user interface or in the text will we get to the stage where outreach becomes realistic and feasible. Otherwise you tell people that their language and effectively their culture is secondary because this other language is so good. Thanks, GerardM On 18 July 2010 10:43, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: Hello, I'm writing this as the follow-up to Jimmy Wales' Wikimania keynote about small Wikipedias, or, as some people correctly say, Wikipedias in underprivileged languages. (It's strange to use the word small anywhere near Bengali, for example.) Is there some recorded body of knowledge about the existing attempts to engage small language communities? The only thing that i know is the parts with Ndesanjo Macha in The Truth According To Wikipedia. They are very inspiring, but very small. Were there any people that, for example, worked with schools that function in underprivileged languages and tried to teach students there to write Wikipedia articles in their language? If there were, can i read, hear or watch their experiences anywhere? -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
2010/7/18 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: Amir, we talked about issues with right to left languages at Wikimania in Gdansk, that is another can of wurms where we need people to pick up the slack. At translatewiki.net we are looking for developers who are able and willing to help solve technical issues that have to do with allowing structures commons to languages. Examples are multiple plural forms, addressing people by their gender, addressing people in a formal or informal way. OK. This is certainly important and i am willing to hear more thoughts about that. Another significant technical issue about which i would want to read is how do such outreaching wiki-activists cope with poor or non-existent network infrastructure in such places. But i am particularly curious not about the technical issues, but about people's experiences - if there are any - with the actual content. For example, i can quite easily imagine teachers in some countries saying: Why should we write encyclopedia articles or textbooks in our local language? Textbooks should be written in English / Russian / French / Spanish / Portuguese. Did anyone have to cope with that? I am not even talking about countries where it is a question of language preservation; for example, in regions of Russia such as Tatarstan or Sakha most people know Russian and many know Russian better than their regional language. In this case, writing a Wikipedia in Tatar is not an immediate educational necessity, because Russian textbooks are accessible to people. It is rather a question of preserving the local culture; i strongly support that, but there are worse cases. I am rather talking about countries in, for example, Africa, where people don't necessarily know English or French well, but where education nevertheless functions mostly in a foreign language. Do people there even imagine that it's possible or desirable to write an encyclopedia in their language? Given all the technical tools and support, will they actually think that it's worth doing it? These are the challenges about which i am most curious. There are, of course, many other issues, technical and non-technical: lack of words for modern and foreign things, lack of standard orthography, low literacy rates, etc. I am willing to hear about all the aspects. -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
There's an en-wiki project I'm getting involved in that is planning outreach to smaller wikis. Would you like me to give you a ping when we launch? On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: 2010/7/18 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: Amir, we talked about issues with right to left languages at Wikimania in Gdansk, that is another can of wurms where we need people to pick up the slack. At translatewiki.net we are looking for developers who are able and willing to help solve technical issues that have to do with allowing structures commons to languages. Examples are multiple plural forms, addressing people by their gender, addressing people in a formal or informal way. OK. This is certainly important and i am willing to hear more thoughts about that. Another significant technical issue about which i would want to read is how do such outreaching wiki-activists cope with poor or non-existent network infrastructure in such places. But i am particularly curious not about the technical issues, but about people's experiences - if there are any - with the actual content. For example, i can quite easily imagine teachers in some countries saying: Why should we write encyclopedia articles or textbooks in our local language? Textbooks should be written in English / Russian / French / Spanish / Portuguese. Did anyone have to cope with that? I am not even talking about countries where it is a question of language preservation; for example, in regions of Russia such as Tatarstan or Sakha most people know Russian and many know Russian better than their regional language. In this case, writing a Wikipedia in Tatar is not an immediate educational necessity, because Russian textbooks are accessible to people. It is rather a question of preserving the local culture; i strongly support that, but there are worse cases. I am rather talking about countries in, for example, Africa, where people don't necessarily know English or French well, but where education nevertheless functions mostly in a foreign language. Do people there even imagine that it's possible or desirable to write an encyclopedia in their language? Given all the technical tools and support, will they actually think that it's worth doing it? These are the challenges about which i am most curious. There are, of course, many other issues, technical and non-technical: lack of words for modern and foreign things, lack of standard orthography, low literacy rates, etc. I am willing to hear about all the aspects. -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
Hoi, Do you have an URL for this project ? Thanks, GerardM On 18 July 2010 15:45, Oliver Keyes scire.fac...@gmail.com wrote: There's an en-wiki project I'm getting involved in that is planning outreach to smaller wikis. Would you like me to give you a ping when we launch? On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: 2010/7/18 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: Amir, we talked about issues with right to left languages at Wikimania in Gdansk, that is another can of wurms where we need people to pick up the slack. At translatewiki.net we are looking for developers who are able and willing to help solve technical issues that have to do with allowing structures commons to languages. Examples are multiple plural forms, addressing people by their gender, addressing people in a formal or informal way. OK. This is certainly important and i am willing to hear more thoughts about that. Another significant technical issue about which i would want to read is how do such outreaching wiki-activists cope with poor or non-existent network infrastructure in such places. But i am particularly curious not about the technical issues, but about people's experiences - if there are any - with the actual content. For example, i can quite easily imagine teachers in some countries saying: Why should we write encyclopedia articles or textbooks in our local language? Textbooks should be written in English / Russian / French / Spanish / Portuguese. Did anyone have to cope with that? I am not even talking about countries where it is a question of language preservation; for example, in regions of Russia such as Tatarstan or Sakha most people know Russian and many know Russian better than their regional language. In this case, writing a Wikipedia in Tatar is not an immediate educational necessity, because Russian textbooks are accessible to people. It is rather a question of preserving the local culture; i strongly support that, but there are worse cases. I am rather talking about countries in, for example, Africa, where people don't necessarily know English or French well, but where education nevertheless functions mostly in a foreign language. Do people there even imagine that it's possible or desirable to write an encyclopedia in their language? Given all the technical tools and support, will they actually think that it's worth doing it? These are the challenges about which i am most curious. There are, of course, many other issues, technical and non-technical: lack of words for modern and foreign things, lack of standard orthography, low literacy rates, etc. I am willing to hear about all the aspects. -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
It's currently at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:IShadowed/Outreach; we only started work on putting it together a couple of days ago. On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 2:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote: Hoi, Do you have an URL for this project ? Thanks, GerardM On 18 July 2010 15:45, Oliver Keyes scire.fac...@gmail.com wrote: There's an en-wiki project I'm getting involved in that is planning outreach to smaller wikis. Would you like me to give you a ping when we launch? On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: 2010/7/18 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com: Amir, we talked about issues with right to left languages at Wikimania in Gdansk, that is another can of wurms where we need people to pick up the slack. At translatewiki.net we are looking for developers who are able and willing to help solve technical issues that have to do with allowing structures commons to languages. Examples are multiple plural forms, addressing people by their gender, addressing people in a formal or informal way. OK. This is certainly important and i am willing to hear more thoughts about that. Another significant technical issue about which i would want to read is how do such outreaching wiki-activists cope with poor or non-existent network infrastructure in such places. But i am particularly curious not about the technical issues, but about people's experiences - if there are any - with the actual content. For example, i can quite easily imagine teachers in some countries saying: Why should we write encyclopedia articles or textbooks in our local language? Textbooks should be written in English / Russian / French / Spanish / Portuguese. Did anyone have to cope with that? I am not even talking about countries where it is a question of language preservation; for example, in regions of Russia such as Tatarstan or Sakha most people know Russian and many know Russian better than their regional language. In this case, writing a Wikipedia in Tatar is not an immediate educational necessity, because Russian textbooks are accessible to people. It is rather a question of preserving the local culture; i strongly support that, but there are worse cases. I am rather talking about countries in, for example, Africa, where people don't necessarily know English or French well, but where education nevertheless functions mostly in a foreign language. Do people there even imagine that it's possible or desirable to write an encyclopedia in their language? Given all the technical tools and support, will they actually think that it's worth doing it? These are the challenges about which i am most curious. There are, of course, many other issues, technical and non-technical: lack of words for modern and foreign things, lack of standard orthography, low literacy rates, etc. I am willing to hear about all the aspects. -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
Hello, I am also very interested by this topic, mainly about Hindi and Gujarati among other Indian languages. Please keep me in touch. Regards, Yann 2010/7/18 Oliver Keyes scire.fac...@gmail.com: There's an en-wiki project I'm getting involved in that is planning outreach to smaller wikis. Would you like me to give you a ping when we launch? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
Will do. I did suggest Urdu as a test run, but it didn't quite conform with our early requirements. I'm going to push for it again when we've worked out if this project can work. On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 6:11 PM, Yann Forget yan...@gmail.com wrote: Hello, I am also very interested by this topic, mainly about Hindi and Gujarati among other Indian languages. Please keep me in touch. Regards, Yann 2010/7/18 Oliver Keyes scire.fac...@gmail.com: There's an en-wiki project I'm getting involved in that is planning outreach to smaller wikis. Would you like me to give you a ping when we launch? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk
2010/7/18 Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org: On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 4:43 AM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: Hello, I'm writing this as the follow-up to Jimmy Wales' Wikimania keynote about small Wikipedias, or, as some people correctly say, Wikipedias in underprivileged languages. (It's strange to use the word small anywhere near Bengali, for example.) Is there some recorded body of knowledge about the existing attempts to engage small language communities? The only thing that i know is the parts with Ndesanjo Macha in The Truth According To Wikipedia. They are very inspiring, but very small. Something that's standing out in my mind, but might not be exactly what you're looking for, is Ziko's Tell us about your Wikipedia project, where Ziko and others tried to get different Wikipedias to share details about themselves and some tough things that they experienced. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tell_us_about_your_Wikipedia That was a first step to a lot of the stuff you're talking about. Actually i started reviving this project a few weeks ago: I translated its main page into Russian so that people from Wikipedias in the minority languages of Russia who don't know English will be able to contribute to it. Thanks for reminding me to advertise it in those Wikipedias' Village Pumps. Versions in French and Spanish may be useful for Africa and Latin America. -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
