About the celebration in Tehran, I think this video <https://twitter.com/ablomof/status/687618946699231233> is worth watching :)
P.S. The hashtag we used for the celebration #wikipedia15fa is now being used widely by everyone \o/ Best On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 2:03 PM Yusuke Matsubara <w...@whym.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 5:42 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <pute...@mccme.ru> > wrote: > > You may think by now we are in the free information world, and the > players of the 1980 Japanese ice hockey team are on Wikipedia. > (snip) > > Japanese Wikipedia, as far as I can tell, is not better. A team of > mystery persons. > > Try then the freely editable knowledge base. :) Two of them [1] are > now on Wikidata: > http://tinyurl.com/zganwzg > http://tinyurl.com/jgdnxwu > (click "Execute" to see the list) > > Happy birthday and thanks for sharing your stories - an excellent way > to celebrate. > > -Yusuke > > [1] Herb Wakabayashi - apparently, a Canadian who was naturalized to > Japan later - is not in the query results. That piece of information > is missing on Wikidata and I couldn't find a credible source to cite > immediately. > > On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 5:42 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <pute...@mccme.ru> > wrote: > > On 2016-01-15 00:30, Mardetanha wrote: > >> > >> Dear Fellow Wikimedians > >> I would like to congratulate you on Wikipedia's 15th birthday, it was > >> historic moment for all of us, I am glad to let you know we had a > >> celebration in Tehran and we were the first country to celebrate it. > >> you can find images here > >> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_15_in_Iran > >> Mardetanha > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > >> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > > > I feel like today is time for stories, and I guess this thread is exactly > > the place we can share some stories today. I wish everybody does, since > this > > is a nice way to celebrate 15y. > > > > It could be in principle anything remotely Wikimedia related. For > example, > > the highest real-life rank of a person I ever blocked on Wikipedia was a > > member of the European parliament (or someone impersonating him). But > these > > stories mainly reveal human stupidity, and today we want to talk more on > the > > human knowledge. Therefore I am going to spend my daily quota of > wikimedia-l > > post for smth else. > > > > I was born in 1967 in the Soviet Union and I am coming from a > pre-internet > > generation. I first used internet in 1995 or so, past my PhD degree. > > However, I was always interested in learning things, this is probably > why I > > later joined the Wikimedia movement. And I was a pretty > advanced-knowledge > > teenager, knowing things my peers would normally not know anything about, > > and I was interested in all kinds of stuff: from exact sciences to > history > > and languages and to geographical names. It was really painful to get any > > non-mainstream information. Let me give you a couple of example of the > > problems I encountered. > > > > One was languages. Well, for mainstream foreign languages like English or > > German it was relatively easy to find textbooks and dictionaries. They > were > > nothing like modern means of language learning, for example the Teach > > Yourself series, not even speaking of online courses. Other languages > were > > more difficult. Some languages were impossible. Well, I grew up in > Moscow, > > which had a 10M population, and there were couple of libraries where I > > presumably could find dictionaries of even uncommon languages, but these > > were difficult to get in (normally one had to be 18 yo), they did not let > > the books out of the building, and for a number of practical reasons they > > were not really an option. On the other hand, I was hiking a lot in > Central > > Asia, and I was suffering from inability to understand what the local > Turkic > > names (in Kazakh and Kyrghyz mainly) mean. Well, you learn soon that > Ak-Suu > > means "White river", meaning "aq" is white and "suu" is a river, but > this is > > about it). So what I did I searched all available literature at home and > > around including the school library, and came up with a list of about 100 > > words. This was my own, personal, self-made Kyrghyz-Russian dictionary. > It > > was weird, since, for example, did not include verbs, and it did not > help me > > to speak Kyrghyz in any sense - and I still do not - but it was fine to > > understand the names and to feel kind of like at home. Now we have of > course > > professional dictionaries available online. (Kyrghyz is still not in a > > Google translate though). > > > > The second story. For whatever reason, when I was about twelve, I needed > to > > have Japanese names. I do not remember why I needed them, but Japanese > names > > were notoriously difficult to find. The books I had available only > mentioned > > a few individuals. The newspapers rarely wrote about Japan, and again > only > > mentioned a few individuals. Then there happened the 1980 Winter > Olympics in > > Lake Placid, and Japanese team entered the ice hockey tournament. (They > > ended up last). There was a sports newspaper which I had access to, which > > published the results of the games, and of course ice hockey was at the > time > > a great deal in Russia (on that Olympics, the Soviet team lost to the US > > team in the finals, which is still considered to be a major fuckup), but > > apparently they did not publish all the names of the players, only last > > names of those who scored a goal. Japanese rarely scored, and there was > my > > tough luck. But them the same newspaper opened a hotline - one could > phone a > > certain number, and they would answer any question related to the > results of > > the Olympics. I thought this is my chance. I was dead afraid calling > people > > I do not know, but I still collected a piece of paper, a pen and phoned. > A > > nice female voice answered, and I said I would like to have names of the > > Japanese ice hockey team players. The nice voice answered that the team > is > > too big, and their policy is not to give long answers. That was the end > of > > it. > > > > You may think by now we are in the free information world, and the > players > > of the 1980 Japanese ice hockey team are on Wikipedia. Well, check them. > The > > names are there (it takes a while to find the list of names on the > English > > Wikipedia - I believe the only article they are listed is [[Japan at the > > 1980 Winter Olympics]]), but only one of them - [[Herb Wakabayashi]], who > > died last year - has an article. Japanese Wikipedia, as far as I can > tell, > > is not better. A team of mystery persons. > > > > Happy 15y celebrations. > > > > Cheers > > Yaroslav > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
