Re: [Foundation-l] PediaPress
On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 11:10 PM, Michael Snow wrote: > Let me ask this question. Suppose the Wikimedia Foundation were to buy > PediaPress from Brainbot, including whatever intellectual property is > associated with its service such as the LaTeX export. If Wikimedia did > this and brought the service in-house, assuming the LaTeX export is > released as open source, it would probably continue to contract with > Lightning Source or some other company to do the actual printing (our > competencies are much more on computer and web technology than print > publication). Assuming that all of this was possible - and I have no > idea what would be a reasonable price for PediaPress, whether Brainbot > would sell, or whether that would be an appropriate use of funds in the > context of our mission and strategy - would people be okay with the > current placement of the service, including continuing to charge people > who order printed books? > Well, you first need to check if it would be/is generating enough revenue that justifies the investment. and see the usage of the collection extension and how many books they already printed etc. I don't know what is wrong with charging money to print the books, if someone needs a hardcopy of an article collection, then WMF should be the one providing it, if feasible. user:alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New projects
On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 8:51 PM, Milos Rancic wrote: > Our family has got new projects: > > * Wikinews in Esperanto: http://eo.wikinews.org/ > This project is a joke, are there really people who are going to read news in Esperanto? user:alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Proposal for new project
Why not just use Wikibooks for this project? if it works out, you can easily migrate the content to its own domain. alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] [OT] Am I the only one...
On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Chad wrote: > ...who hopes posting limits will be enforced this month? > > -Chad > > Yes. I received a ridiculous amount of messages about the same silly topic. move along people.. user:alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] RFC: A Wikipedia/etc.-like Web Directory (e.g: dmoz.org, the old dir.yahoo.com , etc)
Morning * I was thinking of something similar to make myself but didn't get to it. I'm glad to see this RFC and I think it will be worthwhile project to have, I don't know though how to convince them to create it. I was going to use Semantic forms (which means you also use Semantic MediaWiki (which means you get the cool features that pro-SMW people are talking about)) (and add duplicate link checker functionality to automatically redirect the user to the existing profile) for website submissions and FlaggedRevs to make new submissions invisible until it is reviewed by editors. of course, nofollow would be disabled on that wiki. alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 10:33 PM, David Gerard wrote: > 2009/9/28 Mohamed Magdy : > >> This really sucks. > > > Hey, we'll all live, and he's alive and well :-) > Yes. But I find it difficult to understand that he leaves wm for some social networking venture, I hope it is worth it. I wish you the best, I just don't agree with your decision on leaving (if it is possible to revert it...). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Announce: Brion moving to StatusNet
On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 9:32 PM, Brion Vibber wrote: > I'd like to share some exciting news with you all... After four awesome > years working for the Wikimedia Foundation full-time, next month I'm > going to be starting a new position at StatusNet, leading development on > the open-source microblogging system which powers identi.ca and other sites. > > I've been contributing to StatusNet (formerly Laconica) as a user, bug > reporter, and patch submitter since 2008, and I'm really excited at the > opportunity to get more involved in the project at this key time as we > gear up for a 1.0 release, hosted services, and support offerings. > > StatusNet was born in the same free-culture and free-software community > that brought me to Wikipedia; many of you probably already know founder > Evan Prodromou from his longtime work in the wiki community, launching > the awesome Wikitravel and helping out with MediaWiki development on > various fronts. The "big idea" driving StatusNet is rebalancing power in > the modern social web -- pushing data portability and open protocols to > protect your autonomy from siloed proprietary services... People need > the ability to control their own presence on the web instead of hoping > Facebook or Twitter always treat you the way you want. > > This does unfortunately mean that I'll have less time for MediaWiki as > I'll be leaving my position as Wikimedia CTO sooner than originally > anticipated, but that doesn't mean I'm leaving the Wikimedia community > or MediaWiki development! > > Just as I was in the MediaWiki development community before Wikimedia > hired me, you'll all see me in the same IRC channels and on the same > mailing lists... I know this is also a busy time with our fundraiser > coming up and lots of cool ongoing developments, so to help ease the > transition I've worked out a commitment to come into the WMF office one > day a week through the end of December to make sure all our tech staff > has a chance to pick my brain as we smooth out the code review processes > and make sure things are as well documented as I like to think they are. ;) > > We've got a great tech team here at Wikimedia, and we've done so much > with so little over the last few years. A lot of really good work is > going on now, modernizing both our infrastructure and our user > interface... I have every confidence that Wikipedia and friends will > continue to thrive! > > I'll start full-time at StatusNet on October 12. My key priorities until > then are getting some of our key software rollouts going, supporting the > Usability Initiative's next scheduled update and getting a useful but > minimally-disruptive Flagged Revisions configuration going on English > Wikipedia. I'm also hoping to make further improvements to our code > review process, based on my experience with our recent big updates as > well as the git-based workflow we're using at StatusNet -- I've got a > lot of great ideas for improving the CodeReview extension... > > Erik Moeller will be the primary point of contact for WMF tech > management issues starting October 12, until the new CTO is hired. I'll > support the hiring process as much as I can, and we're hoping to have a > candidate in the door by the end of the year. > > -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org) > CTO, Wikimedia Foundation > San Francisco > > > This really sucks. alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] $500, 000 operational support from Hewlett Foundation
On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 5:18 PM, Erik Moeller wrote: > The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has decided to generously > support us with $500,000 in operational funding. More information in > the press release: > > > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Hewlwett_Fdn_grant_August_2009 > > This is not a project-based grant like the Stanton and Ford > initiatives, but designed to advance the mission of the Wikimedia > Foundation as a whole. We're very grateful to Hewlett for their > support! :-) It comes out of Hewlett's Open Educational Resources > initiative, which is an acknowledgment that Wikimedia is an important > part of the OER movement. > That's great. Congratulations. > > Big thanks to Sara Crouse for her work on the proposal that led to this > grant. Thanks Sara! ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] New projects opened
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 6:59 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote: > Hoi, > Actually according to the standard Panjabi is the correct spelling. > It is the same moronic standard which says that the Egyptian dialect is a language. Congrats to the new projects, I just hope that they are really needed and not dupes. user:alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] What's up with IdeaTorrent
On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 3:30 AM, Erik Moeller wrote: > 2009/7/31 Mohamed Magdy : > > Hi W, > > > > What is going on with IdeaTorrent? are we going to have one or not? do we > > need to have a Meta poll or something? > > I don't think there's any opposition to implementing one. I think for > us to officially set it up we'd want to rig it up with CentralAuth to > avoid yet-another-login-database and simplify participation, and it's > simply not been justifiable to make the necessary > evaluation/customization/setup work a priority for the ops team. I see. Is it possible for CentralAuth to interface with a postgresql database? (if not, then we would have to wait for mysql support in IT version 2). Thanks Erik. alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] What's up with IdeaTorrent
Hi W, What is going on with IdeaTorrent? are we going to have one or not? do we need to have a Meta poll or something? alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] CC attribution with cut'n'pasted text - Tynt's Tracer Tool
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 7:46 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote: > 2009/7/24 David Gerard : > > http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/16060 > > > > Basically, if you cut'n'paste text, it appends a CC credit line to the > > pasted text. Obviously the paster can remove it, but it does remind > > them this is licensed, not PD. > > > > Worth using for our stuff? A bit obnoxious? What do you think? > > I vote for "a bit obnoxious". What if they are using it as fair use, > or under the GFDL? Or copy it to something which is already CC? Or > something which is entirely personal use so attribution is pointless? > Or to some large document where inline attribution is inappropriate? > > +1 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] phishing with wikipedia?
2009/3/13 Pedro Sanchez > Should someone handle this? > > > http://www.blackwikipedia.org/ > > BlackWikipedia is a nonprofit private organization to support WMF, the > Foundation working to maintain and develop the free online > encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Wikipedia is constantly looking for donors as > you can see in the banner top of each wikipedia.org page, in order to > support the huge costs of maintenaince and adminsitration. Now it's > posible for any user, throught BlackWikipedia, participate supporting > WMF, without having to make a donation. > > ¿How's that possible? Income generated by Black Wikipedia ads, minus > the cost of maintenance and administration for servers, will be used > by the WMF with ordinary donations. Therefore, each person using > BlackWiipedia is directly participating in Wikipedia supporting. > > That's a translation from http://www.blackwikipedia.org/es/wiki/Portada: > > Assuming their good faith, they will change the domain name (and the logo) into something else if someone approached them. I don't see a problem here except that they should clarify that they aren't affiliated with the WMF (nothing that binds them to send WMF any earnings etc). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] How to dismantle a language committee
Hi all, I would like to propose the dismantling of the language committee and creating a new one (not including Gerard, of course). Why? Because it is chronically malfunctioning. Manifested in: # Gerard is forcing all his opinion, anything else is going nowhere. # Other members don't really care and leave it, unfortunately for us, to Gerard. Background: I read about how unfair the LangCom before but I didn't really care because it wasn't affecting a language I care about. Then came the dreadful proposal for a dialect Wikipedia in my dialect, Egyptian dialect. At first, I wasn't sure in the beginning if I should support it or not, then I became sure if this should happen, it shouldn't happen on a platform like Wikipedia (for many reasons laid out in detail in the proposal page). I don't care if Ghaly and company (the people who made the proposal) started that on an independent website (Wikia or on an own domain for their campaign) but on Wikimedia, we should do the right thing (I hope). The proposal was approved (Gerard requires that you have the relevant ISO code and everything from there could be done, he is a bit annoyed now becuase of all the current proposals for dialect Wikipedias which were brought up by the Egyptian dialect Wikipedia proposal) and the technical team had no option but to create the wiki because Gerard gave it his blessings and the foundation didn't say a word (I heard that people were happy at Wikimania (Florence?) because of that proposal but I fail to understand why the Egyptian people there didn't express their opinion about it (it was in Egypt :!). Trivia (I like structure but..): * Gerard is talking about how good the localization of the Egyptian dialect, well, that is a natural thing when the localization is a matter of copy-pasting Arabic translation and converting it to a slang form or English words in Arabic (nothing wrong at all in that of course, we do it all the time, but we don't do it for the sake of looking hip (there is a certain language charisma we have in Egypt, that is, if you can speak English and mix English with Arabic to look cool. don't know if other countries have it), we do it only to introduce new words that we are unable to find their equivalent in Arabic (e.g. Acetylcysteine which is أسيتيل سيستئين in Arabic, basically English (latin) in Arabic). * May be ISO is wrong: why people are taking ISO codes as absolute, don't-discuss matter? in our case, we have 22 dialects of Arabic and the pathetic decision to call them languages of the supposedly "Macro" language Arabic, that is nonsense and it should be amended, not the blind (if not stupid) opinion of making all these sorts of dialectical projects ( http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=ara). I tried to contact the ISO, they say to contact the local office in my country ( http://www.eos.org.eg), and as always, they have dead emails, don't know about the phone numbers, I'm not even sure that anyone there would listen to a word of mine, besides, I wish to see changes before my expiry date is due. * Gerard have the false delusion of protecting the freedom of Egyptians and taking us out of illiteracy into the light of knowledge by making a new Wikipedia in slang and dialect. well, you are *wrong*, you are doing quite the opposite and other people are helping you alas. hope you understand that someday. * Wave of ignorance: a new wave of ignorance are upon us and I don't like Wikipedia being part of it. * Did you know that when I tell people about this new Wikipedia, the consiperacy theory of the west dividing us is brought up? like it wasn't enough that the ar.wiki isn't appreciated because of the several issues we have. no, now we have another big issue created because of the carelessness of some people. arz.wiki is a regression, making people think of Wikipedia as an enemy is a regression. * Did you know that what was rejected before, is being done on that arz.wiki? I'm talking about Arabic in latin characters Wikipedia. they have no objections there if you write Arabic in latin (a big no no in ar.wiki or any another respectable venue). dialect writing/Arabic in latin writing is for fun only, nothing serious. * They have a template on arz.wiki which is placed on articles copied from ar.wiki that says ~"this article needs more egyptianizing" like the one on uncyclopedia "this article needs to be more uncyclopediac" or something like that (sorry for the lack of links). * I think it would be doable to make a tab that Egyptianizes (or any other dialect) the Arabic article, that is, if we have some sort of conversion memory, that is if the dialect is stable (or standard), the dialect differs from a place to another, from a muhafazah to another ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhafazah). if anyone knows the technical method we could make a trial instead of the great mess of dialect Wikipedias. I'm not too sure about this compromise yet. So, to sum it up: # Dissolve the current committee and m
Re: [Foundation-l] Handholding for new articles (Was: Re: 80% of our projects are failing)
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:52 PM, George Herbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > > > Does this process make sense? > > > Yes very much, people like wizards (like the nice upload wizard on commons). new article wizard would be a great addition if someone make it. As for Nikola's "too long, didn't read", you will always have the classic way of creating a new page (things like this and WYSIWYGE should be optional). -- --alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] List summaries
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 4:24 AM, phoebe ayers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > New mailing list summaries: > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/foundation-l-archives/2008_November_16-30 > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LSS/wikiEN-l-archives/2008_11_16-30 > Nice!. > > (I won't do this every time one is posted, but just in case people > missed the last note about the list summary service reboot...) > Why not? I don't mind a reminder. > > -- --alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 11:11 PM, Christiano Moreschi < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Do we care that 80% > > of our projects are failing? > > Thanks, > > GerardM > > No. Why should we? Nobody actually reads shit like the albanian wikibooks > (doesn't matter if that doesn't exist, you get my point). Such projects > exist purely the monomaniacal benefit of the editor(s), not any readers. Let > them all fail, with the exception of Wikipedias en,fr,de,ru,etc + wikt and > commons. > > I fail to see the purpose of this response except "rm -rf -exclude:en,fr,de,ru,etc + wikt and commons" which //isn't going to happen//. I care and I think we should have a usability expert. but I wouldn't call it failure (as i understand failure means something that used to work and now deteriorates or stops), it is more of a project that didn't start yet. -- --alnokta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
