Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcing Community Fellow Peter Coombe

[Samuel Klein]

That's excellent.  Kudos to the fellows team and good luck with your
project, Pete!  SJ

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 3:22 PM, Siko Bouterse  wrote:
> It is my pleasure to introduce our newest Wikimedia Community Fellow of
> 2012, Peter Coombe. As a fellow, Pete will be working with the community to
> improve help documentation on English Wikipedia. He’ll be leading a 6 month
> effort and taking a data-driven approach to reorganize and rewrite key help
> pages in order to make them more usable for new and experienced editors
> alike.
>
> Pete comes to the fellowships program with an impressive resume. He’s been
> editing English Wikipedia as The wub since 2005, he’s an admin with over
> 75,000 global edits, and an active member of Wikimedia UK. Pete volunteered
> on the Social Media Team in the 2010 Fundraiser, and worked as a Production
> Coordinator in 2011. He’s got a B.A. and M.Sci. with honors in Natural
> Sciences from the University of Cambridge, and much experience breaking down
> complex topics into clear written information. He’s participated twice in a
> program at Cambridge to create online teaching and learning modules on
> advanced materials science and engineering topics. He’s also worked at The
> Helpful Book Company, publishing books that teach senior citizens how to use
> computers.
>
> Pete’s talent for making the complex seem simple, combined with his
> experience A/B testing in the fundraiser and 7 years editing Wikipedia, make
> him a great fit for his fellowship project. To follow his work or get
> involved in the redesign project, please visit his project page.  More info
> about Pete and his project are also on the WMF blog.  Welcome, Pete!
>
> --
> Siko Bouterse
> Head of Community Fellowships
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> sboute...@wikimedia.org
>
>
>
> ___
> Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately
> directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia
> Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> ___
> WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
> wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
>



-- 
Samuel Klein          identi.ca:sj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529 4266

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

[Wikimedia-l] Reminder: IRC office hours with Garfield Byrd, Chief of Finance and Administration at the WMF

[Steven Walling]

Just a reminder this is happening in #wikimedia-office in about 15-20
minutes.

-- Forwarded message --
From: Steven Walling 
Date: Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:51 AM
Subject: IRC office hours with Garfield Byrd, Chief of Finance and
Administration at the WMF
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org


Hi everyone (and hi to the new list too...)

I just wanted to announce that Garfield Byrd, the Chief of Finance and
Administration at the Wikimedia Foundation, will be at his first IRC office
hours this Thursday, April 12th, at 23:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office.

Time conversion and other necessaries are on Meta.[1] As for the topic,
Garfield wants to hold a general Q&A about WMF finance, as well as
introduce what his department is and who works in it.

Thanks, and hopefully we'll talk to you on Thursday. :)

-- 
Steven Walling
https://wikimediafoundation.org/

1. 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours



-- 
Steven Walling
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] teaching people how to edit Wikipedia

[Ziko van Dijk]

Oh my god, I think I'll recommend the Germans to create a work group
to have a close look at all those materials. :-)
Thank's for the links
Ziko


2012/4/13 aude :
> Am Apr 11, 2012 um 9:28 AM schrieb Heather Ford :
>
>
>> Have a quick question for some work I'm doing on Wikipedia literacy:
>>
>> What resources are folks using to teach others how to edit Wikipedia? At
>> Wikipedia Academies etc?
>
>
>
> Here are some materials we have used at workshop, especially the one-day
> workshop materials:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Workshop
>
> Katie
>
>
>> Thanks in anticipation :)
>>
>> Best,
>> Heather.
>>
>>
>> Heather Ford
>> Ethnographer: Ushahidi / SwiftRiver
>> http://ushahidi.com | http://swiftly.org
>> @hfordsa on Twitter
>> http://hblog.org
>>
>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l



-- 

---
Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
http://wmnederland.nl/

Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht
---

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] teaching people how to edit Wikipedia

[aude]

Am Apr 11, 2012 um 9:28 AM schrieb Heather Ford :


Have a quick question for some work I'm doing on Wikipedia literacy:

What resources are folks using to teach others how to edit  
Wikipedia? At Wikipedia Academies etc?



Here are some materials we have used at workshop, especially the one- 
day workshop materials:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Workshop

Katie


Thanks in anticipation :)

Best,
Heather.


Heather Ford
Ethnographer: Ushahidi / SwiftRiver
http://ushahidi.com | http://swiftly.org
@hfordsa on Twitter
http://hblog.org

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] teaching people how to edit Wikipedia

[Ziko van Dijk]

Hello, I accompany people in real life mostly in an early phase, or I
supervise them in a way that the result is not problematic. How people
later survive onwiki on their own - I usually don't come to know. We
discussed this in Germany and thought that for privacy reasons we also
don't want follow people from the courses. If they later write me an
e-mail, I woudl know (I put a pile of business cards on my desk), but
this hardly ever happens.

We have booklets from WMDE (1x1, Wikimedia Commons), but frankly, I am
not very happy with them. For starters, they have no page numbers, so
you can't simple tell people to look at a certain page for a certain
code... we really need some good teaching aids, for specific lessons.

Kind regards
Ziko



2012/4/12 Heather Ford :
> Thanks, Ziko. That's really interesting and sounds like an effective way of 
> getting them started.
>
> I'm curious what kinds of problems people contact you about when they start 
> editing for real?
>
> On Apr 12, 2012, at 1:45 PM, Ziko van Dijk wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Myself, I have a presentation which shows a basic wiki principle; I
>> noticed that showing the same thing onwiki would make me jumping too
>> much from page to page.
>> Showing Wikipedia functionalities then onwiki I call "Wikipedia
>> surfing" (version history, talk pages etc.).
>> If it is a workshop with the intention to make people edit then I
>> create a "pseudo encyclopedia" on user subpages. That's a number of
>> simplified Wikipedia articles with hardly any markup. From article to
>> article, the complexity and amount of wikisyntax grows. The newbies in
>> groups of 2 correct the language and content (I put in some errors for
>> them).
>> I prefer that because editing real WP makes people anxious, and I want
>> to be undisturbed with the newbies.
>> Kind regards
>> Ziko
>>
>>
>>
>> 2012/4/11 Heather Ford :
>>> Have a quick question for some work I'm doing on Wikipedia literacy:
>>>
>>> What resources are folks using to teach others how to edit Wikipedia? At 
>>> Wikipedia Academies etc?
>>>
>>> Thanks in anticipation :)
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Heather.
>>>
>>>
>>> Heather Ford
>>> Ethnographer: Ushahidi / SwiftRiver
>>> http://ushahidi.com | http://swiftly.org
>>> @hfordsa on Twitter
>>> http://hblog.org
>>>
>>> ___
>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> ---
>> Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
>> dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
>> http://wmnederland.nl/
>>
>> Wikimedia Nederland
>> Postbus 167
>> 3500 AD Utrecht
>> ---
>>
>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
> Heather Ford
> Ethnographer: Ushahidi / SwiftRiver
> http://ushahidi.com | http://swiftly.org
> @hfordsa on Twitter
> http://hblog.org
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l



-- 

---
Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
http://wmnederland.nl/

Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht
---

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] teaching people how to edit Wikipedia

[Sarah Stierch]

There is also a ton of case studies and best practices developed by the 
GLAM WIKI volunteers:


http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM

http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Get_started is a good place to 
look for some inspiration and speaking points.


And Lori and the crew worked hard on the GLAM Bookshelf at the last 
GLAMcamp.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/US/Bookshelf

While these might seem GLAM oriented, many of them overflow into basics 
of editing and so forth.


-Sarah

On 4/12/12 6:08 PM, Chris Keating wrote:

Have a quick question for some work I'm doing on Wikipedia literacy:

What resources are folks using to teach others how to edit Wikipedia? At
Wikipedia Academies etc?



Have a look at the Outreach Bookshelf:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf

"Welcome to Wikipedia" is well-used by Wikimedia UK.

(And if anyone else has outreach materials, please do add them to the
Bookshelf)

Chris
Wikimedia UK
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l



--
*Sarah Stierch*
*/Wikimedia Foundation Community Fellow/*
>>Support the sharing of free knowledge around the world: donate today 
<<

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] teaching people how to edit Wikipedia

[Chris Keating]

> Have a quick question for some work I'm doing on Wikipedia literacy:
>
> What resources are folks using to teach others how to edit Wikipedia? At
> Wikipedia Academies etc?
>
>
Have a look at the Outreach Bookshelf:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf

"Welcome to Wikipedia" is well-used by Wikimedia UK.

(And if anyone else has outreach materials, please do add them to the
Bookshelf)

Chris
Wikimedia UK
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcing Community Fellow Peter Coombe

[Siko Bouterse]

It is my pleasure to introduce our newest Wikimedia Community Fellow of
2012, Peter Coombe. As a fellow, Pete will be working with the community to
improve help documentation on English Wikipedia. He’ll be leading a 6 month
effort and taking a data-driven approach to reorganize and rewrite key help
pages in order to make them more usable for new and experienced editors
alike.

Pete comes to the fellowships program with an impressive resume. He’s been
editing English Wikipedia as The
wubsince 2005, he’s an
admin with over 75,000 global edits, and an active
member of Wikimedia UK. Pete volunteered on the Social Media Team in the
2010 Fundraiser, and worked as a Production Coordinator in 2011. He’s got a
B.A. and M.Sci. with honors in Natural Sciences from the University of
Cambridge, and much experience breaking down complex topics into clear
written information. He’s participated twice in a program at Cambridge to
create online teaching and learning modules on advanced materials science
and engineering topics. He’s also worked at The Helpful Book Company,
publishing books that teach senior citizens how to use computers.

Pete’s talent for making the complex seem simple, combined with his
experience A/B testing in the fundraiser and 7 years editing Wikipedia,
make him a great fit for his fellowship project. To follow his work or get
involved in the redesign project, please visit his project
page.
More info about Pete and his project are also on the WMF
blog.
Welcome, Pete!
-- 
Siko Bouterse
Head of Community Fellowships
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

sboute...@wikimedia.org
___
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed 
to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia Foundation and its 
projects. For more information about Foundation-L:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
___
WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list
wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Tom Morris]

On 12 April 2012 21:24, James Heilman  wrote:
> With respect to audience, on Wikipedia we write for a general audience yet
> our medical content is still used by 50-70% of practicing physicians.
> Lonely planet lists hotels in different section based on price. On
> Wikipedia we use editorial judgement about what to include and what not to
> include. We have subjective policies like [[WP:DUE]]. Just because
> something is subjective does not mean it cannot be done. There are books
> like the 1000 must see places before you die.
> http://www.1000beforeyoudie.com/  Referencing of this content is possible.
>

It is one of the most pernicious myths in Wikimedia-land that we
aren't riddled with subjective standards.

1. As an English Wikinews reviewer, I make decisions as to the
importance and newsworthiness of what goes on the homepage every time
I publish a story. Is the latest development in the Trayvon Martin
case more or less important than Facebook buying Instagram? On what
basis do I make such a decision? Oh yeah, "newsworthiness". That well
known, objective measure! ;-)

2. On Commons, there is a category called "Suggestive use of
feathers". Is there some sort of Platonic measure of how one uses
feathers suggestively? Same for "Erotic pole dancing". Am I to believe
that Commons editors are deciding on some purely objective basis
whether pole dancing images are erotic or not? (I pick on the
erotic/suggestive categories solely because of the BLP-esque issues
Commons often raises and fails to adequately deal with.)

Subjective decisions happen all the time on the projects. There's a
reason why we generally prefer our admins to be made of flesh and
blood rather than just building hyper-intelligent AIs to run the
projects.

-- 
Tom Morris


___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] teaching people how to edit Wikipedia

[Heather Ford]

Thanks, Ziko. That's really interesting and sounds like an effective way of 
getting them started. 

I'm curious what kinds of problems people contact you about when they start 
editing for real? 

On Apr 12, 2012, at 1:45 PM, Ziko van Dijk wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Myself, I have a presentation which shows a basic wiki principle; I
> noticed that showing the same thing onwiki would make me jumping too
> much from page to page.
> Showing Wikipedia functionalities then onwiki I call "Wikipedia
> surfing" (version history, talk pages etc.).
> If it is a workshop with the intention to make people edit then I
> create a "pseudo encyclopedia" on user subpages. That's a number of
> simplified Wikipedia articles with hardly any markup. From article to
> article, the complexity and amount of wikisyntax grows. The newbies in
> groups of 2 correct the language and content (I put in some errors for
> them).
> I prefer that because editing real WP makes people anxious, and I want
> to be undisturbed with the newbies.
> Kind regards
> Ziko
> 
> 
> 
> 2012/4/11 Heather Ford :
>> Have a quick question for some work I'm doing on Wikipedia literacy:
>> 
>> What resources are folks using to teach others how to edit Wikipedia? At 
>> Wikipedia Academies etc?
>> 
>> Thanks in anticipation :)
>> 
>> Best,
>> Heather.
>> 
>> 
>> Heather Ford
>> Ethnographer: Ushahidi / SwiftRiver
>> http://ushahidi.com | http://swiftly.org
>> @hfordsa on Twitter
>> http://hblog.org
>> 
>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> ---
> Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
> dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
> http://wmnederland.nl/
> 
> Wikimedia Nederland
> Postbus 167
> 3500 AD Utrecht
> ---
> 
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Heather Ford 
Ethnographer: Ushahidi / SwiftRiver
http://ushahidi.com | http://swiftly.org 
@hfordsa on Twitter
http://hblog.org

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] teaching people how to edit Wikipedia

[David Richfield]

> [create some simple userspace articles for newbies to correct and edit]

Great idea, Ziko!  Thanks for sharing.  I'll definitely do this when I
do some training.

-- 
David Richfield
[[:en:User:Slashme]]
+27718539985

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Announcing Community Fellow Peter Coombe

[James Forrester]

On Thursday, April 12, 2012, Siko Bouterse wrote:

> It is my pleasure to introduce our newest Wikimedia Community Fellow of
> 2012, Peter Coombe. As a fellow, Pete will be working with the community to
> improve help documentation on English Wikipedia. He’ll be leading a 6 month
> effort and taking a data-driven approach to reorganize and rewrite key help
> pages in order to make them more usable for new and experienced editors
> alike.
>
> Pete comes to the fellowships program with an impressive resume. He’s been
> editing English Wikipedia as The 
> wubsince 2005, he’s an admin with 
> over 75,000 global edits, and an active
> member of Wikimedia UK. Pete volunteered on the Social Media Team in the
> 2010 Fundraiser, and worked as a Production Coordinator in 2011. He’s got a
> B.A. and M.Sci. with honors in Natural Sciences from the University of
> Cambridge, and much experience breaking down complex topics into clear
> written information. He’s participated twice in a program at Cambridge to
> create online teaching and learning modules on advanced materials science
> and engineering topics. He’s also worked at The Helpful Book Company,
> publishing books that teach senior citizens how to use computers.
>
> Pete’s talent for making the complex seem simple, combined with his
> experience A/B testing in the fundraiser and 7 years editing Wikipedia,
> make him a great fit for his fellowship project. To follow his work or get
> involved in the redesign project, please visit his project 
> page.
> More info about Pete and his project are also on the WMF 
> blog.
> Welcome, Pete!
>
Fantastic news, and a great thing to push forward. Congratulations Peter!

J.


-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforres...@wikimedia.org | jdforres...@gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

[Wikimedia-l] Reminder: Volunteers wanted for FDC Advisory Due April 16

[Barry Newstead]

Hi -

Just a reminder that we are still looking for volunteers to be nominated
for the Funds Dissemination Committee Advisory Group. This group will help
shape the initial setup of an important new committee to support funds
flows within the movement and will provide valuable advice and counsel to
the Funds Dissemination Committee over the first couple of years of its
existence.

The time commitment is about 4 hours per week to contribute to the on-wiki
discussions and meetings every 5-6 weeks with a couple of in-person
meetings per year (likely, but dependent on how the Group prefers to
function).

Please complete the nominations here [1] by Monday, April 16 and feel free
to email me offlist with questions or post them on the talk page.

[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/FDC_Advisory_Group/Formation

Best,
Barry

-- 
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge.  Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] teaching people how to edit Wikipedia

[Ziko van Dijk]

Hello,

Myself, I have a presentation which shows a basic wiki principle; I
noticed that showing the same thing onwiki would make me jumping too
much from page to page.
Showing Wikipedia functionalities then onwiki I call "Wikipedia
surfing" (version history, talk pages etc.).
If it is a workshop with the intention to make people edit then I
create a "pseudo encyclopedia" on user subpages. That's a number of
simplified Wikipedia articles with hardly any markup. From article to
article, the complexity and amount of wikisyntax grows. The newbies in
groups of 2 correct the language and content (I put in some errors for
them).
I prefer that because editing real WP makes people anxious, and I want
to be undisturbed with the newbies.
Kind regards
Ziko



2012/4/11 Heather Ford :
> Have a quick question for some work I'm doing on Wikipedia literacy:
>
> What resources are folks using to teach others how to edit Wikipedia? At 
> Wikipedia Academies etc?
>
> Thanks in anticipation :)
>
> Best,
> Heather.
>
>
> Heather Ford
> Ethnographer: Ushahidi / SwiftRiver
> http://ushahidi.com | http://swiftly.org
> @hfordsa on Twitter
> http://hblog.org
>
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l



-- 

---
Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
http://wmnederland.nl/

Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht
---

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[James Heilman]

With respect to audience, on Wikipedia we write for a general audience yet
our medical content is still used by 50-70% of practicing physicians.
Lonely planet lists hotels in different section based on price. On
Wikipedia we use editorial judgement about what to include and what not to
include. We have subjective policies like [[WP:DUE]]. Just because
something is subjective does not mean it cannot be done. There are books
like the 1000 must see places before you die.
http://www.1000beforeyoudie.com/  Referencing of this content is possible.

-- 
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Samuel Klein]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 12:08 PM, Casey Brown  wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 2:53 AM, Mark Jaroski  wrote:
>> We're under the impression that there are
>> other Wikimedia foundation projects which don't use NPOV, and so those of
>> us favouring approaching WMF have been able to argue that we wouldn't be
>> forced to use it. If that's wrong then we should probably just give up this
>> line of exploration and go find another solution.
>
> My impression of sister projects is the same. Not all of the same
> rules that apply to Wikipedia also apply to sister projects. With the
> exception of very few mandatory things (like respect for information
> about living persons), individual projects can determine their own
> rules and policies as much as they want.

That's my view as well.  SJ

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Ryan Holliday]

- What sort of size is the WT community at the moment?


I'll leave it to one of the others to answer that? Ryan?


The English language WT version is the largest and gets around 500-1000 
edits each day.  There are 69,046 registered users and 48 admins, but on 
any given day it's probably fair to say that 10-15 admins will be active 
and contributions will come from perhaps 100-200 unique users and IPs. 
It is generally believed that this number would grow as part of a WMF 
project due to reasons including lack of perceived commercial ownership, 
improved site performance, and an ability to automate many tedious tasks 
that are currently manual such as using bots to revert simple vandalism.


Across all language versions there are approximately 259,371 unique 
pages (including redirects, image pages, etc), with 89,516 of those in 
the "main" namespace.  There are 52,548 image/file items.  There are 
approximately 3.1 million topic versions.


As noted previously in this thread, a database dump is not made 
available by the current site owners, but full history XML exports have 
been created by the WT user community that are updated weekly, and all 
image assets (including versions) are also spidered weekly (see 
http://jamguides.com/ for the data mirror).  These XML dumps are not 
made publicly available as they are huge (many GB) but would be 
available when setting up a new server.


There are some users from Wikivoyage (German and Italian language 
versions) on this mailing list who can hopefully provide stats about 
their user base and topics.


Ryan

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Foundation-l] Volunteers Wanted: Funds Dissemination Process Advisory Group

[Thomas Dalton]

On 10 April 2012 17:51, Barry Newstead  wrote:
> If we simply select an FDC (btw - how would this happen?) and ask them to
> figure out the issues for themselves, this would be a recipe for serious
> challenges that could doom the FDC from the start. A relatively brief, but
> structured process that is open, has an effective advisory group of trusted
> people, and is supported by consultants who can give us structure and help
> us with the heavy-lifting on process design seems like a solid way to get
> us to a good outcome and help the FDC get off to an effective start.

We would select an FDC by having a discussion on meta about how we
think we should select an FDC and then, once we have a consensus, we
implement it. That's how we make decisions around, whenever possible.
I think we should at least try and reach a consensus rather than just
assuming that we need to delegate decision making power to yet another
committee.

Can you expand on what you mean by "serious challenges"? Do you mean
people will challenge the decisions of the FDC if it isn't spelt out
exactly what decisions they should be making and how? In my
experience, the opposite is true. If you try and codify exactly what a
decision making body is allowed to do then that allows people to
challenge it and you end up with situations like the US is facing at
the moment with the legislature having passed a law but it's now going
through the courts because people are challenging that law.

If you take the British approach of parliamentary sovereignty, that
doesn't happen. We elect people to make decisions for us and then we
let them make those decisions. If they make bad ones, we elect
different people next time. (Of course, we complain constantly about
the decisions they are making, but that's just good fun!) With the FDC
we would have another safety net in the form of the WMF board's veto.

Everyone agrees that the FDC is going to be a very powerful body, but
you are trying to restrict its power as much as possible. It will be
far more effective if you just give it the power to make the decisions
that it thinks are best. That is, after all, its job.

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Casey Brown]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 2:53 AM, Mark Jaroski  wrote:
> We're under the impression that there are
> other Wikimedia foundation projects which don't use NPOV, and so those of
> us favouring approaching WMF have been able to argue that we wouldn't be
> forced to use it. If that's wrong then we should probably just give up this
> line of exploration and go find another solution.

My impression of sister projects is the same. Not all of the same
rules that apply to Wikipedia also apply to sister projects. With the
exception of very few mandatory things (like respect for information
about living persons), individual projects can determine their own
rules and policies as much as they want.

-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Travel Guide

[Mark Jaroski]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 16:16, Michael Peel
wrote:

> It's not just you; the Wiki Travel Guide emails are also appearing in
> multiple email threads for me. And they're all over the place in the
> archive:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-April/thread.html
>
> Might be an issue with the list settings?
>

It's an issue with the fact that those of us who just joined the list for
this discussion didn't have the in-reply-to header set.
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Travel Guide

[Michael Peel]

It's not just you; the Wiki Travel Guide emails are also appearing in multiple 
email threads for me. And they're all over the place in the archive:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2012-April/thread.html

Might be an issue with the list settings?

Thanks,
Mike
P.S. This project sounds great to me, clearly in-scope for a Wikimedia project.

On 11 Apr 2012, at 20:32, Anirudh Bhati wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Is it just me or are we all getting email responses out of the original
> threads?
> 
> Best
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 1:00 AM, James Heilman  wrote:
> 
>> @Yaroslov
>> 1) A merger within a WMF project  is supported by admins from both WT and
>> WV. WV is going to be meeting on the possibility of merging June 9th in
>> Germany
>> 
>> 2) Wikimedia's mission is to provide freely available educational content I
>> am not sure which "WMF principles" you do not see such a site as being
>> compatible with? You mention that a good travel guide selects information.
>> A good encyclopedia sections information as well. I am not sure why we
>> would encounter any differences? We deal with spam here on Wikipedia all
>> the time.
>> 
>> 2a) Not catering to a specific audience is one of the criticisms of
>> Wikipedia. The proposed travel guide would write for a general audience.
>> Wikipedia has written for a general audience with some success.
>> 
>> --
>> James Heilman
>> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>> ___
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>> 
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l


___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Thomas Morton]

>
> > - What are the policies/approach to copyright violations and other issues
> > such as slander, etc?
> >
>
> http://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft
>
>
>
I was more looking for the communities approach to hunting down, removing
or otherwise investigating copyright issues. (this is quite an important
issue within the WM movement).



> > - What is the policy r.e. advertising and promotional (quite often, when
> I
> > use WT, I see a lot of content that seems quite promotional in quality -
> > e.g. for a particular restaurant).
> >
>
> When we've got a full complement of contributors watching recent changes
> that stuff is supposed to be stamped out ruthlessly and quickly under the
> "Don't Tout" rule:
>
> http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Don%27t_tout


Cheers.

Tom
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Mark Jaroski]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 14:39, Thomas Morton
wrote:

> Just to highlight my earlier point about sourcing, the article on Florence
> currently says:
>
> Opera was invented in Florence.
>
>
> This happens to be true - but I have no proof of it, and it may well simply
> be the opinion of the original writer. Much of the rest of the historical
> section is the same; it is encyclopaedic detail about the city, spiced up
> for travel guide purposes. I have no issue with the spicing up (it is
> appropriate in the context), but I think this is the sort of content that
> can/should be sourced to help the reader be assured the material is true in
> at least some way (even if there is subjective opinion mixed in).


Maybe, but I worry that it's a slippery slope. A travel guide is not
an encyclopaedia. Maybe we should just offload the history section to
Wikipedia?
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Mark Jaroski]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 14:33, Thomas Morton
wrote:

> p.s. I read your "fair" link with interest - I think that is a good way to
> resolve the issue with clashing of personal experience. However one thing a
> bigger community brings is a difficulty in resolving these problems (or,
> they crop up more often). On Wikipedia we can use sources so that
> uninvolved people can voice an opinion and help resolve the situation - but
> where this relies on personal experience that is simply not possible. Do
> you have an approach to help scale this form of dispute resolution?
>
> Other questions I had:
>
> - What sort of size is the WT community at the moment?
>
>
I'll leave it to one of the others to answer that? Ryan?


> - What are the policies/approach to copyright violations and other issues
> such as slander, etc?
>

http://wikitravel.org/shared/Copyleft


> - What is the policy r.e. advertising and promotional (quite often, when I
> use WT, I see a lot of content that seems quite promotional in quality -
> e.g. for a particular restaurant).
>

When we've got a full complement of contributors watching recent changes
that stuff is supposed to be stamped out ruthlessly and quickly under the
"Don't Tout" rule:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Don%27t_tout
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Thomas Morton]

Just to highlight my earlier point about sourcing, the article on Florence
currently says:

Opera was invented in Florence.


This happens to be true - but I have no proof of it, and it may well simply
be the opinion of the original writer. Much of the rest of the historical
section is the same; it is encyclopaedic detail about the city, spiced up
for travel guide purposes. I have no issue with the spicing up (it is
appropriate in the context), but I think this is the sort of content that
can/should be sourced to help the reader be assured the material is true in
at least some way (even if there is subjective opinion mixed in).

Tom
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Thomas Morton]

>
> > What I think would be important to avoid is too much subjective
> information
> > from one individual; for example, where I to write about York, UK I would
> > recommend not going to the Jorvik centre (a main attraction) because I
> > thought it overpriced and boring.
> >
>
>
> > Whilst my viewpoint on this is subjectively valid, it may not reflect the
> > overall viewpoint of travellers to York (I know plenty of people who
> loved
> > it)! NPOV aims to make sure that the most mainstream of these viewpoints
> if
> > reflected - and any other viewpoints (i.e. "hate it") are given space if
> > deemed appropriate.
> >
>
>
> The whole point of a travel guide is subjective information from
> individuals!


Is it? I'd define it as "useful advice for travellers".

Subjective information from only a few people can be useless, because most
people will have different viewpoints (for example; I would write about the
beautiful historical parts of Amsterdam, but, say, a younger person could
just have easily been looking for information on drug tourism).

The point of "NPOV" is balancing these personal priorities to make sure the
readers gets lots of useful information. Rather than say "Don't bother
walking up to the Sacré-Coeur, it's a long climb and not worth the bother"
you'd say "The climb up to Sacré-Coeur can be a long one".



> However, there are travellers with different interests. Jorvik
> actually works out pretty well for travellers with children, for instance,
> but for (young) adults travelling on their own it's pretty overpriced, and
> not so interesting so that's what the guide should say.


Well I went as a child; and would recommend families not to bother
(overpriced, not all that interesting). Which possibly hihglights the point?



> I don't think
> that's NPOV though, because the Jorvik probably think they're pretty
> awesome for everybody.
>

Well, yes, but that's not "NPOV" because the Jorvik centre's view is
demonstrably biased :) (i.e. not a travellers perspective).



> > So in summary I don't see that there is any real difference in our stance
> > on this - it might just need a bit of rethinking.
> >
>
> We'd like to express it as "Traveller's Point of View".
>

I think this is a good name for it.

p.s. I read your "fair" link with interest - I think that is a good way to
resolve the issue with clashing of personal experience. However one thing a
bigger community brings is a difficulty in resolving these problems (or,
they crop up more often). On Wikipedia we can use sources so that
uninvolved people can voice an opinion and help resolve the situation - but
where this relies on personal experience that is simply not possible. Do
you have an approach to help scale this form of dispute resolution?

Other questions I had:

- What sort of size is the WT community at the moment?

- What are the policies/approach to copyright violations and other issues
such as slander, etc?

- What is the policy r.e. advertising and promotional (quite often, when I
use WT, I see a lot of content that seems quite promotional in quality -
e.g. for a particular restaurant).

Cheers,
Tom
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Mark Jaroski]

We've mainly approached this issue encouraging the different groups of
travellers to add relevant content for their areas. We specifically try to
mix it all in, because we don't want to section anyone off. There was
considerable controversy back in 2005 or so about adding an LBGT section to
the guide template: most of the community came down on the side of mixing
everything in. Likewise with family-friendly stuff like Jorvik.

We have in fact strived for a level of neutrality among different kinds of
travel. I think the particular policy document would be worth reading here:
"Be Fair"

http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Be_fair

I know, I know, I wrote that I'd rather not name the site, and there I go
adding a link. I didn't want to cut and paste.
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:04:27 +0200, Mark Jaroski wrote:

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 11:41, Thomas Morton
wrote:


So in summary I don't see that there is any real difference in our 
stance

on this - it might just need a bit of rethinking.



We'd like to express it as "Traveller's Point of View".




My point, which is different from Thomas's point (my kids actually 
liked Jorwik anyway) is that you do not have a single "Traveller's Point 
of View". One has a 'budget traveler point of view', a 'wealthy 
traveller point of view', a "traveller with children point of view", an 
'off-the-beaten-track traveller point of view', a 'tour traveller point 
of view' and so on. IRL, we know that a budget traveller will read LP or 
a Rough Guide, and a tour traveller will buy smth like "Polyglott" or a 
similar English Language series. In terms of the online travel guide, 
this could mean having several pages on the same city - like 'Barcelona 
on a budget' and 'Barcelona on a package tour'. And there we start 
having troubles with content forking, undefined boundaries etc. On the 
other hand, bumping everything in the single Barcelona page would make 
it very much unreadable - if I go to Barcelona, I want a list rated by 
someone I trust, not an unrated list whioch includes everything.


I assume these problems should be well-known in the WT community since 
these are basic things every travel writer encounters, but I am still in 
doubt what and how are these issues compatible with WMF.


Cheers
Yaroslav

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Mark Jaroski]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 11:41, Thomas Morton
wrote:

> What I think would be important to avoid is too much subjective information
> from one individual; for example, where I to write about York, UK I would
> recommend not going to the Jorvik centre (a main attraction) because I
> thought it overpriced and boring.
>


> Whilst my viewpoint on this is subjectively valid, it may not reflect the
> overall viewpoint of travellers to York (I know plenty of people who loved
> it)! NPOV aims to make sure that the most mainstream of these viewpoints if
> reflected - and any other viewpoints (i.e. "hate it") are given space if
> deemed appropriate.
>


The whole point of a travel guide is subjective information from
individuals! However, there are travellers with different interests. Jorvik
actually works out pretty well for travellers with children, for instance,
but for (young) adults travelling on their own it's pretty overpriced, and
not so interesting so that's what the guide should say. I don't think
that's NPOV though, because the Jorvik probably think they're pretty
awesome for everybody.




> So in summary I don't see that there is any real difference in our stance
> on this - it might just need a bit of rethinking.
>

We'd like to express it as "Traveller's Point of View".


> This really ties back into something more important; which is sourcing. I
> think one thing that WT sorely lacks is secondary sourcing the support the
> material, and that this would improve its content significantly. I'd be
> cautious of supporting a new WMF project that avoided sourcing in favour of
> mostly whatever the editors contribute from their experience. I think a
> good argument could be made for using personal experience to write a WT
> guide - but it should also incorporate good sourcing and editorial
> standards as developed here (Wikinews is a good example of where
> they successfully manage such a tradeoff).


Uh, sourcing? While things like telephone numbers and addresses are clearly
sourced from somewhere I tend to think that most travel guide writing is *
original* creative work. We've also tried to maintain a slightly cheeky
tone, which is hard to do in collaborative work.


>
> One further thing worth pointing out; from the discussions so far I gather
> the current host is unlikely to provide any technical support, such as a
> full dump for importing? This represents a problem to overcome because of
> attribution - any import would need a way to record the attribution history
> of each page (i.e. the authors) to comply with the licensing. I don't think
> pointing to the original WT page would work because, obviously, that could
> disappear etc. Just a point to remember.
>

I'm more concerned that now that we're discussing this in a more-or-less
public forum that they could get wind of it and start actively resisting.
They could make things a bit more difficult, though there are XML back-ups
out there which we could fall back on.

 I still think it's a good idea to not mention them or the collaborative
travel guide we're talking about by name for the time being. I do very much
prefer to think of them as a hosting provider than an "owner", because
that's what they do: hosting in return for the right to advertise on the
site. They just happen to own the URL and, I believe, the name.
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikidata logo

[Lydia Pintscher]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 6:11 AM, Mono  wrote:
> Can we please have a Wikidata logo contest? They're such a waste of time,
> but they've made some really great logos and are always fun/

Yes. We're already collecting ideas at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikidata#WikiData_logo_candidate
and there are some pretty nice ones already.
I'll hopefully have something more suitable up later today or tomorrow.


Cheers
Lydia

-- 
Lydia Pintscher - http://about.me/lydia.pintscher
Community Communications for Wikidata

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Obentrautstr. 72
10963 Berlin
www.wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.

Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Thomas Morton]

>
> First, NPOV would probably be a deal-breaker. The travel wiki community
> (usually working at Wikitravel) have long used Traveller's Point of View.
> This point of view is not neutral at all, but favours the traveller.
> Hoteliers, restaurateurs, etc. have different points of view, but for us
> it's the traveller's that counts. We're under the impression that there are
> other Wikimedia foundation projects which don't use NPOV, and so those of
> us favouring approaching WMF have been able to argue that we wouldn't be
> forced to use it. If that's wrong then we should probably just give up this
> line of exploration and go find another solution.
>

I'm not sure NPOV would be such a problem - because NPOV is really
misnamed. It's about representing the mainstream viewpoint in a fair and
objective way.

For a Wiki dedicated to travel information the mainstream viewpoint is
certainly the travellers.

What I think would be important to avoid is too much subjective information
from one individual; for example, where I to write about York, UK I would
recommend not going to the Jorvik centre (a main attraction) because I
thought it overpriced and boring.

Whilst my viewpoint on this is subjectively valid, it may not reflect the
overall viewpoint of travellers to York (I know plenty of people who loved
it)! NPOV aims to make sure that the most mainstream of these viewpoints if
reflected - and any other viewpoints (i.e. "hate it") are given space if
deemed appropriate.

So in summary I don't see that there is any real difference in our stance
on this - it might just need a bit of rethinking.

This really ties back into something more important; which is sourcing. I
think one thing that WT sorely lacks is secondary sourcing the support the
material, and that this would improve its content significantly. I'd be
cautious of supporting a new WMF project that avoided sourcing in favour of
mostly whatever the editors contribute from their experience. I think a
good argument could be made for using personal experience to write a WT
guide - but it should also incorporate good sourcing and editorial
standards as developed here (Wikinews is a good example of where
they successfully manage such a tradeoff).

Second, this is a fairly old and established community, with its own
> habits, mores, etc. As with other communities it makes some sense perhaps
> to learn about ours a bit before visiting. I think some of our fellow
> travellers are a bit concerned about being swamped by the shear size of the
> communities involved in other WMF projects (Wikipedia) and rightly so. They
> worry that the travel guide community runs a chance of quickly losing
> editorial control, and that this will lead not to the desired
> consolidation, but rather more unhealthy splintering in the collaborative
> travel guide space.
>

I think that's a relevant concern; there would have to be tradeoffs on both
sides I imagine. If WT are looking purely for a new host then.. I'm not
sure that is a good fit. If you are looking for a movement to become a
wider part of, to hold a specific corner (the travel side) and contribute
your own viewpoints as well as recieve some of ours... then that is
definitely a good idea.

You'd like to attract a community, but under your own rules... however this
community has a number of viewpoints that might not match up with how WT
currently operates (from my investigation anyway).

I don't see this, personally, as an unassailable problem.

One further thing worth pointing out; from the discussions so far I gather
the current host is unlikely to provide any technical support, such as a
full dump for importing? This represents a problem to overcome because of
attribution - any import would need a way to record the attribution history
of each page (i.e. the authors) to comply with the licensing. I don't think
pointing to the original WT page would work because, obviously, that could
disappear etc. Just a point to remember.

Tom
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Travel Guide

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:30:45 -0600, James Heilman wrote:

@Yaroslov
1) A merger within a WMF project  is supported by admins from both WT 
and
WV. WV is going to be meeting on the possibility of merging June 9th 
in

Germany

2) Wikimedia's mission is to provide freely available educational 
content I
am not sure which "WMF principles" you do not see such a site as 
being
compatible with? You mention that a good travel guide selects 
information.
A good encyclopedia sections information as well. I am not sure why 
we
would encounter any differences? We deal with spam here on Wikipedia 
all

the time.

2a) Not catering to a specific audience is one of the criticisms of
Wikipedia. The proposed travel guide would write for a general 
audience.

Wikipedia has written for a general audience with some success.


I actually do not have an opinion on whether Wikitravel should or 
should not be accepted as a WMF prtoject (I am currently leaning to the 
opinion it should). I just pointed out obvious problems. I maintain a 
travel guide website since 2004, and I know the issues are not so easy 
to resolve, especially the audience. This is why they have so many 
printed guidebook series IRL, and this is why I only used two or three 
of these series in my life (and other travelers use something else and 
under no circumstances would use what I use). These issues should be 
analyzed very carefully before the actual decision has been made.


Cheers
Yaroslav

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Ryan Holliday]

On 4/12/2012 12:04 AM, rupert THURNER wrote:

I am not to deep into this, so please bear with me if it already was
mentioned before: what are the main issues you face with the current
setting?


As with any diverse community different individuals will have different 
opinions, but some of the issues that led to the current discussion on 
forking are:


- The WT community does not have any control over the technical 
administration of the site.  Simple Mediawiki configuration changes can 
take months to get implemented (see for example 
http://wikitravel.org/shared/Tech:Enable_range_blocks), the current site 
is running Mediawiki 1.1.2 and in the midst of a promised upgrade to 
1.1.7 (note: NOT 1.1.8) that began in July 2011 and still has no clear 
completion date, and any enhancements to the site that would involve use 
of plugins or other technical enhancements must generally be dismissed 
as impractical given the current support situation.


- The existing community is no longer growing.  After many years of 
neglect from the site's owners several of the language versions lack 
active communities, while the active language versions are mostly 
treading water.  Most of this stagnation can be traced to frustration 
with current site management (performance problems, lack of 
responsiveness to technical requests, etc).


- The current site owners are intent on monetizing the site in ways that 
are expected to be detrimental to the site.  See 
http://wikitravel.org/shared/Talk:Advertising_policy for some of their 
advertising proposals, and 
http://wikitravel.org/shared/Tech:Add_booking_tool_to_WT for an upcoming 
change that has not received the support of any existing contributors, 
but that will be arriving soon nonetheless.


There are other issues, but this provides some insight.  The WT 
community has attempted to work with the existing owners for many years 
to address concerns, but at this point it seems pretty clear that they 
are either unable or unwilling to do more than the bare minimum required 
to keep the site viable, and that's not a scenario under which the site 
can come close to realizing its full potential.


It is believed that a move to WMF would immediately resolve all of these 
issues.  Given the WMF's established ability to competently managed 
large Mediawiki sites technical concerns should be greatly reduced. 
Similarly, the visibility of being a WMF project would enlarge the 
community, and the additional tools available (newer Mediawiki tools, 
access to plugins, ability to integrate with commons, etc) would free up 
the existing community to focus on the site rather than on simply 
fighting spam and dealing with technical issues.  Finally, concerns over 
misguided monetization efforts are unlikely to be a problem given the 
existing advertising policies of WMF.


Ryan (WT bureaucrat)

___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[Mark Jaroski]

Hi Rupert,

The current hosting provider (who also own a trademark on the site name,
and the right to place advertisements on the site) have become unresponsive
to requests for server maintenance and especially software upgrades,
feature requests, etc.

Speaking for myself, one of the main interests I had in working on the
guide had become collaborating on Mediawiki code to implement these
features. Because this has been a non-starter for some time I haven't been
participating much at all. I still do some maintenance of the Paris guides,
but that's about it.

So, the community seems to be about ready to find a new hosting provider,
and because of IP issues that probably means a new name. I think most of us
don't particularly want to look back at the decisions which were taken to
get us into this position in the first place (the Wikivoyage folks might
have a very different take there).

In our semi-private discussions which lead to the topic appearing on this
list and on Meta the major issues that people have had are making sure we
keep TPOV and with trying to come up with a decent name.

thanks!

-mark
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Travel Guide Wiki

[rupert THURNER]

I am not to deep into this, so please bear with me if it already was
mentioned before: what are the main issues you face with the current
setting?
Am 12.04.2012 08:53 schrieb "Mark Jaroski" :

> Hi all,
>
> I'm a long-standing editor/admin/etc. at Wikitravel, though I've been less
> active in recent years, mainly due to work and family.
>
> I have, however, been participating in discussions among Wikitravel admins
> about our dissatisfaction with our current hosting provider, and what we're
> going to do about it. As you know, one of the ideas which has been floated
> is to attempt to join WMF. One of the parties to that discussion started a
> new Wiki proposal on Meta, and a discussion here.
>
> I'm glad to have the chance to jump in before the discussion gets very far
> along. There are some important points to be made:
>
> First, NPOV would probably be a deal-breaker. The travel wiki community
> (usually working at Wikitravel) have long used Traveller's Point of View.
> This point of view is not neutral at all, but favours the traveller.
> Hoteliers, restaurateurs, etc. have different points of view, but for us
> it's the traveller's that counts. We're under the impression that there are
> other Wikimedia foundation projects which don't use NPOV, and so those of
> us favouring approaching WMF have been able to argue that we wouldn't be
> forced to use it. If that's wrong then we should probably just give up this
> line of exploration and go find another solution.
>
> I personally don't think that a creative interpretation of the concept of
> NPOV to make it look like TPOV would do, but of course I'm just one voice.
> Still there are others who feel even more strongly on this point.
>
> Second, this is a fairly old and established community, with its own
> habits, mores, etc. As with other communities it makes some sense perhaps
> to learn about ours a bit before visiting. I think some of our fellow
> travellers are a bit concerned about being swamped by the shear size of the
> communities involved in other WMF projects (Wikipedia) and rightly so. They
> worry that the travel guide community runs a chance of quickly losing
> editorial control, and that this will lead not to the desired
> consolidation, but rather more unhealthy splintering in the collaborative
> travel guide space.
>
> All in all I think there's a pretty good chance that a WMF travel guide
> Wiki would stand a good chance at attracting a large part of the community
> under the right circumstances. But - it's important to recognize that that
> community already exists if one wants to attract it.
>
> thanks!
>
> -mark
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
>
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l