Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Positions open for strategy coordinator contractors.

[Johan Jönsson]

(Note: Replying from my personal email, so User:Julle speaking rather than
User:Johan (WMF). I'm not working on this and not intimately familiar with
the plans for the strategy consultation; these are not comments from the
WMF, which as far as I know has no position on the subject of Scandinavian
languages.)

2017-01-31 15:38 GMT+01:00 John Erling Blad :

> Swedes have trouble speaking with both Norwegians and Danes, Danes have
> lesser trouble with Swedish and even less with Norwegian, Norwegians have
> virtually no problems wiith Swedish and Danish. People from Island and the
> Faroe icelands usually speaks Danish, they learn it in school, and as
> Norwegian and Danish is pretty close they usually understands Norwegians
> without any problem. It is somewhat strange how much trouble Swedes have in
> understanding the other Scandinavian languages, given that they are so
> closely related.
>

As far as I know, there's no major difference between Swedish and Danish
understanding of the neighbouring languages. When looking at Denmark,
Sweden and Norway and how well adolescents understand their neighbours,
Delsing & Lundin (2005) found two things that really stand out: On average
Norwegians understand Danish and Swedish significantly better than Danes or
Swedes understand the other Scandinavian languages – especially the Danish
understanding of their neighbours had dropped since Øivind Maurud looked at
the same thing in the 1970s – and both Danes and Swedes found Norwegian the
easiest foreign Scandinavian language to understand.

(They mainly performed OKish when it came to understanding written text;
understanding of the spoken languages are more difficult – the Norwegians
struggled with spoken Danish, too. Here's Norwegian national TV making fun
of how difficult the other Scandinavians generally find Danish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk)

(Reference: Delsing, Lars-Olof & Lundin, Katarina. "Håller språket ihop
Norden? : en forskningsrapport om ungdomars förståelse av danska, svenska
och norska" (2005):
https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/files/5905032/625654.pdf)

//Johan Jönsson
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Positions open for strategy coordinator contractors.

[Anders Wennersten]

Re: the Swedish Wikipedia is mostly just bot-created articles.

There are around 620 000 all manually created. Of the botcreated "seed" 
articles over 20 have been extended by manual effort, enabling us to 
for example have proper articles on all mammals in the world, all birds, 
all lakes in Sweden and Finland, which would otherwise have been 
impossible for a small wiki like ours. Of the others, we have a huge 
number being of great beneficial value. University students writing on 
parasite illnesses in animals really need the basic article created on 
the parasitises as such, and just the other day the enthusiast on 
mosquitoes living in Sweden who could concentrate on the name and where 
they exist and did not have to bother with the basic data of the  mosquitoes


We have also recently run into some problems re the last set of 
botgenerated articles, but this does not diminish the great value of the 
earlier sets.


Anders
(who with ease speak with my Norwegian friends and my Danish friend from 
the east part of Denmark)



Den 2017-01-31 kl. 15:38, skrev John Erling Blad:

In Scandinavia there are a bunch of closely related languages, they are
often referred to as North Germanic Languages.[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languages] Icelandic and
Faroese language is often referred to as Insular Scandinavian, West
Norwegian, or Old West Norse, and is somewhat different from the
Continental Scandinavian.

There are four midsized Wikipedias in Scandinavia; Swedish (3 782 560
articles, 2 950 active users), Bokmål (460 848 articles, 1 631 active
users), Danish (223 121 articles, 1 076 active users), and Nynorsk (132 213
articles, 205 active users). There are also two smaller Wikipedias;
Islandic (41 739 articles, 161 active users), and Faroese (12 418 articles,
44 active users). Yes the biggest in number of articles is the Swedish
Wikipedia, but it is mostly just bot-created articles.

Swedes have trouble speaking with both Norwegians and Danes, Danes have
lesser trouble with Swedish and even less with Norwegian, Norwegians have
virtually no problems wiith Swedish and Danish. People from Island and the
Faroe icelands usually speaks Danish, they learn it in school, and as
Norwegian and Danish is pretty close they usually understands Norwegians
without any problem. It is somewhat strange how much trouble Swedes have in
understanding the other Scandinavian languages, given that they are so
closely related.

The reason why you see signs with Swedish text on airports are because
Swedes have problems with all other Scandinavian languages. I'm not sure it
is wise to continue that "tradition". Get someone fluent in the
_Scandinavian_
  languages, it is not uncommon for people in Scandinavia to be speak and
write several of the languages, even all of them.

Yes, I'm a bit frustrated because I know that if a "language specialist" is
hired because (s)he knows Swedish the rest of the languages will be
forgotten. It is simply how things work in Scandinavia, Swedes are in
general introvert, the rest are extrovert. (Sorry Swedes!) Some says Sweden
geopolitically is located between Germany and France, and the rest of
Scandinavians wonder why they haven't noticed they are way up north…

On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 8:01 PM, Maggie Dennis 
wrote:


Hello, all. :)

As you know, we are launching a movement strategy process and want people
from the community integrally involved at every stage. We are accordingly
seeking active Wikimedians interested in applying for a number of Community
Strategy Coordinator positions. The people hired for these positions will
be part-time, remote contractors of up to 20 hours a week with a contract
of 3 months. Start date should be in early March.

You can see the job descriptions and apply for the positions at <
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us>, but here’s a quick
summary of who we’re looking for and what they’ll be doing:

*Language Specialist Strategy Coordinators*

These will be bilingual speakers of a specific list of non-English
languages[1] and English who are experienced in their language project
community or communities. They will be expected to be able to both conduct
deep outreach to these non-English communities and to liaise between these
communities and others, in order to maximize the ability of their
communities to participate in the movement strategy process. They will also
need to be capable of monitoring and summarizing discussions about strategy
topics and will be expected to produce a summary report at the end of their
contract.

*Metawiki Strategy Coordinators*

These facilitators need not be multilingual (although it is a plus), but
must be fluent in English and must be experienced contributors to one or
more Wikimedia communities. They will be working alongside the language
specialist coordinators, the global community, the Wikimedia Foundation and
the strategy team to facilitate the most inclusive strategy process

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Positions open for strategy coordinator contractors.

[John Erling Blad]

In Scandinavia there are a bunch of closely related languages, they are
often referred to as North Germanic Languages.[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languages] Icelandic and
Faroese language is often referred to as Insular Scandinavian, West
Norwegian, or Old West Norse, and is somewhat different from the
Continental Scandinavian.

There are four midsized Wikipedias in Scandinavia; Swedish (3 782 560
articles, 2 950 active users), Bokmål (460 848 articles, 1 631 active
users), Danish (223 121 articles, 1 076 active users), and Nynorsk (132 213
articles, 205 active users). There are also two smaller Wikipedias;
Islandic (41 739 articles, 161 active users), and Faroese (12 418 articles,
44 active users). Yes the biggest in number of articles is the Swedish
Wikipedia, but it is mostly just bot-created articles.

Swedes have trouble speaking with both Norwegians and Danes, Danes have
lesser trouble with Swedish and even less with Norwegian, Norwegians have
virtually no problems wiith Swedish and Danish. People from Island and the
Faroe icelands usually speaks Danish, they learn it in school, and as
Norwegian and Danish is pretty close they usually understands Norwegians
without any problem. It is somewhat strange how much trouble Swedes have in
understanding the other Scandinavian languages, given that they are so
closely related.

The reason why you see signs with Swedish text on airports are because
Swedes have problems with all other Scandinavian languages. I'm not sure it
is wise to continue that "tradition". Get someone fluent in the
_Scandinavian_
 languages, it is not uncommon for people in Scandinavia to be speak and
write several of the languages, even all of them.

Yes, I'm a bit frustrated because I know that if a "language specialist" is
hired because (s)he knows Swedish the rest of the languages will be
forgotten. It is simply how things work in Scandinavia, Swedes are in
general introvert, the rest are extrovert. (Sorry Swedes!) Some says Sweden
geopolitically is located between Germany and France, and the rest of
Scandinavians wonder why they haven't noticed they are way up north…

On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 8:01 PM, Maggie Dennis 
wrote:

> Hello, all. :)
>
> As you know, we are launching a movement strategy process and want people
> from the community integrally involved at every stage. We are accordingly
> seeking active Wikimedians interested in applying for a number of Community
> Strategy Coordinator positions. The people hired for these positions will
> be part-time, remote contractors of up to 20 hours a week with a contract
> of 3 months. Start date should be in early March.
>
> You can see the job descriptions and apply for the positions at <
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us>, but here’s a quick
> summary of who we’re looking for and what they’ll be doing:
>
> *Language Specialist Strategy Coordinators*
>
> These will be bilingual speakers of a specific list of non-English
> languages[1] and English who are experienced in their language project
> community or communities. They will be expected to be able to both conduct
> deep outreach to these non-English communities and to liaise between these
> communities and others, in order to maximize the ability of their
> communities to participate in the movement strategy process. They will also
> need to be capable of monitoring and summarizing discussions about strategy
> topics and will be expected to produce a summary report at the end of their
> contract.
>
> *Metawiki Strategy Coordinators*
>
> These facilitators need not be multilingual (although it is a plus), but
> must be fluent in English and must be experienced contributors to one or
> more Wikimedia communities. They will be working alongside the language
> specialist coordinators, the global community, the Wikimedia Foundation and
> the strategy team to facilitate the most inclusive strategy process
> possible. This will include outreach to global communities, offering their
> own community experience and advice to those involved in the process, and
> leading, monitoring, and summarizing strategy-related discussions. They
> will be expected to produce a summary report at the end of their contract.
>
> If you think either of these sounds like you or another community member
> you know, I encourage you to visit the job application page and review the
> job descriptions for more details (again, that's at <
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us#Wikimedia_Careers>).
> Please tell us about your experiences as a Wikimedian and why you think you
> would be a good fit for this role. Our goal is to run the most inclusive
> strategy process we can, and that means we need experienced community
> members like you to help!
>
> Best,
>
> Maggie
>
>
> [1]
>
>- Arabic
>- Bengali
>- Chinese
>- Dutch
>- French
>- German
>- Hebrew
>- Hindi
>- Italian
>- Japanese
>- Malayam
>- Polish