Although the exact actions to be taken through the Wikipedia SOPA initiative are uncertain as of publication, there is general consensus for a single-day blackout on January 18, to coincide with similar actions by several other prominent sites. At the time of writing, the proposal for a full multinational blackout holds the widest support, with just under 500 editors in favour. Among the first to cover the story has been the CBS News site ("Wikipedia to join Web blackout protesting SOPA").
The Signpost asked the head of communications for the Wikimedia Foundation, Jay Walsh, what the significance is of acting in concert with other major sites? Will this really produce a politically effective message beyond acting in isolation?
What are the trigger points, so to speak, for persuading voters to contact the politicians? What do American voters respond to? Is the creation of newsworthiness in the media by the protest just as important as the direct persuasion of voters to lobby the politicians? Are there really two aims?
Did the Italian Wikipedia’s protest action last year achieve its goal of stopping the passage of the Italian law that would have had significant implications for Internet freedom?
We asked what the dangers might be for the project if these two laws pass.
15 January is Wikipedia's birthday, and this year marks 11 years since The Free Encyclopedia first went online. 2011 saw the total number of articles pass the 20 million mark (now close to 21), the number of unique visitors 400 million, individual page requests 16 billion per month, and 282 Wikipedia languages currently available. Wikimedians gathered to celebrate so-called Wikipedia Day, including "meet-ups, hack-a-thons, a bicycle rally, a kite festival in India, and a picnic in Caracas."
As Wikipedians prepared their celebrations, Commons broke an important milestone, when at 22:17 on 12 January, User:Crazyale pushed the project over the 12 million mark with File:Egyptian Building.JPG, a depiction of the Egyptian Building in Richmond, Virginia. The building is a U.S. National Historic Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Commons celebrated 10 million files in April last year and 11 million files in September 2011.
WikiProject Medicine has launched the Translation task force project, in partnership with Wikimedia Canada and Translators Without Borders. The goal is to improve the quality of vital topic medicine articles, to good or featured status, and translate them into many languages. In the process, the articles will be copyedited and simplified, into Simple English.
As the medicine-related articles on the English Wikipedia alone receive 150–200 million page views each month, and the articles are read by medical professionals and the public alike, project leaders believe "that this project will have a significant impact on the availability of good health care information wordwide and that this, in turn, is likely to save many lives and to improve the quality of life of many people globally." Volunteers are needed to improve the content of these medical articles in English, to help simplify them, translate them, and incorporate the translated articles back into other language Wikipedia projects.
Although the exact actions to be taken through the Wikipedia SOPA initiative are uncertain as of publication, there is general consensus for a single-day blackout on January 18, to coincide with similar actions by several other prominent sites. At the time of writing, the proposal for a full multinational blackout holds the widest support, with just under 500 editors in favour. Among the first to cover the story has been the CBS News site ("Wikipedia to join Web blackout protesting SOPA").
The Signpost asked the head of communications for the Wikimedia Foundation, Jay Walsh, what the significance is of acting in concert with other major sites? Will this really produce a politically effective message beyond acting in isolation?
What are the trigger points, so to speak, for persuading voters to contact the politicians? What do American voters respond to? Is the creation of newsworthiness in the media by the protest just as important as the direct persuasion of voters to lobby the politicians? Are there really two aims?
Did the Italian Wikipedia’s protest action last year achieve its goal of stopping the passage of the Italian law that would have had significant implications for Internet freedom?
We asked what the dangers might be for the project if these two laws pass.
15 January is Wikipedia's birthday, and this year marks 11 years since The Free Encyclopedia first went online. 2011 saw the total number of articles pass the 20 million mark (now close to 21), the number of unique visitors 400 million, individual page requests 16 billion per month, and 282 Wikipedia languages currently available. Wikimedians gathered to celebrate so-called Wikipedia Day, including "meet-ups, hack-a-thons, a bicycle rally, a kite festival in India, and a picnic in Caracas."
As Wikipedians prepared their celebrations, Commons broke an important milestone, when at 22:17 on 12 January, User:Crazyale pushed the project over the 12 million mark with File:Egyptian Building.JPG, a depiction of the Egyptian Building in Richmond, Virginia. The building is a U.S. National Historic Landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Commons celebrated 10 million files in April last year and 11 million files in September 2011.
WikiProject Medicine has launched the Translation task force project, in partnership with Wikimedia Canada and Translators Without Borders. The goal is to improve the quality of vital topic medicine articles, to good or featured status, and translate them into many languages. In the process, the articles will be copyedited and simplified, into Simple English.
As the medicine-related articles on the English Wikipedia alone receive 150–200 million page views each month, and the articles are read by medical professionals and the public alike, project leaders believe "that this project will have a significant impact on the availability of good health care information wordwide and that this, in turn, is likely to save many lives and to improve the quality of life of many people globally." Volunteers are needed to improve the content of these medical articles in English, to help simplify them, translate them, and incorporate the translated articles back into other language Wikipedia projects.
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And now a bit of a rant that I am somewhat entitled to for shelling out for this thing every week. The reviewer count at WP:FPOC is depressingly low, and very surprising given that, of all Featured content, portals are the easiest to review—they require almost no specialized knowledge (beyond a few common practices), and there are only three or four nominations up at a time (as opposed to 30 at FAC or FPC). All that and you have to wait two months to get some sort of consensus from passing editors. It's not hard! Participate! Stop by every once in a while to give your two cents. Considering that a new nom only pops up every couple of weeks, that's not asking much... Res Mar 04:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC) reply