SJ’s Longest Now

The Tower of Babel : normalizing language representation

Posted on August 23rd, 2009 by metasj.
Categories: SJ, chain-gang, international, popular demand, wikipedia.

Part of a series on difficult topics from the Wikimedia community

There are some perennial projects that take more than a single barnraising to understand and plan for. One is the issue of supporting different languages equally — the world’s largest and smallest languages are both underrepresented among the projects.  While I would like to see Wikimedia become a model for the rest of the online world in this area, how a global community can provide support, bugfixes, and advice to different/new language groups is an issue for many multilingual projects.  So I offer these questions to all readers – feel free to answer them for the projects you are most familiar with.

• What technical and other support do various language projects need to become awesome?
• What variations are needed for projects whose main goal is language and cultural preservation?
• What sharing of advice or practices would make starting new projects easier?
• How can established projects help new projects with outreach, communication, and planning?

Let me offer one example of how this has been difficult to grasp within Wikimedia: discussions on the early international list were generally in English.  This led to a certain founder effect among participants, and in how the projects are today framed to the world, from elaborations of the vision to interface design.  And this has forked discussions of what language projects need – those in the language of the project, which can happen easily and fluidly among its participants and contributors, and those meta-discussions in one or two shared languages with the potential of setting Wikimedia-wide policy or affecting all projects.

As another example: non-Latin character sets, and cultural differences about editing and participation across different parts of the world, have always been part of discussions about how Wikipedia and its sister projects should advance.  Nevertheless, the early language communities drawn to the project were largely European, and issues that only affect non-Latin readers can still take a while to fix (for instance, replacements for Roman-alphabet captchas, or fixes to javascript and css layouts in corner cases).

What are your examples? What am I leaving out?  How can the global community and the Foundation better support small and underrepresented languages?  Feel free to leave links to current or historical discussions about problems and opportunities.

1 comment.

ICT4Dev and three-legged stools

Posted on August 20th, 2009 by metasj.
Categories: Uncategorized, popular demand, wikipedia.

The ICT4Dev aggregators on technology and learning have been covering some excellent topics over the past few months, and doing a good job of bringing some new commenters into these discussion online.

Here is a series, part of the Educational Technology Debate, on ebooks and affordable access to [preexisting] content, featuring Dick Rowe (Olé!)and Angus Scrimgeour. People still avoid talking about building new materials from scratch – the sort of work that a skillful teacher engages in every week – which is when another leap forward will begin. But they are keen on finding ways to let interactivity and creativity improve and annotate books and class materials.

Do we need a three-legged stool? Will it balance?*  What else is missing?

* I can see a whole new series of YouTube videos based on this hook… including everything from architecture to ontologies.

1 comment.

My Wikimedia platform

Posted on July 30th, 2009 by metasj.
Categories: chain-gang, international, popular demand, wikipedia.

I’ve organized my thoughts about being a good Board member in my platform for the Wikimedia Board.

The most common questions I have heard since this year’s elections began are, what does the Foundation do? and what is the Board of Trustees for? I posted answers to these questions and a few more.

People also ask, how do I qualify to vote? To be eligible to vote,

• You must have 600 edits as of June 1, and 50 within the past 6 months.
• You may need to create a Unified Login to count edits on more than one project; or to vote from your main wiki.
• If you are not eligible, you can still encourage fellow Wikimedians to vote, or leave suggestions for future elections

I am more intent on this year’s election than I have been in any year past – in part because the Board’s role has been shifting away from one that actively engages and challenges the community, something valuable Agnela and Anthere brought to the Board that I miss.  I am deeply concerned by the lack of community growth for the past two years, and the complete stagnation of new project development (despite the growth of new independent educational free knowledge projects that requested Wikimedia hosting). And I was just talking to my friend Bibhusan Bista, who said that there is definite interest in the Foundation in Nepal, and in contributing to Wikipedia’s spirit of openness; but of course few editors there feel they can engage in related discussions (and none, for instance, would be eligible to vote).

So I have two goals for my campaign beyond getting elected: to inspire people to vote and remind them why a good foundation matters, and to encourage them to raise community priorities and requests of the foundation, while attention is on governance over the next two weeks (and while you can get an immediate response from at least three future Board members, something often hard to come by).

My request to you, if you appreciate Wikipedia and want to see it thrive, whether or not you have the edit count needed to vote: please leave suggestions about how Wikimedia should grow, blog about the election and your reasons for caring about it, and help support the election in smaller languages and projects.

5 comments.

Offline reading and editing of the world’s knowledge

Posted on July 26th, 2009 by metasj.
Categories: international, popular demand, wikipedia.

Offline wikireaders have been around for over a decade in various forms, but still it seems few of them are really excellent.  (If you’re interested in such things, I have a mailing list for you…) At OLPC I’ve worked on various ways of sharing content with groups of students who are offline, and last year Chris Ball and Wade Brainerd built a WikiBrowse application, based on Patrick Collison’s iPhone Wikipedia app, that has been downloaded by 400,000 children and teachers in English and Spanish.  This was the first reader to store a compressed dump, expanding pages as they are read, and including a few images.  But it still doesn’t allow you to easily compile your own version of WikiBrowse based on your preferred title list, and it doesn’t support full-text search or offline editing.

Now Pascal Martin of Linterweb and Wikiwix fame has released a new product : Okawix, the engine behind a new DVD snapshot of wikipedia; it is now linked from download.wikimedia.org.  You can reads more about it on their Wikiwix blog.  This could be the foundation for a fully functional Wikipedia on a Stick project, with editing and commentary, as the WikiStick hackers from Taiwan envisioned a couple of years ago.  See for yourself!

1 comment.

Drown, crash, blog : links and noise

Posted on September 30th, 2008 by metasj.
Categories: Blogroll, Uncategorized, fly-by-wire, popular demand.

1 Drowning Street : differentiating market performance from the health of the economy.

Bringing down the House : People cared deeply about the inner workings of the House of Reps surrounding Monday’s failed bill… their website bowed under the attention.

My friend Seth (of zombie infocalypse infamy). who has been working on content and community media for our educational laptops, has just started a part-time internship with Yochai Benkler’s new research group, and migrated his blog to this server.  Welcome, Seth!  We’re lucky to still have him at OLPC.

Infoseek: Finally, people visiting this blog are searching for some fascinating things:

- “things you never knew existed”
- “the desire to understand”
- The c’t Wikipedia comparison post (still popular even in other languages)

and my favorite,

- how does a hair dryer electrocute you

2 comments.

Dianesis : An xoplosion of gear and swag

Posted on April 1st, 2008 by metasj.
Categories: chain-gang, indescribable, popular demand.

Auntimame has an interesting XO peripherals site, and while I’d like to see us set up an official cut-rate store, it’s nice to see this getting off the ground. Some of the gear there gives new meaning to the word “awesome”. A green USB-latching XO viewfinder? Yes, please…

0 comments.

Lessig ‘4Obama’ transcription

Posted on February 5th, 2008 by metasj.
Categories: Blogroll, chain-gang, metrics, popular demand.

First things first. I’m no no-holds-barred Obaman like Larry Lessig.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Boyish Orator’s style, and give him a leg up over Her Royal Cleverness, but don’t stay up nights worrying about the future difference to world peace their differential election would make (other things keep me up, even in politics), and not because I don’t think peace a devastatingly important realm for immediate change.

At any rate, Lessig taped a Barackish paean, and Ball and Prime started simulscribing in gobby. Gobby sessions exert a gravitational pull on me and soon I was transcribing myself, to exercise day-cramped hands — though I would never have listened to the piece otherwise. You can read the result of our labours.

The promise of making a set of ideas more accessible and revisitable is an infinitely better reason to divest oneself of twenty minutes of life than amusement or boredom… Which makes me wonder why we don’t see dotsub everywhere, at least among the sj crowd of one. Maybe it just needs a gobby plugin, or a way to find two friends and start transcribing in tandem. I’m even feeling the itch to ride a tandem bike or sidecar. Ach. Time for a seaweed shower.

2 comments.

Wiggy World!

Posted on December 10th, 2007 by metasj.
Categories: Uncategorized, popular demand.

nbsp;wiggyworld.net .. what are they up to?  Are they connected with WackyWorld?  Erik Thomsen, call your office.

0 comments.

Intel and OLPC trade noogies for neckrubs

Posted on July 13th, 2007 by metasj.
Categories: %a la mod, international, popular demand.

Intel’s Will Swope joined AMD’s Arenas and others on OLPC’s board last night. Designs of our Gen-1 machines won’t change, though this gives them input, along with our other members, on future designs. Intel will also continue making and marketing Classmates… though the comparisons between the devices are likely to become more helpful and less marketing. This is not the first rivalry set aside on the board; my cynical side is always delighted to see companies which are rivals in other arenas able to come together around our educational goals.

We have an Intel group working just one floor above us in Kendall Square; it will be interesting to see what they think.

Gizmodo sez: “Hell freezes over“, with a delightful jesus diaz illustration (above). But I’d say it only got momentarily cool down there; Intel has been working with open source communities and on education projects for some time. Keep your eyes on the fiery gates, however. My acronymic archnemesis may start open sourcing his platforms one day… See also: slashdot.

1 comment.

Entrepreneurial free content creation

Posted on March 2nd, 2007 by longestnow.
Categories: popular demand.

Background: Kiva has been on my mind a lot lately.  Zvi has been helping them with their tech infrastructure of late, so it naturally comes up each time we talk.

I spoke Tuesday about OLPC’s content plans to the Media Lab OLPCclass, and gave a passionate argument for free content yesterday to a tough but tremendously well-meaning audience.  There were questions about business models for creators.  The most poignant comment of the night: ‘it is a shame that as a civilization we’ve figured out how to monetize collecting gold in World of Warcraft, but not how to support this incremental work which is absolutely essential…’

Reflecting on this, and on efforts to raise funds to sponsor local content creation through microgrants, I had an idea: why have a central authority raise and hand out funds to seed content creation, when we can distribute both efforts? What about an interface such as Kiva’s to allow people to select open-content learning material ideas they want to support for a given amount of money?  They wouldn’t be expecting to get the money back; but instead an intellectual return on investment — a few more chapters of an ongoing work, or a few chapters of translation, which even if not completed could be picked up by other people and turned into something great.

A clever person in a wealthy region might spend 40 hours writing a brilliant educational work or list of 100 projects; but with less effort could perhaps donate to a dozen good proposed projects by creators closer to the target audience, or working natively in other languages — often creators in poor areas who would gladly spend 40 hours writing in exchange for what the original person might earn in 2.   As with Kiva’s microloans, these content microgrants would pass through a local microfinance institution, and the prospective authors’ projects would be vetted by field partners to ensure their sincerity.

I think one could make this a reality with minimal changes to the current
Kiva interface, which is quite lovely.  OLPC has always been focused on grassroots creation of content in native languages, with donations of existing material as a seed or important secondary element.  Because of our short timelines, distributing sponsorship as well as creation has a definite appeal.  I wonder how this meshes with Sasha’s ideas of distributed financing of open source software efforts…

Entrepreneurial free content creation …

0 comments.

OLPC developers program

Posted on October 30th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: popular demand.

OLPC has a developers program for people who want to hack on the actual hardware, and not just an emulator of the same.  Please send in requests if you are interested in working on software designed for the machine’s profile, either tools or educational software, or have other burning reasons to try out a board.

OLPC developers program …

0 comments.

Wikicities + Joi + JLevine = Wikia, Mark II

Posted on March 28th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: popular demand.

The Company Formerly Known As Wikicities, the world’s largest provider of MediaWiki hosting (and employer of an increasing number of my friends), this month closed a $4M round of series A funding from Omidyar and Bessemer Ventures (whence new board member Jeremy Levine) and a few lucky individuals (including one-name stealth disco star and serial board member Joi).  Congratulations all around.

Finding times when all board members are on terra firma at the same
time may be difficult… but with modern technology, also increasingly
unnecessary.  (I look forward to a photoset from inside Wikia Force One.)

The company is now known as Wikia (sometimes “wikia.com”), a name which you may recall fromits former life, adorning a related search engine portal.  It continues to host the world’s drollest wiki, and will hopefully be yet another channel for MediaWiki development, so that all those fine programmers still sitting on the fence about which wiki platform to use with can make up their minds with light heart and easy conscience.  Perhaps we need a live ticker…

Wikicities + Joi + JLevine = Wikia, Mark II …

0 comments.

WikiWednesday Boston report: better late than sober

Posted on March 9th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: popular demand.

The first Boston Wiki Wednesday was a success, though it got started at
11pm rather than 6. Of the 5 people who had RSVP’ed, some had other
plans in the early evening, so we rescheduled…  Ivan and I
grabbed dinner at Nine Tastes
instead.  We were soon joined by Dustin, Erik, and her
Starkness.  They knew the beautiful people sitting next to us,
naturally. We covered speed reading and salsa preferences.

Later that night, we invited the Harvard Free Culture club to come join us at John Harvard’s; and talked about the Penn State wiki, wysiwyg dominance
of the editing world, why all the wiki software companies are on the
wrong coast, rewriting MediaWiki in Python, and the meaning of the
phrase “structured multilingual API”.  A moderate quantity of beer
and coke was consumed, theoretically putting SocialText out twenty-one
bucks.

Next Wednesday will be Wiki as well, when David Weinberger sounds off about trust, anonymity, and wiki editorial practices, at 6pm at Berkman.  Come join us.

0 comments.

Clinton and Janeane Garofalo

Posted on February 19th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: popular demand.

So I landed on a random “brushes with celebrity” page while stalking my favorite American actress, and found this charming vignette about our Prez– :

In the fall of 2004, right before his bypass surgery I was sitting around the parking lot of Central Park’s ‘Tavern on the Green’, and out walks this handsome looking guy with white hair and a suit, casually leaving the place like he was Joe Schmo.

I looked at this guy long and hard and realised that it was Bill Clinton.

Apparently, so did dozens of other people. Someone (who was apparently a Republican) heckled him about raising taxes. Now, normally when a former president encounters a loser like this, he smiles waves and gets whisked away in his limousine.

But, Bill Clinton started debating him! The secret service guys were going nuts as an entire crowd of blue-staters formed to watch the former president and this dude with a stroller arguing over economic policies.

Then he took questions from the normal people off the street that gathered around him. NYC parks officials were called down to patrol the scene. He also took pictures with tourists, mostly young and female.

Bob Zmuda, Eat your heart out.

Clinton and Janeane Garofalo …

0 comments.

Presentation on Wikipedia research tonight!

Posted on February 13th, 2006 by longestnow.
Categories: popular demand.

On Monday, February 13th, at 7 pm, join the Boston Wikipedia Meetup Group
and the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science
Alumni Board in the Special Functions Room, first floor, Main College
Building of Simmons College for an introduction to researching
effectively with Wikipedia. We will cover finding information, cross-referencing and validating information, and contacting original authors.

We will also explore where to ask for help, how to make changes to articles, other ways to contribute to the community, and Wikimania.  Also local wiki groups and ways to get yourself or your group involved with local wikiphiles.

Dinner afterwards at Thornton’s Fenway Grille, at 9 pm. : call 617.529.4266 for help getting there

Directions to Thornton’s

0 comments.

The blurring of “official record” lines

Posted on December 30th, 2005 by longestnow.
Categories: popular demand.

The traditional lines of ‘official records‘
which are available for public perusal and archived forever, as
distinct from events that are observed in person and passed on by word
of mouth, have become much blurred
with recent improvements in recording devices, distribution/storage
methods, and penetration of same.  It is among other things a
testament to increasingly effective archiving that the decision to
strike from the record Representative Jean Schmidt(R-Ohio)’s words [Directed at Rep. Murtha], at the end of this C-SPAN video segment from November 18, is largely moot.

“Without objection, the gentlelady’s words will be withdrawn“…
but withdrawn from what?  from the public record that is
thoroughly and reliably archived, but hard to find online; not from the
unofficial, widely-distributed public record, less consistent but much
easier to find.

The blurring of “official record” lines …

0 comments.

Alchemy: mix Berkeley, Berkman, and Ber^B^BGillmor…

Posted on December 21st, 2005 by longestnow.
Categories: popular demand.

This Spring, a nonprofit Center for Citizen Media will be formed
by Dan Gillmor, with support from Berkeley’s school of journalism,
Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for internet and society, and the
karma gods,  “to study, encourage and help enable the emergent grassroots media sphere, with a major focus on citizen journalism.“

Looking forward to more news on this front.

Alchemy: mix Berkeley, Berkman, and Ber^B^BGillmor… …

0 comments.

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