Rotterdam in the Netherlands, seen during a commemoration of the Rotterdam Blitz in a featured picture from Trebaxus.

Last week, the English Wikipedia community-written newsletter, Wikipedia Signpost, interviewed two members of WikiProject Cities, users Student7 and JonRidinger. A WikiProject is a team of contributors who wish to improve Wikipedia. Every WikiProject has a special focus area (for example, medieval history) or a particular task (such as, proofreading recently created pages). WikiProject Cities aims to provide up-to-date information in a consistent format across Wiki articles. The term “Cities” is used generically and encompasses towns, villages, hamlets, townships, unincorporated communities, sections of municipalities and neighborhoods.

Interested in cities and motivated by the desire to produce more articles in a standardized format, Student7 and JonRidinger saw WikiProject Cities as a great opportunity to contribute to articles on a subject they were passionate about. The amount of effort put forth by many contributors usually leads to extensive contributions to specific articles, as JonRidinger explains. “I was largely responsible for getting Kent, Ohio to FA [featured article] status and helped with Stephens City, Virginia too.” Naturally, this level of commitment and scrutiny can have its drawbacks, “The issue I faced was burn-out…(but) yes, there were some genuine improvement that were made by going through the process, plus I learned more about what kind of content to include and how to word things better, says JonRidinger.

Deciding which city merits an article or integration into an existing article is a common question. “If It has sources that cover it specifically, it can have a decent article, though if it’s not a large amount of info, I typically don’t see the point of having an article separate from the city article,” says JonRidinger. Student7 adds, “If a country has aggregated people, it should be using these Project standards for the article. A village has to be ‘noticed’ to be ‘notable’ I suppose.”

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The Main Page of the English Wikipedia on the new Android app.

If you love Wikipedia and have an Android phone, you’re in for a treat! Today we’ve released a revamped Wikipedia for Android app, now available on Google Play.

Our new app is native from the ground up, making it the fastest way to experience Wikipedia on a phone. For the first release, we’ve focussed on creating a great browsing and reading experience. Whether you’re looking up a specific fact or looking to spend a day learning a new topic, our search and table of contents features get you to the information you need, quickly and intuitively. We’re also offering the ability to edit in the app, so you can help make Wikipedia better for billions of readers around the world.

What features are included?

• Speed – Our new, native app allows you to browse and edit Wikipedia faster than ever before.
• Editing – You can edit Wikipedia on the app. Logged in or logged out, we thank you for all your contributions.
• Recent pages – We provide you with your reading history, so you can tap as many links as you like without ever getting lost.
• Saved pages – You can save select pages for offline reading and browse them even when you don’t have a data connection.
• Share – Use your existing social networking apps to share in the sum of all human knowledge.
• Language support – The app allows you to seamlessly switch to reading Wikipedia written in any language.
• Wikipedia Zero – We’ve partnered with cellular carriers around the world to provide Wikipedia free of data charges to users in many developing areas.

Coming soon

• Night mode – We’ve gotten lots of great beta user feedback; one feature people love is reading Wikipedia in darker environments. The inverted colour scheme offered by night mode will make that much easier.
• Discussions – Talk pages are an important part of Wikipedia for both new users and experienced editors alike. We’re bringing them to the app.

This release is just the beginning! We’re still working hard on creating new features to make the app the best Wikipedia reading and editing experience out there. Whether you’re a long-time user of Wikipedia on Android or are brand new to the app, give it a spin and let us know what you think. This is just the first step; we hope this app will grow with us, and we’re excited to have our community help us evolve it.

Please help us improve this app by sending a note to our mailing list, [email protected], or writing a comment here.

Thank you!

Dan Garry, 
Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps

Ram Prasad Joshi

Ram Prasad Joshi doesn’t have a computer. His village may be beautiful but there is no electricity. It’s a three-hour walk to the nearest road. In spite of all this, Joshi has accumulated more than 6,000 edits to the Nepali Wikipedia using nothing more than a feature phone.

An image shot by Ram Prasad Joshi on his feature phone: Devotees paying homage to the Thama Mai Temple (replica of Badimalika, Bajura) in Dailekh

“On Wikipedia I write about geography, history and culture of my surroundings,” he said. “I am a Hindu so I write about the Hindu religion and Hindu culture. I edit and write new articles on the Sanskrit, Hindi, Fijian, Bhojpuri and Gujrati Wikipedias, as well as in Nepali. I can introduce my village, my locality and my culture to the world.”

An image shot by Ram Prasad Joshi on his feature phone: Stone script of Damupal near Kartikhamba in Dailekh established by King Prithivi Malla B.S. 1038 (981 A.D.). It is claimed to be the first stone script in the Nepali Language.

In addition to his writing, Joshi has contributed almost a hundred photographs to Wikimedia Commons. He took part in Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 and his images of archaeological monuments in his area won him the prize for best mobile contributor.

Due to its remote geography, his contributions may be the only representation his village will get online. “No newspapers, no magazines, nothing arrives here,” he explains. “In my village there are many people who have never seen a television. Now the mobile phone emerged, villagers watch videos on mobile, but no-one owns a television.”

For Joshi, his initial introduction to editing began on a somber note four years ago. While living and working in Haridwar, a small city in northeast India, his mother became seriously ill and passed away. “According to Hindu culture, all children should perform the rituals; they have to sit isolated for thirteen days in mourning,” he explained. “I was grieved greatly by her loss. My eyes still become wet when I remember her death. Parents are regarded as the almighty and holy in my culture.”

“I had to find ways to divert my thoughts from the memories of mom. As a way to vent my grief, I began to surf mobile internet more which helped me a lot. I explored the Nepali Wikipedia. I also saw the edit button in each article and the sub heading too. I then learned that I could edit these encyclopedia entries. When I remember my mom, I open Wikipedia and read or edit,” he added.

Fortunately, Joshi might no longer be alone in his editing endeavors; soon others will be able to benefit just as he did. Wikipedia Zero’s partnership with Nepali GSM mobile operator Ncell has given more people the opportunity to learn what Wikipedia is and how they can contribute to Wikimedia projects. “I have conveyed to my family and my villagers about Wikipedia,” said Joshi. “But for most people the Internet is out of reach, so it is a vague topic for them. After Ncell announced [their partnership with] Wikipedia Zero, some have given concern to it. Earlier when I started talking about Wikipedia they treated me as if I had gone mad.”

“Ncell broadcast advertisements for Wikipedia Zero through local radio. Many people now understand that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of knowledge.”

Ncell’s partnership is ideal for those looking to access and contribute to Wikipedia from a mobile phone, in the same way Joshi has for so long.
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Teachers and students in Nyeri, Kenya listening to a tutorial under the Wikipedia for Schools Project.

In 2005, SOS Children, the world’s largest charity for orphan and abandoned children^{[1] [2]} launched the “A World of Learning” project, which handpicks Wikipedia articles and categorizes them by subject for schoolchildren around the world to use. The project focuses on content that is suitable for students between the ages of 8-17 based on the UK education curriculum. In November 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) endorsed the project, which resulted in its relaunch as “Wikipedia for Schools” and its new web address (http://www.schools-wikipedia.org). Ever since then, the project continues to enjoy the support of The Wikimedia Foundation. The website went through subsequent revisions in 2008-09 as well as in 2013. The 2013 edition has 6,000 articles, 26 million words and 50,000 images – making it a fairly large project that caters to the needs of school children across the globe. The online Website also contains “download the website” link which enables users to download the material for use without internet connection. ^[1]

Hole in the Wall Education Ltd (HiWEL) supported the Wikipedia for Schools project in an effort to expand its reach in Learning Stations in India and African countries.^[2] The program has received recognition from around the world for its far reaching impact. According to Subir from Nepal’s online learning project E-Pustakalaya, “Wikipedia for Schools has been really useful in public schools in Nepal. The students of remote corners of Nepal, where there is no internet access, now know about the diverse culture, religion, art, science and lifestyles of the countries around the world. All credit goes to the team that built this wonderful repository of information for schools.” ^[1] Similarly, Patrick of Treverton Schools, South Africa, welcomed the effort as “fantastic resource for schools with little or no bandwidth, of which there are many here in South Africa.”

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Screenshot mock-up of Akruti Sarala – Unicode Odia converter

It’s been over a decade since Unicode standard was made available for Odia script. Odia is a language spoken by roughly 33 million people in Eastern India, and is one of the many official languages of India. Since its release, it has been challenging to get more content on Unicode, the reason being many who are used to other non-Unicode standards are not willing to make the move to Unicode. This created the need for a simple converter that could convert text once typed in various non-Unicode fonts to Unicode. This could enrich Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects by converting previously typed content and making it more widely available on the internet. The Odia language recently got such a converter, making it possible to convert two of the most popular fonts among media professionals (AkrutiOriSarala99 and AkrutiOriSarala) into Unicode.

All of the non-Latin scripts came under one umbrella after the rollout of Unicode. Since then, many Unicode compliant fonts have been designed and the open source community has put forth effort to produce good quality fonts. Though contribution to Unicode compliant portals like Wikipedia increased, the publication and printing industries in India were still stuck with the pre-existing ASCII and ISCII standards (Indian font encoding standard based on ASCII). Modified ASCII fonts that were used as typesets for newspapers, books, magazines and other printed documents still exist in these industries. This created a massive amount of content that is not searchable or reproducible because it is not Unicode compliant. The difference in Unicode font is the existence of separate glyphs for the Indic script characters along with the Latin glyphs that are actually replaced by the Indic characters. So, when someone does not have a particular ASCII standard font installed, the typed text looks absurd (see Mojibake), however text typed using one Unicode font could be read using another Unicode font in a different operating system. Most of the ASCII fonts that are used for typing Indic languages are proprietary and many individuals/organizations even use pirated software and fonts. Having massive amounts of content available in multiple standards and little content in Unicode created a large gap for many languages including Odia. Until all of this content gets converted to Unicode to make it searchable, sharable and reusable, then the knowledge base created will remain inaccessible. Some of the Indic languages fortunately have more and more contributors creating Unicode content. There is a need to work on technological development to convert non-Unicode content to Unicode and open it up for people to use.

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This post is part of an ongoing series of monthly blog posts by members of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees that aims to shed light on the function, responsibilities and inner workings of the Board.

Portrait of Wikimedia Foundation Board member Bishakha Datta

I’ve often thought you need the thin skin of an amphibian and the thick hide of a rhinoceros to be a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation. Your skin must be thin enough to allow different ideas, voices, thoughts and perspectives to permeate, including those most distant or different from your own – openness is an inherent aspect of leadership. At the same time, it must be thick enough to weed out distractions and inessentials. And of course, your mind must be capable of knowing the difference.

What makes leadership complex in Wikimedia is its vast, diverse and decentralized nature. Like the movement itself, the 10 of us on the Wikimedia Foundation board come from different cultures, continents, backgrounds and experiences – all of which shape how we understand power and leadership. And all of which determine, to some extent, the kinds of leaders we aspire to be or will become.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into this. In companies or corporations where the notion of hierarchy is accepted, power can flow directly up or down in a straight line. In academics, the teacher-learner dynamic provides cues for the exercise of power and leadership. In the women’s rights movement, which is part of my background, power is a dirty word and erasing power inequalities between genders is an explicit goal. Thus leadership here cannot be overt or heavy-handed; it has to be subtle and implicit, more circular and collective, sometimes even veiled. In the sex workers’ rights movement, of which I am a long-time ally, we turn power on its head and equip unlettered sex workers or the ‘powerless’ to become leaders. This requires supportive ‘outsiders’ to consciously step back and transfer some of their own skills and power to ‘insiders’.

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Rabbi Shai Piron, Israel’s Education Minister, Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Itzik Edri, Chair of the Wikimedia Israel Board and Michal Lester, Executive Director of Wikimedia Israel

An agreement was met in a meeting between Rabbi Shai Piron, Israel’s Education Minister, Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Itzik Edri, Chair of the Wikimedia Israel Board and Michal Lester, Executive Director of Wikimedia Israel, regarding a shared cooperation with Wikimedia Israel in the framework of the ministry’s school curricula in the coming years. Through the planned cooperation, history, geography and science teachers will receive special professional training to instruct students on how to contribute to new or incomplete Wikipedia articles for which information is lacking or inadequate.

Rabbi Shai Piron, Israel’s Education Minister, Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

The Education Ministry will also examine the possibility of integrating Wikipedia writing assignments in the teaching of research and community involvement. They will also consider having students who speak additional languages (primarily English and Russian) write Wikipedia articles about Israel in those particular languages.

Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron said, “It is important to us that the education system in Israel leads in innovation and cooperating with Wikipedia is a wonderful opportunity to think outside the box and enable students in Israel to do things that make a difference from which others can also benefit.”

Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees said, “Israel is today among the leading countries in the integration of Wikipedia in the education system and academia. I hope our joint work model will also serve as an example to other education systems around the world.”

In the framework of cooperation that is already in place between Wikimedia Israel and the Ministry of education, several pilot projects are being conducted. The projects involve teacher training in good Wikipedia usage, article composition, Wikipedia article writing by gifted high school students and the teaching of proper Wikipedia usage to elementary schoolchildren. It is worth mentioning that through cooperation with academics in a variety of universities and colleges throughout Israel, hundreds of articles are written each year by students in courses. Thus students write Wikipedia articles as part of their degrees, sometimes even in lieu of exams or final papers. The Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University recently conducted a special 2-credit course on the subject of Wikipedia and medicine.

Survey results published last week as part of Wikipedia Academy 2014 Israel revealed that 84% of the Israeli public relies heavily on Wikipedia and 74% say that it provides all the information they need. Over one third of the population expressed interest in learning to write for Wikipedia.

Itzik Edri, Chair of Wikimedia Israel Board

Wikimedia program leaders can use surveys for many reasons:

Surveys are an excellent strategy for measuring a group’s interests, behaviors, learning methods and other feedback. They are windows into the mind of the movement and they give us insight we otherwise would not have. These insights are gathered from survey questionnaires, where asking questions the right way becomes very important.

Writing a good questionnaire takes time. Drafting the questions and asking colleagues or fellow volunteers to provide feedback are important steps. Along each step, we might ask ourselves: Are we asking the right questions for our survey goals? Are we asking enough questions to give us the full picture? Are we asking too many questions which might discourage respondents from finishing the questionnaire?

A few months back, the Program Evaluation & Design team created a learning module called Designing Effective Questions aimed at providing theories behind how surveys work with examples on how to improve the quality of questions. In addition to the learning module, we are pleased to announce upcoming events and resources for anyone interested in writing surveys to measure their program outcomes:

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“Aksharam,” Samskrita Bharati Office in Bangalore.

In 1981, a movement called the “Speak Samskrit Movement” started in Bangalore. The effort quickly spread across India and evolved into the organization “Samskrita Bharati” in 1995. The movement has a number of dedicated volunteers who aim to popularize the Sanskrit language, Sanskrit culture and the Knowledge Tradition of India.^[1]

Inline with these objectives, Samskrita Bharati embarked upon a mission to enrich Sanskrit Wikipedia in 2011. This project involved approximately 50 volunteers with some of them working full-time. Most of the contributors are based in Bangalore, Karnataka or Karnavati, Gujarat. As a result of tremendous effort and dedication, the team was able to substantially grow the number of articles on Sanskrit Wikipedia. With only 2,000 articles in 2011, mostly written in Hindi, the present number of articles is well over 10,000, with articles ranging from geography and history to health and society.

In terms of editing difficulties, Samskrita Bharati editors, like other Sanskrit Wikipedians, encountered difficulty in the use of modern terminology and the paucity of referenceable literature. Most of the contributors of Sanskrit Wikipedia are from the Southern region, resulting in confusion due to pronunciation differences between northern and southern regions for some Sanskrit words.

As part of the outreach efforts, Samskrita Bharati conducted introductory workshops in many educational institutions like Karnataka Samskrit University, Delhi University and Christ University, Bangalore.

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Since July 2013 Dimitar Dimitrov is Wikimedian in Brussels. In assorted blogposts he talks about his experiences vis-à-vis the EU.

Big Fat Brussels Meeting vol. 2

It’s five to three. A dapper man, slightly out of breath, enters the room and quickly makes his way to the front. The event started almost an hour ago, but despite double-bookings in his schedule, Marco Giorello – deputy head of unit “Copyright” at the European Commission – didn’t want to miss the debate on Mass Digitisation and Access to Cultural Heritage co-organized by Wikimedia and the Flemish Commission for UNESCO. He shakes a few hands on his way to the speaker’s table and immediately finds himself in the midst of a lively discussion about the future of European copyright.

The room full of Wikimedians, representatives of cultural institutions and international associations witnessed in-depth arguments around copyright and the internet. Besides Marco Giorello, there were speakers from the British Library, the Federation of European Publishers, DG CONNECT of the European Commission, the Flemish Centre for Expertise in Digital Heritage “PACKED” and Wikimedia. The challenge to represent our movement was hereby accepted and mastered by Jean-Frédéric Berthelot of Wikimédia France.

Copyright terms: Who can offer less?

Apart from digitization projects, the debate also turned to practical and legal issues. It was User:Hubertl from Wikimedia Austria who managed to not only hand out WLM calendars and chocolade to the speakers during the event, but also used the opportunity to bring up Freedom of Panorama in the EU and more specifically, its lacking harmonisation. Various conversations continued well after the official discussion had finished. Representatives from the European Commission Directorate-Generals for the Internal Market (DG MARKT) and Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CONNECT) seized the opportunity to exchange views regarding Wikimedia photographs, “Commonists” and other chapter folk. They took away a number of concrete examples illustrating the absurdity of current copyright legislation across the 28 member states and a lot of ideas on how to remedy the framework.

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