Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Wikipedia World - 2 Months - How are we doing?

This is an update on the World Wikipedia project.  Our two month anniversary is here and so much has been accomplished since my last update 5 weeks ago.

If you are not familiar with the World Wikipedia Project please first check us out here.  

Currently we have 45 World Wikipedia editors. 

In no special order these are the current groups.  16 language groups.

French - français - La guérilla scepticisme
German - Deutsch - Guerilla Skepsis
Russian - Русский - Партизанский скептицизм
Korean - 게릴라 위키 회의주의 (한국어)
Portuguese - Português - Ceticismo de Guerrilha
Spanish - Español - Escepticismo de Guerrilla
Arabic - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia 
Turkish - Türkçe - Skeptik Vikipedi Gerillaları
Polish - Polska - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
Farsi - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia فارسی
Norway - Norsk - bokmål - Geriljaskeptivisme på Wikipedia
Danish - Dansk - Guerillaskepticisme på Wikipedia
Dutch - Nederland - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
Swedish - Svenska - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
English - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
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Jerry Andrus

Nix Dorf finished the first Jerry Andrus page. 

We Got Your Wiki Back Jerry Andrus in Portuguese.

We have the Andrus page started in French, Arabic, Dutch, Swedish and Russian.


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Bob Carroll -

I noticed that Bob Carroll had a WP page in French - actually it was a stub.  I took the English picture (I photographed at SkeptiCal 2011) and added it to the French page.  Editor Patrick Mahoney translated the English caption and while he was at it, he translated a lot more of the page.

Before

After

While I was at it, I added the picture to Carroll's  German, Spanish, Czech, Japanese and Romanian pages.


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Massimo Polidoro -

I emailed Massimo Polidoro and asked him to upload a new image to Wikimedia Commons that we could use on all the pages that exist for him.  He did so and I added the picture to his English, French, Italiano and Eesti pages. I keep trying to add it to the Finnish page (Suomi) but a bot keeps deleting it.  We don't have any Finnish editors to help fix this.  Also don't have any Italian editors, I explained this to Massimo and hopefully some will step forward.

Look at the image that was being used.  Pretty awful isn't it?

Patrick Mahoney, again came in after I added the picture, and changed the caption to French.
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Ray Hyman - Portuguese by Nix Dorf is almost done but didn't make the two month deadline.

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Penn & Teller - Portuguese by  Filipe Russo

Before
After

Blog link
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James Randi -

Nicola Mazbar added the IIG beard photo and a Arabic translation to his page.

Istem Fer added the Beard image to the Turkish Randi page along with a caption.

Nicola Mazbar added the photo to the Hebrew page as well.

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Video captions

You might remember that we are trying to caption videos (where we know the video owner) in English.  Once translated in English, then it is easier for the video to be translated into other languages.  Once that is done then we can use the captioned video as a citation on other language pages. 

We have one editor Brad McDowell from Iowa who is systematically captioning videos, first we focused on Jerry Andrus videos.  Now he is working on James Randi and Ray Hyman videos.  This is a big help, but a big project.  Brad could really use some help, and I can train, so please be in contact if you want to help.

Here are a few that we have finished right now...

Ray Hyman on Jerry Andrus on Wikipedia
English, Portuguese, Spanish

Rex Young and Jerry Andrus at TAM
English, French, Dutch

James Randi Describes Jerry Andrus
English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch

James Underdown Wrestles a Bear
English

Wendy Hughes Explains Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
English

Ray Hyman and Mark Edward discuss Mentalism
English

Ray Hyman on Sylvia Browne
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 3)
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 2)
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 1)
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 4)
English

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We were given a lot of space on the "Flying Teapot" blog which is one of the largest Portuguese blogs.  Nix Dorf arranged and wrote this article.

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A few interviews about the project in the last two months.

Penny Chan from The Skeptic Zone podcast
Tumbling Brain Matter Public Radio
TAM 2012 with Chris Brown
The Skeptical Teacher blog
Tim Farley lecture at Dragon*Con
Tim Farley lecture at TAM 2012

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 I hope I didn't forget someone or something.  Its been a busy 2 months just getting organized.  We are just getting started.  I hope to catch everyone up on what is happening with this project every few months.

You know my plea!  We have a lot of people involved, yet, we have room for so many more.  Don't think just because I already have a Spanish or German or whatever group we don't need your help. Some of these groups only have one lonely editor, they need company.   And look at how many missing languages we don't have.   

And even if you don't speak another language, or you feel rusty, don't be shy.  You will quickly pick on these skills.  I read only in English, yet I'm making edits in Russian, Dutch, Portuguese and more.  We also need more people captioning videos in English so they can be translated to other languages.  We need more pictures uploaded, more videos uploaded and so on.  There is enough work to be done for a thousand editors, and still need more. 

Please please please consider helping with this project.  Contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com and I'll help you get started.

Thank you




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