Making wikis count
[edit]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kim_Bruning/flossk2010
Speaker: Kim Bruning
[edit]
- Standing in for Gerard Meijssen today
- "Home base": English wikipedia.
- Also work on small wikis from time to time.
Today's talk
[edit]Take home message: Editing Wikipedia is fun, and it helps out your community too! (So please come and edit! :-)
Plan: Start out explaining what wikipedia is for and how to get more users, then I'll answer specific questions. I'll provide links to all the sources and places you can go to on this wikipage, so you can look things up later!
Status of wikipedias in Kosova
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Having a wikipedia in a particular language helps preserve that language, and allows people to learn about the world in their own language.
Currently Gheg is eligible to have its own wikipedia. Some work still needs to be done.
- Gheg in incubator: description page | front page
Of course, we already have an Albanian wikipedia. Of course, you are welcome to edit that wikipedia too!
Statistics
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Gheg wikipedia is still in incubator.
- The Category of Gheg pages in incubator currently lists 46 pages . Possibly not all Gheg pages are currently in this category.
- All the core messages for mediawiki have been translated, so people can use the software in their own language translatewiki.net statistics
Albanian wikipedia is live and doing ok, currently with 27639 content pages at time of writing, and 192 active users.
Wikipedia is Fun and Informative
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What articles are MOST informative, to most people?
- Articles that people actually read!
- Background information to the news
- Background information about sports
- Information about sex.
A way to build informative articles
[edit]- Select a local paper and take subjects from all sections.
- Small wiki-articles (but with lots of links) are good when starting out.
- Red links are your friend!
- As a next step, people can start filling in the topics at the red links.
Also
- Interwiki links help to draw readers from other wikipedias
- Google can help you find more information
- News is always interesting!
Your Pictures, Your Illustrations, Your Articles
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- Use your own pictures, from your own surroundings, as much as possible
- Share them on Wikimedia Commons
In this way, you share your culture world-wide.
- Children will copy your articles, and use your pictures
- Translate articles about your country and culture to the English Wikipedia, so more people can find them (Don't forget to interwiki!)
Fun is serious business!
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- Fun is the greatest motivator
- Fun builds a community
- Shared fun and satisfaction will make you come back!
Be welcoming to new users
[edit]- Obvious thing is Obvious: If you want new users, make them feel welcome!
- share tips and tricks
- teach them how to use the wiki (mentoring, tutorials)
- Be tolerant of their mistakes. Give them time to be stupid and grow up.
Where to go from here?
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- Localize mediawiki and other related software at translatewiki.net
- Collaborate widely, share skills widely.
- Use IRC, Skype, Mailing lists.
- Consider the benefits of having your own chapter.
Questions?
[edit](You can add them here during the talk, if you have a laptop with you . ;-)
Some people want to know how to edit a wiki?
[edit]Well, it's really simple. Click edit, and type. That's not so hard.
So the english article on Kosova is spelled Kosovo.