This has been quite an [...]]]> Aphaia recently reminded us on the translation list that there are users on Wikipedia who would like to raise questions and comments to the Wikimedia foundation, however these users may not speak English.  In that case should these Wikipedians be encouraged to post in their languages on the foundation list?

This has been quite an interesting ad hoc question on Wikipedia; with all the people from all around the world working together, languages and internationalization are always two important considerations for policy implementation and actual collaborations.  Although there are a bunch of translators on Wikipedia, I have recenly come to sense that the community is quite antagonistic to users who only speaks one language.

With the original idea of the World Wide Web, the Internet was supposed to be a net that covers the world, the main question is, with the heavy reliance on organizational, collective problem-solving that encourages spontaneity and creativity, will Wikipedia be the first to find a model that can overcome the difficulties in internationalizing its content?

That’s already one week in Boston and 4 more weeks before London? I only have a month in Hong Kong and I already start missing the place. But I know I will have fun in London… Just gotta round up my thesis now. Lok gave me some good advice in the importance of having [...]]]> Wow.

That’s already one week in Boston and 4 more weeks before London? I only have a month in Hong Kong and I already start missing the place. But I know I will have fun in London… Just gotta round up my thesis now. Lok gave me some good advice in the importance of having a coherent framework, and by presenting in Wikimania I get to see how to explain the organizational issues using social capital as the framework. Basically there are bridging and bonding social capitals, which exert dynamic impacts on the level of transparency and rationalization that determines the efficiency in information flow and decision-making. Will elaborate more on the thesis. I know, they sound like crap right now. /smile

Wikimania was great this year for the guest speakers. I was absolutely blown away to nowhere by Lessig’s presentation. He is really talented in convincing people – the slices followed his speech and hammer the words into the audience with content, audio and video here.
One big difference between Wikimania 1.0 and 2.0 here is the concentration of the crowd. Since there is no central social arena, like an open space with cafe, conveniently located somewhere in the heart of the conference location, people were always floating around making it harder to chill with one another. But of course, Harvard is nice place to be. I was so relieved that after the first two days the weather got back to normal again.

Today studied with mom on her exam. The stuff was – dense. I never know exactly what the heck auxilary transitive bare infinitive verb froms are. I’m so proud of her, really, that’s just one amazing sweet woman there. I am lucky to have her in my life.

Okay enough bs. Got to work on the cultural studies thing tonight. Well. Three more minutes tonight. It’s now 11:53 pm already.

Finally I need to thank Andrew, Lok, Delphine, Sj, James, Austin, Erica, and PHOEBE for making this event so unforgettable to me I love you guys!!!!

with jimbo in the middle… Photo Courtesy to Andrew Lih

Jimbo started the keynote with the Colbert’s Analysis on Wikipedia and this:

/Refering to John Seigenthaler incident: ‘Apparently, there was an error in Wikipedia’

/everybody laughed

He also mentioned what Wikipedia needs, especially when it comes to representativeness. With the Wikimedia Foundation maturing, it is easier to apply grant and start other projects. [...]]]>

Jimbo started the keynote with the Colbert’s Analysis on Wikipedia and this:

/Refering to John Seigenthaler incident: ‘Apparently, there was an error in Wikipedia’

/everybody laughed

He also mentioned what Wikipedia needs, especially when it comes to representativeness. With the Wikimedia Foundation maturing, it is easier to apply grant and start other projects. Introducing Brad Patrick, interim CEO of the Foundation, legal issues now have better ways to deal with (there was no legal advisor for Wikimedia projects for quite a few years). There is the dicussion of the future plans of Wikipedia and directions, such as bringing in people who share the Wikipedia philosophies and to support further development of MediaWiki, Wikiwyg and lower the technological entry barrier of Wikipedia.

Moreover it is imperative to note issue of quality versus quantity. With more than one million articles, it’s time to focus more on quality development. Also with this wider scale of articles, the amount of celebrity-entries (living biographies) increased substantially. Those are the articles that pose complaints and problems from their bio ‘targets’.

/..to be cont.