Wikipedia talk:Local Embassy

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[edit] English

American English (not Americanese) spells certain words differently, such as color/colour, from Australians and Britons. It would be very respectful for everybody to respect these differences in the Wikipedia community. Andrew pmk 05:08, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Generally, Wikipedia does use both types of English. I would guess that we have more contributors coming in from the United States, so I would imagine there is a bias towards American English. However, the general policy is to use whichever spelling of words is more appropriate for the given article. So, for example, Harry Potter articles and Winston Churchill would use English spelling, being British topics. The other main thing is to make sure that each article is consistent within the article in terms of which type of English it uses. Cheers! Ëvilphoenix Burn! 21:42, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I would say that this may be an example of systemic bias of the computer related industries in general. I guess it would be uneconomical to attempt to shift the whole wiki from American English to, say, Commonwealth Standard English -- not to mention the resulting flamewars. Thus, a majority decision (inherently biased) seems to be the only logical thing to do here.
It's pretty much something you just have to live with and an example why democracy is inherently biased, but it's probably the same to Austrian and Swiss German speakers on the German Wikipedia. Unless someone decides to split off en-US.wikipedia.org and en-GB.wikipedia.org, I don't think this can be changed. And that event would be highly unlikely, simply because of the amount of articles that would need to be "translated".
I don't like it either, but at least you don't have to worry when contributing, because if you deviate from the set spelling of a long article in an edit, somebody else will likely catch it and fix it for you. So try to be coherent within an article, but don't worry too much. -- Ashmodai 06:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't wish to seem parochial but I hope that there will be some allowance for "English" rather than "Americanese". I find reading "American" very difficult because they keep missing out letters from words. Can there at least be a balance and not just go to the least common denominator and have some of the input in 'real' ENglish. Thank You jonathan@westlink.net.au

[edit] Translating the little request for help bit

I translated (poorly) the little welcome blurb under the list of French speaking users. If others would like to translate those same sentences for the other sections that would be amazing. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 21:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I've done the same with the Spanish text. Again, please make corrections as necessary. --Lor 15:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikizine

Hi, I am w:nl:gebruiker:Walter of the dutch Wikipedia. I am writing you because your are listed as ambassador of your wiki. I have something to say that I think you will find useful and possibly others of your wiki also.

You know it is not easy for the members of a local wiki to be informed about what is going on in the higher levels of the Wikimedia family. This because of the language problem and the high level of fragmentation of places where you can find information.

I am now making a weekly news letter (Wikizine) that attempts to provide the news of the Wikimedia projects. The concept is to list only a very short description of the news an give the relevant url to the subject. I want it to be short, only give the news that is important for all projects. The target audience include the ambassadors. It is for people who are interested in what it going on outside there own wiki. I emphasize on the news that is practical-technical. The information comes form several "news"-pages on several wikis, the mailinglists and IRC. There will be news I can not discover. If you have news found somewhere or from you own wiki please let my know. wikizine AT wikipedia.be

I can only create one version in something that supposed to be English. I count on the readers to inform there local wiki about the news in there own language.

Wikizine is send by use of the mailinglist Announce-l. It is only used for this. So people can subscribe without being swamped by emails like the lists.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-l

I hope that you and others of your wiki will subscribe to Wikizine and give feedback. So that Wikizine can become really a source where Wikimedians can find out what is going on. Greetings, w:nl:gebruiker:Walter PS: do not repond here. I will not see it.

[edit] hi

Hi as I already sent an email to you, I want to cooperate seriously with wikipedia in translation works. My native language is Turkish/Kurdish and especially farsi and I am able to translate texts from these languages into english. I want to know how can I directly jelp you in translation. my emai: mehranworld@gmail.com website: www.itinews.com

[edit] An interesting ambassadorial matter, perhaps

An anonymous user, 200.125.110.99, has left the following message on Talk:Main page. It seemed that a response other than disregard was indicated, but I didn't know what that was. I've suggested that we may have an obligation to look into his situation, and so set about finding the right place, which may in fact be here.

Here is the message,

dears Friends:
In the Wiki in spaniard languaje.
En la Wikipedia en idioma español es:Wikipedia algunos "bibliotecrios" (CEST) bloquean a su capricho o antojo a aquellos colaboradores del wikiproyecto que no les gusta o no les place, se nota lo que en español (spanish) se llama "amiguismo": "aquel que no es amigo, es "enemigo" y, a la menor ocasión es bloqueado bajo cualquier pretexto, o sus artículos son borrados (censureds) o alterados hasta la tergiverzación total bajo pretexto de "wikification", a estas horas por ejemplo un sujeto que se apoda "taichi" o algo así está bloqueando vandalicamente al proyecto de toda la wiki, ese sujeto increiblemente ha llegado a ser (por "amiguismo") nombrado "cest" y, aunque el reglamento o estatuto de Wikipedia diga todo lo contrario se cree "dueño" de la Wikipedia en español y con los "botones" que se le han cedido está bloqueando e incluso borrando lo que otros wikipedistas editan e informan. Si el proyecto sigue controlado a nivel "bibliotecarios" (así se les llama en la Wikipedia española) pierde toda credibilidad.--200.125.110.99 05:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I have suggested that there may be an obligation on the part of en:Wikipedia at least to raise the issue in the appropriate forum, as it appears that:

  • He has no confidence in es:Wikipedia administrators or in the state of es:Wikipedia process
  • Alleges that practices are well outside of core standards, to the detriment of es:Wikipedia content and community
  • He may be presumed not to understand the finer ins-and-outs of Wikipedia practice
  • Does not have a functional command of English

It seems this may be the proper forum in which to first raise the matter. What do you think the next step should be? I await your response with interest.

StrangerInParadise 23:21, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Becoming an Ambassador

How can I become an ambassador? I speak and write Spanish fluently and can read French, Latin, and Italian relatively well. How can I join? User:Andrew C. Bowman 21:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Sign up on the page there! I've been an Ambassador for months now, and noones bothered me at all, its great? Er...Ëvilphoenix Burn! 23:58, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I sound stupid, but where is the page? Andrew 12:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC) Hello? Andrew 16:45, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I think he's talking about this page, i.e. the page this talk page refers to =) There's also an Embassy page on the Meta-Wiki, you may have to root around for that. --Lor 20:28, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Promoting Cooperation between Language Wikis

I understand that we have a translation department which translates requested articles between the various language wikis, but I was wondering whether it would be helpful for the Embassy to promote cooperation and knowledge sharing between these different langauge wikis.

Certain people may already do this, but I think it'd be great if we could take advantage of the larger pool of multilingual users we have at our disposal when we take into account all of the other language wikis together. As the Embassy we could contact users of the other wikis and give them information and help regarding any articles that need translation into English. In turn we could provide translators from the EN wiki to other language wikis to help them translate articles from English into their language.

This is just a rough idea at the moment, and I understand that the Embassy isn't necessarily primarily concerned with translation, but it's just a thought I had about how to make the Embassy more pro-active. Anyone have any comments, suggestions? --Lor 10:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hankyeol

[edit] Potential Ambassador Interested In Assisting French Speakers

I learned French well enough to score 100% on the New York State French exam. I need a way not to lose that French and to learn new words, and French-speaking Wikipedians could need help coordinating projects across French and English versions of Wikipedia. If whoever runs this particular embassy is interested in an ambassador who's bilingual in English (primary) and French (secondary), e-mail me at odinfromcentr2@aol.com with the subject title "Wikipedia Embassy" so that I don't wind up deleting it mistakenly from my spam folder should the message wind up there. I also know a limited amount of Latin, if that means anything.

[edit] A question that applies to all languages, not just English

is this:

"in what countries do the authors of Wikipedia articles live?"

Isn't it possible, almost easily possible, to find out the location of every author via their IP address? I don't mean to tread on anyone's civil liberties, all I want to know is whether, say, German language Wikipedia authors are in Germany or Switzerland or Austria or elsewhere; English language Wikipedia authors in the US or UK or Canada or Australia and so forth; Chinese language Wikipedia article authors in the PRC or Taiwan or ..., the same question over and over, language by language. This ought to be easy to do, I think.

I realize this has nothing to do with ethnicity or nationality/citizenship or tracking "mother" tongue or anything else, those would be technically much harder. What I seek ought to be almost automatic, no? And fall under Wikipedia:Statistics?

There is so much to learn from this, or at least it would provide data to help begin answering questions like why does on Wikipedia grow and another not: is this a cultural, socio-economic, socio-political, geographic, technological...question? I don't know who would need to implement such an information gathering project, but surely if we can count hits to read the Wikipedia by country of origin, we can count hits to write the articles, no?

It would also, I think, be really interesting to collect/see statistics about the translation projects. Which language pairs are most active? And are more translations done into or from a given language should be equally easy to learn. And where the translators (in any given direction) live should likewise be information that we are already getting, we just don't seem to be keeping it anywhere I can find.

Thanks, and I would be happy to "talk" further about this with anyone.

Prairie Dad 19:18, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I would like to know something

How do I become a member of the embassy? Laleena

Stick your name in the appropriate place on the page, I think – Qxz 20:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A few questions

Why aren't Americans able to contribute to Wikipedia off-line through human service? 208.100.195.22 20:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cry for help

hi embassy,i ve been trying hard to get my visa ticket in order to travell to united state to study,but coundnt get one,please am a student with ambition to study electrical and have skills,i will be greatly happy if my request for travelling is treated urgent with syphatic mind,i dont have money any more please help.my name is christian (E-Mail removed for security purposes) intrested personel should help,am 21 male. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.1.190.6 (talk • contribs).

Wonderful edit! Looooooooooooooooool! Snowolf (talk) CON COI - 20:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, we can't help you with that. -- ReyBrujo 22:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
LOL! Maybe we should clarify some things about this particular embassy. Wouldn't it be great, though, if Wikipedia was involved in international affairs? We can appoint some people to the UN as observers...Ed ¿Cómo estás? 04:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multilingual

Hello, I am a Romanian surfer and I'm wondering about the mechanics of this website. Especially what concerns it's multilingual aspect. Are the articles translated from one site format to another ? And what does it take to get Romanian language included in the site's structure? Thank you,85.204.222.235 14:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Valentine

Hello there. Actually, there are many different "Wikipedias", theorically as many as one per language. You can find the full list at List of Wikipedias. The romanian language is at http://ro.wikipedia.org, if I recall correctly. Commonly, every Wikipedia develops its own articles, although it is possible to just translate articles from a language to another (in example, if an article about a Romanian artist is very good at the Romanian Wikipedia, Romanian users from the English Wikipedia can translate the text to improve the one in English). Text in Romanian, however, is not used here unless it is to give a context and in Romanian articles. Cheers! -- ReyBrujo 16:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thai

Will you have wikipedie soon in Thai language? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 157.130.142.14 (talk • contribs).

There is already one at http://th.wikipedia.org -- ReyBrujo 20:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sign

Must I sign all posts using four tildes? This something which I find wastes electro-resources and is generally counterproductive to the nascent mission of Wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.96.212.147 (talk • contribs).

It is really recommended, because as more join the discussion, it is necessary to be able to distinguish who is saying what (and also, it allows other contributors to quickly notice when someone is trying to edit the comment from someone else). There is a bot who signs for you when you don't, but sometimes it misses some comments. -- ReyBrujo 03:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
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