Wikis and Wikipedia for Endangered Languages
Feel free to share & remix! These slides are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) by Gretchen McCulloch & Lauren Gawne.
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View these slides at: bit.ly/lingwiki-colang4
CoLang 2016 - Day 4
Terminology
"wiki" is from a Hawaiian word meaning "quick"
The Wikimedia Incubator is part of the Wikimedia Foundation which operates various projects, like Wikipedia.
MediaWiki is the software that makes Wikipedia, other Wikimedia projects, and other wikis operate
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If a Wikipedia already exists in your language
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Existing languages
Wikipedia exists in 282 languages, and your language may already be one of them!
Here's a list of all the Wikipedias
Some languages with Wikipedias which may be of interest include Hawaiian, Maori, Cherokee, Chichewa, Inupiak, Cree, Inuktitut, North Sami, Choctaw, Muskogee…
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Existing languages 2
If it does, you can contribute to it!
The account that you made on day 1 will work on any language Wikipedia
Each language Wikipedia has its own local norms/culture, which may be different from the English one, so browse around for a bit especially on talk pages
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If your language is in the Incubator
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Wikimedia Incubator
Incubator is where Wikipedias get worked on before they're transferred to full Wikipedia
Wikimedia no longer launches Wikipedias with no articles, so this is a place to create some articles before it goes "live"
Also a place to translate Wikipedia's interface so monolingual speakers can contribute too
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Promotion to full Wikipedia
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Incubator languages
If your language doesn't already have a Wikipedia, it may have a partway-complete Wikipedia in the Incubator
Here's where to check:
https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incubator:Main_Page
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Incubator languages 2
What may have happened if you see your language in Incubator is that someone or a few people started working on it and ran out of steam or are still working slowly
Again, you can contribute, either by making articles or by working on existing ones
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Getting your language in the Incubator
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Adding a language to Incubator
If your language doesn't even have a Wikipedia in Incubator, you can propose it to be added to the Incubator and eventually to Wikipedia from there
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Eligibility for Incubator
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Requesting a Wikipedia in Incubator
Check requirements (previous slide)
Log in to your Wikimedia account
Follow specific requesting instructions at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Handbook_(requesters)
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If you don't have an ISO code
If you want, you can follow a bunch of bureaucratic steps to get an ISO code
OR
You can make a wiki here about a language without an ISO code (not a Wikimedia project) http://incubatorplus.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
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Advice for small Wikipedias
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Manual for small & new Wikipedias
This is the most useful starting link that I have found https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Manual_for_small_and_new_Wikipedias
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What to add in a small Wikipedia
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Do you even want a Wikipedia?
Adding a language to the incubator is quite a bit of work!
You may want to talk with a few other speakers to see who'd be interested in working on this
A Wikipedia in your language is one way of making your language more visible on the internet (but so is, e.g. a blog)
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Building an editing community
Like with the previous day, a lot of people assume that if they build a wiki, the community of people editing will just "happen"
For smaller/new wikis and wikipedias that don't already have an established community, you may need to also work on the community side
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Building an editing community
In-person events (editathons)
One idea may be to pair elders and young people to work on articles, balancing tech skills and language skills
Food is a good idea!
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Further questions
https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:FAQ
To post a question about Incubator for a real person to answer: https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Incubator:Community_Portal
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WikiProjects
One way to coordinate with people on Wikipedia
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Translation
You can compose in your language directly or add by translating from another language
Translation can make editing faster because you don't need to do research at the same time
But you don't need to produce a 100% translation - It's ok to pick and choose parts of the source article
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Translation 2
Not all articles that are relevant in one language may be relevant in another!
For example, you may be more interested in local places and locally notable people, who may not have articles in other languages to translate from
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Content translation tool
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Source language
Translation language
Edit this part
Wikimedia grants
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Wikimedia strategic plan
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All Wikimedia grants are public
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Our plans for today
Get these slides at bit.ly/lingwiki-colang4
Spend some time clicking around Incubator and/or Wikipedia in your language
Reflect: show someone what you've been working on in the course so far and talk about what you're thinking about doing next
Work on whatever interests you
Fill out the survey
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