Talk:Wikimedia Quarto/New

WQ-N

General intro message:

Thank you for your submission to WQ #N. We are looking for reports, stories, and great images for future editions.

Please post abstracts or outlines of content to WQ/Draft. Among other things, you can write about events, conferences and meetups; new initiatives or wikiprojects; major news events and milesones in this quarter.

last modified 17 Apr 2005

Other messages

• WQ #N translations will begin the week of Month DD.
• Become an editor: If you want to oversee the editing for your language, add yourself to WQ/Team#Translation with "(editor)" next to your username.

Different content in different languages

The french international page is different from others international page.

Upon discussion, we thought the best thing to do is to place on top of the international page on the Quarto, a little mention saying "content on this page may change from one language to another, according to regional news"... then to allow each language to add their own content here. This will help all languages feel involved and increase the interest of the publication.

Only one point : since it is the newsletter of the Foundation, I'd like that the content is approved by the Foundation itself, since its publication will engage our responsability. Anthere 11:38, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That is, there will be an optional "Regional news" column on pg. 7. The editors for that language are free to decide what to include there; but please contact one of the editors (Anthere or myself) about reviewing it before it is published. +sj+ 00:08, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Print issues

See Wikimedia Quarto/Costs

Receive Quarto by mail

See Wikimedia Quarto/Email

Northern-hemispherocentrism

As pointed out at Wikimedia site feedback#Northern-hemispherocentrism, you should not refer to seasons when you want to refer to a time of the year, because this newsletter is not targeted at the northern hemisphere only. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 12:49, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)

You're totally right, Brian, of course. This is one of the pitfalls listed in our WQ/Style guide... +sj+ 23:34, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In the Spanish translation I've changed references to seasons into references to trimesters. Half of our community lives in the southern-hemisphere. Ascánder 15:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cause it is a Foundation publication and all members of it live in nothern hemisphere ? I never saw anyone complain that press releases were issued from Florida. Anthere

Perhaps. I would like to add "all contributors" (if I recall correctly, all the submissions came from the northern hemisphere). But I remember a complain on vol.1 from Australia, then "this summer" was complained. It would be nice to avoid saying this fall at least on page 3, if so many people are irretated, even the Foundation is in Florida, a part of nothern semisphere. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 06:18, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I seem to have been mistaken. I thought the whole point of the Wikimedia Foundation is to make information freely available to all humans, and the newsletter would be consistent with this mission.
Maybe that was correct, but my later assumption, that you should expect some people from the southern hemisphere to read it, was mistaken. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 06:40, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

Also, I'm not complaining about where it is released, just its content. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 06:40, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

Future participants to contact

Ko: PuzzletChung (I can help)

See WQ/Team#Translation for other translators.

Errata

Typo error

On , there's a typo error within the paragraph on Wikinews:

The Wikinews project is currently in the beta stage. It was launched in December 2004 with the mission to report the news on a wide variety of subjects. As of February 2004, there are seven languages Wikinews. Contributors from around the world write news articles collaboratively. Reports are ranged from original reports to summaries of news from external sources. All of them are required to be wrtten from a neutral point of view. Currently Wikinews has two aims: providing a free content alternative to commercial news sites and making sure that articles are fact-checked and reviewed thoroughly.

Do take note of the matter.

Quarto 3 titlebar links all point to quarto 2

The titlebar links all point to quarto 2 pages. even the individual subpages. the only correctly linked image is to the "welcome" page.

strange. It is not my case. Can you perhaps say in which language this happens ? Anthere

ahh, this is at the wikimediafoundation copy. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Quarto/3/En-1 which is what http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarto links to. and i just noticed that it's only the images that are mislinked. the text links are correct. i would change it myself, but i cant log in.

fixed notafish }<';> 20:37, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I absolutely *love* this website!

I honestly have never seen a more attractive, interactive, and user friendly html network in my life. Well done Wiki! Your webmaster should get a promotion or something, because he is certainly more than qualified!

   - Jeri W. Stern, Techron Media Technologies; Regional Community Action Team

Thousands of wiki editors are thanking you, Jeri :-) There's no single webmaster for the site; just lots and lots of part-time editors and designers. But your feedback is most welcome... sj 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Here an article from the BBC news

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

Wikipedia survives research test John Seigenthaler Sr, AP John Seigenthaler criticised Wikipedia's reliability The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.

The British journal Nature examined a range of scientific entries on both works of reference and found few differences in accuracy.

Wikipedia is produced by volunteers, who add entries and edit any page.

But it has been criticised for the correctness of entries, most recently over the biography of prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler.

Open approach

Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and has since grown to more than 1.8 million articles in 200 languages. Some 800,000 entries are in English.

It is based on wikis, open-source software which lets anyone fiddle with a webpage, anyone reading a subject entry can disagree, edit, add, delete, or replace the entry.

We're very pleased with the results and we're hoping it will focus people's attention on the overall level of our work, which is pretty good Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder It relies on 13,000 volunteer contributors, many of whom are experts in a particular field, to edit previously submitted articles.

In order to test its reliability, Nature conducted a peer review of scientific entries on Wikipedia and the well-established Encyclopedia Britannica.

The reviewers were asked to check for errors, but were not told about the source of the information.

"Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia," reported Nature.

"But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively."

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales welcomed the study.

"We're hoping it will focus people's attention on the overall level of our work, which is pretty good," he said.

Writing style

Nature said its reviewers found that Wikipedia entries were often poorly structured and confused.

The Encyclopedia Britannica declined to comment directly on the findings.

But a spokesman highlighted the quality of the entries on the free resource.

"But it is not the case that errors creep in on an occasional basis or that a couple of articles are poorly written," Tom Panelas, director of corporate communications is quoted as saying in Nature.

"There are lots of articles in that condition. They need a good editor."

Wikipedia came under fire earlier this month from prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler.

The founding editorial director of USA Today attacked a Wikipedia entry that incorrectly named him as a suspect in the assassinations of president John F Kennedy and his brother, Robert.

The false information was the work of Tennessean Brian Chase, who said he was trying to trick a co-worker.

Wikipedia has responded to the criticisms by tightening up procedures.

Next month it plans to begin testing a new mechanism for reviewing the accuracy of its articles.

Advertisements?

Are ads really undesirable? I would be OK with advertisements if they were of interest to the readership and they increased distribution by off-setting cost. Also see V-CAMs by Current TV as a way of attracting advertisers. GChriss 20:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I think in a print edition it would at least be alright to give the printer and any physical distributor some space for recognition. In-kind recognition is rather different from generic ads.

New Quarto?

There has been recent turmoil stemming from a lack of understanding in the communities about what other projects are doing (misunderstanding of en:wp naming policies), what the foundation is doing (committees, other governance changes, fundraising), and what the outside world is doing (Citizendium, &c). A number of people have expressed interest in helping out with a new Quarto edition.

Moreover, it is now easier than ever to put some pieces of the newsletter together : Wikinews has taken up regular interviews, the Signpost and related news outlets in smaller projects have started tracking local events, and there are occasional columns that provide something like reports for individual languages. Useful and interesting essays have also been written by various community members over the past 18 months which could help spur discussion.

If you are interested in working on a new edition of the newsletter, please join the quarto mailing list (quarto-l@wikimedia.org) and leave your name on the team page.

WQ 4

There remain good contributions to the partly-done Quarto 4, and there was a suitable note from the founder (10 things that should be free) that still wants translation. To help provide perspective, in working on would make sense to make an informal WQ4 out of older contributions ("Lost Edition") and a WQ5 (keeping its current title, "Found Edition") covering July 2006 through January 2007, which would come out in Feb.