Sunday, November 18, 2012

World Wikipedia - 4 months later

World Wikipedia has been busy.  We are on month four of the formation of this group and moving forward. 

Here are a few updates. 

Luis Garcia Castro created the Spanish version of SkeptiCamp's page.  That really makes me smile when thinking about a grassroots group like SkeptiCamp being supported by another grassroot group.

Today, the Dutch Wikipedia group (lead by editor Rian van Lierop) launched the 7th version of Jerry Andrus, this means the page is available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Portuguese.

I've learned how to add info boxes to Dutch Wikipedia pages that already exist, and have had some success improving the appearance of a few skeptical pages. 

James Randi Before
James Randi After

Michael Shermer Before
Michael Shermer After

The Wendy Hughes video that explains the We Got Your Wiki Back! project has now been translated into Spanish and Dutch (plus the English subtitles). 

The French Paul Kurtz page now has some new pictures, waiting for the French team to start improving the whole page, but in the mean time there is more to look at. Same for the Polish page.

We now have an Indian Wikipedia team.  This is a unique approach we are taking, as they will be editing in English but will focus on topics more associated with India.  This group just formed and is still in the reading everything process of learning, but expect great things from them. 

One thing that came out of the formation of the group was that a page on this elderly gentleman was brought to my attention.  I spent a bit of time cleaning out most of the nonsense (maybe more will need to go).  I was amazed that he was reported to be several hundred years old, someone had even added his name to a category stating that he was born in the 900's.  Yet we know that he died in the 1970's.  I don't think so. 

I've left only one reference and am waiting to see if others come in and improve the article, otherwise this mud man's page is likely to be deleted.

Devaha Baba Before
Devaha Baba After

We also added our first Urdu editor, just waiting for him to get settled in before we start him on projects.

Nix Dorf arranged our first Google Hangout for the editors.  It was a blast but as usual we had a bunch of technical problems.  Getting those all ironed out for our second try.  Finding a time was also interesting, but really very exciting to have people from all over the world on the call. 

Nix is in Brazil
Nicola Mazbar in Atlanta, Georgia
Svetlana Bavykina in Russia
Luis García Castro in Spain
Luis Filipe Pratas in Portugal
and myself in California



If you haven't been keeping up with the World Wikipedia project, here is the blog from our 2 month anniversary. 
 

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