tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16029364055572245192024-03-13T07:57:33.381+01:00EndamiIt turns out there are few wars between Switzerland and Nepal.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-4742522102243883092012-02-05T16:28:00.002+01:002012-02-05T16:28:32.352+01:00Ten days left to apply for Chapcom membershipThe Chapters Committee is looking to fill five places and is looking for candidates who are able and willing to help groups of Wikimedians self-organize around the world. See the call <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_Committee/Call_for_Candidates_2012">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-5836205731308776192012-01-03T16:41:00.000+01:002012-01-03T16:43:07.483+01:00A year in ChapComIt was a busy year in the <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee">Chapters Committee</a>, the body that is entrusted with guiding groups of enthusiastic Wikimedia volunteers towards greater offline activity. This is usually in the form of forming a local <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters">Wikimedia Chapter</a>, but given the technical and bureaucratic difficulties that this may entail, it often takes the form of recommending local activities without a formal legal structure taking advantage of the Wikimedia <a href="http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Trademark_policy">trademarks policy</a> and <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index">grants programme</a>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0jgGIh-pPJw/TwMaDZN5RpI/AAAAAAABV7I/-mMUP0cvhNg/s1600/Chapcom+map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="175" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0jgGIh-pPJw/TwMaDZN5RpI/AAAAAAABV7I/-mMUP0cvhNg/s400/Chapcom+map.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chapters approved in 2011 (dark blue), and those on their way towards chapterhood in 2012 (greenish shade of blue). Germany has become a lake by accident.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Once a group decides to form a chapter, it is the dual duty of the Committee – composed of a group of volunteers with experience in international relations, running chapters and other non-profits and good intercultural skills – to give advice and guide the group through the <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Step-by-step_chapter_creation_guide">steps</a> of creating a well-functioning legal association and making sure that the resulting entity conforms to the <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requirements_for_future_chapters">requirements</a> of official Wikimedia chapterhood.<br />
<br />
In 2011 ChapCom finalised <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee/Resolutions#2011">10 chapter applications</a> from 4 continents: from the northern tip of the World in Canada all the way south to Cape Horn (in Chile) and as far east as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/93rd_meridian_east">93rd meridian</a>. This makes it the second busiest year for the Committee (after 2008); however, we will not be bored in 2012 either. If the world doesn't end, the Committee will process <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee/Chapters_applications">applications</a> from Brazil, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Slovakia and most likely Croatia (and we are only in January; hopefully, many more communities will approach us over the year).<br />
<br />
2012 will also be the year, when anyone can apply to be part of the group that helps new groups around the world in forming chapters (or other<a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles/Affiliations_Committee"> affiliated orgs</a>). If you wonder what kind of person we are looking for, see the <a href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-February/056782.html">call from 2010</a>, and <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chapters_committee#Future_members">please sign up to be notified</a> of the 2012 call!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-30396597378977647172011-08-26T17:12:00.000+01:002011-08-26T17:12:04.062+01:00Wikimedia Chapters Planet<a href="http://chaptersplanet.org/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFY1lDRgO1RQEXIFESgRWdZFFH8ixqZb3JT7ACDw16J6hJsvCOQkLtHVl412ik88IJ3H5WM9Leu8gn3Z1yPRgNcoH2HnRL5UTi_4YDhEFqKxIgp1DiGAcWsv4_K0lPOnXR2jtAciK0s4gi/s320/chaptersplanet.png" width="320" /></a>So I have created my first real website, <a href="http://chaptersplanet.org/">Wikimedia Chapters Planet</a>, a blog aggregator that collects blog posts and reports from the Wikimedia Chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation.<br />
<br />
Setting it up was surprisingly easy thanks to the free <a href="http://www.planetplanet.org/">Planet software</a> (only a small hack was needed to get it to run). The question on how to update it was a bit of a dilemma as it is not trivial to run the Python Planet scripts on the free hosting I had (and I didn't want to spend too much on updated hosting), but I solved it by simply running all the scripts on my PC and having a .bat file do the uploading every hour or so.<br />
The translation part, which is crucial in making the site useful, was sheer luck, as although Google closed its Translation API, it is still available as a free gadget for websites, and it can handle multiple languages in the same page (something, Google Chrome's built in service can't).<br />
<br />
All that was left is to gather the blogs and flip the switch. Currently, I collect blog posts from 19 and reports from eight chapters(out of 35) plus the Wikimedia Foundation. Hopefully, more chapters will join the list and we can all see the many things that are happening around the world.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-90231734353708613872011-07-19T22:19:00.003+01:002011-07-19T22:21:03.439+01:00WikiCamp 2011 takes Miskolc<a href="http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A1jl:Wikitabor2011_01.JPG" target="_blank"><img align="right" height="220" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/hu/b/bd/Wikitabor2011_01.JPG" style="display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" width="293" /></a>Just as <a href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/08/27/volunteers-from-serbia-and-wikimedia-hungary-go-wikicamping/" target="_blank">last year</a>, a score and ten Wikipedians gathered for a four-day <a href="http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikital%C3%A1lkoz%C3%B3k/Wikit%C3%A1bor/2011#In_English" target="_blank">Wikicamp</a> in the north-eastern town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miskolc" target="_blank">Miskolc</a>.<br />
<br />
The campers got a chance to get to know each other while sightseeing in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eger" target="_blank">Eger</a> and Miskolc (the former with a pit stop at a wine cellar), hiking and getting lost in the nearby woods, a visit to an adventure park and some short presentations on how to take quality pictures for Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons and of the planned software changes coming to Wikipedia (among a few others).<br />
<br />
The event proved to be a success and is becoming a tradition, so we urge everyone to sign up early for the 2012 camp to be held in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veszpr%C3%A9m" target="_blank">Veszprém</a>.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">---<br />
Photo: Texaner, Wikimedia Commons, under CC BY-SA 3.0 and GFDL</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-41630058977501646382011-07-14T16:22:00.002+01:002011-07-15T02:37:51.302+01:00Wikimedia Hungary grants<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Wikimedia_Hungary_logo.svg/460px-Wikimedia_Hungary_logo.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Wikimedia_Hungary_logo.svg/460px-Wikimedia_Hungary_logo.svg.png" width="193" /></a></div>
The National Civil Fund (recently renamed after <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1ndor_Wekerle">Sándor Wekerle</a>, a former prime minister), the Hungarian grant giving arm of the European Social Fund has granted Wikimedia Hungary 250 000 HUF ($1300) to cover its operating expenses between 1 July and 30 September, in particular, the grant funds the development of an online payment gateway for our bank built on CiviCRM, and for producing printed materials.<br />
<br />
This is the third grant in a row that we have won and the justifications of the grants show that we are getting better at it, reflecting both on our grant writing skills and more so on our activities.<br />
<br />
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/static/modules/gviz/1.0/chart.js" type="text/javascript">
{"dataSourceUrl":"//spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/tq?key=0AiP1DF86uLYEdHY1dHVqbWs4UjhMUzQtbGpMSGN4enc&transpose=0&headers=-1&range=A5%3AF8&gid=0&pub=1","options":{"showRowNumber":false,"height":250,"sortAscending":true,"width":605,"pageSize":10,"alternatingRowStyle":true,"hAxis":{"maxAlternation":1},"hasLabelsColumn":true},"state":{},"chartType":"Table","chartName":"Wikimedia Hungary Grants ($1 = 190 Ft)"}
</script><br />
($1 = 190 Hungarian Forints)<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Apart from the raw numbers it is interesting to compare the ratings given to our application. In the case of the operating costs grant they look at the quality of applications as well as the demonstrated ability of the applicant to effect social good on a national scale.<br />
<br />
For the 2010 grant we got some harsh criticism noting that our social impact was not proportionate to our operating expenses, that we couldn't convincingly prove that we have national scope and that the ratio of income generated from profit-oriented organizations and economic activity was low.<br />
It should be noted that with the 2010 grant, we were still a very young organization and due to the timing of the grant we could only rely on financial statements dating back to the year we were founded (in November 2008 – comparing 2 months of expenses with the request for 12 months of support can lead to some disproportionality); also, our not charging for our activities to generate economic income is no cause for alarm.<br />
<br />
The 2011 grant, for some strange reason only covers an arbitrary 4 month period (instead of a year, as previously), most of it in the summer when activity levels plummet; this has made the job of coming up with a good and meaningful program plan difficult (the biggest chunk of our expenses, the contract fees of our accountant, is due in December); therefore, we opted for activities that can be outsourced (the CiviCRM development) or for which we have the material ready (the printed materials we printed earlier, although I hope to expand our collection).<br />
In the end, we put together a grant that was quite favourably judged:<br />
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/static/modules/gviz/1.0/chart.js" type="text/javascript">
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</script><br />
(If some of the criteria seem strange, or there are inconsistencies, they are inherited from the original.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-79442723354690307102011-06-06T20:57:00.002+01:002011-06-07T18:34:25.676+01:00Featured article word cloudThe three thousand featured articles of the English are made up of roughly 223 thousand different words, out of which 100 thousand are used only once.* As a comparison, <a href="http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/stats/">Shakespeare used</a> 29 thousand words in his works, out of which 12 thousand occurred only once.<br />
<br />
The most frequent words represented as a cloud after the most common function words were removed:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFUZt7BrU1Halkf73H8Zf0peoWwvz9hqnVkoBHw4OQjuPtOZSd_7AWSPjHKHNNN73fBPmYqzRyStus_Bw9Tji7dd0v8DudEPx6i6yEKTZ9EkAbM98nWMk3TpObehE2t9ADqFapgdnSpta6/s1600/English+wikipedia+featured+articles.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFUZt7BrU1Halkf73H8Zf0peoWwvz9hqnVkoBHw4OQjuPtOZSd_7AWSPjHKHNNN73fBPmYqzRyStus_Bw9Tji7dd0v8DudEPx6i6yEKTZ9EkAbM98nWMk3TpObehE2t9ADqFapgdnSpta6/s400/English+wikipedia+featured+articles.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>And this is what the above cloud would look like if the function words (including the 1.1 million <i>the</i>'s out of the 15 million words in total) were included and weighted according to their frequency:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhinNonNoxVVyShp-jblUOoj8LSSLKKYJx4nyVOiv0GtlroawUzFrbPEnP5lGZ4k-C9EQJDFiWn23hC2scZhiU_gRkJB3u-ovqZtPegX7uWEu9U2FOTuZbk7DW5B2lmvy1Rsb2yF85NFHXZ/s1600/all.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhinNonNoxVVyShp-jblUOoj8LSSLKKYJx4nyVOiv0GtlroawUzFrbPEnP5lGZ4k-C9EQJDFiWn23hC2scZhiU_gRkJB3u-ovqZtPegX7uWEu9U2FOTuZbk7DW5B2lmvy1Rsb2yF85NFHXZ/s400/all.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">* Different word forms of the same word are counted separately but uppercase and lowercase forms are counted as one.E.g "Cat" and "cat" count as one but "cats" is counted separately from "cat". </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-27540813995178301952011-06-03T20:34:00.001+01:002011-06-03T20:40:36.473+01:00Readability of South African ConstitutionsSouth Africa has had five constitutions during its history. The first one, the South Africa Act of 1909 was actually an act of the British Parliament. The 1961 Constitution was adopted during apartheid to transform the country into a Republic and the 1983 tried to reform things a bit with a Tricameral parliament. The 1993 Constitution was an interim one that set out the framework for the process that created the current, democratic Constitution of 1996.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://endami.blogspot.com/2011/06/language-of-two-south-african.html">My thesis</a> looked at the readability (and factors affecting easy comprehension) of South African Constitutions at two specific points in time, but it is quite, or even more interesting to look at the whole developmental sequence.<br />
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/static/modules/gviz/1.0/chart.js" type="text/javascript">
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</script><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>What the chart shows is the length of the constitutions, the average number of words in its sentences and the SMOG index, which tries to estimate the number of years of formal education needed to understand the text. <br />
<br />
There is a quite visible trend of the constitution getting longer as it becomes more democratic, probably as a result of the need to provide clear guidance in issues that were previously simply decided by the government in their own authority. The extra text of the 1993 constitution was not added in the form of easy to understand, short sentences, as the average sentence length of 50 words shows. Conscious attempt to make the text more comprehensible came with the 1996 Constitution, which resulted in cutting on average 20 words from every sentence (coming close to the average of 20-25 words in a sentence recommended by Plain Language guides).<br />
<br />
Legal texts are by their very nature difficult to read, and combined with the long sentences, the readability scores predict that at least 18-20 years of education is needed to understand them on first reading. (This formula doesn't reflect the lexical and grammatical changes that were intended to make the text easier to comprehend.)<br />
<br />
The South African Constitution has gone full circle in 90 years, in terms of readability scores and sentence length; but the similar drafting techniques describe completely different realities.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-9509479470332380842011-06-03T18:17:00.000+01:002011-06-03T18:17:16.882+01:00The language of two South African ConstitutionsOne of my two theses is now finally ready, and given that I am satisfied with the results, I thought I should share it. It was a comparison of two South African constitutions (the 1961 and the current 1996 one), to see if the freer society has manifested itself in a more accessible legal text, which I showed it did. This was not only the result of modernization, but a conscious effort on the part of the drafters.<br />
<br />
Here's the abstract, and if you are interested, you can read the whole thing <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0ByP1DF86uLYEZjA4YjI3ZDMtMWRmOC00NjczLTg2MWQtOWZmNDNiODA2MmUy&hl=hu&authkey=CLr0ho8G">here.</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote>This study examined in detail the language of two South African constitutions. <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Republic_of_South_Africa_Constitution_Act,_1961">The Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1961</a> adopted in the era of apartheid was compared with the current constitution, the <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Republic_of_South_Africa,_1996">Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996</a>, to find out whether the democratization of society has resulted in a more accessible constitution. </blockquote><blockquote>Based on the recommendations of the <a href="http://www.plainlanguage.gov/">Plain Language Movement</a> for more accessible legal language, four criteria were examined in a quantitative analysis: average sentence length, the use of passive verb forms, the use of „shall‟ and the use of archaic and Latin expressions. </blockquote><blockquote>The results showed that the 1996 Constitution compared to the 1961 Constitution has significantly shorter average sentences; passive constructions are half as frequent; the use of „shall‟ and difficult, archaic and Latin expressions are avoided. The results indicate that the language of the 1996 Constitution conforms better to the recommendations on accessible language. In conclusion, the democratization of society has been accompanied by a constitution that is easier to comprehend and understand, allowing the citizens to understand their rights and obligations towards the state better.</blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-11309297330465055062011-06-01T21:52:00.000+01:002011-06-01T21:52:19.616+01:00The Mouse That Roared<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Or9C-gt4TpA" width="425"></iframe><br />
The text of the declaration from <a href="http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Mouse-That-Roared-Leonard-Wibberley/9781568582498?a_aid=dami">The Mouse That Roared</a> book, which is about as good as the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/">film</a> itself:<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="500" scrolling="no" src="http://books.google.com/books?id=byHHJ6ZNW8QC&lpg=PA50&ots=7E6JrHhzR7&dq=whereas%20the%20duchy%20of%20grand%20fenwick%20has%20been%20a&pg=PA50&output=embed" style="border: 0px;" width="500"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-50097925668046731342011-05-13T19:51:00.003+01:002011-05-16T13:27:54.163+01:00The readability of user warning messages<div align="left"><a href="http://endami.blogspot.com/2011/05/bit-more-on-user-talk-pages.html" target="_blank">Looking at the talk pages on the English Wikipedia</a> I got the impression that the standard user warning messages are terribly difficult to understand. First impressions can be deceiving though, so I decided to investigate.<br />
<br />
</div>The English Wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_warning" target="_blank">catalogues</a> 405 different warning messages (there are some duplicates in that count) that can be sent to users who commit any of the scores of possible transgressions. As a comparison, there are only 137 so called <a href="http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Barnstars" target="_blank">barnstars</a> used to congratulate users for their achievements.<br />
<br />
To determine how readable these are, I looked at 105 of these messages and calculated their readability scores (the raw data is available <a href="https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=hu&hl=hu&key=0AiP1DF86uLYEdEV3TlZVMmJ1UlhuMDBKRk5TZDFjV0E&single=true&gid=0&output=html" target="_blank">here</a>). The standard readability formulas take into account the length of sentences and the length of words (either as the number of characters or syllables in them) and using a formula give a prediction of the number of years of formal education one would need to understand them (this is the “grade level” based on the US education system). <br />
<br />
Readability is not really an exact science, different formulas give slightly different weights to the length of words and sentences and there are a number of other factors that influence the comprehensibility of a text – for example, the frequency of difficult words, the use of multiple negation, etc. – that the formulas don’t take into account<sup>1</sup>. Nevertheless, readability formulas give a comparable indication of the difficulty of different texts.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/Tc19nEo1qXI/AAAAAAABAZ4/yG3aoZGfCLU/s1600-h/image001%5B9%5D.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="image001" border="0" height="221" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/Tc19pHdN_cI/AAAAAAABAaA/S0Te16bkvBE/image001_thumb%5B7%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image001" width="553" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The readability of various categories of user warnings, based on the SMOG formula</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
The results show that on average it would take an American student 12 years of study (i.e. graduating high school) to understand these warning messages. This level seems appropriate for an encyclopedia.<sup>2</sup><br />
<sup><br />
</sup><br />
The averages, however, mask the outliers. The least readable message in the sample was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-aeblock" target="_blank">notice people ge</a>t when they are blocked to enforce a decision by the English Wikipedia’s arbitration committee would need about 18 and a half years of education to understand on the first reading. Running up are some of the more commonly appearing templates that warn users that their article is nominated for deletion or breaches copyrights.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center><br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 549px;"><tbody>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="391"> <br />
Purpose</td> <td valign="top" width="156">SMOG index (years of education needed to understand text)</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="390"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-aeblock" target="_blank">Block to enforce arbitration decision</a></td> <td valign="top" width="157">18,49</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="389"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-copyright" target="_blank">Warning that the user has added copyrighted material</a></td> <td valign="top" width="158">17,23</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="389"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-copyright-link" target="_blank">Warning that the user has added a link to copyrighted material</a></td> <td valign="top" width="159">16,86</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="388"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:PRODNote" target="_blank">User's article is proposed for deletion</a></td> <td valign="top" width="159">16,64</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="388"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-tdel4" target="_blank">Final warning that the user not remove maintenance templates</a></td> <td valign="top" width="159">16,42</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="388"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Adw" target="_blank">User's article nominated for deletion</a></td> <td valign="top" width="159">15,45</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="388"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:PRODWarning" target="_blank">User's article proposed for deletion</a></td> <td valign="top" width="159">15,42</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="388"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-adblock" target="_blank">User blocked for advertising or self-promoting</a></td> <td valign="top" width="159">15,25</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="388"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Spam-warn-deletion" target="_blank">User's article speedily deleted for spam</a></td> <td valign="top" width="159">14,75</td></tr>
<tr> <td valign="top" width="388"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Uw-own3" target="_blank">Warning that the user not assume ownership of articles</a></td> <td valign="top" width="159">14,62</td></tr>
</tbody></table></center><br />
In conclusion, the warning messages aren’t unreasonably unreadable, although the various deletion notices, especially the ones concerned with copyright are written in a way that is too difficult to understand by the average user. At this point it is only a hunch, that the most commonly used messages are among the most difficult to comprehend.<br />
<hr width="25%" /><sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></sup> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Studies have confirmed that the inclusion of other factors in the formula contributes more work than it improves the results. </span><a href="http://plainlanguage.com/newreadability.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[1]</span></a><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>2</sup> According to the UNU-Merit user survey, 88% of the users have finished secondary education. </span><a href="http://wikipediasurvey.org/docs/Wikipedia_Age_Gender_30March%202010-FINAL-3.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[2]</span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-78755736907530074942011-05-10T17:56:00.000+01:002011-05-10T17:56:03.443+01:00A bit more on user talk pagesBuilding on my <a href="http://endami.blogspot.com/2011/05/tone-of-talk-page-discussions.html">previous post</a>, where I have looked at the tone of discussions on Wikipedia users' talk pages, especially that of new users, today I looked at a couple of other languages to see if there are any interesting trends.<div><br />
</div><div>I looked at 30-30 recently registered users' talkpage from April on the Croatian, Serbian, Russian and English Wikipedias – of course, this means that neither sample was very representative as the size of the Wikipedias differ and in certain cases it takes days, while in others only minutes until 30 new users register. Therefore, it is important to take the numbers with a grain of salt, while the overall trends should be about right.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_ahyphenhyphenSBbdK1ahgLKseZjDHe8XYJOtD8UDxt5TkJIJLrqmlzPdWCKqyxBe22jgZfd5SWZmvtnPxemIe6egvdFlnJZf2GRY1IKDBmiMgX3765IBwbEUSGGuy1QxzxwYrzXoSujgaH-slzqZ/s1600/russian+welcome.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_ahyphenhyphenSBbdK1ahgLKseZjDHe8XYJOtD8UDxt5TkJIJLrqmlzPdWCKqyxBe22jgZfd5SWZmvtnPxemIe6egvdFlnJZf2GRY1IKDBmiMgX3765IBwbEUSGGuy1QxzxwYrzXoSujgaH-slzqZ/s320/russian+welcome.PNG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colourful welcome message on the Russian Wikipedia. There is also a more text heavy black and white version.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div><br />
</div><div>The three smaller Wikipedias (and the previously examined Hungarian one) had in common the practice to place a welcome template message on the users' pages following their first edits, even if they didn't have any other comment (praise or correction) to offer (about 28-29 people in the samples received some form of welcome template).The welcome messages are sometimes (6-30% of cases) followed by warnings that are somewhat specific to a given Wikipedia. </div><div><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL44jY1cXlhjbLIWEY-masexLa_x9tei2od7Hdj4Q5W67lQe4vZBHimPQNOjuJchQRobrB76Q4tv-Hr9xMMsb8oJFq_0ee1c2sW-DOgns6GOx204e4Ros8FqS2ZFH_FamW722SF-KkdcF8/s1600/Serbian+welcome.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL44jY1cXlhjbLIWEY-masexLa_x9tei2od7Hdj4Q5W67lQe4vZBHimPQNOjuJchQRobrB76Q4tv-Hr9xMMsb8oJFq_0ee1c2sW-DOgns6GOx204e4Ros8FqS2ZFH_FamW722SF-KkdcF8/s320/Serbian+welcome.PNG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Serbian welcome message, with a warm invitation at the end that <i>looks</i> personal.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div>What was interesting was the common warning (4 times in the sample) on the Croatian Wikipedia that the user write in Croatian (given the similarity of the Serbocroatian languages, I cannot judge whether the warning was justified, but it can't be a positive experience if you are told that you are not speaking the right language or the language right), and that 4 out of the 30 people were indefinitely blocked for unproductive editing (without the ability to see deleted edits I cannot judge these blocks, but their harshness and the lack of warning in cases was striking).</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Dc6zKUiCUZm9Mpg7mSgditRobmBzH5Fu8rmc7mzhaNuqoQuwPRa650bqacz9MHvWllMmJCe04KZHV8tZQ5mQlYvk7beUPRZMZz_XP_HbzkJnpDTIO0TlLMrAEmMmuulDFAaxKuaL6LSt/s1600/english+minefield.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Dc6zKUiCUZm9Mpg7mSgditRobmBzH5Fu8rmc7mzhaNuqoQuwPRa650bqacz9MHvWllMmJCe04KZHV8tZQ5mQlYvk7beUPRZMZz_XP_HbzkJnpDTIO0TlLMrAEmMmuulDFAaxKuaL6LSt/s320/english+minefield.PNG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A typical English Wikipedia talk page with a welcome and a number of deletion notices.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div>When I turned to the English Wikipedia the image was slightly different. The talk pages suddenly look like minefields dotted with danger signs. Only 55% of the users received a welcome message preceding a notice that their article was deleted or their contribution reverted (about 85% of the sample received some kind of warning).</div><div><br />
</div><div>Given the high proportion of users faced with the warning sign messages as the first feedback they get from Wikipedia, it might be worthwhile to consider making them more user friendly. One good step would be to make them easier to understand by simply rewriting them in Plain English (the grammar could be simplified, insider jargon like "tag", "under criteria A7", "userfy" should be removed, etc.). </div><div><br />
</div><div>An interesting follow-up study would be to see what effect do welcome messages or the lack of them have on new users' behaviour.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-58234999500850035492011-05-07T20:09:00.000+01:002011-05-07T20:09:46.541+01:00Tone of talk page discussionsThe Community Department at the Wikimedia Foundation has been running a <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Summer_of_Research">number of small scale studies</a> on the English Wikipedia in preparation for a more in-depth study during the summer.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Praise_versus_Negative_templates,_English_Wikipedia_2004-2011.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="197" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Praise_versus_Negative_templates,_English_Wikipedia_2004-2011.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">English Wikipedia. (CC By-Sa: Steven Walling)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
One of the things they have looked into was the tone of messages left on new editors' talk pages. Their findings show that the ratio of messages with a negative tone and sometimes scary imagery (red stop signs usually) has been on the increase, while messages of praise has shown a stark decline around 2007.<br />
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To see if the situation is similar on the Hungarian Wikipedia I tried to look at the user discussion pages on the Hungarian Wikipedia. Without diving into copies of the database that contain every single historical edit, I concentrated on edits in April-May 2011.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZNAaQleVXwT8QrtTe-adBgZ4vRQ3mE1TZfYuUxsUnirp-YSA6sFIFqHg3xqp-Ak96DRk3AYL0y2ax1nHNnjs0kuTRMWzaNe6oHQmJVnta2s7JLj7RkzUHLvAIxpqs6C1U5b2ySSJUqRH/s1600/1_grafikon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ZNAaQleVXwT8QrtTe-adBgZ4vRQ3mE1TZfYuUxsUnirp-YSA6sFIFqHg3xqp-Ak96DRk3AYL0y2ax1nHNnjs0kuTRMWzaNe6oHQmJVnta2s7JLj7RkzUHLvAIxpqs6C1U5b2ySSJUqRH/s400/1_grafikon.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
First I looked at the 100 most recent edits on user talk pages, which has included experienced editors – indeed, a lot of the discussion was between experienced editors. I tried to partition the edits based on tone into positive, negative and neutral, but (except for negative) it is usually quite difficult and the line between positive and neutral is a matter of subjective judgement (as a rule of thumb, anything that included a thank you or the <a href="http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sablon:%C3%9Cdv%C3%B6zlet">default welcome template</a> went into the positive bucket).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBX6azT0fR8icy12sL1zvuWxCXMy9fljpsF2ZA70yAlP48_n9NfuTenuCIgDFyqsAIipy84MM6_msE8LmPzS0tRsCq7P6I-WVfVdyFEbQvi6sCmJNt1Mqej_MJbp9TXyTHLJwqHt2qaNch/s1600/2_grafikon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBX6azT0fR8icy12sL1zvuWxCXMy9fljpsF2ZA70yAlP48_n9NfuTenuCIgDFyqsAIipy84MM6_msE8LmPzS0tRsCq7P6I-WVfVdyFEbQvi6sCmJNt1Mqej_MJbp9TXyTHLJwqHt2qaNch/s400/2_grafikon.png" width="400" /></a></div>After doing this, I realized that I should have concentrated on messages left for new editors, so I looked at the talk pages of 30 people who have registered in April on the Hungarian Wikipedia.<br />
<br />
The results weren't too exciting as there wasn't much interaction happening with new users. The majority received only the standard welcome message on their talk page; only two of the pages showed extensive discussion (indicating that the user has become quite active already).<br />
<br />
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Puzzle_stub.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Puzzle_stub.png" width="150" /></a>A good sign is that the Hungarian Wikipedia doesn't really use scary images in templates, except in the cases of <a href="http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sablon:Ne_m%C3%A1solj%21">copyright violations</a> and the Wikipedia puzzle piece in <a href="http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sablon:Szubcsonk-figy">warnings about articles that are too short</a> and that will therefore be deleted.<br />
<br />
Thus, the situation seems to be better on the Hungarian Wikipedia than on the English Wikipedia. Unfortunately, this means that other explanations are needed to find out why is the retention and "conversion rate" of new editors on the Hungarian Wikipedia <a href="http://dabence.blogspot.com/2011/03/szerkesztoi-trendek-wikipedian.html">very low.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-15871278701507420522010-09-02T14:54:00.000+01:002010-09-02T14:54:36.064+01:00Wikimedia Estonia<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/TH7UvXtd7iI/AAAAAAAA9_Q/woMONelwaVc/s1600-h/Wikimedia%20Eesti%5B3%5D.png"><img align="right" alt="Wikimedia Eesti" border="0" height="240" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/TH7Uwfd5bTI/AAAAAAAA9_Y/cIvJKe2WEAk/Wikimedia%20Eesti_thumb%5B1%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px 5px 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Wikimedia Eesti" width="232" /></a>I’ve met <a href="http://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasutaja:Kruusam%C3%A4gi" target="_blank">Ivo</a>, a university student of about my age in last October to discuss the possibilities and benefits of setting up a <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters" target="_blank">Wikimedia chapter</a> in Estonia. <br />
<br />
At the time he has just finished giving a lecture on how to use Wikipedia in the Tartu local library and I was confident that if he could get a couple of more people that share his enthusiasm, they could achieve a lot for free culture in Estonia.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to the present, and <a href="http://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipeedia:MT%C3%9C_Wikimedia_Eesti" target="_blank">Wikimedia Eesti</a> has been established and <a href="http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Approval_of_Wikimedia_Estonia" target="_blank">approved</a> by the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation as an official chapter. <br />
<br />
This past year has not been spent in vain; however, as a couple of projects, like an <a href="http://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipeedia:HELP" target="_blank">image gathering drive</a> and an <a href="http://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipeedia:IT_v%C3%B5istlus" target="_blank">article writing contest</a> have been started on the Estonian Wikipedia and from what I gather from their recent <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_EE/Start_up" target="_blank">grant request</a>, a project involving Estonian schools is well in preparation, as well.<br />
<br />
Please join me in welcoming Wikimedia Eesti to the network of Wikimedia chapters and wish them luck for their first projects.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-31177159074682061252010-08-29T21:03:00.001+01:002010-08-29T21:03:46.792+01:00Estonian Parliament<p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/THq81-s0WDI/AAAAAAAA99U/uLh7WTBBNwo/s1600-h/HPIM730614.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="The entrance to the Parliament" border="0" alt="The entrance to the Parliament" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/THq86fy6RHI/AAAAAAAA99c/IXXZfC12B_0/HPIM7306_thumb17.jpg?imgmax=800" width="516" height="519"></a></p> <p>The Estonian Parliament is a curiously eclectic building in the heart of Tallinn’s Old Town just behind the ornamental three-domed building of the Russian Orthodox Nevsky Cathedral. <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/THq89LtBmeI/AAAAAAAA99k/I6kpPQj_XpA/s1600-h/HPIM73074.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="Nevsky Cathedral in front of the Parliament" border="0" alt="Nevsky Cathedral" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/THq9AlqCjDI/AAAAAAAA99s/D1ESV8jKCsM/HPIM7307_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="365" height="484"></a></p> <p>This building complex blends completely into its surrounding like a chameleon, so much so that each side of the building comes from a different century. The backside of the building is actually the original town walls blending into a medieval castle.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/THq9DMZsh-I/AAAAAAAA990/fgDaruLlrnU/s1600-h/HPIM731217.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="HPIM7312" border="0" alt="HPIM7312" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/THq9EvMpf3I/AAAAAAAA998/cKCqKKcUfxc/HPIM7312_thumb20.jpg?imgmax=800" width="501" height="272"></a></p> <p>Inside the building one finds the usual accessories of parliamentary buildings with a courtyard to solve any parking problems of cabinet members and deputies, large reception areas with exquisitely woven carpets and overhanging chandeliers, offices and of course the debating chamber.</p> <p>The blue room that accommodates the hundred or so MPs is situated in the blue part of the building and as a nice feature it receives natural light from the courtyard, which surely helps the deliberation and cuts down on the electricity bill.<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/THq9GnH6OjI/AAAAAAAA9-E/tKp2WxhFC0o/s1600-h/HPIM73145.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="HPIM7314" border="0" alt="HPIM7314" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_YtGylgAomoY/THq9IeLvA_I/AAAAAAAA9-M/lf7Vlw0jjBQ/HPIM7314_thumb2.jpg?imgmax=800" width="557" height="421"></a></p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-35270989990817406102010-05-20T22:21:00.000+01:002010-05-20T22:21:59.654+01:00The Welsh Assembly<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S1y5FUy7ChI/AAAAAAAArb8/_W2hrrNeoqo/s1600/IMG_2436.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S1y5FUy7ChI/AAAAAAAArb8/_W2hrrNeoqo/s320/IMG_2436.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Front view of the Senned</td></tr>
</tbody></table>On my January visit to Cardiff I chanced upon the <a href="http://endami.blogspot.com/2010/02/scottish-parliament-no-icon-no-ikea.html">second</a> devolved parliament of Britain that is not housed in an ordinary building (I haven't yet had the chance to visit Belfast, but I imagine <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_Buildings_%28Northern_Ireland%29">Stormont</a> to be a more traditional building). The Welsh National Assembly building is located in the bay area of the town next to the iconic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales_Millennium_Centre">Millenium Centre</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S1y5WmrHrnI/AAAAAAAArgk/qLqBFN6Bnlo/s1600/IMG_2456.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S1y5WmrHrnI/AAAAAAAArgk/qLqBFN6Bnlo/s320/IMG_2456.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The debating chamber's walls become the roof</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The building was finished in 2006 and it projects the image of transparency, openness.One also notices the prominent use of natural materials such as wood and glass. The steps in front of the glass portal of the building covered by the wavy, overhanging roof made of wood are inviting to the public and fit well into the area with the sea nearby and the rainy English weather. The whole building suggest looking out to the sea, the people and looking forward to the future, as well as invitingly offering shelter.<br />
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Openness and friendliness are not just an architectural feature. The staff is very friendly and the whole operation of the Assembly reinforces this feeling. The building is open to the public and anyone can just wander in. When I was there, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_time">question time</a> was underway and we could simply go into the viewing gallery to watch the proceedings.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Welsh_Assembly_chamber_seating.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Welsh_Assembly_chamber_seating.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The debating chamber. Photo: Anne Siegel, CC-BY 2.0</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
The debating chamber should be imagined like an onion still planted in the ground: in the inside core (on the ground floor, but one level down from the elevated baseline of the open inner areas of the building) there is the round debating chamber, separated by a glass wall and one floor higher there is a viewing gallery and all this is encapsulated by the wooden walls that form the skin of the onion and also it continues to become the roof. The roof has a wavy shape that resonates with the nearby sea and can be imagined as the leaves of the onion, sticking out of the ground.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Senedd_public_gallery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Senedd_public_gallery.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The viewing chamber with little TVs and headphones for the interpretations. Photo: photoeverywhere.co.uk CC-BY 2.5</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
This onion shaped inner core is surrounded by the committee rooms on two sides with glass walls (again building on transparency) and there is a gallery in the middle which is an open space that has some comfy chairs and can be filled with chairs for various events.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Welsh_Assembly_Senedd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Welsh_Assembly_Senedd.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The open space above the debating chamber. Photo: photoeverywhere.co.uk CC-BY-2.5</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
On the ground floor there is a gift shop where they sell Wales related items and almost anything branded with the logo of the Assembly, the most interesting among them is the Devolution brew beer.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S1y5a50WReI/AAAAAAAArhs/bc3rBM9x3WI/s1600/IMG_2461.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S1y5a50WReI/AAAAAAAArhs/bc3rBM9x3WI/s640/IMG_2461.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Devolution brew from the gift shop</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-70213789306588002312010-05-18T12:10:00.000+01:002010-05-18T12:10:57.011+01:00Slovakian Parliament<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S68_qJze6AI/AAAAAAAAwJ4/A0n-Q8Tgzw4/s1600/IMG_3686.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S68_qJze6AI/AAAAAAAAwJ4/A0n-Q8Tgzw4/s320/IMG_3686.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">National Council of the Slovak Republic</td></tr>
</tbody></table>On my last trips to Bratislava unfortunately I didn't get to visit the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Slovakia">Slovakian Parliament</a>'s building. It is located in the best possible place of the town, next to the castle. Unfortunately, it is quite an uninteresting (from outside), gray, concrete building next to the imposing castle so most tourists probably don't even realize its significance and head directly through the gate on the opposite side of the street to the castle grounds.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S68_27q11MI/AAAAAAAAwKE/EF2Jw-KHqrQ/s1600/IMG_3687.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S68_27q11MI/AAAAAAAAwKE/EF2Jw-KHqrQ/s320/IMG_3687.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bratislava Castle, 2010</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The 150 members of parliament who are working on the other side of the castle's fences can admire the splendid view towards the Austrian mountains.<br />
The lucky ones, those without flats in the capital, are actually admitted to the castle grounds with its nice parks and panoramic view of Slovakia, most prominently the old town of Bratislava: as an easy solution to avoid expenses scandals and make sure that everyone has a place to stay, the MPs are invited to stay the night - two to a room - in a nice building on the castle grounds.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bratislava_Council_of_the_Slovak_Republic_%2B_Bratislava_Castle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Bratislava_Council_of_the_Slovak_Republic_+_Bratislava_Castle.jpg/800px-Bratislava_Council_of_the_Slovak_Republic_+_Bratislava_Castle.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The National Council on the left with the castle towering over Bratislava; photo: 2006 by Chris, CC-BY-SA 2.0</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
Bratislava is unique in a sense that it not only houses the current Slovakian Parliament but also gave home to the Hungarian National Assembly (and some other non-parliament related Hungarian institutions) at a time when most of Hungary was under occupation.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S69I5unZo8I/AAAAAAAAwhM/eGrjt5ftfq0/s1600/IMG_3761.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S69I5unZo8I/AAAAAAAAwhM/eGrjt5ftfq0/s320/IMG_3761.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The former upper house of the Hungarian National Assembly, currently a university library</td></tr>
</tbody></table>It is always a nice feeling to stumble upon the building of the former upper chamber in the middle of the old town - I haven't found the lower chamber's building, yet, but it's one more reason to revisit the town. I hope that these, along with the Slovakian Parliament buildings are open for tourists so that I can put a couple of more parliaments on my list of visited places the next time I am there.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-16386317647637802852010-05-17T18:39:00.000+01:002010-05-17T18:39:30.789+01:00The Chaos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_English_IPA_long_vowel_chart.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Australian_English_IPA_long_vowel_chart.png" width="200" /></a></div>I am studying for my English phonology exam and I wanted to share what I'm going through, so here's a poem by Gerald Nolst Trenité (<a href="http://www.madore.org/%7Edavid/misc/english-pronunciation.html">IPA version</a>; one of the many <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1spqX4sIDo">video adaptations</a>).<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>The Chaos</b></div><br />
Dearest creature in creation<br />
Studying English pronunciation,<br />
I will teach you in my verse<br />
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.<br />
<br />
I will keep you, Susy, busy,<br />
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;<br />
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;<br />
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.<br />
<br />
Pray, console your loving poet,<br />
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!<br />
Just compare heart, hear and heard,<br />
Dies and diet, lord and word.<br />
<br />
Sword and sward, retain and Britain<br />
(Mind the latter how it's written).<br />
Made has not the sound of bade,<br />
Say—said, pay—paid, laid but plaid.<br />
<br />
Now I surely will not plague you<br />
With such words as vague and ague,<br />
But be careful how you speak,<br />
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,<br />
<br />
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,<br />
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;<br />
Woven, oven, how and low,<br />
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.<br />
<br />
Say, expecting fraud and trickery:<br />
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,<br />
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,<br />
Missiles, similes, reviles.<br />
<br />
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,<br />
Same, examining, but mining,<br />
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,<br />
Solar, mica, war and far.<br />
<br />
From ‘desire’: desirable—admirable from ‘admire’,<br />
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,<br />
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,<br />
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,<br />
<br />
One, anemone, Balmoral,<br />
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.<br />
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,<br />
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,<br />
<br />
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,<br />
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.<br />
This phonetic labyrinth<br />
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.<br />
<br />
Have you ever yet endeavoured<br />
To pronounce revered and severed,<br />
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,<br />
Peter, petrol and patrol?<br />
<br />
Billet does not end like ballet;<br />
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.<br />
Blood and flood are not like food,<br />
Nor is mould like should and would.<br />
<br />
Banquet is not nearly parquet,<br />
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.<br />
Discount, viscount, load and broad,<br />
Toward, to forward, to reward,<br />
<br />
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?<br />
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.<br />
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,<br />
Friend and fiend, alive and live.<br />
<br />
Is your R correct in higher?<br />
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.<br />
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,<br />
Buoyant, minute, but minute.<br />
<br />
Say abscission with precision,<br />
Now: position and transition;<br />
Would it tally with my rhyme<br />
If I mentioned paradigm?<br />
<br />
Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,<br />
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?<br />
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,<br />
Rabies, but lullabies.<br />
<br />
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,<br />
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,<br />
You'll envelop lists, I hope,<br />
In a linen envelope.<br />
<br />
Would you like some more? You'll have it!<br />
Affidavit, David, davit.<br />
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik<br />
Does not sound like Czech but ache.<br />
<br />
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,<br />
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.<br />
We say hallowed, but allowed,<br />
People, leopard, towed but vowed.<br />
<br />
Mark the difference, moreover,<br />
Between mover, plover, Dover.<br />
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,<br />
Chalice, but police and lice,<br />
<br />
Camel, constable, unstable,<br />
Principle, disciple, label.<br />
Petal, penal, and canal,<br />
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,<br />
<br />
Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit<br />
Rhyme with ‘shirk it’ and ‘beyond it’,<br />
But it is not hard to tell<br />
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.<br />
<br />
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,<br />
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,<br />
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,<br />
Senator, spectator, mayor,<br />
<br />
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour<br />
Has the A of drachm and hammer.<br />
Pussy, hussy and possess,<br />
Desert, but desert, address.<br />
<br />
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants<br />
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.<br />
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,<br />
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.<br />
<br />
‘Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker’,<br />
Quoth he, ‘than liqueur or liquor’,<br />
Making, it is sad but true,<br />
In bravado, much ado.<br />
<br />
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,<br />
Neither does devour with clangour.<br />
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,<br />
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.<br />
<br />
Arsenic, specific, scenic,<br />
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.<br />
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,<br />
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.<br />
<br />
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,<br />
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.<br />
Mind! Meandering but mean,<br />
Valentine and magazine.<br />
<br />
And I bet you, dear, a penny,<br />
You say mani-(fold) like many,<br />
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,<br />
Tier (one who ties), but tier.<br />
<br />
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring<br />
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?<br />
Prison, bison, treasure trove,<br />
Treason, hover, cover, cove,<br />
<br />
Perseverance, severance. Ribald<br />
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.<br />
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,<br />
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.<br />
<br />
Don't be down, my own, but rough it,<br />
And distinguish buffet, buffet;<br />
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,<br />
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.<br />
<br />
Say in sounds correct and sterling<br />
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.<br />
Evil, devil, mezzotint,<br />
Mind the Z! (A gentle hint.)<br />
<br />
Now you need not pay attention<br />
To such sounds as I don't mention,<br />
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,<br />
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;<br />
<br />
Nor are proper names included,<br />
Though I often heard, as you did,<br />
Funny rhymes to unicorn,<br />
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.<br />
<br />
No, my maiden, coy and comely,<br />
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.<br />
No. Yet Froude compared with proud<br />
Is no better than McLeod.<br />
<br />
But mind trivial and vial,<br />
Tripod, menial, denial,<br />
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,<br />
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.<br />
<br />
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely<br />
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,<br />
But you're not supposed to say<br />
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.<br />
<br />
Had this invalid invalid<br />
Worthless documents? How pallid,<br />
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,<br />
When for Portsmouth I had booked!<br />
<br />
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,<br />
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,<br />
Episodes, antipodes,<br />
Acquiesce, and obsequies.<br />
<br />
Please don't monkey with the geyser,<br />
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,<br />
Rather say in accents pure:<br />
Nature, stature and mature.<br />
<br />
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,<br />
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,<br />
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,<br />
Wan, sedan and artisan.<br />
<br />
The TH will surely trouble you<br />
More than R, CH or W.<br />
Say then these phonetic gems:<br />
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.<br />
<br />
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,<br />
There are more but I forget 'em—<br />
Wait! I've got it: Anthony,<br />
Lighten your anxiety.<br />
<br />
The archaic word albeit<br />
Does not rhyme with eight—you see it;<br />
With and forthwith, one has voice,<br />
One has not, you make your choice.<br />
<br />
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;<br />
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.<br />
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,<br />
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,<br />
<br />
Hero, heron, query, very,<br />
Parry, tarry, fury, bury,<br />
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,<br />
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.<br />
<br />
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,<br />
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners<br />
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,<br />
Puisne, truism, use, to use?<br />
<br />
Though the difference seems little,<br />
We say actual, but victual,<br />
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,<br />
Put, nut, granite, and unite.<br />
<br />
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,<br />
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.<br />
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,<br />
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.<br />
<br />
Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,<br />
Science, conscience, scientific;<br />
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,<br />
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.<br />
<br />
Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,<br />
Next omit, which differs from it<br />
Bona fide, alibi<br />
Gyrate, dowry and awry.<br />
<br />
Sea, idea, guinea, area,<br />
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.<br />
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,<br />
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.<br />
<br />
Compare alien with Italian,<br />
Dandelion with battalion,<br />
Rally with ally; yea, ye,<br />
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!<br />
<br />
Say aver, but ever, fever,<br />
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.<br />
Never guess—it is not safe,<br />
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.<br />
<br />
Starry, granary, canary,<br />
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,<br />
Face, but preface, then grimace,<br />
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.<br />
<br />
Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,<br />
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;<br />
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear<br />
Do not rhyme with here but heir.<br />
<br />
Mind the O of off and often<br />
Which may be pronounced as orphan,<br />
With the sound of saw and sauce;<br />
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.<br />
<br />
Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?<br />
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.<br />
Respite, spite, consent, resent.<br />
Liable, but Parliament.<br />
<br />
Seven is right, but so is even,<br />
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,<br />
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,<br />
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.<br />
<br />
A of valour, vapid vapour,<br />
S of news (compare newspaper),<br />
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,<br />
I of antichrist and grist,<br />
<br />
Differ like diverse and divers,<br />
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.<br />
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,<br />
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.<br />
<br />
Pronunciation—think of Psyche!—<br />
Is a paling, stout and spiky.<br />
Won't it make you lose your wits<br />
Writing groats and saying ‘grits’?<br />
<br />
It's a dark abyss or tunnel<br />
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,<br />
Islington, and Isle of Wight,<br />
Housewife, verdict and indict.<br />
<br />
Don't you think so, reader, rather,<br />
Saying lather, bather, father?<br />
Finally, which rhymes with enough,<br />
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough?<br />
<br />
Hiccough has the sound of sup.<br />
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-24138619181985000652010-05-17T16:05:00.001+01:002010-05-17T17:56:39.299+01:00Awkward Situations for Men<object height="340" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oQS1aev9pBE&hl=hu_HU&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oQS1aev9pBE&hl=hu_HU&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br />
Ever since I caught a glimpse on a fine summer afternoon in London of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Wallace_%28humourist%29">Danny Wallace's</a> attempts to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Start_Your_Own_Country_%28TV_series%29">create his own country</a> I have been hooked on his humour and "special boy projects", like accidentally <a href="http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780091895822/Join-Me?a_aid=dami">founding a cult</a> or <a href="http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780091896744/Yes-Man?a_aid=dami">saying yes to everything</a>.<br />
<br />
I have found the book versions of his escapades quite funny (less so with his later attempts to <a href="http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780091896775/Friends-Like-These?a_aid=dami">revisit some old friends</a> or <a href="http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780091908942/Danny-Wallace-and-the-Centre-of-the-Universe?a_aid=dami">find the center of the universe</a>) so I am having great hopes about his adventures in the New World, which should come out in <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9780091937577/Awkward-Situations-for-Men?a_aid=dami">book form</a> in about a month and will hopefully become a <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ia0d444a2a4b3e35a05e610aef47c7a5a">TV series on ABC</a> I guess in the autumn, if all goes well.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-53526511951050795192010-05-09T11:04:00.000+01:002010-05-09T11:04:25.250+01:00Peru, OLPC and Wikipedia<object height="225" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8709616&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8709616&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/8709616">Web: La Selva</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/webfilm">Web</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>. Hat tip to <a href="http://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/13433267823">Jimmy Wales</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-80073619809780646522010-04-23T17:44:00.001+01:002010-04-23T17:48:14.501+01:00Berlin<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S82TVrAGMbI/AAAAAAAAxrk/Eo43iMIQdc0/s1600/IMG_4029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S82TVrAGMbI/AAAAAAAAxrk/Eo43iMIQdc0/s320/IMG_4029.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Holocaust memorial</td></tr>
</tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S82VAnzledI/AAAAAAAAxws/p58u6y6jonU/s1600/IMG_4067.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S82VAnzledI/AAAAAAAAxws/p58u6y6jonU/s320/IMG_4067.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reichstag</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Last week I was in Berlin for the 2010 Wikimedia Conference. This has been my third visit to Berlin and probably the most enjoyable, so far.<br />
<br />
The conference was very productive and made more enjoyable by the presence of all those people who stayed because of the ash cloud. I am sure we can convert some of the energy of the conference into cool events here in Hungary.<br />
<br />
Best of all, after many night-time sightseeing tours in Berlin I had the chance to look around during the day in the fine weather. Hopefully, at my next visit I will also have the time to visit some of the museums of Berlin. <br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S82ODoxjLVI/AAAAAAAAx4g/AJHxM5BmAMw/s1600/IMG_3921.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YtGylgAomoY/S82ODoxjLVI/AAAAAAAAx4g/AJHxM5BmAMw/s320/IMG_3921.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Memorial church</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-82166502473562365382010-03-16T18:58:00.001+01:002010-03-17T08:34:25.072+01:00Combating link rot on Wikipedia<div class="zemanta-img" style="display: block; float: right; margin: 1em; width: 138px;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikipedia%27s_W.svg" rel="nofollow"><img alt="Wikipedia's W (favicon). The "W" ori..." height="128" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Wikipedia%27s_W.svg/128px-Wikipedia%27s_W.svg.png" style="border: medium none; display: block;" width="128" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image via <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikipedia%27s_W.svg">Wikipedia</a></span></div>One of the main principles of Wikipedia is verifiability, the idea that any fact you find in an article can also be found in a reliable external source (that's why there are so many footnotes in any given Wikipedia article). These external sources can either be offline paper products or more often than not online web pages. Unfortunately, web pages often change or become unavailable, a process nicknamed <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot" rel="wikipedia nofollow" title="Link rot">link rot</a> , which goes counter to the ability of verification.<br />
<br />
One way to combat link rot and to ensure that a reader can always find the sources used to make up a Wikipedia article is to rely on online archiving services such as the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.archive.org/" rel="homepage nofollow" title="Internet Archive">Internet Archive</a> or <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.webcitation.org/" rel="homepage nofollow" title="WebCite">WebCite</a>. The solution to the problem is to submit each linked web page to the archives' attention to make sure they will have a copy of the referenced webpages in the eventuality that they become unavailable.<br />
<br />
There is no automatic way to submit all links on a Wikipedia to an archive and different projects have come up with different solutions. The English Wikipedia used to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WebCiteBOT">send every new link</a> added to the various articles to the WebCite archive (to the point that said archive had to increase server capacity). The French Wikipedia have devised a way to link to an archived version of linked pages at the <a href="http://wikiwix.com/">Wikiwix</a> search engine, but I don't know the particulars.<br />
<br />
So far the Hungarian Wikipedia doesn't have a systematic way of eliminating dead external links. As a first step in the right direction I slightly modified a <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pywikipediabot/weblinkchecker.py">component</a> of the Pywikipedia framework to go through every single page in the Hungarian Wikipedia and send every external link to the WebCite archive. The method was inefficient because I am not a programmer and both Python and the WebCite website often crashed. (The ideal program would have used the external links <a href="http://download.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html">database dump </a>that contains only the links without the irrelevant article text.)<br />
<br />
As a results of my efforts the vast majority of the external web pages that were linked from the Hungarian Wikipedia and were alive at the end of 2009 can now be found in the WebCite archive. (Such as this <a href="http://www.webcitation.org/5nFbvnsqA">copy</a> of the Nobel prize website.) I will run my program periodically to include new links added to articles.<br />
<br />
The logical extension of my work would be to include the links to the archived versions next to the links themselves if a page dies. This could be done either manually or automatically, however I haven't the expertise or time to make this happen.<br />
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=fbc842f3-5c5f-43db-92c6-2303c30837c2" style="border: medium none; float: right;" /><span class="zem-script pretty-attribution"><script defer="defer" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" type="text/javascript">
</script></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-32065844239046118892010-02-27T13:00:00.001+01:002010-02-27T13:05:49.436+01:00Deeper explorations of international law<div class="zemanta-img" style="display: block; float: right; margin: 1em; width: 310px;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Old_Bailey_Microcosm_edited.jpg"><img alt="A trial at the Old Bailey in London as drawn b..." height="227" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Old_Bailey_Microcosm_edited.jpg/300px-Old_Bailey_Microcosm_edited.jpg" style="border: medium none; display: block;" width="300" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image via <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Old_Bailey_Microcosm_edited.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span></div>I have to come up with a plan and the first chapter for my thesis on peremptory norms <i>(<a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peremptory_norm" rel="wikipedia" title="Peremptory
norm">jus cogens</a>)</i> in international law and I am considering participating in a <a href="http://verseny.nemzetkozijog.hu/">competition</a> that touches upon State immunity, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity" rel="wikipedia" title="Diplomatic immunity">diplomatic immunity</a> of Heads of States and probably the right to self-defense. <br />
Consequently, I had to immerse myself very deeply in details of international law and there are some very interesting facets.<br />
<br />
It seems that one has to be quite the magician to traverse this field where one and the same court case can be used in arguments both <i>pro</i> and <i>contra</i> and where practice doesn't seem to follow theory, yet we are assured that practice is at fault. I believe this is one of the reasons why there is so much academic activity surrounding it, thought it is not totally without interest to non-experts.<br />
<br />
In my explorations I have stumbled upon two very interesting blogs that reflect on current issues (such as the current Falklands dispute, the US drone attacks or the alleged Mossad hit in Dubai) and their implications in international law. Both the blog of the <a href="http://www.ejil.org/">European Journal of International Law</a>, <a href="http://www.ejiltalk.org/">EJIL: Talk!</a> and <a href="http://opiniojuris.org/">Opinio Juris</a> write in an accessible language and present interesting arguments from leading scholars in the field.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-47358817523306701812010-02-14T01:52:00.001+01:002010-05-18T11:41:12.790+01:00Scottish Parliament – no icon, no Ikea<div class="zemanta-img" style="display: block; float: right; margin: 1em; width: 310px;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Scottish_Parliament_with_G8_police_DSC05008.JPG"><img alt="The unique architecture of the Scottish Parlia..." height="225" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Scottish_Parliament_with_G8_police_DSC05008.JPG/300px-Scottish_Parliament_with_G8_police_DSC05008.JPG" style="border: medium none; display: block;" width="300" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution">Image from <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Scottish_Parliament_with_G8_police_DSC05008.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></div>During my farewell trip to Estonia I made a stop in the UK and visited the various parliament buildings in Great Britain. One of the interesting and frankly quite strange ones was the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament" rel="wikipedia" title="Scottish Parliament">Scottish Parliament</a> building in Edinburgh.<br />
<br />
It is quite difficult for me to decide whether I liked the building complex that is well over-packed with symbolism and Scottish cultural references, which are an achievement in their own right as the architect, who died before he could explain what he meant by the building, was not Scottish. It feels as if someone has bulk ordered some modern symbolism and applied it all to the building without discrimination. <br />
<br />
My ambiguity – apart from my aversion to symbols that would be enough to fill a Dan Brown trilogy – probably stems from the fact that I was not expecting a new, modern building for a Parliament that is centuries old (although not in existence for 300 years). The building itself is quite functional from the inside (with bare cement walls in places and a very big and roomy debating chamber) and very strange from the outside. Only, if one would look down on the building from the nearby mountain would he discover that the building is supposed to symbolize the petals of a flower; however, he would probably have a hard time realizing this as the grass on the roof makes it difficult to make out the shape.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Morgan_%28poet%29">Edwin Morgan</a> puts it quite elegantly and accurately in his <a href="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/nmcentre/events/holyroodOpening/edwinMorgan.htm">poem</a>:<br />
<blockquote>Is it not a mystery? The parts cohere, they come together <br />
like petals of a flower, yet they also send their tongues <br />
outward to feel and taste the teeming earth.<br />
Did you want classic columns and predictable pediments? A <br />
growl of old Gothic grandeur? A blissfully boring box? <br />
Not here, no thanks! No icon, no IKEA, no iceberg, but<br />
curves and caverns, nooks and niches, huddles and<br />
heavens syncopations and surprises. Leave symmetry to<br />
the cemetery.<br />
But bring together slate and stainless steel, black granite<br />
and grey granite, seasoned oak and sycamore, concrete <br />
blond and smooth as silk – the mix is almost alive – it<br />
breathes and beckons – imperial marble it is not!</blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Scottish_Parliament01_2005-11-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="81" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Scottish_Parliament01_2005-11-13.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Debating chamber. Image from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scottish_Parliament01_2005-11-13.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>. </td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
More pictures at the Parliament <a href="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/nmcentre/images/latest/index.htm">website</a>.<br />
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><img alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=33c11e6c-5d30-4098-872b-ab5d0b314f53" style="border: medium none; float: right;" /><span class="zem-script pretty-attribution"><script defer="defer" src="http://static.zemanta.com/readside/loader.js" type="text/javascript">
</script></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-25026807059561922692009-12-21T00:30:00.000+01:002009-12-21T00:30:54.178+01:00Dinosaurs Were Made Up by the CIA to Discourage Time Travel<object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/crRM441muyM&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/crRM441muyM&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br />
I wish the band Math the Band would have come up with something less electronic and more fun/clever with such a good title...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1602936405557224519.post-29190513022829409662009-12-19T19:54:00.000+01:002009-12-19T19:54:15.106+01:00The long way homeI am finally back in Budapest, after quite an exhausting journey that has taken many turns and twists. After 5 hours of sleep and some last-minute packing I was on my way to Tallinn airport witnessing the snow covered plains and forest of Estonia and the sunset at around 4 pm.<br />
<br />
At the airport I was among the first to check in, which was not much help as my plane was an hour late, meaning that I was going to miss my connection in Frankfurt. Finally, we landed just as my second plane was supposed to take off, and I was taken by the airport bus to a gate about a kilometer away from the gate I was supposed to be at half an hour earlier<br />
<br />
Fortunately, the second plane was delayed as well so I could make it (after covering the 1km distance between my arrival and departure points in record time, they moved my gate much closer). In the end we took off twenty minutes after we were supposed to land already and had a smooth ride.<br />
<br />
After the pilot missed the bridge connecting to the terminal by about a metre and had to order the anxious passengers back to their seats, I was finaly at home again:<br />
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