Please let us support #Science at @Wikidata

When the BBC informs us about reforestation in Ethiopia.. It is Dr Tewolde-Berahan who informs BBC's Justin Rowlatt about the work that is done in preparation of planting trees.

It is a humorous piece of information that gets the message across; you can plant where trees were absent for generations and make the (local) climate change.

Consider; you now want to seriously know more about reforestation in Ethiopia. Where do you go to? Wikipedia, in all its magnificence, is rooted in its articles and thereby dated. Through its references however, there are links to its authors, to many more authors and their publications. Every article has in this way its concept cloud and it could be translated in a Scholia for an article.

The current Scholias are itself already a rabbit hole that leads in many directions and a Scholia for an article would be something different again. The article links to subjects, has its papers and by inference authors, they may link to newer papers, more papers, contradicting papers. They may lead to scientists who research similar notions for another locality.. Why not reforest Spain in France? When reforestation is possible in Ethiopia, what would be different to make this unfeasible in Europe?

And all this becomes possible when you consider Wikipedia as the jumping off point in any and all directions, not just within Wikipedia..
Thanks,
     GerardM

NB I know there are two fellows of the Ethiopian Academy of Science related to this subject. Who are they and how are they connected to Dr Tewolde-Berahan?

#MediaWiki supports #Amharic

Having a #font for the Ge'ez script allows you to see what a language like the Amharic or the Tigrinya language look like. Chances are that many people who have the font on their system can also read a language that uses the script.

For those people who do not have a font for this script on their computer, the Amharic Wikipedia now supports the AbyssinicaSIL font. For the people who do not know this, Amharic is spoken in Ethiopia.

When you use the current Firefox, you will get an experience like the one below. We already know that a next version of Chrome will properly support it. I do not know about the other browsers. What I do know is that Firefox is doing a sterling job for me.

Thanks,
      GerardM

#mwhack11; font support for #Amharic and #Tigrinya

One of the developers at the #MediaWiki hackathon had to do some copying and pasting on behalf of the Amharic Wikipedia. What he saw on his screen were these nice boxes that indicate that he did not have the appropriate fonts available to him.

This developer asked Amir, one of the members of the Language committee for help. The right string got copied and pasted.

Amir asked Santhosh to add support for the Ge’ez or Ethiopic script. The script is now supported with a WebFont at translatewiki.net. Two languages with a Wikipedia; Amharic and Tigrinya are now supported. When the Tigre and the Blin language ask for their Wikipedia, we are ready for them as well.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Dear #Apple why do I need to jail break to support my language

When I want support for the #Ge'ez script on my #iPhone, the only option open for me is to jail break my phone and lose the warranty. This is very unsettling because I love my language and I love my iPhone.

Could you please make an app available that allows me to read content in my language and, while you are at it, please add a Ge'ez keyboard as well.
Thanks,
     Merhawie

The relevance of the #Amharic #Wikipedia

The Amharic Wikipedia is a living and breathing Wikipedia. It is with 4.3K articles big for an African Wikipedia. Its localisation is doing OK; 70% of the MediaWiki core messages have been translated.

According to the English Wikipedia however, it "fails WP.WEB" this is to mean that "there are no reliable sources" that indicate the relevance of this website. The question I have is, is this reliable external to the Amharic Wikipedia or reliable external to the Wikimedia Foundation.

We keep statistics on the development of all Wikipedias. We have policies that ensure that every new Wikipedia conforms to minimum standards. We want to gain traction in Africa and honestly, if we consider our Wikipedias as not relevant then we are shooting ourselves in the foot.

The problem with this search for external sources in English is that it inherently brings a bias to the notability required. Wikipedia is for most languages the biggest MediaWiki website. When we promote the use of MediaWiki in "other languages" it is important to recognise the importance of our Wikipedias. Some may not consider this encyclopedic but Wikipedia has its relevance not only as an encyclopedia.
Thanks,
       GerardM

ፊደል means #script or #alphabet

The Amharic and Tigrinya #Wikipedia use the Ge'ez or ግዕዝ script. I asked Merhawie at some stage about font support for the script. The existing open font for the Ge'ez alphabet is incomplete and needs to either be replaced or added to.

My Linux support for the Ge'ez script

Some 34 million people use this script for their language and it is an obvious inhibitor for the Internet. There are already two Wikipedias that use this script. When we enable our Wikipedias by supporting the missing characters, we are likely to get attention from people that we need to grow our community.

To put the potential in perspective, the Dutch language is spoken by some 22 million people and the Dutch language Wikipedia is currently the 10th biggest Wikipedia
Thanks,
        GerardM