#Wikidata - more #data provides more #information

Working on Wikidata is addictive. Particularly when you see the information improve before your eyes. I mentioned to a friend how Sukarno looks in the "Reasonator". It was not bad. It could however be improved upon.

• all the persons now have gender information
• the signature was added
• information was added for several of his wives
• information was added about husbands and children of his children
• qualifiers were added about his presidency of Indonesia

There is a place for adding the same statements in an automated fashion. There is also a place for improving the quality of information. It is particularly important for those items that are likely to be seen by many people.

Thanks,

     GerardM

Ottoman #Turkish for #Wikidata

Labels in Wikidata provide an item with a name in a language. Historically many subjects have had different names during their lifetime. Often these names were in different languages and sometimes in different scripts as well. Using labels, statements and qualifiers it is possible to register all these names. Jakarta existed before the Dutch raised it to the ground to build Batavia. When the Dutch left Indonesia, Batavia was named Jakarta again. The original Jakarta was named in Javanese and the new Jakarta is named in Indonesian.

Original sources are in its original language and, when an original text is processed, it helps when it is made easy to link text automatically to Wikidata items. When we have a source, we already know a lot about it. It was written at a specific time by a specific person in a specific environment and this knowledge helps the matching of texts to concept known in Wikidata.

With labels recognised as Wikidata items labels in other languages can be used to translate a text. They can also be used as a key to enrich the experience by including maps, illustrations and Wikipedia articles in the language of the user.

The language committee of the Wikimedia Foundation changed its policy for Wikidata; all languages recognised in the ISO-639-3 will be granted the status of eligibility when asked. This will make it easier to include the Javanese for Jakarta or the Ottoman Turkish for Istanbul.

Thanks,

      GerardM

An unknown woman from #Indonesia, a picture from the #Tropenmuseum

The Tropenmuseum has provided us with a large collection of images from its collection. Within Commons these images are particularly relevant because there is so little available on the subjects covered by this collection.

Attribution to the GLAMs we are working with is vitally important. Providing an insight to how a collection is used determines subsidies.

As these images are by and large in a category, it is possible to use that category and accumulate data with it. GLAMorous informs about the number of articles using images in a category. Even more relevant is the BaGLAMa tool; this is where you find the number of page views for these images.

There is room for improvement; there is a template for the Tropenmuseum but it is not part of the data on most images from the Tropenmuseum. There are templates for creators like Isidore van Kinsbergen; they are not universally applied either.

When the data on images exists in a database, it will become much easier to combine data in many new ways. Adding the creator and institution templates prepares for the moment when these templates are populated with data from Wikidata.
Thanks,
      GerardM

The next billion #Internet users II

#China, #India and #Indonesia are estimated to have 3 billion connections in 2017. Consequently the opportunity to attract people is very much in these countries.

When you look at the Wikipedia statistics, you will find that Chinese and Indonesian Wikipedia are growing 262% and 122% respectively on an annual basis for mobile traffic and 49% and 34% for non-mobile traffic. This does not make them the fastest growers as you would expect from the prediction; the Russian and Arabic Wikipedias are growing faster at this time.

The story for India is more complicated; it is not clear from our statistics what part of the traffic of the English Wikipedia is coming from India. Traffic for the many other Indian languages, mobile and non-mobile, indicate that mobile is really taking off. When you consider the absolute size of the mobile traffic from India however, you have to appreciate that only the latest smartphones have a chance of rendering Indian scripts successfully. It will probably need an intervention from the Indian government to get the latest language technology implemented on existing smartphones.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Batak - getting a #script ready for the #Internet

Several languages from Sumatra, #Indonesia were originally written in the Batak script. This script was encoded in Unicode and the waiting was for a freely licensed font. Thanks to a grant by the Wikimedia Foundation, a project is under way that will produce a font for Batak and will transcribe sources from Dutch museums like the Tropenmuseum.

For a script to be encoded into Unicode, a lot of research goes into describing the font and how it functions. For Batak you can find this documentation here.

When you read this, you find details like how the combination of a consonant and a vowel is expressed in the Batak script. When smart algorithms are used only the valid combinations will be expressed.

Given that multiple languages use the Batak script, the rules that are implemented in a font need to allow for every Batak language.

The first iterations of the Unicode font for Batak are being tested. When this is done, the font will be available and it will be possible to transcribe original Batak sources including a book on sorcery.
Thanks,
       GerardM

The #Batak #script gets its #font

 Thank you #Wikimedia Foundation

History is written by the victor. The Dutch were victorious over the Batak people and as a result they became part of what is now Indonesia. At that time the Batak languages were written in the Batak script and many documents ended up in Dutch archives and museums like the Tropenmuseum.

Once the existence of a script is recognised in the ISO-15924, the characters of that script can be defined in Unicode. Once they are defined in Unicode, a font can be created for a script. When this font is freely licensed, everybody may use this font. Existing documents and literature can be transcribed and texts that were transcribed in something other then Unicode can be converted.

With documents and literature transcribed or converted, they can become available for research and when they can be easily found, it becomes possible to understand more of the history of the Batak people from their point of view.

A free font makes it possible to display the Batak characters. As you can understand, with the development of a first Unicode font for the Batak script, there is not much to display yet. Documents and literature have to be transcribed and typically a keyboard is used for this. A standard keyboard does not map to Batak characters and a keyboard mapping is what makes this possible.

The Wikimedia Foundation makes it possible to have this font. A grant has been given to do a GLAM project about Batak documents in Dutch museums and archives. Scans of Batak documents will be uploaded on Commons and the transcriptions will have to go to a Wikisource that supports both the WebFonts and the Narayam extension.

Now that we can start building a font, we are getting ready to reach out to people who have documents in one of the Batak languages. We will be reaching out to people who know these languages and as people like myself transcribe documents, they are the ones who have to identify the precise Batak language.

As you may understand, a project like this is many faceted. It will be an adventure to learn how many facets there are. Watch this space for future updates.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#WCN11 #Tropenmuseum knows the stories of expeditions

As colonial powers extended their reach, they send expeditions to those parts of the world where they might find an “el dorado”. Many of these expeditions had a dual purpose and expanding the knowledge of the world was one. When you were lucky, you lived to tell the tale. You arrived home heavy with notes, artefacts both human, animal, plant and inanimate. These artefacts were analysed and when done, they ended up in depots of museums. Museums like the Tropenmuseum.

The Dutch anthropological museums all got “their” part of these expeditions and now is the time when thanks to digitisation all the notes and artefacts can come together. Just bringing them together is already a lot of fun but it is only by telling the story to the public that it gains in relevance.

The Tropenmuseum is really happy with many of the results of their donations of Indonesian materials; it is the Indonesian Wikipedia where their material is used most. A project about expeditions may become as relevant as they are when the first systematic references occur in a written language.

Digitising the documents, the photos and combining them in Wikipedia articles is worthwhile in itself however this is not telling the stories of the expeditions and the stories of the collections. Telling the stories is what will make all the material come alive.

The pictures go into Commons, the subjects in Wikipedia, the sources in Wikisource. Can we have a Wikistories to tell the story and have a framework for all the content of the expeditions ?

Thanks,

GerardM

in #ISO639 bbc stands for Toba #Batak

Artefacts of many "indigenous" cultures only exist in museums. The cultured people who created them have died or dwindled into non-existence and their descendants often do not know their history, their culture.

When the language still exists... it may be that the script is no longer in use because it is replaced by another. Even when the text is transcribed and then transliterated, the terminology and the associated understanding may be lost.

We have a request for a Wikipedia in Toba Batak. This is only one of the languages that is written or used to be written in the Batak script. The characters of the script have been defined in Unicode and the only font available is freeware and does not feature what you expect of a modern font according to the author.

The author of the existing font, a professor in Hawaii, is happy to work with us to establish a fully functional freely licensed font, a keyboard map and possibly a transcription engine from and to the Latin script.

Many of the objects in the Dutch and other western museums are valued far higher then the cost of the creation of a font for the Batak script. Once a script is available it becomes possible to transcribe all the texts that exists in museums and archives and this in turn will allow us to glimpse of the Batak cultures as they survive in its literature.
Thanks,
       GerardM

The #Batak script and #GLAM

When the Batak script became supported by Unicode, the Batak languages became technically ready for the 21th century. Practically there is still a long way to go because there is no font yet that supports Batak.

The cost of having a technically correct font that does justice to the language created is relatively minor; for some EUR 5000,- such a font will be created and become available under a free license.

Once a font is available, it is possible to reach out to museums in the Netherlands like the Tropenmuseum and ask them for quality scans of their documents in the Batak script. When these are then transcribed, a rich source of information about the Batak culture will become available.

There are plans for a conference in Bali where people who are involved in Indonesian languages are to be motivated for involvement in WMF projects. Demonstrating how languages can get a new lease of live can be done by having a source project running for the Batak languages in combination with Dutch museums.

This kind of outreach has been suggested to Wikimedia Australia. Sadly they have not come to a conclusion yet on what to do. I would love to see this project started as soon as possible and am happy to reach out to the Dutch museums.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Outreach in #Indonesia by #Radio

Outreach for #Wikipedia is best done by a broadcast medium. It is best when you want to reach a big audience. Effectively building a public for Wikipedia where computers and broadband are for many a luxury takes a stroke of genius.

Using small articles, often just stubs, on the radio at the end and beginnings of programs is such a stroke of genius. Learning that it is even extended to languages that have not even an Incubator presence makes it even more awesome.

A big thank you to Kombinasi who provide this wonderful service to us.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Get ready for next gen #Wikipedia #Mobile

It is easy to check if your #Wikipedia is ready for the next generation mobile support. What is extremely good information is that the first iteration will be the replacement of the Ruby engine with a PHP engine.

The consequence is that initially, the user interface will not change. This means that you can check here at translatewiki.net if your language has its user interface completely localised.

When all the messages are translated, you need to request for the localisations to be brought into production. This is done by adding a bug to bugzilla. This is needed for the current Ruby interface.

Another step that you can take is the creation of a mobile main page for your language. Without a mobile main page and the localisation it will look like this example for the Pontic language.

With a mobile main page, sections of the main page will be provided by clicking on a button like in this example for the Indonesian language. This is particularly friendly on those people for whom the use of bandwidth comes at a premium.

Apparently bandwidth in the Netherlands is not considered much of an issue; its mobile main page shows more of the main page.

Given that the mobile use of Wikipedia is where most of its growth in traffic is, it is also growth where your language may benefit. When the result is less then successful, it is good to remember to post a bug in bugzilla because once the next generation PHP mobile engine kicks in, it will get attention.
Thanks,
        GerardM

Working for the Yankee dollar ..

#Wikipedia doing a #commercial project? Hell, why not! The license allows it and, it is wonderful outreach.

The Indonesian Wikipedia had a writing competition about theology. Publishers are interested in publishing and, the question is: can we do it.

In Commons we explicitly do not accept pictures available under a CC-by-nc license. This ensures that we have the widest possible audience for our material. It follows that the same applies for our articles. When a publisher or a website wants our material and publish it commercially they can. When they do it with us, even better.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Nostalgia and #Indonesia ...

The #Tropenmuseum had a symposium with the title Colonial Nostalgia. The first part of the evening were two introductions of books and the second part started with four highly esoteric introductions to the subject.

As my family had no connections to "de oost", practically Indonesia was for me the Indonesian rice table, the remembrance plaques in the chapel near my school and the statue of Jan Pieterszoon Coen in front of the Westfries Museum.

In the introductions a structure was given to what is it that gets people's interested for times gone by. I did not fit in. The question if there had been signs of "whites only" at Indonesian swimming pools was new to me. It did evoke passions in the public and, one of the speakers was willing to give 100 EURO for proof that such signs actually existed.

My involvement in Indonesia originated in the wish by the Tropenmuseum to share its Indonesian collection with Wikipedia. The realisation of this resulted in the use of its great collection in many languages as illustrations, particularly in Bahasa Indonesia. The people that use the Tropenmuseum collection may write because of a sense of nostalgia, it may also be because they write an encyclopaedia and historic articles ask for historically relevant illustrations.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Danza Indonesia at the #Tropentheater

As I become involved with the #Tropenmuseum and #Indonesia, I sometimes get information that I love to share. February 6 there will be a performance of modern Indonesian dance:

Highlights from 10 years of modern Indonesian dance

In this performance six talented traditional Javanese dancers experiment with a new body language from the rich Javanese tradition en morph this into modern dance. On music by Ligeti, Rahayu Supanggah and Dedek Wahyudi they present most beautiful solos and duets from their repertoire.

It is about top dancers like Agus Margiyanto, Cahwati, Martinus Miroto, Retno Sulistyorini and Heru Purwanto (replaces Rury Avianty). All have performed here before but in a completely different setting.

Danza Indonesia offers an amazing control and surprising choreographies where traditional moves and modern dance idiom fuse into an exciting amalgam. Mirogo will function as the dramaturge and ensure that the cohesion of the individual parts. Iskader Loedin will provide appropriate lighting.

A presentation as part of the Wild Wild East Festival

Note: it is possible to conclude the world dance performance by enjoying the delicious world buffet, including a drink, in the Café Restaurant Soeterijn of the Tropentheater. You pay only € 36,50 in total (€17,50 for the buffet and a reduced rate for the performance). Reservations available through 020-568 8500

This shows that Indonesian dance is not only for tourists. Its idiom finds its way in the world of modern dance and the classic Indonesian dance styles are alive and well.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Intrigue: A Wiki Experience in Indonesia

My best friend Pipit once told me that my curiosity does not come cheap, indeed I found myself in many situations wondering "Oh my, how did I end up in here?".

My name is Siska Doviana, I'm an Indonesian in San Fransisco for two weeks, where the Wikimedia Foundation Office (WMF) is located. I was invited to come to tell WMF my story.

There's nothing special about how I began my wiki experience really, naturally I was curious. My first long and multiple edits in the Indonesian language Wikipedia began with an idea that I didn't want my assignment paper for the university to end up as a recycled paper only. My first edit was about Playboy magazine and its impact in Indonesia, the year - 2006. In my search for references, I stumbled upon the English Wikipedia article, among other resources, and I checked the Indonesian language Wikipedia. It was poorly written, and I decided to contribute. Since I'm not a techie, soon enough I ended up inside an argument, partly about the content but mostly it's about the "how to". Although the subject of the article was controversial then, my edit and argument page attracted other (very active) wikipedians, not because of the article content, but because they found out that I'm a woman. It turned out I had ended up inside a "guys only" lair, I guess the situation just changed a bit. Back then (2006) the Indonesian language wikipedia only had 20 thousand articles and 20 very active users.

Looking back, I might not "last" as long if not for the series of meetings happening after ward. The first Indonesian language wiki meet happened after I started to edit heavily the U.S. Presidents in Indonesian Wikipedia (since the office I worked for published a book about U.S. Presidents). The first ever Indonesia wikimeet conflicted with me travelling to Bali for a holiday, I had signalled my  "regret", and thought "Uhm, what happens online, stays online" and I was convinced that there would not be other meetings. Yet life has its own plan and funny turns. I end up attending the meeting since I missed my plane to Bali (misread the departure time of my budget flight - and it left me with six days of nothing to do in Jakarta). So I decided to attend the meeting with "interesting" Wikipedians. One of them, Revo, happened to fly in (visiting Jakarta) from his home in Netherlands. He brought us a story about the German Chapter and suggested that Indonesia should have a chapter of its own. We weren't really excited at first, to me it is an idea located somewhere over the rainbow. However, that first meeting led to an unplanned series of meetings since our meeting picture was discovered by three independent movie makers from San Francisco: The Underdog Pictures, shooting "Truth in Numbers, The Wikipedia Stories". Since Indonesian Wikipedians are mostly male and not really "service oriented" - they forwarded me the email from Nic (the director) to be "taken care of".

After Underdog, the next thing we knew, we started to get invitations to talk in seminars, interview on radio, and then Nic wrote to me about Wikimania 2007 in Taipei. I told him to forget it, why would they wanted me to come? Pfft, nothing to tell here, don't know anyone there. Nic insisted, sending me all the links, and honoring his determination in offering it, I filled it.

In 2007 I found myself wandering around in Taipei with three other Indonesian Wikipedia volunteers and talking to Delphine Menard and the chapter's committee, about the possibility of an Indonesian chapter.

Wikimedia Indonesia was established in 2008, if I knew then what I knew now, I might not been so compelled to have an organization. For one thing, I realize later that the organization couldn't live if we were just doing what we're doing online. An organization needs a life of its own, and it turned out to be a huge responsibility. As part of the community I sense a strong need to step it up. However instead of increases, as life goes by, the volunteer activity decreases, one of the founding members and best friend that used to be single got married, had kids, and decided to establish his own company, with no more time for wikipedia, more over - no more time for offline meetings. The happening in life became a repetitive pattern for any other members too. Behind Wikimedia Indonesia, there are people with little time and an organization that has no money - both the people and the organization still hold a golden promise of what "could be great".

Since I don't rely on promises (life is too short), I decided to live it, golden promise - here we go. As a non-techie volunteer writer, I realize people might have been discouraged to write to Wikipedia since the technical bar is too high (it happened to me). I also noticed that Indonesian language Wikipedia should definitely have more articles, like "Come on, the fourth largest population and no one would write it for free? Seriously?". I would also grade existing volunteer in Indonesian language Wikipedia communication skills as "not so great", since if a problem showed up with a newbie - they, the Wikipedians, would rather focus on the problem (like putting a "warning signs") instead of taking the time to explain the solution. Dragging my "non-wikipedian and know nothing about wikipedia" best friend in college into the project, we designed an outreach project "Free Your Knowledge 2010", a project that my Netherlands Wiki friend, Gerard, referred to as "ambitious". Come to think of it, it was kind of ambitious, aside from all the obvious: cost, resources, goals - even the organization chart in Wikimedia Indonesia adjusted in order to support a project coming from "just a member" like me into a recognizable "on the board" organization-wise project. No money, no time, and no office, the project pressed on. During the project since resources were tight, I personally had to make hard decisions and use whatever I got - i.e. my best friend's personal resources, or an occasion where I saw my own financial resources and academic assignments fly out of the window, my window, not Bill Gates' - as much as I have fun - sacrificing is not easy, and I have to admit that the implementation was hard, unlike when you begin to plan it, no matter how prepared you are when life is about to hit you in the face.

So what's next? My goal is to design a system that allows anyone who is willing and able to contribute to Wikimedia Indonesia as a means to realize their goal and (preferably) to use the Wikimedia projects as their tool. I would also love to see a global competition happening.  What would be awesome is having people from different parts of the worlds, the non native speaker like me, competing to write in the English Wikipedia, while the native speaker could only serve as coach - it's like a world Idols version but for writing! Ha...

--
Siska Doviana | Pendiri (Co-Founder) | Wikimedia Indonesia
Ph. +62 816 484 5052
~~~~
Dukung upaya kami membebaskan pengetahuan

Let's have the best #Wikimedia fundraiser possible V

While the Jimmy appeal is almost universal, I am really happy that there is someone else out there as well. Kartika Sari Henry is not just any Wikipedia volunteer, she is the winner of the hard fought Bebaskan Pengetahuan 2010 competition.

It is really pleasing to find one of our unsung heroes appealing to the better nature of our readers. Her appeal is well worth a read:

A message from Wikipedia editor Kartika

If you have knowledge, you must share it.

It's a simple idea that's at the heart of Wikipedia.

I started editing and adding articles to Wikipedia because I saw how many important topics weren't yet covered in my language. The more I searched, the more I realized how much was missing – and how much I could add.

So I started editing articles and helping Wikipedia grow. And I discovered that I wasn't alone – there was this whole community of people, here in Indonesia and around the world, who were doing the same. These were people who were completely dedicated to this project of sharing, just for the joy of it. We have knowledge. We have to share it.

I am proud to be part of the Wikipedia community. And because you are here, on this page, you are part of it too. You are part of the largest source of information in human history, and we're building it together.

I want Wikipedia to keep growing. I want it to be free to use for everyone, and I never want to see a single ad here. Wikipedia is and always will be what we make it – and we need to protect our Wikipedia.

If you can read this, then you can help. I hope you will.

Kartika

Jakarta, Indonesia

 Thanks,
      GerardM

Let's have the best #Wikimedia fundraiser possible IV

This years fundraiser is effective. A lot of time and effort has gone into getting it right and it shows. Geolocation is used to identify where people are from so that the appropriate message gets out. This is a good thing; it helps our chapters to get our message out.

Still... there is one obvious thing that can be done to optimise our fundraising operation: When in Rome ask donations in the currency of the Romans. This means that you ask in India for rupees and in Indonesia for rupiahs.

My bet is that asking for donations in the local currency will more then double the number of donations. Getting it right this year will have an effect in the next year as well.

When you use Chrome as your browser, you may want to consider installing this extension.. it is fun, but I doubt that it will gain us more donations
Thanks,
      GerardM

The secret of our success

Sue Gardner analysed factors of our success. The arguments are quite solid and Sue is asking for observations. Observations are about focus and points of view and mine are different. 

This virtuous circle is what is considered how growth happens in our projects. To define what this means: reach is the people using our projects, participation is the people working on our projects and quality is the result of a community working together.

While the arguments are quite solid, the focus of the examples is her own. As its director, Sue is at the centre of the Wikimedia Foundation and her objective of her blogpost is to "document some good patterns of leadership and change-making". All the case studies she picked were centrally organised and she had a hand in all of them.

Each of our projects has its own community and in addition to this, the chapter structure represents yet another set of closely related communities. If you want to look for "leadership and change making" the best practices in the communities and chapters will prove the most strategic for realising our aims. The role of the Wikimedia Foundation should consequently be one of facilitator.

The 2010 activities in India have been game changing. A visit by Jimmy Wales attracts 600 Wikimedians. Series of workshops, academies are held and planned... the list of activities goes on. The activities in the south are the envy of those in the north but, understanding and nurturing the processes and its interactions will be essential when we want to maximise our growth not only in India.

Great developments have happened in 2010 in our relations with GLAM. After his stint as a "Wikipedian in residence" at the British Museum Liam Wyatt is now travelling all over the world bringing our message to the GLAM world and as importantly bringing the GLAM message to our world. This is technically supported by people like Multichill and Magnus Manske. The Wikimedia GLAM projects have the potential of building the home for the cultural heritage of the world.

The 2010 competition of Jakarta universities showed the best practice in engaging both students and their teachers. The set-up included many novelties and its success has the potential to be the template for a competition of Indonesian universities and the best practice for university projects elsewhere.

Translatewiki.net proved its worth when it became apparent how little was needed to improve mobile support for Wikipedia. In a very short time the twn community realised the localisation for many languages and a mobile main page for many Wikipedias were created. This resulted in a short lived exponential growth. This fizzled because of a stagnation in mobile development.

The development of MediaWiki is centrally planned and managed. The focus has been exclusively on WMF office projects. This resulted in extremely ambitious and rigidly managed projects that excluded what was not immediately seen to fit. MediaWiki is relevant here because it represents the platform in the virtuous circle.

Things are opening up. It shows in the recent Hack-A-Ton, the search for the desperately needed bugmeister, the announced hire of a developer who is to integrate mobile support in MediaWiki and the integration of mobile traffic statistics. There is still so much that is waiting to happen because of a lack of resources and assigned priorities.
Thanks,
       GerardM

A university outreach project for $ 14,933,-

The "Bebaskan Pengetahuan 2010" competition has come and gone. Ninety participants of 10 universities of the greater Jakarta area competed for the chance to go to Wikimania in Gdansk.

The project is done, Kartika Henry is back from Poland and the reporting on the project is amazing. It really makes me wonder what could be done with a budget of $149,333,-- in Indonesia. It would be money well spend, it would change the face of the Indonesian Wikipedia and it would grow the number of articles, the number of frequent editors and the traffic of the Indonesian Wikipedia dramatically.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Flagged Revisions on the Indonesian #Wikipedia

When I hear about quality and smaller Wikipedias, I often wonder how to reconcile a need for growth and a need for quality. The Indonesian language Wikipedia is doing really well; its traffic has grown 100%, it added 23K articles in the last year.

Adding flagged revisions to a wiki is an administrative burden. It will require dedication from the people who may currently be more involved in writing articles. Activities like a possible follow up on the Bebaskan Pengetahuan competition will have to be modified.

It will be interesting to learn what the effects will be on the development of the Indonesian Wikipedia. I hope it will not stunt its growth.
Thanks,
      GerardM