Rafik Tlili, member of the Constituent Assembly of #Tunisia

Mr Tlili is a Tunisian politician who died. What is refreshing is that there is at least one decent list of members of the current parliament and, as is fitting, it is in French. Without assistance of Google translate the articles are too difficult for me.

There is also a category; and it has a problem. It links the current members in French to every member of the Tunisian parliament. from a Wikidata point of view that is fatally flawed. It is however part and parcel of a category of subjects that is underdeveloped. Our Wikiverse does not really care about Farfarawayistan. Its problems is seen as the diversity that is in genders and while important, it easily ignores what is far far away. As you can see in the picture, there are a fair bunch of women in the Tunisian parliament.

Even people who research are interested in diversity. They want to know how diversity differs in different languages. Those different languages mean different cultures, Cultures that by and large are not really well known in our Wikipedias as they are far, far away. Consequently Wikidata does not serve them the data they need.

I am happy with the Tunisian list. It means that Tunisia is not longer as far far away.
Thanks,
       GerardM

Sign language in #Tunisia can have a #Wikipedia too

On #Facebook I noticed what looked like an encyclopaedic article. It was about the poet Aboul-Qacem Echebbi.

When asked, they were interested in having a Wikipedia. Once a request has been made on Meta, the procedure to determine eligibility will start. In this case it is a formality as both native "speakers" and an ISO 639-3 code are present.

Once this procedure has been completed, it will be permitted to edit Wikidata as well.

In the Language Committee a discussion has started to consider if the completion of a set number of fully labelled items can be accepted as part of fulfilling the current requirement of the 200 Wikipedia articles. Reducing this number to 50 will make it more easy to complete the writing requirement. Currently many of these articles are not much more than sub-stubs.
Thanks,
      GerardM

About succession and countries

When you are adding labels to #Wikidata the infoboxes are the main inspiration and source of information. To the right you find a detail of the infobox of the Almohad caliphate. It shows really interesting information.

When you look at the size of the Almoravid dynasty, you will agree that the Almohads have absorbed other countries as well. In a similar way, the succeeding countries are unlikely to have killed of the Almohads all at the same time. It also becomes obvious that there is little relation to the countries that exist in the territories of these past domains

There are multiple ways to bring some clarity in all this. One is to show overlaying maps and the other is to use qualifiers with the data. The succession is likely to have coincided with events, events like battles. These events have dates and coordinates. These events link back to the countries that are in conflict.

To get such data in a consistent manner in Wikidata will take a lot of effort. I am curious if there are sources that already found their way to express it effectively. I am a fan of importing data but I am equally convinced that there is a lot where judgement and involvement is the only option.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Put your two pennies in without it costing you a cent

Enda inter-arabe celebrates its twentieth anniversary, throughout that time it has empowered many women throughout Tunisia to rise from poverty. Its 500,000th loan was given to Mrs. Leila Gharbi who Mifos chose to highlight as the Marie (featured borrower) for which their upcoming release, Leila E, is named.

Enda inter-arabe is a Tunisian organisation and, I am sure they will be happy to find that their software will now an improved French localisation.

The roadmap does not state it, but it is going to be a welcome surprise that in addition to what has been scheduled, the internationalisation and localisation of Mifos has been much improved. Through translatewiki.net, volunteers have started to localise many languages and there is time until November 23 to get a localisation for a language into shape for Leila E. 

As this work has started very recently, a lot of work is going into making sure that the messages can be properly localised in the many languages we have experience with at translatewiki.net. At the moment we are working on improving plural and gender support.

We would love to find people who help us with the languages of Asia, Africa and South America. When Mifos can be used in the local languages, it becomes possible for many organisations who provide microfinance to improve their business and improve their service. A service that helps people help themselves out of poverty.
Thanks,
      GerardM