IRC office hours/2009-12-15

From Strategic Planning

Philippe|Wiki: I'm gonna go ahead and **** START LOGGING ****

[2:02pm] eekim: Amgine, here are my thoughts
[2:02pm] Philippe|Wiki: To get it out of the way early.... ll Zamenhof wrote Esperanto, the original experiement in cross-cultural collaboration
[2:02pm] eekim: 1. we can absolutely run a survey
[2:03pm] eekim: 2. i don't think this needs to be a recommendation, as we can easily do it now
[2:03pm] eekim: in general, the recommendations have to be at a higher level
[2:03pm] Amgine_: Okay. I've already implemented the survey in Limesurvey. Gimme an account and I'll import/activate.
[2:03pm] eekim: if dumps are a fundamental barrier to greater offline access right now, then the recommendations need to provide that context
[2:04pm] eekim: i'll get you access after office hours are over
[2:04pm] Amgine_: <not that Amgine is at all averse to the idea of "act now, fix later">
[2:05pm] eekim: time for what's becoming my weekly refrain
[2:05pm] eekim: have people here looked at the Question of the week? http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Question_of_the_week
[2:05pm] • Philippe|Wiki makes note to send it to foundation-l... they need a new topic.
[2:06pm] eekim: jayansonw, would be particularly interested in your thoughts, given your recent experience in Japan
[2:07pm] hippietrail joined the chat room.
[2:07pm] jayansonw: hmm, interesting
[2:08pm] eekim: welcome, hippietrail
[2:09pm] hippietrail: hi eekim. apparently strategic things happen here?
[2:09pm] Philippe|Wiki: OK, I have spam mailed it to the world. I'm gonan have to start complying with CANSPAM soon
[2:09pm] eekim: hippietrail, yup! you've come to the right place
[2:09pm] jayansonw: if this is the participation question, then I'd say that for sure there isn't a single answer for every part of the world. It has so much to do with how people access the net in individual areas, and more specifically how they participate online in each region
[2:09pm] derenrich_ joined the chat room.
[2:10pm] eekim: so then realistically, would we have to have a separate strategy for every country we're trying to increase participation in?
[2:10pm] Amgine_: is that country, or language, or ethnic community?
[2:10pm] eekim: or are there leverage points that would improve things across multiple countries
[2:10pm] eekim: Amgine_, that's a good question
[2:11pm] Philippe|Wiki: almost certainly there are going to be some commonalities, right
[2:11pm] Philippe|Wiki: ?
[2:11pm] Philippe|Wiki: if not to all areas, to some?
[2:11pm] eekim: for example, are there fundamental changes English Wikipedia could make that would have equal impacts in both the West and in India?
[2:11pm] Amgine_: Well, for example, in Indonesia you have 3 primary language groups, 4 primary religious groups, of which the Islamic group is both dominant and largest.
[2:12pm] eekim: that's right
[2:12pm] eekim: two of our task forces (India and Arabic) fall into this category of extreme heterogeneity
[2:13pm] jayansonw: there are some commonalities, but wouldn't it be better to pick, study/understand, build-a-knowledge-base, then look at participation?
[2:14pm] Amgine_: Not in practice. We've had our greatest successes when we start doing, then tweak later.
[2:14pm] eekim: it would almost certainly require more resources
[2:14pm] eekim: and the impact would most likely only be in one region rather than in multiple regions
[2:14pm] gopher65: There are certainly many commonalities, but unless we're here to decide *content*, then the commonalities we're dicussing are ultimately software/hardware only
[2:15pm] eekim: better to find and address the leverage points
[2:15pm] eekim: gopher65, fair point
[2:15pm] gopher65: In the end, we aren't building a system of content, we're building a system of content creation and distribution.
[2:15pm] eekim: and that's potentially a huge impact
[2:15pm] hippietrail: for india there's lots of languages with different complex writing systems
[2:15pm] jayansonw: In my experience from public service it's best to zero in on a population/group first and understand/achieve there. but maybe there are far greater efficiencies in our work
[2:15pm] eekim: jayansonw, i think that's a fair answer
[2:15pm] hippietrail: release early release often?
[2:15pm] eekim: so the followup question would be, which region to focus on?
[2:16pm] eekim: also note that this is a Wikimedia-wide question, not just for the Foundation
[2:16pm] gopher65: It isn't up to us, here, to decide what people do with any software (or hardware) that we create. That's up to each individual, local group that chooses to use Mediawiki (or anything else we come up with) as their back-end solution
[2:16pm] eekim: dfifferent groups could take a divide-and-conquer approach
[2:16pm] Amgine_: Depends on whether you wish to see the largest change in general status, or a change in a specific region.
[2:17pm] Philippe|Wiki: gopher65: it IS up to us, however, to develop and support the software in such a way as to be optimally useful for most people.
[2:17pm] hippietrail: which particular kind of work will be focused on the country chosen upon which to focus?
[2:17pm] Amgine_: For example, focus in China would have the largest apparent effect as it's the largest group in which we have limited penetration/adoption.
[2:17pm] gopher65: So what we should be doing is attempting to create generalized solutions to any problems that we see, and letting the individual communities on each project choose to implement (or not) those solutions, and customize them to their own needs.
[2:17pm] jayansonw: gtg - good chatting folks
[2:17pm] jayansonw left the chat room.
[2:17pm] eekim: Amgine_, right, but also the biggest barriers
[2:18pm] eekim: India probably has the best balance of opportunity and barriers
[2:18pm] eekim: gopher65, i would agree with that
[2:18pm] gopher65: Therefore, in my opinion, the biggest task before us is to make mediawiki software as flexible as possible, so that the end user projects can use it any any way they want to.
[2:18pm] hippietrail: do you need to way barriers against challenges?
[2:19pm] eekim: hippietrail, sure
[2:19pm] Amgine_: <grins> are we referring to the literal barriers - the firewall - or the culture barriers?
[2:19pm] Philippe|Wiki: gopher65: My experience (limited) with maximally flexible software is that it often results in software that's so difficult to install and configure as to make it unusual.
[2:19pm] Philippe|Wiki: unusual=unusable
[2:19pm] hippietrail: what is needed that is currently not there for wikimedia china / india?
[2:20pm] eekim: hippietrail, that's the key question
[2:20pm] Philippe|Wiki: hippietrail: in China, we lost the "first to market" advantage. Because of the Great Firewall, we were beat by two other products.
[2:20pm] eekim: many would argue that sites need to look "culturally native" in order to encourage participation
[2:20pm] eekim: there are some good usability stats to back that up
[2:20pm] hippietrail: product being mediawiki or wikipedia or?
[2:20pm] Philippe|Wiki: all of the above.
[2:20pm] eekim: well, more wikipedia
[2:20pm] Amgine_: Wikipedia is the primary product discussed here.
[2:20pm] hippietrail: what are the chinese equivalents?
[2:21pm] gopher65: Philippe: That's part of the challenge that we face:). We're here to change that. Part of creating *truly* flexible software is to make it as usable and friendly to both the back-end team running the show and to the end users (editors and readers)
[2:21pm] Philippe|Wiki: hippietrail: Baidu and Hudong
[2:21pm] gopher65: (or as I call them, seeders and leechers:P)
[2:21pm] eekim: the two other products being Baidu and Hudong: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Baidu_and_Hudong
[2:22pm] hippietrail: for china you need to consider the other chinese speaking areas which would also benefit
[2:22pm] eekim: gopher65, so I'm going to give you $1 million to make Mediawiki more flexible. What would you do with that money?
[2:22pm] • hippietrail opens some tabs for slow background reading...
[2:23pm] gopher65: Trash as much of the current hodgepodge of code as possible, and have it redone by professionals:P
[2:23pm] hippietrail: first you need to identify what is inflexible then choose a couple of those inflexibilities to focus on
[2:23pm] Amgine_: For China you need to consider there is a complete additional world within its borders, with completely insular ethnic/culture wars, politics, etc.
[2:24pm] Philippe|Wiki: gopher65: $1M isn't gonna get you far then
[2:24pm] eekim: gopher65:
[2:24pm] gopher65: heh, yeah:)
[2:24pm] hippietrail: both china and india are "worlds". so is japan actually
[2:24pm] gopher65: hippietrail: Just like Trantor!
[2:24pm] eekim: Amgine_, hippietrail: You could say that about a lot of countries. Even the U.S. in some ways!
[2:25pm] eekim: what i find fascinating about the graph on the Question of the week page is that the U.S., in many ways, is "underperforming"
[2:25pm] hippietrail: but there are also the friendlier singapores, hong kongs, and taiwans there are gentler gateways to the larger chinese world
[2:25pm] Philippe|Wiki: And yet, we've made pretty decent headroads into Japan, actually...
[2:25pm] eekim: less than 50% of online users in the U.S. access Wikipedia?! shocking!
[2:25pm] gopher65: ... that actually is shocking eekim.
[2:25pm] gopher65: I'd have thought it was higher
[2:26pm] Amgine_: eekim: Not really. There are large regional identities, but within China there are hundreds of states which have unique histories.
[2:26pm] Philippe|Wiki: Actually, we've got great art around that... http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_penetration_world_map.png
[2:26pm] Amgine_: Think of just the number of civil wars within China's history. The US has had one.
[2:26pm] Philippe|Wiki: We do better in Canada than in the US, which Sue Gardner never tires of reminding us of.
[2:26pm] hippietrail: well the us can be considered a microcosm of the western world whereas india and china are each their own complete "thing"
[2:26pm] Mike_lifeguard: Philippe|Wiki: do better in what way?
[2:27pm] • gopher65 sticks his tongue out at all the non-Canadians. "Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffttttbbbbbbfffftttt!"
[2:27pm] Mike_lifeguard: oh, penetration
[2:27pm] Philippe|Wiki: Mike_lifeguard: Look at the map
[2:27pm] Mike_lifeguard: I thought you were talking about rate of change for some reason
[2:27pm] hippietrail: china has always been successful at making itself homogeneou though.
[2:28pm] atglenn: is this about access to the en pedia (in other countries) or to the localized pedia?
[2:28pm] atglenn: access = readership
[2:28pm] Amgine_: Localized, I believe.
[2:28pm] hippietrail: for most intents and purposes china == han
[2:28pm] Philippe|Wiki: all of the above. the map I just gave is based on combined properties.
[2:28pm] eekim: if U.S. is at less than 50% penetration with English Wikipedia at 3 million articles, then what are realistic numbers for other countries where the language Wikipedias are considerably smaller?
[2:28pm] hippietrail: and when it doesnt it presents interesting stuff
[2:28pm] gopher65: I'm pleased to see that we're not doing too bad in Russia
[2:28pm] atglenn: I mean is the q of the week about the enpedia or the localized one
[2:29pm] eekim: atglenn, i believe the data is based on accesses to any *.wikipedia.org site
[2:29pm] eekim: i can double check that for you
[2:29pm] Philippe|Wiki: Lemme ask John, I've got him in IM
[2:29pm] gopher65: ":[14:28] <hippietrail> for most intents and purposes china == han" <----- That's always been my understanding as well.
[2:30pm] atglenn: I mean, the intent of the question is to promote participation within a specific country to *.pedia or to the local one?
[2:30pm] Amgine_: gopher65: Look at your user preferences language options: there are 13 *different* interfaces for han chinese.
[2:30pm] eekim: to whichever *.media is appropriate
[2:30pm] atglenn: because the answer(s) will differ depending on the q.
[2:30pm] hippietrail: china has lots and lots of edge cases
[2:30pm] Amgine_: Han is not some monolithic language.
[2:30pm] eekim: for that country
[2:30pm] gopher65: Oh?
[2:31pm] hippietrail: for india the local and main wikipedias would reinforce each other
[2:31pm] Philippe|Wiki: The QOTW data is drawn from across the properties, atglenn.
[2:31pm] hippietrail: so chinese has done the best localisation? why have other places not?
[2:32pm] Philippe|Wiki: hmmm.... why does "most" equal best?
[2:32pm] eekim: take a look at the China and India task force pages for some of the research and discussion thus far
[2:32pm] Philippe|Wiki: You can do one really good localization in French and be done.
[2:32pm] eekim: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/India
[2:32pm] Philippe|Wiki: Hans just requires more
[2:32pm] eekim: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/China
[2:32pm] hippietrail: the english wikipedia is a hodgepodge of british, american, and "other" english for instance
[2:32pm] eekim: feel free to dive into the discussions there as well
[2:33pm] atglenn: there are at some barriers to use of the local project instead of the en project: en is often seen as the language of scientific research, international trade, etc.; the en project is much more developed (and will therefore tend to be used more often by people who can read en without great difficulty)
[2:33pm] gopher65: Hmmm. Looks like about 850 million Chinese people speak some varient of Madarin
[2:33pm] gopher65: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Madarin_in_Chinese_Mainland_EN.PNG
[2:33pm] Amgine_: When it comes to "which should we focus on", the question might just as well be "what kind of content should we focus on". Wikipedia content may be superseded in China, but what about news coverage?
[2:33pm] hippietrail: you can do one really good chinese and be done too. but that didn't seem to be enough
[2:34pm] atglenn: and, people writing on en will automatically rech a larger audience than if they write on the local project (for languages with smaller numbers of speakers)
[2:34pm] hippietrail: english is a prestige language
[2:34pm] atglenn: yes, it is.
[2:34pm] Philippe|Wiki: i'm not sure that's true, hippietrail: my understanding is that hans has a ton of variants that each need their own localization, but GerardM- is our expert on that
[2:34pm] hippietrail: also english though the language of history's oppressors, doesn't take sides in regional hostilities
[2:35pm] Amgine_: <cough cough cough>
[2:35pm] atglenn: mm I don't know that I agree but let's not go there
[2:35pm] Amgine_: <nods>
[2:36pm] hippietrail: i think the many chinese variants came about because the major simplified/traditional variants opened the door
[2:36pm] atglenn: the q is about tactics, including but not retstricted to technological measures?
[2:36pm] hippietrail: once that support was in it was easy to add more and more
[2:36pm] Philippe|Wiki: yes.
[2:36pm] peteforsyth joined the chat room.
[2:37pm] hippietrail: with english nobody started that ball rolling. or spanish which has lots of regional variance
[2:37pm] Amgine_: bokmal/nynorsk
[2:37pm] Philippe|Wiki: and don't even get me started on br vs pt-br
[2:37pm] Philippe|Wiki: <grin>
[2:37pm] Philippe|Wiki: pt, pt-br
[2:37pm] atglenn: where does en fail? at topics that are not necessarily of global interest (local towns, personalities, etc)...
[2:38pm] Philippe|Wiki: atglenn: I know you'll be shocked that we've got some art for that too
[2:38pm] atglenn: I am. shocked, just shocked
[2:38pm] Amgine_: but, excluding that... I think a major error in the esp process was failing to account for different types of content, different projects. It was all wikipedia all of the time, and that may not reflect the needs/interests of the target audiences.
[2:39pm] Philippe|Wiki: This is my favorite art: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMFPage_hits_by_general_topic_v2.png
[2:39pm] Philippe|Wiki: It shows the variant between topic area by 'pedia
[2:40pm] gopher65: Philippe: Alright. No pt vs pt-br. How about American English vs Canadian English instead;)?
[2:40pm] atglenn: but what I mean was not the article distribution:
[2:40pm] hippietrail: wiktionaries are more region specific since different regions tend to speak different languages
[2:40pm] atglenn: I meant that en pedia is less likely to have articles about topics local to anotehr country or region
[2:40pm] Philippe|Wiki: gopher, my boss speaks canadian, and I tend to understand her pretty well. (My boss's boss, rather)
[2:40pm] hippietrail: whereas encyclopedias are about facts which can be translated to any language
[2:40pm] Philippe|Wiki: atglenn: ah, yes, true.
[2:41pm] eekim: Amgine_, that is definitely a weakness in the initial batch of research
[2:41pm] eekim: there's still an opportunity to address that
[2:41pm] eekim: hope that we can encourage others to dive in for this as well
[2:41pm] eekim: what are the questions we should be trying to answer?
[2:41pm] eekim: and who can help answer them?
[2:41pm] gopher65: I still think we need to do anyway with all these silly lingistic differences and just choose 2 or 3 mega-languages that everyone should speak:P. I'd go with English, Mandrin (dunno what varient though:P), and Spanish. Everything else, dead.
[2:41pm] atglenn: so perhaps support for such contributions would help address the "why write on my pedia when I can write on en?" imbalance
[2:41pm] Ziko joined the chat room.
[2:41pm] • atglenn stabs gopher65
[2:41pm] Amgine_: I remember a public health initiative in Bali that failed for 10 years, until they wrote scripts for shadow puppet entertainers.
[2:42pm] atglenn: gopher65, dead.
[2:42pm] Amgine_: That was a popular entertainment venue, and it got the messages out.
[2:42pm] Philippe|Wiki: < PLEASE NOTE: COMMENTS BY GOPHER65 SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED TO REPRESENT... well, anyone.>
[2:42pm] gopher65: hehehehe
[2:42pm] gopher65: yup
[2:42pm] gopher65: But really, do we *really* need 3000 active languages? It's just stupid:P
[2:42pm] hippietrail: for mandarin you just want standard mandarin, putonghua in simplified characters if you must pick one
[2:42pm] atglenn: not to people who speak the language
[2:42pm] Philippe|Wiki: < PLEASE NOTE... >
[2:43pm] gopher65: That's like having 3000 different systems of measurement. We went to SI almost universally. Eventually we'll go to one or two languages too. It's inevitable.
[2:43pm] Philippe|Wiki: It's good to see that we don't need Natalie here in order to have someone take a controversial position that makes me groan deep inside.
[2:43pm] Amgine_: <gg>
[2:44pm] gopher65: And you know what? I don't even care what those languages are:P. I just want to get rid of the problems caused by having so many different languages everywhere
[2:44pm] Amgine_: I could start talking about the datastructure of Mediawiki...
[2:44pm] atglenn: gopher65: not til they pry my second language out of my cold dead hands (to paraphrase Charlton Heston or somebody)
[2:44pm] Philippe|Wiki: Amgine_: we haven't done enough of that for one day?
[2:44pm] Amgine_: <gg>
[2:44pm] Philippe|Wiki: OK, so I may safely assume that all of you will be commenting on the QOTW? I'm taking names....
[2:44pm] eekim: gopher65: if we could make the argument that focusing on two or three languages would actually have reverberations for multiple languages, this might not be so far-fetched
[2:44pm] atglenn: so how can we foster contributions of articles of regional interest to local projects?
[2:45pm] Amgine_: Okay, gopher65: it's a myth that languages converge - but broadcast content tends to homogenize a given language.
[2:45pm] atglenn: *positive* reverberations eekim
[2:45pm] eekim: right
[2:45pm] • Philippe|Wiki points out that today is the Birthday of a gentleman who wished to construct a single language of scholarship. Check the room topic
[2:45pm] atglenn:
[2:46pm] atglenn: how are we about getting into the schools anywhere?
[2:46pm] atglenn: (outside of en-speaking countries)
[2:46pm] hippietrail: wikipedia is full of euroenglish with germanic grammar hints and other regional grammar bits in other regional topics
[2:46pm] eekim: atglenn, that's a really good question
[2:46pm] Amgine_: Brazil: yes.
[2:46pm] eekim: philippe|wiki: have you seen any educationally-focused recommendations emerging from any of the task force discussions?
[2:46pm] Amgine_: <whinces>
[2:46pm] atglenn: microsoft does it, we could learn from them
[2:47pm] Philippe|Wiki: eekim: The offline task force is directly working on that type of thing with offline data dumps available to offline readers
[2:47pm] atglenn: that's not quite the same ting
[2:47pm] atglenn: I want the editable version there
[2:48pm] Philippe|Wiki: That would be alliances and partnerships, which is not yet at that point, I think, atglenn.
[2:48pm] Philippe|Wiki: I'm thinking of partnerships with like minded organizations to get into those places.
[2:48pm] eekim: and advocacy to some extent
[2:48pm] Philippe|Wiki: Possibly also adovacy agenda
[2:48pm] Amgine_: I believe WP is currently an element in some german and protuguese curriculum.
[2:48pm] Philippe|Wiki: So, the answer to your question, eekim, is "not yet"
[2:48pm] atglenn: (read the article for your home town, what is it missing? oh, there isn't one? class project: start one. it mentions personality X but there's no article? write a short bio. anything to get people engaged)
[2:49pm] Amgine_: It's more common at the university/college level that it's brought up.
[2:49pm] Amgine_: <personal impressions>
[2:49pm] eekim: atglenn, what action and resources are required to make your recommendation happen?
[2:49pm] gopher65: Personally I don't think most schoolaged children are mature enough to edit on a consensus based project
[2:49pm] atglenn: Amgine*, I think that's right, but we should be working on at least secondary schools, maybe elementary
[2:50pm] Mike_lifeguard left the chat room. ("Mike is a four-letter word.")
[2:50pm] eekim: (atglenn, you should start drafting this as a Local language projects recommendation, btw)
[2:50pm] gopher65: Which is why most major educational contributors are college aged
[2:50pm] atglenn: understanding the education system(s) of country X well enough to know who makes decisions
[2:50pm] Amgine_: I think atglenn's point is not editing as much as it is *being part of curriculum*
[2:51pm] hippietrail: well there is the barrier to entry that wikitext is hard to edit, especially in the current wikipedia syle
[2:51pm] atglenn: understanding the culture enough to figure out whether pedia would be seen as vaulable because of content, of local coverage, of representing the information age, of "free and open" content or for some other reason
[2:51pm] Amgine_: For example, I've been e-mailing a Latin teacher who is trying to use en.wiktionary as part of xyr in-class teaching/assignments.
[2:51pm] atglenn: getting people to make those connections
[2:51pm] eekim: clearly, make mediawiki easier to edit is a strong priority
[2:51pm] atglenn: if the best approach in some cases is approaching single classes, doing that
[2:52pm] gopher65: Think about how much vandalism we get from elementary through high schools. Do we really want to encourage more anonymous editting from those agegroups?
[2:52pm] atglenn: actually Amgine editing is a huge part
[2:52pm] Amgine_: atglenn: editing is a huge part for us. It's not a huge part for students/teachers.
[2:52pm] atglenn: i.e. using the project for assignments for writing, not just for source material
[2:52pm] hippietrail: there is also the topic of how welcome new editors are made, to new articles, and to changing established articles
[2:52pm] atglenn: of what I have in mind
[2:52pm] Philippe|Wiki: Zaxdad, we get a lot of vandalism from brown haired people too. We should stop inviting them to edit.
[2:52pm] Philippe|Wiki: grrr, macromisfire
[2:53pm] atglenn: however, step one is absolutely haivng is used
[2:53pm] Philippe|Wiki: that was aimed at gopher65
[2:53pm] randmontoya_ joined the chat room.
[2:53pm] gopher65: If we're going to try and get more school children active in the wikiworld through their instituation, I'd suggest a more structured approach than simply plopping them down in front of a computer and saying "edit wikipedia". That's a good way to get millions of penis pictures inserted (heh) into articles
[2:53pm] atglenn: *having it used
[2:53pm] eekim: hippietrail, you should check out the Community Health Task Force
[2:53pm] eekim: really good stuff happening there
[2:53pm] Amgine_: <nods>But how often did you create your resources while in school, atglenn? We have to consider what's best *for the audience*, not us.
[2:53pm] atglenn: gopher65: agreed, please continue
[2:53pm] atglenn: Amgine*, I was long out of school before there was a wikipedia
[2:53pm] gopher65: Philippe|Wiki: Brownhaired people aren't more likely to be immature than the general population though;)
[2:54pm] Amgine_: atglenn: Does that alter the question? how often did you *create* your sources?
[2:54pm] Philippe|Wiki: my point is more about generalizations
[2:54pm] gopher65: Well, first things first, I'd suggest that we create a kind of... what's the word... and educational package for teachers to use
[2:54pm] atglenn: we were often asked to write: book reviews, essays, bios, etc etc
[2:54pm] Amgine_: curriculum, gopher65.
[2:54pm] Philippe|Wiki: curriculum
[2:54pm] atglenn: why should these not become content for others?
[2:54pm] hippietrail: people that make generalizations are more likely to make immature wikipedia edits?
[2:55pm] Amgine_: atglenn: if you had a collection of student reviews, essays, bios, etc., would they have served you as a student?
[2:55pm] eekim: need to start collecting these ideas at: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education
[2:55pm] gopher65: That would try and get them to structure any wikipedia-based editing in such a way as to minimize the crap that kids get up to when left to their on devices, as well as to try and interest them as much as possible in positive contributions
[2:55pm] atglenn: if they pointed to their sources, yes
[2:55pm] Philippe|Wiki: <grin> There's something to that, hippietrail; but I was more saying that gopher65 was making a generalized hypothesis. I'd like to test it at various age limits and find the golden age to get kids involved.
[2:55pm] atglenn: and these would be the base for others to add to the articles
[2:55pm] eekim: plus lots of school-related proposals: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=school&go=Go
[2:56pm] atglenn: remember, articles *don't* actually all get written to perfection in one go
[2:56pm] gopher65: My suggestion would be that this package (cirriculum, yes) ask the teachers to get the kids to do research into improving *local* articles.
[2:56pm] atglenn: bleieve it or not they get written over years (or at least they used to)
[2:57pm] gopher65: If they're writing about their local town or city (or sports team), they'll be more likely to be interested in editing properly than if they're writing about element 118 (ooooo exciting!), I'd wager.
[2:57pm] Amgine_: gopher65: that sounds like lesson plans rather than a curriculum.
[2:57pm] atglenn: so we might want to describe a few sample lesson plans with examples of use?
[2:57pm] Amgine_: <chuckles about convergence>
[2:57pm] atglenn: (there will always be one or two nerds who will say "my sports team? yuck! oooh, element 118! I'm so there!  :-P)
[2:58pm] eekim: this has been a fantastic discussion
[2:58pm] hippietrail: nerds? on wikipedia?
[2:58pm] • Philippe|Wiki nods
[2:58pm] atglenn: *ding*, eh?
[2:58pm] eekim: we'll post these logs
[2:58pm] eekim: but please, please, please post some of your ideas to the strategy wiki
[2:58pm] eekim: atglenn,
[2:58pm] hippietrail: what is the least nerdy wikimedia project?
[2:58pm] peteforsyth left the chat room.
[2:58pm] hippietrail: why not wikigossip or wikitv? (-:
[2:59pm] atglenn: meta
[2:59pm] Amgine_: Yes. That's been suggested in the past though.
[2:59pm] gopher65: hippietrail: Wikinews!
[2:59pm] Philippe|Wiki: I'm going to **** END LOGGING ***** now
[2:59pm] Philippe|Wiki:
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