Maltese Wikipedia
Steve in the United States who blogs as a Maltese cat at Fahmu links to the Maltese version of Wikipedia the revolutionary free online encyclopedia. I encourage you to help develop Maltese Wiki ( only 6 months old and still in a formative stage ) and create/edit pages by typing in the appropriate boxes - see the help page for more info. About the Maltese language from Wikipedia:
Saru diversi sejbiet minn riċerkaturi storiċi f'Manuskritti ġewwa il-Bibljoteka Nazzjonali ġewwa Valletta (Meqjusa fost l-eqdem Libreriji Nazzjonali fid-Dinja) u bnadi oħra illi jieħdu il-prattika ta' l-ilsien Malti lura fis-snin, sas-sekli sittax. però l-attentat għal-istudju ta' l-ilsien Malti bħala lingwa ikkonkretizza aħjar mall-wasla tal-Franċiżi f'-Malta fil-1798. Il-Franċiżi kienu dawk illi irrikonoxxew il-lingwaġġ lokali bħala mezz ta' propagazzjoni aħjar tat-tagħlim repubblikan, ovvjament ta' importanza politika konvenjenti għalihom, qalb il-poplu. (Aqra aktar dwar Mikiel Anton Vassalli u il-ħakma Franċiża f'-Malta..
Fil-bidu tas-seklu għoxrin naraw qawmien fl-interess fil-Malti bħala lingwa letterarja u kien f'-dan il-perjodu illi naraw lil kjeriku Dun Karm Psaila (li sa dak iż-żmien kien jikteb prevalentament bit-Taljan, tant illi kien saħansitra ippubblika ktieb ta' poeżiji bl-isem "Foglie d'alloro" fl-1896) li bil-mod il-mod, bil-kitbiet pijunieri isfa prolifiċi tiegħu serva ta' inkoraġġiment għal ħafna oħrajn interessati fil-Malti bħala lingwa t'-espressjoni letterarja. Bil-kitbiet ħelwin u profondi tiegħu (bħal fl-Elegija famuża "Il-Jien u Lil Hinn Minnu") Dun Karm ġie rikonoxxut bħala il-poeta Nazzjonali Malti matul ħajtu stess. Fl-istess perjodu kienet ta' importanza ukoll it-traduzzjoni tal-Bibbja għal-Malti mill-Professur Pietru Pawl Saydon.
Maltese Wikipedia Main Page
http://mt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malti
MediaWiki - because ideas want to be free
*Interview with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales - from Slashdot *
posted by Robert Micallef at 3/31/2005 08:56:00 AM
Thanks a lot Robert for promoting the idea. I hope people take a genuine interest in this and help in developing the Maltese Wiki :)
Agreed Roderick. Wikipedia is very useful and is also a democratic information tool. The quality of Maltese Wiki will depend on the contributors themselves
A good idea, but what worries me is the lack of correctness behind many stories. A case in point would be an article on Mellieha, which contained quite a number of incorrect information.
And let's not even touch on grammatical mistakes. I understand minor mistakes, but there's a limit to everything.
Kenneth: The way I see it is that these problems you're mentioning must be faced by all exsiting Wikis not just the Maltese one. It is up to the user to provide correct and reliable information.
Regarding the spelling mistakes I agree with you, but keep in mind that the owner of the Maltese Wiki is a foreigner who learned our language and decided to promote it. For the time being, we can help by correcting spelling mistakes ourselves. I already edited some myself. Ultimately I think that instead of complaining we should give a helping hand and get the ball rolling. This project is still in its infancy and most people don't know about it. Eventually we will get someone who is fluent in the language to co-ordinate everything (something that was mentioned by the admin as well). But I think we should thank the admin for what he's doing, who did what no one else dared to do. Ironically, it always takes us ages to start off something, but we're always the first to complain about everything...
First of all, thanks Robert for writing about the Wiki. Secondly, I thank you but I don't, nor can I, consider myself the owner of the Maltese Wikipedia. It is to a fairly real extent community owned in practice. I do have administrative privileges now, but they are always provisional until there is a full vote, structure, etc.
Kenneth, the lack of correctness is definitely an issue. Wiki is interesting because it has built up ways and processes to determine correctness. The administrator's role is not to be the arch-editor as much as to support the community process. As was already said, the quality, and thus the reputation and trustworthiness, of the Maltese Wikipedia depends entirely on the contributions and contributors. Please feel free to correct anything, if you have not already done so.
I was not referring to srl when I mentioned the spelling mistakes. I fully understand he is a foreigner.
The problem is mainly with some of the Maltese contributors. I have already corrected a few articles/sections (my username is wizgha) myself, but I guess qualified proofreaders / other "saviours of the Maltese language" should get their act together and step forward.
Such an initiative is definitely to be commended, but there should be more prominent warnings (I'm assuming this is somehow possible) to contributors to make them aware that they are expected (or rather, should be obliged) to a) provide correct and reliable information/facts b) ensure that the material posted is not actually copyrighted by someone else.
I have to admit that I'm still green with the Wiki way of doing things, so I cannot comment on whether it's possible for the admin/others to have a centralised location which will display all the articles currently present. If that is possible, then the "validation" process will be much simpler.
Last but not least, I reiterate that my grumbling is not directed towards srl but mainly towards those irresponsible contributors who don't seem to care much about double-checking their facts prior to publishing them. Perhaps they are not taking it seriously enough or else, they do not acknowledge the popularity Wikipedia is gaining for academic research purposes.
Kenneth: I was not referring to you when I mentioned those who are constantly complaining. I said taht because there is some anonymous guy who instead of contributing is just passing stupid comments. I'm sorry if you took it personally but as I said my comments were directed specifically to that other person.
I noticed that you already corrected some articles, which is great. And I do agree with you that there is a need for proof-readers to ensure quality. I wish the saviours (as you called them) out there would take some initiative and give their contribution as well.
I do agree perfectly with the rest of your post. The idea of having a centralised location which will display all the articles currently present is a very good suggestion. Like you, I'm still new to this Wiki stuff so I don't know if its possible. Maybe srl should take note of this idea and check wheter its possible or not.
Kenneth - "there should be more prominent warnings" - point very well taken. That's basically my next major work there, is to get some guidelines together. Look for an announcement soon.
Why Wikipedia is slow
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