All Entries Tagged With: "wikipedia"
Wikipedia Down, College Students Could Care Less
It’s a good thing the Fall semester isn’t in full swing — and the fact that it’s the Fourth of July. Otherwise, college students around the country would be scrambling to gather potentially inaccurate data for term papers.
The online encyclopedia greets visitors with the following message: “Meta has a problem. Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties. Try waiting a few minutes and reloading,” along with “Can’t contact the database server: Unknown error (10.0.6.27),” offering users the ability to search Google instead.
The issue, according to Wikimedia is related to a power outage at one of the organization’s Florida data center, and services are expected to be back online in the next couple of hours.
Wikipedia Redesign Launches
Seemingly a bit more delayed than we originally thought, it would appear as if Wikipedia has begun to launch a brand-spanking-new design, except for the fact that it looks almost identical to the “old” Wikipedia.
Diving right into this, the following are key new features, as described by the team at Wikipedia:
- Navigation: Improved the navigation for reading and editing pages. Now, the tabs at the top of each page more clearly define whether you are viewing the page or discussion page, and whether you are reading or editing a page.
You Can Now Create Books Using Wikipedia Articles in English
In 2007, the Wikimedia Foundation in partnership with Germany-based PediaPress began allowing users to create custom books using the vast array of Wikipedia articles in several languages. Unfortunately for English speakers,the feature was limited to Simple English or logged in users only. However, both companies announced today that they are extending the service to the general public. That means that just about anyone and everyone can now create books using the more than 3 million English articles on Wikipedia along with other supported languages such as Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Polish and Dutch.
Wikipedia has added a “Create a book” link on the “print/export” section of the left navigation panel. The button redirects you to a “Book creator.” Once enabled, the Book Creator will make it relatively easy for you to customize your book by adding and organizing the pages you want to your book, naming the book, choosing a cover image, and more. The price of the book will depend on the number of pages to print, but the minimum cost is $8.90. Additionally, users can opt to get their books in PDF format for free.
At the moment, PediaPress only offers paperbacks, though the company has promised to make hardcovers with color images soon. The service is available in 17 languages, in 33 different countries. The Wikimedia Foundation only receives a 10% of the revenue.
Video demo after the break.
Facebook Introduces New ‘Community Pages’
With the annual f8 developer conference just a couple of days away, Facebook introduced today in an official blog post a new type of Facebook Page called “Community Pages.” The new feature, which is still currently in beta, is a way for users to create profiles dedicated to a “topic or experience that is owned collectively by the community connected to it.” You see, Facebook noticed that individuals were creating Facebook Pages, which were originally introduced for businesses, organizations, and public figures only, for concepts with no brands like cooking or yoga.
Community Pages are set to solve that issue by allowing users to create informative pages on different subjects that might interest other Facebook member. According to Facebook, their ultimate goal is to make Community Pages “the best collection of shared knowledge on a topic.” Thus far, the social networking site has managed to create 6.5 million Community Pages about activities such as Cooking, Cycling, and Hiking.
Wikipedia Redesign Launching Early April
Head of user experience team over at the Wikimedia Foundation Naoko Komura has noted in a blog post that a Wikipedia redesign will soon be hitting systems everywhere.
Code named “Vector”, the redesign will be launched on April 5th for all who utilize the Wikimedia Commons media repository for Wikipedia. If that launch looks good to the service admins, the redesign will then be rolled out to the English-version of Wikipedia, followed by other languages.
According to Komura, the following will be benefits of the redesign:
- “Editing pages will be easier, thanks to a new editing toolbar that makes it easier to insert links and tables, and a built-in “cheatsheet” to access help for the most commonly used functions.”
Wikipedia Down, Many Users Affected
We’re learning that we’re in the midst of a Wikipedia outage at the moment, and we’re seeing tons of Tweets pour in with regard to users being unable to access the online encyclopedia. What we do know is that the outage is not affecting everyone. From my location, I am able to access the website just fine.
Quite a few languages on the encyclopedia are down, including English, meaning that college students everywhere are unable to write their papers filled with misinformation.
Joking aside, we’re attempting to learn more about this, and we’ll update as soon as we have more information.
Is Wikipedia down at your location? If so, tell us what town you’re in!
‘Let’s Get Video on Wikipedia!’ Campaign Gains Traction
Ceratinly, Wikipedia is one of the most helpful resources (albeit not always reliable) on the web. From animated GIFs to mountains of textual information, it is without a doubt the college student’s best friend.
And while all in seemingly well with the non-profit information center, folks are demanding more. In this case, we make reference to Open Video Alliance‘s massive online campaign to quite simply “get video on Wikipedia.” Now of course, Wikipedia does accept video — but videos are very seldom posted on an article.
“Moving images can communicate ideas in ways that text can’t. We think this is the next step in Wikipedia’s evolution,” writes Ben from the Open Video Alliance.
Google Donates $2 Million To Wikimedia Foundation
A true sign of its own financial prowess, Google’s once again donating for a cause. The last time we reported on something like this wasn’t under the best of circumstances. The California-based search giant donated a whopping $1 million to assist with efforts in Haiti after a catastrophic earthquake struck last month.
This time, the recipient of the donation happens to be the organization behind Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation. News of the donation was tweeted by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales today, also noting that a formal announcement would be made later today.
It all aligns with Google’s intent to make the web a fast, information-packed environment, and we’re looking forward to seeing the donation put to good work.
Wikipedia To Become Rainbow Of Reliability
If you’ve been steering clear of Wikipedia with concerns that it simply isn’t reliable, some upcoming plans for the site may have you running to it faster than a [something fast here]. The new system, dubbed WikiTrust, will color code every character on an article depending on the reputation of the author and the amount of time an entry has been left on said article (with the theory that the longer the entry has been there, the more likely it’s accurate).
Users will be able to tell the difference in reliability by different shades of color. Entries made by sources which are no less than shady will appear in a bright orange background. Entries made by those who are reputable appear in lighter shades. Eventually, the shading becomes white, which signifies it’s reliability (this depends on how long the entry has resided on the article).
Is Wikipedia about to become one huge eyesore?
