Wikipedia lecture

Today I made my first lecture about Wikipedia and Wikimedia for app. 40 high school students from Borlänge.
Great audiance, great questions and fun to inform about this subject.

I wrote about this to another page in Swedish, and therefor I will publish that on this page too, also in Swedish. Hope my English speaking audience understand why.

Den tionde maj gjorde jag mitt första offentliga framträdande som Wikimedia-ambassadör.

Helixgymnasiets IT-program i Borlänge hade frågat om någon med kunskap om Wikipedia skulle kunna ställa upp och berätta om Wikipedia.

Jag tyckte det lät intressant att få göra det och anmälde mig frivilligt. Enda problemet som jag såg det var att hitta lokaler att vara i. Efter att ha frågat på en högskola som har IT-inriktade utbildningar och fått ett nekande svar kontaktade jag en annan IT-inriktad skola som utan omsvep sa ja till att upplåta lokal och teknik till mig. Detta resulterade i att Gymnasiet först var på information i Kista under förmiddagen och sedan åkte till Globen och DiStra skola Syd  för att höra mig.

Det var en tapper skara på ca 40 elever från årskurs två som kom och lyssnade intresserat och ställde bra frågor. De fick en ordentlig genomgång av hela Wikimedias verksamhet med utgångspunkt från en liten uppsats jag skrev inför detta tillfället, som skall ligga som grund för fler tillfällen.

Jag höll på i cirka en timmes tid att prata engagerat om neutralitet, netikett, glädje i att vara med och skriva, fotografering, klotter och att lita på vads om står skrivet. Nu får vi se om det blir en ökning av Wikipedianer i Borlänge.

Tack Helixgymnasiet för en trevlig publik.

Harald 

Homeopathy

The Swedish paper DN wrote 18 of Aprill about "many wrong facts in articles about companies on Wikipedia". What a pity they, the paper, did not do their research correct. Swedish Wikimedia answered on their blogg (in Swedish) about all the wrong things the reporter Clas Svahn wrote. Of course no corrections or excuses...

One other group at once liked that article and wrote themselves on their blogg (Swedish link) how Wikipedia and the admins are deleting things written by experts. That group was the homeopathy-likers.

As an admin on Swedish Wikipedia I answered that they are welcome to write in the articles. If the do not use sources that use scientific methods to prove it will of course be deleted. Wikipedia is a place you shall not write lies on. The blogg seems to refuse to let my comment be visible, therefor I write it here.

What both the homeopaths and the companies must know is that Wikipedia is not a place for advertising and writing untrue things. We are not censoring facts that you dislike, but are true. If you try to erase it we put it back (and you think we do not listen to you and then we can see that in DN!!!).

Welcome everyone to write, but do not forget good sources!

(Update: And please anyone who is an expert on homeopathy, can you try to win the one milion dollar price James Randi talks about in this link? And prove he is wrong about homeopathy, after 12 minutes? I doubt you'll succeed, but if so I am sure you'll get an own article on Wikipedia)

ACTA- a reality!

In Swedish “akta” means beware. That is really what we have to do right now in these times of “over the state” negotiations done by huge multinational companies together with negotiators from EC and the US under strict confidentiality.

If you need more neutral information about it read here (link to Wikipedia), before you proceed. I you remember it Wikipedia did have a black out the 18^th of January to show what might happen if ACTA and SOPA becomes a reality, but that should not affect the article because there everything have to be neutral written. On Wikipedia one user has made a list of everything he could find about ACTA in both Swedish and English, both neutral and NPOV. That list for even more information is here.

The purpose of the ACTA seems to be good-to stop copies of programs and music that is not bought, so called pirate copies. Why is this ACTA then such a bad thing?.

1 You might loose your internet connection without a court decision, if a company thinks you have illegal stuff on your computer. Then it is up to you to prove they are wrong.

2 This might happen with internet companies too, if they have servers. They might be stopped even if it is not they who uploaded it to the server. Just look what happened to Megaupload. They had some illegal programs (according to FBI). The owner was put in jail and the servers where closed. Now the companies who started this wants to erase everything on the servers without people being able to get their own private things back (that might be private movies and photos from vacations), this even if the domstol isn't ready yet. Why do they want to erase evidence? Maybe there were not as much illegal stuff as they thought? No matter what- They are stealing from the up-loaders!

3 The costums will be able to control all computers and USB-sticks while you travel abroad. This means they might use it for industrial espionage (something that the US would like to do, I'm sure), but it will also be a humiliation for us ordinary people.

4 If you own equipment that might be used for piracy copying the police will be obligated to confiscate it. WHAT? Every computer now a days have R/W DVD-players (DVD-plyers able to copy files). If that part becomes true I don't know what will happen!!!

The list could be even longer, but I stop there to get on with the real story about ACTA.

Sweden has signed ACTA, that we are willing to use it when it is ready. That was done in Japan by our ambassador, Lars Vargö, educated in Japanese and orient history, but nothing about computers. As DN writes (Swedish link) some of the Swedish politicians, like Christian Engström, sitting in the EU did not know anything about the signing! They who are meant to take decision! That is pretty scary.

Those who have written the ACTA are companies, not states!

On Saturday 4^th of February at 12:00 there will be a demonstration aganist ACTA at Sergels torg in Stockholm. When I looked at the event in facebook there were  9 400 person saying they will come, and rising. Hopefully this will show the parliament of Sweden what the people thinks about it.

SOPA, Christian right and Censoring

Censoring is a popular activity among groups having their own beliefs, but are troubled by what the science reveals. I wrote about it in the Hypathia article, and among other countries the country of freedom, USA, did their best to prevent the film to be shown.

They, USA, have their Christian right (opposite of left). They are very concerned about the evolution theory and tries by all means to stop it and other scientific proved issues. Here are three of their atempts.

Creationistic science books

In the US there are approved to educate the children at home, or put them in religious schools. There are not much controll of the home education and the religious schools are not controlled as hard as in Sweden (I have worked in a muslim school in Sweden...I did teach about the real evolution and about the sexuallity. No problems). There are even school books written in pure creationistic views, harming the children by not letting them see what others believe. Thank God (?) there exists people like the one who writes the blogg 11 points to make others be aware of what is happening. It is dangerous, and 45 seconds into this video you'll see the result.

Intelligent design equal to the evolution

In 2005 the Kansas state board of education tried to discredit the evolution by introducing the ID:s teaching method. One student at the Oregon state University, Bobby Henderson, wrote an open letter to the board saying he wanted to have equal time for his religion too. Noone had ever heard of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster, and the board did not answer. Bobby published the letter on the net, and it became a success! The board lost the case. Thanks Bobby!

SOPA

SOPA is, according to what they write, something to protect copywrite materials. As it works it also helps the christian right to be able to use the SOPA-law to try to stop web pages with materials they do not like. Wikipedia for instans will probably be one of the first pages to be closed. Even other pages that are not having any illegal materials on it will maybe be forced to closed just because they links to a page with illegal materials, according to Lennart Guldbrandsson (Swedish link) on the Swedish Wikimedia. As a result of this, and to try to succeed as good as Bobby and 11 points did, the english Wikipedia will have a total blackout 18th of January to show what will come if we let the US censor the internet. Here are the English wikimedia explanation.
What is a little bit confusing is why the US where talking about "Freedom of speech" during the Arabian spring", while themselves tries to stop those rights.


Lets hope our army of scientists and people searching for the truth will be able to stop this and make the world enter a new era. I think of Richard Dawkins (evolution), Simon Singh (fighting against the chiropractics) and VOF (Swedish sceptics) and many more.

Wikipedia soon closing down?

Once again wikipedia (and also youtube etc) are at risk for closing down due to some silly law... It is the SOPA-law that might harm a free internet.

Right now the different wikipedia-languages are discussing to close down for a while to show the US what might be the aftermatch for implementing this law. (But it seems like it will only be the English closing and maybe the rest showing there support by writing on a banner or something like that. What will happen in the different wiki's are something they decide and I can not check on everyone)

Some people might think it is right... "Just close every web-page that contains illegal things, (copywright)". Well is it so easy? In Sweden we have a law saying that if an author died for more than 70 years ago his/hers books are public domain and free to publish! Great, we have project Runeberg working hard to publish old litterature and newspapers from the nordic countries. Here is the problem: According to a law in the US are material like that protected for 95 years... making a lot of wikipedia articles and very much of project Runebergs material illegal in the US (country of freedom?)!!! For example the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf.
Sweden are then illegal and they will have to close webpages linking to these free online-sorces...

That was just an example to show how harmfull this new law might be for the world. The government in the US are the multinational companies little pet doing everything they say to get a small piece of the money-cookie. We in the rest of the world can't stop it, but I hope the thinking people in the US will do something and not just let the brainwash proceed (why am I not surprised THAT link to an article on wikipedia is dealing with matters in the United States?).

Why write on Wikipedia

This article was first just intended to be used private as a help for me when I had an oral test in English. My subject was "Why write on Wikipedia". My teacher liked the subject, and after the test I promised him that I would publish it on my blog. I do not get any mark on this article, but I publish it with a purpose: To get more people into the wikipedia-writing.

Why write on Wikipedia

Link to a "Wiki-love"-picture (to not violate the copywright)

Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia containing a lot more than an ordinary encyclopedia. It has over 400 000 articles in the Swedish part (3.800.000 in English speaking wikipedia).

Some people complain and says they sometimes may see things not correct. That might be so, and the answer to them is often from the people writing on wiki: “Well, why do you not correct it? But do not forget to add valid sources-unless it is something misspelled”

By working like that the English speaking Wikipedia has got a rate of mistakes in the articles just slightly more than British encyclopedia, but with the difference that Wikipedia is more up to date and has a whole more of small subject articles.

How do I know this?

I am an administrator on the Swedish Wikipedia. That is an honor title, but gives me also some extra tools to help Wikipedia become better. You may get it by your way of contribute and if you gain the community's respect.

I started by testing how it worked. I thought it was easy to contribute, but it was first when I started to study medicine I noticed it's potentials. By reading on the Swedish Wikipedia about the different issues I had to learn I got a pretty good knowledge, after that I read the English article. I could have stopped there, but knowing my way of learning I translated the English article, by looking at it's sources and use them to make the Swedish article better. This improved my English, I learned the subject, and my colleges know they could trust the articles I had contributed to.

My purpose by telling you this is to try to make more people to start writing about their favorite subjects so that Wikipedia will get even better.

Another purpose is to make more people be aware who makes the job. It is not a company or a government whom you dislike and wants to destroy. It is ordinary people, like you and me, writing with love for education, freedom of speech. They know that a lot of the subjects would be banned in a dictatorship. On Wikipedia the dictators can't erase. It is a project for democracy.