wikipedia Archives

Wikipedia’s new crowdfunded newspaper ‘can fix news’
By Julia Breakey on 25 April, 2017
Today, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales launched Wikitribune -- an online crowdfunded newspaper looking to combat "fake news." According to Wales, media's move to the internet broke news reporting. Whereas before people paid newspapers to give them the truth, now readers expect content for free, forcing publications to rely on ad revenue. Wales argues that this has derailed news media's role as truth-tellers. He also criticises how social media algorithms spoon-feed users what they want to hear to "keep clicking at all costs." His remedy is a publication that hires professional journalists to work "side by side as equals" with the community. This team will author, fact-check, and verify...
9 ridiculous Wikipedia lists to waste away the work day
By Julia Breakey on 9 March, 2017
For the last six years of my life, I have had teachers, lecturers and tutors drill into my brain: Wikipedia is not an acceptable source. And for six whole years I have steered clear of the tomes of knowledge Wikipedia offers me. No longer. Wikipedia has a knack for distracting me from the anxieties of daily life, and there is no better distraction than its carefully curated lists. So, for your consideration, here are the nine best lists on Wikipedia right now. List of music considered the worst Image: Adam Sundana via Flickr (CC 2.0, resized) This list mostly looks at...
5 constructive ways to waste time on the internet
By Andy Walker: Editor on 10 June, 2016
If I could quantify the hours I've spent browsing superfluous websites on the internet, I'd be father time. But I'm not. All I know is that the internet's a wormhole of information, that may or may not be relevant at the time, but definitely makes for some great conversation starters. And that's exactly why it's advantageous. If you have a spare moment trapped in a boredom bubble -- perhaps Monday is going to the dogs, or you're two hours out from the Friday bell -- the internet can help you out by teaching you a thing or two. With that said, here...
Wikipedia iOS app gets update with 3D Touch, personalisation
By Staff Reporter on 11 March, 2016
Old players like Wikipedia are learning new tricks. Wikipedia today updated its Wikipedia iOS app and the 15-year-old fact-checking company is adding some nifty features. The two notable additions are the inclusion of 3D Touch features and the app's improved personalisation capabilities. The 3D Touch feature was introduced in 2015 with Apple's iPhone 6s and 6s smartphones. From now on, Wikipedia app users on these devices will be able to utilise the peek and pop functionality of 3D Touch. They can also utilise multi-touch gestures like swipe and tap to navigate within the app. Another uniquely iOS feature included in the...
Wikiwand is the Wikipedia you’ve always dreamed of
By Mich Atagana on 28 August, 2014
We can all agree that Wikipedia's interface works on simplicity because Jimmy Wales and his buddies want to deliver the same experience across different machines. Yes, we understand but if we are being honest, we do wish we could get a kickass stylist upgrade to the simple text based UX. Well, the folks at WikiWand have heard our pleas and decided to deliver. The Chrome plugin has taken Wikipedia and twisted its head to give you a slick new interface offering a significantly better reading experience. Installing the plugin quickly transforms all articles on Wikipedia into a responsive page....
Wikipedia looks to preserve celeb voices by adding them to pages
By Nur Bremmen: Staff reporter on 27 January, 2014
This is pretty cool. Wikipedia is looking to preserve the voices of celebrities and other high-profile people by getting them to record clips of their voices, which are then added to the pages concerning them. Among the first to take part in what the Wikimedia foundation calls the Wikipedia voice intro project (WikiVIP) was actor, comedian and author Stephen Fry. As with all the clips for the project, Fry's voice sample lasts around 10 seconds and includes his name and some basic information about himself. Once the recording of Fry’s voice was uploaded and added to his biography, it...

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Praekelt Foundation, Wikimedia team up to bring free Wikipedia to Kenya
By Stuart Thomas on 7 November, 2013
How often do you reach into your pocket for your smartphone and use Wikipedia to settle an argument? Whether you're using mobile data or Wi-Fi, it's unlikely you ever stop to think about how much that data actually costs. But for some people those costs are very real and when it comes to a choice between eating and looking up something on Wikipedia, eating's going to win every time. There have been various attempts to make sure no one has to make that choice over the past few years, the latest of which sees South African-based NGO the Praekelt...
Wiki Loves Monuments to launch world’s largest photography comp in SA
By Staff Reporter on 26 August, 2013
The world's largest photography competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, is being launched next month in order to capture South Africa's heritage. Besides the theme, the main aim of this record-breaking initiative is to collect and share knowledge. Ever since 2001, Wikimedia has been responsible for various chapters and projects including the popular free online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Wiki Loves Monuments is part of Wikimedia's grand plan to ultimately share the sum of all human knowledge freely with every single human in the world. People are encouraged to participate and celebrate South Africa’s living heritage by taking photographs of heritage sites and uploading...
Mark Zuckerberg lays out plan to connect the next 5-billion
By Stuart Thomas on 21 August, 2013
Looks like Mark Zuckerberg's been stealing peeks at the Google play book. The founder and CEO of the billion-strong social network today announced "rough" plans to get an extra 5-billion people online. As Zuckerberg notes, there are only around 2.4-billion internet users, meaning that around 5-billion people aren't connected. While it would appear to make good economic sense for Facebook to help bring more people online -- more users equals more eyeballs to sell to advertisers -- the hoodied one says it's about more than numbers for him: I’m focused on this because I believe it is one of...

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Watchdog group says Wikimedia cares less about Chinese users
By Stuart Thomas on 10 June, 2013
Chinese online watchdog group Greatfire has come out against the Wikimedia foundation, arguing that it holds Chinese users in less regard than others from around the world. The trouble started last week when Greatfire noticed that the Chinese government had blocked the encrypted, or HTTPS, version of Wikipedia ahead of the Tienanmen Square Massacre anniversary. By blocking the encrypted version of Wikipedia, the government effectively ensured that people would be forced to use the HTTP version of Wikipedia, which means that they wouldn't be able to see certain banned articles. In a bid to draw attention to the...

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Travel the world for free from your armchair with Wikivoyage
By Stephan Lourens on 11 January, 2013
Wikivoyage, launched by the Wikimedia Foundation, is a new site that will provide travellers with information on destinations, restaurants, hotels and whatever users choose to create and update. In the same way that Wikipedia operates the content will be sourced from volunteer authors and travellers. As described on Wikipedia, the site is "built through collaboration of Wikivoyagers from around the globe. Articles can cover different levels of geographic specificity, from continents to districts of a city. These are logically connected in a hierarchy, by specifying that the location covered in one article "is within" the larger location described by another....

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SA school kids lobby for free Wikipedia
By Nur Bremmen: Staff reporter on 10 December, 2012
A group of South African learners are lobbying operators in that country to provide them with free access to Wikipedia. The open source encyclopedia is already available for free in a number of countries across North Africa and the Middle East. Pupils at Sinenjongo High School in Cape Town have written to the country's mobile operators asking them to do the same. "Our school does not have a library at all so when we need to do research we have to walk a long way to the local library. When we get there we have to...

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Steve Hofmeyr’s Wikipedia page hacked
By Tony Seifart on 12 November, 2012
Controversial South African Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr had his personal Wikipedia page hacked on Monday. The page now describes him as a prominent member of a Mormon split, called The Morons and an honourary chairman of 'Avrikaanirs met Leer Probleeme' (Afrikaners with Learning Disabilities). The majority of the changed content was in the opening paragraph, which read: He is a prominent member of the Mormon Church split group, known as The Morons, who believe members should conceive as many children with as many women as possible. In addition, Hofmeyr is the honorary chairman of Avrikaanirs met Leer Probleeme (Afrikaners with...

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Russian parliament approves controversial web censorship bill
By Lauren Granger on 12 July, 2012
The Russian parliament has approved a bill which will allow the government to shut down websites hosting content they deemed "harmful." If signed into law, it will see the creation of a system to monitor and blacklist websites. An amendment to Russia's Act for Information, bill 89417-6 was put forth by a committee concerned with internet security. They say it was designed to allow the government to remove pornography, suicide advice and content which encourages drug use, but it has drawn criticism from activists who oppose online censorship. Wikipedia shut down the Russian version of its site earlier this...

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Open source software: It’s more than just free stuff
By Muggie van Staden on 15 May, 2012
Free software. In many ways it is an unfortunate term to describe what most people today know as open source software. Although the term is intended to convey the idea of freedom, it is often misunderstood as meaning 'free of cost'. And while most open software is indeed available free of charge, there are still costs associated with implementing any software in a business. Open source software's real value is not that it is cheaper than other alternatives, though that is more often than not the reality, it is that it offers a set of values that proprietary does...

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