Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia CD Selection

message: See also talk pages at   Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia-CD/Download and []
Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia CD Selection/archive
Please could you add comments about the project or proposals about improving the next version here. Anything on animation, navigation, suitable subjects, images etc would be particularly helpful
--BozMo talk 16:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

message: An interwiki now exists for the online browsable copy at schools-wikipedia.org. The form of the interwiki is SchoolsWP:Article name or SchoolsWP:index:home for hand made pages such as "home" "subject.Geography" etc. Since the published DVD also contains a copy of the SOS Children website the interwiki technically works for that but there isn't a particular call to link to it on Wikipedia. --BozMo talk 05:55, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interwiki 

message: I just saw the [Lebanon article at 2008 Schools Wikipedia Selection, and I noticed that this is an outdated version. Could it be updated before the CD is released? Eklipse (talk) 12:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. Updated on the database to version 241889584, 29 Sep 2008 23:35. This will happen online within a day or too. --BozMo talk 15:34, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Incidentally the old version was a few months old. The process of checking articles started in March, so any date back to March is likely with some articles before that where the volunteer marked "no significant change". --BozMo talk 16:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok thank you. But I'm lost through this project. Where is the page where the volunteers monitor the selected articles for changes? Eklipse (talk) 16:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It was all explained here I think but we are done doing that at present. --BozMo talk 17:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles are outdated 

message: How nice to be allowed to look over the articles beforehand, thanks.  As far as I have seen, wikilinking works in these articles as it does on Wikipedia.  The article 'Eye' uses the term 'totally blind', and the word 'blind' there should be linked to the article 'Blindness', IMO.  --Hordaland (talk) 12:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. The way the process works, editorial additions like adding links are not allowed off wiki. If the article on wikipedia now has this improvement, we can update to a more recent version but to preserve NPOV etc we do not allow off-WP additions. Sorry if that seems over-fussy.--BozMo talk 15:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minor suggestion 

message: "... [A]nd is very accurate but suffers vandalism. Wikipedia is not a childsafe environment (you can meet anonymous adults there) ..." I suggest rewording "is very accurate" to "develops accurate content", removing "(you can meet anonymous adults there)", and changing "not a childsafe environment" to "not necessarily a childsafe environment". Cheers, – Thomas H. Larsen 05:20, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Will do. The WMF have asked to updated a statement about their involvement/support too so I will do those together. --BozMo talk 07:46, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slight rewording of a couple of sentences on the main page 

message: page WPSchools:Disclaimer contains this "The selection made be copied in its entirety for non-commercial purposes, but restrictions apply to other use of content."
I believe this is wrong since even non-commercial copying must comply with the GFDL share-alike requirements.
IANAL but I would word it like this " This selection may be copied in it's entirety for any purpose. You can even change it anyway you want provided you acknowledge wikipedia as the author of those parts we wrote and provided you agree to share your contributions with all the world. These duties are described in more detail in the GFDL license."Filceolaire (talk) 21:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. And not all the content is GFDL. The content includes a lot of creative commons images (as does WP). The idea with saying "in its entirety" was to imply provided copies include the local copy of the image licence pages and GNU licence. Is there anything else missing in share-alike? 99% of copies made at just people copying the entire DVD onto a machine, which as far as I can see is fine? --BozMo talk 05:39, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the basis of the "non-commercial" caveat? I'm not sure such restrictions are allowed on Wikipedia content. I agree that the wording probably needs to be changed to something along the lines of "This selection may be copied in it's entirety for any purpose, so long as credit is given to the original authors and it remains licensed under the terms of the GFDL." Kaldari (talk) 19:53, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Wikimedia Foundation gave permission to use their logo provided that the selection was used "to put articles in the hands of children not for commercial exploitation". The only restriction on non-commercial derives from this but there was on-sale of copies on eBAY India, and "cost recovery" onsale in New Zealand and elsewhere. I would prefer it if people who wanted to exploit it commercially had to read the licences properly whereas people just wanted to copy it for schools felt comfortable. But I am more than happy to take improvements on text which is fairly unaltered since last year. --BozMo talk 20:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, that makes sense. In that case, I would only change the "made" to "may" :) Kaldari (talk) 20:49, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with the Disclaimer page 

message: Browsing the indices of the new edition at http://schools-wikipedia.org/, I noticed the "Performers and Composers" in the Music section, and "Performers and Composers" in the People section to differ somewhat.  I wonder if this will be tweaked.
*http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/index/subject.Music.Performers_and_composers.htm
*http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/index/subject.People.Performers_and_composers.htm
*♫ Cricket02 (talk) 22:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well spotted. Yes they are supposed to match. I'll fix next run--BozMo talk 05:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Indexing question

message: Is there any point in eg the Visual arts project asking for Victor Hugo (a great French novelist but an utterly minor, if keen, artist) to be removed from our POV? Ie will he stay in anyway because of the novels?  Equally, the Fashion list is full of currently popular actresses who once gave their name to a clothing or make-up line. Any point in making a hit-list?  Johnbod (talk) 01:47, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm. Are you sure this isn't for the Release Version series not the schools series? we don't have "fashion" as a list. --BozMo talk 05:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  People important in one area but not in another 

message: This may have been discussed in the past, but I wonder if you have considered adding a custom google search field to the front page of the web version of the CD Selection, set to search just the schools-wikipedia.org domain. http://www.google.com/coop/cse/ has a wizard to set it up. I assume that you wouldn't want ads on the search, so google gives nonprofits ad-free search if you give them a nonprofit tax id. 
Dialectric (talk) 15:37, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. We use this on www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk and it works well. At present we are trying to get the Schools Wikipedia to match the DVD completely but I sense that will break because the online one is so unexpectedly popular and it may make sense to add loads more content. --BozMo talk 19:33, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  searching the selection with (google) search 

message: See  which is the UK gov teachers forum. At time of posting this the first three reviews were all from teachers who were site moderators and all good, especially the third one "A fantastic idea! - Many of us are well aware of the issues surrounding the use of Wikipedia. This site overcomes most of the major issues and the SOS Children team are to be congatulated. The language level is high and the classic Wikipedia layout is unlikely to prove stimulating to KS3 but for KS4 and above a potentially very useful resource. I enjoyed finding out about automatic number plate recognition." --BozMo talk 20:53, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some reactions from teachers 

message: How do you nominate an article to be in the Schools Project?  (As opposed to version 0.7...)  Some time ago, I split off Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef from Great Barrier Reef, as the topic proved large enough to be viable as its own article, and since then it has expanded.  My concern is that as the environmental threats section in the main article is now a summary, it's not as good for the schoolkids.-Malkinann (talk) 09:31, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is my question also. I want to nominate the article Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 22:37, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Here will do to nominate anything. A version number from a credible editor would also help. --BozMo talk 17:32, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: How do you nominate an article?

message: I am wondering if there is a tag/template for the included articles in the 2008/2009 version? Will a bot be doing this eventually?  If not, I can help manually. ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 05:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't have a bot to do it. In fact for 2007 it worked the other way around: articles which were tagged were automatically considered, it was how they were nominated. Now suggestions are only taken if they include the version number of a good version of the article and are added at Wikipedia:Wikipedia_CD_Selection/additions_and_updates but tagging articles as included is helpful as it warns people not to leave the article mid rewrite for too long. I think the  tag would be ok. --BozMo talk 12:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, cool.  Thanks.  I will start on that.  ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 15:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Another question, looking for the easiest ways to navigate to included articles' talk pages.  Would this be pretty reliable User:SelectionBot/0.7, or would I have to double check the released version to be sure each one is included.  ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 15:55, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, that list isn't reliable but I can come back with an accurate one somewhere easy when I have a couple of minutes. --BozMo talk 21:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually not easily. If you add the template, preview and click on the second link in it, it will take you to the article on the Selection if it exists. Otherwise SchoolsWP:index:alpha is an alphabetic index but it includes every word in the titles not just the titles. --BozMo talk 10:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tags 

message: Hello, I am notifying all relevant projects that ASEAN has been reassessed as part of the GA Sweeps project.  I have found the article to not currently meet the GA Criteria.  As such I have put it on hold for one week pending edits to improve its quality.  My review is here.  If anyone has questions please contact me at my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 21:22, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Reassessment of [[ASEAN]] 

message: It's been upgraded over the past few months, and is in much better shape than it was the last time the article was updated for this project.  I think it was a Start class article at that time.  Thegreatdr (talk) 12:05, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wind just passed FA 

message: Hope this is the right place to put this. I was just wondering if there's any reason the image for the North American History section of the 2008/09 schools Wikipedia selection is of the KKK? Surely there's a whole bunch of less ominous images to represent all of North America's history? I can just imagine a whole host of kids asking their teacher "What's this?" and getting some harrowing answers, haha. NashX (talk) 23:41, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You are welcome to propose an alternative but I would have thought that the picture itself is not too harrowing. From a European perspective the "history" of North America is very short and so harder to find themes. The KKK (and their murder of Luther) are fairly central parts of the American heritage, aren't they; the South of the US was still Apartheid until fairly recently after all? --BozMo talk 06:49, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  North American History 

message: Just letting you all know.  It took about 3 weeks to improve the article from start to GA class, and it's in much better shape now.  Thegreatdr (talk) 01:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Snow just passed GA 

message: After a bit of thought I've decided not to change the FAQ on your project page, but I strongly suggest that part of it needs rewriting. It currently states 
To begin with, it's a bit of a BS answer because, unless he's some sort of Torvaldian genius, chances are, if your "techy" guy can understand it, someone else can, too. Which leads to the second problem: by saying I'm not likely to get far with it, you are essentially insulting my intelligence. I'm pretty sure I could understand and re-implement your script if I really cared to (I have no interest in it, btw). (There might be some functionality that you have access to which I would not, but then, that should be your answer in the FAQ.) Surely you can rephrase this somewhat, to render it a bit less arrogant? Just my opinion, fwiw. Eaglizard (talk) 20:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  For your consideration 

message: of something like 30,000 articles.  something like maybe 4-5 DVDs, sorted, perhaps, by curriculum. (math,science,religion,...)
including:
*all featured articles
*all ga+ articles of mid importance or greater
*all b articles of high importance or greater
*all c articles of top importance
should do the trick.
and a bot could find the avg link(hop) distance of each article from articles currently categorized by curriculum, and that can be used to determine what cd to put them on.
alternatively you could have a bot just mathematically determine how to best sort the articles out on to DVDs to minimize the probability of an inter-DVD link, and then determine a name for the individual DVDs based on that. Kevin Baastalk 16:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: (see Cluster_analysis) Kevin Baastalk 17:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

text: Method for calculating avg hop distance: calculate the average number of links traversed to get to an article classified as part of the subject, assuming links are traversed randomly.  i.e.  each link on a has a probability weight of 1/number_of_links_on_that_page.  i can flesh out an algorithm if need be. Kevin Baastalk 17:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  how about a multi-dvd release? 

message: With flying colors, if such a large object can fly.  Suggest it be updated for the next version.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:41, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I have updated it on the datebase so the new version will get taken next release --BozMo talk 06:29, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Hoover Dam]] just passed FA 

message: I moved the segment below to here, because I don't see the point of comparing this project to Citizendium. The number of encyclopedic sites out there is huge, so I think we should either make a comprehensive table or skip it altogether. Mikael Häggström (talk) 14:54, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comparison to Citizendium 

message: I have been looking at offline wikipedia , particularly http://schools-wikipedia.org with a view to provide wikipedia content on an offline basis for Ghana schools. 
my view is to have a server which can deliver educational content preferably using generic components.I also think that it would be better all round if the 
set up to get it working is simple as possible.
I see wikipedia will work with olpc; one problem I have with olpc is that basically they are creating a brand. Sugar mainly works on specific
distros, and thus that excludes other distros. 
My approach is for  a server for connected client pc's (the ones the children will be using) with a very simple set up of just slackware  13.37, apache-tomcat web server and MySQl.I have installed a java bridge so that php files can also be parsed by tomcat. Tomcat web server is available for many distros as is MySQL.
Installed a java bridge so php files will be parsed. 
Yesterday I downloaded a complete web page from the main wikipedia site which consisted of a html file, a directory of images, and also php files(in the same directory as the images).They were put into a webapps directory of tomcat .
I found that with the web server running the page parsed perfectly. This means that children on client pc's (could be windows) pointing their browser at the static ip of the pc running tomcat will enable them to access an offline encyclopedia.
If a page being parsed and displays properly has a relative url, clicking on that url will take the child to another page.
The content index seen at 
*[[ http://schools-wikipedia.org| school-wikipedia]]
Looks ok to me .
For searching I have already played with a java server page that connects to a MySQl having fields of key words, and corresponding field of relative url to go to. Why make it any more complicated?
Andybrookestar (talk) 18:19, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: How did you fix all the broken links? --BozMo talk 19:34, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  offline wikipedia delivery system 

message: Is this project still ongoing, or does it have nothing but a historical significance that some articles are tagged for inclusion on these CDs? If so, are the tags even relevant anymore? FunkMonk (talk) 20:10, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I wondered about this, too, when I came across :Category:Wikipedia CD Selection-GAs, which effectively duplicates :Category:Wikipedia good articles. -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:16, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I've tagged it as historic. If some folks are still working on this then please simply remove the tag. SilkTork (talk) 15:58, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discontinued? 

message: Since this project has been marked as historical, I suggest switching the WP:Cd shortcut to the much more frequently viewed Centralized discussion page. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 12:41, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:Cd]] shortcut 

message: schools-wikipedia.org now returns a 403, and it looks like it went down about a year ago, according to the Wayback Machine.
I don't know if anyone has any more information on the project, but I think it's safe to say that it's officially finished. Forresthopkinsa (talk) 23:03, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project terminated 

message: :Category:Wikipedia CD Selection has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Schierbecker (talk) 03:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: [[:Category:Wikipedia CD Selection]] has been nominated for discussion