Dear Kai,

Thanks for watching some of the recording from our Wikipedia sanitation webinar. I am glad it prompted you to get back into Wikipedia editing!

I don't think that your guess is true:

Turns out that if a user misses an email notification or doesn’t visit a “watched” page and a certain amount of time elapses (at least that’s my understanding) the notification function is turned off.

However, I have also noticed that the e-mail notification function does not give me all the notifications of changes. It seems to be unreliable and "hit and miss"! I get some but not all of them. Therefore, I check my watchlist regularly as well (the watchlist seems to be reliable).

You can access your watchlist at the top right of your Wikipedia page when you are logged in. But it only goes back 30 days at the most, so you need to remember to check at least once per month (I check once per day).
Mine looks like this (currently watching 500 articles):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist

You know you can also see the changes made to "your" pages by looking at the history page of any Wikipedia article, e.g. see here:
en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vermifilter&action=history

Which were the pages that you have been watching? If the pages look better than before then that's good!

I also checked with Stéphane about this e-mail notification problem and he replied to me:

Yes, I know about the email issue and I think it’s annoying as well.

What I do to compensate for this notification problem is that I use another service called IFTTT, specifically this recipe: ifttt.com/applets/306836p-notify-me-of-e...-a-wikipedia-article

As indicated, it will send you a notification everytime an article of your chosing is being edited (within 30 minutes or so in my experience, vs. every 12 hours for the Wikipedia service). It works pretty well, just make sure that you do not subscribe to a highly edited article!

I think it works on Mobile, yes, but I do it from my desktop. The service is super easy to use.

And James replied to me:

Yes problems are hard to get fixed. Often one needs to play around with things to see how they work and how they can be adapted.

Please don't give up on Wikipedia just because of this e-mail notification bug. One day it will get fixed but in the meantime, don't completely rely on it.

You should still get the e-mail notifications from time to time (just not all of them), unless you have turned the e-mail notification off now? Could you check in your Wikipedia settings?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi All -

I watched 28 minutes in (on the video recording of the webinar) and then, wanting to put one of the things I’d seen into practice, logged into my Wikipedia account and was frustrated to find that I haven’t received the last year-plus of changes to the pages that I (thought I) was watching (!). Turns out that if a user misses an email notification or doesn’t visit a “watched” page and a certain amount of time elapses (at least that’s my understanding) the notification function is turned off. Rather naively, I’d assumed that no changes had been made to my various watched pages, which is why I never looked into it until now. I throw my hands up because there’s little point in my reactivating the email notification option now since in the interim so many changes have been made that what I remember (and was invested in) has long gone. How disappointing! Sigh. Feeling like I've lost what small amount of control I had.

That said, the couple of pages that I’d worked on in the past that I visited during this time looked pretty good. So, kudos to all that have been more proactive than I in keeping up with changes. And thanks to all that participated in the webinar. Excellent work! 

The webinars often have very active chat fields, so I copy here the content from the chat field (after some minor tidying up) - I have added some additional answers in red (further answers are provided in the recording, see links above):

++++++++++++
Chat log from webinar:

Stephane Coillet-Matillon: (08:54) itunes.apple.com/us/app/kiwix/id997079563

Elisabeth von Muench: (08:56) please say hello in the chat field. You can also type in there what you're hoping to get out of this webinar? Any specific questions?

Kithchinme Bawa: (08:57) Hello Elizabeth and everyone. Kitch here from AMCOW, Abuja, Nigeria.

Kevin Tayler 2: (09:00) Hello everone - This is Kevin - just to let you know that I am here

jan.knappe: (09:02) Good morning... at least here from Ireland!

Franziska Curran: (09:08) Hi All (Hi Elisabeth!) Fran here, actually dialling in from New Delhi, will keep the webcam off as I'm in the office!

Kumi: (09:08) Yes it's great to be able to participate from Australia!

Carol McCreary: (09:14) Please tell you colleagues in the USA that if they contact me, I will give them a pep talk about the impotance and promise of Wikipedia's:WikiProject Sanitation and get them on board. Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (easy to remember email, no?).

Elisabeth von Muench: (09:19) just to emphasise that thiw Wikimed includes all the sanitation-related articles as well (which have been tagged on their talk page - I will explain that later)

Elisabeth von Muench: (09:20) India is also a big focus area for us sanitation folks! So it's a good match!

Kithchinme Bawa: (09:26) I just downloaded the kiwix app

Stephane Coillet-Matillon: (09:27) Great: if you are on Android, you can also get Wikimed at play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=or...x.kiwixcustomwikimed

Kithchinme Bawa: (09:27) yeah i tried to get wikimed but couldnt

Carol McCreary: (09:30) What do the colors mean? In the popularity pager especially greens and yellows.
Answer:

Here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProj...tation/Popular_pages
What you called "popularity" is actually an assessment of the quality of the article. The colours refer to quality and to importance.

Quality of articles is ranked like this (from best to worst):

Featured article (FA), A-Class, Good article (GA), B, C, Start, Stub

Kithchinme Bawa: (09:36) I agree wikipedia is heavily referenced. a certain proff in my grad school once said, he doesnt he doesnt understand why you can use material from wikipedia consdering that is the most referenced

Answer:

Use Wikipedia to find information but if you want to cite something, best to cite the original sources (which are normally mentioned in the Wikipedia article)

lyseconcept: (09:40) Wikimedia commons I was stuck at the loading of my documents page without finding the solution

Natalie: (09:41) Elisabeth, can you send through your email? It appeared very briefly on the slide

Elisabeth von Muench: (09:41) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Natalie: (09:42) Do you host regular edit-a-thons?

Stephane Coillet-Matillon: (09:42) Yes. Depends where you are located though

Stephane Coillet-Matillon: (09:43) Edit-a-thons are usually organized through chapters

Carol McCreary: (09:44) Oh, I like the idea of an edit-a-thon. Good event to bring people into a co-working space for a day or even half a day. And then mix, drink beer, celebrate.

Kevin Tayler 3: (09:43) The other point is that there is still so much that we do not know and so there is always scope to improve Wikipedia entries as more information becomes available

Natalie: (09:44) I like the way you think, Carol

Carol McCreary: (09:48) My name on Wikipedia is Cryacrem . It's an anagram of my last name. Anybody else want to say their names?

Natalie: (09:48) I'm lividlili

Carol McCreary: (09:49) Nice to meet you, Natalie.

ARNO ROSEMARIN (SEI): (09:53) Are statistics available to any user ie page views?

Stephane Coillet-Matillon: (09:53) yes.

ARNO ROSEMARIN (SEI): (09:54) Can you show us how to extract stats?

Stephane Coillet-Matillon: (09:54) If you go to an article's history, it is listed at the top

Additional answer:

e.g. here look at the tab "page view statistics":
en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Toilet&action=history

The real page views can be even higher because nowadays Google searches bring up an info box at the right which is drawing content from Wikipedia.

Kumi: (09:55) Do you put ‘talk’ pages on watchlist? How do you keep track of comments on the ‘talk’ page since they can comment anywhere on the page?

Answer:

if you start to “watch” an article then you are automatically also watching its talk page. When you get notified of a change being made (or you check on your watchlist) then you see WHERE the talk page has been changed.

And the convention is to usually add new topics as the END of the talk page- And to sign it with the 4 tildes (~~~~) which then gets converted to your name and the date.

jan.knappe: (09:58) Alright, unfortunately, I have to leave now. Was a nice webinar so far, see you in the forum and over at Wikipedea!

Trevor: (09:58) Sorry I have to run, thanks for an interesting webinar, and I will catch-up the parts I missed using the SuSanA forum. Bye from Lusaka.

ARNO ROSEMARIN (SEI): (09:59) I have noticed that all sports stars are listed. How do we get our sanitation heroes tracked on Wikipedia? We cant do our own advertising for ourselves OR?

Kumi: (10:03) I need to leave but thanks very much!

Stephane Coillet-Matillon: (10:04) Arno: define "sanitation stars"

Stephane Coillet-Matillon: (10:04) basically, you really need to have outside sources mentioning the character. Being famous in a circle of specialists rarely ever cuts it

Natalie: (10:14) I'd love to get involved, just kind of want to know where to start? Stubs? Poor articles? C grade articles?

Natalie: (10:16) great, thanks!

Natalie: (10:17) Thanks for a fascinating webinar. Can't wait to help out!

Carol McCreary: (10:17) Thank you.. I'd love to join others on a half day of involvement - maybe in the dark days of winter. Need to get re-skilled. Thank you!

Sujatha: (10:19) I need to leave now, thanks much!

If you've attended or viewed the webinar, please provide your feedback here in this really short feedback form:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFlltG...vZY2GJvdjug/viewform

Thanks!

Hi Chris,

It's us fellow Wikipedians who have to deal with users that are "messing up". You should not get into an "edit war" with another user, i.e. it's important to resist the temptation to undo and redo, undo and redo an edit. Have you tried talking to the person on the talk page of the article? That normally works.

If that fails to work you can also try to talk to the other user on his or her talk page.

If it's getting bad and nasty, there are steps that can be taken to give another user a "warning" and ultimately to block another user (this can only be done by an admin). Have a look at the other user's page (his/her contributions so far and his/her talk page). This usually gives a good impression of the intentions of the other user. Assume good faith at first! - Hope this helps a little bit. If things are not working out, let me know and I can see if I can help.

Yes, we have lists showing the articles most in need (look for those with the quality "stub" or "start" or C), see here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProj...tation/Popular_pages
or here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProj...rticles_of_relevance

And I agree with your suggestion about specializing. Someone else could also specialize in adding images to articles. These images could then even link back to their own organisation (in the image description field), therefore giving that organisation some visibility if that is useful/important for that person.

And I totally agree with your call to action:
"Dive in and have fun!"

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi everyone,

Thanks for this webinar.

Who determines that a user is messing up? Some Peruvian user changed several times some simple changes that I made to the Saneamiento Ecológico (EcoSan in Spanish) page. I want to work on the page some more, but he will likely undo my efforts. Can I report him?

In terms of organizing ourselves, can we have lists of the pages we think are most lacking, those that most need editing, those that most need translation, etc.? Do these already exist?

People could also specialize, if they like. For example, one person might be really good at writing and another might have a really good knowledge of the literature for adding citations.

Dive in, everyone, and have fun.

Best wishes,
Chris Canaday

Here is the recording from Webinar 6. Three reels:

Reel 1. Introduction and the presentation by Stéphane Coillet-Matillon - Director of Kiwix, Wikipedian, former executive director of Wikimedia Switzerland



Reel 2. Presentation by Elisabeth von Münch - Community manager of SuSanA Discussion Forum, Wikipedian, leader of Wikipedia's WikiProject Sanitation



Reel 3. General Discussion

And here's the presentation that I will use in the webinar tomorrow ("Improving Wikipedia's sanitation content for online or offline use"):

As pdf file:



As ppt file in case you want to reuse slides (they are in open access format CC-BY SA):




Don't worry, the Appendix slides won't be used in the presentation. They're just for further reading.

So, if you find this interesting and want to discuss it then make sure you join us on Thursday 24 November, 9:00 am Central European time (8:00 am in the UK)*

This is the link to get to the webinar:

seint.adobeconnect.com/seiwebinar/
(click on "enter as a guest")

You don't need a password for joining.

If you want to get on the mailing list for this and future webinars, then please register for this webinar here:
www.susana.org/en/webinar-registration-nov-24

Further hints for optimal performance of Adobe Connect, particularly if you want to use the microphone and webcam:

1. Turn off Skype and other video conf software completely
2. Use Microsoft Internet Explorer for best performance
3. Minimum 4-5 mBit/s of bandwidth (up and down) for presenters (to ensure quality video and sound)
4. Use of headset - one person per computer (not group call unless a properly set up USB table speaker systems with echo cancellation is being used)
5. Headset or table phone speaker set up properly with the computer’s sound card prior to turning on Adobe Connect
6. Run Adobe Connect audio set up wizard (click on the tab at the top left after entering the Adobe Connect room).
7. For more information: www.connectusers.com/learning_center/get...arted/quickstart.php

Regards,
Elisabeth


* Check your local times here: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

I look forward to greeting many of you at our upcoming webinar this Thursday! (9 am central Europe time, 7 pm Sydney, Australia time)

I am attaching here the presentation that our second presenter, Stéphane, will use:



This is not to "steal his thunder" but to let you take a look at it in advance and perhaps already formulate questions which you could put into this thread (even if you know that you'll be unable to attend the webinar but are interested in the topic).

This way, we can hit the ground running with the webinar when it starts on Thursday.

I will also upload my presentation by Wednesday.

We don't plan to spend much time at the webinar on the presentations, but rather on your questions and discussion points about Wikipedia.

Regards,
Elisabeth

P.S. More information about the Wikipedia & sanitation work is available here on the Forum:
forum.susana.org/component/kunena/198-wikipedia-and-other-wikis

Please join us for our next webinar in our monthly series of SuSanA-SEI webinars titled "Improving Wikipedia's sanitation content for online or offline use" Thursday 24 November 2016 at 9:00 Central European Time (e.g. Stockholm); different time zones are shown for your convenience below. Check your local time here: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

(we're sorry that the time is inconvenient/impossible for people on the American continent; however, we felt the need to pick a different time slot to our other webinars to give people from Asia and Australia a better chance to attend for a change! I hope lots of people from those time zones further to the East of here will take us up on this offer.)

Content:

This webinar will explore the importance and potential of Wikipedia for spreading information and awareness about sanitation topics, be it online or offine, in English or in other languages. It will show you how easy it is to become involved by improving Wikipedia content, which may be as simple as correcting typos or clarifying sentences, or more involved by creating new articles, adding images, adding new references or helping other editors. We will demonstrate how editing on Wikipedia is done, so that you can then try it out for yourself.

The webinar will also provide information about Kiwix, a free offline reader for Wikipedia content. Kiwix has created an App called "Wikimed App" which not only contains all medical content from Wikipedia but also more than 400 Wikipedia articles dealing with sanitation-related topics.

Finally, we will also introduce to you the Wikipedia "WikiProject Sanitation" which is a group of Wikipedians interested in improving Wikipedia's coverage on sanitation related topics. This project began in December of 2014. The WikiProject Sanitation seeks to benefit the world by giving the general public and professionals in all areas that touch on sanitation topics (such as public health, infrastructure, water, agriculture, gender, environment, poverty, etc.) information which they can all read, appreciate, and respect, free of charge.

Format:

The webinar will last approximately 45 minutes. It will start with two short inputs by the two presenters to set the scene (about 7 minutes each). After that, it will be a question & answer session with the participants, including hands-on tutorial session on how to edit Wikipedia. We will also open the session 30 minutes beforehand so you can test your video or microphone and meet other participants, and also submit your questions.

Some example questions that have already been submitted and which will be addressed include:

• How does Wikipedia actually work?
• What are the benefits of crowd-sourced information?
• How good is the information?
• What are the system's built in protections against poor quality info?
• How do Wikipedia articles compare with peer-reviewed articles?
• How can SuSanA partners enhance organizational learning and expand the knowledge base through Wikipedia?
• How does editing work and how does one get started with editing?

Presenters:

• Elisabeth von Münch - Community manager of SuSanA Discussion Forum, Wikipedian, leader of Wikipedia's WikiProject Sanitation
• Stéphane Coillet-Matillon - Director of Kiwix, Wikipedian, former executive director of Wikimedia Switzerland

The webinar is being hosted by Stockholm Environment Institute and the SuSanA secretariat as part of a grant to SEI funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more information about this series of webinars see here: forum.susana.org/component/kunena/146-we...thly-susana-webinars

Example times:

0:00 (midnight) Seattle or Los Angeles (USA)
3:00 am New York (USA), Quito (Ecuador)
8:00 am London (UK)
9:00 am Stockholm (Sweden)
10:00 am Nairobi (Kenya)
13:30 pm New Delhi (India)
15:00 pm Hanoi (Vietnam)
19:00 pm Sydney (Australia)

Check your local times here: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Registration and access link:

To register for the webinar please follow this link: www.susana.org/en/webinar-registration-nov-24

To access the webinar on the right date and time please follow this link: seint.adobeconnect.com/seiwebinar/

The password will be webinar2016


Further background information:

Wikipedia does not only work online but also has offline capabilities. This is important because about 4 billion people don’t have a reliable access to internet, be it because of poor connectivity or even censorship. Kiwix (www.kiwix.org) is an open-source, free offline reader that can take pretty much any web content and make it available on people’s cell phones, tablet or computer without the need for a permanent internet connection. The Wikimed App is a mobile app which was specifically developped to afford access to Wikipedia’s 50,000 medical articles - from anatomy to oncology, physiology, pediatrics more, including also over 400 sanitation-related articles. Besides English, the Wikimed App is now also available in 9 other languages, apart from English. A large proportion of the App's users are on the Indian subcontinent (one of the languages of the App is Odia, a language spoken by about 40 million people in India.

The Wikimed App ("Medical Wikipedia") is a mobile app which provides offline access to health information (in the broader sence) on Wikipedia. On June 10th, 2015 Wiki Project Med Foundation and Wikimedia Switzerland launched an android app that contains all of the English Wikipedia's health care content: including medical, anatomy, medication, and sanitation related articles as tagged by the respective WikiProjects.


Links:

• Wikipedia WikiProject Sanitation: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation
• Kiwix, offline version of selected Wikipedia content - You can follow Kiwix developments on Twitter (@Kiwixoffline) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/KiwixOffline/).
• Google Playstore where offline versions of selected Wikipedia content can be downloaded in several languages:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/App

More information about Elisabeth:



Elisabeth is a freelancer since 2012, working on sustainable sanitation issues. She is based in Frankfurt, Germany. She is community moderator of the SuSanA (Sustainable Sanitation Alliance) discussion forum (www.forum.susana.org), funded through a grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (see here: forum.susana.org/component/kunena/139-in...action-within-susana). Her background is in process engineering, she used to design wastewater treatment plants until 2002, then moved to sustainable sanitation for developing countries and her main focus is nowadays on knowledge management. She became an active Wikipedian in October 2014 (since then leading the WikiProject Sanitation (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation), after reading about the work of James Heilman, leader of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Doc_James).


More information about Stéphane:



After an interesting career as a tobacco executive, Stéphane joined Wikimedia Switzerland in 2014 and was its Executive Director until early 2016. Based near Geneva, he now heads Racosch, an independent consulting company created with other Wikipedians dedicated to helping and training companies and individuals wanting to improve the Encyclopedia. He currently spends most of his time supporting the non-tech side of Kiwix (www.kiwix.org), an offline reader that allows more than a million people across the world to access Wikipedia (and other educational web content) on their computer or mobile phone without the need for an internet connection.