The Wikimedia Foundation, operator of the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia, opened its annual international conference in Taipei yesterday with more than 500 Wikipedia enthusiasts from 43 countries attending to learn more about the open-source community.
The three-day event will address Wiki technology and Internet developments related to shared knowledge and the implications these have for educational and social trends.
With Taiwan's widespread Internet access and the emergence of vibrant, active online communities, an increasing number of Taiwanese have become involved in Wikipedia, Florence Devouard, member of the board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, told a press conference yesterday.
Founded in 2003 in St Petersburg, Florida, the foundation is a nonprofit organization funding nine free information projects to encourage the development and distribution of free content online. The most well-known of these projects is Wikipedia.
Launched in January 2001, Wikipedia, which relies on Internet users to contribute, edit and cite sources for information organized into an encyclopedia, Wikipedia now has more than 5 million articles in more than 250 languages.
The Chinese-language Wikipedia site was inaugurated in October 2002.
About 40 volunteers work with Wikimedia in Taiwan, said Titan Deng (
The foundation's main source of funding is public donations and grants, and most staff are unpaid.
If Wikimedia Taiwan receives stable funding, it will consider hiring employees to expand its activities, Teng said, adding that the organization would like to work with the government, schools or companies in developing open-source access to knowledge online.
Wikipedia has rapidly become a favorite resource for Web users and professionals worldwide, and Taiwan is no exception.
Last month, a Cabinet report on the 20th anniversary of the end of Martial Law cited Wikipedia.
"We don't mind our content being used by other media, even for commercial purposes, as long as they attribute the copyright to us," Devouard said.
Many Web sites and companies are not aware that they should cite Wikipedia when using information from the Web site, since the encyclopedia's content is collectively produced.
Most have complied with the copyright policy after receiving a notice from Wikipedia, but a few have refused to do so, such as Chinese search engine Baidu Inc (
Baidu frequently uses content from Wikipedia without citing the organization, even after several reminders, Devouard said.
"We provide free knowledge to everyone, but this is not what we want," Devouard said.
The organization will continue communicating with Baidu over the issue on friendly terms, rather than taking legal action against the company, said Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia cofounder.
Although some content from Wikipedia is used on other Web sites that can be viewed in China, Wikipedia is blocked by Beijing.
"Wikipedia has nothing to do with politics ... we'd like not to be blocked, considering the huge market size in China," Sandra Ordonez, the foundation's communication manager, told the Taipei Times. "The more contributors we have, the higher quality our site will be."
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS