Wikivoyage:Go-between reports/Swedish/Swedish Wikivoyage Report for 23 February 2006

This is a go-between report from swedish Wikivoyage, prepared by (WT-en) Riggwelter, approved by (WT-en) Adestro.

Progress

Progress in general

The number of articles are now 309. The increase of articles has decreased, since we believe we have a need to fill the ones we have first...! Work in general has been focused on filling up current articles and on the meta side of the page, i e guidelines, database messages, etc.

New contributors

The inflow of new contributors has decreased. A couple of anonymous editors have contributed, but they have not signed up as users.

Focus since last report

Revision and translation of database messages (Special:Allmessages). This work will continue, but with lower intensity than before, since the most common messages are now done.
Further translation and creation of pages in the Wikivoyage: namespace (Namespace index).
We will try to create a new "Travel destination of the month" each month, and to do it as a joint effort.

Focus during the next month

Further work on the Wikivoyage: namespace pages - without them, we have no guidelines. Also, new contributors like to come to a site where they can plunge forward and edit, but find useful information when they need to. The WIkitravel: pages are meant to do that.
Further work on articles that may become "travel destination of the month".
Perhaps someone can undertake articles about transport systems or other travel-related issues? We hope for a keen project manager to show up.
Further work on the RDFication of sv:

Special issues

The number of saboteurs have increased. This is probably due to the extremely high internet penetration in Sweden, which gives young people access to the internet in school, through their mobile phones and at home. We have checked a number of IP addresses and the source of the sabotage is almost always various school networks. We have created a policy sv:Project:Abuse which guides the administrators through the process of contacting the network administrators of a sabotage source network.
Should there not be at least one swedish-speaking bureaucrat, i e an administrator with the possibility of upgrading swedish users to admins?
The message waiting notification, MWN, is still a crucial point (yes, I know, we nag!). We do have some anonymous contributors, but it is hard for us to advise them how to do things, and above all, it is hard to make them register since they do not see our welcome...they simply do not read their talk pages because they do not know they have a talk page, nor that they have a message. The issue with MWN is important also for reaching and warning saboteurs. However, rumour has that it's on its way - and we are really happy and excited about it!!
RDF cannot handle the swedish letters Å, Ä and Ö. This needs to be fixed so we can continue to RDFicate the site. It is not a big problem yet though.

Conclusion

At the moment, it is rather difficult. We have few contributors and the inflow of new ones has not been what we had hoped for. The amount of work that needs to be put in by the few active editors sometimes feels much too substantial. We know that if we continue to build the site, new contributors will come. However, we have a strong competitor in swedish Wikipedia (even if it technically isn't a competitor) which attracts the few wiki-crazy people we have in Sweden.

Comments

Your (en:) comments here, please!

The easy way to get Wikipedians to join in is to add Wikivoyage links to all destinations on sv.wikipedia. Also consider publicizing the site on newsgroups, any appropriate forums, etc. (WT-en) Jpatokal 07:08, 23 February 2006 (EST)