Comparisons of two Three Kingdoms: The Three Visits sets - Chinese (Decool 20502) vs Korean (Oxford TK-3712) [Piotrus Brick Reviews #4]

 Hello guys,

So, a few weeks after I completed Oxford's TK-3712, as I have been getting more and more into modern bricks, including non-Lego brands, I discovered a similar set from Decool (20502). As someone in my neighborhood was selling theirs cheaply (20 bucks), I picked it up, and now I can show you how they compare.

This is my fourth brick set review. For the previous ones, see:

* 1 Oxford ZB-3673 Zombie Chase

* 2 Oxford ZB-3672 Zombie Police Bureau Attack

* 3 Oxford TK-3712 Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Three Visits

For photos, see https://www.reddit.com/r/buildingblocks/comments/1gekhhm/comparisons_of_two_three_kingdoms_the_three/ - I couldn't post this review in the comments as I intended due to some server error.

Set review:

TL;DR: Both are very nice. I think DeCool might be slightly better than Oxford, but they are both solid.

Set information:

Decool:

• Company: Decool, China
• Set brick count: 690
• Set manufacturer price: Decool website lists it at 59.20$, and out of stock, but it seems the set is still relatively widely available and at about half of that price.
• Set name: 三国小侠：三顾茅庐 . The official English name of this seems to be "Three Kingdoms Heroes-Three Visiting Thatched Cottage" although there is also a picture with "Courage of Three Kingdoms: Make Three Calls At The Thatched Cottage". Leaving the Engrish aside, this is a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Visits , an event from the history of China. Read Wikipedia article for more if you want to know, it's about a meeting of some historical characters, represented here by minifigs.
• Set code: 20502
• Release year: 2020
• Set official page at the manufacturer: https://decool.toysol.com/En/ProductShow-224089.aspx
• Additional links: http://brick4.com/set/20081/Three-Visits-to-the-Hut (includes a link to a Chinese review with more photos), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Te_1BqV2g&t=1s (seems like an official add with a speedbuild), manual (tnx guys): https://www.reddit.com/r/lepin/comments/1gdzv8n/where_can_i_find_decool_20502_instructions/

Oxford:

• Company: Oxford Bricks, South Korea. Read about them on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_(toy_company)
• Set brick count: 517
• Set manufacturer price: 56,000 KRW = ~42 USD as of the time I am writing that. The set is relatively new, so there are still good deals (good discounts) out there (at least on Korean net; I got mine for 33k KRW). Note that a lego set of comparable size, according to ChatGPT, would cost usually around 50-80 USD.
• Set name: 삼고초려. Note: the set does not have an official English name, but that pretty much translates similarly to the Chinese set and is about the same event.
• Set code: TK-3712
• Release year: 2024 (estimated, could be 2023)
• Set official page at the manufacturer: http://oxfordtoy.co.kr/pro/detailox.asp?m_code=20291&p_code=10
• Additional links: http://brick4.com/set/41981/-

Note that this review will be about the Chinese Decool set and how it compares to the (newer) Oxford set, which seems to be a reimagined/redesigned version of Decool set (both have many similar elements, from overall layout to major components - a building, a bridge, a waterfall; and both have nearly identical minifigs). For the review of the Oxford set, check my dedicated review linked above. Also, I got Decool set second-hand, mostly built. I just needed to assemble the trees and fix a few minor elements that fell apart.

The comparison:

• Theme: The Asian design and feel of both sets is a novelty, at least for me, with my prior experience limited to medieval Lego. (Yeah, I say it in every review, b/c I have been reviewing those Asian sets, lol). Verdict: both sets win :)
• Price and size: Both sets have very comparable price points (both official and on a secondary market), so Decool with 690 bricks > Oxford's 517. Verdict: Decool wins (but both are still much cheaper than a Lego set of comparable size)
• Overall design:
  • Decool set has darker colors than the newer Oxford set which feels more vibrant; both look quite nice, and I think it is hard to pick a winner based on the color palette (it's subjective).
  • Interestingly, despite Decool having ~20% more pieces, it doesn't look bigger; if anything, it looks smaller - perhaps because it mos more squarish, whereas Oxford set is more of a long rectangle. Decool set is a bit taller, because of its base and design. ,Again, neither looks better to me, although maybe taller is more impressive in most cases?
  • For buildings, Decool gives us an Asian style gazebo, and Oxford, an Asian style hut. Both are nice, stylish, and similar in size. It is hard to chose the winner here; in fact, I'd say they complement one another (one day I might try to MoC and merge them both into a larger diorama...). Decool's table does come with a banana and a cherry, as well as the teapot, whereas the hut has no props (just a bed inside), so Decool might be a bit superior here, if we count the details - but you could counter the hut stylish door frames compensate for that. Either way, both are nice pieces.
  • For the trees, again they are very comparable. Decool went with two medium sized trees on the waterfall, Oxford gives one large and one tiny tree. They have different colors, but frankly, I can't pick a favorite here. However, Decool can pull ahead if we count in the props - here, two birds. Oxford set has props fo the trees.
  • The waterfall is where I can finally say that Decool original design seems superior to Oxford's. Not only it is a bit larger, which could be overlooked, but its water part is made from three different colors (light blue, dark blue and transparent) vs only a single color in the Oxford design. Here, I call Decool the clear winner.
  • The bridges in themselves are similar - Decool is shorter, but has more decorations. But if we add in the gate, with Chinese lanterns, then Decool wins, since Oxford has no counterpart for that.
  • Gardens are a tough call. Decool is more traditional, with a highlight of props, here - two rabbits. Other than that, it's just two types of plants. Oxford has bushes, a small tree/branch, and a cool looking bamboo garden. It's a tough call - rabits vs bamboo? I think that's a tie, for me at least.
• Minifigs: Perhaps this is because the Decool set is older (2020) than the Oxford one (2024?), but since both are using Decool minis, I could compare them (see photos), and Decool older minis are slightly inferior. The primary difference is that the old minifigs have only one facial expression (front), but the newer ones come with two (front and back). You can see them in photos (one expression is identical for both). Other differences are pretty much aesthetic. Now, this is "bad" only by comparison, the minifigs in the older (original) set are still very nice. However, Decool comes with 5 vs Oxford's 4. The extra fig, however, seems to be not a historical character but just some worker/helper? That said, it is still an extra nice minifig. Verdict: Decool wins, if slightly (one extra mining vs no double facial expressions; your mileage may vary if you value double expressions over an extra minifig...)
• Decool has instructions available online. I have not been able to find them for Korean (Oxford) sets (brick4 links to Oxford search or manuals page but as far I can tell it does not seem to contain TK3712). Verdict: Decool wins
• Pieces quality: keeping in mind I only build a small part of Decool set, I did not notice any significant issues with the bricks, everything fits nicely. But maybe Decool is not using the same plastic for all pieces, but their branch (green parts of the tree) bricks feel softer and are more malleable than Lego (and Oxford). Can't say it is bad, but it is different. Other pieces feel normal. Verdict: ok quality for both sets
• Side note: Decool set is apparently modular to its related set http://brick4.com/set/20082/Oath-of-the-Peach-Garden . Oxford has no such counterpart (yet?).

So what's the overall verfict? I have to say Decool wins, slightly, because at effectively the same price, it comes with +20% bricks and an extra minifigs. Its waterfall looks better, and the four animal props are cute too.

But if you have a hard time choosing, why not get them both and combine into one - and you can get some of your expenses back by reselling the extra minifigs :)

The Red Poppies on Monte Cassino

A while ago I 've written a Wikipedia article about one of the most popular Polish World War II-era songs. Working with another Wikipedian (Nihil Novi), we translated the lyrics into English in 2008.

Polish lyrics are by Alfred Schütz (d. 1999). They may still be copyrighted (although they are available on numerous webpages, books, YouTube vidoes, and so on). The translation below is available in few places, and won't be available on Wikipedia due to possible copyright issues. As I felt bad about this work disappearing from our cultural repository, I am sharing it here. It may go down if I ever get a cease-and-desist letter from the Schütz estate... but let's hope it won't happen

(As with most copyrighted works, it is next to impossible to figure out who owns the copyright, and if there is such a thing as"Schütz estate" at all... sigh).


Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino
The Red Poppies on Monte Cassino 

In Polish	In English
Czy widzisz te gruzy na szczycie?	Do you see the rubble at the top?
Tam wróg twój się kryje jak szczur!	There, like a rat, lurks your foe!
Musicie, musicie, musicie!	You musn't stop, you musn't stop
Za kark wziąć i strącić go z chmur!	But from the clouds the enemy throw!
I poszli szaleni, zażarci,	And so, onward and upward they went;
I poszli zabijać i mścić,	They went to avenge and to kill,
I poszli jak zawsze uparci,	On the enemy's destruction, bent;
Jak zawsze za honor się bić.	To their honor they harnessed their will.
Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino	The red poppies on Monte Cassino
Zamiast rosy piły polską krew...	Drank Polish blood instead of dew...
Po tych makach szedł żołnierz i ginął,	O'er the poppies the soldiers did go
Lecz od śmierci silniejszy był gniew!	'Mid death, and to their anger stayed true!
Przejdą lata i wieki przeminą,	Years will come and ages will go,
Pozostaną ślady dawnych dni!..	Enshrining their strivings and their toil!...
I tylko maki na Monte Cassino	And the poppies on Monte Cassino
Czerwieńsze będą, bo z polskiej wzrosną krwi.	Will be redder for Poles' blood in their soil.
Runęli przez ogień, straceńcy!	The forlorn hope charged through the fire!
Niejeden z nich dostał i padł...	More than one was struck and felled...
Jak ci z Samosierry szaleńcy,	Yet like the horsemen at Samosierra,
Jak ci spod Rokitny, sprzed lat.	They charged with a force unrepelled,
Runęli impetem szalonym	Like those at Rokitna years ago.
I doszli. I udał się szturm.	And they made it, and carried the day.
I sztandar swój biało-czerwony	And they planted their red-and-white flag
Zatknęli na gruzach wśród chmur.	In the rubble amid the clouds.
Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino...	The red poppies on Monte Cassino...
Czy widzisz ten rząd białych krzyży?	Do you see the white crosses in a row?
To Polak z honorem brał ślub.	That's where the Poles pledged their all.
Idź naprzód - im dalej, im wyżej,	The farther, the higher you go,
Tym więcej ich znajdziesz u stóp.	The more you'll find them fall.
Ta ziemia do Polski należy,	This soil belongs to Poland,
Choć Polska daleko jest stąd,	Though Poland be far from here,
Bo wolność krzyżami się mierzy -	For 'tis crosses measure freedom's span —
Historia ten jeden ma błąd.	That is history's lesson dear.
Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino...	The red poppies on Monte Cassino...
Ćwierc wieku, koledzy, za nami,	A quarter-century has passed,
Bitewny ulotnił się pył	The dusts of battle no longer rise,
I klasztor białymi murami	And the monastery's walls at last
Na nowo do nieba się wzbił...	Once again climb, white, to the skies...
Lecz pamięć tych nocy upiornych	But memory of those nights terrible
I krwi, co przelała się tu -	And of the blood that once flowed here —
Odzywa się w dzwonach klasztornych,	Echoes in the monastery bells
Grających poległym do snu...!	That toll the fallen to sleep!...

Titles, good intentions, (unintentional?) censorship, sci-fi, ]oh my.

I initially attempted to post this as a comment to a blog. After two days and numerous attempts, I am giving up. Either the blog owner(s) are censoring my comment, or there is some weird technical snafu.

Response to  World SF 2011 Retrospective Part 1

I appreciate Kaz's and this blog's attempt to cover Polish market, but if you are going to do something, please, do it properly, or don't mislead the reader with a title that suggests a comprehensive overview ("a recap on Poland", "Overview of recent Polish science-fiction"). State your intentions or biases clearly up front in the blog ("this blog entry will cover some recent releases on the Polish market, with the focus on female writers, and with a disclaimer that the author does not read Polish and relies on secondary sources"). Otherwise, one's good intentions may backfire, as shown by the blog comments, where numerous readers comment in similar vain as I. In fact, I came to that blog through a Polish premier sci-fi and fantasy magazine (Nowa Fantastyka), which commented on Facebook about that blogpost, curtly (and roughly translated) as: "a person who knows little of Polish sci-fi and fantasy is writing weird things about it".

As several others have said, if you want to have a good overview of a specific non-English market, get somebody who reads that language. And if you cannot, then pretty please, don't mislead the readers with claims that you'll do something (comprehensive overview) when this is not your intention (and/or ability, due to lack of literacy in a given language).

Overall, I think that it is a great that somebody is trying to provide the English-speakers with some information on the rich happenings in the rest of the world. I hope that the The World SF Blog keeps trying. It is human to err, after all - but those that don't try, at least, will never succeed.

On a sidenote, any overview o Polish 2011 should wait for the results of various 2011 award ceremonies, most notably, the Zajdel Award. Readers interested in the overview of Polish sci-fi and fantasy up to about 2005 may also want to check the Wikipedia article on the subject. This article could use an update for the last few years (hint!).

Make a backup and restore from it on N900 (Maemo)

Note: this is an instruction for N900 (Maemo) users who are not very familiar with Linux. If you live and breathe Linux, go to Maemo wiki page on Manual backup and restore instead.

Recently, my N900 developed a severe case of USB port failure, which required me to send it in for repairs (luckily, it was still covered by the 1-year producer warranty). Annoyingly enough, Nokia as part of its privacy-protection policy will erase all your data (presumably reformatting/reflashing your phone, or whatever is the correct term for what they do to smartphones there...). And no, you cannot opt out of this :( Kind of makes me curious - what guarantee do I have that Nokia techs will not snoop around my phone all they want anyway before they clean the data? But I digress.

Unfortunately, there is no good guide to making backups (or restoring from them). The manual  has a brief and decent information on creating or restoring from a backup (p.102-103, see also p.111); it however assumes your backup will be on phone's drive or a microSD card, which is not always the case, and forgets some crucial details (such as the importance of the file structure - more on that later). Maemo wiki pages (Manual backup and restore and what I presume is the page about the backup app) are, as usual, written in the higher geek, which may be fine if you know your way around Linux. For non-Linux users like myself, they are (as almost everything on Maemo wiki), pretty useless :( I found only one page online with a partial guide and some screenshots... hence, I decided to write this one.

It took me a while, but I was able to master the N900/Maemo backup/restore, and I even figured out how to do so with a faulty usb cable, no microSD, no wireless or Internet connection. Even in the perfect situation, with no hardware failures, backup/restore is not very userfriendly - I certainly wouldn't expect my parents to be able to do it.

So, to save you all some time, here's my guide to back and restore with N900.

1. How to access the default back-up application (in high geek the app seems to be called osso-backup, not that I can find that name in the application GUI...):

1.1 Access menu (top left, the symbol below - but if you don't recognize it, really, how long did you have the phone?):

1.2.Scroll down to the backup application, open it.

Here are the three applications useful for backup operations.

2. How to make a backup (using the default app mentioned above).

2.1 Click on New backup button in the bottom left, the procedure is fairly simple. On the first screen, you name your backup and select whether the backup's location is your phone's harddrive or a microSD card (if you have one in your phone); on the second you can (de)select stuff to backup (but why would you...?) and once you click select button, the backup will proceed. It should take about a minute or so.

The backups will be saved in the "backups" folder in the whatever passes as the top-level (root) directory (for Maemo's default File Manager and my Windows Total Commander when it accesses Maemo; note that there is some weird Linux hidden structure that you can access with other apps, like Mindnight Commander; I find it confusing as heck...). Whatever you chose as the name of your backup will be the name of the relevant subfolder in the "backups" folder (so, if you named your backup "backup december", you'll find the "backup december" subfolder in the "backups" folder). Simple, right?

 This is the backup app main menu. Pretty self-explanatory, no options are hidden at the top or are "right-clickable" anywhere, as far as I can tell.

Note that based on the screen above, you'd expect to find a "backups" folder in the root directory, and within it, two folders: "Backup test" and "Backup december."

2.1.1 As the backup app itself notes, it will back up Communications and Calendar, Bookmarks, Settings, Application list. What it means is that it will not backup anything else, such as: Application settings, your documents, photos, music files, and such. If you want to back them up, you'll have to manually copy them to wherever you keep your back-ups (and I strongly suggest you keep them somewhere outside your phone, like on your computer harddrive).

2.1.1.1 Now if your USB cable is working, you can transfer the backup folder to your computer. I suggest you transfer the entire "backups" folder, because you'll need it for restoring (it is not created by default after a fresh install...).

2.1.1.2 How to copy that stuff? Assuming you have a working USB cable, I use Total Commander on Windows. Your platform and soft may vary (although for Windows, I do believe TC is "the best" file management tool there is...), but you should be able to access N900 and copy files over just like you'd do with any removable drive

2.2 Note that if your N900 is connected to something (your comp, presumably) by a USB, and that device can access files on your smartphone, the backup application will not work, it will complain about "USB cable connected." If you are just charging, it should still be ok, but if you connected in the mass storage or pc suite mode, it won't.

2.3 If you have a microSD card, after you click the new backup option, the backup app on the screen where you name your backup will have a choice of where you want to save your backup (location: your_device or external_memory_card). You can also copy the "backups" folder between those locations manually. If the proper file structure was preserved - as in "backups/your backup name" is in the card's root directory), the backup app will see them.

Frankly, unless you find  yourself in the unlikely situation with broken USB port, no Internet/wireless and an urgent need to make the backup before your device fails completely, skip the 2.4 and go to 3 (restore) section.

2.4 If you want to use Bluetooth, don't - unless it is your last resort. It is much more painful than using the device drive/copy over the USB method (preferred) or the microSD; I had to do so because I found myself with a device with a broken USB port, no microSD (I should've just bought one...), no wireless or Internet connection. If so do you:

2.4.1 Make the backup on device harddrive as instructed above.

2.4.2 Establish a Bluetooth connection between N900 and the device (your comp) you want to transfer files over. This is the part I find very annoying, I was following the manual / guides on both devices, yet it took ages before they saw one another. I have no desire to waste hours of my life trying to replicate it, plus even if I did, it would only cover Windows XP on one end. If you know any good guides to N900 Bluetooth, post them in the comments.

2.4.3 Once you have a Bluetooth connection between your platforms, use the phone's File Manager to transfer files. Annoyingly, it cannot transfer folders, fortunately, you'll only have to transfer six files. Start the File Manager, click on your N900 (or the microSD if this is where you saved the backup), go to "backups" folder, go to your folder, click on each file, chose share, chose Bluetooth. On your target device, don't forget to copy the files to the "backups/name of the backup" structure properly. Note that File Manager, just like the backup app, will not work if another device can access the smartphone's file structure (which shouldn't be the case if you have restored to using Bluetooth, but keep that in mind for some weird occasions).

To use File Manager Bluetooth transfer, "right click" on the file, chose Share, and this menu will appear.

2.4.3.1 Alternatively, you may be able to use some better file manager on your computer to access N900. I think I was able to use something on XP, but I am not sure (it was a month or so ago). If you cannot, use the File Manager option I discuss above.

2.5 Come to think of it, you could probably use an email to send the files, or share them through a website, FTP or in some other ways. As when I was doing my backup I had no Internet connection or even wireless, those where not an option for me.

3. How to restore (using the default app).

3.1 Select backup to restore (highlight it), click restore. Keep in mind that the backup has to be in the proper file structure ("backups/your backup name") for the backup up to see it. The backup app can find them on N900 harddrive or the microSD. Note that a fresh install will not have a "backups" folder, so if you just copied the "your backup name" folder, you'll have to recreate the "backups" folder in the phone's root directory (or on the microSD card). This caused me some grief as I did not realize the importance of the "backups" folder early on, and I spend a while researching things on the net trying to figure out what to do with those files, before I realized (myself, no help to the net) that I need to recreate the backup folder structure in the phone's root directory... on the bright side, this folder is just a name, nothing special (but keep in mind it is a lowercase "backups", not "Backups").

This will NOT restore your applications, to do so you need to go to Application Manager, and from the top menu, chose Restore applications. This will give you a list of the applications you can restore, based on your backup file, all checked by default. Uncheck those you don't want, proceed to the installation (make sure your device is plugged in, this will drain the battery quickly). This may take a while, check the device periodically to click through some license/warning screens. I ended up redownloading and installing 300mb content in an hour period.

 To restore applications, go to Application Manager, click the Application manager pull down menu at the top, and you'll see the following three options. Chose Restore applications, obviously.

Of course, this will not restore stuff not backed up (documents, music files, etc.). Copy those over manually (if you have backed them up manually before).

If you have some problems, try to ensure you have no more than one backup to restore from (I am not sure how the app handles multiple backups). And it seems to give me grief when I try to restore applications for the second time ("operation failed" trying to generate an app list), so make sure you select what you want properly the first time (or you may have to install them manually one by one later).

I hear there are other backup applications out there. Links to any how-to-use guides and reviews there will be certainly appreciated.

Oh, and for a while now I've been thinking that I should post a review of N900... we will see :)

Preeliminary survey results of ICT use by social movements worldwide - snippet

So I am in the depths of analysis, but here's a short set of interesting numbers I just compiled. I was looking at member age ranges by sampling frame, here's the percentage of organizations with young membership (18-30 as percentage of total number of organizations in that frame...

ALL    21.84%
PITTSBURGH-BASED    14.29%
GLOBAL   16.34%
POLAND-BASED    26.43%
INNOVATIVE*   37.04%

*INNOVATIVE - my snowballing sampling scheme, based on surveying the movements/organizations whose webpages revealed significant Web 2.0 knowledge.



It appears that innovative organizations have the youngest membership; followed by Polish in the middle, and at the other end, we have the global/Pittsburgh organizations.

Now, here are the same stats for the oldest membership (over 50):

ALL    11.21%
PITT    10.71%
GLOB    16.99%
PL    5.71%
IN    7.41%

Global organizations have the older membership, but Polish ones are again an interesting outlier, having an even smaller number of old-membership organizations than the Innovative group. I wonder if this is because older generation in Poland has no tradition of activism?

So, as expected, we can talk about young members using new tools more often, but the Polish data does make for another interesting and unexpected story

I am now compiling the data, expect more in the coming months. I hope to be able to give you full analysis coming Spring.

Briding of global digital divide

I was looking at some archival stats on Internet usage.

Compare the Top 10 Internet languages in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and the latest (Dec 2009 for me, your mileage may vary as that link is dynamic).

Look at the 2004 numbers: it is very much the core, developed, First world, China aside.

Still, its pitiful penetration numbers aside... what was (is?) wrong with France, Spain and Portugal? Their penetration numbers are China-like (~10%), whereas the rest of Europea was around 50%.

Now, look at 2010. In addition to China, whose penetration number have improved greatly (from 2004's 8% to 29.7%), note the inclusion of Arabic (17.5%) and Russian (32.3%). 

Oh, don't get confused with langauges and countries. I was for a moment shocked with low penetration numbers for French, Spanish and Portugal, but remember - those languages are spoken in many periphery, developing, Third World countries in Africa and Latin & South America- thus the pitiful results (here are EU stats, and here is a breakdown for Spanish language, for example).

One of the most interesting numbers, for me, is the diminishing percentage of English-speakers as the % of Internet users - from 35.9% in 2004 to 30.1% in 2009.

And how about tripling of Internet users totals in non-Top 10 languages (from 100m to 300m), or nearly doubling of Internet users totals (from 800m to 1,400m) in that period?

Around 2006 the stat site started to report "Internet Growth for Language (since 2000)". For 2006, it was 128% for English, 346% for Chinese, 436% for non-Top 10 languages, and 189% for all languages. In 2007, Arabic enters the chart, with 940% growth (!). For 2009 we have 251.7% for English, 1162% for Chines, 2297% for Arabic, 525% for non-Top-10 languages and 400% for the world.

Global digital divide still exists, no doubt about that.  But it is being bridged, as the rest of the world is catching up. 'bout time...

PS. Here's an interesting take on this from The Economist.

Abdication of Jimbo

Well, maybe not a total abdication, but Jimbo has relinquished a substantial portions of his powers. See his announcement and the context.

In an upcoming academic article I discuss why calling Wikipedia a monarchy/dictatorship, while not too off the mark in its very early stages, is no longer true. It's nice not to be contradicted by the current events :)

Preeliminary survey results of ICT use by social movements worldwide

The first results of my global survey are here. So, what are the numbers? See them on Google Docs.

Those are very early results, and I am hoping to increase the response rate significantly (as in: from ~5% to at least 15-30%). A more international response would be nice, too, although it is inevitable that a Western/English bias will appear (English hegemony of the Internet, etc.).

The results linked above combine results from my local and current global survey, for a net total of 62 responses. For results from the first, local survey (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) only, see here.

Once I get enough responses from the global survey, I will post another update here.

The survey is still ongoing (and likely will be for a few more months). If you would like to take it, and did not receive an @ from me with the invitation to it, you can use this generic link to access the survey.

Another Big Cyc protest song translated: Dictator

Some time ago I translated into English the Mówi Bagdad (Baghdad Speaking) protest song by Big Cyc. Now, I did it for the Dyktator (Dictator) song.

Source of Polish lyrics: link

The music video clip, on youtube, till it is taken down:



This the Polish version. There is also a Belorussian, which I once saw on youtube, but I think it was already taken down :(

Translation:

I know a tyrant with a black moustache
Who likes sports very much
He plays hockey and basketball
Sometimes he goes to a tennis court
Puts a shot at opposition
In Duma he sneaks like a cat
He values light atlhetics
Because he loves the sickle and the hammer

refrain:
Lukashenko - concrete, hammer, wall, dres
Lukashenko - Brezhnev, Stalin, Pinochet

He knows the secrets of economy
Best student of the kolkhoz schools
He doesn't like to read the papers
He hates the word "BISON"
You can be beaten to a pulp
If you sing like I do
Freedom in a police state
Dicatorship in the shadows of the bars

refrain x 2

Civil disobedience 1: Chihuly's photos on Commons

For a while now I wanted to showcase some interesting images deleted from Wikimedia Commons due to copyright paranoia. For those unfamiliar with our modern copyright laws, not only a lot of photos on the net are copyrighted and you cannot reuse them - but a lot of objects CANNOT BE LEGALLY PHOTOGRAPHED. For example, almost the entirety of modern art, even if it is on public display, cannot be photographed.

First case:

1) Three photos of mine of a decorative sculpture in the foyer of Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh, US.

Photos:





Commons deletion discussion: here

Summary: modern art is copyrighted by artists (in this case, Dale Chihuly), that includes photos of it. There is no freedom of panorama in United States. This means that you cannot take pictures of Mr. Chihuly's works and share them with others, no matter how much you'd like to advertise his wonderful creations.

Outcome: photos will be deleted from Commons collection, which will entitle their removal from various articles, such as on Mr. Chihuly and Phipps Conservatory. Note how the copyright that is supposedly protecting the artists is in fact hurting them, in this case limiting the informative content of the primary reference work about them.

Current use examples:





Expect them to disappear soon.

Solution: wait 70 after Mr. Chihuly's death (unless copyright is retroactively extended, again...). Or contact him and ask for permission (assuming he is still the copyright holder and haven't sold the rights to that particular sculpture to the Gardens). Unfortunately, this is quite time consuming, and few Wikimedia volunteers take care of that, when so many other tasks need doing. I have done it myself a few times in the past, and on occasion managed to save an image or two, but it is a time consuming task (communicating with real person, with no guarantee they'll bother to reply, and then having to convince them to give permission to release the photos under a free license - which is likely a concept they've never heard of - and then have fun explaining why Wikimedia needs the commercial-use-allowed one... (because our ethics requires we explain to them what the free license we need entitles in detail...)). Compared to that, categorizing some images or translating descriptions is so much easier... sigh.

So Mr. Chihuly's article on Wikipedia will soon be gutted of all images of his works. Feel free to tell me how this benefits him :)

Note: This blog post is by no means intended as a jibe against Mr. Chihuly (who is almost certainly unaware of how the law is "protecting him"), nor against Wikimedia Commons (which being a non-profit organization on a donation budget cannot really risk being sued by somebody, with all the costs it incurs). It is however intended a a jibe against the current copyright system, showing how it is hurting all of us - artists and the public, both of which it claims to protect.

In the coming months, I intend on covering other media deletions from Commons (and maybe a few examples of when images were saved). Stay tuned,

Preeliminary survey results of ICT use by social movements in Pittsburgh - update

A month ago I released the preliminary results with ~10% response rate and promised that I'll release new results when we cross magical numbers of ~20% and (target) ~30%. Now we are midway at ~20% and hence I'd like to update you the new insights gained from the survey.

Before I go into the numbers, first, an interesting observation that comes from some interviews / phone conversations I recently had with some of the respondents. Many do not consider their organization a part of a "social movement" - yet at the same time they are happy to be listed as a group for "social justice and change" on TMC website. This shows that there is an interesting difference between academic (ivory tower...) definition of what a social movement is, and what an average person (activist...) thinks of it. Plus, from the academic perspective, there is the problem of blurry boundaries - some organizations may be seen as not part of the movement itself, but rather, of the allied "movement community", which can be best understood as the attitude "we are not activists, but we broadly support them". And since in real life it is often difficult to distinguish where the movement stops and the community begins, it is understandable that my survey will reach both spectrums - which I think is fine, as community organizations are no less important (if less showcased) than the movement ones. So if you are not sure if your organization is part of the movement, you can rest assured that as long as you are fine with being listed on TMC list, you are part of the larger community that I am interested in :)

Now, back to business. With the response rate doubling, what has changed?
* a few newer organizations have replied (out of 19 respondents, 3 are in the "our organization is 2 years or younger group", and 16 are in "our organization is 5 years or older group")
* as for areas of focus, environment (9 respondents), health (7) and community and social services (7) are still among the most popular, but have been joined by education (7) and human rights (7).
* so what's unimportant? Culture (4), intellectual property / free culture (6), Internet / network neutrality / digital divide (6) and religion (4) were all selected but ranked only in the third tier ("Least important" - but still important enough to be ranked as third), and
economy / promoting business / labor / trade and commerce (6) is in the middle tier
* ~75% of organizations indicate they have non-members (supporters) who participate in their organization activities, about half have non-members who recruit others for the organization
* at this point, for every new innovative technology I suggest (from blogs through video-sharing sites, wikis to Twitter) there are respondents who indicate their organization finds it useful for something.

For the results to be considered reliable for academic research, a responce ratio of 30% is needed (which translates in ~10 more people taking the survey). Hopefully, in about a month, I'll be able to report that the local survey is done, and move on to my second stage - the international survey.

It is my hope that once the results are fully analyzed, you'll be able to look at what your peers are doing, and thus find some helpful solutions and strategies to benefit your organization.

Thanks to all that took the survey, and to those that will take it - a few minutes of your time greatly contributes to our understanding of how organizations desiring social change are using the tools of the Digital Age.

Teaching with wikis and Wikipedia

Recently I run into an excellent quote:

... the future of communication and an informed citizenry will depend increasingly on the Internet rather than on television or the print media. That doesn't mean we should stop teaching the traditional essay and research paper, but it does mean we need to teach students to work in other genres, such as writing for blogs and wikis, creating podcasts and PowerPoint presentations, and participating in social-networking sites. They need to be comfortable in a variety of online environments, understand Web etiquette, know how to protect their privacy and respect the privacy of others, and learn how to evaluate various sources of information.

-- William Pannapacker, associate professor of English at Hope College, "On Stupidity, Part 2: Exactly how should we teach the 'digital natives'?", The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 5, 2008

Hear, hear.

Personally, I see no reason not to assign Wikipedia articles as assignments, and many reasons to do so. Students improve their digital literacy, learn about the site they use so often (and why indeed it can be sometimes unreliable), have something to show for their hard work (a digital artifact, useful to others, instead of a paper that's going to the next trash bin as soon as the course has ended), Wikipedia gets some nice content and the teachers can get help from Wikipedia volunteers (for example, when I am grading students articles, I am also aided by advice from Wikipedia content reviwers). It's a win-win-win situation for everyone :)

Sometime in the near future I want to write a follow-up to my first academic article, Teaching with wikis and Wikipedia. Three years down the road, I am happy to say that most of what I wrote than is still useful - but some updates are needed.

Crucial things I have learned could be summarized as follow: students are lazy, and need motivating. Carrots will only work for a few - you need sticks as well. Hence in the wiki assignment, which depends on students contributing to it regularly, you need graded deadlines to avoid a relatively common phenomena where most students ignore the assignment till the last few weeks/days.

Overall, teaching with Wikipedia has been an enjoyable experience, not only to me but also to other Wikipedia editors - and to the students themselves (at least those who were sufficiently motivated to try to learn something). My last class, despite having just one month and a half, managed to expand three (out of six assigned) articles into Good Articles - and that did exceed my expectations. Now I wonder if the new class, lasting 4 months, will be able to do this to all assigned articles, and if they succeed, I am thinking about replicating the great achievement of the MMM project, and aiming to have the students write Featured Class articles.

On the subject of initiatives related to teaching with Wikipeida, it is worth to check out:
* the Wikipedia Educator's Guide
* the Best practices in assigning Wikipedia articles as coursework to students
and of course
* the Wikipedia:School and university projects

A gift for my friends in social movements

With the G20 coming to Pittsburgh, a lot of my friends and colleagues involved in social movements are having the time of their lives :)

I thought they deserve a break - hence here's an anti-Iraq war song by Big Cyc, a popular Polish anti-establishment rock band, Mówi Bagdad (Baghdad Speaking). (For better or worse, Poland had one of the largest and longest staying contingent of troops in Iraq)

Please note that youtube is likely to remove this video as a copyvio - I am confident that a search for the song title will yield a reupload somewhere (I wonder what Big Cyc members think about that... I send them an email some time ago asking for some freely licensed materials for their article on Wikipedia but they never replied :( ).

I found Engrish (Pogrish...?) words for the song at some blog. Here's a version that's at least free from major grammatical errors:

Big Cyc - Baghdad Speaking

Janek is going to Baghdad — wants to fight
Young wife will in Poland — proudly lives
Muslims want to — wipe out the infidels
Blood and sweat pour on dry sand

Polish Army pays poorly — everyone knows
Smuggling can pad it up — it’s ok
Again a bomb in Tikrit — shadow of death
Suicide terrorist with dynamite — began the day

Salamu, salamu, salamu alaykum
As-salamu, salamu, salamu,

You can hear silent bullets pass over helmets
Screams of torn people — children’s squeal
Polish soldier has character — tough guy
He doesn't know what he fought for all year long

Janek returns to Warsaw — human wreck
Without money, wife and fame — something wrong
Mr. Minister loudly praises — all is fine
Although they didn’t read Koran — they want to fight

Salamu…

Organizational intertia

At a recent large academic conference, my paper, for some reason, was given a wrong name. When I asked for it to be correct, I was told that the print program was out, so they could only offer a correction in the form of a leaflet inserted into the program - reasonable. But when I asked them to correct the entry in an online schedule listing, I was told that "since the online program is intended to resemble the final program we cannot make the change there either".

?!!

One would think that the very purpose of an online program is to be a better version of the printed one, particularly, one that can be easily changed to reflect changes to schedule... but as we can see from the above, some people still cannot adjust to the realities of the cyberspace (which is ironic because my paper is on an Internet-related subject :D).

Oh well. Being a lowly grad student I know better than to try to reform a major (academic) institution myself. Been there, tried, failed :)

Youth today... and the future

So I had my final lecture today (teaching university undergrads about "sociology of the family") in the summer class I was teaching, and as usual in my classes, the final lecture looks at the future. We watched a video of Kurzweil, and had a discussion about things like genetic engineering, life expectancy, aging society, the Internet and so on. At one point, however, I was shocked: vast majority of the students seemed very opposed to the idea of immortality (which is increasingly becoming a serious possibility according to some scientists).

Interestingly, theirs were not the arguments I was used to hearing in the past ("it's not natural/it's against the religion/etc."). No, this bunch was rather... very, very pessimistic. They talked about boredom ("why would you want to leave forever? you'll just keep seeing more human misery"), about how the future will be scary (citing sci-fi antiutopias - Huxley, Wells, etc.), about how we have to deal with overpopulation and scarce resources and how immortality is unsustainable, and they even considered (and roughly supported) the idea that the government should make it illegal for people to achieve immortality (!).

I haven't held enough discussions on this subject to know if this group represents an outlier, or is there some current of pessimism about the future that is surfacing about the modern youth?

Being a singularitarian optimist myself I found their pessimism unsettling. Not to want to see the wonders of the future, not to want to live one life's fully... that's what *I* find scary.

Comparing Wikipedia to Second Life (popularity contest)

I recently found that a Wikipedia-related presentation of mine in a sociological conference (ASA in SF - let me know if anybody else is going there) got shifted to a Second Life track (it was supposed to be about online communities in general, but mysterious are the ways of conference and panel organizers).

So I thought I should at least pay a token attention to SL, and I thought about a brief numerical comparison. It is possible to consider the number of total registered accounts (en-Wiki 2009: ~10 mil, other Wikimedia Foundation projects 2009: ~10 mil, Second Life 2008: ~15 mil) but I run into a problem trying to get a wiki-equivalent of "average/highest number of active editors" (SL in early 2008: ~40,000 - but that's just for people logged in, doesn't say anything about their activity - one can leave a SL client running in the background... just like one can be logged in to Wikipedia for weeks).
What about Wiki? After some thought and discussion and a useful tool that was designed I begun compiling some stats based on a number of unique editors listed at RC page. There is still not enough data to see a clear trend, but numbers seem roughly consistent at about 800 registered users / 400 ips editing en-Wikipedia per hour and 90/30 per 5 minute periods.

As for Alexa traffic rank, SL is at megere ~4000, compared to our Top 10, but that of course simply reflects the fact that Wikipedia is useful for non-logged in users as well.

I wonder if we can indeed answer whether Wikipedia or SL is more popular? Wikipedia is more popular in general, but for logged in (registered) users, which one would be?

Preeliminary survey results of ICT use by social movements in Pittsburgh

I am a strong believer that science is for the people, not to be locked in ivory towers. Hence, over the coming months I will be publishing a series of blogs documenting research progress in my PhD dissertation, which, roughly, aims to survey and analyze how social movements are using new information and communication tools (think new media - blogs, twitter, wikis, etc.). This analysis should also show the wider public why such research is actually useful :)

To this date, while individual use of some of those tools in organizations was studied, nobody has tried to do a comprehensive analysis of how Internet-era ICT are affecting the social movements. This seems to be to be a major omission on the part of social movement researchers, and I believe that deeper understanding of this issue will be of much use both to the scholars, and to the movement activists themselves.

The first stage of my research involves surveying movements local to my region, which is Pittsburgh. Later stages should provide data on national and international levels.

The Pittsburgh survey takes advantage of the existence of a local social movement coordination organization, the Thomas Merton Center. A downside to this is that TMC has a left wing bias, and thus this survey is likely missing some right wing movements. This should not be an issue with the latter surveys, which will be based on more neutral sampling schemes. TMC list of "justice groups" has approximately 200 entries (193 to be exact), out of which, 125 seem to have or had online presence (i.e. I was able to find their contact info in form of an email (112) or web-based contact form (13)). I should note here that the TMC list has online contact info only for ~15% of the movements, the other 50% I googled myself.

This yields the first interesting statistic: in Pittsburgh region, we can say ~65% of movements have online presence. In other words, a decade into the 21st century, ~35% of local movements have never entered the Internet - an interesting comment on a digital divide, and a contradiction to an existing statistic by Surman (2001) who estimated, nearly a decade ago, that in the developed world, ~90% of voluntary organizations have internet presence. I am already wondering what will be the findings of my larger scale surveys.

Out of 125 online contact addresses, 2 have opted out before from being ever contact for future surveys (according to surveymonkey - the tool I use - database), and 21 have bounced, which indicates to me that that movement is no longer active. Thus the real sample size is 102. Out of those, I have gotten, two weeks and two mailings into the survey, 11 replies (10.7% response rate).

Here I want to heartily thank all the people who have taken time to complete the survey so far, and I should note that the survey is still open (and will be for several weeks), so if you would like to improve our understanding of the ICTs in movements in Pittsburgh, please consider taking the survey :) (please use a personalized email invitation link instead of this one if I have got a survey invitation from me before)

Now, onto the preliminary results. 11 is a relatively low respononse rate, and this does impact the validity of the results somewhat (just a few more responses would do wonders here). If and when I get more responses, I will post an updated analysis. Still, with 11 responses there is enough data to see some interesting patterns. I am bolding those that I found most surprising/interesting:

* all surveyed movements concentrate on local or regional issues
* 80% of surveyed movements are 20 or more years old, all are 5 or more years old
* more responses are need to reliably judge areas of interest, currently, environment, health and social services are the leading areas, but I think this may change if and when more movements reply to my survey
* most movement who replied have few hundreds members
* on average, organizations which replied have ~16 computes connected to the Internet
** Those two may indicate that primarily representatives of larger movements have responded to my survey so far... although it's hard to be sure, as there is no data on size of local movements (maybe most or nearly all movements are that large? Yet somehow I have my doubts here)
* all movements indicate that they have non-members (supporters) who participate in their organization activities, about half have non-members who recruit others for the organization
* member's age distribution seems to be concentrated in the 31-50 range
* majority of respondents think that Internet is very important to the organization (~60% declared it is very important, ~30% as important, only ~10% (=1...) as very unimportant

The second part of the survey, due to its matrix build, needs more replies to be valid; still, here are current highlights:
* face to face communication seems to be the single most important when it comes to management, recruitment, and fund raising, but ICTs become more important when it comes to interacting with other organizations. Usage of traditional mail, websites and emails is popular as well, but there a minority (10-20% = 1-2) of respondents indicate that their movements use new innovative technologies (blogs, internet foras, social tagging, social networking, Twitter, etc.).
* about half of the respondents agree that younger members are much more likely to use the Internet; only 15% disagree
* Internet seems to be used equally by all members, no matter what their rank in the organization
* Usage of tools is dependent on their recentness, more or less as we would expect, although interestingly, texting is used by three organizations - but only in since about a year
* There is strong correlation between ICTs - whether pre-Internet or post-Internet - and a feeling that they give both the individual and the organization more of a say. I would like to say that the the new ICTs are slightly more correlated with that then the old ones, but validity is really an issue here (more replies are needed for me to be able to discuss that)
* there seems to be a general interest in the ICTs, and several respondents indicated that their organization may use the newer, more innovative ones in the future
* at least two of the surveyed organizations are familiar with and are using wikis

That's it for the preeliminary analysis. Once again, I'd like to thank all who have taken (and will take...) their time to fill the survey. If you have not done so, I hope that the analysis above does show how valuable even one answer can be.

I will make a new update when the survey closes with more than 20 respondents, or as soon as that number is reached (and I will make further updates for each 10 more respondents). In theory, past studies suggest I should eventually get about 30 responses, since online survey response rate is about 30%. I will let you know if this holds true in my case :)

PS. The full dataset, minus any potentially confidential information (like emails and such) will be make available online once the survey is completed. Science is for the people...

Facelift

Long overdue, but it's time to bring this blog up to modern standards. Replacing 2004 template with 2009...

Wikipedia statistics updated

Wikipedia en statistics have been updated updated, first time since 2006.

Find out more about it at Erik's blog (post1, post2).

Where Wikipedia doesn't work

I have to wonder why Wikipedia community has so much trouble researching itself. Sure, we love to talk about ourselves - we have blogs, newspapers (Signpost), podcasts... but when it comes to serious research, the initatives fail one after another.

Wikidemia, Wikipediology, Wikimedia Research Network - all dead. Even the Wikipedia in academic studies is doing poorly if I am not there to update it - you'd think that increasingly more numerous scholars studying Wikipedia would at the very least bother to advertise their work - apparently not :(

It took us years to get a side wide survey in 2008 - and even it had to be done by outside scholars, with all the transparency and communication problems that implies (there were some rumors about making data set publicly available, but if there has been any confirmation, I am unable to find it). The community survey project, the General User Survey, was never consulted, and there are no signs that we will have a 2009 (or 2010) survey.

There are signs of hope. The usability project looks promising. The Foundation has recently hired a Research Analyst. Yet...

My general impression of this is CHAOS. Things are being done on many foras. There is the usability project, there is the Wiki-research-l listerv, there is Wikidemia, there is the Wikimedia Research Network, things are annouced in Foundation blog or via press releases, there are initatives of individual non-English chapters (for example, non-English surveys of users...).

Some time ago I tried categorizing research pages on Wikipedia and on meta, but it's a loosing fight, particularly since there is no central place to announce them (research is being done and discussed everywhere possible, from Wikipedia subuserpages to people's own blogs). There is little to communication between existing foras, which have different members are differ in openness and focus, old foras are being abandoned due to little activity, new ones are founded by people who don't know about the old ones, research efforts are likely duplicated in various places, and the cycle goes on... it's a chaos, and pretty messy one at that :(

I hope that the new Research Analyst (whoever s/he is) will start by bringing an order to this, and creating some central forum for all of those initiatives, preferably based on a wiki somewhere.

PS. If you know of Wikipedia research initiatives / foras I missed, do let me know. I wonder how big is the iceberg that I a tip of I am ranting about :)