Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
The 'deletionists' (and I use that word somewhat ironically, we don't have meetings or leaders or even a philosophy beyond 'improve the encyclopedia') vs the 'inclusionists' (I always thought that word was chosen as a catch-all to cast the other side as slightly evil, much like you can't help but feel slightly guilty voting against 'pro-life', even though you know the label was picked for exactly those reasons) is, in my opinion, actually a shining example of the wiki process and I'm glad it was chosen as at least one of the topics. Deep seated disagreements over the project were solved by consensus building and community, resulting in sensible guidelines that helps us keep the vast majority of utter crap out of the 'pedia, while users who enjoy the work organize teams hunting for that diamond in the rough to polish and display. Everyone's happy, and the community solved it. Great subject. On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.comwrote: 2009/8/17 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com: On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Cathy Edwardscathy.edwa...@bbc.co.uk wrote: snip 1. The inclusionist / deletionist debate peaked a few years ago It did? Maybe I haven't been paying attention. I was under the impression that notability guidelines were still a topic of heated debate as regards articles on fiction topics. Or has a guideline finally been thrashed out? The original debate was global, there were people that believed our standards should be much stricter all over and there were people the believed our standards should be much more relaxed all over. That global debate finished years ago, there are now separate debates regarding different topics (BLPs and fiction are the two main ones, I think). Classifying people as inclusionist or deletionist doesn't work in the current environment since someone might be on one side for one topic and the other for others. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- -Brock ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
Ray Saintonge wrote: Does my memory deceive me? Or is it true that 2 of the 3 millionth articles related to soap operas? A Scottish railway station, and the Spanish TV comedy programme [[El Hormiguero]], were what you were thinking of. If you regard Europe as one big historical soap opera, you were correct. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
Those crazy Europeans! Why can't they just decide on one language! -Original Message- From: Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 12:48 am Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article Ray Saintonge wrote: Does my memory deceive me? Or is it true that 2 of the 3 millionth articles related to soap operas? A Scottish railway station, and the Spanish TV comedy programme [[El Hormiguero]], were what you were thinking of. If you regard Europe as one big historical soap opera, you were correct. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
This is all so interesting - thanks. I think I have a good idea why BLP are a hot topic of debate in this area, but why do you think fiction is contentious - because it's in danger of unbalancing the encyclopedia? -Original Message- From: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dalton Sent: 17 August 2009 18:29 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary 2009/8/17 Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com: On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Cathy Edwardscathy.edwa...@bbc.co.uk wrote: snip 1. The inclusionist / deletionist debate peaked a few years ago It did? Maybe I haven't been paying attention. I was under the impression that notability guidelines were still a topic of heated debate as regards articles on fiction topics. Or has a guideline finally been thrashed out? The original debate was global, there were people that believed our standards should be much stricter all over and there were people the believed our standards should be much more relaxed all over. That global debate finished years ago, there are now separate debates regarding different topics (BLPs and fiction are the two main ones, I think). Classifying people as inclusionist or deletionist doesn't work in the current environment since someone might be on one side for one topic and the other for others. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l http://www.bbc.co.uk/ This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically stated. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system. Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it and notify the sender immediately. Please note that the BBC monitors e-mails sent or received. Further communication will signify your consent to this. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] resolution-l
stevertigo stv...@gmail.com wrote in message news:7c402e010908022342o8e581f3o566c6b7c610ac...@mail.gmail.com... On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 8:01 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: I believe that you are mistakenly supposing that the list would discuss *a particular* case. I believe that the original proposal was to create a list that would discuss the resolution process itself, not a particular case of it, but rather the entirety of the process. Correct. In reality though its next to impossible to intelligently deal with anything at a macroscopic level without getting somewhat into certain specific examples. So certain cases will come up, though they won't be officially handled on the list. But likewise its impossible to deal well with particular cases without getting a serious overview. The latter concept is I believe the status quo, and thus is the main reason why I propose a dedicated list. So, like the question of warnings. If an administrator says they are not necessary, and there might be cases where they are not, then I think they should justify preventing an established user with no block history from defending themselves. ___ An Elephaant coud drive a cruise ship through holes in what I am reflecting at: http://ecn.ab.ca/~brewhaha/WP_CRYSTAL.HTM (With a quick howto on merjerz). Nothing sounds like BrewJay's Babble Bin. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Report a Problem hack
Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote in message news:5396c0d10908102142o3bde7373p735d8cc0a7705...@mail.gmail.com... On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 9:01 PM, Emily Monroebluecalioc...@me.com wrote: I'd like it. Good for new page patrollers'. +1 for neat little pop-ups and easy error reporting. Can we also do something like this to report general interface and software bugs? mailto:webmas...@localhost?subject=title_of_page_with_error ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copypasted books fromWikipedia
I think this message is better directed at Amazon and other distributors. Nothing is inherently wrong with mirroring Wikipedia on paper. And, I think that belies some of the difficulties in selecting articles, doing a real copy edit (that is manually re-typing it to make it flow, among other things, and I am not sure that they do that), and formatting it for paper. Some might think that paper is a wasteful business, and to read those who want to bill me electronically, it is. You must understand, though, that I doubt it is the intention of AlphaScript publishing to dishonour us, and really, their selection of us is an honour. To my knowledge, all that is required to meet a -BY- requirement is one mention of all contributors. I think that is part of how we managed to pare wikipedia down to a DVD release for WalMart: I do not know--did not buy it. The total of all edits is over four terabytes, which would not fit (that is about a thousand DVDs). I would be interested in their tables of content. It would be nice to figure it into our own selection processes. And hey...are you sure they are not among our monetary contributors? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copypasted books from Wikipedia
wjhon...@aol.com wrote in message news:8cbeab907c57f0c-390-2...@webmail-dz04.sysops.aol.com... You said: The publisher seems to observe the copyright (even includes full edit history) so legal action seems impossible. How can a book copy the full edit history without it being obvious that it's copied from Wikipedia? We do not require someone to say copied from Wikipedia on the title page by the way. But I'm unclear why you think there is no possible legal action? We have a license, and the license states that you must state certain things. Either they obey it, or they don't. Am I right? Yup. That is why I am guessing this is a non-issue. If they did not run their editorial concept past someone at Wikimedia, then they had one of their own lawyers check it against our license. Renata St does not like their price. Neither do I, and I do not see anything I can do about it other than buy something else. She does not like the lack of prominence of wikipedia's name on the face of the books. It was not a wikimedia-spawned initiative. Forces are against printing wikipedia, and I am with them, mainly because I would not know where to start with rules for selecting articles, and I do not know anybody who does. So, she is an incidental and frequent contributor to wikipedia's unofficial print edition. Maybe she should turn that around and look at what she could do for the articles that she did not write in the books, then personally ask if they will pay her for doing it. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia approaches its limits - TechnologyGuardian
Michael Pruden mikepru...@yahoo.com wrote in message news:515438.44185...@web32604.mail.mud.yahoo.com... ...pigeonholed (i.e. as an inclusionist or a deletionist when they are actually in the middle). Merjists are both, and they do not need to participate in any AfD discussion, because the articles they redirect do not actually get deleted. IOW, any user can undo a merj, because both articles exist: Seeing the history for the deleted articles is only a matter of either writing or finding ?redirect=no. So, in a way, they are also neither, because deleted material should appear at the redirection destination, so I guess they are net inclusionists. This is of course only applicable to notable articles that are longstanding synonyms or close cousins. I think it is also possible to be a pre-emptive, deletionistic merjist and prevent new articles from being created when their content already exists, elsewhere, under a synonym. I tried doing some of that in [[recent changes#requested articles]], and I was chastized for some of it -- did not hit the best mark, I suppose. ___ http://ecn.ab.ca/~brewhaha/WP_CRYSTAL.HTM written from the merjist POV. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request for assistance for new editors
Emily Monroe bluecalioc...@me.com wrote in message
news:2b0befcd-0e16-4086-9e45-954ceacea...@me.com...
The civility thread has got me thinking, but I didn't want to hijack
it, so here we go. This idea isn't fully formed, so forgive me.
I was going through wikipedia, when I came across a newer editors talk
page. S/he had several speedy deletion templates, and obvisouly didn't
know what xe was doing when it came to creating articles (xe was
making test-type articles, so copy-and-pasting WP:FIRSTARTICLE, stuff
like that), but for whatever reason, xe wasn't going to ask for help.
I came up with the idea that maybe we can rename the New
Contributors' help page to Request for assistance for new editors.
Not that it's already used enough already, but maybe this will make it
more well-used. At the very least, we can maybe add to huggle
something that says This new editor needs help fitting into
wikipedia. Can anyone help him/her?
Of course, while thinking about this, I forgot to help the editor who
got me thinking about it!
xe? Do you mean (s)he? It is easier to read that way. You know that icon of
a clock with a counter-clockwise arrow on it. That is your history. Try to
find that and click on it once. If it is not there, then you might be able
to figure out how to add it to your toolbar, or at least find it among text
menus. Users can put a {{helpme}} template on any page they are having
trouble with. It will *very probably* summon someone from an IRC channel --
same channel that watches helpdesk for new questions.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Alternative to watchlistr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:TOOLS Magnus Manske magnusman...@googlemail.com wrote in message news:fab0ecb70907290040r28db9048sca6ec928cd327...@mail.gmail.com... On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 8:29 AM, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 11:04 PM, Magnus Manskemagnusman...@googlemail.com wrote: Trying to overcome my aversion towards Java, I've written a little app that can aggregate watchlists for a user across WikiMedia projects. 'nuff said: http://magnusmanske.de/MetaWatchlist/ Cool. Is this being publicised elsewhere as well? Not yet. Any ideas? [Feel free to spam other places in my name ;-] Magnus ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] The end of donations
Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote in message news:206791b10908110309j4ef2cca3l777b8fcb5e86c...@mail.gmail.com... On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 4:23 PM, Jay Litwynbrewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote: stevertigo stv...@gmail.com wrote in message news:7c402e010907301615q7f86e8a1v5edb56ced5a80...@mail.gmail.com... Sorry, thought this was going to foundation-l. -S On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 3:14 PM, stevertigostv...@gmail.com wrote: It occurs to me that when people donate money to something, it is to some degree with an expectation that the recipient entity grows to eventually gain a certain kind of financial self-sufficiency. Is this not also the case with Wikimedia and many charitable donations to it? Carcharoth answered that question in October or November snip I'm not entirely sure I did answer that question back then (I can't find anything on a brief search). I might have done, so if you point me to an e-mail I wrote to this list, I'll accept that. Even if I did, no-one should have accepted it at face value, as I was likely just giving an uninformed opinion (can you tag mailing list posts with citation needed?). And any case, what SJ (Samuel Klein) has just said is obviously much better informed! Mis-attributed. http://www.mail-archive.com/wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg00012.html It was Anthony. You were only in the message, sorry. I had fully intended to read source documents to find out if I would get a conclusion, and...well...even if I understand it, I hate legalese, and making chaos click less took longer than I thot. In any case, the way I see it, we are more likely to see donations from grateful dot coms (like *.wikia.com) and commercial interests who exploit our information -- our unannounced printer being an example. Those donations would reduce our cravings for donations from contributors. The DVDs at WalMart (an investment) were solidly a risk, because you would be depending on people with slow access or no access to the internet, and that is dwindling, TMK. I would not mind knowing how it panned out. ___ http://ecn.ab.ca/~brewhaha/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] When an article is in full protection.
[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Version Inevitable Postulate of Version Control] WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@googlemail.com wrote in message news:8b07072f0907230421w257405c9w9d411ec737e7c...@mail.gmail.com... Actually there are circumstances when admins can and should edit fully protected articles per: WP:FULL.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FULL Does anyone really object to the idea of admins responding to a request for admin help by editing a fully protected page in accordance with talkpage consensus? WereSpielChequers Message: 6 Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:47:18 -0400 From: wjhon...@aol.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How wikipedia could link into File Protection. To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: 8cbd991b3a1ad8c-1414-5...@webmail-mh03.sysops.aol.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii When full protection is used, then it should stay until it is changed to semi-protection. We should not have a type of protection that allows admins to make *content* changes willy-nilly. When an article is in full protection, admins should not be making content changes, except perhaps to revert changes that were the problematic ones in the first place. Jay's original email refers to using this when there has been an edit war - in other words when full protection *is* used currently. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Gridlock should be impossible.
Ever notice that people who get stuck in an intersection are running a red light? Anybody who wanted to complain would hav a solid ten or fifteen seconds to catch a crime in the act with a photo that includes a license plate (maybe two) and a traffic light in the same shot. So, if you cannot finish crossing an intersection before a light changes, then do not start. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
I updated the three millionth topic pool: Answer: Beate Eriksen, an obscure Norwegian actress. Winner: Cryptic C62, Sarah Badel, an obscure actress. Honorable mention: Michael of Lucan, Norwegian post offices 1943-1985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three-millionth_topic_pool On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:17 AM, Keith Oldkeith...@gmail.com wrote: Folks, Sorry if this is a duplicate thread but I haven't seen anything about reaching this milestone. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 Cathy Edwards cathy.edwa...@bbc.co.uk: This is all so interesting - thanks. I think I have a good idea why BLP are a hot topic of debate in this area, but why do you think fiction is contentious - because it's in danger of unbalancing the encyclopedia? Good question. I think it is because fictional topics are very polarising when it comes to the question of how interesting they are. Fans of that particular work find every aspect of it extremely interesting, people that don't watch that show/read that series of books/whatever find it all extremely boring. There isn't much of a middle ground. It is difficult for the extremes to move towards the middle when there isn't anyone there, and that is what is required to reach a consensus. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
Cathy Edwards wrote: This is all so interesting - thanks. I think I have a good idea why BLP are a hot topic of debate in this area, but why do you think fiction is contentious - because it's in danger of unbalancing the encyclopedia? [[Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)]] indicates some of the sore points. It is not about whether Pride or Prejudice is notable: there is no problem establishing that to everyone's satisfaction. We do have an article [[Fitzwilliam Darcy]]. The kinds of problems that arise in general are: *What if the article on Mr. Darcy were written in an in-universe view, in other words not offering the perspective with the fourth wall removed? *What if [[Category:Jane Austen characters]] got out of hand, with very minor characters featuring? *What if there were not enough critical literature to make articles (yet), and people ended up improvising their own theories? Only the second of these is likely to matter with Janeite Wikipedians. We would then say merge the info back into [[Pride and Prejudice]]. That could get too long (it's actually only a sensible 36K). For fiction articles that are very long, we are supposed to apply [[Wikipedia:Summary style]], in other words put subtopics on separate pages. But the notability guide says notability is not inherited. This is where some people get stuck. Minor characters or lesser topics in a fictional universe get merged into a page, and can't get moved out again unless the subtopic itself is inherently notable. So (as I understand it, and I'm no expert on this) fiction in general can have problems with all three of the bullets; and only for the first is there necessarily a decent editorial solution that would satisfy all inclusionist views. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Gridlock should be impossible.
2009/8/17 Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca: Ever notice that people who get stuck in an intersection are running a red light? Anybody who wanted to complain would hav a solid ten or fifteen seconds to catch a crime in the act with a photo that includes a license plate (maybe two) and a traffic light in the same shot. So, if you cannot finish crossing an intersection before a light changes, then do not start. If you have a point that is within the scope of this mailing list, then make it. Please stop sending emails like this. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:17 AM, Keith Oldkeith...@gmail.com wrote: Both see the other ruining Wikipedia, either by defeating the point of an open encyclopedia, or by expanding its “pages” until the site dies from irrelevance. Wow. That's the worst characterisation of the inclusionist/deletionist struggle I've ever seen. Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
Thomas Dalton wrote: Well said. That debate was resolved back in the days when we actually reached consensus occasionally! There are too many people for that to work, these days. However hard you try, you never find a solution that everyone will accept. Hmmm, that seems to assume consensus = no yelling, rather than 80% support or whatever. As if special interest groups can always block change. (Now that rings a bell, but we need to be careful about the retrospective history.) Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com: *What if the article on Mr. Darcy were written in an in-universe view, in other words not offering the perspective with the fourth wall removed? I think we've pretty much reached a consensus there. While some people write from an in-universe perspective, there haven't been many objections recently to people going through a rewriting it. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com: Thomas Dalton wrote: Well said. That debate was resolved back in the days when we actually reached consensus occasionally! There are too many people for that to work, these days. However hard you try, you never find a solution that everyone will accept. Hmmm, that seems to assume consensus = no yelling, rather than 80% support or whatever. As if special interest groups can always block change. (Now that rings a bell, but we need to be careful about the retrospective history.) Yeah, look up consensus in a dictionary rather than on [[Wikipedia:Consensus]], you will find the word actually means something quite different to what Wikipedians generally use it to mean (which is actually called supermajority). ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Charles Matthewscharles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Thomas Dalton wrote: Well said. That debate was resolved back in the days when we actually reached consensus occasionally! There are too many people for that to work, these days. However hard you try, you never find a solution that everyone will accept. Hmmm, that seems to assume consensus = no yelling, rather than 80% support or whatever. As if special interest groups can always block change. (Now that rings a bell, but we need to be careful about the retrospective history.) Charles 4 out of 5 Wikipedians agree, consensus = 80%. What exactly counts as consensus is another industrial-sized can of worms. I think we slipped into rough consensus long ago, and are now drifting into supermajorities as a rough substitute, with occasional exceptions. Lots of people wanting something doesn't necessarily make them right, though it's often a decent guide to it... -Kat -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: k...@wikimedia.org * Personal: k...@mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 Cathy Edwards cathy.edwa...@bbc.co.uk: I think I have a good idea why BLP are a hot topic of debate in this area, It's because they're special, because they can cause (and have caused) damage to people in a way that other articles can't. (And the same applies to material about living people in other articles.) Basically, we don't have the luxury of eventualism with biographical material about living people - it has to satisfy the standard rules (neutrality, verifiability, no original research) but we can't have a bad article and wait for it to be better - it has to be not-awful at any given time. So people get really harsh on reference quality, whether a given incident is noteworthy, etc. And that extends to even having an article at all - for many subjects, having a Wikipedia article can be a curse. but why do you think fiction is contentious - because it's in danger of unbalancing the encyclopedia? Often the sourcing is awful, primary research, original research, etc. I think it's frequently it's that the articles themselves aren't really good enough to convince, so people are unconvinced about the topic area in general. (We had similar problems with articles on schools a few years ago - not notable, we don't need articles on every school, etc., but really I think it was that the articles were really not good or useful-looking. This is just in my subjective opinion.) Apart from that, some people just go WHAT ON EARTH at the idea of some topics being in the encyclopedia. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copypasted books from Wikipedia
Kind of cool, really. Dunno about you, but when I write articles on Wikipedia, I do it so that lots of people can read them and the knowledge can be spread. I really don't care if someone is making a quick buck. Has anyone made a definitive list of them? It looks like I'm probably published here: http://www.amazon.com/Snowboard-Snowboarding-Freestyle-Terrain-Boardercross/dp/6130008767/ref=sr_1_79?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1250614429sr=1-79 But I wonder what others... Steve On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 8:10 AM, Renata Strenataw...@gmail.com wrote: Alphascript Publishing has published over 1900 (and counting) books, all available on Amazon. Prices range from $31 to $179. All of these books are simple computer-generated copies from Wikipedia and (at least according to one Amazon reviewer) couple other public domain websites. Trouble is, from ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 Kat Walsh mindspill...@gmail.com: 4 out of 5 Wikipedians agree, consensus = 80%. What exactly counts as consensus is another industrial-sized can of worms. I think we slipped into rough consensus long ago, and are now drifting into supermajorities as a rough substitute, with occasional exceptions. Lots of people wanting something doesn't necessarily make them right, though it's often a decent guide to it... I have had people tell me you can't do that, we reached consensus otherwise and I go look and it's a straw poll that's *literally* two people voting for, one against. So it's always useful to check what someone's calling consensus. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 12:54 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/18 Cathy Edwards cathy.edwa...@bbc.co.uk: I think I have a good idea why BLP are a hot topic of debate in this area, It's because they're special, because they can cause (and have caused) damage to people in a way that other articles can't. (And the same applies to material about living people in other articles.) Basically, we don't have the luxury of eventualism with biographical material about living people - it has to satisfy the standard rules (neutrality, verifiability, no original research) but we can't have a bad article and wait for it to be better - it has to be not-awful at any given time. So people get really harsh on reference quality, whether a given incident is noteworthy, etc. And that extends to even having an article at all - for many subjects, having a Wikipedia article can be a curse. This is about 95% of the truth, actually. Other articles *can* cause harm in exactly the same way, but are not as obvious or attractive a target. -Kat -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: k...@wikimedia.org * Personal: k...@mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 Brock Weller brock.wel...@gmail.com: The 'deletionists' (and I use that word somewhat ironically, we don't have meetings or leaders or even a philosophy beyond 'improve the encyclopedia') vs the 'inclusionists' (I always thought that word was chosen as a catch-all to cast the other side as slightly evil, much like you can't help but feel slightly guilty voting against 'pro-life', even though you know the label was picked for exactly those reasons) is, in my opinion, actually a shining example of the wiki process and I'm glad it was chosen as at least one of the topics. Deep seated disagreements over the project were solved by consensus building and community, resulting in sensible guidelines that helps us keep the vast majority of utter crap out of the 'pedia, while users who enjoy the work organize teams hunting for that diamond in the rough to polish and display. Everyone's happy, and the community solved it. Great subject. Well said. That debate was resolved back in the days when we actually reached consensus occasionally! There are too many people for that to work, these days. However hard you try, you never find a solution that everyone will accept. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia approaches its limits - Technology Guardian
2009/8/17 Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com: Summary: With the encyclopaedia being bigger and more complete, it's less likely that a onesie's edit is worth keeping. The 1% reversion rate for experienced editors was also interesting. I doubt my edits get reverted at anything like that high a rate. It can be problematic. I frequently edit as an IP when I'm at another machine and can't be bothered logging in. The unexplained reversion rate is *much* higher than when I edit logged-in, even though the edits are exactly the same sort of thing. (Usual culprit: overenthusiastic use of Twinkle. When you say that was me, what was the purpose of this reversion? the usual response is blustering and HOW CAN I KEEP UP WITH THE EDITS IF I HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THEM or similar. I know that's nothing like all Twinkle users, but a lot of this does noticeably come from Twinkle users.) I urge any editor who's been around a while to try editing as an IP, and see what the reversion rate is. Then ask the reverter what their reasoning was for each reversion. They should be able to justify it, after all, even with a sorry, slipped up. Which is fine too, just please show evidence of thought. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 Kat Walsh mindspill...@gmail.com: On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Charles Matthewscharles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Thomas Dalton wrote: Well said. That debate was resolved back in the days when we actually reached consensus occasionally! There are too many people for that to work, these days. However hard you try, you never find a solution that everyone will accept. Hmmm, that seems to assume consensus = no yelling, rather than 80% support or whatever. As if special interest groups can always block change. (Now that rings a bell, but we need to be careful about the retrospective history.) Charles 4 out of 5 Wikipedians agree, consensus = 80%. What exactly counts as consensus is another industrial-sized can of worms. I think we slipped into rough consensus long ago, and are now drifting into supermajorities as a rough substitute, with occasional exceptions. Lots of people wanting something doesn't necessarily make them right, though it's often a decent guide to it... We completed the drift into supermajorities a year or two ago. Decisions on individual articles are still sometimes made by consensus because there aren't many people interested in them, but any decisions involving more than about a dozen people resort to a simple vote. Rough consensus only differs from supermajority when there is someone authorised to draw a conclusion from it and they are willing to do more than count votes. The only such authorisation is crats deciding RFAs and they stopped being willing to do more than count votes a while back. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 Kat Walsh mindspill...@gmail.com: This is about 95% of the truth, actually. Other articles *can* cause harm in exactly the same way, but are not as obvious or attractive a target. Mmm. BLPs became special (a) in the wake of the Siegenthaler foulup (b) when we became likely the top Google hit on any given minorly-noteworthy person's name who has an article or is *mentioned in* an article. But yeah, it can apply to other sorts of articles. The Arbitration Committee has advised that articles on companies can need similar caution applied, particularly when you have editors who confuse an encyclopedia with investigative journalism. (We have Wikinews for original journalism!) - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 1:07 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/8/18 Kat Walsh mindspill...@gmail.com: This is about 95% of the truth, actually. Other articles *can* cause harm in exactly the same way, but are not as obvious or attractive a target. Mmm. BLPs became special (a) in the wake of the Siegenthaler foulup (b) when we became likely the top Google hit on any given minorly-noteworthy person's name who has an article or is *mentioned in* an article. But yeah, it can apply to other sorts of articles. The Arbitration Committee has advised that articles on companies can need similar caution applied, particularly when you have editors who confuse an encyclopedia with investigative journalism. (We have Wikinews for original journalism!) Oh, I agree that everyone became aware that articles on living people needed special handling around then. It's just that people do not sufficiently appreciate that they are only the most easily-identifiable subset of the articles requiring that same care. -Kat -- Your donations keep Wikipedia online: http://donate.wikimedia.org/en Wikimedia, Press: k...@wikimedia.org * Personal: k...@mindspillage.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mindspillage * (G)AIM:Mindspillage mindspillage or mind|wandering on irc.freenode.net * email for phone ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
You may want to take a look at the Guardian blog post:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/aug/17/wikipedia-three-
million
and also a couple by the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6042931/Wikipedia-
reaches-three-million-articles.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6043534/The-50-most-
viewed-Wikipedia-articles-in-2009-and-2008.html
and one by ReadWriteWeb:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/08/wikipedia-passes-the-3-
million-article-mark.php
All of them are better reads than the article in the Christian Science
{{citation needed}} Monitor.
Mike
On 17 Aug 2009, at 21:17, Keith Old wrote:
Folks,
Sorry if this is a duplicate thread but I haven't seen anything about
reaching this milestone.
The Christian Science Monitor reports/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/08/17/wikipedia-blows-
past-3-million-english-articles/
Wikipedia, the upstart social experiment that trusts the online
mob to
steward world knowledge, has hit a major milestone.
The English volume of the Web encyclopedia reached its 3 millionth
article.
That massive number of whos, whats, wheres, and whens culminated
with a
profile on Norwegian soap opera actress Beate
Eriksenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beate_Eriksen.
In the less than 24 hours since she marked the 3 millionth entry,
more than
1,000 new articles have already flooded in.
It concludes with info about the disagreement between inclusionists
and
deletionists.
Both see the other ruining Wikipedia, either by defeating the
point of an
open encyclopedia, or by expanding its “pages” until the site dies
from
irrelevance.
Which side do you come down on? More the merrier? Or quality over
quantity?
Let us know below, or join the conversation by following us on
Twitterhttp://twitter.com/csmhorizonsblog
.
Regards
*Keith Old*
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Michael Peelem...@mikepeel.net wrote:
snip
All of them are better reads than the article in the Christian Science
{{citation needed}} Monitor.
Really?
The Telegraph one was poor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6042931/Wikipedia-reaches-three-million-articles.html
I agree with the first comment:
This piece contains 12 sentences, of which at least 5 are false or
misleading [...] Wikipedia was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry
Sanger, not by Ward Cunningham and Richard Stallman.
And so on.
Carcharoth
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
Although as I've said before WikiNEWS is for NEW not for old. So where do you put old investigative journalism ? In a message dated 8/18/2009 10:07:41 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, dger...@gmail.com writes: particularly when you have editors who confuse an encyclopedia with investigative journalism. (We have Wikinews for original journalism!) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
On 18 Aug 2009, at 18:34, Carcharoth wrote:
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Michael Peelem...@mikepeel.net
wrote:
snip
All of them are better reads than the article in the Christian
Science
{{citation needed}} Monitor.
Really?
The Telegraph one was poor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6042931/Wikipedia-
reaches-three-million-articles.html
I agree with the first comment:
This piece contains 12 sentences, of which at least 5 are false or
misleading [...] Wikipedia was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry
Sanger, not by Ward Cunningham and Richard Stallman.
And so on.
hmm; let's see:
* According to its edit history, the Eriksen article was posted at
0533 GMT, not 4:04 am
Not true; the oldest edit in the history is at 04:04, 17 August 2009.
* Wikipedia was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, not by Ward
Cunningham and Richard Stallman.
True, but this is Wikipedia's fault. The pioneering concept and
technology of Wiki comes from Ward Cunningham, the concept of a free
online encyclopedia from Richard Stallman. It was formally launched
on 15 January 2001. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia
* The article says that there are Wikipedias in 271 other langauges
apart from English. In fact there are 271 Wikipedias in total,
meaning there can be at most 270 other languages. And, unless you
consider simple English to be different from English, there are at
most 269 other languages.
This one's mostly my fault - I told them Wikipedia currently exists
in 271 languages. Oops.
* The article implies that Wikipedia has only now surpassed the
Yongle Encycloopedia in size. In fact it surpassed it a few years ago.
That depends on how you read the phrase. I don't read it that way.
* The article describes Britannica as the oldest English language
encyclopedia. In fact, it is the oldest continuously published
English language encyclopedia.
Interesting. What was the oldest English language encyclopaedia, then?
Mike
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copypasted books fromWikipedia
You do not need to mention all contributors. A satisfactory attribution is merely a URL pointing to the Wikipedia article and possibly one pointing at the history page. By our inaction we've made it clear you do not need to directly mention any contributors. Will Johnson In a message dated 8/18/2009 9:29:21 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca writes: To my knowledge, all that is required to meet a -BY- requirement is one mention of all contributors. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Michael Peelem...@mikepeel.net wrote: snip * The article describes Britannica as the oldest English language encyclopedia. In fact, it is the oldest continuously published English language encyclopedia. Interesting. What was the oldest English language encyclopaedia, then? According to the encyclopedia article, this one in 1728: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopaedia,_or_Universal_Dictionary_of_Arts_and_Sciences The Cyclopaedia was one of the first general encyclopedias to be produced in English. Another candidate is this one from 1704: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicon_Technicum Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
It's a question of the amount of coverage we want to give to fiction details. Let's say we have an article on Superman, and also on each of the various Superman comic runs that have appeared in the past 50 years. Now make an article on *each* comic issue, and then in that article describe the plot, characters, moral, date, number of issues, etc. *Now* for each character make an article for them, describing each issue they were in, with the plot details, and link them all together. You'd have something like three to twenty thousand articles on Superman. Many people would see that as overwhelming in scope and most relevant for a specialist work. Will Johnson In a message dated 8/18/2009 8:56:15 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, cathy.edwa...@bbc.co.uk writes: I think I have a good idea why BLP are a hot topic of debate in this area, but why do you think fiction is contentious - because it's in danger of unbalancing the encyclopedia? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 wjhon...@aol.com: It's a question of the amount of coverage we want to give to fiction details. Let's say we have an article on Superman, and also on each of the various Superman comic runs that have appeared in the past 50 years. Now make an article on *each* comic issue, and then in that article describe the plot, characters, moral, date, number of issues, etc. *Now* for each character make an article for them, describing each issue they were in, with the plot details, and link them all together. You'd have something like three to twenty thousand articles on Superman. Many people would see that as overwhelming in scope and most relevant for a specialist work. Yes, that is one side of the argument. It doesn't explain why the argument exists and is so prevalent. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 11:54, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: And that extends to even having an article at all - for many subjects, having a Wikipedia article can be a curse. Not that that has ever stopped anybody from creating an autobiography -- Jim Redmond [[User:Jredmond]] ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Simplified English
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hello friends, I just wanted to take a moment to put out there that we also have another English Wikipedia. It is designed for folks who may not understand English very well, such as ESL users (English as a Second Language), among other users. If this interests you, stop by for a moment: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page perhaps if you have time in addition to what you volunteer at our other project, the English Wikipedia. Thank you for your time, - -- Best, Jon - --- --- --- --- PGP key located at http://www.nonvocalscream.com/key.txt PGP encrypted mail preferred. PGP Key ID: 6F19ED63 Fingerprint: 8397 9B96 6518 5A90 10CA F3C1 C653 AE86 6F19 ED63 -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkqK9ywACgkQxlOuhm8Z7WPb4QCdEBuyc4/6mVTtKkoSJeMRg3/y PcUAniP1EapW0rTlkFsaU5hHzfrYS4AU =YhdY -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1917002,00.html Time magazine ... can't get excited about the whole business really. But why is Wales not James if Sanger is Lawrence? Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Simplified English
I just wanted to take a moment to put out there that we also have another English Wikipedia. [...] If this interests you, stop by for a moment: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Uh... is this news? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block.
I feel like I've missed half the conversation here: Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block. candidate for what? - Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote: From: Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, 17 August, 2009 02:28:45 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: [WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
Carcharoth wrote: On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Michael Peelem...@mikepeel.net wrote: snip * The article describes Britannica as the oldest English language encyclopedia. In fact, it is the oldest continuously published English language encyclopedia. Interesting. What was the oldest English language encyclopaedia, then? According to the encyclopedia article, this one in 1728: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopaedia,_or_Universal_Dictionary_of_Arts_and_Sciences The Cyclopaedia was one of the first general encyclopedias to be produced in English. Another candidate is this one from 1704: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicon_Technicum It all depends on how you define encyclopædia. I have a copy of [[Jeremy Collier]]'s /The Great Historical, Geographical, Genealogical and Poetical Dictionary /in the 1701 second edition. The first was in 1688. Comparing encyclopædias is an interesting exercise. Tracing how things change over the years can be a great eye-opener. The 14th edition of the Britannica was produced over a period of 45 years, but the early and late printings were very different. (Anything pre-1946 did not have its copyright renewed.) The supplement known as the 12th edition had elaborate details about World War I, but these were decimated for the 13th. The problem with collecting all these is the space they take up. I've just acquired a [[Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana]] with supplements to 1980 for $1.00 per volume :-) ... plus shipping :-( . I have also been offered [[Enciclopedia Italiana]] and [[La Grande Encyclopédie]] on the same basis. This is about 200 volumes! Finding place for them is a significant challenge. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Simplified English
Dan Dascalescu wrote: I just wanted to take a moment to put out there that we also have another English Wikipedia. [...] If this interests you, stop by for a moment: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Uh... is this news? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l Uh... no. It was a shameless plug that required no reply... unless you wanted to reply. :) -- Best, Jon --- --- --- --- PGP key located at http://www.nonvocalscream.com/key.txt PGP encrypted mail preferred. PGP Key ID: 6F19ED63 Fingerprint: 8397 9B96 6518 5A90 10CA F3C1 C653 AE86 6F19 ED63 ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation...
I hadn't notice this earlier, but I hope we don't have any candidates who are its. Candidate for the board Andrew, the elections we just had. Perhaps Jay will be forthcoming in exact details. In a message dated 8/18/2009 12:06:11 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, andrewrtur...@googlemail.com writes: I feel like I've missed half the conversation here: Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block. candidate for what? - Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote: From: Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, 17 August, 2009 02:28:45 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: [WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] When an article is in full protection.
On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 5:15 AM, Al Tally majorly.w...@googlemail.comwrote: If there is talk page consensus, does the page really still need to be fully protected? Not all protection is in response to edit warring. First example to come to mind: high-use templates. -Luna ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
wjhon...@aol.com wrote: It's a question of the amount of coverage we want to give to fiction details. Let's say we have an article on Superman, and also on each of the various Superman comic runs that have appeared in the past 50 years. Now make an article on *each* comic issue, and then in that article describe the plot, characters, moral, date, number of issues, etc. *Now* for each character make an article for them, describing each issue they were in, with the plot details, and link them all together. You'd have something like three to twenty thousand articles on Superman. Many people would see that as overwhelming in scope and most relevant for a specialist work. I've always found it to be a question of how hard people are prepared to look the other way, or perhaps look hard enough to find a problem. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that notability guidance was pretty much drawn up and widely accepted to prevent advertising, spam and original research. It's now being pushed places it doesn't need to go, by people who don't really understand what we're about. Some devoted souls seem to treat these policy pages as The Word, almost sacrosanct, which is starting to create real tension with the notion that they are descriptive and that consensus can change. I think the current battle is not between inclusionists and deletionists, but between those who believe rules should be followed and those who believe rules can be broken. That we have a rule which says we can break rules makes for the most perplexing conversations. I can't help but wonder, in amusement, if it isn't possible to fork the encyclopedia from the rules in some way. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 wjhon...@aol.com: I just explained why. Some people would find three thousand articles on Superman is be overwhelming. It's a similar situation to having separate articles on each subway stop in New York City or each Mayor of Santa Cruz. No, you just explained one side of the argument. An argument only exists if there are two sides and it is only a high profile argument if there is some additional factor. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] When an article is in full protection.
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 3:32 PM, Lunalunasan...@gmail.com wrote: Not all protection is in response to edit warring. First example to come to mind: high-use templates. FlaggedRevs would work better for that, likewise high-use images, of which flags (in the heraldic sense, i.e. those which swing from a pole) would be a good example. Rumor has it this extension is coming soon a wiki near you, like this weekend maybe[1], but I'll believe it when I see it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_47#Flagged_Revisions_update_-_requesting_an_update_from_Jimmy What we'd really need is some kind of god-parameter to indicate whether we want to transclude the stable or bleeding-edge version of a template or image. Of course I don't expect much empathy from those who haven't had the misfortune to design a template and then permanently be locked out of it. —C.W. [1] Preserved for posterity in case this falls down the memory hole: I fully support the implementation which garnered the consensus of the community and have asked that it be turned on as soon as possible. I feel that this implementation is not strong enough, but it is a good start. Once the tool is technically enabled, I think that policy will move over time to the appropriate balance, just as protection and semi-protection did. I believe it likely that I will be for a long time in favor of cautious expansion of the use of the tool for more articles - but I respect the concerns people have about it (the length of the backlog in German Wikipedia has been too often too long, in my opinion). I think we are simply waiting now on Brion. He has suggested before Wikimania. I hope that's right.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_47#Flagged_Revisions_update_-_requesting_an_update_from_Jimmy ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 8:25 PM, Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote: snip The problem with collecting all these is the space they take up. I've just acquired a [[Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana]] with supplements to 1980 for $1.00 per volume :-) ... plus shipping :-( . I have also been offered [[Enciclopedia Italiana]] and [[La Grande Encyclopédie]] on the same basis. This is about 200 volumes! Finding place for them is a significant challenge. Goodness. Yes. That is a large number of volumes. Why not scan them and store them at wikisource? Or are these modern encyclopedias rather than old ones? Scanning drawings and pictures from old encyclopedias allows for some other possibilities as well. I've asked someone to hang on to a set of old books that have some lovely colour drawings of European landscapes. Three volumes of Picturesque Europe by Cassell. Not in good condition. If I had a full set (seems to be about 10 volumes) and they were in good condition, they would be worth a few hundred pounds. Published in around 1870. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
The way I would phrase it, there are those who believe the policy pages are given down from on high and there are those who understand that those same pages were created from below. That is, I believe tantamount not to rules can be broken but rather to rules can change. I never advise people to be bold *against* policy, but rather to go to the policy discussion pages and see whether or not their situation might be an exception that we'd like to include *in* the policy. It's happened dozens of times, just within my own memory, that situations of this sort, get resolved by clarification and modification of the policy language. By the way, I dispute that notability guidelines were laid down to prevent advertising, spam and original research. For example I think in the Porn Actors notability it states something like that they must have appeared in at least five films or something of that sort. That seems more about setting a bar so we don't get people who have a trivial set of appearances i.e. they are notable in their field. You can certainly create a list of porn actors who have only appeared in a single film *without* doing any original research. Remembering that source-based research is not original just because it's new to a major publication. Original research involves the *creation* of a new fact, not just the re-reporting of it no matter the source, provided it's been published in some format previously. A video box cover is a publication format. So reading names off it, is not original research. -Original Message- From: Surreptitiousness surreptitious.wikiped...@googlemail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 2:01 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary wjhon...@aol.com wrote: It's a question of the amount of coverage we want to give to fiction details. Let's say we have an article on Superman, and also on each of the various Superman comic runs that have appeared in the past 50 years. Now make an article on *each* comic issue, and then in that article describe the plot, characters, moral, date, number of issues, etc. *Now* for each character make an article for them, describing each issue they were in, with the plot details, and link them all together. You'd have something like three to twenty thousand articles on Superman. Many people would see that as overwhelming in scope and most relevant for a specialist work. I've always found it to be a question of how hard people are prepared to look the other way, or perhaps look hard enough to find a problem. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that notability guidance was pretty much drawn up and widely accepted to prevent advertising, spam and original research. It's now being pushed places it doesn't need to go, by people who don't really understand what we're about. Some devoted souls seem to treat these policy pages as The Word, almost sacrosanct, which is starting to create real tension with the notion that they are descriptive and that consensus can change. I think the current battle is not between inclusionists and deletionists, but between those who believe rules should be followed and those who believe rules can be broken. That we have a rule which says we can break rules makes for the most perplexing conversations. I can't help but wonder, in amusement, if it isn't possible to fork the encyclopedia from the rules in some way. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
OK the other side of the argument is Wikipedia is not paper. That is, presumably, that we have a virtually unlimited amount of space in which to describe whatever we want. So if we want individual articles on each episode of Gunsmoke we should have them. If we want individual articles on each chapter of War and Peace we should have them. There is no reason why 3 million articles today, could not be 300 million articles in ten years. So why all the fuss? Get busy and stop deleting my articles. The size and price of hard disk storage is dropping like a sinner to Hell. We have 1 Terabyte external's going for 30 bucks. The foundation just needs to invest in more cheap hardware and pound the pavement for more contributions. Will Johnson -Original Message- From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 2:06 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary 2009/8/18 wjhon...@aol.com: I just explained why. Some people would find three thousand articles on Superman is be overwhelming. It's a similar situation to having separate articles on each subway stop in New York City or each Mayor of Santa Cruz. No, you just explained one side of the argument. An argument only exists if there are two sides and it is only a high profile argument if ther e is some additional factor. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation...
Really? I can't see any legal justification for doing that. If they lied in their candidate statement, perhaps, and it would certainly be relevant information that voters might want to see before making up their mind, but disqualification? - wjhon...@aol.com wrote: From: wjhon...@aol.com To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tuesday, 18 August, 2009 21:19:28 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation... I hadn't notice this earlier, but I hope we don't have any candidates who are its. Candidate for the board Andrew, the elections we just had. Perhaps Jay will be forthcoming in exact details. In a message dated 8/18/2009 12:06:11 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, andrewrtur...@googlemail.com writes: I feel like I've missed half the conversation here: Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block. candidate for what? - Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote: From: Jay Litwyn brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, 17 August, 2009 02:28:45 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: [WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copypasted books fromWikipedia
Although correct me if I'm wrong, but part of GFDL is a kind of inheritability. In other words if an editor (copyright holder) finds their text being used in these books, they can require the publisher comply with all the attribution requirements within GFDL, even if Wikimedia's communities do not insist on it all. FT2 On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:57 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: You do not need to mention all contributors. A satisfactory attribution is merely a URL pointing to the Wikipedia article and possibly one pointing at the history page. By our inaction we've made it clear you do not need to directly mention any contributors. Will Johnson In a message dated 8/18/2009 9:29:21 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca writes: To my knowledge, all that is required to meet a -BY- requirement is one mention of all contributors. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 3:07 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: OK the other side of the argument is Wikipedia is not paper. That is, presumably, that we have a virtually unlimited amount of space in which to describe whatever we want. Indeed. Our size limitations are not physical, but logical. We're no longer limited by the number of paper pages one can bind together, nor by the number of bound volumes one can distribute, but rather by more abstract concepts of readability, usability, maintainability, and so on. I've been meaning for a while, now, to write a project-space essay encouraging a shift from notability to maintainability as a primary inclusion guideline. Lack of suitable sourcing makes maintenance difficult, because it's that much harder for us to be sure of accuracy and NPOV. If nothing else, the two ideas might complement each other well. -Luna ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
2009/8/18 Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com: Err ... it's Wikipedia's fault if hurried journalists today do nothing but research on it and misinterpret what they find? Puh-lease. To get from that to It was formally launched on January 15 in 2001 by Ward Cunningham and Richard Stallman you need to do plenty of miscomprehension exercises. Remember: hacks get _paid_ to do this work, often quite large sums, and (in the UK) are supposed to spend time learning the importance of getting the facts straight. Not copying-and-pasting, and then mangling the sense. They have subeditors who are _paid_ to do the mangling. This is why I have no fear whatsoever of the Associated Press's plans to compete directly with Wikipedia. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copypasted books fromWikipedia
Of course anyone is free to raise this legal theory in a suit. However exactly what requirements the license has and exactly how you have to comply with them, is a source of contentious debate even among those who believe it's enforceable at all. Personally what I would like to see is something like this article copied from the version at Wikipedia URL blah blah blah/versionstamp and that's it. If a person can even navigate that far, or cares, it's completely trivial to look at the version history to see who wrote it. And I enquote who, because this is the most silly argument I've yet seen at blocking mirrors. Some of our articles have dozens if not hundreds of writers and it's near impossible for any non-geek to determine who are the top five or whatever. The license doesn't mean five or any number. So the URL is sufficient in my mind. And I really expect that in citation practice in print material we're much more likely to see something like that trite Cleopatra, WP. When the entire license was created without giving clear and specific and exact examples, the writers should have been taken out and shot :) That's not a call to action, just my opinion. The way it stands it's a lawyer's feast or a dog's breakfast, or both. So in conclusion, any editor who wants to sue that publication, should probably do so, within the next seven years, or lose all chance at making a later claim ;) Will Johnson -Original Message- From: FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 3:23 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copypasted books fromWikipedia Although correct me if I'm wrong, but part of GFDL is a kind of inheritability. In other words if an editor (copyright holder) finds their text being used in these books, they can require the publisher comply with all the attribution requirements within GFDL, even if Wikimedia's communities do not insist on it all. FT2 On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:57 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: You do not need to mention all contributors. A satisfactory attribution is merely a URL pointing to the Wikipedia article and possibly one pointing at the history page. By our inaction we've made it clear you do not need to directly mention any contributors. Will Johnson In a message dated 8/18/2009 9:29:21 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, brewh...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca writes: To my knowledge, all that is required to meet a -BY- requirement is one mention of all contributors. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
Print journalism is so passe. Once Microsoft has market coverage for their whole house computer we won't need to take anything into the bathroom to read anymore. Do you surf on your ipod while on the toilet? 45% of readers say -Original Message- From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com To: charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com; English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 3:33 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article 2009/8/18 Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com: Err ... it's Wikipedia's fault if hurried journalists today do nothing but research on it and misinterpret what they find? Puh-lease. To get from that to It was formally launched on January 15 in 2001 by Ward Cunningham and Richard Stallman you need to do plenty of miscomprehension exercises. Remember: hacks get _paid_ to do this work, often quite large sums, and (in the UK) are supposed to spend time learning the importance of getting the facts straight. Not copying-and-pasting, and then mangling the sense. They have subeditors who are _paid_ to do the mangling. This is why I have no fear whatsoever of the Associated Press's plans to compete directly with Wikipedia. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
sob You would delete all these articles I've created that no-one else has edited? :-( Carcharoth On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 11:45 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: Only if I can write a corollary, Any article 90 days old or more, with a single editor should be deleted. That would be a ground-level bar on notability. And also an interesting exercise in cobweb control. Will Johnson -Original Message- From: Luna lunasan...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 3:29 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 3:07 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: OK the other side of the argument is Wikipedia is not paper. That is, presumably, that we have a virtually unlimited amount of space in which to describe whatever we want. Indeed. Our size limitations are not physical, but logical. We're no longer limited by the number of paper pages one can bind together, nor by the number of bound volumes one can distribute, but rather by more abstract concepts of readability, usability, maintainability, and so on. I've been meaning for a while, now, to write a project-space essay encouraging a shift from notability to maintainability as a primary inclusion guideline. Lack of suitable sourcing makes maintenance difficult, because it's that much harder for us to be sure of accuracy and NPOV. If nothing else, the two ideas might complement each other well. -Luna ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
wjhon...@aol.com wrote: I believe tantamount not to rules can be broken but rather to rules can change. I never advise people to be bold *against* policy, but rather to go to the policy discussion pages and see whether or not their situation might be an exception that we'd like to include *in* the policy. I agree, although I think it depends upon the case. It all depends upon which policy you are talking about. By the way, I dispute that notability guidelines were laid down to prevent advertising, spam and original research. For example I think in the Porn Actors notability it states something like that they must have appeared in at least five films or something of that sort. Yes, but the driving impetus was to stop vanity pages and advertising, if you look back at the discussions regarding drafting the porn guidance, you'll see advertising was a concern for those participating.The trouble with gaining consensus on anything for fiction is that there are people who won't even allow a bar like has to have appeared in five works of fiction. I've just had to point out to someone that their whole argument, which was based upon the fact that subject specific notability guidance couldn't extend or provide an alternative route to notability beyond that in the main notability guidance, actually contradicted the notability guidance itself, which emphatically states the opposite. I'm also concerned with a potential rewrite of the intro to our notability guidance being discussed on the talk page, because it looks like it might remove these subject specific routes. We're kind of losing sight of the argument that we don't have to think of Wikipedia as paper, and that each article is a different page and a different entry. We've kind of lost sight of the argument that because we aren't paper, our articles can be seen as sections of one large article. So like you say, or at least I'm assuming you're saying, our porn star coverage is allowed to go to as deep as possible to ensure our coverage is as broad, wide and encompassing. That means saying five films is enough, to sate the desire of those who become immersed in the field. (It's kind of hard to avoid double entendres with this subject) You can certainly create a list of porn actors who have only appeared in a single film *without* doing any original research. Remembering that source-based research is not original just because it's new to a major publication. Original research involves the *creation* of a new fact, not just the re-reporting of it no matter the source, provided it's been published in some format previously. A video box cover is a publication format. So reading names off it, is not original research. I'm aware of the arguments. The big flaw in the argument you are pushing is that our policies, especially no original research, call for articles to rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources. That's been in policy in some form or another for ages, I think it is one of Larry Sanger's additions to the rule book. It's currently coming into play in a number of places. So yes, fine, you can read stuff of a dvd box, but the argument is, if that's all you have, then you don't have an article. You also don't have an article if you have a lot of primary and tertiary sources, but very few secondary sources. I think the trouble is that very early on you'd have people interested in science subjects writing policies over here, and people interested in fiction subjects writing policies over there, and conflict has ensued when people discovered the other set of policies and started applying them to the wrong subject, if you see what I mean. And original research is really hard to apply to fiction, because a lot of it surprisingly does amount to interpretation. Now yes, we should let consensus determine content, but is that a consensus as defined in policy or by editors? And then we fall into arguments over what a local consensus is. Surprisingly few people appreciate the argument that a consensus enshrined in a policy can be just as localised as any other. I can never tell if that's small mindedness or political ignorance. I also find people are too busy arguing at article a in order to protect or advance positions at articles b, c and d. It would be so much easier if there was some way of just debating the merits of article a. Alternatively, I find the people I think of as my peers are increasingly avoiding debates and just editing the encyclopedia. I kind of appreciate and understand that. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 wjhon...@aol.com: Only if I can write a corollary, Any article 90 days old or more, with a single editor should be deleted. That would be a ground-level bar on notability. And also an interesting exercise in cobweb control. What about new page patrollers tagging and categorising? Do they count as editors? It takes less than 90 minutes for a new article to get its first edits from other people. You would need to work out where to draw the line, which is never easy. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
I'd start with you first! I've had a hard spot in my black heart for you ever since you deleted my article on the Varying Shapes of Pikachu's Ears from 1989 to 1993 and Its Correlation to the Japanese Stock Market. On a brighter note, I'm happy to report that I have *once again* made the news with my apparent wickedness. Bose 2.2 direct reflecting bookshelf speakers for sale on Knol http://knol.google.com/k/will-johnson/bose-22-direct-reflecting-bookshelf/4hmquk6fx4gu/277 Evidently my evil plans are finally gaining the international recognition they so richly deserve. Will Skeletor Johnson -Original Message- From: Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 3:49 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary sob You would delete all these articles I've created that no-one else has edited? :-( Carcharoth On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 11:45 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: Only if I can write a corollary, Any article 90 days old or more, with a single editor should be deleted. That would be a ground-level bar on notability. And also an interesting exercise in cobweb control. Will Johnson -Original Message- From: Luna lunasan...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 3:29 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to W ikipedians for BBC Documentary On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 3:07 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: OK the other side of the argument is Wikipedia is not paper. That is, presumably, that we have a virtually unlimited amount of space in which to describe whatever we want. Indeed. Our size limitations are not physical, but logical. We're no longer limited by the number of paper pages one can bind together, nor by the number of bound volumes one can distribute, but rather by more abstract concepts of readability, usability, maintainability, and so on. I've been meaning for a while, now, to write a project-space essay encouraging a shift from notability to maintainability as a primary inclusion guideline. Lack of suitable sourcing makes maintenance difficult, because it's that much harder for us to be sure of accuracy and NPOV. If nothing else, the two ideas might complement each other well. -Luna ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
I just want to address this one quote. You also don't have an article if you have a lot of primary and tertiary sources, but very few secondary sources. I think this is a false reading of our intent. The entire structuring of the rely primarily on secondary sources and other discussion that primary sources can be included *when* the material was already introduced by a secondary source in some way and especially in those cases where it conflicts, etc etc. Doesn't really address and wasn't meant to address a situation where all you have is a teritary source (an expression I hate by the way). But let's play ball with it anyway. Let's say that you have the tertiary (shudder) source EB 1911, Cleopatra. You are aware that an enormous number of our articles were created *solely* from the 1911 EB are you not? You might say that makes them stubby but not in the normal sense of the WP:Jargon. We might say they rely on a single source but really the EB sort of sits above most uses of that condition. I would say that most of us consider is fairly authoritative on a summary view of any subject. So in conclusion, I don't think we have any policy language that would say that tertiary sources without secondary ones would make an article subject to attack, except possibly a make this better please tag. Will Johnson ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
Ok... substantive change? Discount changes that only shift text around, fix grammar, add cats and so on. Or maybe any article where the sole sources have been added by a single editor. Sounds a bit WP:OWNish doesn't it? -Original Message- From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 3:58 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary 2009/8/18 wjhon...@aol.com: Only if I can write a corollary, Any article 90 days old or more, with a single editor should be deleted. That would be a ground-level bar on notability. And also an interesting exercise in cobweb control. What about new page patrollers tagging and categorising? Do they count as editors? It takes less than 90 minutes for a new article to get its first edits from other people. You would need to work out where to draw the line, which is never easy. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copypasted books from Wikipedia
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 11:10 PM, Renata Strenataw...@gmail.com wrote: It was raised before on the Village Pump, but I think this is so disturbing that we ought to do something. As others have said, I don't find this disturbing at all. It would be good if a Wikipedian bought one of the books to ensure compliance with our license but even if it doesn't I would still be unmoved. I don't think it requires a concerted effort by Wikipedia to attack the publisher by trying to post a review of all 2,000 books. Purchasers of the books who feel they were conned can post their own reviews if they buy them and are alarmed to discover how they were produced. I wouldn't be against Wikipedia having its own range of print works provided they were profitable and all funds were ploughed back into the Foundation. But I certainly don't think it would be a good idea if it were purely motivated by trying to compete someone out of the market. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
Not that it's a single source. The problem is that it's a single outmoded source, never really balanced and NPOV, and by now wholly unreliable in almost all subjects, the ancient world included. About 95% of it was written over a century ago, and there is almost nothing for which new information and new interpretations have made the existing version inappropriate as the base for a modern encyclopedia. Essentially all text from there needs to be removed, except for some quotations to show how things were looked at historically, and the relevant portions or articles redone from what would now be considered reliable sources. To even know what parts can be rescued requires a sound knowledge of the subject and its development, and cannot be done mechanically. The situation is exactly comparable to what it would be if that EB had simply reprinted Diderot's 1770 Encyclopedie. It would have been a laughing stock to have presented that as a current work, and so with our articles derived from it. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 7:30 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: I just want to address this one quote. You also don't have an article if you have a lot of primary and tertiary sources, but very few secondary sources. I think this is a false reading of our intent. The entire structuring of the rely primarily on secondary sources and other discussion that primary sources can be included *when* the material was already introduced by a secondary source in some way and especially in those cases where it conflicts, etc etc. Doesn't really address and wasn't meant to address a situation where all you have is a teritary source (an expression I hate by the way). But let's play ball with it anyway. Let's say that you have the tertiary (shudder) source EB 1911, Cleopatra. You are aware that an enormous number of our articles were created *solely* from the 1911 EB are you not? You might say that makes them stubby but not in the normal sense of the WP:Jargon. We might say they rely on a single source but really the EB sort of sits above most uses of that condition. I would say that most of us consider is fairly authoritative on a summary view of any subject. So in conclusion, I don't think we have any policy language that would say that tertiary sources without secondary ones would make an article subject to attack, except possibly a make this better please tag. Will Johnson ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
Well get busy I still once-in-a-while encounter articles whose only source is EB1911. I would submit that if you actually put these up for AfD you'd get a lot of backflack for SNOW. Sure the articles could be fixed, but the previous point was that a single tertiary source isn't sufficient for an article and I think it probably is.. depending. I suppose someone could make a robot run through these, but my point is that even if your single source is Compton's 2009 edition, I wouldn't say that calls for the deletion of the article. Provided of course it's not a straight copyvio. -Original Message- From: David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 6:11 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary Not that it's a single source. The problem is that it's a single outmoded source, never really balanced and NPOV, and by now wholly unreliable in almost all subjects, the ancient world included. About 95% of it was written over a century ago, and there is almost nothing for which new information and new interpretations have made the existing version inappropriate as the base for a modern encyclopedia. Essentially all text from there needs to be removed, except for some quotations to show how things were looked at historically, and the relevant portions or articles redone from what wou ld now be considered reliable sources. To even know what parts can be rescued requires a sound knowledge of the subject and its development, and cannot be done mechanically. The situation is exactly comparable to what it would be if that EB had simply reprinted Diderot's 1770 Encyclopedie. It would have been a laughing stock to have presented that as a current work, and so with our articles derived from it. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 7:30 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: I just want to address this one quote. You also don't have an article if you have a lot of primary and tertiary sources, but very few secondary sources. I think this is a false reading of our intent. The entire structuring of the rely primarily on secondary sources and other discussion that primary sources can be included *when* the material was already introduced by a secondary source in some way and especially in those cases where it conflicts, etc etc. Doesn't really address and wasn't meant to address a situation where all you have is a teritary source (an expression I hate by the way). But let's play ball with it anyway. Let's say that you have the tertiary (shudder) source EB 1911, Cleopatra. You are aware that an enormous number of our articles were created *solely* from the 1911 EB are you not? Yo u might say that makes them stubby but not in the normal sense of the WP:Jargon. We might say they rely on a single source but really the EB sort of sits above most uses of that condition. I would say that most of us consider is fairly authoritative on a summary view of any subject. So in conclusion, I don't think we have any policy language that would say that tertiary sources without secondary ones would make an article subject to attack, except possibly a make this better please tag. Will Johnson ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/19 wjhon...@aol.com: Well get busy I still once-in-a-while encounter articles whose only source is EB1911. I would submit that if you actually put these up for AfD you'd get a lot of backflack for SNOW. Sure the articles could be fixed, but the previous point was that a single tertiary source isn't sufficient for an article and I think it probably is.. depending. I remember copyediting one article on a now-obscure 18th century British parliamentarian. Basically I just rewrote for style. And, y'know, I'm pretty sure it'd be a reasonable start on the article, and certainly not a deletion candidate just for having 1911EB as its sole source. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 7:46 AM, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: Why not scan them and store them at wikisource? Lol. Indeed. Why not scan 200 volumes of an encyclopaedia? For fun, OCR it too.. Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Gridlock should be impossible.
Agreed. Jay, the last time I went through the moderation queue, there were 15 messages from you. Could you please send less messages, and make them more relevant? Thanks, Steve (mod) On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 2:40 AM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: If you have a point that is within the scope of this mailing list, then make it. Please stop sending emails like this. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Policies, notability et al, was Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/19 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: 2009/8/19 wjhon...@aol.com: Well get busy I still once-in-a-while encounter articles whose only source is EB1911. I would submit that if you actually put these up for AfD you'd get a lot of backflack for SNOW. Sure the articles could be fixed, but the previous point was that a single tertiary source isn't sufficient for an article and I think it probably is.. depending. I remember copyediting one article on a now-obscure 18th century British parliamentarian. Basically I just rewrote for style. And, y'know, I'm pretty sure it'd be a reasonable start on the article, and certainly not a deletion candidate just for having 1911EB as its sole source. I've found that a lot of our material tagged as from EB1911 has now pretty much vanished entirely under three or four years of editing - it might be instructive to dig through them and see what needs rewriting anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:1911 -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
2009/8/18 wjhon...@aol.com: Only if I can write a corollary, Any article 90 days old or more, with a single editor should be deleted. That would be a ground-level bar on notability. And also an interesting exercise in cobweb control. I'm really not sure that prohibiting cases where only one of our editors wants to work on something is really the best way to encourage finding notable topics, or indeed to counter our already huge systemic bias problem. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block.
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 5:05 AM, Andrew Turveyandrewrtur...@googlemail.com wrote: I feel like I've missed half the conversation here: Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block. candidate for what? Well with the lack of information i'm going to stab in the dark and guess were talking about community blocks/ban and other sanctions which are generally disucssed at WP:ANI. And by candidate I can guess were either talking about someone applying for adminship or the person being blocked. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Report a Problem hack
On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Samuel Kleinmeta...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 9:01 PM, Emily Monroebluecalioc...@me.com wrote: I'd like it. Good for new page patrollers'. +1 for neat little pop-ups and easy error reporting. Can we also do something like this to report general interface and software bugs? SJ That would possibly be a bad idea for bugs, bugs should be discussed at the Village pump (or local equivalent) to see if it is really a bug so it can be discussed then someone can file it on bugzilla with the all the revelant information and make a note of it in the discussion so several copies of the same bug aren't created. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
On Tue, 18 Aug 2009, Surreptitiousness wrote: That we have a rule which says we can break rules makes for the most perplexing conversations. One problem is that the rule which says we can break rules is poorly worded. If you didn't already agree that you can break rules (and therefore didn't need it anyway), it's rather misleading and causes problems. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copypasted books from Wikipedia
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Bod Notbodbodnot...@gmail.com wrote: I wouldn't be against Wikipedia having its own range of print works provided they were profitable and all funds were ploughed back into the Foundation. But I certainly don't think it would be a good idea if it were purely motivated by trying to compete someone out of the market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Books/ Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Motion To Disqualify a Candidate if it supplied misinformation to WP:ANI to butress an argument with a block.
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 12:46 PM, K. Peacheyp858sn...@yahoo.com.au wrote: Well with the lack of information i'm going to stab in the dark and guess were talking about community blocks/ban and other sanctions which are generally disucssed at WP:ANI. With the lack of information I'm more inclined to stab myself in the face than attempt to work out what the thread was about. Jay, this is a warning. Context and proper, interesting, relevant posts, or I'm going to start mass discarding your posts. Steve (mod) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 1:55 AM, Cathy Edwardscathy.edwa...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I think I have a good idea why BLP are a hot topic of debate in this area, but why do you think fiction is contentious - because it's in danger of unbalancing the encyclopedia? I'll offer two reasons: 1) Because editors are unable, in general, to distinguish between the desirability of including a topic, and the desirability of including the current article written on that topic. They see a crappy article and think crappy topic. 2) Because editors react rather viscerally and unhelpfully to certain topics. I don't like Pokémon, but I begrudingly accept the wisdom of articles on Pokémon characters. I find the difficult struggle to define the borders of the encyclopaedia very interesting, but dubbing it the deletionism/inclusionism debate is really oversimplifying it. It implies that there is some group that wants the encyclopaedia to have a certain number of articles (say, 2 million) and another group that wants it to have a larger number (say, 10 million). In practice, it's not like that, there are individual struggles in every area. These struggles have to take place because different people's instincts tell them different things, and there are no clear universal principles to define what's in and out. Nor, other than extreme positions like include everything about which there is at least one source, could there be. Personally, I'm much more convinced by arguments about the cost of maintaining articles in certain areas versus their value to end users - a cost/benefit analysis. But the debate is rarely framed in these terms. As an example, I wrote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_deal_a_day in 2007. It attracts a fair bit of spam, and a reasonable amount of effort from editors to keep it clean. Is it worth it? By contrast, dozens of other stubs that I've written require very little maintenance effort, other than occasional recategorising, interwiki linking, geo coord linking etc. People seem very unwilling or uninterested in engaging in this kind of analysis. Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia approaches its limits - Technology Guardian
On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 3:04 AM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: It can be problematic. I frequently edit as an IP when I'm at another machine and can't be bothered logging in. The unexplained reversion rate is *much* higher than when I edit logged-in, even though the edits are exactly the same sort of thing. Ah, yes. This was an obvious test I should have thought of. One of my pet hates: when an IP changes a figure in in infobox or somewhere in article, with no comment, and no source. I've heard reports of people doing this as sport, just to be annoying, but in my experience, they're often right. But it leaves you in a real quandary, if you can't verify it either way. Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Indywiki, a visual browser for Wikipedia
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 2:10 AM, Emily Monroebluecalioc...@me.com wrote: I don't get why there is any need for a dedicated Wikipedia browser. I agree. For one thing, there's the issue of making it accessible to Mac, Windows, and Linux. But yeah, it's good for inspiration. Yeah, so it's basically a quick way to do a mock-up of some functionality that would eventually need server side coding etc. Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
