Re: [WikiEN-l] Suggestion on how referencing system could be improved
Gwern Branwengwe...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 9:46 PM, Thomas Larsenlarsen.thoma...@gmail.com
wrote:
If I may make a suggestion? That syntax is kind of clunky - maybe we
could have a simpler syntax, something like '{{ref|foo}}'
'{{note|foo}: text'...
Reviving a year-old thread? Hm.
Related note: Bodnotbod dropped us a link:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Move_references_out_of_the_code
-Stevertigo
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Suggestion on how referencing system could be improved
On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 3:54 AM, stevertigostv...@gmail.com wrote:
Gwern Branwengwe...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 9:46 PM, Thomas Larsenlarsen.thoma...@gmail.com
wrote:
If I may make a suggestion? That syntax is kind of clunky - maybe we
could have a simpler syntax, something like '{{ref|foo}}'
'{{note|foo}: text'...
Reviving a year-old thread? Hm.
Related note: Bodnotbod dropped us a link:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Move_references_out_of_the_code
-Stevertigo
That was actually the thread that reminded me; but I couldn't resist
the chance to point out the irony of how recent referencing
discontents have come full circle from the {{ref}} days.
It took about 3 years to put in place references ('01 to '04/'05),
another 3 switch from {{ref}} to ref and grow weary of it ('05 to
now), so I suppose in 2014 or 2015, people will be complaining about
how opaque references in a different section are, how hard to keep in
sync with the article text, and how in programming we put the docs
right with the functions/methods and why-can't-we-do-that?, and
suggest switching to this new referencing system...
--
gwern
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[WikiEN-l] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
One of the best responses to some of the hyperbole out there about the closing, failure, end of WP is the figure of how many articles are actually locked down in any way, however, this is a difficult figure to authoritatively find/claim. There's Main and Featured [1] of course, about 11 protected articles [2], and then 785 semi-protected [3]. So are those the right numbers? If so can we claim about .0026% of pages are protected from editing by anyone and .4% of pages are protected from Wikipedians (i.e., you've signed up for an account and haven't done anything stupid for a few days.) How many pages (BPL + ?) are likely to fall under Flagged Protection? [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_indefinitely_protected_pages [2]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_protected_pages [3]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_semi-protected_pages ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
Sorry, no. A quick look at the protection log shows many more protections of articles as well as other pages; listing in the protected pages categories almost seems an exception when these are clicked on. As well a wide range of pages are salted - deleted then protected to prevent recreation. Those don't appear in categories either. It looks like you'd need to do a check on actual status of mainspace pages via the toolserver to get accurate statistics. FT2 On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Joseph Reagle rea...@mit.edu wrote: One of the best responses to some of the hyperbole out there about the closing, failure, end of WP is the figure of how many articles are actually locked down in any way, however, this is a difficult figure to authoritatively find/claim. There's Main and Featured [1] of course, about 11 protected articles [2], and then 785 semi-protected [3]. So are those the right numbers? If so can we claim about .0026% of pages are protected from editing by anyone and .4% of pages are protected from Wikipedians (i.e., you've signed up for an account and haven't done anything stupid for a few days.) How many pages (BPL + ?) are likely to fall under Flagged Protection? [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_indefinitely_protected_pages [2]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_protected_pages [3]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_semi-protected_pages ___ 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] Why the semantic web needs human review
Unfortunate results from trying to extract meaning from Wikipedia text by machine: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/02/netbase-thinks-you-can-get-rid-of-jews-with-alcohol-and-salt/ - 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
Okay, found out why. You need to account for [[Category:Wikipedia pages protected due to dispute]] and other protection categories, as well. Pages such as Russell's teapot and Developed country are in there, protected, but not tagged. The root cause seems to be that the category isn't itself a subcategory of some protected pages category. Specifically, there are protection templates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Protection_templates such as Pp-dispute that don't also include the page in one of the main protected pages categories you name. FT2 On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:29 PM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry, no. A quick look at the protection log shows many more protections of articles as well as other pages; listing in the protected pages categories almost seems an exception when these are clicked on. As well a wide range of pages are salted - deleted then protected to prevent recreation. Those don't appear in categories either. It looks like you'd need to do a check on actual status of mainspace pages via the toolserver to get accurate statistics. FT2 On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Joseph Reagle rea...@mit.edu wrote: One of the best responses to some of the hyperbole out there about the closing, failure, end of WP is the figure of how many articles are actually locked down in any way, however, this is a difficult figure to authoritatively find/claim. There's Main and Featured [1] of course, about 11 protected articles [2], and then 785 semi-protected [3]. So are those the right numbers? If so can we claim about .0026% of pages are protected from editing by anyone and .4% of pages are protected from Wikipedians (i.e., you've signed up for an account and haven't done anything stupid for a few days.) How many pages (BPL + ?) are likely to fall under Flagged Protection? [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_indefinitely_protected_pages [2]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_protected_pages [3]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_semi-protected_pages ___ 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] Googley comments
How something's framed can shape how it's used. I would never have a comment on this article page, it's pointless and a monitoring nightmare. We'd get arguments and dramas, then we'd be expected to clean them up, BLP and negative material and accused of sheltering one side when we purge them... you name it. We don't need that. What I would think more likely to succeed? A Help us improve tab, not a comment tab Specifically with a header and edit notice If you can see a way to improve this article, or better more up to date information, let us know! I also might consider trialling a button that said If you notice an error, omission, outdated facts, or any other ways we can improve this article, '''[[TALK PAGE|click here]]''' and let us know! FT2 ___ 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] Why the semantic web needs human review
On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 11:33 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: Unfortunate results from trying to extract meaning from Wikipedia text by machine: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/02/netbase-thinks-you-can-get-rid-of-jews-with-alcohol-and-salt/ And they've apologised but not fixed their results. It gets worse: http://healthbase.netbase.com/#JewCauses http://healthbase.netbase.com/#JewComplications http://healthbase.netbase.com/#JewPros Next time I see any of my Jewish friends I'm going to ask them to bring horse as HealthBase promises they will do. -- Stephen Bain stephen.b...@gmail.com ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
Passed on to WP:AN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Protection_template_issue FT2 On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:36 PM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Okay, found out why. You need to account for [[Category:Wikipedia pages protected due to dispute]] and other protection categories, as well. Pages such as Russell's teapot and Developed country are in there, protected, but not tagged. The root cause seems to be that the category isn't itself a subcategory of some protected pages category. Specifically, there are protection templates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Protection_templates such as Pp-dispute that don't also include the page in one of the main protected pages categories you name. FT2 On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:29 PM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry, no. A quick look at the protection log shows many more protections of articles as well as other pages; listing in the protected pages categories almost seems an exception when these are clicked on. As well a wide range of pages are salted - deleted then protected to prevent recreation. Those don't appear in categories either. It looks like you'd need to do a check on actual status of mainspace pages via the toolserver to get accurate statistics. FT2 On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Joseph Reagle rea...@mit.edu wrote: One of the best responses to some of the hyperbole out there about the closing, failure, end of WP is the figure of how many articles are actually locked down in any way, however, this is a difficult figure to authoritatively find/claim. There's Main and Featured [1] of course, about 11 protected articles [2], and then 785 semi-protected [3]. So are those the right numbers? If so can we claim about .0026% of pages are protected from editing by anyone and .4% of pages are protected from Wikipedians (i.e., you've signed up for an account and haven't done anything stupid for a few days.) How many pages (BPL + ?) are likely to fall under Flagged Protection? [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_indefinitely_protected_pages [2]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_protected_pages [3]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_semi-protected_pages ___ 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] Googley comments
2009/9/4 FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com: What I would think more likely to succeed? A Help us improve tab, not a comment tab Specifically with a header and edit notice If you can see a way to improve this article, or better more up to date information, let us know! +1 Brilliant! I also might consider trialling a button that said If you notice an error, omission, outdated facts, or any other ways we can improve this article, '''[[TALK PAGE|click here]]''' and let us know! Hmm, could be good ... maintenance nightmare for BLPs stll, though. - 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] Google Books class action lawsuit
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8237271.stm Interesting story there. Hadn't realised there was even a lawsuit in progress. 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] Googley comments
On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:47 PM, FT2ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: What I would think more likely to succeed? A Help us improve tab, not a comment tab One of the proposals on the strategy wiki has recommended an adjustment to talk pages. I added that perhaps the tab should be called discussion/feedback to encourage people who are primarily readers to let us know what they thought of an article without it necessarily sounding like they had to be knowledgeable. I'm afraid I can't link to the proposal cos I can't remember the name or whether I watchlisted it. But I imagine this kind of proposal is fairly common: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13573 ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
On Friday 04 September 2009, Joseph Reagle wrote: One of the best responses to some of the hyperbole out there about the closing, failure, end of WP is the figure of how many articles are actually locked down in any way, however, this is a difficult figure to authoritatively find/claim. There's Main and Featured [1] of course, about 11 protected articles [2], and then 785 semi-protected [3]. OK, so the protected categories aren't reliable, after some digging, here's some figures: [[ The recent focus on Wikipedia failing or being closed merit some figures and explanation. On the afternoon of Sept 04, 2009 the English Wikipedia with 3,024,063 articles. The [Special:ProtectedPages][1] for the Article namespace tells us: * 5,137 articles are protected (that's 0.17% of all articles). * The majority of those, (3,553 articles or 69% of protected articles), are semi-protected, meaning that while they aren't editable by anonymous users, they are by Wikipedians (i.e., those that sign up for an account and don't do anything stupid). * Therefore, only 1,583 articles (.05%) are fully protected, and not available to editing by non-administrative Wikipedians. * Of all the articles being protected, 1337 of them (26%) are set to expired, most within a month or two. That's the status quo. Yet, some means of flagging a vetted version of an article has been [discussed since 2005][2]. The current widely [discussed idea][3] is to conduct a two month experiment in which [biographies of living people][4] (402,672 articles, about 13% of the English Wikipedia) or more likely *some subset* thereof are flag protected which means anyone *can still edit* but the public (not Wikipedians) see the last reviewed version. This doesn't necessarily replace the existing protection mechanisms, but could be a good alternative to semi-protection. The experiment will helpfully give guidance on who should be a Reviewer and how long it takes time to review and flag a newer version. Another part of the experiment is partrolled revisions which would apply to a wider swath of articles and permit vandalism fighters to bookmark a known good version so they can easily evaluate subsequent contributions, but it won't affect who can edit or what the public sees. The goal of this, and other features, is to maximize the benefits of open collaboration while limiting the damage from disruptive edits. This has always been the case and Wikipedia continues to experiment with achieving the best balance. [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ProtectedPages [2]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-08-31/Flagged_protection_background [3]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisions [4]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Living_people ]] Does that sound right? ___ 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] Fwd: Nashville Meetup
Forwarded. Anyone here in range of Tennessee? - d. 2009/9/3 Sydney Poore sydney.po...@gmail.com: Details about the meetup in Nashville Tennessee over Labor Day weekend, Sept 5th and 6th. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Nashville Y'all come on down for some good times :-) Sydney ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
Try this instead to refute the Wikipedia is dying argument. Wikipedia's featured picture program started in May 2004. It took until 30 December 2007 to reach 1000 featured pictures. We're on track to reach number 2000 within a week: currently at 1973 FPs with 63 active nominations. It would be interesting if someone wrote a tool to check article citations. Footnoting has been getting more and more commonplace, as well as more extensive. -Durova On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 7:02 AM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Passed on to WP:AN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Protection_template_issuehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Protection_template_issue FT2 On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:36 PM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Okay, found out why. You need to account for [[Category:Wikipedia pages protected due to dispute]] and other protection categories, as well. Pages such as Russell's teapot and Developed country are in there, protected, but not tagged. The root cause seems to be that the category isn't itself a subcategory of some protected pages category. Specifically, there are protection templates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Protection_templates such as Pp-dispute that don't also include the page in one of the main protected pages categories you name. FT2 On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:29 PM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry, no. A quick look at the protection log shows many more protections of articles as well as other pages; listing in the protected pages categories almost seems an exception when these are clicked on. As well a wide range of pages are salted - deleted then protected to prevent recreation. Those don't appear in categories either. It looks like you'd need to do a check on actual status of mainspace pages via the toolserver to get accurate statistics. FT2 On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Joseph Reagle rea...@mit.edu wrote: One of the best responses to some of the hyperbole out there about the closing, failure, end of WP is the figure of how many articles are actually locked down in any way, however, this is a difficult figure to authoritatively find/claim. There's Main and Featured [1] of course, about 11 protected articles [2], and then 785 semi-protected [3]. So are those the right numbers? If so can we claim about .0026% of pages are protected from editing by anyone and .4% of pages are protected from Wikipedians (i.e., you've signed up for an account and haven't done anything stupid for a few days.) How many pages (BPL + ?) are likely to fall under Flagged Protection? [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_indefinitely_protected_pages [2]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_protected_pages [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_semi-protected_pages ___ 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 -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Joseph Reaglerea...@mit.edu wrote: On Friday 04 September 2009, Joseph Reagle wrote: One of the best responses to some of the hyperbole out there about the closing, failure, end of WP is the figure of how many articles are actually locked down in any way, however, this is a difficult figure to authoritatively find/claim. There's Main and Featured [1] of course, about 11 protected articles [2], and then 785 semi-protected [3]. OK, so the protected categories aren't reliable, after some digging, here's some figures: [[ The recent focus on Wikipedia failing or being closed merit some figures and explanation. On the afternoon of Sept 04, 2009 the English Wikipedia with 3,024,063 articles. The [Special:ProtectedPages][1] for the Article namespace tells us: * 5,137 articles are protected (that's 0.17% of all articles). * The majority of those, (3,553 articles or 69% of protected articles), are semi-protected, meaning that while they aren't editable by anonymous users, they are by Wikipedians (i.e., those that sign up for an account and don't do anything stupid). * Therefore, only 1,583 articles (.05%) are fully protected, and not available to editing by non-administrative Wikipedians. * Of all the articles being protected, 1337 of them (26%) are set to expired, most within a month or two. That's the status quo. Yet, some means of flagging a vetted version of an article has been [discussed since 2005][2]. The current widely [discussed idea][3] is to conduct a two month experiment in which [biographies of living people][4] (402,672 articles, about 13% of the English Wikipedia) or more likely *some subset* thereof are flag protected which means anyone *can still edit* but the public (not Wikipedians) see the last reviewed version. This doesn't necessarily replace the existing protection mechanisms, but could be a good alternative to semi-protection. The experiment will helpfully give guidance on who should be a Reviewer and how long it takes time to review and flag a newer version. Another part of the experiment is partrolled revisions which would apply to a wider swath of articles and permit vandalism fighters to bookmark a known good version so they can easily evaluate subsequent contributions, but it won't affect who can edit or what the public sees. The goal of this, and other features, is to maximize the benefits of open collaboration while limiting the damage from disruptive edits. This has always been the case and Wikipedia continues to experiment with achieving the best balance. [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ProtectedPages [2]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-08-31/Flagged_protection_background [3]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Flagged_protection_and_patrolled_revisions [4]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Living_people ]] Does that sound right? Would it be possible for you to do a comparison with Wikipedia just before semiprotection was enabled? I've long wanted to know whether the argument that semiprotections would replace full protections holds any water. This would also seem to be quite important to know for flagged, inasmuch as that argument has been recycled for flagging pages... -- gwern ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
I'm undertaking to have all article and talk page semiprotections on Wikipedia reviewed. The process I'm using is to enter a brief proposal on the article talk page and contact the protecting sysop. The idea is that we discuss whether to unprotect the article or talk page and watch it vigilantly. This has already met considerable success, with more 30% of the proposals I've made this evening being enacted upon. There appear to be a lot of semiprotections that have simply been forgotten by the original sysop. I'll keep this up until I either run out of articles to review or get bored. Since there are several thousand semiprotected article the latter is more likely to happen first. Gwern Branwen wonders whether semiprotections have taken over from protections. Well one cannot really compare the current Wikipedia with the Wikipedia of 2005. Then we had no real way of dealing with biographies of living persons, and little awareness of the problem, and as for the protected articles, they numbered dozens at the most, and certainly not thousands. It's important to strike a balance. While many of the semiprotected pages may actually be redirects that we wouldn't normally want to see edited by unregistered users, I suspect many are not. It's always a good idea to review the situation regularly. ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 4:55 PM, Tony Sidawaytonysida...@gmail.com wrote: I'm undertaking to have all article and talk page semiprotections on Wikipedia reviewed. The process I'm using is to enter a brief proposal on the article talk page and contact the protecting sysop. The idea is that we discuss whether to unprotect the article or talk page and watch it vigilantly. This has already met considerable success, with more 30% of the proposals I've made this evening being enacted upon. There appear to be a lot of semiprotections that have simply been forgotten by the original sysop. I'll keep this up until I either run out of articles to review or get bored. Since there are several thousand semiprotected article the latter is more likely to happen first. Gwern Branwen wonders whether semiprotections have taken over from protections. Well one cannot really compare the current Wikipedia with the Wikipedia of 2005. Then we had no real way of dealing with biographies of living persons, and little awareness of the problem, and as for the protected articles, they numbered dozens at the most, and certainly not thousands. It's important to strike a balance. While many of the semiprotected pages may actually be redirects that we wouldn't normally want to see edited by unregistered users, I suspect many are not. It's always a good idea to review the situation regularly. Excellent idea. Some problem areas just are and will remain so, but a lot of problems were one particular set of editors beating on each other and not a general social or topic issue. Those go away over time. Thanks for the effort in doing that, Tony. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
Tony gets the Gary Cooper award for this week. Or in particular the Meet John Doe award http://knol.google.com/k/chair-potato/gary-cooper-movies-on-youtube/hyujx7mco9jp/32 -Original Message- From: Tony Sidaway tonysida...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, Sep 4, 2009 4:55 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia I'm undertaking to have all article and talk page semiprotections on Wikipedia reviewed. The process I'm using is to enter a brief proposal on the article talk page and contact the protecting sysop. The idea is that we discuss whether to unprotect the article or talk page and watch it vigilantly. This has already met considerable success, with more 30% of the proposals I've made this evening being enacted upon. There appear to be a lot of semiprotections that have simply been forgotten by the original sysop. I'll keep this up until I either run out of articles to review or get bored. Since there are several thousand semiprotected article the latter is more likely to happen first. Gwern Branwen wonders whether semiprotections have taken over from protections. Well one cannot really compare the current Wikipedia with the Wikipedia of 2005. Then we had no real way of dealing with biographies of living persons, and little awareness of the problem, and as for the protected articles, they numbered dozens at the most, and certainly not thousands. It's important to strike a balance. While many of the semiprotected pages may actually be redirects that we wouldn't normally want to see edited by unregistered users, I suspect many are not. It's always a good idea to review the situation regularly. ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
On 9/5/09, Phil Nash pn007a2...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: I took a quick look the other day at the categories of unsourced articles, which go back to December 2006; to be honest, I don't currently have the time or will myself to trawl through what is a Sisyphean task. Even limiting that to BLP articles is more than enough to tax the stamina of most volunteer editors. It's easy enough to begin a stub, and as easy to tag as unsourced, but it does take some commitment to take the bricks and fashion a mansion, which I think we should be doing. I feel strongly that biographies of living people without sources should be deleted on sight. They can always be recreated by someone who possesses at least one reliable source. ___ 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 8/23/09, Bod Notbod bodnot...@gmail.com wrote: I think if we had almost every article you would find in a *single volume* encyclopedia up to featured or good status that would be a great foundation. That isn't going to happen, simply because we don't have enough people interested in, or even capable of, that kind of writing. It's a wiki and it's good at collaborative work, which means that a few people write about what they know and the rest fact-check it and pick it into a reasonable format. Well over 99% of our articles will never be of featured or even good article standard, but that says more about our unrealistically high standards than it does about the quality of 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] Googley comments
On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 10:59 AM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/9/4 FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com: What I would think more likely to succeed? A Help us improve tab, not a comment tab Specifically with a header and edit notice If you can see a way to improve this article, or better more up to date information, let us know! +1 Especially useful for non-logged-in users. I also might consider trialling a button that said If you notice an error, omission, outdated facts, or any other ways we can improve this article, '''[[TALK PAGE|click here]]''' and let us know! How about simply a cheerful feedback button? ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
Tony is right that these lists of long-term and indefinitely protected or semi-protected pages should be reviewed periodically. The place to find this information is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports There are about 3000 indefinitely permanently protected talk pages; they are almost all user talk pages and were protected at the time that the account was blocked. Most of those can be unprotected. They run back to 2006. There are 39 indefinitely fully protected article titles, the vast majority of which are soft redirects to Wiktionary or pages salted to prevent recreation. For the others, most are quite recent, and it would probably be appropriate to ask the protecting admin to review and, at minimum, set an end-date. In addition, there are 1478 indefinitely protected redirects, many of them to prevent forking. There are 1900+ indefinitely semiprotected articles, with many of them indicating they have been repeated vandalism targets. These include articles on recent US presidents, certain high profile musicians, politically charged subjects, and those with a wide and opinionated fandom. These should, of course, be periodically reviewed; however, if someone decides to unprotect many of these articles, I would hope they don't just keep it on their watchlist but actively review new edits regularly for a few weeks afterward. There are also 300+ indefinitely semiprotected redirects, which include repeatedly recreated articles previously deemed inappropriate, and titles associted with attempts to fork articles. These might bear review as well, either with a move up to full protection or semiprotection lifted on a trial basis, but again they would need to be monitored closely if they are unprotected. Of the approximately 400 talk pages and talk page redirects that are indefinitely semi-protected, almost all are user talk pages, many of admins who carry out antivandal work. There were about 30 article talk pages indefinitely semi-protected before Tony carried out his review, and there are quite a bit fewer now. There are some opportunities to improve practices here, and to really take a look and decide which articles (and rarely, article talk pages) need this indefinite protection. At the same time, I really do believe that if an admin is going to reduce protection on a page with an extensive history of problems, he or she has a responsibility to keep an eye on the page for at least a couple of weeks afterward to ensure there isn't a fresh outbreak of inappropriate behaviour. Since so many of the articles involved are BLPs, and even on non-BLPs the problems were related to inappropriate addition of information about LPs, this is an area where special sensitivity is required. Risker ___ 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] Putting some perspective on the end of Wikipedia
On 9/5/09, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote: There are some opportunities to improve practices here, and to really take a look and decide which articles (and rarely, article talk pages) need this indefinite protection. At the same time, I really do believe that if an admin is going to reduce protection on a page with an extensive history of problems, he or she has a responsibility to keep an eye on the page for at least a couple of weeks afterward to ensure there isn't a fresh outbreak of inappropriate behaviour. Since so many of the articles involved are BLPs, and even on non-BLPs the problems were related to inappropriate addition of information about LPs, this is an area where special sensitivity is required. I've done a tiny bit of work by examining some 60 semiprotected pages in article-space, most of which turned out to be redirects. There are some obvious articles to keep semiprotected: those that are magnets for vandalism by their nature, those that have been protected under an OTRS ticket, and those that are known to be targeted for long term abuse. Of the remainder, I've initiated reviews of 9 semiprotected articles, contacting the protecting admin and starting a discussion on the article talk page. One review has been completed with the decision to retain semiprotection because the vandal is known to be still around and unblockable because of dynamic IP issues. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
