Re: [WikiEN-l] Title font display
On Apr 4, 2014 5:07 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: Has the font used to display the title of Wikipedia pages changed? I noticed things looked different today and have just worked out what the change is. Is there a discussion about this anywhere, or more information? Carcharoth Yes. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Typography_refresh as well as the current signpost. --Martijn Hoekstra ___ 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] Dyslexia
On Dec 9, 2013 10:41 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, Between 7 and 10% of a population is dyslexic. For them reading takes much more effort than it does for the rest of us. As it is, the English Wikipedia has a font available for people who are dyslexic. It is the OpenDyslexic font. It is possible to configure en.wp and many other Wikipedias by clicking somewhere... There are a few questions I would like to ask: - did you know this many people have a problem reading Wikipedia Yes, though severity of dyslexia varies. I myself have a mild case. - did you know these people can be helped with a different font Yes, I even have a browser plugin to be able to override fonts - do you know how to configure Wikipedia to read with the OpenDyslexic font Not from within Wikipedia itself - do you agree that this should be more obvious and easy It would be especially nice if it were easy to toggle on and off. The open dyslexic font is visually horribly unappealing, and while it significantly reduces reading effort and increases reading speed for me, I prefer to only make the trade off when reading large bodies of text. For smaller bodies of text I prefer to use default typography, as the absolute gain is not that large to me personally. - what can we do to raise awareness for usability in MediaWiki in general and for dyslexia in specific Thanks, GerardM http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2013/12/the-best-sinterklaas-gift-ever.html ___ 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] Vandalism instance
On Nov 12, 2013 10:07 PM, Matt m...@pagan.io wrote: Hi James, Thanks for responding. I apologize if this mailing list is the wrong place for this, but I'm having trouble with the English Wikipedia Unblock Ticket Request System. I submitted an unblock request, which was accpeted, but now I'm having trouble with the email confirmation. When I copy into my browser the link I received from the automated email response, I face the following message: The action you requested could not be performed: Please use the link provided to you in your email to access this page. This security step assures us that we are still talking to the same person. Thank you. I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions on how to proceed from here. It would make me quite sad if my unblock request was not looked at becuase I could not get past the email confirmation link. At the moment utrs is transferring from the toolserver to labs. That shouldn't make a difference, but maybe it did. Could you try requesting a new confirmation link by opening a new ticket on utrs? If it fails again, feel free to come back to this list. Thanks Matt, it looks like someone got it before I could. I imagine you know already but, just in case, if you find yourself wanting to edit frequently from tor you may want to consider asking for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IP_block_exemption on your account. Not the simplest for sure but may life easier so you don't have to worry about it. James On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 6:01 PM, Matt matt at pagan.io wrote: Hi! I wanted to point out a single instance of vandalism on the following page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Gris The infobox contains the following line: | awards= he married 4 potatoes The last recorded instance of this page that doesn't contain this vandalism had the following line instead: | awards= I would have fixed this myself, but I use Tor, so I am unable to do so. Thanks. Matt Pagan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Futuristcorporation ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l at 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] intimidation on wikipedia editing
On Jul 1, 2013 11:26 AM, luke.leighton luke.leigh...@gmail.com wrote: folks hi, i am a long-time wikipedia user and long-time and low-volume editor, and a significant contributor to the strategic roadmap of wikipedia which occurred a few years ago. i returned to edit a page and found that the IP address of the HTTP proxy that i use had been blocked. i was reminded of an extreme intimidation incident which clearly violated the spirit of trusting people to contribute to wikipedia, so thought it best to alert you of this. the editing last year was carried out - accidentally - anonymously and using my usual style of making several incremental edits in rapid succession so as not to lose track of the information being added. i was unpleasantly surprised to find that in the middle of the editing the *entire* set of edits had been reverted. Deplorable. Has it been fixed yet? i had encountered the user who carried out the blanket reversion before (when logged in) and he's what one might call a wiki nazi: very experienced at the rules, and uses them to bullying effect rather than works *with* a less-experienced contributor, usually by doing total-revert in a highly disruptive manner. things escalated and a number of idiots piled in, citing the anonymity as a means to attack wikipedia, whereas in fact it was purely accidental, but the bullying and the lack of trust shown was the reason why i chose to *remain* anonymous. Using an account under a pseudonym makes you more anonymous than editing while logged out. the article in question i refuse to name publicly because it will identify me instantly to the bullies from whom i still wish to remain anonymous. While I understand the sentiment, it does make it virtually impossible to address what's been going on here. it was a corner-case technical article full of technically inaccurate technically unsubstantiated and speculative wishful thinking on the part of former editors. i.e. former editors *wish* that the technology would be successful, but are unfortunately dreadfully misinformed on basic maths and physics. the problem is: the lack of success of anyone to create a commercially successful version of this technology in over 100 years makes it very difficult to provide any kind of wikipedia-acceptable citations as to why there are no commercially successful versions of this technology. the article therefore continues to mis-inform people rather badly. a quick check shows that the page has since been updated, but the core concerns remain as the page is completely lacking basic math and physics references, as well as having since been marked as requiring citations. so there are several things that need to be resolved - bear in mind that i am *not* prepared to help publicly resolve this unless the people who carried out the intimidation are taken to task first: 1) the people who carried out the intimidation and accusations need to be reminded of the spirit of wikipedia to *trust* contributors rather than automatically assume that they have malicious intent Sounds reasonable to look in to this, and maybe address it. who were they? It is rather naive to hope they are on the mailinglist reading this, and assume this will change anything regarding their bwhaviour 2) the IP address of my HTTP proxy is to be removed. it's utterly pointless to block IP addresses based on an *individual's* assessment, when there are things such as Tor and other truly anonymous proxies. anyone wishing to truly vandalise wikipedia could do so with extreme prejudice in an automated fashion, and they would certainly not use an HTTP proxy where a simple reverse-DNS lookup would quickly identify them. Open proxies are generally blocked not to prevent a single specific user access, but to prevent vandals from hopping from proxy to proxy. This is not a theoretical concern, but has been amply proven in practice. Other open proxies and tor are also agressively blocked. In the case of tor we even have an entire extension to handle blocks. If your proxy isn't open, it shouldn't have been blocked as such - though at times the community has found that particularly problematic ranges from webhosts are blocked entirely because if the sheer number of proxies that have actively facilitated vandalism through them. Anyway, requesting unblock on-wiki should be the first step. While I understand in part why you aren't willing to divulge the blocked IP here, on the other we can't unblock unknown blocks. once these things have been done then i am prepared to assist further in resolving the subtly misleading parts of the article. i am happy to provide the details *privately* to more senior individuals within the wikipedia foundation such that an investigation can be made. The foundation can't really do anything about this really. Fixing this problem lies with the community. my efforts to improve wikipedia's accuracy are genuine and
Re: [WikiEN-l] VIP Treatment
UTRS was created because handling ip unblock requests on OTRS would violate our privacy policy On Sep 12, 2012 6:17 PM, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: On 12 September 2012 17:08, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 12 September 2012 16:50, Matthew Jacobs sxeptoman...@gmail.com wrote: One problem with that approach is that OTRS is not seen as representative of WP; the administrators are. If the admins are widely perceived as being dicks (probably because way to many of them behave like dicks a large portion of the time), then OTRS is going to continue to be ineffective at changing the perception of WP as unfriendly and more concerned with protecting territory than having accurate information. I think that's a bit of an inside view. The outside world can't tell an admin from a non-admin, there aren't generally little tags on people's sigs. So the problem is more general dickishness, not specifically admin dickishness. As far as I can tell, outsiders like to have someone central to approach, e.g. the email address. (I vaguely understand someone gave Roth/his biographer the wrong answer, i.e. needing a secondary source rather than a referenceable self-statement. That's a different problem, of course.) - d. I figured out where; there is also UTRS (note the U) which is a separately maintained support tool (staffed by English Wikipedia admins) for requesting unblocks. We probably need to look into how people are filtered to these things. (I also am not sure why we have UTRS over OTRS, and why the participants are not told to pass such issues onto OTRS who are more experienced in handling them). Tom ___ 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] VIP Treatment
I have no idea, but legal was sure. On Sep 12, 2012 6:28 PM, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: How exactly? On OTRS we handle much more sensitive private info :-) Tom Morton On 12 Sep 2012, at 17:26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com wrote: UTRS was created because handling ip unblock requests on OTRS would violate our privacy policy On Sep 12, 2012 6:17 PM, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: On 12 September 2012 17:08, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 12 September 2012 16:50, Matthew Jacobs sxeptoman...@gmail.com wrote: One problem with that approach is that OTRS is not seen as representative of WP; the administrators are. If the admins are widely perceived as being dicks (probably because way to many of them behave like dicks a large portion of the time), then OTRS is going to continue to be ineffective at changing the perception of WP as unfriendly and more concerned with protecting territory than having accurate information. I think that's a bit of an inside view. The outside world can't tell an admin from a non-admin, there aren't generally little tags on people's sigs. So the problem is more general dickishness, not specifically admin dickishness. As far as I can tell, outsiders like to have someone central to approach, e.g. the email address. (I vaguely understand someone gave Roth/his biographer the wrong answer, i.e. needing a secondary source rather than a referenceable self-statement. That's a different problem, of course.) - d. I figured out where; there is also UTRS (note the U) which is a separately maintained support tool (staffed by English Wikipedia admins) for requesting unblocks. We probably need to look into how people are filtered to these things. (I also am not sure why we have UTRS over OTRS, and why the participants are not told to pass such issues onto OTRS who are more experienced in handling them). Tom ___ 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] VIP Treatment
On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 8:17 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: If something gets into OTRS and is from a household name, it would be sensible to have it passed to someone with a lot of experience, but I don't know if that is part of the system. Of course, we'd first have to establish that the message legitimately was from said household name, either directly or via an assistant or publicist. Even for legitimate VIPs, though, OTRS volunteers aren't going to change content without good reason (and but it's my article is not a good reason). -- Jim Redmond jredm...@gmail.com We should assume it is from the person they claim to be. If it turns out they are not that problem can be addressed at that time. If they are the VIP they should get VIP treatment from the beginning. By which I mean courtesy and taking their complaint seriously, not doing every little thing they might want. Fred As opposed to regular OTRS tickets, which we should treat boorish, and dismiss their complaint out of hand? ___ 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] NPR on Roth-Library Link of the Day
If someone would say this is a good idea but against policy x, so we shouldnt do it, and that argument were taken seriously, we have a far larger problem than even the most negative reading of the Roths issue. On Sep 11, 2012 6:32 PM, Ed Erhart the.e...@gmail.com wrote: The easiest solution would have been to ask Roth to write a blog post (or something similar) detailing the inspiration for the book -- as far as I know, that inspiration was not publicized until the open letter was published. Another option would have been an interview with basically any website. While I'm sure someone will chime in saying that's against WP:RS!, it's actually not. See WP:SELPPUB: Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information *about themselves*, usually in articles about themselves or their activities (emphasis in original) --Ed On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 12:03 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: On Tue, 11 Sep 2012, Charles Matthews wrote: The Roth situation was WP between a rock (celeb culture with its ohmigod you dissed X) and a hard place (academic credibility requires that, yes, you do require verifiable additions and don't accept argument from authority). It would tend to illustrate that celeb power can potentially be deployed against serious discourse. Countervailing admin power is always a questionable analysis. If someone who could reasonably be seen as speaking for Wikipedia told him that Wikipedia needed secondary sources for his claim, they are wrong, and Wikipedia failed. It completely misses the point to explain how Wikipedia's actual policies are reasonable. The policy that Roth was told about is not reasonable; if it doesn't match Wikipedia's actual policy, he shouldn't be expected to figure that out. What is our actual policy? What should he have been told, and how? Fred ___ 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] attitude- elderly man googling
This is quite interesting in the light of engaging a female editorship. Could you give examples of behaviours that drive off female potential editors, but are ok with male prospective editors? On Sep 9, 2012 10:57 AM, Kathleen McCook klmcc...@gmail.com wrote: The Wikipedia community fosters a young male zeitgeist.This IS an attitude problem that causes women to drop out. I have been a long time low level contributor and thus have had a variety of response to efforts I have made. Persistence has shown me that what one editor sees as not credible may be that particular editor's world view and a contributor--CANNOT, EVER- change the mind of most editors. So one needs to give up on that point, even if you have gone to primary sources and have them on your table in front of you. You have to move on. However, this resigned way of working w/in Wikipedia is not going to be the way that many people approach it. Rebuffed or being called not credible will mean we lose many contributors. It should not be on the contributor to understand the editor. Contributors come from all ages and societies. There are far fewer women contributing than men. Why? Women take the harsh rebukes with more hurt. Really. I am a teacher and suggest that students write for Wikipedia. Invariably the female students have been made to feel stupid by editors and won't go back. The male students are more likely to keep at it. This is the culture that Wikipedia fosters. There are many exceptions….but generally, the tone could be less harsh in dealing with contributors. == On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 11:35 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 8 September 2012 15:43, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: I haven't had chance to look into this; That statement invalidates this statement: Rather than whining about him we need to see the problem; it's an attitude problem HERE. -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] Wikipedia as part of a social media strategy for hotels
On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 6:57 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On 6/25/12, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com wrote: What's wrong with Hi, thanks for your stuff. It didn't belong here, so we put it there for you rather than Hi, you put stuff here that didn't belong here. Bad user. Find an admin that will email your stuff for you through a murky procedure, so you can put it there yourself? I should have been clearer that if people want to spend their time doing that, fine. But there are other things on Wikipedia that need doing more urgently. Trans-wikiiing or moving stuff around is laudable, but is a sideshow to the core aim of producing and improving the quality of the online encyclopedia (as opposed to the online travel guide or hotel guide or whatever). The problem is that this sort of exhortation tends to fail when a volunteer workforce is involved. And I am aware that it is possible for different online freely licensed sites to work together in synergy, exchanging material as needed, but it still feels like a distraction from the core activities. Carcharoth Maybe I'm misreading the thread, but I think that Mike was proposing to use the wiki for deleted articles he set up to use this information to move it over to OSM. I was slightly amazed that this seemed to be received as a bad idea in Carcharoths post. I am not suggesting that any administrator or editor *should* do this, but it should be applauded, ot at least shouldn't be discouraged if an editor does do 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] Massive AfC backlog
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 4:39 AM, Daniel R. Tobias d...@tobias.name wrote: On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 20:25:31 + (GMT), Matthew Bowker wrote: Even through all that, I believe AfC needs to exist. It does provide a great service to anon editors who won't create accounts for whatever reason. Are supporters of AfC known as creationists? -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/ Not yet, but I see no reason not to start using that straight away. ___ 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] Current consensus on PR editing?
Not bad David! I tend to take a bit more of a liberal guideline on fixing obvious blatant vandalism: Google CEO Larry Page is a great big poopyhead should be reverted no matter what, even if you have a conflict of interest, or are Larry Page himself, and would have thought this is generally accepted in the community. Then again, better cautious than crucified. What I fully and completely agree with is your assessment of your ponytail. On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 1:11 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: On 21 June 2012 11:53, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: (God I look my age. The ponytail is going!) Mmm ... with Gemma Griffiths ... yes she beats you on hairdo. 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] Massive AfC backlog
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 7:56 PM, David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com wrote: I've worked very often at CSD, but I have just now been taking a look at AfC, in response to the messages about the backlog. It surprised me initially to see that articles I would certainly have passed at speedy were being declined there, I was going to post a complaint about it. But then I though it over again: I think the effectual standard being used by some of the reviewers at AfC is not whether it will pass speedy, but whether it would be likely to pass AfD. Though seeing this surprised me at first, i can see reason for it . Passing speedy does not mean it is an acceptable article. About 500 articles that pass speedy are deleted every week, either by Prod or AfD. Speedy is for articles that can be unambiguously deleted, and some classes of things that may well be utterly non-notable -- such as products and computer programs and books -- are excluded from the speedy process because of the difficulty in passing a rapid unambiguous judgment. Why should we accept an article at AfC on a self-published book without any reviews to be found? If the rules were to accept it, I would need after accepting it to send it immediately to AfD it would surely be deleted. The criterion at speedy A7 is the deliberately very low bar of indicating some good faith importance, which is much less than notability. Asserting someone has played on a college baseball team is enough to pass speedy--a person might reasonably thing an encyclopedia like WP should cover such athletes. But we don't, and unless there is exceptional non-local sourcing, the article will inevitably be deleted. Why should we accept it at AfC? In such cases, we serve the user better to direct them to more fruitful topics. Perhaps the effective standard should be , having a plausible chance at AfD. I agree that some people at AfC are wrongly rejecting on the apparent basis of it never having potential for being a GA. Similarly, if the grammar or referencing style is so weak that if I accepted it, I would feel an obligation to rewrite it, why should I not try to get the original contributor to improve this? We can't delete articles even at AfD on such grounds, but should we encourage people to write them ? I firmly agree with that assessment, but there is something else at play here too. When someone submits an article for creation, and it is approved, they should have at least some amount of confidence that it survives for some period of time. It would be utter madness to on the one hand say to new contributers that's good enough, we're tossing it into mainspace and on the other see a different editor propose it for deletion two days later. If you really want to confuse the hell out of your newcomers, that seems the way to go. If not, then you need to set standards a little higher. I for one am not willing to tell a new editor it's good enough to be submitted, see you at AfD in two days. ___ 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] Massive AfC backlog
I often find the problem here is explaining the difference what processes are open to them, and that they are able to take those processes to its end (reject PROD, go to AfD, take it to DRV), but that it is an exceedingly bad idea, and they shouldn't do it. The lack of hard rules combined with the abundance of good practices Wikipedians pretty much agree on in general confuses the hell out of our newbies. Condesending as it might be, in the arena of AfC I find it is often preferable to pretend these good practices are hard rules, just for clarity sake On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 10:37 PM, David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com wrote: Agreed. I did in fact have this in mind last night when I encountered the problem. But sometimes one does have to say this to a contributor. I occasionally decline a speedy, and send it or AfD , with the reason being some variant. of I think the community should decide this one/. I have a good deal of experience there, but nobody has the ability to predict with 100% accuracy what the community will do. In a borderline case, it's fair to give people an opportunity. (In particular, I will often give them an opportunity if they protest a speedy against my advice they are unlikely to succeed) On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 7:56 PM, David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com wrote: I've worked very often at CSD, but I have just now been taking a look at AfC, in response to the messages about the backlog. It surprised me initially to see that articles I would certainly have passed at speedy were being declined there, I was going to post a complaint about it. But then I though it over again: I think the effectual standard being used by some of the reviewers at AfC is not whether it will pass speedy, but whether it would be likely to pass AfD. Though seeing this surprised me at first, i can see reason for it . Passing speedy does not mean it is an acceptable article. About 500 articles that pass speedy are deleted every week, either by Prod or AfD. Speedy is for articles that can be unambiguously deleted, and some classes of things that may well be utterly non-notable -- such as products and computer programs and books -- are excluded from the speedy process because of the difficulty in passing a rapid unambiguous judgment. Why should we accept an article at AfC on a self-published book without any reviews to be found? If the rules were to accept it, I would need after accepting it to send it immediately to AfD it would surely be deleted. The criterion at speedy A7 is the deliberately very low bar of indicating some good faith importance, which is much less than notability. Asserting someone has played on a college baseball team is enough to pass speedy--a person might reasonably thing an encyclopedia like WP should cover such athletes. But we don't, and unless there is exceptional non-local sourcing, the article will inevitably be deleted. Why should we accept it at AfC? In such cases, we serve the user better to direct them to more fruitful topics. Perhaps the effective standard should be , having a plausible chance at AfD. I agree that some people at AfC are wrongly rejecting on the apparent basis of it never having potential for being a GA. Similarly, if the grammar or referencing style is so weak that if I accepted it, I would feel an obligation to rewrite it, why should I not try to get the original contributor to improve this? We can't delete articles even at AfD on such grounds, but should we encourage people to write them ? I firmly agree with that assessment, but there is something else at play here too. When someone submits an article for creation, and it is approved, they should have at least some amount of confidence that it survives for some period of time. It would be utter madness to on the one hand say to new contributers that's good enough, we're tossing it into mainspace and on the other see a different editor propose it for deletion two days later. If you really want to confuse the hell out of your newcomers, that seems the way to go. If not, then you need to set standards a little higher. I for one am not willing to tell a new editor it's good enough to be submitted, see you at AfD in two days. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- David Goodman DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ 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
[WikiEN-l] Looks like this might apply to us as well
http://rjbs.manxome.org/rubric/entry/1959 ___ 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] Best deletion objection ever
They are on to us! On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 8:51 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.ufodigest.com/article/wikipedia-considering-dropping-exopolitics-author-alfred-lambremont-webre My view is that Wikipedia's action continues to be part of the CIA time travel controlled US Presidency's retaliation against me for having exposed Soetoro/Obama's participation in a 1980-83 secret CIA jumproom project. - 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] (no subject)
In case it was the same, you should really change it (as well as any other passwords for other sites where you use it) Op 26 jul. 2011 12:56 schreef Tony Sidaway tonysida...@gmail.com het volgende: I don't hold any exciting powers on my Wikipedia account, but in any case its password is (apparently) unhacked. I'm still investigating how my gmail account was compromised. ___ 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 viable competitors to Wikipedia.
On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 8:26 PM, David Goodman dgge...@gmail.com wrote: I've also suggested this, calling it '''Wikipedia Two'' - an encyclopedia supplement where the standard of notability is much relaxed, but which will be different from Wikia by still requiring WP:Verifiability, and NPOV. It would include the lower levels of barely notable articles in Wikipedia, and the upper levels of a good deal of what we do not let in. It would for example include both high schools and elementary schools. It would include college athletes. It would include political candidates. It would include neighborhood businesses, and fire departments. It would include individual asteroids. It would include anyone who had a credited role in a film, or any named character in one--both the ones we currently leave out, and the ones we put in. This should satisfy both the inclusionists and the deletionists. The deletionists will have this material out of Wikipedia, the inclusionists will have it not rejected. But it would be interesting to see a search option: Do you want to see everything (WP+WP2), or only the notable(W)? Anyone care to guess which people would choose? While I agree with the general idea (I would love for example an [[Obscure:]] namespace) we need to make sure that WP:V, and especially WP:Synth is guarded vehemently. We need to keep thinking about what Wikipedia is, and it is WP:NOT, and keep actively thinking about if that is still what we want it to be, and act upon 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] editing wikipedia by thought
Would an automated category Images without alt text be feasible? On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 3:01 PM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote: I'm all for disability access, but why specifically to Wikimedia as opposed to The Internet or computing in general? There are some things that we could and in my view should be doing to make our sites more open to people with disabilities. Colour schemes in templates maps and so forth should be designed to give contrast that works for various forms of colour blindness, and there are still lots of images in wikipedia that need alt text for people using text readers. WereSpielChequers Message: 1 Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:35:18 + From: Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia, coming to a pen near you. To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: AANLkTikUP7XWMf6Gqe1F+jB=y4qvub-pmxvt4nb3b...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 How about a pen that you can use to *edit* Wikipedia? No, wait, that takes longer than typing doesn't it? I'm waiting for the app that let's you edit Wikipedia just by *thinking* (or indeed any application that you can use just by thinking - some are sort of available already for paraplegics, but the technology is still in its infancy). http://www.technoscan.com/tracking.php?ID=15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interface http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_interaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroprosthetics None of those seem to cover eyeball movement technology. This does, but not the application to paraplegics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_tracking Here's an interesting page (and an interesting wiki site as well): http://abilitynet.wetpaint.com/page/Eye+Pointing The closest I could get to anything similar on Wikipedia was one line here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_technology But I'm probably searching using the wrong terms. 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 ___ 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 Ambassadors of Morocco's debut single 'Wikipedia' will be released on 15th November 2010
Can we have this in the fundraiser please? On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Fayssal F. szv...@gmail.com wrote: Hahaha... that's funny :) They are not my meatpuppets! Fayssal F. Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:09:58 +0530 From: Anirudh Bhati anirudh...@gmail.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Ambassadors of Morocco's debut single 'Wikipedia' will be released on 15th November 2010 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: aanlktik0rkembrt4e0syca6mwtpfsjbbehy6tocx9...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ46UXZUvL0 (LT: Fayssal F.) Yours sincerely, Anirudh Singh Bhati B.Com, LL.B. (Hons.), Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar, India. Handphone: +919328712208 Skype: anirudhsbh If this email were legal advice, it would be followed by a bill. -- ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l End of WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 87, Issue 1 *** ___ 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 Ambassadors of Morocco's debut single 'Wikipedia' will be released on 15th November 2010
On the one hand, I agree. On the other, if I had a starting band, the massive exposure of Wikipedia might be hard to resist. If we would want them to release their song under a free licence for the fundraiser, (and that's if. I want them, but that doesn't mean other people want them) asking them just puts us at risk of them saying thanks, but no thanks On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 8:30 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 1 October 2010 18:54, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com wrote: Can we have this in the fundraiser please? The Ambassadors of Morocco appear to be following a fairly conventional commercial band route. While RIAD Records appears to be a name for them self publishing there is nothing to suggest that they have any interest in releasing there songs under a free license or the like. -- geni ___ 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] declining numbers of active EN wiki admins
snip I'll add that it doesn't take much to simply create an account and create an article that says I luv Jane Doe she iz so awsumtastic!! While banning anonymous creation in the mainspace had its good intentions, it's probably not as useful now as it was intended. /snip And I'd like to add to that, that dealing with these pages is quite a lot of work. Speedy the page is quickly done. You then have to explain to the user that the article isn't appropriate, but that he's welcome to continue making contributions, and guide him the way. Templates just don't work for that, cause they always feel templated. In 4/5 cases the user will want to know what he must do in order to do make an article on Jane Doe. That takes quite some time to explain, and you will have to explain that chances are Wikipedia will never have a page on poor jane, no matter how well she takes care of the elderly, it's just not WP:N material, but they are more than welcome to prove you wrong (no, sorry, the mention the hardworking and kind volunteers at the retirement home isn't enough to WP:V she's hard working. Or kind. Nor does it amount to significant coverage). All in all, I estimate that dealing with such pages takes about 10 times as much work as it is to create them. It's worth it though, even if you retain only 1% of good editors. That 1% incidently is vastly more valuable than the amount of initial articles you gain by making it easy to create new articles. On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 8:31 PM, MuZemike muzem...@gmail.com wrote: I'll add that it doesn't take much to simply create an account and create an article that says I luv Jane Doe she iz so awsumtastic!! While banning anonymous creation in the mainspace had its good intentions, it's probably not as useful now as it was intended. For instance, just today I speedy deleted a whole group of articles about some classmates in a primary school somewhere in the UK. If anons were allowed to create mainspace articles, and instead of a registered user creating these articles we had an IP, then not only would there be more transparency in who is creating them and where (as only CheckUser can see underlying IPs from registered accounts), but if blocks are needed to prevent disruption, we can make them relatively short-term (instead of the common practice of indefinitely blocking registered accounts as vandalism-only). Of course, it can also be argued that disallowing such editing may indeed help in smart article creation by reducing the number of crap articles (I mean complete crap) that gets created. There is probably some tradeoff there in new page creation as far as anon creation is concerned. -MuZemike On 5/28/2010 11:29 AM, Alan Liefting wrote: AGK wrote: On 28 May 2010 16:48, Alan Lieftingalieft...@ihug.co.nz wrote: A lot of rubbish articles get created that need to be speedied. That's very true. And the CAT:CSD workload is more prone to backlog than it was a couple of years ago, perhaps because RfA is not as sympathetic to the 'recentchanges patrol' editors (the kind who keep such backlogs down) of years gone by. AGK Keeping editing as a *very* open model makes extra work for the active editors. Since the anons cannot create new articles we are now getting millions (?) of bad faith editors creating an account to make edits. There are now over 12 million editors - many of them are blocked and many are drive by vandals with only a few edits. Account creation or new article creation by new users needs to be changed. Alan Liefitng ___ 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] Temporal tags and outdating
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 10:24 PM, stevertigo stv...@gmail.com wrote:
Recap: A while ago we discussed date conditional switching templates:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2009-May/100714.html .
The problem to be corrected was the use of future tense language which
then becomes outdated and thus notably incorrect. This also has a
greater effect of casual correction patterns which essentially
annotate the error rather than fixing it. For example:
Apple's iTunes store *will start* to sell DRM-free 256 kbit/s (up
from 128 kbit/s) AAC encoded music from EMI for a premium price (this
has since reverted to the standard price).
A proper correction would have simply changed will start [to sell]
to began [to sell] and that would be that. Time and tenses require a
little bit of thinking however, and an editor made a parenthetical
comment (edit note, annote) in place of a considered switch of tense.
Forgivable but incorrect. If the {{dateswitch}} template idea was
fully implemented and used, anyone writing future events could simply
write {{dateswitch|will start|began|ON DATE}} and the switch would
happen on the date.
The idea had some support, but people had some issues with dateswitch
templates that would produce the wrong output because of some later
change in the input. I guess that this might be more rare than common.
The above example is notable however of where they miss the point. I
note that we now have a category for some tags which relate to time,
but I don't know about some of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Temporal_templates These appear
to be largely template messages, and if we are to employ actual
computational power in helping deal with outdating, would it make
sense to make a distinction between temporal messages and temporal
(functional) tags?
-SC
Could a temporal template in one way or another subst: itself once the
expiriation date passes? Now that would be awesome.
Martijn
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Resolving conflicts and reaching consensus
On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Ryan Delaney ryan.dela...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 4:38 AM, Peter Tesler vpt...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone - This is a project presented at Wikipedia Day 2010 at NYU in New York last January..http://ideagra.ph We presented this as a way to discuss a few of the most complicated/controversial Wikimedia-related issues that haven't yet garnered a consensus. It was specifically designed to fix the current problems with Wikipedia's discuss pages (arguments get very long, complex, and messy). What makes a debate here different from one on a standard discuss page? Statements have a color (green/red) which represents their current state of consensus (something that's been refuted, for instance, is red). You can also re-use facts concluded in other debates by other people - thus allowing the work of debating/reasoning to be distributed among (potentially) billions of people. We've created a Wikipedia category for issues surrounding Wikipedia: http://ideagra.ph/1870 We need your feedback... -Peter Twitter: http://twitter.com/ideagraph Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ideagraph/319390481771 The software looks pretty cool. Here are some of my concerns about it. A common way to stifle discussion about nuance in any situation is to refer to old discussions on similar ideas and say we already discussed this and got consensus. Keeping an ancient history of all past debates could cause a single discussion to echo forward in time indefinitely. I don't think we should feel bound by previous arguments, and there is never a point where discussion cannot be re-opened. Also, keeping track of percentages in voting has a way of obscuring the actual arguments as not everyone's opinion is simply up or down on any issue. For example, this is why we don't simply count votes in an AFD (at least, we're not supposed to): We want to consider the weight of the arguments and get a more abstract 'feel' for what consensus is, rather than compiling a simple tally, because tallies aren't very informative. Finally, and most importantly, sometimes we need to go over topics again to address evolving editorial experience and new circumstances. It doesn't bother me if that means occasionally re-inventing the wheel, because every time we invent the wheel it might be a bit better or more well-suited to the situation than last time. It's good to archive past discussion for later reference (or to catch up new people who joined the conversation late), but not because we don't want people to have to think, use their reasoning, and engage in discussion on topics that someone else has discussed in the past; we want that because the process of discussion itself is enlightenment, even when the topic has been discussed in the past. - causa sui For as far as I can see, this software actually tries to solve those problems, by making it possible to comment on/refute old discussions, while still weighing them, and it weighs opinions by the amount of support it seems to have, opposed to simple vote counting. ___ 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] Looking for thoughts on statistics
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 6:23 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 30 March 2010 18:16, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: If you want a higher level, 90% of the present members of the US National Academy of Engineering do not have articles. More than one thing seems a weird standard, in my opinion. To be expected it was invented by the BLP mob. See [[Wikipedia:BLP1E]]. To be fair, that refers to (or should refer to) a chronologically constrained (i.e. brief) event that propels someone to passing fame in a newspaper or online, not to a career where someone is notable for only one thing. Carcharoth I have always had a bit of a problem with blp1e. It is a sort of blp thing combined with wp:notnews. I am generally off the opinion that if the specific event is notable enough to warrant an article, and the specific event is centered solely around that person, I believe the article should be on that person, focusing on that event. Say, a person wins some sort of trophy, lets call him John Doe, and the trophy the awesome trophy. And say there is a lot of media attention that John wins the trophy, enough to say there is more then passing coverage, enough for [[WP:N]] in general. Should we have an article [[John Doe winning the awesome trophy in 2010]]? Or should we just have one on [[John Doe]]? ___ 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] Looking for thoughts on statistics
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 8:16 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 7:10 PM, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoeks...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 6:23 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 30 March 2010 18:16, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: If you want a higher level, 90% of the present members of the US National Academy of Engineering do not have articles. More than one thing seems a weird standard, in my opinion. To be expected it was invented by the BLP mob. See [[Wikipedia:BLP1E]]. To be fair, that refers to (or should refer to) a chronologically constrained (i.e. brief) event that propels someone to passing fame in a newspaper or online, not to a career where someone is notable for only one thing. I have always had a bit of a problem with blp1e. It is a sort of blp thing combined with wp:notnews. I am generally off the opinion that if the specific event is notable enough to warrant an article, and the specific event is centered solely around that person, I believe the article should be on that person, focusing on that event. Say, a person wins some sort of trophy, lets call him John Doe, and the trophy the awesome trophy. And say there is a lot of media attention that John wins the trophy, enough to say there is more then passing coverage, enough for [[WP:N]] in general. Should we have an article [[John Doe winning the awesome trophy in 2010]]? Or should we just have one on [[John Doe]]? Didn't that evolve from the murdered people standard, where instead of having an article on a person who was murdered, you have an article on the crime? Not that such a standard was completely adopted, I don't think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Murders That is what I mean, though a lot of that is tabloid-ish journalism. Carcharoth Ugh, murders, the kind of articles where you get stuck trying to explain that he left behind a loving wife and to beautiful children should not be in the article, even if you have 5 refs that say his wive loved him, 8 that say she was left behind, and 15 (each kid) that say the kids were pretty. ___ 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] Firefox can't find the server at en.wikipedia.org.
I believe we had some volunteers standing at the routers shouting it's right over there!, but to no avail. On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Michael Peel em...@mikepeel.net wrote: It's good to see that downtime on Wikipedia is sufficiently rare nowadays that it's a newsworthy event when it does happen: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/7514826/Wikipedia- goes-down.html Mike On 24 Mar 2010, at 19:44, George Herbert wrote: It's all over the tech blog and wider net - but to repeat it here, there was a cooling failure at the datacenter the European servers are in, there was a DNS glitch in the recovery procedures for a datacenter outage for routing the traffic back to Florida, and the DNS outage has resolved itself for nearly everyone by now. The secure server is still down, but nearly everything else should be more or less all up, running out of Florida. See for example: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/global-outage-cooling-failure- and-dns/#comments http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_admin_log On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:19 AM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@googlemail.com wrote: Anyone know what happened to wikipedia this afternoon? Firefox can't find the server at en.wikipedia.org WereSpielChequers -- -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 ___ 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] Steven Walling: Why Wikipedians Are Weird
To an extent this is true, but no more (or less) than saying all volunteers are weird. And they are. There are bound to be exceptions, but I find that with almost every single volunteer there is either something mentally wrong, or there is something seriously lacking in their social life. I'm not really sure why this is, but I do have some ideas. One is that people want their life to have worth. Society provides with a number of things to do that. Having a job one is good in can provide such a sense of worth. Having good friends you share your life with can provide such worth. Most people do derive their sense of selfworth from something like that. Some people volunteer to get a sense of self-worth. Wikipedia does this to a great extent. The overused Jimbo quote Here, we are polite, thoughtful, smart, geeky people, trying only to do something which is undoubtedly good in the world: write and give away a free encyclopedia shows that is exactly what we do. We want to do somthing worthwile. Now why do we want to do that? Because we believe our lives wouldn't be as worthwile if we didn't. Now I am not saying that Wikipedians, or volunteers in general don't have good, rewarding jobs, or not enough friends, or whatever other common mechanism for self-worth is absent in their lives, just that they believe that their other means of generating selfworth are not enough in some sense. Just that they have chosen a very uncommon - or weird - way of gaining that self-worth, namely volunteering. That very fact, that they have chosen such a weird way to define themselves, makes them weird. As a final note: Weird doesn't equal bad. We wrote one of the most popular websites of all time. And all thanks to our weird way of generating self-worth. On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 10:46 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: David Gerard wrote: This is beautiful and true, and you must watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEkF5o6KPNI (I have been at a pub with a trivia quiz where the table of Wikipedians didn't enter because it wouldn't be fair.) Thank God it doesn't reinforce any stereotypes. Oh, wait ... 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] Featured churn
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 5:59 AM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 14/07/2009, Sage Ross ragesoss+wikipe...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Ian Woollardian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: It's looking to me like 3.5 million is about the plateau, since the curve is bang on that, but we might make 4 million *eventually*. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Modelling_Wikipedia%27s_growth#Logistic_model_for_growth_in_article_count_of_Wikipedia I don't think the bell-shaped articles/day curve of the logistic model is a good description of the trends. Since article creation peaked in 2007, the falloff in article creation has been much slower than than ramp-up. Rather than falling back to close to zero articles/day over the next 5 years or so (as the logistic model predicts), it looks like we're heading to an asymptote of (I'm eyeballing it here) around 1000 articles/day. I expect 4 million articles a lot sooner than *eventually*. ;) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enwikipediagrowth.PNG We're already down to 1000/day growth on the unsmoothed graph as we fall off one of the two biannual growth peaks. Looks like the Wikipedia is still bang-on for 3.5 million articles. As long as history doesn't come to an end, and new people keep getting born and (annoyingly) becoming notable enough for a Wikipedia article, there will always be a need for new articles. Carcharoth There are even articles that were deleted without prejudice before, that *gasp* happen to do gain notability! (I happened to look over my own deletion logs yesterday, and a handfull of articles that were (IMO correctly) deleted without prejudice in the past, that are now decent articles). Martijn ___ 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 FOREVER
On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: It is pretty much traditional for the fundraiser to cause controversy, in fact. I know how Oleg feels. These days I ignore the ads, since I don't see why I should give money well as time: and they are obviously aimed at Wikipedia's readers, who outnumber the people seriously involved with the site by a factor of 10,000 or more by now. I don't see the banner any more: I don't remember dismissing it. Yeah, they could have avoided the controversy entirely by not showing them to logged in users. I also subscribe to the my tastes are not aligned with the PR company's tastes, but that's to be expected line of thinking. I guess the vague, icky feeling I get (and maybe some others feel) is that we, the volunteer editing army do all the work creating the product. But campaigns like this sometimes nudge slightly towards creating the impression that the WMF is sort of co-opting that product and marketing it as their own. (I'm deliberately hedging my words a lot here: impression, feel etc) Steve It's not a strange icky feeling I get, it makes me feel like some angsty teenager is shouting TEH WIKI 4EVA (fr33 stuff rulez!) ___ 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 sharpest criticism of a protein-only or genetics hypothesis regarding [[prion]]
No, that would be Genetica which is rather different. On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 6:03 PM, Fayssal F. szv...@gmail.com wrote: I thought it was the spelling of genetics in dutch. Fayssal F. Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:59:46 + From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The sharpest criticism of a protein-only or genetics hypothesis regarding [[prion]] To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: a4359dff0903100859i1c6cabf0ha19d663e29c99...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2009/3/10 Michael Bimmler mbimm...@gmail.com: Am I the only one for whom this is highly to specific a discussion topic for this general mailinglist? To be honest, I'm not sure whether I completely understood one single sentence of the below, although I do grasp the single words... I'm in a similar position - I think this should be on the talk page where people that have the faintest idea what jenetiks is might be around. -- ___ 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] Consensus (was To boldy delete what no one had deleted before!)
On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Marc Riddell michaeldavi...@comcast.net wrote: on 1/13/09 2:33 AM, White Cat at wikipedia.kawaii.n...@gmail.com wrote: In other words there is a lack of consensus. Meaning no mass action of any kind should be taken until a consensus is secured. On any given subject within the Project, how does someone go about achieving consensus? And how and when do you determine that a consensus has been reached? Marc Riddell ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l I have been trying to write an essay on that for ages on that: see [[WP:TINCON]] ___ 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] To boldy delete what no one had deleted before!
Yeah, but that won't work. It needs at least an exception for speedy deletion. Slowly I'm starting to notice im heading more in the direction of hardcore inclusionists, on grounds off [[WP:HARMLESS]] and [[WP:USEFULL]], and stop seeing the use of notability guidelines. That said, even if only 1 in 5 AfD deletions represent true consensus, then that would still amount to about 6 discussions for which we require full community consensus a day, and I just think and hope our community would like to have some time left to write articles instead of making decissions on deleting articles. On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Alvaro García alva...@gmail.com wrote: It would be great that, instead of deleting an article, the usual deleters would be given a 'flag as source-less/needs improvement' where it would go to a Wikipedia section of poor articles, where people who know would improve them. And, no article, in whatever section, could be deleted unless there's a general consensus. -- Alvaro On 13-01-2009, at 5:22, Noah Salzman n...@salzman.net wrote: On Jan 13, 2009, at 12:10 AM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: These sub-surface articles would not be googleable let's say, so reader wouldn't get side-tracked into thinking they are acceptable in the mainstream, but they would be present for people already in-world to read and edit. Makes sense to me. If the articles for deletion process is usurped by the articles for purgatory process then it transforms the debate entirely. If you keep losing at chess than change the game to checkers, rather than continuing to complain about losing at chess. Deletion could remain a standard process but with much clearer and stricter guidelines. Perhaps, it could be changed to innocent until proven guilty as opposed to the deletion process now where the defendant has to do a ton of busy work to save a guilt-assumed article. As someone somewhat removed from the politics of the project, my main question is what does the step-by-step process look like for making this change happen? I imagine there is more than one path: grass roots consensus building vs lobbying The Powers That Be? My apologies if that is an amusingly naive way of putting it. --Noah-- ___ 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] To boldy delete what no one had deleted before!
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 8:21 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/1/5 wjhon...@aol.com: In a message dated 1/5/2009 3:48:55 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, geni...@gmail.com writes: Mostly because from time to time they have actually moved content from one article from another (the rest of the time you can nail them for persistently lying in edit summaries). Given the format of the mediawiki software and the GFDL it is pretty much impossible to do such merges without violating copyright Could you explain a bit more why you think that merges violate copyright? Thanks Will Johnson When you merge the wording of the GFDL requires that you preserve the history (a really really bad choice of words). Can be done close enough through a history merge but most users don't/can't do that. -- geni ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l Won't it satisfy the licence just to point to the other articles history in the edit summary? ___ 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] JarlaxleArtemis/Grawp
On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 4:45 AM, Christopher Grant chrisgrantm...@gmail.com wrote: X! you missed out adminbots(e.g. Miza's). - Chris On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 12:03 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: 2008/12/26 John Reaves johnreave...@gmail.com: So it comes down to whether or not we care more about a positive PR image or being able to maintain an encyclopedia without disruption and harassment from one of the biggest idiots we've ever had? I know what my choice would be... I'm describing how this has been done in the past and why. PR isn't the reason, it's a consideration. I predict that such an ISP-wide block as we're describing here would go block, unblock, block, unblock x10, stop at unblock, arbitration, trout slaps and desysops all round for idiot blocking and wheel warring. Though it might shake loose the lower decile of admins. (That's an unintended side benefit, not a reason to do it either.) The reason the wheel of fat would stop at unblock is that the secret of blocks on Wikipedia is: they're just minor speed humps; you can't keep someone from editing if they *really* want to without shutting down the wiki. That's what soft security means and that's why we use it. Would your average reader or even editor know who the hell Grawp is in this context? No, they wouldn't. (They wouldn't because quite a few people work hard to make it that way, but nevertheless.) There's no point disrupting editing for large chunks of Verizon because this would just cause Grawp to go elsewhere. We're talking about someone who's clearly pathologically dedicated to this task. There is no cure for vandalism on Wikipedia while humans are humans. - 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 I requested feedback on [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement]] with http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FArbitration_enforcementdiff=260192750oldid=260186203 ___ 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] JarlaxleArtemis/Grawp
On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Jay Litwyn brewh...@edmc.net wrote: For a newcomer to this thread, the abuse is in the what will only stand for ten seconds category, and as far as I know, the user was addressed. It is probably even hard to be sure that Hanson does not hav accounts that he reserves for honest work. The United States Criminal Code, title 18, section 1030, I think we would hav trouble demonstrating that wikipedia is protected (keyword in the legislation) by anything but tedious labour, and it's also hard to show damage in dollar terms, unless all the checkuser clerks are paid. I see nothing, because it's legislation geared towards milnet (domains ending in .mil). Maybe the secure part of wikipedia would qualify if they required bank-signed public keys. http://uscode.house.gov/uscode-cgi/fastweb.exe?getdoc+uscview+t17t20+608+0++%28computer%29%20%20AND%20%28%2818%29%20ADJ%20USC%29%3ACITE%20AND%20%28USC%20w%2F10%20%281030%29%29%3ACITE%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20 The search term computer should not be necessary, and for some reason, it is. If the URL breaks, then start with: http://uscode.house.gov/search/criteria.shtml or only the domain name. I do not *think* we hav any basis for criminal proceedings. Physical, yes. ISPs, as far as I know, cannot compel read access to wikipedia. We don't block reads, either. Writers are about one in ten thousand. Hopefully, they know who to complain to at verizon and hav an account, already. Then it's just a matter of shutting down Hanson's accounts, methinks. The hard question is how long the block should be, for me, who is not in a position to make it. Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs) govern the internet, not the CANSPAM act. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l We should really consider the option of making the rangeblock, with a very clear blocked page, that clearly indicated where users can complain (verizon) about not being able to edit. And only we know for sure that Verizon is in the know, that they do realise there is the option that all of their users are getting blocked because this one abusive account, that they are unable or unwilling to adress. What I would like to know is: Who is currently contacting or trying to contact Verizon, and, if we would consider the step of rangeblocking all of Verizon, there should be on site discussion about this first, at least on the administrators noticeboard. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
