Re: [WikiEN-l] Arcade screenshot resolutions and fair use
I don't think the entire policy is broken, but rather that it's just an interpretation of what is low-resolution. Having worked (and uploaded) many video game screenshots myself, for older, pixel-based games such as on 8-bit home computers and consoles, the difference between high-resolution and web-resolution are very small or is otherwise nonexistent. It's when you get to screenshots for more detailed games that this difference increases quite a bit. I've always tried to follow a rule of thumb to keep such non-free images below 0.1 megapixels (Yes, the example you cited is a bit too high, but not by much.) or at least to the maximum size default for thumbnails that can be set on My preferences, which is 300px. Needless to say, usage in the article plays a big part in inclusion, as well. -MuZemike On 7/3/2012 6:21 PM, Ken Arromdee wrote: I just stumbled on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polyplay_menu.png . The screenshot is 511x256. According to the article, the resolution of the screen is 512x256, which means that this is basically a full image. The fair use template requires that images be web resolution and there's boilerplate which specifically says that the resolution has been decreased from the original. I don't think trimming 1 pixel from 512 really counts as decreasing the resolution. Checking other video game screenshots shows that the majority of video game screenshots are original resolution. Most of them aren't dumb enough to say that the resolution is decreased when it's not, but still claim that they are low resolution because they are web resolution. I would personally just choose to define web resolution in a common sense way and say that the original resolution is already low, but I think this is clearly not the intent. I'm not going to go fixing any fair use rationales here, but this may be worth noting as an example of a broken fair use policy. ___ 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] Why Wikipedia Is Important.
Taken straight from the novel Lord of the Flies, I am sure :) -MuZemike On 11/27/2011 8:32 AM, Ken Arromdee wrote: On Sun, 27 Nov 2011, Ken Arromdee wrote: Without knowledge, myths are born. With myths, fear is born. With fear, intolerance is born. With intolerance, ignorance is born. With ignorance, nothing is born. I recall a Scientific American article (I believe it was in Mathematical Games or its successors) which showed that using a chain of synonyms about as long as what you are using here it is possible to create a chain from almost any word to its opposite. Here's a few I came up with myself: With ignorance, superstition is born. With superstition, religion is born. With religiou, culture is born. With culture, civilization is born. With civilization, strength is born. With freedom, revolution is born. With revolution, consolidation of power is born. With consolidation of power, dictatorship is born. With dictatorship, slavery is born. ___ 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] Tag removals by readers (was: Newbie recruitment: referencing)
I've hinted for a while that for {{orphan}}ed and {{dead end}}ed
articles, you could replace the manual method of using templates and
categories with automated database reports that are much more accurate.
But those could also be considered sweeping under the rug, as many
database reports tend to get neglected also.
-MuZemike
On 11/3/2011 12:58 PM, Carcharoth wrote:
That's a good idea as well, though some might see it as trampling on
the stuff swept under the rug (making it less visible). But you are
right that some backlogs don't really need to be visible to readers.
Carcharoth
On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 5:22 PM, WereSpielChequers
werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote:
For some of them why not go one step further and replace the template with
an automatically generated hidden category?
Dead end, uncategorised, undercategorised and orphan could all be replaced
with fully automated hidden categories; no need for the adding or
subtraction of templates. Though we'd need a template or hidden cat for
unsuccessful deorphaning attempts.
WereSpielChequers
On 3 November 2011 13:00, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com wrote:
On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 12:31 PM, Andrew Grayandrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk
wrote:
On 3 November 2011 11:10, Carcharothcarcharot...@googlemail.com
wrote:
safe and then move on. And then someone else, later, might fix the
article during general editing without even looking at the tag, and
not remove the tag, or might expect others to remove the tag (no,
really, that is a common attitude among some people who prefer others
to judge any remedial work they have done - you put the tag there, you
should come back and assess whether it is still needed).
There's also a widespread belief that I shouldn't/can't remove them.
I regularly see emails in OTRS saying I've fixed X page, but the tags
are still there, can you check it out; I've seen it occasionally on
talkpages as well, though it's less common.
Thank-you for confirming from your OTRS experience that this is an
actual problem.
snip
Both beliefs are helped by the fact that a lot of people honestly
don't realise the lead section can be edited - they use section edit
links, and don't realise that editing the page is how you get at the
zeroth section of the article. If you don't see the template when
you edit, you're less likely to realise it's a template to be removed.
- and even if you know about templates, if you can't figure out how to
get to it, you're stuck!
Interesting. Hadn't thought of that.
Working on the assumption that there are people who want to remove
templates but are having problems doing so, one solution here might be
to build on the (excellent) work that's been done with HotCat, and
implement a remove this tag link on the template itself. Click this,
you get a little line saying are the problems still here?, click
yes, and it loads-and-saves the change in the same way that a HotCat
category change works.
Thoughts? This would be one way to get our readers to do the triage
and cleanup for us...
+1
In fact, +100.
Carcharoth
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Point me to discussions with newcomers about notability?
I don't think that is entirely reasonable thing to say or do, but, on the other hand, I wished that newcomers would be aware that creating new articles from scratch is not the only way to help contribute to the encyclopedia. Assuming that Wikipedia is still nowhere close to being complete, there are always going to be opportunities to expand existing articles - many of them that are still stubs. I don't know of any good way in which to guide newcomers towards that direction, though, especially in a come-and-go-type environment such as this. -MuZemike On 10/10/2011 7:08 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote: The only important rule here is to be bold. We really ought to take more steps to disenfranchise those who repeatedly stamp on attempts to create new content. They know who they are, and I mean it. We should stop them hard. ___ 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] Point me to discussions with newcomers about notability?
Coincidentally, I started here by doing that you argued against, which is being bold. That aside, if we start questioning be bold, then we also need to reconsider nobody owns articles. I've always been a firm believer, even in the beginning that Wikipedia (same could be extended to any open wiki) is ultimately a communal effort with individualist aspects; proper balance between the two key aspects need to be maintained in order for the wiki to remain open to those to edit. -MuZemike On 10/10/2011 9:23 AM, petr skupa wrote: Boldness In some way I am starting to believe, that we should start to reconsider/rethink the rule/recommendation BE BOLD in English Wikipedia. It really is one of our philosophical cornerstones and it has it's validity, but unfortunately, if applied by/to newbies, it ends up by their frustration almost in all the cases. (to correct one spelling error is kind of exception, but it really is not that bold action at all). I mean it. If a newbie comes to existing article - most of the time, it is already written to such a complex degree, that his addition gets reverted very often and very quickly (going to improve some good article or featured article without appropriate sources is not warmly welcomed, most articles are complex with history of reverts and balancing the facts from several POV and even well intentioned newbie is going to start with rejection..) , if he tries to write something anew, it - most of the time would fall bellow notability. The stubs worthy of the revamp are not having much of spotlight.. I believe, that rejection after well intentioned start is pretty agonizing experience, especially if there were any expectation on the side of the nebie.. for newbie retention it might be even worse than their confusion or hesitation to start While I believe in BOLD, I believe, that in such a large projects like en:wp, it should be carefully reworded, to not bring unrealistic expectation and it should bring some preparedness, that (now) the editation of wp is somewhat learning process. It should build some preparedness that the communication with rest of community might ensue, however the learning process might be actually quite a fun by itself, no one is really discouraging you by talking back to you (whatever the wording you suggest... just to not rise the expectation after few first edits too high) In sum, I believe more in slow start of newbies, because it is going to hurt them less and it is going to let them get more of appreciation of their work. Petr Skupa [[u:Reo On]] On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Ron Ritzmanritz...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 4:24 AM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: Deleting newcomers' hard work is one of our big PR problems. Even if, after contemplation, we decide we were actually right to do so. When someone wanders into the sausage factory and the very first thing that happens is that they fall head-first into the meat grinder ... this is an *unfortunate* circumstance. And it's also unfortunate that the first thing many newbies think of doing is creating a new article. In some cases it's because they have a [[WP:COI]] and are only [[WP:HERE]] to write that article. In others, they are honestly creating articles that interest them but run into a gauntlet of [[WP:NPP|new page pouncers]]. Here's a case of an editor who got frustrated with all his submissions being tagged for deletion so he tagged them all for G7 and is trying to get them back at WP:REFUND. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Abbythecat The advise I would give newcomers is to not create new articles but start out by editing existing ones. Another alternative is to expand stubs and redirects in Category:Redirects with possibilities. Ron ___ 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] Slashdot trolling phenomena
The same thing happened after Michael Jackson's death; IIRC there was a website in which people could insert a celebrity's name, and a death article would spew out. I recalled somebody did that with Kevin Spacey back in 2009: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kevin_Spaceydiff=298662379oldid=298662328. http://kevin.spacey.mediafetcher.com/news/top_stories/actor_st_tropez.php http://justin.bieber.mediafetcher.com/news/top_stories/actor_st_tropez.php http://david.guetta.mediafetcher.com/news/top_stories/actor_st_tropez.php -MuZemike On 10/6/2011 1:07 AM, Erik Moeller wrote: One of my favorite early Wikipedia articles (nerdy as that is) was a page called Slashdot trolling phenomena which described all the most common styles of Slashdot trolls. Of course, it was later nuked as original research with insufficient sourcing, and is preserved only in user-space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kadin2048/Slashdot_Trolling_Phenomena I thought about this page today because of Slashdot's story about Steve Jobs' early death: http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/10/06/000211/steve-jobs-dead-at-56 The story text is, of course, a verbatim copy of the original Slashdot troll about Stephen King's death. You can see it more closely by comparing the original submission: http://apple.slashdot.org/submission/1808868/sad-news--steve-jobs-dead-at-56 I just heard some sad news on talk radio — Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was found dead in his Cupertino home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him — even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon. vs. I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon. I doubt that the responsible Slashdot editor was aware that they were falling for a troll. Is there a lesson here somewhere? If so, it's perhaps that documentation of subcultures in Wikipedia is very much worth doing. (And, RIP Steve.) Erik ___ 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] Difficulty making structural changes to WP due to human nature?
I think that certainly does happen, mainly because some don't like change. Many RfCs and proposals contain oppose reasons such as solution in search of a problem or If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Other than what Alan mentioned, this has also applied to any technical changes to the system. Other proposals get so bogged down in endless stalemate and filibustering (like with Pending Changes), nothing ever gets done or moves forward. That's where the consensus-based model fails miserably. On the other hand, a straight vote may not also be desirable, especially if the results may be close to 50-50, because you then alienate too much of the community that way. -MuZemike On 9/17/2011 3:54 PM, Alan Liefting wrote: Is it just me or do others find it difficult to instigate any sort of changes to policies, guidelines, layout, Manual of Style and related matters regardless of how minor they are? Could it be that WP is a reflection of human behaviour and has become a talkfest where nothing changes because of our inherently conservative nature? Or am I trying to satisfy the readers of WP rather than editors and readers? Since readers do not edit they never get to have a say so the editors get what they want (yes I know - editors are readers as well). Alan Liefting ___ 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] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Fwd: Autoconfirmed article creation trial
Does anyone think we can really get an actual consensus for anything big anymore on en.wiki? To take from Beeblebrox on the Signpost not too long ago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-08-29/The_pending_changes_fiasco): There seems inevitably to come a point in any such attempt where there are simply too many voices, too many nonsensical objections, too much petty bickering to get anything done. This is a growing, systemic problem at Wikipedia, and eventually we are going to have to deal with it. The near-converse applies when developers boldly turn relatively minor features on without community consensus, as seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29/Archive_90#Watchlist_emails . That is, people complain up and down about it. It is impossible to have everyone happy about everything. -MuZemike On 9/13/2011 11:38 AM, David Gerard wrote: On 13 September 2011 17:35, Gwern Branwengwe...@gmail.com wrote: And in turn, I look forward to the study of the effects of this change, which will never happen despite all promises before. Apparently just over 50% in favour is broad consensus. Who knew? (Almost as good as the person who told me we achieved consensus against that change and it was, literally, a straw poll with two no and one yes.) - 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] Outline articles
More powerful than Oversight, as well. -MuZemike On 9/8/2011 12:07 PM, Fred Bauder wrote: On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 9:45 PM, Andrew Grayandrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: I don't think we've discussed the outline of X articles much on this list, which surprises me, but people might nonetheless be interested in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#RfC:_Elimination_of_outline_articles I would like to propose the removal of all outline articles. All articles currently named Outline of ... would be renamed List of ... topics. If there is already a list of that name, the two would be merged. Not commenting on the main proposal, but the following surprises me: No redirects would be left behind. In addition, any currently existing Outline of ... redirects would be eliminated. That seems to me to misunderstand what redirects are for and how merging operates. Possibly that option was thrown in to ensure that the content would be deleted and not retrievable from the page history. Without that bit, it is merely a merge and/or renaming proposal. With the elimination of redirects, it becomes a deletion proposal. Carcharoth https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/mediawiki/wiki/Extension:DeletePagePermanently The ultimate deletionist's tool. 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] Article Feedback - Ramp up to 10% of Articles
Hence the one comment on the Wikimedia blog article (http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/07/15/%E2%80%9Crate-this-page%E2%80%9D-is-coming-to-the-english-wikipedia/) about the survey poll: http://www.vizu.com//poll-results.html?n=138785 50.5% It will be griefed like YouTube comments. -MuZemike On 7/27/2011 5:21 AM, Thomas Morton wrote: I'm cynical about this article feedback system for several reasons, chiefly the worry that it could exacerbate the templating trend of commenting on lots of articles rather than actually improving a few. I'm also slightly circumspect about the idea (though not outright opposed or anything). The issue I've noted is that it is being used as a warfare tool on controversial articles. I've not seen it mentioned on a talk page yet; but one contentious article (on a subject with a large online following, entrenched *readers* on either side of the issue) has had the bars swinging between about 1.5 and 4 in the last week. Not a huge issue, but I suspect that on certain articles the ratings are to be trusted less than usual :) 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] Article Feedback - Ramp up to 10% of Articles
A couple of fair points. However, I would disagree that everyone is interested in editing or improving the encyclopedia; some are perfectly content on reading the content therein and, if given the chance, say what they think about out (not necessarily on Wikipedia, but could be anywhere on the Web). I mean, we cannot point a gun to their head and make them edit something, as this is a purely volunteer project. However, you've made a good point there about gaming the system and intentionally trying to garner high ratings. For example, one could create a horrid piece of crap article which would have no chance of staying on Wikipedia and canvass his/her buddies to flood said piece of crap with 5.0's across the board. This thing precisely happens from time to time on YouTube. I don't know how this could be prevented, but I acknowledge that even this feedback system, as with all others, are not perfect and comes with systemic flaws. -MuZemike On 7/14/2011 7:56 AM, WereSpielChequers wrote: Do we have stats yet that measure whether this is encouraging editing, or diverting even more people from improving the pedia to critiquing it? Remember there is a risk that this could exacerbate the templating trend. Just as we need to value edits that fix problems and remove templates above edits that add to the hundreds of thousands of maintenance templates on the pedia; So we need to value a talkpage comment that explains why someone has a specific concern about an article over a bunch of feedback that says people like or dislike an article without indicating why. Better still we should be encouraging readers to improve articles that they see as flawed. So we need to measure this tool in terms of its success at getting readers to edit, not in terms of its success at getting readers to rate articles. I hope it is successful, and I'm happy to take the long view and measure a trial over months to see how effectively we convert article raters into article editors. But we do need to be prepared to remove this if it has a net effect of diverting potential editors into merely rating articles for others to fix. We also need to be careful how we compare this 374k to the other 90%, not least because with 3,682,158 articles on En wiki as I write, 374k is about 6k more than a random 10% sample would be. We also need to learn from one of the lessons of the Strategy wiki where we had a similar rating system. Many of the proposals there had so few ratings that they were close to being individual views and few had sufficient responses to be genuinely collective to the point where one maverick couldn't skew them - even without sockpuppetry. On average our articles get one or two edits a month, many get far less. I would not be surprised if 100,000 of the 374k in the trial had less than ten ratings even if trialled for a couple of months. Lastly we need to be prepared for sockpuppetry, especially as these are random unsigned votes with no rationale. Can we have assurances that something is being built into the scheme to combat this? Regards WereSpielChequers On 14 July 2011 10:08, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 July 2011 00:40, Howie Funghf...@wikimedia.org wrote: Just wanted to pass along a note to let everyone know that earlier today, we ramped up the Article Feedback Tool to 10% of articles on the English Wikipedia. That brings the total to approximately 374K articles with the tool deployed. Is there anywhere we can read articles' ratings? - 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 ___ 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] Developer/Wiki relationship (was: Deployments today)
On 7/1/2011 2:32 PM, Thomas Morton wrote: Very little discussion ocurrred r.e. rolling this out. For example no trial was offered, no Request for Comment was taken to guage community opinion. I know these are our processes and a significant part of the blame lies with the editors - but even so announcement of the feature suddenly seemed to appearon-wiki the day before :) (that may not be an accurate picture - but for most that is how it appeared). It was only *after* deployment that is was explained that the extension is amazing customisable on-wiki (a really thoughtful idea. You guys need to write more extensions like this, awesome stuff). So, more miscommunication. I've seen this happen before numerous times - Wiki does something. Or a dev does something. There is miscommunication and people who would probably see eye-to-eye are growling at each other across tables. The established Wiki editors feel put out and the developers feel under-appreciated (did I mention: WikiLove guys!). [Ironically *the same problem* is a big part of the editor retention issue on-wiki] Personally, I don't see why community discussion and consensus is required for each and every change or addition to the software. Sometimes, bold action is truly the only way to move the encyclopedia forward, especially in the face of those who generally don't like change. Many times, the community in general does hold back many additional innovations the developers may come up with solely for the sake of process. This article parallels such conflict between process and development: http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/process-kills-developer-passion.html -MuZemike ___ 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] WikiLove Extension on Prototype
As long as we don't start giving newcomers a false sense of appreciation or accomplishment, which will end up hurting them more in the future, as opposed to letting them know right away what they may have make mistakes on. This doesn't mean newcomers shouldn't be praised when they *do* accomplish something genuine and good. -MuZemike On 6/24/2011 7:59 PM, Howie Fung wrote: Hi all, We’re testing a new tool for expressing appreciation to other users and are hoping that you’ll help test it and give us feedback. You can find a more detailed rationale for this tool, as well as instructions for testing, in our blog post here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/06/24/wikilove-an-experiment-in-appreciation/ You may test the feature by following the instructions here: http://prototype.wikimedia.org/release-en/WikiLove For more information on the Wikilove extension, please visit [1] and [2] Thanks for your help! Howie [1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WikiLove_1.0 [2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WikiLove ___ 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] How to start a viable competitor to Wikipedia? Step 1 allow people to edit
Not to be supporting Conservapedia (more like playing Devil's Advocate), but isn't rewriting history different from reinterpreting history? It's like interpreting The Bible; that is, there are different interpretations of the entire book that span the entire one-dimensional political spectrum. -MuZemike On 4/10/2011 9:21 PM, Ancient Apparition wrote: Conservapedia seeks to rewrite history, it makes Convservative Christians look like uninformed idiots, most Christians ALREADY KNOW that man did land on the moon, the earth isn't flat, dinosaurs did exist, the earth CAN'T possibly be 6000 years old and that the earth revolves around the sun. I wonder what would have happened if scientists from the Middle Ages onwards were allowed to develop their theories, we MIGHT have solved most of the world's problems, or ended it early. Either way, it was the church's failure to accept change that held back the development of superior Western culture, the early Europeans were largely responsible for delaying the advancement of technology. The early Europeans did the will of God, was doing the will of God forcibly delaying technological advances and forcing your religious beliefs on another person? I'm fairly certain the New Testament is different to the Old Testament in that it doesn't encourage violence as the means for conversion... The assimilate or die behaviour was dismissed in the Old Testament. Instead Jesus preached love if I'm correct. Sure the NT says atheists and heathens will rot in eternal damnation, but it doesn't hold the assimilate or die belief.'' ___ 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.
That wouldn't solve anything, except further draw a hard line and create an even larger rift between editors. If we strive to be an open community where we bring people together, then we would collectively be making it more closed by doing this. -MuZemike On 4/8/2011 1:26 PM, David Goodman 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? ___ 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] How to start a viable competitor to Wikipedia?
Perhaps I'm missing the point, but isn't that what we have been doing so far (i.e. with all the other sister Wikimedia projects)? -MuZemike On 4/7/2011 1:37 PM, Fajro wrote: On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 3:26 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: in the encyclopedia game? I sure hope so. How do you beat Wikipedia? With more Wikipedias. This is my idea for Wikipedia: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Recognize_that_Wikipedia_is_more_than_an_encyclopedia_and_fork_it -- Fajro ___ 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] How to start a viable competitor to Wikipedia?
Why does Conservapedia come to mind :) -MuZemike On 4/7/2011 7:03 PM, Ian Woollard wrote: You should be careful what you wish for. It's not hard to make a 'viable competitor' encyclopedia that would be so corrupt and inaccurate it would make the Fox News network... look like a news network. And if it was glossy and facile enough, plenty of people would probably be dumb enough to use it. On 07/04/2011, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: Larry Sanger started Citizendium with a detailed plan for precisely how it would work, which he detailed in a Slashdot article in 2005 and kept firmly to. This produced the weird phenomenon where he treated user suggestions like they were *threats*. I just read a Paul Graham article which contains a line summing up the problem here: If you want a recipe for a startup that's going to die, here it is: a couple of founders who have some great idea they know everyone is going to love, and that's what they're going to build, no matter what. Knowino (and Argopedia, and the survivors of Citizendium, and everyone in fact) needs to look at this and see what they can do. Is there room in the encyclopedia game? I sure hope so. How do you beat Wikipedia? Work like a startup. Wikipedia now changes at dinosaur pace and seems utterly unable to solve the problems it knows it has, let alone the ones it doesn't. If room to zip around it exists, something small enough to be nimble can find it. - 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] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Do you want to write pages that thousands of people see every day?
On 2/22/2011 4:20 AM, Peter Coombe wrote: * Screenshots (especially labelled ones) are great for newbies. It's remarkably easy to overlook parts of the interface. Pages like this come to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page (soon to be moved to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing). -MuZemike ___ 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] Maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles?
What I think is happening is that most of the articles (most of the major topics) have been created, and most people, many of them newcomers or laypeople, are not aware that anyone can come in and expand articles that have been started but not finished - coincidentally about 1/3 or so I estimate are still stubs. For most of these people, it's getting past this notion that people own articles in a purely social sense - that in a wiki, people are free to add, modify, or delete content; at the same time, people need to do this within standards set by the wiki community. (Note that I am not just talking about Wikipedia but most any wiki in general.) -MuZemike On 2/9/2011 1:30 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote: Re Ian Woolard's query: As the Wikipedia moves towards some arbitrary definition of notional 'completion', can anyone point to a board or mechanism in the Wikipedia which is specifically for maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles? I'm not sure who if anyone thinks we are complete or anywhere near completion. But there are lots of boards and mechanisms that concern themselves with the accuracy of articles, most if not all the wikiprojects involve people who are concerned about the projects in their remit. The death anomalies project just focuses on death anomalies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports/Living_people_on_EN_wiki_who_are_dead_on_other_wikis We also have the typo team and the BLP noticeboard among many different ways in which Wikipedians can collaborate to improve the pedia. WereSpielChequers On 9 February 2011 18:48, Ian Woollardian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 04/02/2011, Nathannawr...@gmail.com wrote: It's a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don't follow the rules as strictly as we do. To be perfectly honest, I've not really seen that happen; although people will often get their work reverted for not following rules. I cannot think of a single example of people getting banned for not following rules (other than copyvios and behavioral rules). I've much more often seen people, or even worse, groups of people, tearing up rules and just doing something fairly random, often because they think it reads better or because they just don't like something or other(?) One of the weaknesses of Wikipedia is actually that of accuracy. It's not that it doesn't happen, in fact it very frequently is accurate, but accuracy only occurs because individuals put it into articles, whereas there are often groups of people quite happy to systematically remove accurate information. As the Wikipedia moves towards some arbitrary definition of notional 'completion', can anyone point to a board or mechanism in the Wikipedia which is specifically for maintaining and ensuring technical accuracy of articles? -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia Leadership (was NY Times article on gender gap in Wikipedia contributors}
I'm sorry, but if I see somebody starting to source information from such tabloids you mentioned, especially information on biographies of living people regarding stuff that is not confirmed, there are going to be problems with me. -MuZemike On 2/3/2011 10:59 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: --- On Thu, 3/2/11, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: NPOV is IMO Wikipedia's greatest innovation, greater than just letting everyone edit the website. Yes and no. We haven't exactly invented the neutral point of view. Scholarly encyclopedias strive for an even-handed presentation that is akin to what we are attempting (and they often succeed better at it than we do). But the way NPOV is defined in Wikipedia may be new, and relatively few academic and expert writers will have contributed to an encyclopedia before. Most have published their own books and papers, in which they are free to present their original research and opinions. Any outreach to scholars and universities needs to communicate that idea clearly. The reality gap between our NPOV aim and the actual state of our articles may otherwise give new contributors the wrong idea. They shouldn't do as we do, they should do better. We should also recognise that our definition of NPOV is actually far from mature, and still beset with problems. First and foremost, we lack clarity on the topic of media vs. scholarly sources, and the weight to assign to each of them. We simply say, Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. As the term reliable sources encompasses everything from gossip websites, The Sun and The Daily Mail to university press publications and academic journals, it is not easy to say what fair, proportionate representation actually ought to mean in practice. The other day, I discussed Wikipedia with a religious scholar. I had asked why there were no scholars contributing. His comments were illuminating. Here is what he said: ---o0o--- To take an example of a topic with which I'm familiar - Jehovah's Witnesses - I would really need to start all over again, and I don't know whether it's OK to delete an entire article and rewrite another one, even if I had the time. It's a bit like the joke about the motorist who asked for directions, only to be told, 'If I were you, I wouldn't be starting from here!' The JW article begins with an assortment of unrelated bits of information, it fails to locate the Witnesses within their historical religious origins, it says it was updated in December 2010 yet ignores important recent academic material. The citations may look impressive, but they are patchy, and sometimes the sources state the exact opposite of what the text conveys. So what does one do? ---o0o--- What we have going for us is that Wikipedia has become so big that it has become hard to ignore. And scholars have begun to notice that if their publications are cited in Wikipedia, this actually drives traffic to them. If our success and our faults can induce those who know better than our average editor to come along and help, then we might actually get to the point where Wikipedia provides free access to the sum of human knowledge. It would be no mean achievement. Andreas ___ 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 WP Challenge: Healthy Collaboration
Which is one of the main reasons I (also slightly biased as per my background in education) am a huge advocate in public education. It's not just learning stuff (or having stuff crammed into your head a la Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'), but a critical part is also learning how to interact and socialize with other people who are not necessarily your family. -MuZemike On 1/18/2011 1:27 PM, Fred Bauder wrote: on 1/18/11 2:10 PM, Fred Bauder at fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: The importance to the individual of collaborating within a group. And the importance to the group in recognizing, and nurturing, the individual. From: Amy Chua Is a Wimp By DAVID BROOKS Published: January 17, 2011 NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/opinion/18brooks.html?nl=todaysheadlinese mc=tha212 Most people work in groups. We do this because groups are much more efficient at solving problems than individuals (swimmers are often motivated to have their best times as part of relay teams, not in individual events). Moreover, the performance of a group does not correlate well with the average I.Q. of the group or even with the I.Q.'s of the smartest members. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon have found that groups have a high collective intelligence when members of a group are good at reading each others' emotions ‹ when they take turns speaking, when the inputs from each member are managed fluidly, when they detect each others' inclinations and strengths. Participating in a well-functioning group is really hard. It requires the ability to trust people outside your kinship circle, read intonations and moods, understand how the psychological pieces each person brings to the room can and cannot fit together. This also presents to how home schooling can produce the socially-challenged. Be healthy, Marc Riddell Heh, All backwards, her children, hungry for safe opportunities for social interaction, will be sitting at home editing Wikipedia most evenings. Nightclubbing and ski weekends is just not going to work for them. We can look forward to substantial contributions to math and music. Fred And you consider Wikipedia, right now, to be a safe opportunity for social interaction!? Please take a closer, more-objective look, Fred. Marc Everything is relative, compared to a Rainbow Gathering Wikipedia is a piece of cake. We have more than our share of people without social skills, at least when they start editing. That is part of what the internet is about. Not that there are not people who will NOT be socialized; some notable Wikipedians fall into that category. 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] Main page changes for 10th anniversary
IMO I think it was certainly a welcome change (the FL, FT, and FS) if anything else. It's almost natural to suggest that we do something like this on a monthly (or even more) basis. It would most certainly increase overall quality, as Featured Content (especially Featured Lists) would be scrutinized more before they appear on the Main Page, as we currently do, or are supposed to do, with Featured Articles. Also, I was away from my computer this weekend, but didn't the controversy with Jimbo on the Main Page revolved around the caption more than the image itself (i.e. Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia with Larry Sanger); at least that was the vibes I received late Friday evening. -MuZemike On 1/14/2011 10:56 PM, Carcharoth wrote: Wikipedia is celebrating its tenth anniversary! To mark the occasion, Wikipedia is showcasing content not normally featured on the main page. I nearly fell off my chair in surprise! Today's featured list Today's featured topic Today's featured sound Will be interesting to see what the page traffic is to those pages while this change is in effect. Now I just have to find links to the discussions about this change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page#10th_Anniversary_FA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article/requests#10_year_anniversary Oh, and the featured photo of Jimbo is getting a fair amount of commentary... 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] WYSIWTF
OK, so I tried it and made a small copyediting edit on my favorite article Ninja Gaiden (Nintendo Entertainment System) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ninja_Gaiden_(Nintendo_Entertainment_System)diff=405556357oldid=393253462 It did mess up a couple of things which I did not touch, so consider this an early bug report of sorts :) -MuZemike On 12/29/2010 7:16 AM, Magnus Manske wrote: I see three parts that will be required for a fully functional demo: 1. Conversion of wikitext into HTMLized code as input for a HTML editor 2. A (patched) HTML WYSIWYG editor that takes the code from #1 as input 3. A wikitext generator, running on the saved HTML from #2 I have made a proof-of-principle implementation of #1, and I'll continue expanding it. I could also do an implementation of #3 later. But, since I have little experience with HTML WYSIWYG editors, I would prefer someone else to do that part. But since there is mostly talk on this and the other list, I'll probably end up doing that myself as well... :-( Cheers, Magnus On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 1:45 PM, Steve Bennettstevag...@gmail.com wrote: Ok, I got it - there were some spurious blank lines. Ok, um, it does what you said it does :) Now, how to make this a compelling demonstration that this is _the way foward_? Steve On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 7:01 PM, Magnus Manske magnusman...@googlemail.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 12:30 AM, Steve Bennettstevag...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Magnus Manske magnusman...@googlemail.com wrote: Force-reload, go to an article, and you'll see a new WYSIWTF tab (I trust you can decipher the acronym ;-) Hi Magnus, I'm not getting an extra tab. Perhaps I've done something stupid, but I stuck the above code in vector.js, reloaded, nothing. Same in Chrome, FF, Opera. What simple thing am I missing? Not sure - works for me. Have a look : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske/vector.js Maybe some other script in your vector.js dies before it gets to the include point? If so, try moving the lines to the top of vector.js. Cheers, Magnus ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ 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 is not a dictionary (was: Re: Old Wikipedia backups discovered)
On 12/28/2010 9:40 PM, Anthony wrote: On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 9:28 PM, MuZemikemuzem...@gmail.com wrote: We must also take into account the popularity factor when it comes to comparing WMF wikis. It is obvious of the advantage Wikipedia has over all the other wikis in that is immensely more popular and is received much more widely than all other wikis. You think popularity is the cause of Wiktionary sucking? I think it's the effect. In a sense, yes. The amount of influence and power Wikipedia yields on the rest of the Internet is amazing; we may not be aware of that as we tend to naturally look from the inside out and not from the rest of the world's POV. And I feel that does get in the way of us trying to organize the information we have put together so far (as we humans like to do) - words and definitions in one place (the dictionary), basic descriptions of topics (the encyclopedia) in another place, locations (an atlas or gazetteer, which we still yet to find a way to incorporate a wiki structure for something like that), and so on. I know people don't like what I say when I sometimes tell them to think of Wikipedia (or whichever wiki you are working on) sans the high search rankings, popularity, etc., and just concentrate on the content itself. Are we organizing the information in the most efficient and logical ways we can? Are we maintaining a stable and sustainable wiki in both content and community? I feel those are the questions we ultimately, as a collection of wiki communities, need to always keep in mind. -MuZemike ___ 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] Eschatology and Wikipedia
I thought I read somewhere that Rupert Murdoch seeks to shut down Wikipedia because of its free information threat to his and other similar media empires. -MuZemike On 12/21/2010 1:58 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote: Since Wikipedia grew and became more ambitious in its scope, there have been predictions of its downfall, many of them giving an estimate for the timescale of its demise. If you hunt around you may find a prediction by me that Wikipedia was unlikely to survive much beyond 2010 because I thought it would decline in populatrity. Since then Wikipedia has cemented itself into the fabric of modern culture and become particularly useful in academia, where its strengths and limitations are now well understood. Reading the references Joseph Reagle's book I encountered this: http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2006/12/wikipedia_will_1.htm Wikipedia, it appears, was destined to die within four years--by December 5, 2010, because it would be involved in an unwinnable war with marketers, Since it's Christmas, the new year is coming, and we'll soon be bouncing out of that into a celebration of Wikipedia's first decade, perhaps now it the time to look back at the predictions of Wikipedia's demise. What are your favorite predictions of Wikideath? ___ 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] What proportion of articles are stubs?
[citation needed] -MuZemike On 12/9/2010 10:55 PM, Steve Bennett wrote: On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 7:50 AM, Andrew Grayandrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk wrote: On 29 November 2010 20:42, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: So does clicking Random Article and (gasp) judging for one's own self what is a stub produce a figure very different from 50%? I hit random and immediately produced a category error :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanarce One prose sentence! But on the other hand, a demographic table, and a map, and an infobox, and some statistics, and a navbox. Stub or not stub? *typity-typity-type-type* Not stub! Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ 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] Use Wikipedia as a Marketing Tool
The only reason companies and organizations strive to use Wikipedia as a marketing tool is because of its high visibility on Google, which is attributed in turn from Wikipedia's immense popularity. I would argue this would not even be discussed if WP was not in the ten 10 most popular websites in the world. That being said, I am not necessarily worried about companies having their own articles on Wikipedia, assuming said topics meet our understands and plays by our community norms and policies. What I am worried about, though, is that these companies want to control and own these articles and block out anybody else who wishes to contribute, edit, or cleanup by any means necessary including threatening legal action. It's like with paid editing - once money or professional reputation get involved, things turn a lot more ugly when something does not go right, and that's when the threats start flying. -MuZemike On 12/7/2010 10:31 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: http://www.inc.com/managing/articles/201001/wikipedia.html '“Wikipedia is a complex culture, and sometimes it can feel like the free encyclopedia everyone can edit -- except me,” acknowledges Jay Walsh, a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that oversees Wikipedia. He notes that Wikimedia has only about 30 paid staff, and that Wikipedia is edited by a huge number of volunteers. And he says, though it’s not an absolute rule, people are strongly discouraged from creating articles about themselves or their organizations because the site strives for neutrality. If you want your organization to be listed in Wikipedia, Walsh and others who’ve succeeded recommend the following steps:...' Fred User:Fred Bauder ___ 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] What proportion of articles are stubs?
Short answer: I think we have made a step in the right direction by getting five decently-expanded articles as a result of ten stubs. However, what about the ones that cannot be expanded? That leads to my long answer below: It depends on the expandability of the remaining stubs. Are they able to be expanded via reliable sources to a decently-sized encyclopedia article? One thing I have observed about the creation of stubs (besides from newcomers, which normally they are hit or miss on expandability due to their relative lack of experience with WP or with wikis in general), this is assumption or even prediction that 'they can possibly be expanded' or 'they might be some sources out there'. I would generally find such a premise behind stub-creation as unsatisfactory content creation/expansion; however, I come from a belief that Wikipedia's focus should be on the amount of raw, sourced content as opposed to the raw number of articles that can be created. To put in a more concrete way, any given Wikipedia article is not precisely '1 unit of knowledge' (Google Knol can sue me later for ripping off their terminology); that is, our article on Abraham Lincoln contains much more verifiable information than, say, Venezuela at the 2010 Pan American Games. -MuZemike On 11/29/2010 11:33 AM, Charles Matthews wrote: Stubs and how to handle them seem to be controversial still (or again), which is rather surprising given that we have been going nearly a decade now. I'd like to ask how many articles still are stubs, by some sensible standard? Points arise from that, clearly. But I'm hearing quite a lot recently from the glass half empty people. You know, ten short stubs are created, and a year later five are still stubby, five are much improved. Are we glad to have five new substantial articles, or embarrassed to have persistent five stubs? So has this made things proportionately better or worse? Discuss. 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] What proportion of articles are stubs?
Absolutely agree. There are a lot of articles that are not assessed (though, for all intents and purposes, WikiProject assessments are not exactly the same as stub-tagging on the actual article page itself) at all, as well as a lot of articles that are still stub-tagged and are in fact no longer stubs. We need to keep that in mind when assigning a number or percentage of stubs on en.wiki, as the numbers will most certainly be off. -MuZemike On 11/29/2010 1:15 PM, Andrew Gray wrote: On 29 November 2010 17:33, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Stubs and how to handle them seem to be controversial still (or again), which is rather surprising given that we have been going nearly a decade now. I'd like to ask how many articles still are stubs, by some sensible standard? Currently, 73% of enwp articles have some form of quality assessment. 13% have the infrastructure for assessment - talkpage templates - but no rating as yet; the remaining 14% are entirely unknown to the assessment system. Of the assessed articles, two thirds are rated as stubs. However, there's a massive great caveat to that: an awful lot of them aren't. Based on my experience, I'd say anything from a quarter to a half of the stub articles are not, by any reasonable definition, stubs. It's not uncommon now to see a multiple-paragraph article with an infobox, image and external links - lacking in many aspects of its coverage, no doubt, but a nontrivial amount of content - labelled as a stub. There's three factors at work here. a) Redefinition: As our standards grow higher, stub gets repurposed as a catch-all term for very low-quality article b) Lag: articles being marked as stubs, then expanding, but the tag not being removed (or removed from the talkpage and not from the rating template). c) Drift: people see the articles marked as stub in a) and b), and assume this is what one should be like, so grade accordingly. Overall, using the traditional definition of short placeholder article providing a basic degree of context, the sort of thing you might perhaps find in a concise reference work - I'd say ~50% of our articles. I *think* the proportion of stubs created now is less than the proportion created in, say, 2006, but I don't have much evidence to back that up. ___ 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] What proportion of articles are stubs?
And that's another problem that I am seeing more and more of. Call it simply being lazy, unable to write actual prose, or a combination thereof; but there are so many articles that get created that have only one (likely unsourced) sentence, a pretty infobox, a pretty navbox, a table, categories, and what other (stub) templates there. I would claim that infoboxes are the biggest culprit in that they are being substituted for actual prose. If an article creator only has one actual sentence of prose to put forth, that is not much, and I would claim sheer laziness in the article creator's part. Especially with these stubs on locations, when you cannot provide any more information on a location than what would normally be presented in an organized list or even an atlas or map, one wonders if writing about a location in the form of an encyclopedia article is the most efficient way to go. -MuZemike On 11/29/2010 2:50 PM, Andrew Gray wrote: On 29 November 2010 20:42, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: So does clicking Random Article and (gasp) judging for one's own self what is a stub produce a figure very different from 50%? I hit random and immediately produced a category error :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanarce One prose sentence! But on the other hand, a demographic table, and a map, and an infobox, and some statistics, and a navbox. Stub or not stub? ___ 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 Editor as Artist
Some comments: 1) People from the outside tend not to look at the insides of how Wikipedia works, such as actually reading the policy/guideline pages such as WP:OWN. 2) Sometimes, I get the feeling that the author is being slightly sarcastic in tone, though I do believe that Wikipedia is not a creative writing contest, and that NPOV and fiction-writing guidelines assure that we don't do that. 3) Assuming she is not sarcastic, she is absolutely right about the WP:OWN policy and how it most accurately describes how a wiki should function. That is, wikis give freedom for anybody to add, change, or even delete content as seen fit; on the same token, people should expect what they write, or portions thereof, to be added upon, changed upon, or even removed if they don't exactly fit. Moreover, it is amazing to see, through using a relatively easy interface like a wiki, that even a small group of people can come together and build, maintain, and hone encyclopedia articles into informative, accurate works of information. I remember many instances in my lifetime, such as collaborating on a mission statement for organizations or, even in a couple of instances, school districts, in which there are many unnecessary arguments or even fights over how such statements should be worded - complete with the fact that only one person is in charge of writing and that communication is closed, all of which are addressed in wiki environments. 4) Go WikiProject Video games! -MuZemike On 11/6/2010 6:28 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: On 05/11/2010 22:52, Carcharoth wrote: On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 10:24 PM, Fred Bauderfredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/magazine/07FOB-medium-t.html That has to be the first time I've seen WP:OWN analysed in a newspaper article! When it says no author is tempted to showboat, it is sadly mistaken, though. Charles A fleet of showboats... 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] The 12 most amazing (and useless) Wikipedia pages in the world
What? No Toilet paper orientation? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation Proof positive that Wikipedia is still going strong when we have weird articles like these. -MuZemike On 10/21/2010 2:36 PM, Fred Bauder wrote: A list has been prepared by Alastair Plumb of Asylum: http://www.asylum.co.uk/2010/10/21/the-12-most-amazing-and-useless-wikipedia-pages-in-the-world/ 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] Building a community or building an encyclopedia?
I get this feeling sometimes that some people are more interested in building a community on Wikipedia rather than helping to construct an encyclopedia. I tend to think that there is a notion which existed upon Wikipedia's founding: Always leave something undone. Whenever you write a page, never finish it. Always leave something obvious to do: an uncompleted sentence, a question in the text (with a not-too-obscure answer someone can supply), wikied links that are of interest, requests for help from specific other Wikipedians, the beginning of a provocative argument that someone simply must fill in, etc. The purpose of this rule is to encourage others to keep working on the wiki. I say this is not readily followed anymore, and I personally disagree with that tenet, because of the sheer volume of the English Wikipedia (almost 3.5 million articles) that will always have some sort of positive article creation rate due to developing and new events that occur worldwide all the time. Anyways, I think the reason why we had something like that in there is so that we could preserve or expand this community of editors. However, that implies that a certain level of drama should always exist, not to mention that perfection is near-impossible to achieve (though I'm sure many of us strive to do the best we can to improve the encyclopedia), and that one's interpretation of an article or topic being complete varies. That comes to my question regarding whether or not we are here to build an online community or an online encyclopedia. Should we focus outwards toward the reading/viewing audience, or should we focus inwards towards the editors? -MuZemike ___ 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] Alleged Liberal Bias
So we got Conservapedia and some other conservative website accusing Wikipedia of having a liberal bias. What else is new, or what else are we to expect? -MuZemike On 10/13/2010 8:45 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: Is there anything on this list: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia which is a legitimate complaint that we can do something about? I was led there by a link from this post: http://www.redstate.com/docquintana/2010/10/11/fighting-liberal-bias-on-wikipedia/ Which complains bitterly. Fred Bauder ___ 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] Evaporative cooling in online communities
Perhaps it's more of a misunderstanding that this is still a wiki above anything else - in particular, those understandings that literally anyone else you write, and you can edit anything anybody else writes. I believe those who have a good understanding of those two fundamental wiki concepts tend to do better in a wiki environment (not just Wikipedia) than most others who do not. But this is coming from a person who specializes in building up already-existing articles over trying to create brand new articles from scratch. -MuZemike On 10/11/2010 1:51 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote: On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Ryan Delaneyryan.dela...@gmail.com wrote: Now here's the interesting point: High value participants are treated as special because they have recognition reputation from the community. But, as the community scales, these social mechanisms break down and often, if nothing is done to replace them, high value members get especially miffed at the loss of special recognition and this accelerates the Evaporative Cooling. We have the reverse problem on Wikipedia, where visibility and reputation allows some editors to get away with behavior that we otherwise wouldn't tolerate. John Locke called this kind of reputation 'prerogative' -- it's now become a technical term in political science, but it basically means that when we notice someone making decisions that everyone else goes along with, we start to 'go with the flow' and accept that person's authority in future cases as well. It's a kind of momentum building of social power, and since it's the only real power anyone has on Wikipedia, it is very significant - and vulnerable to abuse. Where a contributor known to make lots of valuable contributions in other areas suddenly demonstrates insanity on a specific topic, people will tend to give way where they wouldn't if it were coming from someone they didn't know or view as a 'valued contributor'. The result is the 'evaporative cooling' of those who don't have that social power on Wikipedia, or less of it, but whose edits are no less valuable - if only less voluminous. Arguably we have the reverse of your reverse problem. What is the ultimate status-lowering action which one can do to an editor, short of actually banning or blocking them? Deleting their articles. In a particular subject area, who is most likely to work on obscurer articles? The experts and high-value editors - they have the resources, they have the interest, they have the competency. Anyone who grew up in America post-1980 can work on [[Darth Vader]]; many fewer can work on [[Grand Admiral Thrawn]]. Anyone can work on [[Basho]]; few can work on [[Fujiwara no Teika]]. What has Wikipedia been most likely to delete in its shift deletionist over the years? Those obscurer articles. The proof is in the pudding: all the high-value/status Star Wars editors have decamped for somewhere they are valued; all the high-value/status Star Trek editors, the Lost editors... the list goes on. They left for a community that respected them and their work more; these specific examples are striking because the editors had to *make* a community, but one should not suppose such departures are limited to fiction-related articles. ___ 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] Help Beat Jimmy! (The appeal, that is....)
Is it me, or when I saw the word focus group, I started to develop some bad feelings about this? -MuZemike On 10/5/2010 8:49 PM, Philippe Beaudette wrote: Hi everyone, I wanted to take a moment to bring you up to date on the planning of the 2010-2011 fundraiser, and ask once again for your participation in the process. Our updated meta pages (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010 ) will give you an overview as well. There's a lot of information here, because we've made huge progress: I hope you'll take the time to read it and join in the planning for the fundraiser. There's no doubt about it: the appeal from Jimmy Wales is a strong message. We've tested it head-to-head against other banners, and the results [1] are unequivocal - especially when you also compare its performance last year and the year before. But nobody wants to just put Jimmy up on the sites and leave him up for two months! So we're issuing a challenge: Find the banner that will beat Jimmy. Data informed conclusions Here's the trick: We have to make our decisions based on the facts, not our instinct. Please read the summaries below for really important details from our focus group and survey of past donors. Focus Group Wikimedia conducted a focus group of past donors in the New York City area in September 2010. It's important to note that this was a single focus group, and in a single city. We'll need to do more to make sure that results correlate universally. But we came out of it with a few important take-away points. It's important to realize that these points reflect ONLY donors - they should not be read as a wider feeling about mission or strategic direction - they're messaging points to help us refine and deliver the best messages possible. ** The most powerful image is of Wikipedia as a global community of people who freely share their knowledge and self-police the product. For everyone who participated, the idea of a global community of people sharing knowledge that is accessible to anyone who wants it free of charge is incredibly powerful. Respondents in this group were highly unlikely to be editors themselves; most consider themselves users. They love the idea of the community and want to support it, but they are reluctant to put themselves out there by being more than a user and a donor. ** Keeping the projects ad-free is a powerful motivator. Respondents were unanimous that keeping Wiki[m\p]edia ad free should be a priority, even if it meant that Wiki[m\p]edia would be approaching them for money more often. Accepting paid ads could corrupt the values and discourage the free flow of information. ** Independence is critically important. These respondents consume a lot of media, and they place a high premium on the free flow of information. They have little patience for “sponsored” news or information that excludes other perspectives. The Wikimedia model of openness and community engagement facilitates that. ** It’s a cause because it’s a tool. This may sound a bit like a chicken/egg argument, but it’s actually an important nuance. These folks use Wikimedia every day for things from simple curiosities to serious research. So it’s a tool that lets them get what they need. But it has grown to 17 million articles in 270 languages. Because it has that kind of depth and it reaches so many people around the world, it’s worth protecting what the community so successfully built. And that makes it a cause too. ** Growing isn’t always a good thing, when positioning for donors. Like many tech savvy folks, our respondents are a suspicious lot. The idea of Wikimedia growing brings up concerns about what Wikimedia would become, and fears about the path of companies like Facebook. It’s not just a privacy concern; it’s a concern about what would happen to the democratic model of Wikimedia inside a growth strategy. Supporting the organic growth of the community doesn’t raise the same concerns. ** Supporters strongly reject any agenda being attached to Wikimedia, even when that agenda would extend the current offerings. An agenda implies ownership, and respondents feel pretty strongly that the community owns Wikipedia. They think of Wikipedia as an organic thing, not like a typical nonprofit, and any attempt to steer it would disrupt that. Community support is one of the key values, and not everyone in the community would support new initiatives. ** There is room to fundraise more aggressively. Across the board, respondents were surprised that they didn’t have the opportunity to give to Wikimedia more often. Obviously, there is a balance and a PBS-style solicitation schedule wouldn’t make sense both for Wikimedia’s personality and for this audience, but there is much more space available than we are taking. ** Wikimedia donors are highly suspicious of marketing gimmicks. Simple, direct messages are likely to work best. Jimmy’s
Re: [WikiEN-l] Help Beat Jimmy! (The appeal, that is....)
I'm just saying that I know instances in which focus groups sometimes don't accomplish what they're set to do. Apparently, Apple has gone against this concept of doing focus groups to make decisions so they can keep moving forward with various products (citation needed). Coca-Cola did the same thing when they rolled out New Coke in 1985 to disastrous results. Time Warner/JVC professed their usage of focus groups in their trailer of the video game Rise of the Robots as shown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zafl_68PfOo . That game is one of the worst fighting games of all time, failing on many levels. That is why I am very wary and cautious about focus groups, as they tend to blindly serve their clientele instead of giving actual feedback on whatever their assessing. -MuZemike On 10/6/2010 3:24 PM, James Alexander wrote: On 10/6/2010 4:03 PM, MuZemike wrote: Is it me, or when I saw the word focus group, I started to develop some bad feelings about this? -MuZemike How so? We aren't basing the decisions on which banners to run on the focus group (or survey for that matter). We're doing that on actual click and donation data which is why we want to run so many tests. But i think outside studies can be a great option to see how people are thinking. It is a lot easier to get an idea of what our editors are thinking by asking on wiki but asking what our readers or small donors in general think can be much harder. James -- James Alexander Associate Community Officer Wikimedia Foundation jalexan...@wikimedia.org +1-415-839-6885 x6716 On 10/5/2010 8:49 PM, Philippe Beaudette wrote: Hi everyone, I wanted to take a moment to bring you up to date on the planning of the 2010-2011 fundraiser, and ask once again for your participation in the process. Our updated meta pages (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010 ) will give you an overview as well. There's a lot of information here, because we've made huge progress: I hope you'll take the time to read it and join in the planning for the fundraiser. There's no doubt about it: the appeal from Jimmy Wales is a strong message. We've tested it head-to-head against other banners, and the results [1] are unequivocal - especially when you also compare its performance last year and the year before. But nobody wants to just put Jimmy up on the sites and leave him up for two months! So we're issuing a challenge: Find the banner that will beat Jimmy. Data informed conclusions Here's the trick: We have to make our decisions based on the facts, not our instinct. Please read the summaries below for really important details from our focus group and survey of past donors. Focus Group Wikimedia conducted a focus group of past donors in the New York City area in September 2010. It's important to note that this was a single focus group, and in a single city. We'll need to do more to make sure that results correlate universally. But we came out of it with a few important take-away points. It's important to realize that these points reflect ONLY donors - they should not be read as a wider feeling about mission or strategic direction - they're messaging points to help us refine and deliver the best messages possible. ** The most powerful image is of Wikipedia as a global community of people who freely share their knowledge and self-police the product. For everyone who participated, the idea of a global community of people sharing knowledge that is accessible to anyone who wants it free of charge is incredibly powerful. Respondents in this group were highly unlikely to be editors themselves; most consider themselves users. They love the idea of the community and want to support it, but they are reluctant to put themselves out there by being more than a user and a donor. ** Keeping the projects ad-free is a powerful motivator. Respondents were unanimous that keeping Wiki[m\p]edia ad free should be a priority, even if it meant that Wiki[m\p]edia would be approaching them for money more often. Accepting paid ads could corrupt the values and discourage the free flow of information. ** Independence is critically important. These respondents consume a lot of media, and they place a high premium on the free flow of information. They have little patience for “sponsored” news or information that excludes other perspectives. The Wikimedia model of openness and community engagement facilitates that. ** It’s a cause because it’s a tool. This may sound a bit like a chicken/egg argument, but it’s actually an important nuance. These folks use Wikimedia every day for things from simple curiosities to serious research. So it’s a tool that lets them get what they need. But it has grown to 17 million articles in 270 languages. Because it has that kind of depth and it reaches so many people around the world, it’s worth protecting what the community so successfully built
[WikiEN-l] Little edits or big edits in the mainspace?
As the title indicates, when working on articles, do you prefer making a bunch of small edits or one or a couple of big edits? Personally, I started out making lots of small edits, but lately I've been the opposite of that. -MuZemike ___ 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] Destructionism
On 8/6/2010 9:13 PM, William Beutler wrote: I'm not completely sure where SC was going with his observation about Destructionism -- I took it as a clever play on Deletionism and all the other -isms, to point out a phenomenon he's noticed on at least En-WP, which I recognized immediately. I think we're comparing apples with oranges here. From how I see it, destructionism identifies the nature of articles themselves over time while deletionism (as well as the other established -isms) identifies the nature of editors' behaviors and mainspace philosophies. That being said, some other comments: I do believe that the quality of articles do deteriorate over time, especially when not watched or updated. That is the inevitable nature of an open editing environment. This may be due to several reasons; this could be that the article doesn't have many watchers or that the main contributor(s) is/are no longer watching the article or no longer cares. This allows editors who do not know nor likely care to chip away at the article's quality and accuracy to a point where it either becomes apparent a cleanup effort is needed or that a GA reassessment or FA review is needed. Also, standards for promoting articles to GA or FA were lower than they are now, mostly due to the overall quality of Wikipedia articles steadily increasing. I opine that most articles that were promoted to FA in 2006 or earlier would not meet today's more stringent FA standards. Case in point, I just finished with an FA review of Nintendo Entertainment System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System) which ended up being delisted from FA status. It was promoted back in January 2005. I think both of my last two paragraphs come into play as, while a very popular article with over 200 people watchlisting it, nobody took any efforts to cleanup or maintain the article those 5 1/2 years it was an FA, and you get a lot of users who do not know better as far as verifiability is concerned who add whatever they want with nobody checking or challenging it. On the other hand, when I combed through the article in detail, I was surprised to see how poor the quality of the article was, that this would not pass for GA let alone FA today. This brings us back to one of the original standing orders of Wikipedia way back in its early years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Historical_archive/Rules_to_consider) of Always leave something undone. Personally, I reject such principle as I believe users should contribute as much as they possibly can to an article. If others can contribute something different, great; if not, we have over 3.5 million other articles that need work or similar attention. There is more than enough work to go around for everyone. (The problem is IMO is that the vast majority of them hover around and devote all their time and energy to only a select few articles like Obama or heaven forbid Pikachu, for instance.) -MuZemike ___ 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] ZOMG Wikipedia is TERRORIST!!1!1!!!!
I think those clueless people out there (or those who are just plain ignorant) are beginning to know how exactly the wheel was invented. -MuZemike On 7/23/2010 7:49 PM, George Herbert wrote: David - Please don't toss napalm on the fire. Thanks. -george On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 5:04 PM, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: On 24 July 2010 00:57, Thomas Daltonthomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 July 2010 13:53, Daniel R. Tobiasd...@tobias.name wrote: rightly ridiculed by critics such as the WR crowd. See, that's a sentence fragment that is intrinsically flawed. The WR crowd in question was not critics, the correct term is stalkers and trolls, several of whom are the actual people the foundation was concerned about showing up there. You get no points for clear thinking on this topic. The Foundation, like any other employer, has a duty (both legal and moral) to protect its staff. The nature of the Foundation's work means there is a significant risk of it coming under various forms of attack, including people turning up at the office and behaving in a threatening manner. Keeping the location of the office quiet was the best way the Foundation had to mitigate that risk. The new office comes with security, so the risk is significantly reduced, hence the address being published. - 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] Pending Changes: first press
From NetworkWorld.com, which I'm not sure they're painting a more positive or more negative picutre of pending changes: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/62518 -MuZemike On 6/14/2010 8:46 PM, Ian Woollard wrote: On 15/06/2010, MuZemikemuzem...@gmail.com wrote: Have there been any other media outlets, blogs, etc. who see Pending Changes as a loosening of controls? I haven't; perhaps I've been hanging around with the community too much who say it will be more restrictive than before :) To be perfectly honest, I don't think anyone knows, it will probably depend on what policies are built around it. -MuZemike ___ 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] Pending Changes: first press
Have there been any other media outlets, blogs, etc. who see Pending Changes as a loosening of controls? I haven't; perhaps I've been hanging around with the community too much who say it will be more restrictive than before :) -MuZemike On 6/14/2010 6:39 PM, Risker wrote: On 14 June 2010 19:22, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_to_loosen_controls_tonight.php Spotted by Nihiltres. groan The George Bush page is not going to be part of this trial, because there is no reasonable chance that the tiny, tiny percentage of useful edits will make up for all the vandalism and BLP violations that will be added. That was possibly the one thing that everyone working on the encyclopedia end of the trial came to agreement on very quickly. Risker/Anne ___ 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] Community ready for Pending Changes (nee Flagged Protection)?
Because it is an open, public mailing list where meta-discussion is supposed to be going on about the English Wikipedia. In any case, it's basically guaranteed there will be a portion of the community who will not be ready and a portion who will apparently be caught completely off guard despite the numerous on- and off-wiki discussions, watchlist notices, and anything short of having a bot send messages to all 12 million + registered users. -MuZemike On 6/8/2010 6:15 PM, K. Peachey wrote: If you really want to know i the community is ready... why are posting on the email list, which only has a small amount of people paying attention, You should be discussing with the community on wiki where more people pay attention. -Peachey ___ 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
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
Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins
We need to remember that correlation does not imply causation here, which I think is what David is slightly hinting at. There are probably many other factors in admin decline as well, including increased popularity of Wikipedia (which leads and has led to a lot more problems, good and bad), increased questioning of literally every decision made, increased criticism (general and specific) of adminship and administrators, higher RfA standards, etc. The list goes on. -MuZemike On 5/26/2010 6:34 PM, David Goodman wrote: Are you saying that a _declining_ number of administrators means a _growth_ in bureaucracy? It would normally mean the opposite, either a loss of control, or that the ordinary members were taking the function upon themselves. What I see is a greater degree of control and uniformity, not driven by those in formal positions of authority. On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Ryan Delaneyryan.dela...@gmail.com wrote: Pretty much. That's more or less why I quit the project. On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:51 PM, The Cunctatorcuncta...@gmail.com wrote: By all measures, en.wiki has been in decline for years as an active project. It's just the typical death by bureaucracy that most projects like this undergo. On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Kwan Ting Chank...@ktchan.info wrote: WereSpielChequers wrote: What are the likely results of a dwindling number of admins, and a growing wikigeneration gap between admins and other editors? Well, they're not dwindling since admin rights don't get taken away on inactivity. ;-) But to the general question, because the standard expected of a candidate for RfA has gone up over the years? KTC -- Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine ___ 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] The New Look
On 5/13/2010 8:36 AM, Stephen Bain wrote: On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 6:37 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: My first reaction is that the watchlist arrangements are cryptic. (I was always going to hate having to scroll to the top for the search box.) I'm used to most of it, as would most of the people who have already been using Vector, I imagine. I like the collapsing navigation menus now though, very neat. The thing that's throwing me is the new logo. It's darker than the old one was, and actually it seems closer to the original version of the puzzle globe. I disagree (respectfully), as I especially did not like the usage of collapsing navigation menus. It makes me have to click and then click again just to get to what I want to do. (FWIW, I have many menu functions that I will never use removed on mine via display: none; additions on my vector.css file.) Another gripe is that they shrunk the search box even smaller, which really makes looking for a page problematic. On nearly all computers and with how vector is set up to operate, the width of the search box could easily be doubled. Other than those recent changes, both which came within the past 36 hours IIRC, I like vector as a whole. Looks more modern and crisp than monobook. -MuZemike ___ 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] Citizendium dead?
I like to say that Wikipedia, with its own community bureaucracy, keeps going because of flexibility. The bureaucracy (if I may call our structure that if only for sake or argument) and rule structure is intentionally not made strict and in general is not strictly followed. This allows for common sense and 'rule leniency' (especially true when it regards sanctions such as blocks or bans) to prevail. That flexibility gives editors the freedom to engage in rational discussion relevant to the encyclopedia as well as the freedom to make editorial decisions on articles. It's that lack of flexibility that I believe has sunk Citizendium (and other online encyclopedias like Brittanica and Google Knol) long ago. -MuZemike On 4/17/2010 7:26 AM, David Gerard wrote: On 17 April 2010 12:44, Eugene van der Pijlleug...@vanderpijll.nl wrote: Using the CZ mailing list is discouraged (the blog post at http://weblog.terrellrussell.com/2006/10/citizendium-a-study-in-momentum-killing is interesting; rereading the mailing list articles from September 2006 show so much promise for the project). Yes, Larry's reaction was jawdropping. How dare people use the mailing list as a mailing list! It's hard to get a project started. It's easy to kill momentum. The long tail of open source projects is mostly tiny projects with the founding developer and a number of users. Clay Shirky was right: CZ collapsed under the weight of its own bureaucracy: http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/09/18/larry_sanger_citizendium_and_the_problem_of_expertise.php Larry Sanger's reply is defensive and sees commentary as an attack (a pattern anyone who's tried to comment on CZ will have experienced): http://many.corante.com/archives/2006/09/20/larry_sanger_on_me_on_citizendium.php Read that and think whether you'd want to work in that person's project. Wikipedia, and its community and bureaucracy, sucks in oh so many ways. But it does in fact work and produce something people find useful. - 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
[WikiEN-l] UIC Journal: Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's feature[d] articles
I found this read from the University of Illinois at Chicago Journal interesting about the featured article process and how it does lack in certain areas, including a need for more subject-matter experts to look at these FAs: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2721/2482 -MuZemike ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
