Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 4:41 AM, birgitte...@yahoo.com wrote: You must live in a very simplistic world, but I am afraid it does resemble reality very well. Here are how some various types of things and people are funded. Tool server=chapter. Developers= Mostly WMF but some chapter. Marketing professionals=WMF but no chapter I am aware of. Legal professionals=WMF and chapter. Administration of fundraising campaign=WMF and chapters. You will not find any bright lines in reality. Indeed. And given the magnitude and multitude of problems we are trying to solve as a movement, I think it's absolutely appropriate and desirable for chapters to undertake, for example, software engineering projects (I have reservations about infrastructure-hosting projects). One of the advantages of our open source model is that we already have to operate under a standard assumption that others may want to make significant contributions without centralized management thereof, so we _should_ be able to accommodate chapter-driven software engineering work. The Wikidata project is an example of this. What's notable about Wikidata is not just that it's a very significant scale project ($1.5M in funding), but also that the funding doesn't come from the classic contribution streams (online donations) but from a network of funders that Wikimedia Germany brought together. The project would not have been started or funded without Wikimedia Germany, which really validates the importance of chapters. Chapters indeed have the potential to build out a significant presence to advance engineering and product development, and I'd love to see more of that in future with regard to underrepresented technical priorities (e.g. geo-data related functionality, quality management tools, ProofreadPage style functionality, etc.). In addition to adding to our overall ability to fund and manage projects, they have the ability to recruit and build offices in their geographies, potentially at a much lower salary cost than we do in the SF Bay Area as our primary HQ. The one caveat I have is that, if chapters don't contribute, as part of this process, fully by means of participating in code review and general MediaWiki development, there's a risk that any such chapter-driven engineering work contributes to the overall backlog, and requires adding to a centralized pool of resources. Moreover, a short term project with limited funding has the potential to also add to the long term maintenance/improvement burden for WMF. We're trying to manage this balance very carefully with the Wikidata project, and we'll draw a lot of lessons from the project as it continues. All best, Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 07/25/12 12:48 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: So there were how many years of faffing about before they hired *one guy* for this project? This is an organisation with a $20m annual budget, now acquiring umpteen paid chapter officials. The paid chapter officials are employees of the chapters themselves. The best way to bring hostility against your own pet projects is by being hostile towards the projects of others. What makes one project more deserving than another. Ray ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Jul 26, 2012, at 5:33 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:42 AM, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: On 07/25/12 12:48 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: So there were how many years of faffing about before they hired *one guy* for this project? This is an organisation with a $20m annual budget, now acquiring umpteen paid chapter officials. The paid chapter officials are employees of the chapters themselves. The money comes from the same pot, as you know. The chapters are funded from the same donations as the Foundation. The best way to bring hostility against your own pet projects is by being hostile towards the projects of others. What makes one project more deserving than another. Simplistically, chapters are marketing, while programmers and designers are product development. Marketing is important, but not more so than product development. To be fair, the Foundation is hiring product development staff, and it's not a choice of either/or. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings You must live in a very simplistic world, but I am afraid it does resemble reality very well. Here are how some various types of things and people are funded. Tool server=chapter. Developers= Mostly WMF but some chapter. Marketing professionals=WMF but no chapter I am aware of. Legal professionals=WMF and chapter. Administration of fundraising campaign=WMF and chapters. You will not find any bright lines in reality. Birgitte SB ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 07/26/12 4:41 AM, birgitte...@yahoo.com wrote: On Jul 26, 2012, at 5:33 AM, Andreas Kolbejayen...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 7:42 AM, Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote: On 07/25/12 12:48 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: So there were how many years of faffing about before they hired *one guy* for this project? This is an organisation with a $20m annual budget, now acquiring umpteen paid chapter officials. The paid chapter officials are employees of the chapters themselves. The money comes from the same pot, as you know. The chapters are funded from the same donations as the Foundation. The best way to bring hostility against your own pet projects is by being hostile towards the projects of others. What makes one project more deserving than another. Simplistically, chapters are marketing, while programmers and designers are product development. Marketing is important, but not more so than product development. To be fair, the Foundation is hiring product development staff, and it's not a choice of either/or. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings You must live in a very simplistic world, but I am afraid it does resemble reality very well. Here are how some various types of things and people are funded. Tool server=chapter. Developers= Mostly WMF but some chapter. Marketing professionals=WMF but no chapter I am aware of. Legal professionals=WMF and chapter. Administration of fundraising campaign=WMF and chapters. You will not find any bright lines in reality. To this must be added work with the GLAM community. This is largely driven by the chapters. Their ability to contact these institutions is likely key to opening up access to large stores of material. It would be far more difficult to do this as a foreign organization. Ray ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
I think the clear moral of this story is that, as accommodating and reader-friendly you can be, you just can't make everyone happy. We should listen to all opinions and suggestions, but expect to decide most of the time that the suggestions are simply dumb or unhelpful. On 25 July 2012 16:22, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: On 25 July 2012 15:57, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: That's default web behaviour. If you want narrower columns, just make the browser window narrower. * If your answer is Some people don't know how to use a browser... well... ARGH Most people never resize their browser windows. If your answer is Most people are stupid and don't *deserve* a better reading experience… well, sum, yeah. There's that. * Else If your answer is Lets make it narrower for everyone (including us WIMPs who *do* know how to use Windows Icons Menus and Pointers) whether they want to or not. I KL YOU It's not about making it narrower. It's about making it *better*. Analogy: Let's reduce the amount of words in the lede Let's make the lede better. * Else If your answer is better DTPishlayout control in CSS, including some sane way to do proper columnated text: YES YES, 1000 TIMES YES! Column layout on scrolling web pages doesn't make a lot of sense. Some additional DTP-ish layout control in CSS would be nice, sure, but that's not the point. * Else If other: Ok, go ahead, I'm listening? :-) Well, see points raised earlier. Making Wikipedia easier to read and use is not just mollycoddling lazy users who should know better. Michel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 17 July 2012 00:46, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: I honestly don't understand why it is taking so many years to develop a WYSIWYG editor, for example, or a new Commons search function. Honestly, people, if you want to create paid jobs, don't inflate the chapter structure, but employ and pay a few programmers and designers. On 25 July 2012 16:41, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: I don't understand it, so it must be simple. This often turns out not to be the case. I realised both that it was an incredibly difficult problem, and that WMF is really serious about getting on with it, when they decided to hire James F. to take charge of the project. Deryck ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
Hoi, Most people are stupid and they still deserve a great reading experience.. Our aim is to share in the sum of all knowledge with everyone. When people fail to read Wikipedia.. and they do.. there is a reason to do better for them. Any effective measure that provides a better experience for all the different screens helps us share with more people. Even stupid people deserve to be educated... eh especially stupid people deserve to be educated ... Thanks, Gerard On 25 July 2012 17:22, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: On 25 July 2012 15:57, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: That's default web behaviour. If you want narrower columns, just make the browser window narrower. * If your answer is Some people don't know how to use a browser... well... ARGH Most people never resize their browser windows. If your answer is Most people are stupid and don't *deserve* a better reading experience… well, sum, yeah. There's that. * Else If your answer is Lets make it narrower for everyone (including us WIMPs who *do* know how to use Windows Icons Menus and Pointers) whether they want to or not. I KL YOU It's not about making it narrower. It's about making it *better*. Analogy: Let's reduce the amount of words in the lede Let's make the lede better. * Else If your answer is better DTPishlayout control in CSS, including some sane way to do proper columnated text: YES YES, 1000 TIMES YES! Column layout on scrolling web pages doesn't make a lot of sense. Some additional DTP-ish layout control in CSS would be nice, sure, but that's not the point. * Else If other: Ok, go ahead, I'm listening? :-) Well, see points raised earlier. Making Wikipedia easier to read and use is not just mollycoddling lazy users who should know better. Michel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
One of the key problems with the interface is that it doesn't do a lot to seperate editing and reading. I know the point is to make editing easy - and to encourage readers to become editors. But realistically most of them will not - and we could do significantly better in streamlining our anon. front end. Tom On 25 July 2012 20:33, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, Most people are stupid and they still deserve a great reading experience.. Our aim is to share in the sum of all knowledge with everyone. When people fail to read Wikipedia.. and they do.. there is a reason to do better for them. Any effective measure that provides a better experience for all the different screens helps us share with more people. Even stupid people deserve to be educated... eh especially stupid people deserve to be educated ... Thanks, Gerard On 25 July 2012 17:22, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: On 25 July 2012 15:57, Kim Bruning k...@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote: That's default web behaviour. If you want narrower columns, just make the browser window narrower. * If your answer is Some people don't know how to use a browser... well... ARGH Most people never resize their browser windows. If your answer is Most people are stupid and don't *deserve* a better reading experience… well, sum, yeah. There's that. * Else If your answer is Lets make it narrower for everyone (including us WIMPs who *do* know how to use Windows Icons Menus and Pointers) whether they want to or not. I KL YOU It's not about making it narrower. It's about making it *better*. Analogy: Let's reduce the amount of words in the lede Let's make the lede better. * Else If your answer is better DTPishlayout control in CSS, including some sane way to do proper columnated text: YES YES, 1000 TIMES YES! Column layout on scrolling web pages doesn't make a lot of sense. Some additional DTP-ish layout control in CSS would be nice, sure, but that's not the point. * Else If other: Ok, go ahead, I'm listening? :-) Well, see points raised earlier. Making Wikipedia easier to read and use is not just mollycoddling lazy users who should know better. Michel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Deryck Chan deryckc...@wikimedia.hkwrote: On 17 July 2012 00:46, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: I honestly don't understand why it is taking so many years to develop a WYSIWYG editor, for example, or a new Commons search function. Honestly, people, if you want to create paid jobs, don't inflate the chapter structure, but employ and pay a few programmers and designers. On 25 July 2012 16:41, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: I don't understand it, so it must be simple. This often turns out not to be the case. In the case of the sensible Commons search function Niabot proposed, the problem did sound rather easy to solve. From memory, the answer was: Everybody is busy with other stuff. Nobody has time to look into this. We've got so much to do ... I realised both that it was an incredibly difficult problem, and that WMF is really serious about getting on with it, when they decided to hire James F. to take charge of the project. So there were how many years of faffing about before they hired *one guy* for this project? This is an organisation with a $20m annual budget, now acquiring umpteen paid chapter officials. Wikipedia is about as user-friendly as Wordstar was in 1985. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 25 July 2012 20:48, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: So there were how many years of faffing about before they hired *one guy* for this project? This is an organisation with a $20m annual budget, now acquiring umpteen paid chapter officials. Wikipedia is about as user-friendly as Wordstar was in 1985. Before you start in the usual fashion of assume bad faith and extrapolate from there, I suggest you do a bit of reading (mediawiki.org, wikitech-l and *especially* wikitext-l) and find out what the actual problem was and why this is actually a hard problem. Here, I'll start you off: 1. No language definition. 2. Huge corpus of existing text in said undefined language that must continue to work. Now how about you stop ranting about how everyone must have just been terrible and come back with a description in your own words of the actual problem and what you expect would be a good plan of attack on it. Who knows, you might come up with something new, good and useful. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 25 July 2012 20:44, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: One of the key problems with the interface is that it doesn't do a lot to seperate editing and reading. I know the point is to make editing easy - and to encourage readers to become editors. But realistically most of them will not - and we could do significantly better in streamlining our anon. front end. I would disagree. We need to make it easy for people to hit edit, and we need to make it easy for them to be able to do something useful. (This is why I'm so disappointed the mobile app doesn't do editing, for example. Or, indeed, some way to take a photo and quickly add it to an article.) - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 25 July 2012 21:01, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 25 July 2012 20:44, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: One of the key problems with the interface is that it doesn't do a lot to seperate editing and reading. I know the point is to make editing easy - and to encourage readers to become editors. But realistically most of them will not - and we could do significantly better in streamlining our anon. front end. I would disagree. We need to make it easy for people to hit edit, and we need to make it easy for them to be able to do something useful. (This is why I'm so disappointed the mobile app doesn't do editing, for example. Or, indeed, some way to take a photo and quickly add it to an article.) Yes. We also need to be understanding of the 99% - the ones who just want to read. Our interface should suit the reader - with a prominent prompt to edit. Which once clicked opens things up into the world of editing Wikipedia. But if you don't click that prompt then you don't get useless fluff to distract you. This all ties back to my view that we don't think of the average reader enough :) Tom ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
David, Here is a different approach. Ask the Foundation's paid programming staff if there is ever so much for them to do that other things they know should be done, or that other people have asked them to do, fall by the wayside; or how often it happens that project dates slip and deadlines are not met because they get called off their jobs to deal with something else. Things like that. If the programming staff (hello?) say there aren't any significant problems of that sort, and that having their own staff that they could delegate parts of their work to would not lead to more things getting done, but would only result in them sitting around playing cards, I'll shut up about this. Andreas On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 8:56 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 25 July 2012 20:48, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: So there were how many years of faffing about before they hired *one guy* for this project? This is an organisation with a $20m annual budget, now acquiring umpteen paid chapter officials. Wikipedia is about as user-friendly as Wordstar was in 1985. Before you start in the usual fashion of assume bad faith and extrapolate from there, I suggest you do a bit of reading (mediawiki.org, wikitech-l and *especially* wikitext-l) and find out what the actual problem was and why this is actually a hard problem. Here, I'll start you off: 1. No language definition. 2. Huge corpus of existing text in said undefined language that must continue to work. Now how about you stop ranting about how everyone must have just been terrible and come back with a description in your own words of the actual problem and what you expect would be a good plan of attack on it. Who knows, you might come up with something new, good and useful. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 25 July 2012 22:04, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: On 25 July 2012 21:01, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: (This is why I'm so disappointed the mobile app doesn't do editing, for example. Or, indeed, some way to take a photo and quickly add it to an article.) Yes. We also need to be understanding of the 99% - the ones who just want to read. Our interface should suit the reader - with a prominent prompt to edit. Which once clicked opens things up into the world of editing Wikipedia. But if you don't click that prompt then you don't get useless fluff to distract you. This all ties back to my view that we don't think of the average reader enough :) I totally agree. With the one caveat that it's both tempting and dangerous to speak of or design for the average reader. The average car driver, as the joke goes, wants a car that's fast and flashy, and comfortable and safe, with a large trunk and room for kids, that looks sexy, gets great mileage and does 0-90 in however few seconds is impressive enough. And then you end up with The Homer ( http://imgur.com/PO22S) -- a car that should in theory be everything for everyone, but in fact is nothing for no-one. :) And that's why interaction designers develop personas and write scenarios of use, do mock-ups and prototypes, etc. etc. Michel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
Thomas Morton, 25/07/2012 22:04: We also need to be understanding of the 99% - the ones who just want to read. Our interface should suit the reader - with a prominent prompt to edit. Which once clicked opens things up into the world of editing Wikipedia. But if you don't click that prompt then you don't get useless fluff to distract you. What exactly is the fluff? Even the most hidden toolbox links are crucial for reading articles and understanding them, for instance WhatLinksHere. I'm more interested in things which try to get some of that clutter to be understood by and useful for readers, like the last modified experiment to increase history browsing (despite all the problems, of course). Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 09:04:46PM +0100, Thomas Morton wrote: This all ties back to my view that we don't think of the average reader enough :) What do we want the average reader to do? Who do we want them to be. Do we want them to be an encyclopedia reader, a wiki editor, or ... something in between? A novel thought that! I think that every person who comes to take something away, also has something to bring back in. Actually, that's pretty much certain, sooner or later. An encyclopedia is a starting point for research. Once you're even just halfway researching your topic, you probably know more than the encyclopedia does. This is how I sometimes contributed to wikipedia early on. [1] Rather than giving up and calling people the average reader, can we think about how we can get them to give something back? Sure, we probably can't get 100% of readers to give something back, but we can definitely do better than the meager fraction-of-1% we have now. Our policies/procedures/work-patterns have swung a little too far encyclopedia-ward. We need to get the pendulum swinging back wiki-ward for a while. sincerely, Kim Bruning [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lost_functionalities#Using_wikipedia_as_an_.28anonymous.29_research_tool ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 09:48:50PM +0200, Svip wrote: Oh and here is a fun fact I have discovered over the years; reading large texts of a serif typeface is a lot easier than a sans-serif typeface. See, I'm *not* crazy to think that! phew That's why I still use the classic skin, it's the only skin that has serif fonts for body text. :-/ sincerely, Kim Bruning ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 5:37 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.orgwrote: And we may want to consider if it is really _everyone_ we want to edit our articles. I don't believe you actually said this. I would say this is a theme that I have seen on the wikipedia. People dont have time to take new editors by the hand, for example 12 year old kids who write articles about themselves are deleted instead of being nicely told to turn the page into their user page for example, the list goes on and on. mike -- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org http://flossk.orgSaving wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion http://SpeedyDeletion.wikia.com Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
Hoi, It was not a small laptop screen, the screen was big enough... I blogged about it and included screenshots. Thanks, GerardM http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2012/07/can-everybody-read-wikipedia.html On 14 July 2012 19:21, Svip svi...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 July 2012 18:12, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Yesterday I wanted to make a point to a friend. I tried to do it by having the facts that are sourced in the Wikipedia article read by the person who did not have the information available. Reading the article did not really happen because of the problems with the lay-out as presented on the screen of a laptop. That must be a tiny laptop screen. I really have not experienced Wikipedia being difficult to read, and I have read it in _any_ browser; on phones (both smartphones and non-smartphones); text-based browsers; through obscure terminals, and yes laptops and desktops. Wikipedia is one of the few websites that actually puts its content above its clutter. Essentially; if you have trouble reading Wikipedia, you are going have a lot of trouble browsing the web. Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia everyone can edit. Not everybody does read. It is like the issues with Wikibooks and Wikisource, we care about editing and the reading is largely a by product. Well, I personally think that is the wrong philosophy. Wikipedia - and wikis in general - should be about the readers first, and the editors first. Why? Because essentially all editors are readers as well, and the whole reason we are all here to edit is for someone else to read it. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 6:43 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Magnus Manske
magnusman...@googlemail.comwrote:
Well, you asked for volunteers... ;-)
I started a tool that would let you change the CSS easily. Edit your
common.js user page and add (pardon the Leif Ericsson pun...) :
importScript('MediaWiki:Live EriCSSon.js');
Once that is done, you can use a URL parameter to use any Wikipedia
page with a CSS stylesheet.
I also created a demo stylesheet called explosion (as in exploded
view), which, when used on top of vector on a wide (1600px) screen,
uses a 900px central text column, with floating infoboxes,
thumbnails, and TOC on the side. With Live EriCSSon, you can
test-drive the stylesheet, like so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology?useCSS=User:Magnus_Manske/explosion.css
And this is what it will look like:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CSS_Stylesheet_explosion_demo_Biology.png
All links to other wiki pages will automatically be extended with the
URL parameter, so you can browse Wikipedia with the stylesheet without
having to re-enter it on every page. Note that the original (vector)
stylesheet will initially show briefly on every page :-(
If this is something people think useful, I'll add a way to select
from pre-defined stylesheet catalogs etc.
Cheers,
Magnus
Thanks Magnus, that looks really great. This is exactly the sort of
alternative page design I was thinking of, and that we should enable people
to select, especially if they have a large screen -- where the lines of
text can end up excessively long, pictures become all bunched up, and the
text flow gets messed up.
Of course, ideally users shouldn't have to manually edit a .js file to
obtain this result. They should just have to click a button somewhere that
will do it for them. Editing .js files is clunky. It's like being back in
DOS days. A programmer may take something like that in his stride, but most
people in Wikimedia's target group will baulk at being asked to do
something like that, and resent it.
If people generate some more CSS files to use with my little tool, it
could be loaded by default. Might need some polishing, though.
There's now a link in the toolbox where you can specify the CSS page
you want in a dialog box; you can even make it permanent (no need
for the URL parameter anymore).
In fact, I had to laugh the other day, when I read a Wikimedia demographic
survey. It literally said, two-thirds of Wikipedia editors are not
programmers. What an odd way of phrasing that!
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AEditor_Survey_Report_-_April_2011.pdfpage=19
Surely, the interesting fact here that most people would have reported is
the converse, i.e. that one-third of Wikipedia editors *are* programmers.
That's far more than in the general population, and a huge demographic
bias. In fact, the page says that only 36% can be classified as techies,
and that 39% of male editors can program and create their own applications
(vs. 18% of female editors).
We need to be a lot friendlier to the non-programming public.
I believe we can do a lot in pure CSS/JavaScript, today, not 2015.
Backend support will, of course, always trump JS hacks in the long
run, though.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
It shouldn't take five years though, should it? And there are dozens (hundreds?) of jobs in queues, waiting to be done, which can't be done because nobody is free to do them. On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 12:50 AM, Tom Morris t...@tommorris.org wrote: On Monday, 16 July 2012 at 19:46, Andreas Kolbe wrote: I honestly don't understand why it is taking so many years to develop a WYSIWYG editor, for example, or a new Commons search function. Honestly, people, if you want to create paid jobs, don't inflate the chapter structure, but employ and pay a few programmers and designers. I'm no great shakes as a programmer (in fact, I'm an exceptionally lazy programmer), but I know why it takes so long to develop a WYSIWYG editor: because doing it properly is actually kind of a hard problem. And as the Mythical Man Month points out, you can't just keep on adding programmers if you want it done faster. Software development teams don't actually scale that well. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 7/16/12 7:43 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: We need to be a lot friendlier to the non-programming public. I agree that's true, but I'd also be curious how we can do that without falling into the trap of the user-friendly, invisible-interface ideology, which does it by assuming users are unable to meaningfully control computers, and therefore must be fed the correct results by experts who know how to operate computers. That way lies just a different version of stratification. I'm somewhat partial to Jeannette Wing's view that computational thinking should attempt to decouple minutiae of programming (e.g. knowing how to debug C, which can be an expert skill) from the idea of being able to critically consider and control computers in the sense of executing processes (which needs to be widely available). The idea (as Ted Nelson also argued earlier) is to devolve as many tools as possible, to whatever extent possible, towards as many people as possible, which user-friendliness paradoxically doesn't really do (Lori Emerson has been pushing this argument, fwiw). How that precisely should operate on Wikipedia is a tricky question, of course. I would personally like to see us better enable the potentially programming public, for one thing, where programming is taken in a broad sense. -Mark ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 2:24 AM, Mark delir...@hackish.org wrote: On 7/16/12 7:43 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote: We need to be a lot friendlier to the non-programming public. I agree that's true, but I'd also be curious how we can do that without falling into the trap of the user-friendly, invisible-interface ideology, which does it by assuming users are unable to meaningfully control computers, and therefore must be fed the correct results by experts who know how to operate computers. That way lies just a different version of stratification. I'm somewhat partial to Jeannette Wing's view that computational thinking should attempt to decouple minutiae of programming (e.g. knowing how to debug C, which can be an expert skill) from the idea of being able to critically consider and control computers in the sense of executing processes (which needs to be widely available). The idea (as Ted Nelson also argued earlier) is to devolve as many tools as possible, to whatever extent possible, towards as many people as possible, which user-friendliness paradoxically doesn't really do (Lori Emerson has been pushing this argument, fwiw). How that precisely should operate on Wikipedia is a tricky question, of course. I would personally like to see us better enable the potentially programming public, for one thing, where programming is taken in a broad sense. -Mark Mark, you say knowing how to debug C, which can be an expert skill ... I hope you are aware that about half of our overall global target audience wouldn't even know what C is, let alone know how to write something in it or debug it. I think I understand what you mean with user-friendliness being potentially restrictive, and I have nothing against some advanced functions being available to buffs: but that's really the bells and whistles, which should come after the basics. Take application software like MS Word – you can do all the basic stuff just by clicking, and you don't need to know anything about programming whatsoever. That's the basics. It's what any product that wants to survive needs to offer. You *can* also program fairly involved macros in MS Word: that's the bells and whistles. People who are into macro programming will consider that a vital function, but 95% of Word users will probably never program a macro in their lives. (If memory serves, later versions of Word didn't even include the Developer tab with all the Visual Basic functions in the default installation.) User-friendliness that will make the programming-illiterate comfortable is not a trap but an absolute must. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 7:34 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 15 July 2012 14:44, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: The way to solve the design issue is to enable third parties to create alternative skins that users can install in preference over the default ones offered by the Foundation. Surely that's the sort of thing open software is about. err monobook.css and monobook.js or whatever they are called these days. Gee. I'd want a webpage that shows me hundreds of different ways Wikipedia can look – pink, green, yellow, pastel; serious, snazzy, fun or weird; sidebar left, right, top, or bottom – created by talented designers, where I can point and click to install the one I like in less than a minute. Something ... you know ... user-friendly, for non-programmers. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 16 July 2012 02:51, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: Gee. I'd want a webpage that shows me hundreds of different ways Wikipedia can look – pink, green, yellow, pastel; serious, snazzy, fun or weird; sidebar left, right, top, or bottom – created by talented designers, where I can point and click to install the one I like in less than a minute. Something ... you know ... user-friendly, for non-programmers. You appear to be confused as to what open software is all about. In any case the need to fit around the stuff Wikipedians put in articles limits the amount of customisation that is possible in a practical skin. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
I love it when people who have no idea what they are talking about, pretend to know what they are talking about, and then even worse, gets submitted to Slashdot, because apparently they might know what they are talking about. But they don't know what they are talking about. Person of ignorance in question: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/on-the-ugliness-of-wikipedia/259747/ Megan Garber believes Wikipedia's apparently extreme ugliness to be scaring away people. Because, we all know what Wikipedia is about, it's not about content, it is about layout. Less text and more images. In any case, I just thought I should let you know not to change the layout of Wikipedia because of this article. And if any of her recommendations is taken into account, I may get mad. I am looking for a Facebook-Wikipedia hybrid. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
2012/7/14 Svip svi...@gmail.com: I love it when people who have no idea what they are talking about, pretend to know what they are talking about, and then even worse, gets submitted to Slashdot, because apparently they might know what they are talking about. But they don't know what they are talking about. Person of ignorance in question: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/on-the-ugliness-of-wikipedia/259747/ Megan Garber believes Wikipedia's apparently extreme ugliness to be scaring away people. Because, we all know what Wikipedia is about, it's not about content, it is about layout. Less text and more images. In any case, I just thought I should let you know not to change the layout of Wikipedia because of this article. And if any of her recommendations is taken into account, I may get mad. I am looking for a Facebook-Wikipedia hybrid. The article was an interesting read, and wasn't just about layout; it had more to say more about *interface*, which is a more general concept. If there's anything that can be done to increase meaningful participation by making the interface simpler to use or better-looking, then why should we not do that? Because we'd rather be left alone in our own tech-savvy we-know-what's-good-for-you bubble? Having a simpler, more user-friendly interface doesn't change us into Facebook overnight. And if it increases actual participation, then I'd be in favor of it. Paul Becherer. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Paul Becherer p...@wmnederland.nl wrote: The article was an interesting read, and wasn't just about layout; it had more to say more about *interface*, which is a more general concept. If there's anything that can be done to increase meaningful participation by making the interface simpler to use or better-looking, then why should we not do that? Because we'd rather be left alone in our own tech-savvy we-know-what's-good-for-you bubble? Having a simpler, more user-friendly interface doesn't change us into Facebook overnight. And if it increases actual participation, then I'd be in favor of it. True. BTW, I see strong connection between sentences Wikipedia is not, and has no interest in being, Facebook. and Britannica is not, and has no interest in being, a website -- having in mind that Facebook is another name for social networking service. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
Hoi, Yesterday I wanted to make a point to a friend. I tried to do it by having the facts that are sourced in the Wikipedia article read by the person who did not have the information available. Reading the article did not really happen because of the problems with the lay-out as presented on the screen of a laptop. Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia everyone can edit. Not everybody does read. It is like the issues with Wikibooks and Wikisource, we care about editing and the reading is largely a by product. Thanks, Gerard On 14 July 2012 17:14, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Paul Becherer p...@wmnederland.nl wrote: The article was an interesting read, and wasn't just about layout; it had more to say more about *interface*, which is a more general concept. If there's anything that can be done to increase meaningful participation by making the interface simpler to use or better-looking, then why should we not do that? Because we'd rather be left alone in our own tech-savvy we-know-what's-good-for-you bubble? Having a simpler, more user-friendly interface doesn't change us into Facebook overnight. And if it increases actual participation, then I'd be in favor of it. True. BTW, I see strong connection between sentences Wikipedia is not, and has no interest in being, Facebook. and Britannica is not, and has no interest in being, a website -- having in mind that Facebook is another name for social networking service. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
Appearance does affect perceptions of credibility, which should be of interest to Wikipedia. Recently, I was talking to someone who doubted Wikipedia's validity. When I asked her if it was because the content can be edited by anyone, she replied, No, it's the way the site looks. On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote: Hoi, Yesterday I wanted to make a point to a friend. I tried to do it by having the facts that are sourced in the Wikipedia article read by the person who did not have the information available. Reading the article did not really happen because of the problems with the lay-out as presented on the screen of a laptop. Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia everyone can edit. Not everybody does read. It is like the issues with Wikibooks and Wikisource, we care about editing and the reading is largely a by product. Thanks, Gerard On 14 July 2012 17:14, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Paul Becherer p...@wmnederland.nl wrote: The article was an interesting read, and wasn't just about layout; it had more to say more about *interface*, which is a more general concept. If there's anything that can be done to increase meaningful participation by making the interface simpler to use or better-looking, then why should we not do that? Because we'd rather be left alone in our own tech-savvy we-know-what's-good-for-you bubble? Having a simpler, more user-friendly interface doesn't change us into Facebook overnight. And if it increases actual participation, then I'd be in favor of it. True. BTW, I see strong connection between sentences Wikipedia is not, and has no interest in being, Facebook. and Britannica is not, and has no interest in being, a website -- having in mind that Facebook is another name for social networking service. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 14 July 2012 18:12, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Yesterday I wanted to make a point to a friend. I tried to do it by having the facts that are sourced in the Wikipedia article read by the person who did not have the information available. Reading the article did not really happen because of the problems with the lay-out as presented on the screen of a laptop. That must be a tiny laptop screen. I really have not experienced Wikipedia being difficult to read, and I have read it in _any_ browser; on phones (both smartphones and non-smartphones); text-based browsers; through obscure terminals, and yes laptops and desktops. Wikipedia is one of the few websites that actually puts its content above its clutter. Essentially; if you have trouble reading Wikipedia, you are going have a lot of trouble browsing the web. Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia everyone can edit. Not everybody does read. It is like the issues with Wikibooks and Wikisource, we care about editing and the reading is largely a by product. Well, I personally think that is the wrong philosophy. Wikipedia - and wikis in general - should be about the readers first, and the editors first. Why? Because essentially all editors are readers as well, and the whole reason we are all here to edit is for someone else to read it. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 14 July 2012 19:05, Audrey Abeyta audrey.abe...@gmail.com wrote: Appearance does affect perceptions of credibility, which should be of interest to Wikipedia. Recently, I was talking to someone who doubted Wikipedia's validity. When I asked her if it was because the content can be edited by anyone, she replied, No, it's the way the site looks. Really? Most people I know think the exact opposite. Wikipedia's old web style makes it seem like a credible source, rather than websites with all sorts of useless features, that usually contain equally useless content. In short; I don't think there is a problem, at least not a problem that can be fixed. I think it is just the natural evolution of the web and Wikipedia. I mean, once you have written articles on Stones and Paper, what more is there really to cover? ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 7/14/12 7:05 PM, Audrey Abeyta wrote: Appearance does affect perceptions of credibility, which should be of interest to Wikipedia. Recently, I was talking to someone who doubted Wikipedia's validity. When I asked her if it was because the content can be edited by anyone, she replied, No, it's the way the site looks. I've run into this also, but I suspect part of it is self-referential: Wikipedia looks like a default install of MediaWiki, and therefore looks like many half-assed/uncustomized MediaWiki installs out there. But that's because we are (close to) a default install of MediaWiki! Or rather, the reverse: the default MediaWiki skin was borrowed from the one designed for Wikimedia sites. I wonder if we'd gain a modest boost in perceptions of our design if we just made sure the skin used on Wikimedia sites, and the default skin shipped with MediaWiki, were fairly dissimilar in style. -Mark ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 14 July 2012 19:13, Svip svi...@gmail.com wrote: And I don't think Wikipedia is ugly or lacks user friendliness, which is the premise of this article. And I speak from a reader's point of view. In the words of a far wiser man than you or me: Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. :) For one thing, Wikipedia is *objectively* ugly, typography and design wise. It is hard to read -- and that's not talking about the content, it's just about the form. Sue, you'll get people saying that it's all a matter of opinion, but the thing is: it's not. We've been at this laying things out and making readable pages thing for a couple of centuries now, and there's no dark magic involved. (Quite apart from the main point, that we make it hard for people to engage with the content, i.e. edit pages and add stuff.) And we may want to consider if it is really _everyone_ we want to edit our articles. I don't believe you actually said this. Michel Vuijlsteke ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 1:13 PM, Svip svi...@gmail.com wrote: It is strange to me, that whenever we talk about Wikipedia edit activity being down, we never discuss the fact that most of the basic human knowledge articles have already been written. I remember this claim being made when we had 2 million articles, and again when we had 3 million, and again now that we have 4 million. It wasn't correct then, and it isn't correct now -- there are millions of perfectly basic articles that still need to be written. Consider, for example, article number 4 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izbat_Al_Burj. It's a city of some 70,000 people -- is anyone really going to claim that this is a specialized topic? Kirill ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 13:37:57 -0400, Kirill Lokshin wrote: On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 1:13 PM, Svip svi...@gmail.com wrote: Consider, for example, article number 4 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izbat_Al_Burj. It's a city of some 70,000 people -- is anyone really going to claim that this is a specialized topic? Kirill This is actually a very good example. The article was started by Dr. Blofield who is widely known as geostub creator. I am not going to discuss now whether mass creation of geostubs is good or not (this is a separate issue where people sometimes express strong opinions), but the fact is that most of his articles remain two-line stubs for years unil (if ever) they attract somebody's attention. Most of my own activity on English Wikipedia is about writing and expanding geoarticles related to Russia. In particular, in 2010 Dr. Blofield created one-line stubs of all districts of Russia (over a thousand). Those which Ezhiki and me worked on are in a relatively good shape, others are just waiting for us - it can easily take a decade until this work has been completed. But both Ezhiki and I are native Russian speakers and have interest in the subject - and in a sense this is a special skill. There is much more things to do in English Wikipedia for me, a Russin native speaker, a speaker of several other languages, an academic, somebody with a broad range of interests - than for a teenager who does not have any special skills but feels underappreciated and needs attention. And there are many more underappreciated teenagers around than people with my profile. Returning to Izbat_Al_Burj article - usually a 4Mth article would get an enormous attention and a huge number of hits. The fact that it is only three paragraphs long at the time I am writing this means - I guess - that all information easily available in English is scarce and is still there. We are waiting either for a native Arabic speaker with access to Arabic literature, or someone who by chance has skiils in history, in climatology, in human geography of Egypt - in case there is smth special about this city which is not yet in the article. And all this, including knowledge of Arabic, I would call special skills. Cheers Yaroslav ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 14 Jul 2012, at 14:01, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote: This is actually a very good example. The article was started by Dr. Blofield who is widely known as geostub creator. Nope. Take a look in the article history - it was created manually by User:Mono25. Thanks, Mike ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On Sat, 14 Jul 2012 14:28:36 -0400, Michael Peel wrote: On 14 Jul 2012, at 14:01, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote: This is actually a very good example. The article was started by Dr. Blofield who is widely known as geostub creator. Nope. Take a look in the article history - it was created manually by User:Mono25. Thanks, Mike Oops, indeed, I failed to get the whole history. Sorry for that. But this only reinforces my point, as Meno25 is a native speaker of Arabic. Cheers Yaroslav ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 14 July 2012 19:37, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: On 14 July 2012 19:13, Svip svi...@gmail.com wrote: And I don't think Wikipedia is ugly or lacks user friendliness, which is the premise of this article. And I speak from a reader's point of view. In the words of a far wiser man than you or me: Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. :) For one thing, Wikipedia is *objectively* ugly, typography and design wise. It is hard to read -- and that's not talking about the content, it's just about the form. Sue, you'll get people saying that it's all a matter of opinion, but the thing is: it's not. We've been at this laying things out and making readable pages thing for a couple of centuries now, and there's no dark magic involved. (Quite apart from the main point, that we make it hard for people to engage with the content, i.e. edit pages and add stuff.) I am still not convinced that Wikipedia is any harder to read than any other website with information. I find Ars Technica hard to read at times, same goes for Slashdot or Facebook, for that matter. I try usually to fix it by enforcing narrow text for the content with my browser window alone, but I doubt that is the main problem. Is it the choice of font? Is it the font size? Is it the usage of links in text and footnotes everywhere? All I hear is; it's ugly, from a typography and design perspective, but I have yet to see some concrete examples. Furthermore; Wikipedia is not suppose to be a showcase of what CSS can do with beautiful websites. It certainly shouldn't contain more gradients, round corners or other nonsense stuff. And we may want to consider if it is really _everyone_ we want to edit our articles. I don't believe you actually said this. I did say that, and I stand by it. There are editors out there, although well intended, who will create more damage than good. They are likely to be people who are limited in technical knowledge regarding how to edit wikis. And those who wish to become better, will certainly be worth it, but they are not everyone. And let's be honest, I don't think every newcomer is looking forward to taking an edit war with an established editor. Fortunately, a lot are already scared away by the Manual of Style and the wikicode itself. There are plenty of things to scare people away from editing Wikipedia before we get to the interface itself. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 14 July 2012 19:37, Kirill Lokshin kirill.loks...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 1:13 PM, Svip svi...@gmail.com wrote: It is strange to me, that whenever we talk about Wikipedia edit activity being down, we never discuss the fact that most of the basic human knowledge articles have already been written. I remember this claim being made when we had 2 million articles, and again when we had 3 million, and again now that we have 4 million. It wasn't correct then, and it isn't correct now -- there are millions of perfectly basic articles that still need to be written. Consider, for example, article number 4 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izbat_Al_Burj. It's a city of some 70,000 people -- is anyone really going to claim that this is a specialized topic? I still stand by my statement, because I did not rule out that there could be more general articles missing, but they would still be far more specialised than an article on Stone or any capital city in the world (which by the way is more specialised to begin than an article on Stone). And furthermore, while it was quite coincidental that it was article number 4 million, how often do new articles of this sort occur? And how do we convince people that they can still write an article about a subject we haven't written about? I don't think we can, because it is hardly excited for most people to write an article about Izbat Al Burj. I mean no offence, but that's how it is. There are far more people interested in writing on the Stone article. Or an article, one might consider to be more specialised than Izbat Al Burj, such as OR Gates. Again; I don't believe there is a problem with the amount of editors on Wikipedia, or at least not a problem we can fix. It's like the natural evolution in everything, sooner or later people were going to stop using telegraphs, because something better arrived. Not that something has arrived to replace Wikipedia in purpose, but probably in interest. And you can't do anything about that. But if there is a problem about people being unable to read articles probably, then we _should_ do something about that. Oh and here is a fun fact I have discovered over the years; reading large texts of a serif typeface is a lot easier than a sans-serif typeface. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
I really really don't get all this talk about Wikipedia being ugly. To me it's a great example of how text really can move from markup to a well-laid-out website with a coherent design philosophy. Wikipedia generates results which adapt to window size very gracefully without taking the cop-out of forcing all the content to run down the center of the page in a fixed size. In fact, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/on-the-ugliness-of-wikipedia/259747/ wastes half the page real-estate on my browser, and with the river of content that's left in the middle, what does it do? It reserves about a third of it for ads. Quite horrible really. -- David Richfield [[:User:Slashme]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 14 July 2012 23:48, David Richfield davidrichfi...@gmail.com wrote: I really really don't get all this talk about Wikipedia being ugly. To me it's a great example of how text really can move from markup to a well-laid-out website with a coherent design philosophy. Wikipedia generates results which adapt to window size very gracefully without taking the cop-out of forcing all the content to run down the center of the page in a fixed size. Okay, ugly was a poor choice of words. Ugly is subjective. Bad typography and poor layout objectively hinders readers. It slows reading speed and reduces comprehension -- not in some vague well yeah, that's your word against mine way, but in an objectively scientifically measurable way. What Wikipedia does is not really adapting gracefully. It's adding a padding of 1.5em to the left and right of a block of text that spans the entire width of any available window (minus the 11em of the left panel). There's a limit to the amount of text you can put on a line before it becomes hard to read. What you're calling a cop-out is not a cop-out at all. The ads, well, they need to be there for The Atlantic to be able to pay the bills, but increasing the number of characters per line in the text column would *not* make the better. To the contrary: the amount of words per line is about just right. Here, take the test yourself. This is the article in Wikipedia layout: http://imgur.com/xinFW This is the article as seen on The Atlantic: http://imgur.com/WH1WT And this is the article run through Evernote Clearly: http://imgur.com/sH3HJ Anyone can see, I hope, that the Clearly (http://evernote.com/clearly/) version is by far the easiest and most comfortable to read. Bigger font. * Different* font. Contrast less harsh. Fewer characters per line. Margins. Leading. Kerning. It's almost funny there's no article about macrotypography on Wikipedia. :) Michel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
I do think the Wikimedia sites look dated, and very male, too. One example I always think of when this issue comes up is Wikifashion: http://wikifashion.com/wiki/Main_Page I would love for Wikipedia to have optional skins like that, made by graphic designers, just like you can have all sorts of bells and whistles for your browser. Commons is another project that has a very clunky look. I mean, look at that main page. This is an image hosting project, for Christ's sake. I discussed this with Magnus Manske a few weeks ago at a meet-up, and he showed me how Flickr offers people ways to explore their new content, like this for example, showcasing recent uploads: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/2012/07/ Here is Pinterest, which also has a real-time format visualising a flow of images: http://pinterest.com/ These sites are beautiful to look at. If Commons were properly designed, its front end would not have hundreds of text hyperlinks, but would show off its new images. On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 11:42 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.orgwrote: On 14 July 2012 23:48, David Richfield davidrichfi...@gmail.com wrote: I really really don't get all this talk about Wikipedia being ugly. To me it's a great example of how text really can move from markup to a well-laid-out website with a coherent design philosophy. Wikipedia generates results which adapt to window size very gracefully without taking the cop-out of forcing all the content to run down the center of the page in a fixed size. Okay, ugly was a poor choice of words. Ugly is subjective. Bad typography and poor layout objectively hinders readers. It slows reading speed and reduces comprehension -- not in some vague well yeah, that's your word against mine way, but in an objectively scientifically measurable way. What Wikipedia does is not really adapting gracefully. It's adding a padding of 1.5em to the left and right of a block of text that spans the entire width of any available window (minus the 11em of the left panel). There's a limit to the amount of text you can put on a line before it becomes hard to read. What you're calling a cop-out is not a cop-out at all. The ads, well, they need to be there for The Atlantic to be able to pay the bills, but increasing the number of characters per line in the text column would *not* make the better. To the contrary: the amount of words per line is about just right. Here, take the test yourself. This is the article in Wikipedia layout: http://imgur.com/xinFW This is the article as seen on The Atlantic: http://imgur.com/WH1WT And this is the article run through Evernote Clearly: http://imgur.com/sH3HJ Anyone can see, I hope, that the Clearly (http://evernote.com/clearly/) version is by far the easiest and most comfortable to read. Bigger font. * Different* font. Contrast less harsh. Fewer characters per line. Margins. Leading. Kerning. It's almost funny there's no article about macrotypography on Wikipedia. :) Michel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
Maybe if we ran a competition for designers to redesign the wikipedia mainpage? Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Disclaimer viewable at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Email_disclaimer Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk On 14 July 2012 19:24, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: I do think the Wikimedia sites look dated, and very male, too. One example I always think of when this issue comes up is Wikifashion: http://wikifashion.com/wiki/Main_Page I would love for Wikipedia to have optional skins like that, made by graphic designers, just like you can have all sorts of bells and whistles for your browser. Commons is another project that has a very clunky look. I mean, look at that main page. This is an image hosting project, for Christ's sake. I discussed this with Magnus Manske a few weeks ago at a meet-up, and he showed me how Flickr offers people ways to explore their new content, like this for example, showcasing recent uploads: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/2012/07/ Here is Pinterest, which also has a real-time format visualising a flow of images: http://pinterest.com/ These sites are beautiful to look at. If Commons were properly designed, its front end would not have hundreds of text hyperlinks, but would show off its new images. On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 11:42 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: On 14 July 2012 23:48, David Richfield davidrichfi...@gmail.com wrote: I really really don't get all this talk about Wikipedia being ugly. To me it's a great example of how text really can move from markup to a well-laid-out website with a coherent design philosophy. Wikipedia generates results which adapt to window size very gracefully without taking the cop-out of forcing all the content to run down the center of the page in a fixed size. Okay, ugly was a poor choice of words. Ugly is subjective. Bad typography and poor layout objectively hinders readers. It slows reading speed and reduces comprehension -- not in some vague well yeah, that's your word against mine way, but in an objectively scientifically measurable way. What Wikipedia does is not really adapting gracefully. It's adding a padding of 1.5em to the left and right of a block of text that spans the entire width of any available window (minus the 11em of the left panel). There's a limit to the amount of text you can put on a line before it becomes hard to read. What you're calling a cop-out is not a cop-out at all. The ads, well, they need to be there for The Atlantic to be able to pay the bills, but increasing the number of characters per line in the text column would *not* make the better. To the contrary: the amount of words per line is about just right. Here, take the test yourself. This is the article in Wikipedia layout: http://imgur.com/xinFW This is the article as seen on The Atlantic: http://imgur.com/WH1WT And this is the article run through Evernote Clearly: http://imgur.com/sH3HJ Anyone can see, I hope, that the Clearly (http://evernote.com/clearly/) version is by far the easiest and most comfortable to read. Bigger font. * Different* font. Contrast less harsh. Fewer characters per line. Margins. Leading. Kerning. It's almost funny there's no article about macrotypography on Wikipedia. :) Michel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
Maybe if we used some of our millions to pay for a good designer? Michel On 15 July 2012 01:46, Richard Symonds richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.ukwrote: Maybe if we ran a competition for designers to redesign the wikipedia mainpage? Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Disclaimer viewable at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Email_disclaimer Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk On 14 July 2012 19:24, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: I do think the Wikimedia sites look dated, and very male, too. One example I always think of when this issue comes up is Wikifashion: http://wikifashion.com/wiki/Main_Page I would love for Wikipedia to have optional skins like that, made by graphic designers, just like you can have all sorts of bells and whistles for your browser. Commons is another project that has a very clunky look. I mean, look at that main page. This is an image hosting project, for Christ's sake. I discussed this with Magnus Manske a few weeks ago at a meet-up, and he showed me how Flickr offers people ways to explore their new content, like this for example, showcasing recent uploads: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/2012/07/ Here is Pinterest, which also has a real-time format visualising a flow of images: http://pinterest.com/ These sites are beautiful to look at. If Commons were properly designed, its front end would not have hundreds of text hyperlinks, but would show off its new images. On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 11:42 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: On 14 July 2012 23:48, David Richfield davidrichfi...@gmail.com wrote: I really really don't get all this talk about Wikipedia being ugly. To me it's a great example of how text really can move from markup to a well-laid-out website with a coherent design philosophy. Wikipedia generates results which adapt to window size very gracefully without taking the cop-out of forcing all the content to run down the center of the page in a fixed size. Okay, ugly was a poor choice of words. Ugly is subjective. Bad typography and poor layout objectively hinders readers. It slows reading speed and reduces comprehension -- not in some vague well yeah, that's your word against mine way, but in an objectively scientifically measurable way. What Wikipedia does is not really adapting gracefully. It's adding a padding of 1.5em to the left and right of a block of text that spans the entire width of any available window (minus the 11em of the left panel). There's a limit to the amount of text you can put on a line before it becomes hard to read. What you're calling a cop-out is not a cop-out at all. The ads, well, they need to be there for The Atlantic to be able to pay the bills, but increasing the number of characters per line in the text column would *not* make the better. To the contrary: the amount of words per line is about just right. Here, take the test yourself. This is the article in Wikipedia layout: http://imgur.com/xinFW This is the article as seen on The Atlantic: http://imgur.com/WH1WT And this is the article run through Evernote Clearly: http://imgur.com/sH3HJ Anyone can see, I hope, that the Clearly (http://evernote.com/clearly/ ) version is by far the easiest and most comfortable to read. Bigger font. * Different* font. Contrast less harsh. Fewer characters per line. Margins. Leading. Kerning. It's almost funny there's no article about macrotypography on Wikipedia. :) Michel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
I have had it beaten into me by the UK Board that volunteers should be at the heart of everything ;-) Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Disclaimer viewable at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Email_disclaimer Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk On 14 July 2012 19:53, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: (Well obviously not millions for the design, I meant use some of our money. =)) On 15 July 2012 01:52, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: Maybe if we used some of our millions to pay for a good designer? Michel On 15 July 2012 01:46, Richard Symonds richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: Maybe if we ran a competition for designers to redesign the wikipedia mainpage? Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Disclaimer viewable at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Email_disclaimer Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk On 14 July 2012 19:24, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: I do think the Wikimedia sites look dated, and very male, too. One example I always think of when this issue comes up is Wikifashion: http://wikifashion.com/wiki/Main_Page I would love for Wikipedia to have optional skins like that, made by graphic designers, just like you can have all sorts of bells and whistles for your browser. Commons is another project that has a very clunky look. I mean, look at that main page. This is an image hosting project, for Christ's sake. I discussed this with Magnus Manske a few weeks ago at a meet-up, and he showed me how Flickr offers people ways to explore their new content, like this for example, showcasing recent uploads: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/2012/07/ Here is Pinterest, which also has a real-time format visualising a flow of images: http://pinterest.com/ These sites are beautiful to look at. If Commons were properly designed, its front end would not have hundreds of text hyperlinks, but would show off its new images. On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 11:42 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: On 14 July 2012 23:48, David Richfield davidrichfi...@gmail.com wrote: I really really don't get all this talk about Wikipedia being ugly. To me it's a great example of how text really can move from markup to a well-laid-out website with a coherent design philosophy. Wikipedia generates results which adapt to window size very gracefully without taking the cop-out of forcing all the content to run down the center of the page in a fixed size. Okay, ugly was a poor choice of words. Ugly is subjective. Bad typography and poor layout objectively hinders readers. It slows reading speed and reduces comprehension -- not in some vague well yeah, that's your word against mine way, but in an objectively scientifically measurable way. What Wikipedia does is not really adapting gracefully. It's adding a padding of 1.5em to the left and right of a block of text that spans the entire width of any available window (minus the 11em of the left panel). There's a limit to the amount of text you can put on a line before it becomes hard to read. What you're calling a cop-out is not a cop-out at all. The ads, well, they need to be there for The Atlantic to be able to pay the bills, but increasing the number of characters per line in the text column would *not* make the better. To the contrary: the amount of words per line is about just right. Here, take the test yourself. This is the article in Wikipedia layout: http://imgur.com/xinFW This is the article as seen on The Atlantic: http://imgur.com/WH1WT And this is the article run through Evernote Clearly: http://imgur.com/sH3HJ Anyone can see, I hope, that the Clearly ( http://evernote.com/clearly/) version is by far the easiest and most comfortable to read. Bigger font. * Different* font. Contrast less harsh. Fewer characters per line. Margins. Leading. Kerning. It's almost funny there's no article about macrotypography on Wikipedia. :) Michel ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly
On 15 July 2012 00:52, Michel Vuijlsteke wikipe...@zog.org wrote: Maybe if we used some of our millions to pay for a good designer? Won't work. Aside from the wikipedia forever mess that shows how things can go wrong the En main page is firmly under the control of the en.wikipedia community and it will change it when it is ready and not before. Try the ang.wikipedia.org instead. Common on the other hand is pretty much a lost cause pending a major rewrite of mediawiki to allow it to act as a more conventional form of image hosting software. -- geni ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
