Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:40 PM, Casey Brown wrote: > Some pretty nice comments mixed in there. ;-) They also do a good job > explaining why we need money. > > [Jay: interesting to look at, might be nice to use some like their > comments in the future] Some of it is just hopeless. "Why can't they be self sufficient?" is the sort of question that reflects a simple lack of consideration on the part of the asker. Had they considered that question more carefully they would likely have answered it themselves. I.e. that asking for money *is* a form of self-sufficiency no less than any other method other than "spending no money at all" (which has obvious problems). So then the question is why ask rather than run ads or let company X pay for the ability to control the content, etc... and many counter arguments to these sorts of alternatives are obvious even to people who know nothing of our internals. Although my own experience is that many Americans are a bit baffled that we don't run ads. They've often not even heard the multitude of arguments against pervasive/invasive advertising. I don't believe it's Wikimedia's place to argue against advertising, but there might be an opportunity for some of our community members to work with anti-consumerist groups like Adbusters to make a public argument as to why our current lack of advertisements is laudable from their perspective. On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:42 PM, Dan Collins wrote: > Wait. Is donating supposed to make the banner go away? > Because it didn't... Why would it? You can collapse it even without donating. (Or log in and make it vanish entirely with the gadget— the reason for it to not vanish entirely on collapse is that a lot of people will collapse then decide they want to donate later…) Though I suppose that might not be a bad feature, but on the other hand… we're not trying to hold people for ransom. You shouldn't have to pay to dispel the notice, requiring that wouldn't reflect Wikimedia's or our communities values well. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:42 PM, Dan Collins wrote: > Wait. Is donating supposed to make the banner go away? > > Because it didn't... No, there's a gadget and a "collapse" (only makes it smaller) button for that. -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 --- Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will probably get lost. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:40 PM, Casey Brown wrote: > On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:34 PM, Chad wrote: > > On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:12 PM, geni wrote: > >> 2008/12/23 Robert Rohde : > >> > Looks like the new appeal is working well. > >> > > >> > We seem to be on pace to have the best single day of this fund drive. > >> > > >> > -Robert Rohde > >> > > >> > >> Not sure. Still getting complaints among others that donating doesn't > >> make the banner go away: > >> > >> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1017711&highlight=wikipedia > >> > >> > >> -- > >> geni > >> > > > > Seems to be more a debating of "Why do they always ask for donations" > > along with a bit of good old wiki-scandal-accusations thrown in for good > > measure. > > > > Some pretty nice comments mixed in there. ;-) They also do a good job > explaining why we need money. > > [Jay: interesting to look at, might be nice to use some like their > comments in the future] > > -- > Casey Brown > Cbrown1023 > > --- > Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent > to > this address will probably get lost. > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > Wait. Is donating supposed to make the banner go away? Because it didn't... -- DCollins/ST47 Administrator, en.wikipedia.org Channel Operator, irc.freenode.net/#wikipedia Maintainer, Perlwikipedia module ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:34 PM, Chad wrote: > On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:12 PM, geni wrote: >> 2008/12/23 Robert Rohde : >> > Looks like the new appeal is working well. >> > >> > We seem to be on pace to have the best single day of this fund drive. >> > >> > -Robert Rohde >> > >> >> Not sure. Still getting complaints among others that donating doesn't >> make the banner go away: >> >> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1017711&highlight=wikipedia >> >> >> -- >> geni >> > > Seems to be more a debating of "Why do they always ask for donations" > along with a bit of good old wiki-scandal-accusations thrown in for good > measure. > Some pretty nice comments mixed in there. ;-) They also do a good job explaining why we need money. [Jay: interesting to look at, might be nice to use some like their comments in the future] -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 --- Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent to this address will probably get lost. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:12 PM, geni wrote: > 2008/12/23 Robert Rohde : > > Looks like the new appeal is working well. > > > > We seem to be on pace to have the best single day of this fund drive. > > > > -Robert Rohde > > > > Not sure. Still getting complaints among others that donating doesn't > make the banner go away: > > http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1017711&highlight=wikipedia > > > -- > geni > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > Seems to be more a debating of "Why do they always ask for donations" along with a bit of good old wiki-scandal-accusations thrown in for good measure. -Chad ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
2008/12/23 Robert Rohde : > Looks like the new appeal is working well. > > We seem to be on pace to have the best single day of this fund drive. > > -Robert Rohde > Not sure. Still getting complaints among others that donating doesn't make the banner go away: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1017711&highlight=wikipedia -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
Looks like the new appeal is working well. We seem to be on pace to have the best single day of this fund drive. -Robert Rohde On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:58 PM, Delirium wrote: > I assume most of you at least occasionally read one of the Wikimedia > websites so probably saw this in a sitenotice, but I thought it was a > very well done appeal, concisely highlighting exactly what we do, why > it's different than what most people do, and why we're worth donating > to, so worth pointing out: > http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en > > Worriers about the perennial suggestions to put advertising somewhere on > the site(s) might also like what appears to be the closest to a no-ads > pledge I've seen so far: "Like a national park or a school, we don't > believe advertising should have a place in Wikipedia". > > -Mark > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
David Goodman wrote:
> Upsell is the name of the leading market research company in
> publishing--probably they are the ones who designed it. I'm suprised,
> for they are generally known as competent.
No, that would be upsell as in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up-selling
I'd give you a Britannica reference for that as well, but they don't have it.
They call the box that pops up the upsell, as in
activities: {hideUpsells: "", hideAds: "false", showDivType: ""},
It's also referred to as annoyware:
Darwin.Upsell.init(_config.userDataConfig.annoywareConfig);
The company responsible would be:
var mboxCopyright = "Copyright 2004-2007 Offermatica (tm) Corporation";
a.k.a. http://www.omniture.com/
-- Tim Starling
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Re: [Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
2008/12/23 Delirium : > Worriers about the perennial suggestions to put advertising somewhere on > the site(s) might also like what appears to be the closest to a no-ads > pledge I've seen so far: "Like a national park or a school, we don't > believe advertising should have a place in Wikipedia". With the amount of advertising in schools an unfortunate example I feel. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
David Gerard wrote: > (A tangential note: I consider NPOV to be our most important > innovation - much more radical than merely letting anyone edit your > encyclopedia. The concept of "neutrality" has existed in various > guises, but not like Wikipedia does it, with the consequences it has > as a source of information for the world.) I guess I don't really agree on this--- it's been the trend in reference works for decades to split tertiary reference material (neutral summaries of scholarly consensus, published as encyclopedias) from critical surveys and novel arguments (published in journals or as non-reference books). The trend was becoming dominant by at least the 1970s I'd say; a good example of the modern encyclopedia in this style is the [[Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire]] (published 1971-1992) which explicitly aims for a neutral summary of scholarly consensus on each of its subjects, which scholars can all use as a reference point. (Where scholars disagree, it simply notes that fact, sometimes summarizing each side's argument.) -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales donation appeal
I assume most of you at least occasionally read one of the Wikimedia websites so probably saw this in a sitenotice, but I thought it was a very well done appeal, concisely highlighting exactly what we do, why it's different than what most people do, and why we're worth donating to, so worth pointing out: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en Worriers about the perennial suggestions to put advertising somewhere on the site(s) might also like what appears to be the closest to a no-ads pledge I've seen so far: "Like a national park or a school, we don't believe advertising should have a place in Wikipedia". -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
I noticed that Britannica is using some creative commons images from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Example: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/589288/113374/Courthouse-in-Denton-Texas http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Courthouse_Denton_TX.jpg -Aude ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling wrote: > I checked a larger biography, and it looked complete to me. Note that it > uses ajax to load article sections as you scroll to them, so you have to > scroll up and down the page to trigger all the ajax loads before you can > copy the text out. It even works with Javascript turned off, but then you have to click all the subheadings in the topic box to progress to the next piece of text (which can be just a few lines long). The Javascript version is not very user-friendly too, because you have to stare at the loading animations before you can read the text. -- Hay / Husky ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Gregory Maxwell : > On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 5:38 PM, David Gerard wrote: >> (A tangential note: I consider NPOV to be our most important >> innovation - much more radical than merely letting anyone edit your >> encyclopedia. The concept of "neutrality" has existed in various >> guises, but not like Wikipedia does it, with the consequences it has >> as a source of information for the world.) > Full agreement. > My view on WP innovations: > (1) NPOV information resource. I'm thinking of things like areas that never got NPOV coverage *ever*. Scientology is a good example - pro-Scientology sources are saccharine and tend to leave out bits of great concern to the critics, and the critical sources have lots of well-sourced information but are so *bitter* they're all but unreadable. en:wp has some of the very best information available on the topic. > (2) Website with a permanent historical record (we're not the first, > but the first popular). What others are there? > (3) Large scale free-content useful reference. I'd put that below "anyone can edit" - (3) wasn't true until the last two or three years. In 2004, when I started, en:wp was a somewhat-useful source on computing topics, but very much one big stub on most things. Now it's actually useful in all sorts of places. (During the recent IWF/[[:en:Virgin Killer]] furore, our crappy work proxy blocked *all* Wikipedia reading because of the block on the page. And we felt the effects, because Wikipedia is such a good first reference work on computing topics.) > (4) Website anyone can edit. > There are all sorts of interdependencies between these and other > differentiators— It's easy to argue that without (4) the rest wouldn't > be possible… but in terms of the lasting impact on society and our own > uniqueness I think those are ordered about right. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 5:38 PM, David Gerard wrote: [snip] > (A tangential note: I consider NPOV to be our most important > innovation - much more radical than merely letting anyone edit your > encyclopedia. The concept of "neutrality" has existed in various > guises, but not like Wikipedia does it, with the consequences it has > as a source of information for the world.) Full agreement. My view on WP innovations: (1) NPOV information resource. (2) Website with a permanent historical record (we're not the first, but the first popular). (3) Large scale free-content useful reference. (4) Website anyone can edit. There are all sorts of interdependencies between these and other differentiators— It's easy to argue that without (4) the rest wouldn't be possible… but in terms of the lasting impact on society and our own uniqueness I think those are ordered about right. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Tomasz Ganicz : > I don't like guys from Wikmedia projects speaking in some sort of > "supremacy" language. Our goal is to create: "a world in which every > single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." so > if the Britannica or PWN or any other commercial provider of the > knowlegde is making their content free we should be simply happy. And > it is not very clever to say that it is just because they feel the > pressure from us (which in fact might be the true anyway :-) ). They > have many values and advatages which we should still learn from them. Yes. As I said, just because Britannica is rude about Wikipedia is no reason to be rude in return. It's good to see we're catching up in many areas, but they remain the gold standard that en:wp works to in many ways. The Wikipedia writing style is different - Britannica is not NPOV, it's "authoritative" - but at our best we do very well indeed. But at our worst we're still terrible. Lots of work for the future! :-D (A tangential note: I consider NPOV to be our most important innovation - much more radical than merely letting anyone edit your encyclopedia. The concept of "neutrality" has existed in various guises, but not like Wikipedia does it, with the consequences it has as a source of information for the world.) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 David Gerard : > 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > >> Then, I wanted to see what is the value of Britannica; without >> success. It is a "private company" (in US sense of that meaning; >> "public companies" in European sense are just companies owned by some >> local or state government; and in some specific circumstances). It is >> owned by Jacqui Safra, a billionaire [citation needed] [1], who may be >> an interesting partner to WMF. So, if it is not possible to buy it, I >> think that it is possible to make some deal to work together. > > > I don't know. He appears to have bought it to keep it going, as a > valuable entity in itself. > > So maybe what we need to do is talk to him about Wikipedia ;-D > > >> And I think that it shouldn't be just about Britannica. There are a >> lot of high quality encyclopedias all over the world. WMF may think >> about some kind of cooperation with them. It is not possible anymore >> to have encyclopedia as a profitable company, so I think that the >> institutions which own encyclopedias will be more open for >> cooperation; including giving the content under the same license(s) as >> under Wikipedia content is. > > > Britannica is notoriously antagonistic toward Wikipedia in its > advertising, but Brockhaus for instance isn't anywhere near as > obnoxious (they're not *fans* of Wikipedia, but they have more class > than to trash a perceived competitor the way Britannica try to). What > other important language encyclopedias of comparable renown are there? > Well in Poland we have PWN: http://www.pwn.pl/ which actually is quite well in terms of profit it produces. Among them and us it is a kind of gentle "elegancy". They talk about us in a gentle manner, and we about them in the same way :-) In fact for us PWN Polish language vocabulary and their encyclopedia is quite often cited in Wikipedia as a source of "serious knowlege". We even ask their language help-desk to solve some our language/terminology problems and we treat them as a kind of " language oracle" and they are happy to help us. So, we think our advantage is that we are faster and we cover the things they are not interested in, but their advantage is their high level of professional acuracy (at least with language problems) so we can friendly coexist. I don't like guys from Wikmedia projects speaking in some sort of "supremacy" language. Our goal is to create: "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." so if the Britannica or PWN or any other commercial provider of the knowlegde is making their content free we should be simply happy. And it is not very clever to say that it is just because they feel the pressure from us (which in fact might be the true anyway :-) ). They have many values and advatages which we should still learn from them. -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > Then, I wanted to see what is the value of Britannica; without > success. It is a "private company" (in US sense of that meaning; > "public companies" in European sense are just companies owned by some > local or state government; and in some specific circumstances). It is > owned by Jacqui Safra, a billionaire [citation needed] [1], who may be > an interesting partner to WMF. So, if it is not possible to buy it, I > think that it is possible to make some deal to work together. I don't know. He appears to have bought it to keep it going, as a valuable entity in itself. So maybe what we need to do is talk to him about Wikipedia ;-D > And I think that it shouldn't be just about Britannica. There are a > lot of high quality encyclopedias all over the world. WMF may think > about some kind of cooperation with them. It is not possible anymore > to have encyclopedia as a profitable company, so I think that the > institutions which own encyclopedias will be more open for > cooperation; including giving the content under the same license(s) as > under Wikipedia content is. Britannica is notoriously antagonistic toward Wikipedia in its advertising, but Brockhaus for instance isn't anywhere near as obnoxious (they're not *fans* of Wikipedia, but they have more class than to trash a perceived competitor the way Britannica try to). What other important language encyclopedias of comparable renown are there? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
Sorry, wrong company name--I was thinking of another one --a truly
competent one, Outsell, that has undoubtedly nothing to do with this
nonsensical method of protection.
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:20 PM, David Goodman wrote:
> Upsell is the name of the leading market research company in
> publishing--probably they are the ones who designed it. I'm suprised,
> for they are generally known as competent.
>
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:17 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
>>> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling
>>> wrote:
>>
The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
>>
>>> Thanks! It works well :)
>>
>>
>> They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
>> to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
>> under the weight of their own ineptitude.
>>
>> We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
>> how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
>> one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
>> business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
>> Britannica" campaign?
>>
>> (There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
>> *consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
>> us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
>> fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
>
--
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
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Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:17 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
>> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling
>> wrote:
>
>>> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>>> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
>
>> Thanks! It works well :)
>
>
> They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
> to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
> under the weight of their own ineptitude.
>
> We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
> how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
> one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
> business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
> Britannica" campaign?
>
> (There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
> *consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
> us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
> fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)
One idea came into my mind nearly after I wrote the first email in
this thread. Britannica is a project which is in decline. So, why not
to buy it? Yes, I know that it is a lot of money *now*, but it may be
achievable in a couple of years (I saw now that Geni mentioned that we
can't buy it).
Then, I wanted to see what is the value of Britannica; without
success. It is a "private company" (in US sense of that meaning;
"public companies" in European sense are just companies owned by some
local or state government; and in some specific circumstances). It is
owned by Jacqui Safra, a billionaire [citation needed] [1], who may be
an interesting partner to WMF. So, if it is not possible to buy it, I
think that it is possible to make some deal to work together.
And I think that it shouldn't be just about Britannica. There are a
lot of high quality encyclopedias all over the world. WMF may think
about some kind of cooperation with them. It is not possible anymore
to have encyclopedia as a profitable company, so I think that the
institutions which own encyclopedias will be more open for
cooperation; including giving the content under the same license(s) as
under Wikipedia content is.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqui_Safra
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Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
Upsell is the name of the leading market research company in
publishing--probably they are the ones who designed it. I'm suprised,
for they are generally known as competent.
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:17 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
>> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling
>> wrote:
>
>>> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>>> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
>
>> Thanks! It works well :)
>
>
> They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
> to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
> under the weight of their own ineptitude.
>
> We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
> how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
> one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
> business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
> Britannica" campaign?
>
> (There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
> *consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
> us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
> fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)
>
>
> - d.
>
> ___
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Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 David Gerard : > They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need > to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse > under the weight of their own ineptitude. > > We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign - > how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as > one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own > business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save > Britannica" campaign? Very little. We can't afford to buy it. Britannica's survival in some form is not a concern. The brand and the content are worth enough that if it's current owners give up there will always be someone looking to buy. If it were sold tomorrow likely candidates would be Microsoft (who wanted it for encarta and would probably still go for it if the price was low enough), Google who might try using it to populate knol, Yahoo to annoy google. It fits answers.com's profile if they survive that long. Then there are various media companies that might think about it. News Corp for example. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 1:27 PM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
>> If I understood well, the content of the online edition of Britannica
>> became free (as in "free beer", of course). They are putting some
>> irritating screen with recommendation to buy access to their edition
>> every 10 seconds (or so), but, in fact, it is possible to copy-paste
>> the content somewhere else and read it. Hm. Wikipedia doesn't have
>> that irritating screen. (OK, banner is irritating, but it is not of
>> that kind ;) )
>
> One thing that is totally awesome about Wikipedia is the categories.
> Britannica is nowhere near Wikipedia in categorization and searching.
> I've seen people criticizing Wikipedia's categorization; what they
> don't realize is that no other encyclopedia comes near.
>
> And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads
> itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it
> is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from
> it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected.
>
> And i saw articles in the current online Britannica that are much
> shorter than their counterparts in the PD 1911 edition. (E.g.
> [[Wilhelm Gesenius]].)
>
> And the article on Occitan language in Britannica contradicts itself
> and has no {{Contradict}} on top. It drives me nuts that i can't fix
> it. Wikipedia's [[Occitan language]] may have {{POV}} on its top from
> time to time, but at least we admit it and welcome corrections.
>
> So Britannica is written by experts and is free as in beer. So what.
Wikipedia's most important advantage is that it is free as in free
speech. I would prefer much smaller Wikipedia, as I am preferring to
use free software alternatives for a long time, even alternatives were
worst than proprietary software counterparts.
But, we need a basic level of honesty. Not just because some ordinary
reader of encyclopedic content, but, first of all, because of
ourselves. I am preparing now exam in comparative grammar of
Indo-European languages and here is the situation related to the
description of the first attested Indo-European branch, Anatolian
group:
* 14 volumes Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics has just a small
description of Anatolian languages; it doesn't have anything about
Hittite language (the major language from that group).
* Wikipedia has very inconsistent set of articles about all languages.
To be honest, I don't know where to start with fixing them.
* Britannica has a very good article about Anatolian languages and
good introducing articles about all Anatolian languages.
* Cambridge edition "Ancient languages of Asia Minor" (ALAM) has very
good articles about all of them. Even it is a book, the concept is
close to a very specific (and good) encyclopedia of those languages.
The styles of articles in Britannica and especially ALAM are superior
toward the style in (those) Wikipedia articles. Articles in Britannica
and ALAM are very useful to me, while articles in Wikipedia are far
from being useful.
Of course, we may fix our articles. Britannica has an error in
description of Serbian/Serbo-Croatian language at least since 1995
edition: instead of Serbian letter Ђ, it has letter Ъ (hard sign).
But, we need to find a way how to improve the quality of our articles,
systematically.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Emphasis on "edit"
Dnia 22 grudnia 2008 20:42 "Tomasz Ganicz" napisał(a): > 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > > Many times we raised the issue that many (maybe majority of) users of > > Wikimedia content don't realize that it is possible to edit pages on > > Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Last time I was talking about > > it a couple of days ago, during the conference in Belgrade, with a > > Polish Wikimedian, Marcin Cieslak. > > > > I was thinking about some big button "edit" on every page. And, by > > accident, I realized now that Polish Wikinews emphasized their "edit" > > button [1]. I think that this may be a good thing for the beginning > > for all Wikimedian projects. Maybe, it should be even a default in > > MonoBook skin on MediaWiki. > > > > Yes. We did it also on Polish Wikipedia. But it won't change too much > :-) An interesting MediaWiki interface was developed by "Wolne > Podręczniki" (free handbooks) project, where button "edit" is really > well visible: > > http://wiki.wolnepodreczniki.pl/Fizyka Polish Wikipedia enabled the MediaWiki extension flagged revisions in this time: "edit" - 07.11.2008, flaggedrevs - 17.11.2008 we have 11k-12k edits per day, but also 2,5k-3k revisions stats: http://tinyurl.com/9e73q5 przykuta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling wrote:
>> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
> Thanks! It works well :)
They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
under the weight of their own ineptitude.
We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
Britannica" campaign?
(There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
*consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)
- d.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Emphasis on "edit"
2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > Many times we raised the issue that many (maybe majority of) users of > Wikimedia content don't realize that it is possible to edit pages on > Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Last time I was talking about > it a couple of days ago, during the conference in Belgrade, with a > Polish Wikimedian, Marcin Cieslak. > > I was thinking about some big button "edit" on every page. And, by > accident, I realized now that Polish Wikinews emphasized their "edit" > button [1]. I think that this may be a good thing for the beginning > for all Wikimedian projects. Maybe, it should be even a default in > MonoBook skin on MediaWiki. > Yes. We did it also on Polish Wikipedia. But it won't change too much :-) An interesting MediaWiki interface was developed by "Wolne Podręczniki" (free handbooks) project, where button "edit" is really well visible: http://wiki.wolnepodreczniki.pl/Fizyka -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling wrote:
> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>
> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
>
> Put it in a bookmark in your toolbar and click it to get rid of the
> annoying box. It doesn't come back until you go to another page.
Thanks! It works well :)
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[Foundation-l] Emphasis on "edit"
Many times we raised the issue that many (maybe majority of) users of Wikimedia content don't realize that it is possible to edit pages on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Last time I was talking about it a couple of days ago, during the conference in Belgrade, with a Polish Wikimedian, Marcin Cieslak. I was thinking about some big button "edit" on every page. And, by accident, I realized now that Polish Wikinews emphasized their "edit" button [1]. I think that this may be a good thing for the beginning for all Wikimedian projects. Maybe, it should be even a default in MonoBook skin on MediaWiki. [1] - http://pl.wikinews.org/wiki/Strona_g%C5%82%C3%B3wna ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
teun spaans wrote: > "but possibly illegal" you can omit the word "possibly". I dont see a copy > left license at their site. You can copy it for your personal use :°♫ > On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Amir E. Aharoni > wrote: >> 2008/12/22 Amir E. Aharoni : >>> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : >>> And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads >>> itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it >>> is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from >>> it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected. >> ... And of course, i forgot to mention that it is not free in the >> Stallman-Lessig sense, so copying text from is not only inconvenient, >> but possibly illegal. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 teun spaans : > "but possibly illegal" you can omit the word "possibly". I dont see a copy > left license at their site. It may be possible to copy from EB under fair use terms. On Wikipedia i don't even need to think about that (except some images...). -- Amir Elisha Aharoni heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
"but possibly illegal" you can omit the word "possibly". I dont see a copy left license at their site. On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote: > 2008/12/22 Amir E. Aharoni : > > 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > > And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads > > itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it > > is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from > > it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected. > > ... And of course, i forgot to mention that it is not free in the > Stallman-Lessig sense, so copying text from is not only inconvenient, > but possibly illegal. > > -- > Amir Elisha Aharoni > > heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com > cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com > > "We're living in pieces, > I want to live in peace." - T. Moore > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Amir E. Aharoni : > 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads > itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it > is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from > it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected. ... And of course, i forgot to mention that it is not free in the Stallman-Lessig sense, so copying text from is not only inconvenient, but possibly illegal. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
> If I understood well, the content of the online edition of Britannica
> became free (as in "free beer", of course). They are putting some
> irritating screen with recommendation to buy access to their edition
> every 10 seconds (or so), but, in fact, it is possible to copy-paste
> the content somewhere else and read it. Hm. Wikipedia doesn't have
> that irritating screen. (OK, banner is irritating, but it is not of
> that kind ;) )
One thing that is totally awesome about Wikipedia is the categories.
Britannica is nowhere near Wikipedia in categorization and searching.
I've seen people criticizing Wikipedia's categorization; what they
don't realize is that no other encyclopedia comes near.
And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads
itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it
is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from
it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected.
And i saw articles in the current online Britannica that are much
shorter than their counterparts in the PD 1911 edition. (E.g.
[[Wilhelm Gesenius]].)
And the article on Occitan language in Britannica contradicts itself
and has no {{Contradict}} on top. It drives me nuts that i can't fix
it. Wikipedia's [[Occitan language]] may have {{POV}} on its top from
time to time, but at least we admit it and welcome corrections.
So Britannica is written by experts and is free as in beer. So what.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni
heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com
cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com
"We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
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