> >>I think for this to have very much credability, you
> >>would have to remove the 'You Can Edit This Page'
> >>notice.
> >>Mark
> >
> > I don't see why - people are authorized to edit, but they are not
> > authorized to vandalise.
Q: "CAN I edit this page?"
A: "Indeed, you can."
Q: "MAY I edit this page?"
A: "That depends on what you intend to do. See Wikipedia:Policies and
guidelines."
> As a practical matter, what difference will this make?
These specific terms would free us to be more relaxed about our page histories
(copyvio, etc), and more relaxed about stuff covered by our disclaimers (legal, financial,
medical advice, etx). To the extent that paranoia over such matters is a hindrance, this
is useful.
They also pave the way for additions with other benefits, notably improving our GFDL
position so that both we and our redistributors are on more solid ground. That's a very
real benefit, and goes to the heart of our "free encyclopedia" mission.
> Someone please proof-read it before making it official. :/
Someones did. Someones else then edited it. Try the page history.
> If there are no objections, I intend to add a notice to the terms of
> use page stating that it is not official policy.
I reverted to proposal status, given the comments of Tim and Angela, pending a
response to Angela's email. Oh well, you have to try, eh? In the meantime, I'm grateful
to Tim's [[MediaWiki:History copyright]] fix.
-Martin
Jakob raises a good point, but let's not through out the baby with the
bath water. I'm sure our legions of genius software developers can
surmount this problem.
Adding a Category Tag to an article should be the equivalent of adding a
link to that category.
For example, I add a "Category Pet" tag to the [[Siamese Cat]] article.
I would then expect to see the [[Category Pet]] page with a link to
[[Siamese Cat]]. In the "page history" I would expect to see the link
added with the usual user and timestamp indications.
Jakob, if we had this software feature would it address your concerns?
Ed Poor
English Wikipedia Bureaucrat
And "Developer Emeritus"
After it came up on IRC, I was compelled to write up a
meta page on Cooperate sponsorship of the project. Please
add your thoughts to http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_sponsorship.
Note, Angela asked me emphatically to make sure you fight
it out there and not on the mailing list.
Jimbo - you might want to add your thoughts there as well.
There was some debate as to what your opinion on the matter is.
--Mark
Martin Harper wrote:
>>Some sites ask users to "sign" agreements related to their activities
>
> So will we, eventually:
> [[en:Wikipedia:terms of use]]
"# This is an agreement includes the license granted on the copyrights
page and the associated disclaimers."
Someone please proof-read it before making it official. :/
I can't fix it because I can't even figure out what was meant.
>I think for this to have very much credability, you
>would have to remove the 'You Can Edit This Page'
>notice.
>Mark
I don't see why - people are authorized to edit, but they are not
authorized to vandalise.
Theresa
Hello all -
This may have something to do with the ongoing discussion on categories.
I just did a little restructuring of the Wikiprojects Catalogue today (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject), renaming some of the categories. I don't think any of them should be objectionable, but please let me know if they are. More importantly, I have renamed/ changed the content of two of the Wikiprojects - Authors (empty) and Novels, under the Literature section. They appear not to have been much of a success. There is already a Wikiproject for Books, and I feel this is far too vague, and I have split the Books section further into Classic & Canonical Fiction, Contemporary, Poetry, Mass Market and Genre Fiction, and Miscellaneous Prose. To include really vague sections - "novels" and "authors" under an already very vague section, makes things far too confusing. We should list either Authors or Books, not both (I prefer Books, since one Author might fit in too many categories); I am keeping an Authors LIST to make navigation quick, but that's all (it needs editing
and lengthening); the link to the "Novels" section has been removed, but the page is still available at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]] in case someone wishes to retrieve it for some reason. If it's not needed, please delete it.
I would also like to bring together as many people as possible to contribute to the main Literature Wikiproject, under which I hope to incorporate the History of Literature and mention numerous writers from all the world who may or may not be well known in the West, but are not given enough space anyway; similarly for the (new) Painting and Sculpture, Opera, International Cinema and any related projects. All comments, contributions etc welcome. (The above is also posted the Wikiprojects Talk page.)
As for the Categories issue: I have not thought about it as profoundly as some of you have. I only joined about three days back and I posted this at the Village Pump and Help Desk not long after:
"There is no coherent, rational structure or index for the distribution of articles, and no specified protocol which makes this structure/ index possible; because the current distribution is not rational, access routes to information are not reversible. Though each article has links that lead to other links, it is quite random; to illustrate with an example, a) User A creates article on Famous Scientist. Famous Scientist belongs to Specific Science, and is citizen of Certain Country; however, clicking on link to "Specific Science" does not lead to a COMPREHENSIVE list of famous scientists which will lead back to the Famous Scientist in question; in some cases it does not even lead to a list, or a history, or any such thing; similarly, clicking on "Certain Country" does not lead to a comprehensive list of famous scientists, or even "Contributions to Science" subdivision which will lead back to the Famous Scientist in question. User A may make an effort to rectifying said links and
lists, but there are too many articles, lists, links and so on to ensure the changes have much impact. It would be much simpler to encourage a protocol among article creators and editors that would give rise to indexing, and will make these "information access routes" smoother and rational. (Additional note) b) I see there are " Wikiprojects" for some subject areas - would it be possible to direct newcomers to existing Wikiprojects, or ask them to create new Wikiprojects, so that groups of related articles can be effectively indexed and linked to each other, and category-wide changes can be requested and/or tracked?"
I believe Wikiprojects are a good way of dealing with or smoothing out categories, and providing context where it may not exist or may not be substantial. A sizeable number of people with similar interests, working together on a large Wikiproject, would easily be able to agree on, create and link necessary categories to each other; errors are also less likely.
Criticism is welcome. Please also join in the effort to write up, modify and expand some of the Wikiprojects I have created.
Thanks!
---------------------------------
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In a message dated 6/20/2004 8:13:05 PM Eastern Standard Time,
fennec(a)gmail.com writes:
Would you consider numeric standards harmful- particularly those
regarding Requests for Adminship?
I think we have to move away from numeric standards and start measuring
quality over quantity. Hypothetically, someone who wrote 100 good articles from
scratch in 100 edits is, in my opinion, a far more capable contributor and sysop
than someone who has 1000 edits because they engaged in a whole lot of silly
edit wars.
Danny
I think those legal documents do make differences.
As one of the more visible admins at japanese wikipedia, I occasionally
receive legal threats and requests from others. If the submission standards
include such clause as "the conflicts among wikipedians regarding wikipedia
contents are first resolved via the internal arbitration process of
wikipedia, and you agree not to bring the matter to the court," then it
reduces a lot of uncertainty surrounding those threats.
If the submission standards specify choice of law and jurisdiction, again,
it reduces legal uncertainty.
So, I would say it does matter a lot.
Regarding the terms of use just introduced, it seems that it creates a fair
ground for the Wikimedia Foundation to claim that it is not responsible for
copyvios, defamation, privacy invasion, and other legal problems in any of
the past versions of a page. Those pages are not for distribution, and
anyone using the wikipedia is supposed to know that.
So, again, it changes a lot of things.
But in terms of user behaviors, maybe not much change happens as a result of
these documents. People might behave more or less the same way regardless,
unless there is some kind of campaign to notify them of the change. But my
understanding of these pages is that they are designed to reduce legal risk
for the Foundation resulting form the current practice, without really
demanding behavioral change in people.
Tomos
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