The article on Christmas is set to be on the Main Page on December 25th.
It used to be Featured quality. That was a year ago. Since then, it has
had 600 major edits, 500 other edits, and is nearly unreadable.
Compare the originally Featured version to the current version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christmas&diff=32012542&oldid=877…
Now, it is up for FARC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_removal_candidates/…
To prevent stagnated articles from being presented as "top quality" on
the Main Page, there seems to be two solutions: set a time limit for
Featured Articles, which requires them to be renominated on FAC if they
become too different from their original Featured versions; or,
implement the "stable article" option that Tim Starling has talked
about, which would allow admins to set a "last good version" to be
presented to the public at all times, while the real version is somehow
edited "behind the scenes". As productive edits pile up, admins can set
a newer version as the "last good version". While this can still result
in an article being drastically-changed, it is much more likely to be
changed for the better in the long run.
brian0918
Just wanted to announce we'll be starting the 2006 Stewards elections
in a few days.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/elections_2006
Please forward this message to wikipedia-l, and every other list which
might be interested in this announcement.
--
Pozdrawiam,
Dariusz "Datrio" Siedlecki
Is there a way to make a donation, under my Wikipedia user name? Using
Paypal, it only gives the option of making an anonymous donation or using my
real name. I would like to make a donation, but definitely not under my
real name. I rather make an anonymous donation then nothing. But, would
greatly prefer to attribute my donation to my wikipedia name,
Kmf164<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kmf164>.
Is it feasible to add this third option for donations through Paypal?
Aside from my personal preference, I think donations to Wikimedia would
increase if they were noted somewhere, along with users' edit histories and
contributions. Wikipedia, (as with open source software, in general), is
based on a "gift economy" (in both time and treasure). People give of their
time and knowledge; in exchange they get credit in their edit history and
elsewhere associated with their username. Monetary contributions are yet
another way for people to support the project, who might not have as much
time to contribute.
I think it is important for Wikipedia to also tie financial donations to
usernames, so that Wikipedians are recognized for those contributions, as
well as those of time and knowledge.
Thanks,
Kmf164
Copied from:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4/Day_3
-------------------------------------------------------------
The equivalent of $16,285.68 USD was donated through PayPal on Day 3 of the fundraiser. This is
an increase of $4727.94 over Day 2 and also an all time record for a single day in any fund drive
we've ever had. The previous record was $14,085.10 and was set on 24 August 2005 during our last
fund drive.
Here is the PayPal breakdown for Day 3:
AUD 382.44 (287.02 USD)
CAD 1,007.10 (828.75 USD)
EUR 2,486.35 (3,020.14 USD)
GBP 612.22 (1,097.89 USD)
JPY 41,992.00 (379.40 USD)
USD 10,672.47
Total 16,285.68 USD
Copied from: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-18/report/
==Selected donor comments==
Let's all thank everybody who donated on this day by reading their comments.
:See http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-18/detail/
Here are some that caught my eye (many great comments could not be included here):
*"Wikipedia is my browser's home page" by Maneesh Sahu
*"I am pleased to be able to contribute to what may be the most significant project in human
history." by Conrad Dunkerson
*"Wikipedia is the best website on the internet!" by Peter McGinley
*"Ich finde die Idee und vor allem das Ergebnis beeindruckend. Ich nutze es oft. Weitermachen!" by
Hermann Herz
*"Love Wikipedia! Most visted website on my computer! Keep up the good work!" by Ian Thompson
*"ma plus fidèle référence" by Celine Racicot
*"Wikimedia projects have helped me dozens of times. Now I'd like to help Wikimedia back." by
Asahiko Matsuda
*"Aidons la poursuite du savoir!" by Jacques Tremblay
*"Wikipedia is symbolic of what our modern society must be. Keep up the good work!" by Andrew
Engelbrecht
*"This site has allowed me to tap into the knowledge of experts in subjects from the most trivial
to the profound - thank you for this opportunity!" by Samantha Line
*"Wikipedia is one of the best things that happend to the world in the last years." by anonymous
*"Für Freies Wissen" by Werner Stefan
*"Wikipedia has helped me so much. I can't let anything happen to it." by Anthony White
*"My Christmas present to Wikipedia!" by Tom Maisey
*"I'll do whatever it takes to keep Wikimedia from corporate takeover." by anonymous
*"in loving memory of Άναξιμένης" by Michael
Linksvayer
*"Wikipedia gives me renewed faith in humanity." by anonymous
*"Life without Wikipedia would not be the same" by Mark Nathans
*"Bravo !" by anonymous
Some of my personal favorites:
*"Knowledge is priceless" by Gregory Cain
*"When I get rich I'll donate more! Thank you." by Efrem Rensi
*"Education is the only equalizer" by anonymous
*"for my children" by Asa Canaway
-- Daniel Mayer
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Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
The equivalent of $11,557.74 was donated through PayPal on Day 2 of the Fund Drive, an increase of
more than $2000 over Day 1. Only a small amount was donated through Moneybookers on Day 2 (about
$30). I won't get updates on the Dexia and mail donation totals until Tuesday at the earliest.
Here is the PayPal breakdown for Day 2:
AUD 90.36 (67.81 USD)
CAD 507.95 (418.00 USD)
EUR 2,186.87 (2,656.37 USD)
GBP 550.20 (986.67 USD)
JPY 24,058.00 (217.36 USD)
USD 7,211.52
Total 11,557.74 USD
Copied from: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-17/report/
A great deal of thanks needs to be extended to Brion Vibber, our Chief Technical Officer, for his
implementation of a near real time fund drive tracking bar that is now on top of each page in the
English Wikipedia. Localized versions are planned once more features are added to his tracking
system.
Each of the minor ticks on the bar represent a $25,000 milestone while the 5 major ticks represent
$100,000 milestones. There is no monetary goal to this drive, so more ticks will be added if we
fill the current bar up.
Let's all thank everybody who donated on this day by reading their comments.
See: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-17/detail/
Here are some that caught my eye (I wish I could list more):
"This is an amazing website." by Brian Reilly
"Pour la réussite d'un des plus beaux projets de ce millénaire..." by anonymous
"This site is everything the web promised to be." by anonymous
"Proof that collaboration can work" by anonymous
"who thought this idea up is a genus" by Michelle Collins
"ich verwende wikipedia unzählige Male im Jahr; dieser Dienst ist vorbildlich. keep it up :)" by
Alexander Stromer
"one of the best projects on earth" by anonymous
"As soon as I get a job I'll donate a lot more!" by alex adamson
"Frei zugaengliches Wissen: grossartige Sache" by Marc zur Oven
"For man's knowledge is only as great as its accessibility." by shawn strider
"Thanks for collecting world's intelligence" by Masashi Sano
"Wikipedia has been invaluable to me as a college student who returned to school after 25 years!"
by anonymous
"parabéns e obrigado por tantas ajudas" by anonymous
"Wikipedia is the history of the future!" by LUZIAN WILD
"São iniciativas como a Wikipedia que nos dão esperança de que nosso lindo planetinha azul ainda
tem salvação." by Marcus Salmeron
"Knowledge should belong to humanity" by Paul Patton
"Wikipedia ist nett." by anonymous
"Don't stop! Keep on doing what you're doing." by Carl Juhnke
"I think Wikipedia is going to be an important part of this planet's future." by Nathan Russell
"Fight the good fight" by anonymous
And my personal favorites:
"for making the internet not suck" by Kristoffer Dahl
"You're better for my brain than 10 Frappucinos!" by anonymous
"Vandal-fighting's like a video game to me. Makes sense to me that I donate 50 dollars to keep the
site alive!" by Jay Converse
"Love this site. More accurate than cable news!" by jay gazlay
"Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur" by John Horth
"This better get me laid...." by Steve Yeago
Daniel Mayer
__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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Hi
If you are of the same type than I, you may have had troubles to connect
to any of freenode channels for the past 15 hours or so.
It seems some irc clients mention the problem, others do not do anything
except for endlessly looking for the channel and not finding it (that
was my case).
It seems to be a spambot attack on freenode. You may try the channel
chat.freenode.net. It works.
Nevertheless, discussions are difficult to keep up with, due to users
endlessly automatically quitting and joining. Private channels are at
least working :-)
I only post this here to avoid being confused with a spammer, so please
have the information circulate as needed :-)
ant
The equivalent of $9,551.60 was donated on the first day of the fund drive. Thanks to Brion
Vibber, our Chief Technical Officer, we have a near real time donation tracking page at:
http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/
The Detail page for each day of the drive has individual entries for anybody who donates through
PayPal. You can see the amount donated, their name (if they gave permission for that) and a
comment. I encourage everybody to read those comments.
Here are some examples that caught my eye:
From: http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/2005q4/index.php/2005-12-16/detail/
"Knowledge is Freedom" by anonymous
"merci pour cette banque de ressources" by Axel de nazelle
"This is what the internet was intended for." by Ned Miles
"Much better for you than Gates!" by percy westwood
"Thanks wikipedia you rock!" by Oliver Stirling
"Thank you for a good project!" by Akifumi Kato
"I need Wikipedia" by Yohei Takiguchi
"Thank you for your dedication and scholarship." by John Clayton
"Macht weiter so" by anonymous
"Wikipedia has saved my academic career so many times! Thank You!" by anonymous
"Wikipedia is an exceptional and very unique resource. Worth every dime ;-]" by Daniel Ushman
"Continuem este belo projeto" by anonymous
"Wikipedia is a revolution so large it is difficult to comprehend" by Louis Mackall
"Wikipedia I love you!!!" by Jonathan Takahashi
"Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya ( Lead me from Darkenss to light)" by anonymous
"wikipedia makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside" by Edward Scott
"Danke für die Hilfe bei etlichen Dokus und Referaten =)" by Jan Stuhlmann
"The shape of things to come..." by James Wonder
And my personal favorite:
"I call you my husband's mistress because you get his attention much of the time..." by anonymous
"^_^" by anonymous
Daniel Mayer
__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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> This looks like a good option to consider. Can you
> explain how the same
> footnote can be cited multiple times in an article?
Brian-
Each "footnote" is really a place for the editor to
attach their evidence. Thus in almost all cases 2
footnotes will share nothing more than the book or
article which is cited, while having different index
points into the work (e.g. page numbers), and evidence
texts (i.e. the text the paraphrased assertion in the
article is based upon). The user will need only
provide a key to the work they are citing (usually the
ISBN number) and the rest of the information (title,
author, etc.) can automatically be queried from either
a Wikidata catalog which we build or some other online
reference service. Thus I don't think there is any
duplicate work which we need to spare the user.
Looking at it from the other side, though, I think it
would be useful to allow multiple works/citations to
be associated with each footnote (user would click a
button to add more citation input fields for that
footnote), though this is a feature we might want to
consider adding in later.
>
> Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 12:00:58 -0500
> From: Brian <brian0918(a)gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] cite markup - take 2
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l(a)wikimedia.org>
>
> This looks like a good option to consider. Can you
> explain how the same
> footnote can be cited multiple times in an article?
> In other words, if
> the software automatically marks 3 different
> citations as "fn1", "fn6",
> and "fn17", how can I have them all point to the
> same source? Or do I
> have to copy the source info for each separate
> footnote?
>
__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
A new variant on an old idea follows.
I propose a new variant on protection of pages, a sort of "deferred
edits" solution, to be used on high-traffic vandalism targets a la
George W Bush and other presidential candidates.
Someone vandalizes GWB. Someone reverts the vandalism, say, sixty
seconds to three or four minutes later. (Hey, the wiki is danged slow
sometime.) The vandalism is gone. In those sixty seconds, however,
someone may have viewed the page.
My solution would be a feature that would defer any edits for a short
period of time, say, five minutes. If the revision remains unchanged
(unedited, unreverted, un-rolledback) for those five minutes, it
becomes the currently displayed 'article'. This should provide an
adequate window during which such vandalism can be reverted, without
it ever being displayed.
This differs from other schemes, which typically suggest some sort of
administrative approval method for new revisions (such schemes perform
poorly if an administrator is not available) or some sort of 'implicit
review' schemes where, if a sufficiently qualified user views a page,
it is marked as 'all right'.
The handling of the page 'future' (the opposite of its history) may be
a trifle tricky, but I imagine it would not be intractible. A notice
might be placed at the top of the article near the toolbar-tabs, "A
new version of this article is pending" and a new tab for "pending
version" or some equivalent label could be made available. General
page edits should be directed to the pending version, and when the
page is saved the user would be taken to the "pending version" tab (so
they can be assured that their changes go through, preventing multiple
submissions). The pending version may bear a timestamp indicating when
it will be made available. The 'future revisions' could be also be
displayed in the History tab above the current (boldly hilighted in
some manner) revision. Finally, we might even put a notice in the Edit
window: "Is this version of the page vandalized? You can start editing
from [page history link here|another revision]."
In the event that a 'bad' version makes it to the current article,
there ought to be a special administrator-type button or link to
immediately promote the future-revisions to the presently displayed
article (rather than being forced to wait for five or more minutes to
elapse with the article unchanged).
I think a good, simple, short "window" scheme of this sort, if applied
to selected high-profile high-traffic pages (such as featured articles
or pages linked to from Slashdot or the like) would be much more
readily understandable and provide a reasonable alternative to gross
page protection. It might also take a lot of the fun out of vandalism
if you know that your changes probably won't ever be seen by the
general article-viewing public.
I do not advocate deployment of such a scheme wiki-wide at this time.