The servers will be rebooted in a couple hours, circa 12:00 UTC, to
install new operating system kernels. These include routine security
upgrades, and hopefully the updated 64-bit kernel will help with the
database server's Mysterious Occasional Data Corruption problems.
This will probably mean downtime of 30 minutes to an hour; if some of
the machines fail to come back up it could take longer, but hopefully
not.
Those of you in Europe -- take a long lunch. :)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Delirium wrote:
>A belated comment: I'd still like to make sure there's *some*
>standards for Wikipedia. It would be unfortunate if it turned
>into "1.0 is the 'real' encyclopedia, so 'wikipedia raw' is an
>anything-goes dumping ground".
Agreed. However I think our standards for the 'raw' version of Wikipedia
should in fact be better than than the current standards are. This in fact
should happen naturally once a stable version is set-up; most long-time
contributors will want to make their articles good enough for inclusion in
the stable version. That should enhance the quality of pretty much
everything.
I also strongly support the idea that there should not be any artificial size
limits on the number of topics to include in the stable version (but it could
be divided into encyclopedias covering different subject areas - such as an
encyclopedia of mathematics or even of the Tolkien Universe). Of course a
paper version would require size limits but our on-line version of stable
should not.
The paper version would simply be a subset of stable that is reformulated for
the constraints of paper (article size will have to reduced for many topics,
long tables will have to redone or cut out, and hyperlinks will have to be
converted into something that will work on paper).
To help with the article size issue in the paper version, all Wikipedia stable
content should, IMO, be in a type of news style (where lead paragraphs would
be what one would expect to find for an entry in a concise encyclopedia and
the less relevant material is placed at the end of articles or relegated to
daughter articles). That would make it easier to cut out the less relevant
material. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_style and
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:News_style
A CD version, for the foreseeable future, can and should be the entire stable
version. We may need to either restrict the number of topics covered in the
future or move to a multiple CD and/or DVD media. Or we could simply divide
the stable version into different specialized encyclopedias (including a
general one and a concise one). Category tagging would make this possible.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Kurt Jansson wrote:
>I mean, would it be a problem with our non-profit status?
It would not be any more illegal than a church (a non-profit) having a bake
sale and using those funds to help support an on-site day care. Selling
shirts and mugs is a valid way for non-profits to perform fundraising.
>....
>And of course we aren't limited to Amazon, I think every big
>online book shop has an affiliate program. We could join all of
>them or at least pick one or two which have sympathies in the
>community (in Germany this would be lob.de, I think).
I agree and also think that it would be great to join every affiliate program
that we possibly can and ignore any that requires an exclusive relationship
(but still provide a link to them anyway since that is useful to readers).
Maybe if we did that then the Amazon haters wouldn't be too grumpy.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Cunc has argued, correctly I think, that the idea of 1.0 may be
causing people to delete things that really need not be deleted. For
this reason, he thinks it best to pursue 1.0 under a non-Wikipedia
brand name, possibly Nupedia.
But I have this counter-thought -- while I do agree that the idea of
1.0 has been causing people to do some things that I don't really
think are best, I think the solution to this is to hurry up and
actually implement a plan/software/whatever to permit those who have
deletionist tendencies (no insult meant by the term!) to work on that.
The idea is that Wikipedia can be *more* expansive once we have a 1.0
"certification" process to keep people happy. No one can argue "that
doesn't belong in an encyclopedia" after that, because the simple
response is "well, it may not belong in 1.0, but it's o.k. for
wikipedia raw".
It's really the confusion between
Wikipedia-the-always-in-process-website and
Wikipedia-the-final-product-encyclopedia that causes the tension,
isn't it? Well, maybe not completely, but I think that a formalized
1.0 process would tend to prevent people from thinking of
wikipedia-the-website as the sort of place where we need to limit
ourselves to some finite number of topics.
--Jimbo
I'm Canadian, and I try to work on the French wikipedia sometimes.
Malhereusement, le français n'est pas ma langue maternelle. However, I'm
not sure it would help to have French-Canadians there, especially as the
French-Canadians on the English wikipedia can barely work together (with
themselves and with English-Canadians like me) on Quebec-related articles.
Adam Bishop
>From: "Constans, Camille (C.C.)" <cconsta4(a)ford.com>
>Reply-To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
>To: "'anthere8(a)yahoo.com'"
><anthere8(a)yahoo.com>,"'wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org'"
><wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org>
>Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Press release : Logo putsch on the
>FrenchWikipedia !
>Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 08:18:44 -0500
>
> >
> >Just as Tarquin would put it (and put it on fr actually), the french
> >wikipedia is very much French, not french speaking. Some
> >outside call it
> >Wikipedia Française :-( Because it is essentially poved by
> >France culture.
>
>Most of people one fr are french.... It will be nice if we could have some
>africans or canadian to work with us.
>
> >Some articles on french cities, do not mention the city is in France,
> >because it is obvious :-)
>
>We dont think about other country :) But I make the same mistake for cities
>in other country, when I speak about Orlando, I think a Orlando in
>Florida...
>
> >Date articles, current events, are focused on french events
>
>We're french :)
>
> >When two words are used, one canadian, one french, some think the
> >*correct* one is the french (see previous discussion about gay
> >and gai,
> >and what is "correct" anyway)
>
>Difficult question. Why dont using the two words ? with a redirect
>
> >And this is not even mentionning that the proper way to write
> >is the one
> >suggested by the French Academy or the French Typographic
> >Code. Perhaps
> >Canada has a chance as well here, but I doubt a decree in
> >Algeria about
> >how to use french would be given much consideration :-)
>
>Difficult question too, i would like to know it works between American
>People and british people ?
>
> >We seek to have images legal issues respect the "french" legislation.
>
>Because most of wikipedians are french, and they hope to be able to speak
>or distribute the french wikipédia "in law".
>
> >The association will be set in France.
>
>Others could be set in Belgium, Canada, and I hope in Senegal....
>
> >A hosting server would be in France likely.
>
>It's juste an idea, because the french association could be work on it. Why
>an another server in an another contry ?
>
> >The idea of local association is good. But here, it will just add a
> >layer of cultural weight.
>
>The goal of this association is not to take the power on the french
>wikipedia, this association could just help the wikipedia with funds,
>publicity, forums, etc...
>
> >France culture is already *so* heavy, that a Christmas logo, which in
> >itself *could be* npov if other celebrations were respected as
> >well, is
> >*smelling* culture dominency again.
>
>Yeah, it's true. But it could had a bit of fun :)
>
> >It is just another step. Dominancy over content, over style, logo :-)))
>
>Do you think we're really pov ? We're working to prevent that, I hope...
>
> >Of course, many editors are french, so that is not so surprising. But
> >that does not mean we should not try to compensate our bias.
>
>Agree
>
> >Not a long time ago, on ml, there was a discussion over how to reach
> >npov on international wikipedias, given that the variety of
> >participants
> >is more limited than on en. This is worrying me deeply as well. We are
> >not currently trying to work toward npov I fear, we are still
> >trying to
> >understand the concept. Of course, some will disagree with
> >that opinion
> >of mine :-)
>
>Juste your opinion Anthere, I think most of people try to work npov. See
>all the battles on religious articles.
>
> >18 months ago, I thought that if I could attract more french speaking
> >people on the french wikipedia, from the en: stock, they could help us
> >to fight France cultural dominancy.
> >
> >I also thought that if some french users could also work on
> >the english
> >wikipedia, that would help, if they could see how people were doing in
> >another place. That is what I did, even if I am not really part of the
> >english wikipedia.
> >
> >That is why I hoped so much for mixing all of us.
> >That, if it was hard for some of us to understand npov, international
> >mixing could help.
> >That, if it was hard for some of us, to accept the one different,
> >international mixing could help.
> >That, if it was hard for us to solve conflict resolution, because we
> >have no expert on this, international cooperation, mediation, where
> >international would be welcome in english commitee, even at observers,
> >to learn, it would help. Or if international commitee could be
> >set, that
> >would help.
> >
> >But yeah, right, no. There is here, and there. No confusion.
> >One belongs
> >here, or belongs there.
> >I do not know what to think of what is going on. Except that each time
> >there is a discussion on something on fr, it can't stay polite.
>
>Sometime it stay polite :) We have some latin blood ;-)
>
> >So when Tarquin says he wants to talk about it on the international
> >list, one answer is "that he should keep his ridiculous threats for
> >himself". This is how disagreement and willingness to talk with other
> >members of the same project is interpretated : a threat.
>
>Tarquin present this as a war declaration : I wont work on fr wikipédia
>until some things changes ! And He said : I will say to international ml
>that fr is npov and prefer to work on style than on content. As if we were
>small children who didn't respect the rules! Personnaly I dislike this !
>
> >As a matter of interest, I would be curious to know how those
> >internationals, that are split between wikipedias assume that. I find
> >extremely disconcerting to see two parts of a "common" project
> >being so
> >different. It is a bit like that psychological disorder :-)
>
>Do you think we're really different ? I'm sure there's some probleme as
>ours on en, de, nl, oc, oups not oc, there's no yet enough people :)
>
> >I hope this issue be solved Tarquin, because fr needs you badly.
>
>As I said, leaving is not a solution. Tarquin choose to leave, it's his
>choice. Athymik does it some weeks ago.
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
_________________________________________________________________
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The name discussion over the Wikimorial project proposal was blocking real
progress on implementing the idea. I've therefore suggested the name
"Wikimedia Memorial" be used as the new working title of the expanded-focus
Sep11wiki and for that database to be moved to
http://memorial.wikimedia.org/. The as-yet-non-existant Wikimedia Memorial
community can revisit the naming issue at some (much) later date.
Please comment here:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimorial#Name_discussion
Full proposal:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimorial
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Hi there!
Christmas is coming soon and a Wikipedia shirt would be a nice gift for a
wikipedian. Any suggestions yet? The most important part is the logo *which I
still have'nt found in a printable resolution*.
Greetings,
Jakob
I just want to clarify my statement that it is best to divide topics into
digestible bits. I think this should only be considered for most articles
once they reach the 20 KB (minus markup) size and the resulting daughter
articles are not stubs. Although some articles demand a larger size just to
summarize all the main points and clearly link to daughters that have move
detail on each of those points.
An example article that I really like in this regard is [[Germany]]
(especially its history secton and the [[History of Germany]] daughter
article):
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany
There the parent article, [[Germany]], has several paragraphs giving a very
broad summary of German history. A prominent link is given to [[History of
Germany]]. The daughter article [[History of Germany]] summarizes each of the
major periods of German history. Each section has a prominent "Main article"
link to grandchildren articles about those specific periods of German
history. And of course any distinct subjects like people, places or things
have inline links to articles on those things.
This is the type of organization I like. However preemptively making stubs to
follow this structure is a really bad thing to do; let each article grow
until it starts to reach a size where readability and editability would be
improved by summarizing certain areas and moving the detail to daughter
articles.
I absolutely /hate/ it when people just cut an entire section out of an
article like ==History== and only leave a [[History of X]] link in that
section. In those cases, it is /far/ better to leave in the detailed history
even if it pushes the article's size way above 32 KB. A summary of the
history must accompany any "main article" link like that, IMO.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Erik wrote:
>I feel that it is extremely tedious to have to click around
>many times and load many pages to get a complete
>picture of an issue, a person etc.
There is little difference between clicking on a TOC link in a huge article
than clicking on a link to another article.
>I think an article should have as much information
>related to its title as possible for that reason, and
>things should only be split off if a certain maximum
>size is reached (I tend towards 30-40K), or if they
>are not really related.
I really hate duplication of effort; If article A refers to event B and
article C also refers to event B, it is MUCH better to simply have an article
about B and short summaries in articles A and C. 30-40 KB is unreadably long
for all but the most important topics (such as a major world conflict where
simply providing short summaries of the major points would yield an article
of that length). A max of 15-25 KB minus markup is more readable for most
topics.
It is much better to chop things up into digestible bits. Then summaries of
the spun-off bits should be left with links to full articles on those topics.
That way the reader has a choice to read the summary or to skip right to the
detail.
/That/ is far more useful for the reader and also minimizes duplication of
effort by contributors. I also don't see a problem with this in a print
version since on-topic summaries would always be left in parent articles
(detail would be in daughters).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Erik Moeller wrote:
> I feel that it is extremely tedious to have to click around many
> times and load many pages to get a complete picture of an issue, a person
> etc. This is even more applicable for printing, of course, but also a
> general problem. I think an article should have as much information
> related to its title as possible for that reason, and things should only
> be split off if a certain maximum size is reached (I tend towards 30-40K),
> or if they are not really related.
> [...]
>
> I implemented section editing to make it easier to handle long
> articles. We will also address the edit conflict issue soon. In terms of
> linking, would you be happier with long articles if redirects could point
> to anchors? Then History of sports could redirect to Sports#History. I
> fail to see which other advantages might be gained from having many small
> articles on a subject instead of one reasonably large one.
This is a huge drawback and a very strong reason for creating
concentrated articles. For example, if I, with your system, is editing
an article about say Internet Security and wants to make a reference
to ARP Spoofing I wouldn't be able to do that. Since I don't think it
would be necessary to describe exactly how the hack is done in the
article, I would want to link to another article. But which one? Would
it be: [[ARP Spoofing]], [[Address Resolution Protocol]] or [[The TCP/IP
Protocl Suite]] (likely a gigantic article)? What would the readers of
my article think would be best?
Anchors would partially solve that issue. But you would still have the
problem that the paragraph's in [[The TCP/IP Protocol Suite]] probably
would discuss ARP Spoofing in a whole different context than the one
my readers just left. It would be much better to have it in a separate
article which would make it context neutral. However, that easily
creates the "man page problem" - information written completely out of
context and therefore totally useless to the reader. The only easiy
solution to that problem is to repeat and make articles overlap. In
that way both views could be satisfied. And there's no shame in
redundancy.
Then there is the problems that many writers (like me) have with large
articles. The longer the article is, the harder it is to edit. For me
the time it takes to edit an article (that I wasn't the orignator of)
roughly doubles for each paragraph in the article. I'm not sure why,
but with longer articles you not only has to take into consideration
the actual text but also the authors flow of language, context, style
and so on. For example, check the article History of post-communist
Russia and the other articles 172 has written on Russian history. They
are great, well worth the read, well written and in general extremely
Brilliant Prose. But they aren't edited much. Every part of
Russia's/Soviet's 20th century history is surrounded by controversies
and political issues. Partisans from all over the world should
continually be involved in meaningless revert wars on those articles!
But they aren't. Why?
I draw the conclusion that others also feel that long articles are
hard to edit.