Greetings,
Wikimania is just around the corner. I am really looking forward to
seeing everyone there; you can browse "everyone" here --
http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/registration/attendees.php
If you've been thinking about coming, please register to let us know.
There has been some talk of having a documentary crew come to
wikimania; if you are interested in helping make this happen, leave a
note on the main talk page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania:Main_Page
As you can see from that page, we could also use some help: with site
design, podcasting, transcription, descriptions of the area around
Frankfurt, and preparation of the upcoming press release. Please sign
up there if you'd like to help.
Cheers from Boston,
SJ
Hoi,
At this moment the wikipedia-l is becoming increasingly irrelevant. This
is because more and more people are turning of because of the endless
discussions. Particularly the contributions of Mark Williamsom are both
excessive in number, he thinks this list is his personal soap box, and
increasingly agressive, het tells people what they have to do and in
turn gets banned on wikipedias as the appreciation for his behaviour.
The consequence is, that more and more people are not interested in what
the wikipedia-l has to say. There are people who have added Mark to
their spam list, there are people who disregard all threads that he
writes to, there are people that unsubscribed. Mark has been told on the
list and of the list, repeatedly by many people, that he is not
communicating effectively this way. The sad thing is that Mark has some
valid points to make, points that are drowned out by the torrent of
e-mails that he sends to make these points. I do not want him banned
because this is "throwing the child away with the washing water" (het
kind met het waswater weggooien).
I have discussed this with several people and Angela came up with a good
point. Her point was that in the "language discussions" it often is a
rehashing of positions and missing is the refactoring of this
information as you have on a Wiki. It is exactly right to have articles
on Meta discussing the languages and their issues. This makes for some
refactoring and persistency in the discussions and it allows for
discussions on the talk page. The wikipedia-l would then be used to give
a heads up about when things are disucussed on Meta and when there is a
tentative conclusion of these discussions.
I hope that this scheme is seen for what it is; it allows Mark to have
his say. It allows for better information on these issues on Meta. The
consequence is that the wikipedia-l will have less trafic and hopefully
other subjects important to the global wikipedias start to get some
space as well.
I hope Mark is willing to accept this because if things go on as they
do, I will ask if it is possible to have him banned from this list.
Thanks,
GerardM
Gerard.
It is very much like you to attack someone for a short comment with
little meaning attached.
I said:
> >Because they speak Afrikaans, and would be able to give the view of a
> >native speaker.
And you told me that I may know a lot about languages, but nothing
about Wiktionary. That response is uncalled-for. It is insulting,
untrue, and on top of that a slap in the face after my having just
begun to monitor inactive Wiktionaries a week or so ago.
You do not speak Afrikaans (this, not "African", is the English name
as well). Different languages may have peculiar capitalisation rules,
which require headwords to be capitalised.
The simple input of a native speaker is not difficult to obtain, and
we would do well to get it. We can ask them, "in Afrikaans
dictionaries, are headwords capitalised?". And they will answer us.
Very easy.
But you choose instead to make blanket assumptions about all
languages, and to tell me what I do and don't know.
My brain is my own, and only I know which things I do and don't know.
I do not plan on giving you my brain anytime soon, either, thank you
very much.
Good day to you, sir.
Mark
On 15/07/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Mark,
> You may now something about languages, but you have no clue about
> Wiktionary. And if you did, I would welcome your comments about the ERD
> that I posted here http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:ERD.jpg It is
> a work in progress and it is working towards the Ultimate Wiktionary. I
> can put dialects in there but I am not yet happy about this aspect as I
> cannot truly enter simplified Chinese in there in a proper way. It also
> places etymology on a different place from where it is traditionally
> placed in the wiktionaries due to the fact that there are some that
> differ depending on the meaning of a word.
>
> As to capitalisation; any paper dictionary does not capitalise the words
> that are in there unless they are capitalised as a rule. It is due to
> some unfortunate history that it took so long to change the English
> wiktionary. There are currently 19 articles in the African wiktionary,
> Jcwf may want to use the same system of templates that are used in many
> of the other wiktionaries. To do this it helps to have capitalisation
> turned off.
>
> I second his request to turn capitalisation on the af.wiktionary off.
>
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> >Mark
> >
> >On 15/07/05, Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Angela wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Ashar's request was to ask af.wikipedia, not Wiktionary about this,
> >>>and they have 4000 articles and a reasonably active, though small,
> >>>community.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>If none of them participates in Wiktionary, why does their opinion count
> >>any more than anyone else's?
> >>
>
--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
This language thread -- which I probably wouldn't be able to follow even if I read through the archives to see how it started before I joined -- seems like it has all the characteristics of the type of out-of-control Internet debate that Brainjammer was designed to avoid:
- It has metamorphosed into a discussion *about* the discussion, rather than about the original topic
- Has so many individual points to be made on both sides that nobody can keep track of them all, therefore even if one side is "right" there's no way the rest of us could even tell
- Contains a good deal of personal attacks on other members
I urge you, just *give it a try* and see if you make more progress than has been made so far. Go to www.brainjammer.com, create a new account (code to create a new one is "muskrat"), and one side or the other can post their arguments.
Sorry to steer the discussion this way, but I do want to help, and it's quite frustrating to see all this effort being wasted and obviously getting people angry, when I think I might have a way to avoid it all. Even if there's only a one-in-ten chance that it would work, wouldn't it be worth it if it might help avoid tense discussions like this in the future?
-Bennett
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rowan Collins [mailto:rowan.collins@gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 10:56 PM
> To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] try having this language discussion on Brainjammer
>
> [Warning: this post will drift further off topic the more of it you read. :p]
>
> On 15/07/05, Bennett Haselton <bennett(a)peacefire.org> wrote:
> > This language thread -- which I probably wouldn't be able to follow even if I read
> > through the archives to see how it started before I joined -- seems like it has all the
> > characteristics of the type of out-of-control Internet debate that Brainjammer was
> > designed to avoid:
>
> Perhaps before you start advocating the use of this system, you should
> put somewhere a description of what it *is*. Looking at some of the
> existing threads, I couldn't immediately see anything other than a
> bog-standard forum.
>
> I presume your "killer feature", as it were, is the ability to mark
> posts with a "status" in terms of their relationship to the parent.
The earlier message that I posted, described how the algorithm worked in more detail, and why I believed that it would produce more useful results than algorithms that have been tried in the past:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-July/040966.html
The "killer feature" is not just marking posts according to their status with respect to the parent. The killer feature is more like a rule (which is to say, a rule that is enforced by having users vote down posts that are challenged as not conforming with this rule) which says that rebuttals must only focus on one point at a time. (More than once I've replied to someone's post saying "You made several good points here but to go along with the rules you should break up this post into multiple replies.") My theory -- as yet untested, but which seems strongly intuitive -- is that people will argue (and vote, if it comes to that) more honestly when considering only one point at a time. If you're asked to vote between an essay making a series of points and another essay making a series of opposing points, there's too much wiggle room for the brain to rationalize voting in accordance with your preconceived beliefs. But with one point at a time, there's less wiggle room.
And since even one rebuttal against a point -- no matter how trivial -- is enough to disqualify an entire post (voters are specifically instructed to vote on the specific point and *not* to take into account how significant it is as a part of "the post as a whole"), the only posts that will survive are the posts that meet that high standard of truth all the way through.
> This seems like an intriguing idea, but imperfectly implemented. I
> know it's just the germ of an idea right now, but given that you're
> publicly advocating its use, here are some criticisms:
>
> * The most obvious imperfection is that the status labels are not
> particularly clear - why is "awaiting response" styled the same as
> "incorporated into parent"?
Yes, the front end needs some work, but the focus should really be on the top-level posts that get generated as a result of all the feedback propagated up from the replies.
One difference between this and a traditional discussion forum is that the end result of each thread should be as compact as possible -- a single post, ideally -- rather than just an archive of everything that has been said.
> * What's more, if the premise that posts can be made redundant by
> altering their parent holds, why are "incorporated" and "withdrawn"
> posts shown at all? Deleting them outright would be foolish, but
> surely showing them by default defeats the object of
That's a valid point, and a UI decision -- eventually those will probably just be displayed at the bottom of each thread, below a barrier that clearly separates them from the replies that are still "active".
> * Who decides when a post has been successfully incorporated? If Bob
> replies to Alice's comment, and Alice amends the original comment, it
> seems to me that first Alice must tell Bob that she has done so, and
> then Bob must accept the amendment and withdraw the reply. If your
> existing model follows this process, it's not obvious from the
> presentation.
Current model: Bob replies to Alice's comment. Alice incorporate's Bob's comment and also inserts a note explaining how she incorporated Bob's comment into her own post. Bob receives a notification that his comment has been incorporated. If he doesn't think his whole point was incorporated properly, he can post another reply.
This does leave a weakness where Alice could cheat -- if Bob posts a reply clearly disagreeing with Alice and Alice "incorporates" it without making any changes, that can prevent Bob from ever forcing a jury vote. In the long run I'll have to decide how to tweak the architecture of the system to prevent this. In the short term, I think it will be really obvious if someone is doing this just to block a vote from coming up, and I could tell them to cut it out without generating too many complaints about "dictatorship". (Although it's true that one design principle is to eventually enable these discussions to take place without *any* centralized moderation.)
> * Your presentation also lacks any kind of "audit trail" - it would be
> nice to see how Alice has changed her post, and how Bob responded to
> her claim to have incorporated his response. Your forumish interface
> doesn't seem suited to tracking such things.
That's a good suggestion. Currently when you incorporate someone's comment, you add a note explaining how you incorporated their comment, and that note is not currently displayed in the thread view, but it probably should be. We could also add a field for Bob to add a comment about whether he feels his suggestion was incorporated correctly.
Eventually I might want to include version history for each post so you could see *exactly* how it was modified to incorporate a given comment, complete with diff functionality to show exactly what was changed, but I didn't have time to implement that this time around.
> And finally, you realise this is more-or-less exactly how discussion
> works on a "traditional" wiki (e.g. c2.com, meatball, etc)? i.e. the
> aim is to refactor a discussion ("ThreadMode") into a coherent
> "DocumentMode", and to encourage opinions to be expressed by amending
> and expanding the existing text rather than simply creating a "rival"
> document. The main difference seeming to be that you are aiming to
> create a structured and non-redundant discussion thread, rather than a
> stand-alone document.
Actually the idea *is* for each Brainjammer thread to result in, ideally, a stand-alone document: the top-level post. But I think it's one of those situations where this new design kinda looks like what has come before (a Wiki), but with a few subtle design changes that I'm hoping will produce radically different results. Specifically, the enforcement of the rule that disputes of any points have to be as specific as possible and handled one at a time, on the theory that even when discussing highly controversial subjects like George W. Bush or Windows vs. Linux, people will argue and vote more honestly when focused on specific points.
-Bennett
Hi Mark!
Thanks for your quick reply. I wasn`t aware of the information on Reinhard's / Ron's personal home page, I had only read his bio...
This discussion has been going on for quite a while now. A multitude of arguments have been introduced. I have always appreciated your (and everyone else's) factual arguments, like you have appreciated mine (which I thank you for). This is part of an efficient discussion culture.
But we must also not forget that no discussion can ever be considered successful if it doesn't have a result. Frankly spoken, I can understand that more and more people are getting annoyed by the mere duration of this discussion. Noboby lives forever and we all have to live our lives outside the internet, too, so I think it's our responsibility to come to a conclusion now.
In any discussion with five or more participants, you can't expect to reach a point where everybody agrees on everything. Sad enough, but decisions have to be made anyway.
More often than not in a discussion there are views shared by a majority and views shared only by a minority. In my opion, any fair discussion culture implies that the majority respects, considers and evaluates the minority's position, which has happened in this case. The minority in turn, has the responsibility of accepting the majority's decision and not hindering its implementation.
In this case, the proportion majority-minority is more unambiguous than most other times. Users made a request for a Wikipedia in Dutch Low Saxon and nobody, neither here nor on Meta, apart from you was against it (please accept that standpoints of people not personally participating can't be counted in here). Of course, your opinion is as valuable as any other one but I ask you for the fairness to acknowledge that you are clearly outnumbered this time. No one likes that, but it's inevitable in life that you can't always have it your way. Hey, it's nothing personal !
Mark, we appreciate your commitment and knowledge here. I can assure and promise you that you will gain a sizable amout of additional respect within the community by accepting the majority's decision and clearing the way for its implementation now.
Regards
Boris
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After much thought, I have had a change-of-heart regarding separate
Wikipedias for Low Saxon.
HOWEVER, I still believe it is wrong to divide on national borders.
From what I can tell, Stellingwarfs, Grunnegers, Dreents, Tweants, and
Achterhooks are all different enough from one another to warrant
separate Wikipedias.
Sample:
Stellingwarfs: Et doempien hadde zien nust in et waegenhokke. Op een
keer weren beide oolden uutvleugen. Ze hadden eten haelen wild veur de
jongen en hadden de jonkies hielendal allienig laoten.
Grunnegers: t Was ain van de schierste zummers sinds joaren. n Steltje
keudeldoemkes haren heur nust baauwd in de woagenschure stoef achter
de baanderdeure. Op n dag sluigen baaide ollen de vleugels uut. Ze
wollen veur de jongen wat te bikseln hoalen en luiten doarom de lutjen
hailendaal allind achter.
Drèents: 't Tuunkroepertien had zien nust ebouwd in 't achterhuus. Op
'n keer waren allebeide de oldeluui uut-evleugen um wat èten veur de
jonchies te halen – en ze hadden heur hummelties glad allennig thuus
elaoten.
Tweants: Et duymke has sin noes in de skueppe. De olden warren der
maol ut evloegen, sey wollen wat te aetten krygen vuyr hoer jongen, en
hadden de kleinen alene achter elaoten.
Achterhooks: Et nettelkönninksken had zien nust in de wagenloze. No
bunt de olders op ne kere allebeide oet evloggene ewest, ze wolden wat
te aeten veur aere jongen halen, en hebbet de kleinkes helemaole
allene achter elaotene.
English: There once was a wren who had made his nest in a garage. He
lived there with his family. One day he and his mate went out to look
for some food to bring their chicks, leaving the young birds all
alone.
In addition, each has a history of somewhat separate literature:
Asterix has separate translations in each language as does the Bible,
and there are websites about them and in them.
http://members.home.nl/goaitsen/twents/ (Tweants)
http://www.drentsetaol.nl/ (Drèents)
http://www.grunnegertoal.nl/ (Grunnegers)
http://www.stellingwarfs.nl/ (Stellingwarfs)
All of websites except the Tweants one are of organisations for
promoting the languages; the Tweants site is a page with information
on Tweants.
Mark
--
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
Hi, I know we have some people here who know how to create geographical
maps.
Now I need to create some detailed maps for Italian regions such as the
Amalfi Coast and some others. These are going to be uploaded to commons.
But: I would like to know how one can create such maps and where to get
the data from. Is there a software that can help in this? Open Source?
Where can I find information on that?
Thank you!
Ciao, Sabine
___________________________________
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Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>, wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org schrieb am 11.07.05 02:37:59:
> Although Ron isn't subscribed to this list, so far as far as I can
> tell he's the only native speaker who has even contributed to this
> discussion.
Mark,
since you quote Ron so frequently I checked out his user page at "Lowlands-L" a while ago to get a vague idea who he is. His academic accomplishments are obvious. But interestingly however, he doesn't claim being a native speaker of Low Saxon himself ! Instead, he writes "my native German". Furthermore, from what can be read there he seems to have emigrated overseas decades ago, so his idea of Platt might be slightly outdated because the Platt used today is surely different from to one used a generation ago.
Boris
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Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>, wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org schrieb am 10.07.05 16:12:26:
> As it so happens, it appears Heiko sends all communication in
> Hochdeutsch, occasionally proceeded by "moin moin" to make it sound
> more Platt-ish. Slomox, the other most active current admin, is also
> not a native speaker of Low Saxon (but rather Hochdeutsch),
> With these people running this nokieksel op 't patentplatt, it's no
> wonder it's... in patentplatt.
It really looks like the Low Saxon edition of Wikipedia has not yet achieved the level of language quality it should have. On the other hand many of the deficits are due to the fact that the Platt spoken nowadays in most areas is highly influenced by High German.
> Also, the nds.wiki mainpage says it's in Plattdüütsch (ie, flat
> german)... and in parenthesis after it says "Plattdüütsch", it says
> "neddersassisch un oostnedderdüütsch" (Low Saxon and East Low German).
> Hmm... according to the ISO, "nds" does not include East Low German.
> Only Low Saxon. Seems this Wikipedia is not in accordance...
I noticed quite a while ago that this could cause a lot of confusion, especially among people from abroad. Generally, people in Northern Germany uniformly refer to their multiple regional or local dialects as "Platt" or "Plattdüütsch", in High German we say "Plattdeutsch" or "Platt" and sometimes in more formal, written High German the term "Niederdeutsch" is used (to avoid the somewhat negative connotation of "flat"). This refers, as far as I know, to all dialects from the Dutch border to the Polish border (except the Frisian ones, of course). While people are well aware of the existance of many different dialects a distinction between Low Saxon and East Low German dialects is not made among the "general public". Everything is perceived as "Platt(deutsch)".
Interestingly, the term "Low Saxon" which we use so frequently here (because that`s the term used in English and apparently in Dutch, too) is _never_ used in Germany, only in scientific contexts. It seems like the somewhat clumsy headline on the nds homepage was chosen in order to include users from the Netherlands (who would be excluded by solely using the term plattdüütsch because the "German" part would alienate them).
Boris
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