In a message dated 3/29/2003 11:32:48 AM Eastern Standard Time,
sannse(a)delphiforums.com writes:
> I think if the page is to be protected it should be in the pre-edit war
> state. I've reverted to the version from 24th March.
>
>
In fact, that was the material that 172 was removing. My argument with him
began when he took out the materials because he claimed that they were POV.
Danny
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 12:42:53 -0800 (PST)
> From: Geoff Burling <llywrch(a)agora.rdrop.com>
> To: <wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Search feature
> Reply-To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
>
> On Sun, 23 Mar 2003, Anthere wrote:
> >
> > --- Daniel Ehrenberg <name12323(a)hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > I hate to say this, but the seach engine in
> > > Wikipedia is once again slowing
> > > down the server. i don't think the new server
> can
> > > keep up with the high
> > > demand for seaches. Maybe we should postpone
> using
> > > it until it works
> > > completely. Or maybe we should make some
> restrictive
> > > measure for searching,
> > > like only signed in users can seach. We really
> need
> > > another server.
> >
> > Using wikipedia with the google search is really
> > painful. not all articles are found by far
> > and we are working not only for editors, also for
> > readers, who will be non loggued in most of the
> time,
> > and could have the feeling the encyclopedia is
> emptier
> > on some topics that it really is
> > What about enhanced search feature ? With some of
> the
> > articles being classified in groups ? Not all of
> them,
> > but for example, authors could be grouped in an
> author
> > list, and people could search in the author list
> > instead than in the whole encyclopedia ?
> >
> > Exactly how much is the search feature used ? And
> > what's the proportion between real articles search
> and
> > meta search ?
> >
> One way the search engine could be improved on is if
> by default it does a logical "and" search, rather
> than
> the logical "or" search it appears to do now. To
> provide
> an example of what I'm talking about, the other
> night I needed
> to know who wrote the novel "Red Harvest," so I did
> a
> search on Wikipedia using those two words. What the
> search engine did was return all of the articles
> with
> the words "red" or "harvest" in either the title or
> the
> body of the article.
>
> After glancing through the first hundred hits, I
> gave up on
> Wikipedia, & used Amazon's search engine. The book
> was the
> first or second on the list.
>
> Although I'm not a database programmer (although
> I've taken
> a couple of classes on Oracle & SQL in the past),
> I'd guess
> that it's not that much of a performance hit to have
> the
> search query first treat the input as an "and"
> statement,
> then if nothing is returned, say in the subject
> head, then
> offer to rerun the query as an "or" statement.
>
> Just my two cents.
>
> Geoff
Hi list
It seems to me the query "and" rather than "or" makes
sense. Could the search functionality be easily
improved that way ?
Yours,
Athypique
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Hi, all. I've been corresponding with an attorney about some issues
pertaining to the Disinfopedia. He has some concern about whether we
might be legally liable for its content. Specifically, could we be
sued for libel or slander if someone posts false information there?
I think this issue is substantially the same for Disinfopedia as it
is for Wikipedia, since we both use the same software and editing
rules (although the editorial standards are slightly different). I'm
hoping therefore that someone here can tell me what discussions have
taken place about this issue already and where I might go for further
information.
Here's what the attorney wrote in his message to me:
>The disinfopedia thing looks like a cool use of web technology -
>but I don't understand how you'll prevent all kinds of wackos
>from screwing around with the text.
I responded by saying (edited here for brevity):
That was my reaction when I first heard about the Wikipedia web site
(www.wikipedia.org). In practice, though, it works pretty well. In
reality, most people behave honorably and appropriately. They far
outnumber the wackos, and people who engage in vandalism are quickly
detected and banned. ... I would add that even "wackos" can sometimes
make useful contributions (depending, of course, on how you define
"wacko"). ...
The key point here is that since everyone who visits the site can
*edit* as well as *read* articles, errors and deliberate
disinformation should get detected and fixed quickly. This approach
has worked quite well in developing open source software such as the
Linux operating system, and it seems to work well for Wikipedia.
Of course, we can't expect 100% accuracy, but that's not our goal.
Our goal is to create a useful and *largely* accurate tool for use in
analyzing and understanding propaganda. This project is still
experimental and in its infancy, but I'm hopeful that we'll be able
to meet and surpass the level of accuracy found in the mainstream
U.S. news media.
The attorney then responded further:
> Thanks for such a detailed answer; very interesting. Of course I agree that
> some so-called wackos will provide good info. As a lawyer I'm most
> concerned that you not get in a situation where there's slander going on and
> you could be accountable for it.
[SNIP]
> I think your website structure looks on first appearance to have a greater
> degree of control (oversight/endorsement of content) than some others, and
> therefore I'd expect a greater potential for liability exposure. I haven't
> mined my way down the site to see your caveats etc. just got this
> impression on a quick look. No experience or insights other than that.
Comments, anyone?
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------
Okay, 24 hours and no more objections -- that's close enough to a consensus
for me.
-- Tim Starling
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>Is there any way that non-English Wikipedias could be
>on a seperate server than the English one, so we
>wouldn't have to feel the effects of the massive
>English-language traffic killing us?
>
>Chuck
But the current slowdown was caused by a fr.wiki sysop running a, uh, less
than optimized sql command. ;-) If there were such a separation then only
en.wiki would have been up during that time and we would probably have a
flood of angry emails in a variety of languages complaining about being
"singled-out". It is far better to keep the databases together, have the
webserver on its own powerful box, and then have the mailing lists on a
cheapo 500 MHz Linux box (which I can borg together and donate if needed -
but I'm sure somebody else could donate an even better box).
Another server is going to be up soon but this is only a short term solution
given how fast we are growing. Mid to long term we need to set-up the
Wikimedia Foundation so that we'll have a legal entity to accept
tax-deductable donations and receive grants.
Then we can start to build a really fast server cluster with 1GB Ethernet and
if needed even start to pay Jimbo his cost for bandwidth. I hear bandwidth is
pretty cheap for ISPs who buy it in bulk (like Jimbo) but is kinda expensive
for ISP customers - the last thing we want is to be just another ISP customer
so we shouldn't expect Jimbo to pay all our bills in full forever (we need to
prevent taking Jimbo for granted - paying him back his monthly out-of-pocket
cost only seems fair once we have the money to do so). But if he insists on
providing unlimited bandwidth to us for free indefinitely we shouldn't
complain about that either. ;-)
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
WikiKarma
The usual at [[March 20]]
The Cunctator has begun renaming the articles on slogans to remove the form
[[Slogan: . . . ]] which had been used by general agreement. However he
argued that no compromise was likely therefore he went and began renaming
everything unilaterally. So we need to find some sort of agreement rather
than have The Cunctator unilaterally deciding wiki policy. Otherwise we
will have endless endless renaming wars.
I propose we use the form [[Slogan: . . . ]] rather than the alternative [[
. . . (slogan)]].
1. Some people complained about how we don't say [[Book: . . . ]] or [[Film:
. . . ]] and that therefore putting in slogan was wrong. I disagree. A
slogan is by definition POV. Used without qualification, particularly if the
slogan is politically controversial, rascist, homophobic, or derogatory to
some people's religious, ethnic of cultural origins, can cause offence or
appear to be endorsing the POV in the slogan. The use of the word slogan in
the title is necessary to distance wiki from the slogan message as it would
appear on the list or on google. Doing that would NPOV it by drawing
attention to the fact that we are merely repeating a slogan, not expressing
one.
2. Putting it in brackets at the end of the line could cause problems if a
slogan is long, for the '(slogan)' might not appear on goggle, if the end of
a long line was cut off. Instead people simply see a POV slogan coming from
wikipedia.
3. Putting '(slogan)' at the end means that people would be greeted with a
potentially POV slogan, with which they might have a strong positive or
negative reaction - prior to reaching the end of the line (if they see it at
all) where it is neutralised by the word slogan. Putting the word slogan in
first means that before they even read the slogan they know it is a slogan
and is featuring on wiki as a slogan, not POV propaganda. The very first
word people read in an article title is the first word. Not everyone reads
the full title, particularly if it is a long title. So the key NPOVing word
'slogan' should be where everyone can will and can see it, at the first.
4. Grammatically, having it at the front of the line makes more sense. For
example, [[Slogan: AIDS Kills Fags Dead]] in effect reads, 'the slogan: AIDS
Kills Fags Dead'. Putting it at the end effectively reads 'AIDS Kills Fags
Dead - which is a slogan' As I said above, people may have a very strong
reaction to that particular slogan. Using the 'slogan' word upfront NPOVs
the statement by contextualising it as a slogan, not an expression of a POV.
Put at the end, people may well have had an emotional POV reaction (for or
against) before they reach the word slogan at the end, if they even notice
it.
5. Using both forms (as The Cunctator seems to want) seems unnecessarily
complicated. It makes logical sense to use one standard template, not two
because using two (with [[Slogan: . . .]] being used for controversial
slogans poses the question: who decides if a slogan is controversial
enough? Some people might see a slogan as sufficiently NPOV enough to use
'(slogan)' at the end. Others might disagree and the result would be an
edit/renaming war. Having one template means that no-one has to form a value
judgment on whether it is or is not controversial. If it is a slogan, the
one universal format is used.
We do need to have some sort of consensus agreement on this issue set out
clearly. The Cunctator has already annoyed people involved in the debate by
his unilateral action. It would help the situation enormously if we had
clear agreement on the form, which could then be entered as a naming
convention to which people could refer, rather than producing constant rows
over slogans today, tomorrow, next month, six months down the line, etc.
Any opinions?
JT
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> I thought we decided to do [[Slogan '{slogan text}']]
> so it doesn't confuse people with [[Wikipedia:
> {something}]] or [[Special: {something}]]. On the
> naming policy for slogans page, there only is [[...
> (slogan)]] and [[Slogan ' ... "]]
>
> -- LittleDan
No, actually "we" never decided anything at all.
And, like it or not, the discussion has moved to
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_policy_for_slogans
... so please browse over and make your light sabre felt, young Jedi!
Uncle Ed