WikiEN-l August 2006

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133 participants
174 discussions

Re: [WikiEN-l] en: well on the way to ... 2 million!
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 12 Aug '06

12 Aug '06

"Tony Sidaway" wrote > There are still yawning gaps. I used to spend time creating lists of names from specialised and academic books, in the humanties. Then en-WP used to have from 40%-60% of the names, when I put up a list hanging off my user page. If I did that now I'd expect a figure of, what, 45%-65%. There is a kind of an endless supply of things to do. As Jimbo apparently said at Wikimania, the coverage of arts subjects is not that hot. (Though the rest of the Web is, with a few honourable exceptions, hardly going to put us to shamae.) Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.ntlworld.com Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information

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MyWikiBiz
by Gregory Kohs 12 Aug '06

12 Aug '06

Quote: Death Phoenix wrote: >* Hey Jimbo, can you confirm that you tried to unblock MyWikiBiz but had *>* problems with your browser, per [[User talk:MyWikiBiz]]? *>* _______________________________________________ *>* *> > Yes, I and I did manage to unblock him properly just now. I'm here to say that the MyWikiBiz account and IP addresses ever used are STILL BLOCKED. My recommendation to Jimbo by direct e-mail is to "release the hounds" -- let some of the Admins try to unblock me. Kindly, Gregory Kohs

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Re: [WikiEN-l] "Wikipedia Empire Based on Open Source Worst Practices?"
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 12 Aug '06

12 Aug '06

> From: "David Gerard" > http://thomas-lord.blogspot.com/2006/08/wikipedia-empire-based-on-open-sour… > Is there something here that's the seed of a useful idea? I quote: "Isn't each article a separate module, more or less?" Well, no. WP is not a bunch of fairly independent essays. That is a common misconception, and one that seems particularly persistent, in external criticisms. WP is hypertext: simple remark. What is more, Wikipedians who are up to speed actually conceive of it as hypertext. And one reason for WP's success is that it is an encyclopedia-like thingy with the hypertext aspects used in development, not bolted on afterwards. Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.ntlworld.com Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information

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MyWikiBiz
by Jimmy Wales 12 Aug '06

12 Aug '06

I just got off the phone with MyWikiBiz and reached what I think is a very favorable agreement about this sort of thing. The big problem with paid editing on wikipedia is NOT that someone is getting paid to write, but rather that this causes a rather obvious conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety. This was my problem, and they immediately saw why this was not in our interest or theirs. Rather, what we brainstormed about as a nice mutually beneficial ground would be for them to charge customers for writing high quality NPOV articles about their companies, with sources and verifiability, but for them to work with well known and respected wikipedians who are NOT being financially compensated to actually enter the articles into Wikipedia upon their own independent judgment. This will avoid, for MyWikiBiz, a lot of sad fighting with us which is likely to be ugly and unproductive all around. This preserves our independence as a volunteer editing body, while at the same time supporting the creation of high quality NPOV content. I am very pleased with this idea.--~~~~

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Ok, so about that ISBN template...
by Steve Bennett 12 Aug '06

12 Aug '06

Now that I've read the reasoning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_July…)... Here's the deal. I created this ISBN template {{ISBN}} which does nothing very exciting. It simply substitutes the text "ISBN {{{1}}}". However, my reasoning for creating it seemed sound: to provide an abstraction layer so users don't have to learn the rather arbitrary syntax that Wikipedia uses to deal with ISBN codes. Instead, they can use the same syntax they use everywhere: {{template name|argument}}. Is this a bad idea? Personally, I find the ISBN markup extremely arbitrary and maybe not that well thought out. We apparently only allow pure ISBN numbers, with no hyphens, spaces or slashes, although they are usually presented that way in other contexts. By wrappering this syntax in standard template syntax, we would clear the way for a future, more forgiving ISBN syntax to be implemented. Similarly, although the ISBN syntax is "simple" it may not be "intuitive". What is the first reaction of people confronted with the problem of inserting an ISBN number likely to be? "How do I make this do that cool link thing?" What are they then most likely to try? {{ISBN|34895342985}} maybe? The arguments for deletion were interesting: * How worse can we get? This perform exactly the same function as typing ISBN+space+number, except with more characters. Let's burninate it with fire. In the same way that implementing getX() { return X; }} is a waste of space. * Delete all text templates that take more characters to write than what they produce. I guess they wouldn't like {{--}} either. :) * Subst but keep It's the sort of thing we'd create a redirect for if it were an article, not a special piece of wikimarkup. It may be worth checking 'what links here' every so often so that it can be susbted and users who use it told the correct syntax. The most enlightening - this person definitely thinks it's better that we "educate" people on the "correct syntax", rather than admitting our mistake at having a special syntax, and letting people not even have to think about the question of formatting ISBN numbers. * Comment This template was added to Maelor Way recently. I added a notice to inform editors of the proper ISBN style. Again - although the editors were using a template which took care of "the proper ISBN style" for them, we choose instead to take away their automatic transmission and tell them how to use a manual gearbox. I'm just a bit dismayed by the kind of reasoning that goes on at some of these deletion debates, where instead of "is this harmful?" we have "is this needed?" Comments very welcome, particularly if I'm completely misguided. Steve

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FYI/FYA: Wikipedia, proudly supporting the war on terrorism
by Mathias Schindler 12 Aug '06

12 Aug '06

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20080119%5E15318%5E%5Enbv%5… A DETECTIVE involved in the prosecution of 13 accused terrorists has told a court he gleaned much of his knowledge of terrorism from the internet and admits he's no expert on the subject. "The witness said he had used internet resources like Google and Wikipedia to research terrorism and Muslim extremists." In order to maintain the NPOV, we certainly need an islamic terrorist to testify that he used Wikipedia for his evil purposes, right?

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Permissions email?
by Nathaniel 11 Aug '06

11 Aug '06

Sorry, I can't remember--anyone know the wikimedia email address for confirming that an image is released under a free license by its creator when it's uploaded by someone else? Is it permissions(a)wikimedia.org or permission(a)wikimedia.com or what? I've looked around on various image policy pages on en and commons and can't find the address anywhere. Thanks. Nathaniel

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Article bragging (was: Re: en: well on the way to ... 2 million!)
by Steve Bennett 11 Aug '06

11 Aug '06

On 8/7/06, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Since late April, I've created [[Marc J. Rochkind]], [[Kumler, > Illinois]], [[PALcode]], [[CYGM filter]], [[RGBE filter]], > [[MySociety]], [[Envoy (WordPerfect)]], [[Smart terminal]], [[Smart > Display]] and [[Ctelnet]]. (And a zillion redirectes.) Ok, my turn. Recently I've created: [[Adam Elliot]] (how did recent an Oscar-winning director not have an article?) [[Adam Elliot (missionary)]] (well, I couldn't let the ambiguity go could I....) [[Eric Harshbarger]] (builds lego stuff, I'm sure he'll get AfD'd) [[Kate McTell]] - I did a lot of research on this almost totally non-notable blues singer, who just happened to be married to a blues legend. I was hoping to get paid for the article, but the person offering the reward went AWOL 2 months ago :/ [[Mount Buggery]] - couldn't help myself [[Smooth call]] (poker term) [[Exposing to the right]] - photography term [[John Long (climber)]] And just to match your [[Smart Display]], I have [[Smartglass]]... I notice that the common thread in all of these articles (except Eric Harshbarger) was that I knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about the topic when I started writing them. Kind of a disturbing trend when you think about it, if Wikipedia is mostly written by people who know nothing about what they're writing about... Steve

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Guardian article about Wikipedia
by Sarah 10 Aug '06

10 Aug '06

Guardian article about Wikipedia. http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1840193,00.html

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mywikibiz (was Fwd: WikiEN-l commentary)
by David Gerard 08 Aug '06

08 Aug '06

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Gregory Kohs <thekohser(a)gmail.com> Date: 08-Aug-2006 15:20 Subject: WikiEN-l commentary To: dgerard(a)gmail.com Dear David, I appreciate your feedback. There has been a lot of "buzz" within the Wikipedia admin community about our service, MyWikiBiz.com. I've counted two different discussion pages where our intent has been questioned, and now your mailing list. Thankfully, in each of these discussions, it seems that we're getting "support" comments in about a 2-to-1 ratio to "disapprove" comments. While I'd like to join your mailing list, honestly, I'm just too busy right now trying to get the marketing side of the business working. So far, the results of our efforts have been on the disappointing side. All of the Wikipedians in a panic over what we're embarking on may have nothing to worry about if we can't even get sales to come in at a steady pace. However, I'd like you to rest assured that MyWikiBiz.com does NOT intend to write "press release" style articles for our clients. We understand that Wikipedia is an ENCYCLOPEDIA, and not a advertising flyer. (Granted, we will try to sell our prospects on the "traffic" and "exposure" aspects of Wikipedia, but they are not going to get a rose-colored-glasses, non-NPOV posting from MyWikiBiz.) Examples of our articles can be found at "Norman Technologies" and at "The Family and Workplace Connection". The "Farsight Hotel" article was intended merely as a "mock" example. I meant to have it created in the Wikipedia sandbox, but it went to the actual database by another employee's mistake. I quickly deleted the article, once we had captured the screen shots we wanted. If you'd like, please re-post this message to WikiEN-l -- you have my permission to act as our agent at this time. ;-) Kindly, Greg -- Gregory Kohs Founder, MyWikiBiz.com Office: 484.840.4369 Home: 610.696.1644 Cell: 302.463.1354

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WikiEN-l August 2006