WikiEN-l September 2006

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137 participants
216 discussions

"Approved" versions on Wikipedia FAQ
by David Gerard 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

This is in response to the somewhat silly English-language press we've had lately. I'll be sending copies of this out to the sources of recent articles on the subject that got it precisely backwards. The following is, I understand, technically accurate, based on text from Amgine, Phillipp Birkin (de:wp), Jimbo and Mathias Schindler (I think), and comcom discussions (press relations being part of that job). Corrections welcomed - you have about five minutes. (and geni, I expect you to ask how this makes the new patrollers' jobs easier - by having what's effectively a feed of new-editor and anonymous edits, is what I was thinking of.) - d. "Approved" versions on Wikipedia FAQ * What is changing? We want to open up editing without damaging the reader's experience. We want to be more wiki and let editors edit freely, which is where all the good things come from. At present a small percentage of articles (a few hundred out of 1.5 million on the English language Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/) are locked or partially locked from editing. We want to open these up. But Wikipedia is a top 20 website (Alexa ratings, no. 17 on 3 month average; no. 15 on 30 August 2006 - http://www.alexa.com/), so we must keep it good for the readers. The new feature will mean that edits from new or anonymous editors will be delayed before being shown to readers - they will see a 'flagged OK' version by default, with a link to the live version. The idea is to enhance the *reading* experience, and free us to enhance the *editing* experience. If vandalism can't be seen by the general public, there will be less motivation to vandalise. Anonymous or new-editor edits will need to be approved by a logged-in editor. Of the thousands of editors on the large Wikipedias, many concentrate on checking revisions and dealing with odd changes and vandalism - this will assist their work and we do not expect new delays. We are also considering a related feature to flag particular versions of articles as being of high quality. This is to a different end: a high-quality finished product. This will likely be tested first on the German language Wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org/), which has already had three stable editions released on CD and DVD, which have sold quite well. If the feature works there, it may be used on other language Wikipedias. These features are not finished, so we don't have a lot of fine detail as to how it will all work as yet. But we hope this change will allow us to do things such as open up the George W. Bush article or even the front page itself to full unrestricted editing. * When was this proposed? Jimmy Wales asked for a time-delay feature for casual readers in late 2004; after very fast editing on the Indian Ocean tsunami produced a very high-quality article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake) very quickly, but with some highly visible vandalism; we've hotly discussed how to achieve stable high-quality editions of Wikipedia since almost the start of the project, in 2001.

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More on Wikipedia Review, and Brandt, and Seigenthaler
by Daniel R. Tobias 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

(and doesn't "More on" go well with that site?) Somebody e-mailed me that I probably shouldn't be giving more publicity to that silly bunch of losers, but some monitoring of those boards might be a good idea because some of the content hints at possible future attacks on Wikipedia. Here's one where Brandt recounts his recent attempts to goad Seigenthaler into digging up the dead horse of the long-corrected defamation against him last year again: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=3347 Apparently, Mr. Seigenthaler has enough good sense to decline to become a Brandt meatpuppet and do his bidding; Brandt would like him to do stuff like sue Wikipedia, or else issue a "do-this-or-else" demand to have his article completely removed (so as to serve as a precedent that Brandt can then follow), but he has no interest in it. However, Brandt seems to think that Seigenthaler is favorable to launching a new media campaign against Wikipedia which might be able to pave the way for future legislation and litigation against it. Or maybe Seigenthaler is just being polite to Brandt when they converse, and has no plans to agitate on this issue. But it's worth watching for anyway. When the media decides something is the menace of the week, like comic books in the 1950s and a whole succession of drug menaces (from crack to ecstasy to Oxycontin) from the '80s on, they can pour on excessive hype and prompt legislatures to take unwise action. -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

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Hypothetically speaking
by Ian Woollard 03 Sep '06

03 Sep '06

Say you found an editor that was using cites, but inverting them and using them to support their own OR. And they did this repeatedly, several times reverting corrections when their 'error' was pointed out/corrected; to the point where the person they were misquoting actually came on to the wikipedia to complain about it. What exactly would the process be? Should the editor be suspended for bring the wiki into disrepute or something? Who would one talk to about this kind of thing? -- -Ian Woollard "Victory can be perceived but not created." For your own security, the Department of Homeland Security is watching you.

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Subject: More Wikipedia Review Idiocy
by Daniel R. Tobias 03 Sep '06

03 Sep '06

On 2 Sep 2006 at 22:44, "Daniel R. Tobias" <dan(a)tobias.name> wrote: > I don't know why I ever bother to look at the Wikipedia Review > site... the antics of the malcontents and morons there always make my > blood boil. But the latest stupid accusation they're making against > Wikipedia is that we're supposedly infecting people with viruses: > > http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=3362 Now somebody on that thread has "responded" to my message here, saying that I should be ashamed of myself. I guess it's time for them to mention that I've mentioned that they've mentioned what I've said about what they said about Wikipedia. Can we try for a few more levels of recursion? -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

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More Wikipedia Review Idiocy
by Daniel R. Tobias 03 Sep '06

03 Sep '06

I don't know why I ever bother to look at the Wikipedia Review site... the antics of the malcontents and morons there always make my blood boil. But the latest stupid accusation they're making against Wikipedia is that we're supposedly infecting people with viruses: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=3362 -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Does openness dull the bleeding edge?
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 03 Sep '06

03 Sep '06

"David Gerard" wrote > > arXiv.org is reputed to perform a useful role. How's it look from your > view as an academic mathematician? Experts writing for experts. Even within the field this stuff is hardly readable. 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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Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Lists of book references and external links
by David Gerard 03 Sep '06

03 Sep '06

Anyone interested in doing for citations what the stub-sorting project did for stubs? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Akash Mehta <draicone(a)gmail.com> Date: 02-Sep-2006 22:39 Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Lists of book references and external links To: wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org That sounds like a really good idea, and we could use a formal wikiproject to encourage people to help establish these citation collections. I'm starting a draft at [[User:Draicone/WikiProject Reference Help]] if anyone wants to help. If we get a decent plan we can move it to the WP space. On 9/3/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote: > Matt Brown wrote: > > I've learned, personally, {{cite web}} and {{cite book}}'s > > fundamentals, and look stuff up from time to time. I've also created > > subst:able templates for reference works I cite a lot, so I don't have > > to do the thinking. > > Way back when I was doing a bunch of work citing various articles about > Stargate subjects and I kept using the same episode citations over and > over. I considered creating a group of templates specifically for those > cites, for example > > <ref>{{cite stargate sg-1/broca's gap}}</ref> > > So I wouldn't have to keep looking up airdates and other details to fill > in, and if the citation format changed or more information became > available they could all be updated with a single edit. Perhaps some > sort of formalized system along these lines might be useful for common > references? <ref>{{cite collection/Oxford dictionary 2006}}, p. > 1245</ref> for example. These big bibliographic lists would then become > collections of templates like this and they'd make better project pages. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikipedia-l mailing list > Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l > > > > _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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Re: [WikiEN-l] My irrelevant hatnote disambiguation policy
by Daniel R. Tobias 02 Sep '06

02 Sep '06

On 1 Sep 2006 at 20:32, ScottL <scott(a)mu.org> wrote: > How is a plane English sentence describing what someone might have > wanted, or indicating that if they wanted something else in general, > that they should follow a link not obvious? It is in plane english and > does not require that a person be "in the know" or an editor. First > time wikipedia users can get it. Is "plane English" what is spoken by aircraft flight crews, or does it refer to a form of English that has exactly two dimensions? -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

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Steven Dutch on academic hierarchies
by David Gerard 02 Sep '06

02 Sep '06

The title and intro aren't the interesting bits, IMO. The rest is about academic and knowledge-gathering hierarchies: http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Summers.HTM - d.

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You realise this means [[Pokemon]] has to be brought to feature quality. (was Well darn, Pokemon is important after all.)
by David Gerard 02 Sep '06

02 Sep '06

On 30/08/06, Steve Summit <scs(a)eskimo.com> wrote: > It really is a case of "be careful what you wish for", isn't it? > We were quite pleased over at en.wiktionary when Leon turned > stats on there for us a couple of days previously, but the joy > is now mixed with rue as we learn that among our most popular > entries, so far, are consistently MILF, penis, fuck, masturbate, > and breasts. What it tells us is that it is absolutely vital that said articles be of the highest possible quality, and in fact should be brought to Featured Article status as absolutely soon as possible. (Seriously.) > (It's true, though; clearly we'll all want to wait weeks or > months before we can imagine that the stats in general aren't > swamped by fixations du jour.) Fixations du jour are fine, at least spread over a month. If that many people are interested in a given article over a whole month, that's a significant topic and we have no real excuse for not having it be featured or near-featured quality. We're no. 17 on Alexa 3-month average, no. 15 today - that many readers are *significant*. - d.

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WikiEN-l September 2006