WikiEN-l February 2007

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164 participants
215 discussions

Re: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Soft deletion
by wikipedia2006＠dpbsmith.com 28 Feb '07

28 Feb '07

On 2/28/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I think we should work more on pointing people to relevant rules before they > post their first article. That's exactly what I had in mind when I created http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Your_first_article&oldi… in June of 2004. The intention was to produce a _single_ article that would warn people off the most common mistakes before posting their first article, instead of hoping they would find their way through a thicket of multiple policy and advice pages. For a long time it was very conspicuously linked in the article-creation template (the text that appears above the edit box when you create an article). That text still links to it, and judging from the amount of vandalism it gets people must still be looking at it, but its now buried in a thicket of multiple policy and advice pages. I have no idea whether WP:YFA has any useful effect. (I know it was way too long when I wrote it, and it hasn't gotten any shorter!)

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A new way of image uploading. Sort of
by geni 28 Feb '07

28 Feb '07

OK there is still some fiddling to be done but You can see the first example of something I hope will become widespread here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet be sure to click the image to look around the stuff behind it (mostly a new separate image upload page but there are other things) As I said it isn't quite finished and suggestions are welcome. Much credit goes to Editor at Large for the SVG, Gmaxwell for much of the formatting and Brion for turning on the required extension on en. -- geni

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Conservapedia
by Daniel P. B. Smith 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

> From: "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Latest comedic parody of Wikipedia > > http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page > http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia Well, actually I'd hoped that maybe a few sympathetic people would drop over and help out. Conservapedia has sort of brought it on themselves by positioning themselves as a conservative counter to Wikipedia, but some of what they're doing is an interesting idea. The site has a sort of split personality, but part of it is supposed to be a learn-by-doing exercise for teenaged students--Christian homeschooled students, but that's beside the point. The idea is that by trying to write encyclopedia articles about the subjects they're studying, they'll learn about them. The other part is to be the conservative alternative to Wikipedia-- (yes, yes, I know, I don't think Wikipedia has a liberal bias, either)--and a platform for Andrew Schlafly, so mixed in with substubs about high-school topics are some fairly sophisticated legal articles... it's a crazy mix. I'd been reluctant to mention it here because I didn't want to attract vandals, but Conservapedia has been mentioned in some liberal blogs and Conservapedia in the last couple of days has become inundated by a flood of vandalism. This is a pity, because Andrew Schlafly, who is sort of the Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia, is for the most part civil, and open to intellectually honest changes to articles. Yes, he has some bees in his bonnet, and Wikipedia is one of them. He is not going to ever believe that the Wikipedia article on Conservapedia was deleted because of non-notability, not because of liberal bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/ Conservapedia But I've actually enjoyed working on a Wiki-based encyclopedia that is so undeveloped that I can easily improve and add articles. The current crop of vandals is pretty unpleasant. I have the feeling that here is a parochial school whose doors are open, and bullies from a nearby public school are coming in and writing obscenities on the blackboards and throwing books off the shelves. As I say, Conservapedia brought it on themselves by delusions of grandeur, but just because someone says their sandcastle is Washington Cathedral is no reason to kick it down. If anyone reading this is so hostile toward conservative Christian creationists as to be unable to keep a commitment to NPOV, please don't come and vandalize Conservapedia, they're getting all the vandalism they need. But I really think it would be nice if a few experienced Wikipedians would drop in, understanding that Conservapedia _is not Wikipedia_, --the same practices and policies don't automatically apply--and help ward off vandals and give this little project, which has its pleasant aspects, a boost.

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US 2008 presidential candidates - please keep an eye on these
by David Gerard 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

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Zero information is preferred to misleading or false
by lawrence harms 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

Dear Mr. Wales, In the reference "Old Catholic Church" there are listings of Old Catholic Churches in the United States. There is a Old Catholic Church called "The American Catholic Church in the United States" This Old Catholic Church is not listed with the rest of the listings. If you wish, you may want to view there website ACCUS.US The ACCUS website will direct you to individuals in places of authority within ACCUS. The Presiding Archbishop of ACCUS is Most Reverend Lawrence J. Harms, D. D. His e-mail address is presidingarchbishop(a)accus.us. Thank you for your consideration in reading this e-mail. The Clergy of ACCUS

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Rx Dosage Instructions in Wikipedia
by George Chriss 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:52:47 +1100 English Wikipedia wrote: On 2/19/07, George Chriss <GChriss(a)psu.edu> wrote: > Even with a general site disclaimer, the above information may be non-encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not a how-to guide, a doctor, a pharmacist, a drug I find it frustrating how often useful information is removed under the single principle of "Wikipedia is not a ...". Explaining how to use a coffee plunger? "Wikipedia is not a how-to..." - yes, but what surely an explanation is an essential part of the article. Links to articles that demonstrate the concept of [[One deal a day]]? "Wikipedia is not a repository of links". Mentioning the local tourist attractions and best restaurants of a small town? "Wikipedia is not a travel guide" - yes, but that's probably the most useful thing you could write about a small town. Is it time we replaced WP:NOT with "Wikipedia is not an encyclopaedia. It's unique, and it's just trying to be useful to people, dammit." Steve Hi, Wikibooks or Wikitravel would be good homes for the items mentioned above. Part of Wikipedia's appeal, at least to me, is that good authors are very picky about choosing relevant information that best illustrates an abstract subject. To borrow the example: I know that a pancake comes from a Bisquick box, but what if I want to know what a pancake **really** is? -George en: [[User:GChriss]]

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Britannica has a blog
by Keith Old 26 Feb '07

26 Feb '07

G'day folks, For those who are interested, the Encyclopedia Britannica now has a blog. http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/ Regards *Keith Old*

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FW: Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l subscription
by Simon Whydah 26 Feb '07

26 Feb '07

I am studying your problematic system. Why are you eager to hide all the contents of Unblock-en-l suddenly? Why "within one week"? >From: Luna <lunasantin(a)gmail.com> >Subject: Important notice -- please confirm your unblock-en-l subscription >Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:52:37 -0800 -------- Dear unblock-en-l subscriber, We've recently decided to establish some membership criteria for this mailing list, and are in the process of removing subscriptions which do not meet those criteria. In particular, we need to associate your email address with a particular Wikipedia account or identity. In order to do that, please click on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Emailuser/Prodego PLEASE use "unblock-en-l identification" as your subject heading, to allow faster processing of your email. Do not email the user directly -- you MUST use the Special:Emailuser feature, or your identity will not be confirmed. If you have not replied to this message within one week, your subscription will be cancelled. You can request to re-join the list at any time. We apologize for this inconvenience, but hope that you understand the need for privacy and security, given the sensitive personal information that is sometimes discussed on this mailing list. Thank you, -Luna -------- I don't believe it. Luna, Prodego, Mindspillage( Kat Walsh ) and/or essjay are abusing sockpuppets ? ALL ADMINs MUST make public and clear their identities in the first place. --Simon Whydah _________________________________________________________________ 懐かしネタと珍しネタ満載の「らいぶ寿司」 24時間無料大回転中 http://livesushi.jp/

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Fwd: [Wikitech-l] wikihow firefox toolbar
by David Gerard 26 Feb '07

26 Feb '07

Think this might be useful for us? I expect the numbers on en:wp would be frightening ;-) Possibly an adapted version for smaller Wikipedias? - d. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Travis Derouin <travis(a)wikihow.com> Date: 26-Feb-2007 21:49 Subject: [Wikitech-l] wikihow firefox toolbar To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Hey, I put together a firefox toolbar to help out our editors, if anyone is interested: http://www.wikihow.com/Use-the-wikiHow-Editor%27s-Toolbar It's pretty basic, but gives a notification when an unpatrolled edit has been made to a featured article and gives some stats on how many total unpatrolled edits there are and how many logged in users have edited in the past 30 minutes. A new talk page message indicator also lights up when you receive a new talk page message. So far the results have been promising, vandalism on featured articles has been short lived, and the backlog of unpatrolled edits has gone way down from consistently over 500 to less than 25 on average. I'm not sure if other wikis could benefit from this functionality or if a more general toolbar could be made out of it, but I thought I'd pass it along. Travis _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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Re: [WikiEN-l] OT: Scott McCloud. BitPass?
by wikipedia2006＠dpbsmith.com 26 Feb '07

26 Feb '07

Off-topic, but perhaps some might be interested. Scott McCloud, I knew that name rang a bell. What was going through my mind was some debate he had with Clay Shirky. Shirky said micropayments were doomed to failure (the mental energy deciding whether to spend $0.00138 costs more than the $0.00138) or The Wave Of The Future (Shirky's talking about crufty OLD micropayment systems, not spiffy modr'n NEW micropayment systems). My recollection was that he'd personally launched one such system himself with, IIRC, webcomic access for a tiny sum as the killer app. On a few Google clicks, I refreshed that recollection and find yes, it was called BitPass, it was started in 2003, the reasons why it will succeed are explained in "Misunderstanding Micropayments: BitPass, Shirky and The Good Idea that Refuses to Die," http://www.scottmccloud.com/home/essays/2003-09-micros/micros.html and my idle question, "So whatever happened?" is described at everyone's favorite reference site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitPass Apparently it just expired recently.

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WikiEN-l February 2007