Wondering how difficult to write a template (or templates) to deal with the
future tense / past event problem.
I imagine that its not too difficult for someone who knows what they are
doing, and simply involves writing a conditional switch template that shows
one text until a certain date, upon which it shows another.
"The re-imagined Sledge Hammer! {{dateswitch|will premeire|premeired|on
June 19th, 2009|in mid-June}}, starring Paul
Reubens as the titular character, and Abe Vigoda as his sidekick, Abe."
Naturally the "dateswitch" template takes the two values and by some genious
of technology hides the one and shows the other, switching them on the
stated date. I added the "in mid-June" just to indicate the possibility that
the date itself might not be desired visible text, but I'm not clear about
how words like "on" would affect the parsing of a timestamp.
The uncertainty of stating something "will" or "is due to" doesn't seem to
be as big an issue as the past-tense problem.
-SV
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2009/05/18/090518po_poem_frazier
"And so, at last, I am turning forty,
In just a couple of days.
The big four-oh.
Yes, that is soon to be my age.
(And not fifty-eight. No way. That Wikipedia is a bunch of liars.)
Nope, not any other age, just forty.
What other age could someone born in 1969 (and not 1951)
Possibly be?
(And please do not listen to my ex-wife, that sad, bitter woman in her
late fifties.)
What does it feel like, old bones?
Yes, I have lost a step or two in the hundred-metre dash.
I accept these changes.
But if a guy says in a published poem that he is forty,
As I am doing here,
It’s obvious that must be the age that he is,
Officially."
--
gwern
The Wikipedia Usability Initiative has extended the application deadline
for the Software Developer position till May 30th. We are recruiting
two candidates for this position. Both local applicants to the San
Francisco Bay Area and remote applicants are encouraged to apply.
Please help spread the word.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Software_Developer_(projec…
Naoko Komura
Program Manager
Wikipedia Usability Initiative
Wikimedia Foundation
-----
Job Title
Software Developer
Employment Duration
June 1, 2009 to April 16, 2010
About the Wikipedia Usability Initiative
The Wikipedia Usability Initiative was realized by a grant from the
U.S.-based Stanton Foundation. The goal of this initiative is to
measurably increase the usability of Wikipedia for new contributors by
improving the underlying software on the basis of user behavioral
studies, thereby reducing barriers to public participation. This
position is part of the program team for the initiative.
For more information, please see the press release.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikipedia_to_become_more…
Job Purpose
The core responsibility of this position is to design, develop, test and
deploy new features and improvements of the MediaWiki software for the
the Wikipedia usability initiative by working closely with the
interaction designer and peer developers of MediaWiki.
Reports to
Program Manager
Job Summary
*Propose software design solutions and obtain consensus from senior and
peer tech teams
*Create implementation prototypes based on design concepts
*Develop, test, and deploy new features and improvements to the
MediaWiki core and to MediaWiki extensions
*Collaborate in designing and implementing QA processes including
multi-lingual and performance tests
*Work closely with operations staff to ensure proper integration with
testing and production systems
Required Qualifications
*Computer Science degree or equivalent work experience
*5+ years experience as a software developer is required
*Experience with PHP development is required
*Extensive experience with AJAX/HTML/CSS is required
*Experience with cross-browser compatibility testing is required
*Experience with security implications of JavaScript/PHP software is
required
*Experience with LAMP is a major plus
*Experience with testing and analyzing usability and accessibility is a
major plus
*Experience with MediaWiki is a major plus
*An understanding of internationalizing and localizing software products
a major plus
*Any other free/open software development experience highly welcome
*Comfortable in a highly collaborative, consensus-oriented environment
*Experience with wikis and participatory production environments is a plus
*Understanding of the free culture movement is a plus
*The ideal candidate will be creative, highly motivated, and able to
operate effectively in multiple cultural and language contexts
Salary
The salary is in the range of $75,000 to $85,000 plus benefits,
commensurate with experience.
This position will be filled in June 2009. Due to the volume of
responses that we anticipate we will not reply to all applications, so
please do not interpret our silence as a lack of interest.
Based in San Francisco, CA., but remote candidates will be considered.
--
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Michael Peel" <email(a)mikepeel.net>
Sent: Sunday, 10 May, 2009 17:30:42 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
Subject: Re: FYI
Added at 14.13 on 30 March by an anon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Maurice_Jarre&diff=next&oldid=280648942
Removed 24 hours later, at 15.07 on 31 March, as it was unsourced:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Maurice_Jarre&diff=next&oldid=280865419
Journalists should really check their sources... It's unfortunate
that they believe unreferenced things on Wikipedia.
Mike
On 7 May 2009, at 17:47, Virgin, Steve wrote:
> Irish student's Wikipedia hoax dupes newspapers
> 13 hours ago
>
> http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/
> ALeqM5gQV2LU_QhL5w_BcPY5B6pvuUUMGg
>
>
>
> DUBLIN (AFP) — An Irish student's fake quote on the Wikipedia
> online encyclopaedia has been used in newspaper obituaries around
> the world, the Irish Times reported.
>
> The quote was attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre who died
> in March.
>
> Shane Fitzgerald, 22, a final-year student studying sociology and
> economics at University College Dublin, told the newspaper he
> placed the quote on the website as an experiment when doing
> research on globalisation.
>
> He quoted Oscar-winning composer Jarre as saying, "One could say my
> life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music
> brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long
> after I leave this life.
>
> "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that
> only I can hear."
>
> The quote was posted on Wikipedia shortly after Jarre's death and
> later appeared in obituaries in major British, Indian and
> Australian newspapers.
>
> Fitzgerald told the newspaper he picked Wikipedia because it was
> something a lot of journalists look at and it can be edited by anyone.
>
> While he was wary about the ethical implications of using someone's
> death as a social experiment, he had carefully generated the quote
> so as not to distort or taint Jarre's life, he said.
>
> Fitzgerald said he was shocked by the result of his experiment.
>
> "I didn't expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs
> and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised
> about," he said.
>
> He said the hoax remained undiscovered for weeks until he e-mailed
> the newspapers that had been deceived to tell them that they had
> published an inaccurate quote.
>
> The Irish Times said that despite some newspapers removing the
> quote from their websites or carrying a correction and the fact
> that it had been dropped by Wikipedia, it remained intact on dozens
> of blogs, websites and newspapers.
>
>
>
> Steve Virgin
> Media Consultant
> Dow Jones Insight
> Commodity Quay, East Smithfield, London E1W 1AZ.
>
> Tel: +44 (0) 203 217 5281/+44 (0) 117 965 4041
> Mob: +44 (0)7795 031 935/07766 227 352
> Fax: +44 (0) 203 217 5232
> steve.virgin(a)dowjones.com
> <image001.gif>
> Dow Jones Factiva - Winner of the 2007 Software and Information
> Industry Association Codie Award for Best Content Aggregation Service
> Dow Jones SalesWorks - Winner of the 2007 Software and Information
> Industry Association Codie Award for Best Online Business Service
> Dow Jones Newswires - Winner of the 2007 Inside Market Data Award
> for Best News Provider
>
> Factiva is the number one provider of News and Business information
> to organizations worldwide, delivering essential content via
> products and services to help you make better decisions, faster
>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Cary Bass <cary(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: 2009/5/12
Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia's Ireland email list
To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Hey all,
In case anyone was subscribed here from across the Irish Sea, or have
any interest in Wikimedia events and happenings in Ireland; we have
started a mailing list for Wikimedians in Ireland.
The intent of the list is to coordinate Ireland related activities, such
as meetups, organizational efforts (such as Museum or National Archive
partnerships) and anything else. The list is open to anyone living in
Ireland or interested in activities in Ireland. Subscription is
available at <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaie>.
Cary Bass
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikipedia editors: Coverage of Israel 'problematic'
*******************************************************************************
>Wikipedia's coverage of Israel-related issues is "problematic," leading
>Israeli internet researchers claimed Sunday at the Wikipedia Academy 2009
>Conference dealing with the world's largest encyclopedia. The conference was
>organized by Wikimedia's volunteer-based Israel chapter and Tel Aviv
>University's Netvision Institute for Internet Studies. However, the Web site's
>leading manager said it merely reflected public discourse.
*******************************************************************************
Full Article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082777.html
ok, I did a search and came up with this from April last year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/desysop_poll
45/40/11 s/o/n
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Turvey" <andrewrturvey(a)googlemail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, 11 May, 2009 23:45:27 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] someone after non-active admin accounts
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Dalton" <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>
> Desysopping inactive admins has been discussed and rejected 1000s of
> times.
{{citationneeded}}
Please?
It's time that I pipe up on this.
Under the subject header, Re: [WikiEN-l] Neutrality enforcement: a proposal
At 06:30 PM 5/8/2009, Sam Korn wrote:
>On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 11:24 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>[...] Even though a core of opinionated-though-neutral editors
> > accumulates, there's an eternal stream of people who don't know and
> > don't care about NPOV or Wikipedia principles in general - as far as
> > they're concerned, someone is being WRONG on the Internet.
>
>Indeed. The solution to Israel-Palestine disputes on Wikipedia is
>that there be some lasting resolution to the meatspace
>Israel-Palestine conflict. Sadly, I think that is beyond the
>capabilities of even our esteemed Arbitration Committee.
Actually, no, though it's the community that can help, and the
Committee can only have some influence. There is no way for the
Committee, as far as I can see, to enforce what is needed, but it
could recognize it and encourage it and discriminate between
disruption that maintains lack of consensus and disruption that
increases consensus.
The key to understanding this is, first of all, that NPOV isn't a
thing, a fixed state, a property of text in itself, it is a balance
that represents consensus.
We can measure NPOV by the percentage of editors who agree with a
text, and our goal should always be 100%. While we may, in
controversial areas, never be able to reach 100%, we should always
maintain some level of skepticism that text is truly neutral if there
is even a single dissent from a responsible editor. We may have
overlooked something, and, if that editor can find *any* support from
other responsible editors, we should, as a community (which may
require only one of us initially), examine the reasons for dissent
and see if it is possible to address them and either convince the
dissenting editors to support the text or, if we become convinced
that the text can be improved to broaden consensus, implement that change.
I have written a draft essay that examines this, and a process that
could be followed, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Abd/NPOV_and_how_to_find_it
Comments, here or on the essay Talk page are invited. The draft at
this point is written from a personal POV, but my intention is to
edit that out and to leave a citation behind to the original essay
from history, so edits to the essay to improve it and make it general
and not personal are also invited. TIA.
At 01:57 PM 5/10/2009, Sam Korn wrote:
>On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>
>I meant that resolving the meatspace Israel-Palestine conflict is
>beyond the capabilities of the Committee.
Certainly. But if Wikipedia potential were realized, though being
*better and more efficient* at following the core policies, it is not
impossible that it would contribute to a real life resolution. Part
(not all) of the RL problem is a lack of knowledge by each side of
the reality of the other side and the reality of the historical
situation. Knowledge helps real life.
Or else why is this whole project important? MMPORG?
> > The key to understanding this is, first of all, that NPOV isn't a
> > thing, a fixed state, a property of text in itself, it is a balance
> > that represents consensus.
>
>No. NPOV is not determined by consensus. Wikipedia's content is
>determined by consensus with NPOV being the guiding principle.
>Something does not become more neutral because fifteen Wikipedia
>editors say it's neutral.
Sam's opinion is common, and quite incorrect. What's missed in his
understanding is how NPOV is determined, both as Wikipedia policy,
but in real life. We did not invent NPOV.
Sure, NPOV is a guiding principle, but how do we recognize it? If we
have a POV, we may be unable to recognize this POV as not neutral. If
a POV is a mere majority POV, we may easily think that it's neutral,
and the only way to recognize it is not is to pay attention to those
who object. We can't always do that with every POV, we'd be doing
nothing but examining the foundations of our beliefs, and we do need
to take time for ordinary maintenance of the project, editing
articles, and even eating and working and sleeping, though those are
of lesser importance, right?
Something does not become more neutral because every single person on
the planet signs on. However, if everyone does, it makes it pretty
likely that it's neutral, don't you think? If everyone signs on, not
only to the truth of the statement, but to a conclusion that the
statement is neutral, that would pretty much seal it as well as it
could ever be sealed, don't you agree?
> > We can measure NPOV by the percentage of editors who agree with a
> > text, and our goal should always be 100%.
>
>No. The mere fact that no-one complains that their point of view is
>under-represented does not mean that it isn't.
Of course not. Especially if we've blocked everyone who dared. Sam
isn't using what is called "charity of interpretation" in works on
the philosophy of science, i.e., that claims are read
sympathetically, to see what's right with them, not to imagine what
is wrong and then object to the imagination. Suppose the "agreement"
I posited is simply "agreement that the text is neutral and in
conformance with policy." Would this change the response?
And, remember, I'm not proposing absolute truth, but only what we
will sensibly rely upon as true. If nobody thinks that a text is POV,
should we still treat it as such? What's the alternative?
What I'm proposing is an *objective* standard for NPOV that treats it
as a goal to be approached, even if it is never reached. That is,
instead of insisting that project text be neutral, which may be
difficult or impossible in matters where there is any controversy, we
insist that it approach neutrality as closely as possible, with
"neutrality" being defined by the relative lack of objection. If we
take steps to ensure that there is knowledgeable participation in
this determination, we make it even more secure. We won't reach 100%
in controversial matters for two reasons: the existence of unresolved
but possibly legitimate controversy over the text, which may take
time to complete (sometimes a lot of time), or the existence of
editors who are firmly attached and unable to identify neutral text
when they see it, they will not even consider it, since they may
dislike obvious conclusions. (This often happens because the real
dispute is elsewhere, not actually with the subject of the text
itself, the text is merely a pawn in a different game.)
>It is no more possible to create neutrality by public vote than it is
>[[wikiality|to create reality by public vote]].
Did anyone suggest voting here? Note that consensus can *seem* to be
like voting, but it is fundamentally different. We can know that
consensus is not reached from a single dissenting comment. And if
half the registered editors of Wikipedia were to vote, setting aside
the damage to the servers, we would not know that we had reached
absolute consensus. (Though it would be likely, that's a big sample!)
I wasn't suggesting *at all* that neutrality was created by !voting.
Rather, polling is a tool that can be used to estimate the degree of
consensus, sometimes, which can save a lot of work. Suppose that we
have an editor arguing some piece of text. Other editors waste a lot
of time debating with this person. Then someone gets the idea to ask
if *anyone* supports the editor's position, other than the editor.
Nobody responds. Until someone responds, don't you think that this
"vote," in which no vote was cast, would effectively resolve the
issue pending? And if we did this, we would be following standard
deliberative procedure: no motion is debated unless seconded.
Organizations routinely dispose of unsupported motions in less time
than it takes to state the motion. The chair asks, "Is there a
second," looks around the room, and then says, "Motion fails for lack
of a second," which is a non-prejudicial close with maximal
efficiency. Proposals may be *discussed* in "committee," or other
informal session, or privately, but participation in that discussion
is not binding or obligatory. So if Mr. Dedicated Fringe wants to
discuss a proposed edit with anyone who consents, that's fine, but
the lack of negative response does not indicate a consensus for the
proposal, it indicates nothing except that, perhaps, N editors, or
maybe a majority of those participating, which may be biased toward
the Fringe contingent, support the proposal. When the edit is
actually made to the article, and another editor who did not
participate reverts it, we cannot claim that the revert is "against
consensus," because a simple discussion doesn't establish consensus,
nor does a single poll. True consensus is shown to be absent by the
single revert! But, ultimately, we'd want to see at least one other
editor agree with the revert, or, indeed, we may easily consider that
it's "against consensus," depending on the level of support.
Consensus is found through *negotiation*, not by !voting. Polling is
merely a tool that can sometimes make negotiation more efficient. In
RL organizations with control over property, majority rule allows
decisions to be made, short-term, quickly and efficiently, but if any
organization cares about unity (and for ultimate survival, they
better), they will not be content with mere majority for any decision
of weight. For this reason, Robert's Rules requires a two-thirds
majority to close debate on a motion. With more sophisticated
deliberative systems, it's practical to go much higher than
two-thirds and, in fact, to reach a level where debate isn't truly
closed until there remain less than two editors willing to debate.
(But actions are based on "rough consensus," we don't have to wait
for full consensus to act, we merely consider that consensus may
change, and we leave open paths for that to happen without
disruption.) Wikipedia is actually there, it can be done now, but
because we haven't recognized all this formally, it usually isn't
done. The rest of the editors could ignore a debate, and say to the
two editors involved, effectively, "Let us know if you come to an
agreement, meanwhile, we have Other Stuff to do."
>I'm afraid the proposal will work to the advantage of one side of the
>dispute, to the detriment of the other. One side is generally well
>educated and familiar with looking at both sides of an issue; the other
>is not, with no meaningful access to either education or sophisticated
>cultural memes.
To put it bluntly, this sounds like "the side I like doesn't win when we're
being neutral".
Sometimes being genuinely neutral will have the effect of helping one side
much more than the other. For instance, if evolutionists and creationists
try to be neutral the resulting article will be much more supportive of
evolution than creation--not for any sinister reason, but simply because
*evolutionists have good sources and creationists don't*. A policy which
requires good sources will favor the side which has the good sources.
If you go into a creation/evolution dispute saying "isn't it unfair that the
evolutionists are well-educated and sophisticated, and can easily find
sources, while the creationists can't?" you're badly misunderstanding what's
going on. It's true that the creationists are less educated, and may have
some trouble editing to Wikipedia standards because of that, but the main
reason they can't edit well is that the sides don't have equal merit to them,
and the side with less merit is going to have more trouble editing.
This is true of ethnic disputes as well as creationists.