WikiEN-l August 2009

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91 participants
191 discussions

"Wikipedia approaches its limits" - Technology Guardian
by Charles Matthews 20 Aug '09

20 Aug '09

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/12/wikipedia-deletionist-incl… Much familiar argument from threads here. Some of the usual suspects commenting, and everyone putting in their two cents. Somewhere in the middle is a debate struggling to get out: is the volume of reversions indicative of good gatekeeping (poor edits to popular and well-developed articles have little chance of sticking), or bad gatekeeping (established editors assert ownership)? Stats from 2007 and 2009 show a step-change of some sort, as we know, but don't really prove that there is a current trend (we could be going sideways). Charles

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary
by WJhonson＠aol.com 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

It's a question of the amount of coverage we want to give to fiction details. Let's say we have an article on Superman, and also on each of the various Superman comic runs that have appeared in the past 50 years. Now make an article on *each* comic issue, and then in that article describe the plot, characters, moral, date, number of issues, etc. *Now* for each character make an article for them, describing each issue they were in, with the plot details, and link them all together. You'd have something like three to twenty thousand articles on Superman. Many people would see that as overwhelming in scope and most relevant for a specialist work. Will Johnson In a message dated 8/18/2009 8:56:15 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, Cathy.Edwards(a)bbc.co.uk writes: I think I have a good idea why BLP are a hot topic of debate in this area, but why do you think fiction is contentious - because it's in danger of unbalancing the encyclopedia?

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Annoying hatnotes
by WJhonson＠aol.com 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

So you repeat what I say and then say you're not repeating what I said, and then repeat it.... There's an issue here that you're arguing against your very own position. I'm not sure you are understanding what I said. W.J.

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ReadWriteWeb review of official iPhone app for en.wp
by Nathan 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/08/18/18readwriteweb-wiki… <http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/08/18/18readwriteweb-wiki…>Not a terribly positive review; essentially argues that the official app is less useful than the unofficial alternatives. Nathan -- Your donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [WikiEN-l] IRC Group Contacts Surgery, August 2009
by WJhonson＠aol.com 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

Yes I'm reminded of that lack of accountability in this exchange: A: Why did you, as an admin, do action X within Wikipedia? B: Well I asked on IRC and they told me to do it A: Who told you to do it B: I can't remember but I'm sure it was someone who thought I should do it. A: So you yourself have no reason to, as an admin, do the action you did? B: Yes I asked on IRC. This is a true story. Which is why IRC should be shut down. There is no accountability, and no transparency. And yet things which pass on it, are then imposed in-project with no back-trail. Will Johnson In a message dated 8/2/2009 11:43:01 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, saintonge(a)telus.net writes: Jay Litwyn wrote: > One reason they are not publicly archived is so that discussions are not > driven into DCC for want of not being held to word, quoted, or caught > displaying a degree of ignorance or a prominent prejudice that you actually > want to be argued out of. It can be live and off the cuff remarks, perhaps > even admissions about personal and otherwise private life. There really is > no telling how your logs will date. I remember one time when it was newsfeed > about war in Tibet, then noise about magnetic levitation. I find IRC tiring > to read and follow when it gets active, then boring when it slows down. Then > there was that ad for carbonated black piss. The trick is to make the logs > yourself in whatever group you want, and pretty much keep it to yourself. > > I prefer having nothing to do with IRC, but I am often left with the impression that its participants come to some agreements which they treat as decisive elsewhere. That subverts acountaability. Ec _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1222846709x1201493018/aol?redir=htt… =JulystepsfooterNO115)

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Knol goes from a Wikipedia rival to a Craigslist imitator
by Keith Old 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

G'day folks, >From TechCrunch http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/poor-google-knol-has-gone-from-a-wikip… We’ve known for a while that Google’s Knol <http://knol.google.com/> is no Wikipedia killer<http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/25/why-google-knol-is-no-wikipedia/>, but now the knowledge-sharing site is being reduced to a sad Craigslist wannabe. The original idea<http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/23/googles-knol-the-monetizable-wikipedia/> behind Knol was that people could collaboratively write definitive articles about any topic they like and get rewarded by earning a share of the AdSense revenues for each page they author. Well, that model doesn’t work so well if nobody bothers to read the articles on Knol no matter how much search karma Google gives them. Quantcast estimates<http://www.quantcast.com/knol.google.com> that only 174,000 people visited the site in the past month. So what do you do if your Knol page isn’t throwing up enough AdSense pennies to make it worth your while? You try to sell a pair of stereo speakers directly to the few lost souls who somehow end up at Knol. Will Johnson, a self-described “professional genealogist and biographer,” decided to share his Knol-edge of a pair of “Bose 2.2 direct reflecting bookshelf speakers for sale”<http://knol.google.com/k/will-johnson/bose-22-direct-reflecting-bookshelf/4…>—his own (only $70). In fact, he started his own Knol Marketplace<http://knol.google.com/k/will-johnson/my-knol-marketplace/4hmquk6fx4gu/267#> and bookstore<http://knol.google.com/k/will-johnson/wjhonsons-bookstore/4hmquk6fx4gu/268#> . More in story. Regards *Keith*

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Indywiki, a visual browser for Wikipedia
by David Gerard 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

http://linuxpoison.blogspot.com/2009/08/visual-browser-for-wikipedia-indywi… It's written in Python, works well on Linux. There's a Windows version I haven't tried. It shows the first coupla paragraphs of an article, with pictures. Don't look up "goatse". - d.

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Election Results
by Philippe Beaudette 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

The Wikimedia Foundation's Board Election Committee has concluded the board selection process, and is pleased to announce that the candidates ranked as follows: Final ranking 1 Ting Chen (Wing) 2 Kat Walsh (mindspillage) 3 Samuel Klein (Sj) 4 Gerard Meijssen (GerardM) 5 Domas Mituzas (Midom) 6 Thomas Braun (Redlinux) 7 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (Cimon Avaro) 8 Steve Smith (Sarcasticidealist) 9 Dan Rosenthal (Swatjester) 10 José Gustavo Góngora (Góngora) 11 Brady Brim-DeForest (Bradybd) 12 Lourie Pieterse (LouriePieterse) 13 Adam Koenigsberg (CastAStone) 14 Ralph Potdevin (Aruspice) 15 Beauford Anton Stenberg (B9 hummingbird hovering) 16 Gregory Kohs (Thekohser) 17 Kevin Riley O'Keeffe (KevinOKeeffe) 18 Relly Komaruzaman (Relly Komaruzaman) A full pairwise defeats table will be posted shortly. These names have been respectfully submitted to the Board, which has moved to seat the top three candidates. The Committee wishes to thank all those who submitted themselves as candidates. It was a broad and diverse field this year. We also wish to recognize the many volunteers that helped with this process. The committee extends its gratitude and thanks to them For the committee, Philippe

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Alphascript Publishing: 1900+ copy&pasted books from Wikipedia
by Renata St 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

It was raised before on the Village Pump, but I think this is so disturbing that we ought to do something. "Alphascript Publishing" has published over 1900 (and counting) books, all available on Amazon. Prices range from $31 to $179. All of these books are simple computer-generated copies from Wikipedia and (at least according to one Amazon reviewer) couple other public domain websites. Trouble is, from book description page there is absolutely no way of knowing that the book is a Wikipedia mirror on paper. At least several Amazon buyers have been fooled. What really gets my blood boiling is that Amazon user "VDM Verlag Dr.Müller" (I think someone exposed him as 100% shareholder of the publishing co) goes on rating these products as "five star".... The publisher seems to observe the copyright (even includes full edit history) so legal action seems impossible. Someone already contacted Amazon, but they "are not responsible for the quality of books sold". In the meantime the number of such books grew from 900 in June to almost 2000 as of today... I think we should do something. At the very least publishing product reviews warning that what this is.... See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_Publishing_sells_… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive… http://rufftoon.livejournal.com/59337.html Thanks, Renata P.S. on a happier note: half of Wikipedia editors now can claim to be "published authors".

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Report a Problem hack
by Erik Moeller 19 Aug '09

19 Aug '09

The Polish Wikipedia has hacked together a neat little pop-up tool for reporting errors in articles. To see it, go to http://pl.wikipedia.org/ click around, and follow the "Zgłoś błąd" link in the sidebar. If you click the middle button, it gives you a form that you can use to report an error with the page you're looking at. That report will then be appended to a problem reports page. It clearly requires a lot of maintenance of said error reports page to pull something like this off, but perhaps it would be worth trying out for a while? -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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WikiEN-l August 2009