WikiEN-l June 2010

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

51 participants
51 discussions

Flagged protection/Pending changes trial - remaining issues and work
by Cenarium sysop 09 Jun '10

09 Jun '10

Input would be appreciated on-wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Flagged_revisio…. There are still a few issues to resolve, undecided points and various work to be done. It's certainly not enough to delay the implementation, but we need some more help, for example in finalizing documentation pages. Thanks to all for making this possible.

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More Murdochry
by Charles Matthews 07 Jun '10

07 Jun '10

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/07/james-murdoch-british-library James Murdoch criticises the British Library's plans to digitise old newspapers. And I quote: "public sector interest is to distribute content for near zero cost – harming the market in so doing ..." I think the WMF should be getting a hearing in this debate. Every page of free content we post does clearly remove someone else's chance to profit from selling that content. I want to hear the argument that the Murdoch line is nothing better than an attempt to justify "enclosing the commons" simply because someone can then profit. You have to look at whose land it was in the first place, not whether the result can be monetised. Charles

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Signed Wikipedia T-shirts for auction on eBay
by Philippe Beaudette 07 Jun '10

07 Jun '10

The page for them makes it fairly clear that this is, in fact, the free travel shirt. pb On Jun 7, 2010, at 5:22 AM, wikien-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote: > I think this is the "Free Travel-Shirt" > <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_Travel-Shirt>, but I'm not > completely sure. > > --

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Signed Wikipedia T-shirts for auction on eBay
by David Gerard 06 Jun '10

06 Jun '10

Signed by assorted luminaries around the world. Proceeds to WMF. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110542897329 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110542880973 - d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] About tl;dr
by Abd ul-Rahman Lomax 04 Jun '10

04 Jun '10

At 05:06 PM 6/3/2010, AGK wrote: >On 3 June 2010 22:01, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Not saying this to try to prod him into stop posting here, but as a >genuine statement: I happen to enjoy Abd's commentary /when I have the >time to read it/. I'd happily read his blog regularly (especially if, >as I suggested, he linked to it in his WikiEN-l posts where relevant). Okay, alright already, now I have to do it. Thanks. Busy right now, but coming soon.... I've been asked to do this for something like fifteen years.... (not necessarily a blog, at first, but perhaps a mailing list.)

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Three cheers for Wikipedia's cancer info (or two and a half)
by Keith Old 04 Jun '10

04 Jun '10

Folks, The LA Times health blog Booster Shots reports: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/06/three-cheers-for-wiki… As it turns out, information on Wikipedia can largely be trusted, at least as it pertains to cancer. That should be a relief both to patients and to the doctors who care for them. The entries in the user-edited online encyclopedia often show up high atop search-engine results, and many users likely have taken their content at face value. But that content's reliability has been in doubt. After all, it's created by users, not traditional "experts." ("Don't use Wikipedia," earnest eighth-graders in search of homework help are told.) Now researchers at Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have done their own analysis of that content, comparing Wikipedia information on 10 types of cancer to information found in the National Cancer Institute's Physician Data Query. The entries were solid, the researchers found, at least in terms of key points. Way to go, online writers and editors! But they were also quite dense. Tsk -- points subtracted due to lack of clarity, online writers and editors. The researchers write in their study's abstract, to be presented at the current annual meeting of theAmerican Society of Clinical Oncology<http://chicago2010.asco.org/>: "Although the Wiki resource had similar accuracy and depth to the professionally edited database, it was significantly less readable. Further research is required to assess how this influences patients' understanding and retention." Here's the abstract of the Wikipedia analysis<http://abstract.asco.org/AbstView_74_41625.html>; one of the researcher's comments<http://www.jeffersonhospital.org/News/2010-june-cancer-information.aspx>, as presented in the university's news release; and the aforementioned Physician Data Query <http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq>, a peer-reviewed cancer database. Surely, no one needs help finding Wikipedia. But here's how it's created<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About>, worth reading now more than ever. http://abstract.asco.org/AbstView_74_41625.html The abstract of the analysis is here: Regards *Keith* -- Keith Old 62050121 (w) 62825360 (h) 0429478376 (m)

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Pending Changes (nee Flagged Protection) update for June 3
by William Pietri 03 Jun '10

03 Jun '10

As requested, here's the weekly Pending Changes update. The big news is that we have picked a date for releasing the new version of Flagged Revisions and launching the trial of Pending Changes on the English Wikipedia: June 14. I'd like to stress that this will be a trial. The goal is to learn, which means that things will not be perfect at launch. There are many areas where we hope to verify our current work and see what improvements can be made: * the technical underpinnings * the interface and language as experienced by * our readers * casual editors * serious editors * reviewers * admins * which articles should be covered * how best to use Pending Changes We think we have something that is workable as is, and have notions for possible improvements down the road. To know what improvements are the right ones, we'll need real use and community feedback. We intend to respond speedily to community concerns and lessons learned from actual use. To that end we aim to keep to the same weekly release schedule that we've been using on labs these last few months. More mundanely, the work completed this week includes ops documentation, the completion of the terminology work, and some interface improvements. We've also had some vigorous testing done by the folks at Calcey, who discovered a few bugs for us. If you'd like to see the current condition of things, you can try it out here: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page To see the upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog: http://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/46157 We expect to release to labs again next week, after which we intend to go live on the English Wikipedia. William

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Re: [WikiEN-l] About tl;dr
by David Gerard 03 Jun '10

03 Jun '10

On 3 June 2010 16:48, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd(a)lomaxdesign.com> wrote: > Underneath all this is a presumption that I have time to write more > condensed material. I don't, generally. When I do have the time, and > have a point to make, i.e., some message I consider necessary to > communicate effectively to a broad audience, I do it. So you'd rather waste lots of other people's time than spend your own on your presumably important messages? Suggestion (not directive): If you're really not writing stuff to be read right now, a blog would be a better place for it. Also, more people would take the time to read it - Wikimedia-focused opinion blogs get a lot of attention. A precis here and a link would be fine. - d.

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Re: [WikiEN-l] About tl;dr
by Amory Meltzer 03 Jun '10

03 Jun '10

If everyone spent all day at their computers, and read each email individually as they came in, that would be fine - each one is okay by itself. But people work, and people eat, sleep, and do many other things that prevent them from waiting for a mailing list. I may care about the issue, but reading emails on just one topic (a topic that, in spite of all of its merit, really can't compare to whether or not I put mozzarella or cheddar on my burger) becomes a lot less likely when it requires a lot of work to read them. ~A On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:48, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd(a)lomaxdesign.com> wrote: > At 11:28 AM 6/3/2010, Steve Summit wrote: >>It doesn't matter how you justify a too-long screed; if its >>length prevents people from reading it (and it will), your >>message is lost. It's as simple as that. > > Problems with this concept: > > Length will not prevent all from reading it. Rather, those will read > it who are interested. Others won't. The message is not lost, it's in > the archive, and, in any case, I know for a fact that some read the > long posts, and appreciate them. Some comment on list, a few. Others > take the trouble of thanking me by email. So, you can blame them! > > "Screed" implies an emotional state on the part of the writer. It's a > snap judgment, if you don't read the piece. And this is one of the > "assumptions" I wrote about that can interfere with understanding. > > Basically, length will indeed prevent some from reading, but these > are not my target audience, except for a few. (I.e., there are some > who don't read simply because they don't have time.) > > Underneath all this is a presumption that I have time to write more > condensed material. I don't, generally. When I do have the time, and > have a point to make, i.e., some message I consider necessary to > communicate effectively to a broad audience, I do it. > > So, practically speaking, the choice is between writing what I write, > or not writing at all, not between writing longer or shorter pieces. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 >

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Re: [WikiEN-l] About tl;dr
by scs＠eskimo.com 03 Jun '10

03 Jun '10

Abd wrote: > [400+ words that I didn't read all of and so won't bother to quote] As a grave sufferer of logorrhea myself, it's tempting to write several hundred words here myself, but I'll settle for fifty. It doesn't matter how you justify a too-long screed; if its length prevents people from reading it (and it will), your message is lost. It's as simple as that.

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WikiEN-l June 2010