On 17 January 2011 00:50, wiki <doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I don't think it helps to characterise any simple questioning of the leader
> as a "deranged vendetta".
Correction: Jimmy is our founder, he is not our leader. We don't have a leader.
On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 11:50 AM, wiki <doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I don't think it helps to characterise any simple questioning of the leader
> as a "deranged vendetta".
I thought Tony was merely engaging in some gentle self-criticism.
--
Peter in Canberra
On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 8:10 PM, wiki <doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Wikipedia becomes more like religion every day.
With a God-King in a cloud realm and the occasional crucifixion. Not
to mention passing the plate on a regular basis.
I think it is important that we don't develop the same sort of
hierarchy and mentality of the established faiths. After all, they
have a successful business model, with holy writ handed down from on
high. Wikipedia began by reversing the flow, and I think that for the
internet age, we've got a grand tradition, where anyone can jump in
and add their two bits.
Jesus said "Blessed are the meek," and here we are, where the masses
have handcrafted a grand cathedral of knowledge.
In the Beginning God said, "Hello World!".
One person likes this.
--
Peter in Canberra
Of all the dozens of articles about Wikipedia's tenth anniversary, I
enjoyed this one at Wired.
I thought I knew Wikipedia quite well but several of the following
weird facts are new to me. Some of them may even be untrue, but most
seem plausible.
http://wired.com/epicenter/2011/01/ten-facts-about-wikipedia/
'So Jimmy's claim that the first edit was "Hello world!" isn't to be
taken literally?'
I don't see why not. It's far from unusual for a tech-savvy user to
type that phrase into a document as a first test. I would be surprised
if anyone expressed a good reason to doubt it.
I've seen both Wales and Gardner (e.g., [1]) note that Wikipedia began with Wales typing in "Hello World".
[1]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/12/wikipedia-in…
That's a neat historical fact, but is there a source? From the Starling archive it appears the first contribution was from office.bomis.com at Mon, 15 Jan 2001 19:27:13 +0000 .
[[
HomePage|979586833
1c1
< Describe the new page here.
---
> This is the new WikiPedia!
]]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12171977
"Wikipedia is too complicated for many people to modify despite billing
itself as "the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit", its founder has
said."
--
Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine
‘I clicked on “Edit” and I wrote “Hello World” and that was the beginning.’
That's a great soundbite. I know it's just a standard term used in
testing a new program, but I prefer to take Hello world as the motto
of Wikipedia.
Everything we know about the world, presented in a form the entire
world can read and extend. It's an Incredibly ambitious project--ten
years ago it was plainly nuts. But look how far we've come towards
that goal!
Hello world!
This ten year appraisal written by Drake Bennett for Business Week
also features wiki-style collaborative editing by a small number of
invited external contributors. It's not perfect but overall I think it
does a good job.
There are some obvious errors which will be obvious to us all and may
mislead readers less familiar with the inner politics. For instance
the response to the Siegenthaler affair includes Jimmy Wales' decision
to stop anonymous creation of new articles (correct but out of date as
it was a temporary measure) but doesn't seem to cover the much more
important policy shift.
The article overall is however somewhat more positive about Wikipedia
than I would have expected as recently as last year. The press and
blog response to the recent fundraiser was also overwhelmingly
positive. I think we've finally broken the barrier and acquired an
exulted status hitherto shared only by such institutions as the BBC
and the NHS.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_03/b4211057979684.htm