David, thanks for the thoughtful evaluation and creating the meta page. Glad to see comcom addressing these things with rapid speed in helping to flesh out the specifics of these initiatives.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
On 8/30/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 30/08/06, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
Does this make the 5 minute cut? :)
I sent it to a couple of places just now, including Bill Thompson (BBC) who sent a very nice reply. So not quite ;-)
I've put it on Meta. Please hack away at will, and move somewhere better if sensible:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2006_proposed_approval_for_anonymous_edits(that's a terrible article name. You can tell I've been writing on the work wiki too much. Even if it is MoinMoin.)
I think the premise of the FAQ is off in its current form. I am worried by the "we" part, meaning the mythical monolithic Wikipedia community. (ie. Why not make this an opportunity to show that Wikipedias have their distinct culture and are at different stages of development?)
In this case because it was an immediate response to the Bill Thompson and Platinax articles. I was trying very hard to keep it *really simple* and clear because journalists don't have time to read press releases closely - they have to be able to get your message by skimming.
There's huge piles of detail I left out ...
I think the announcement should make clear:
- There has always been a desire for a better reader experience
- The larger Wikipedia communities have turned their attention from
growth to quality
yep, these are important.
- The German Wikipedia has initiated an experiment with a
"nonvandalized" and "checked" versions (nb: terminology may need to be tweaked)
Yeah. I didn't give them names, but I hope I got this idea across.
- This "potentially" may allow for a mechanism other than blunt
protection for preventing vandalism
Jimbo wanted to emphasise "this is to make things wide-open" because the press coverage had been "OH NOEZ WIKI IS CLOSED", so this probably isn't as neutral as it might ideally be.
- The greater Wikipedia community hopes to learn from this pilot project
I think I've got that in. Platinax emailed me to clarify and I said that it's quite possible it might go badly and we cancel the idea - but we're giving it a go.
- The English and other Wikipedias, with their own norms and cultures,
may or may not adopt the German initiatives
I left out that bit, but I think I have in that we are trying.
PS: Would be nice to have a pointer to a meta page (if it exists) describing the German initiative. If I had not attended the Wikimania 2006 summit on the top floor of Pound Hall with Danny, Kurt, G. Maxwell, Jimmy, Raul654, Kelly Martin, et al, I would not have known these things. And I'm a bit concerned we're neglecting to use the wiki to share this knowledge.
It wasn't a matter of fuss until the press grabbed it and ran with it, conclusively describing the Wikipedia elephant to the public as a rope holding together walls in a fan shape at the top of several trees with a spear and thirty snakes sticking out the side [*]. The feature is probably still way too premature to warrant this attention ... but it's got it anyway.
- d.
[*] http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/1/?letter=B&spage=3 _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l