DW put this on my Talk page. Any comments? - Zoe
Dear ZOE: I'm sure your intentions, along with the others, was quite sincere in coming up with a formula for the opening line of an article on someone. However, it is a totally and completely lousy presentation that is hard on the eyes and far too much for researchers to be asked to absdorb. In plain words, it turns people off and therefore Wikipedia's credibity. Please get over the obsession with Google, the heading doesn't gain users, only QUALITY does. I am putting an enormous amount of work into hundreds of articles that, based on this hoffific heading presentation is rendering them useless. For people with or without a brain larger than a flea, this is what they need when using an Encyclopedia for a biography or other such items: NAME: year dates, occupation. John Smith (1920-1990), Medical Scientist SPACE Born John William George Peabody Smith on July 5, 1920, he was etc. Make paragraphs short (See HarperCollins/Random House or amy other publisher about readability, interest span in the 21st Century etc. LAST LINE (always): John Smith died on December 1, 1990 and was interred in ????. If they were a great whatever, you might add one one to occupation. Then, in a new PARAGRAPH, the full date of birth. AND, I've never met anyone who said they were born in Tupelo, United States. So, do as I do and get the Province/Departement etc. for foreign countries. Too, nobody says they were born in Boston, New England, United States. So, a Region in France should be specified after the Departement or leave the region out. I don't want to see any more of my hard work changed. There is not one person on Wikipedia with any marketing expertise. Buy a few marketing books, use a little marketing common sense, and see how Wikipedia can succeed rather than articles on "getting new users." Build it right, accurate, and sufficiently detailed and interesting and they will come. ALSO, if idiots want to insert stubs or are too lazy to do research, LABEL the artice: ''Work in Progress". That way, a new user/viewer understands and doesn't click away thinking what a half-assed information site Wikipedia is. Because, when they do, they don'y come back (except to play and add the same useless bits of crap) and they don't tell others....DW
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On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Zoe wrote:
DW put this on my Talk page. Any comments? - Zoe
1. What does "marketing expertise" have to do with writing biography?
2. Quite frankly, unless it's somehow relevant to the entry, occupation would not add much useful information to many entries. For example, Wallace Stevens is better known as a poet, NOT as a corporate insurance executive. Many writers and poets would end up being catagorized as "college professor" (e.g. Richard Hugo), "government clerk" (Baudelaire), "landowner" (practically anyone whose name has survived from before AD 1000), etc.
3. I'm probably beating a dead horse by stating my opinion about this buffoon. (And I sometimes worry that no one notices my work in the Imperial Roman entries: I should be enjoying this benevolent neglect!)
Geoff
Geoff Burling wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Zoe wrote:
DW put this on my Talk page. Any comments? - Zoe
- What does "marketing expertise" have to do with writing biography?
Well, I don't want to defend DW's rudeness. But what he means, I think, is that thought should be given to creating a nice visual appearance and comfortable start to each articles. When a new visitor arrives, we want them to get the information they are looking for, without feeling overwhelmed by an excessively complex (or simple, or...) start.
That's not an unreasonable thought.
- Quite frankly, unless it's somehow relevant to the entry, occupation
would not add much useful information to many entries. For example, Wallace Stevens is better known as a poet, NOT as a corporate insurance executive. Many writers and poets would end up being catagorized as "college professor" (e.g. Richard Hugo), "government clerk" (Baudelaire), "landowner" (practically anyone whose name has survived from before AD 1000), etc.
Right. I think he meant to say, instead of 'occupation', something like 'very basic tidbit of why we should care about this person'.
Sometimes, it's due to occupation (Einstein, physicist), but not always (Todd Beamer, software salesman).
--Jimbo
No solution that adds tables to every article on a person can possibly be a good solution. Tables, in this universe, are inherently un-wiki as they are hard to code, hard to edit, hard to read as code. Words, sentences, paragraphs are the superior technology here.
Tom Parmenter Ortolan88
Zoe wrote:
DW put this on my Talk page. Any comments? - Zoe
That's what DW left on my talk page (after he insisted on 2,5'' images, whatever that means on the screen):
Tried nice--that didn't work. Have had to replace more of your oversized photos that in addition are ALL far too dark. A good width is certainly not 350 pixels, I have no idea where you get that. Please LOOK at your handiwork after you load it. And, what in the name of hell, beyond moronic stupidity, does any Wikipedia contributor's length of time have to do with anything? Are you awarded a Medal of Valor or something after X number of days service? Quality, not quantity, counts. So far, 99% of your photos would be better left undone. Instead of trying to be a hero and getting people like Zoe to stroke your ego, slow down and do things properly. Looking at a page with your kind of minimal input and poor quality, overwhelming photos, is what turns people away from Wikipedia....DW
Wow, that's even worse.
Magnus Manske wrote:
Zoe wrote:
DW put this on my Talk page. Any comments? - Zoe
That's what DW left on my talk page (after he insisted on 2,5'' images, whatever that means on the screen):
Tried nice--that didn't work. Have had to replace more of your oversized photos that in addition are ALL far too dark. A good width is certainly not 350 pixels, I have no idea where you get that. Please LOOK at your handiwork after you load it. And, what in the name of hell, beyond moronic stupidity, does any Wikipedia contributor's length of time have to do with anything? Are you awarded a Medal of Valor or something after X number of days service? Quality, not quantity, counts. So far, 99% of your photos would be better left undone. Instead of trying to be a hero and getting people like Zoe to stroke your ego, slow down and do things properly. Looking at a page with your kind of minimal input and poor quality, overwhelming photos, is what turns people away from Wikipedia....DW
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Ouch. Now somehow I've acquired somebody else who hates me. Zoe Magnus Manske magnus.manske@epost.de wrote:Zoe wrote:
DW put this on my Talk page. Any comments? - Zoe
That's what DW left on my talk page (after he insisted on 2,5'' images, whatever that means on the screen):
Tried nice--that didn't work. Have had to replace more of your oversized photos that in addition are ALL far too dark. A good width is certainly not 350 pixels, I have no idea where you get that. Please LOOK at your handiwork after you load it. And, what in the name of hell, beyond moronic stupidity, does any Wikipedia contributor's length of time have to do with anything? Are you awarded a Medal of Valor or something after X number of days service? Quality, not quantity, counts. So far, 99% of your photos would be better left undone. Instead of trying to be a hero and getting people like Zoe to stroke your ego, slow down and do things properly. Looking at a page with your kind of minimal input and poor quality, overwhelming photos, is what turns people away from Wikipedia....DW
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