There's a specialist topic that's about to create its own wiki. In discussion on a board, one person said "Why not just use Wikipedia? What you're describing is identical." Another responded with: "No, some 15 year old moron will mark it for deletion just because they know nothing about it."
So that's part of our public image now. Well done alienating webcomics authors, i.e. creators of memes and popular culture on the net.
Not to mention the way the webcomics AC case ended: AFD trolls now have the all-clear to work actively to alienate actual experts, because the self-professed ignorant are now *officially* to be considered equal to those who have an actual bloody clue.
I was amazed knowledge of it had spread so far. Jimbo, you heard about this example at the recent UK Wikimedia meet (the doll collectors) - this was actually an independent example from the same field.
Experts from fields that actually haven't been alienated literally don't think it's worth bothering to try writing in Wikipedia any more. Is there anything we can do to rehabilitate Wikipedia's image in the outside world?
(yes, geni, I know you're happy to be rid of annoying specialist experts)
- d.
On 11 Jan 2006, at 14:57, David Gerard wrote:
There's a specialist topic that's about to create its own wiki. In discussion on a board, one person said "Why not just use Wikipedia? What you're describing is identical." Another responded with: "No, some 15 year old moron will mark it for deletion just because they know nothing about it."
(snip)
Experts from fields that actually haven't been alienated literally don't think it's worth bothering to try writing in Wikipedia any more. Is there anything we can do to rehabilitate Wikipedia's image in the outside world?
There are other reasons to create non wikipedia wikis too.
There simply is no significant community in wikipedia for some subjects, so progress tends to be slow. You get occasional random anon IPs editing but two or three people cant cover an entire field. An external site may (or may not of course) get more contributors.
Encourage them to use a compatible license, and encourage them to use commons for media.
Maybe just merge all their articles into WP once a month until they come back...
Whats the field?
Justinc
On 1/11/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
There's a specialist topic that's about to create its own wiki. In discussion on a board, one person said "Why not just use Wikipedia? What you're describing is identical." Another responded with: "No, some 15 year old moron will mark it for deletion just because they know nothing about it."
So that's part of our public image now. Well done alienating webcomics authors, i.e. creators of memes and popular culture on the net.
Not to mention the way the webcomics AC case ended: AFD trolls now have the all-clear to work actively to alienate actual experts, because the self-professed ignorant are now *officially* to be considered equal to those who have an actual bloody clue.
I was amazed knowledge of it had spread so far. Jimbo, you heard about this example at the recent UK Wikimedia meet (the doll collectors) - this was actually an independent example from the same field.
Experts from fields that actually haven't been alienated literally don't think it's worth bothering to try writing in Wikipedia any more. Is there anything we can do to rehabilitate Wikipedia's image in the outside world?
(yes, geni, I know you're happy to be rid of annoying specialist experts)
This is really a process question more than an image question; all the PR in the world won't help us if the fifteen-year-olds are still deleting articles.
On that note, why not give more authority to WikiProjects? We'd need some sort of community sanity-checking process to limit it to "legitimate" projects; but certainly some of the larger and more organized ones (particularly those that deal with areas where "notability" isn't a very contentious issue) could handle their own deletion/guidelines/etc. with minimal supervision. We already have this for stubs, but is there some reason it wouldn't work for at least some subject areas?
Kirill Lokshin
On Wednesday 11 January 2006 09:21, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
On that note, why not give more authority to WikiProjects? We'd need some sort of community sanity-checking process to limit it to "legitimate" projects; but certainly some of the larger and more organized ones (particularly those that deal with areas where "notability" isn't a very contentious issue) could handle their own deletion/guidelines/etc. with minimal supervision. We already have this for stubs, but is there some reason it wouldn't work for at least some subject areas?
I've suggested something along these lines before; see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposal...
Take from a user victimized by the concerted efforts of sockpuppet trolls given licence to run rampant throughout Wikipedia: Reputation is everything.
Nobs01
On 1/11/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
" that's part of our public image now."
I think a very good first step would be to find a specialist wiki or two that are GFDL (Whether forks like Comixpedia or not) and copy them in. It shows humility, improves our project, and directly addresses the issue.
I'd say Memory Alpha, but they're CC. Comixpedia would be too controversial right now, this doll wiki is too new. Any other ideas?
-Phil
On Jan 11, 2006, at 9:57 AM, David Gerard wrote:
There's a specialist topic that's about to create its own wiki. In discussion on a board, one person said "Why not just use Wikipedia? What you're describing is identical." Another responded with: "No, some 15 year old moron will mark it for deletion just because they know nothing about it."
So that's part of our public image now. Well done alienating webcomics authors, i.e. creators of memes and popular culture on the net.
Not to mention the way the webcomics AC case ended: AFD trolls now have the all-clear to work actively to alienate actual experts, because the self-professed ignorant are now *officially* to be considered equal to those who have an actual bloody clue.
I was amazed knowledge of it had spread so far. Jimbo, you heard about this example at the recent UK Wikimedia meet (the doll collectors) - this was actually an independent example from the same field.
Experts from fields that actually haven't been alienated literally don't think it's worth bothering to try writing in Wikipedia any more. Is there anything we can do to rehabilitate Wikipedia's image in the outside world?
(yes, geni, I know you're happy to be rid of annoying specialist experts)
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 1/11/06, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I think a very good first step would be to find a specialist wiki or two that are GFDL (Whether forks like Comixpedia or not) and copy them in. It shows humility, improves our project, and directly addresses the issue.
I'd say Memory Alpha, but they're CC. Comixpedia would be too controversial right now, this doll wiki is too new. Any other ideas?
-Phil
Problem is that most people avoid GFDL.
Going through the list at [[List_of_wikis]] might help.
http://www.asiaosc.org/enwiki/
Is GFDL but I don't know if has anything we don't.
http://www.strategema.net/index.php?title=Main_Page
Is GDFL but they are tied to a specific version. Again I don't know if they have anything we don't. I -- geni
On 1/12/06, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I think a very good first step would be to find a specialist wiki or two that are GFDL (Whether forks like Comixpedia or not) and copy them in. It shows humility, improves our project, and directly addresses the issue.
I'd say Memory Alpha, but they're CC. Comixpedia would be too controversial right now, this doll wiki is too new. Any other ideas?
I agree, and incidentally, I think copying comixpedia would be a terrific idea. If we can copy the comic articles and win an AFD battle, we might win back some good editors from the fork.
Ryan
On 1/11/06, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I'd say Memory Alpha, but they're CC. Comixpedia would be too controversial right now, this doll wiki is too new. Any other ideas?
We should *encourage* the creation of forks, so long as they have a compatible licence. We should make downloading the pages necessary for content only (article, template, image namespaces) easy, and make GFDL compliance easier from a technical point of view (I know it can't be made easier from a content point of view). Then we can merge them back in and hopefully restore our image within the specialist communities. A little more assumption of good faith and preparedness to admit to being wrong on AfD would also help.
-- Sam
On 1/11/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
There's a specialist topic that's about to create its own wiki. In discussion on a board, one person said "Why not just use Wikipedia? What you're describing is identical." Another responded with: "No, some 15 year old moron will mark it for deletion just because they know nothing about it."
Unlikely. The problem is the people who do know a little about it. People don't tend to delete the maths stuff because they don't understand it at all. People do understand webcomics a little with the result that they feel they know enough to list them on afd.
So that's part of our public image now. Well done alienating webcomics authors, i.e. creators of memes and popular culture on the net.
Evidence that there is in fact a link here? Generaly if you look at the spred of info about wikipedia across weforums webcomic are not mentioned.
Not to mention the way the webcomics AC case ended: AFD trolls now have the all-clear to work actively to alienate actual experts, because the self-professed ignorant are now *officially* to be considered equal to those who have an actual bloody clue.
I was amazed knowledge of it had spread so far. Jimbo, you heard about this example at the recent UK Wikimedia meet (the doll collectors) - this was actually an independent example from the same field.
Why? Pretty much any forum on the web you go to has at least one thread on wikipedia these days. We can't hide stuff any more.
Experts from fields that actually haven't been alienated literally don't think it's worth bothering to try writing in Wikipedia any more. Is there anything we can do to rehabilitate Wikipedia's image in the outside world?
Without changeing it's fundimental structure? Not really. If you are going to write about areas of popular culture there are going to be other people around and they are sometimes going to dissagree with you.
(yes, geni, I know you're happy to be rid of annoying specialist experts)
No I'd accept them also decideing not be anoying.
-- geni
But wait:
They can have their comixpedia, dollpedia, and whatnot. Many of the articles that they will produce aren't notable for Wikipedia anyways. Their standards and ours are going to be different. I don't see these little forks as a Bad Thing. Maybe some of their Featured Articles (or the equivalent) can be incorporated, but the majority most likely don't belong.
-- Ben Emmel Wikipedia - User:Bratsche bratsche1@gmail.com "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." -- William Blake