I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
At Mitsubishi Companies and Mitsubishi, I spent weeks figuring out all the ramifications of the mitsubishi companies.
Then the list of companies gets dropped from the main article, then the mitsubishi companies article gets redirected, and now appears nowhere.
The information on the current mistubishi page is incorrect.
I tell you something. I've been spending a lot of time trying to unravel japanese companies, their partneships, ownerships, lines of business, banking reltionships, subsidiaries, formal and informal relationships. Yet people come behind me and redirect everything back to the old bad way it was before. And these are not vandals, but regular wikipedia contributors. I don't want to hurt their feelings, and I don't want to get into wars of words, but when they simply redirect or blank out hours of work without comment as to why, it makes me believe they don't care for my contributions.
I don't make waves, I do my share of vandal reverts, I plod along super-boring subjects, fact-checking and fact-checking on google every little word I write in here. I never remove people's words, rather I copyedit. typoedit. add sections, try to organize, to expand, to make more and more complex subjects accessible. I even try to get along, help along, people who otherwise are insufferable.
I want a little respect for my work.
If it's too much to ask, then, I'll have to leave and remember WP as something which sounded good on paper but didn't work for me in the real world.
About http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution, I deal with plenty of politics at work already, and I don't care to follow an overly burdensome and complicated process to enforce something which is obvious to civilized people.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo
What happened on the main [[Mitsubishi]] article, it seems, is that an anon user vandalised the page by replacing your list of Mitsubishi-related companies with the oh-so-intelligent text "there are no problems..they are ace". Someone came along after that, noticed the vandalism but edited the article to remove the comment, instead of checking to see if the vandal had removed anything or reverting. Subsequent editors haven't realised that anything was missing.
Unfortunate, but these were not regular Wikipedia contributors deliberately ruining your work, this was an anon vandal and a newbie trying to clean up and not doing it right.
-Matt
--- Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Unfortunate, but these were not regular Wikipedia contributors deliberately ruining your work, this was an anon vandal and a newbie trying to clean up and not doing it right.
That's not what I was talking about.
Thank you for digging though.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
Christopher Mahan a écrit:
I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
Indeeeeeed. Bon... Une petite framboise pour se sentir mieux... ça va passer... Conseil : met un lien vers ce mail à tous ceux qui sont "coupables" de ces redirections. ILs n'ont peut etre pas réalisé ?
Ant
Christopher Mahan wrote:
I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
At Mitsubishi Companies and Mitsubishi, I spent weeks figuring out all the ramifications of the mitsubishi companies.
Then the list of companies gets dropped from the main article, then the mitsubishi companies article gets redirected, and now appears nowhere.
Are you talking about Michael Snow changes that happened nearly a year ago? That's a long time to be oblivious!
Anyway, when I've developed a design that may not be self-evident, I usually leave a note on the talk page explaining the theory. I suspect my little notes forestall a lot of ill-considered changes; of the remainder, the people who want to change it anyway either leave their own counterargument and ping me via talk page. As a last resort, they're all on my too-long watchlist...
Stan
--- Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Are you talking about Michael Snow changes that happened nearly a year ago? That's a long time to be oblivious!
Sort of. But there's a lot more recent stuff that I didn't bring in because I wanted to keep my rant semi-coherent.
Anyway, when I've developed a design that may not be self-evident, I usually leave a note on the talk page explaining the theory. I suspect my little notes forestall a lot of ill-considered changes; of the remainder, the people who want to change it anyway either leave their own counterargument and ping me via talk page. As a last resort, they're all on my too-long watchlist...
I hear you.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
Christopher Mahan wrote:
--- Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Are you talking about Michael Snow changes that happened nearly a year ago? That's a long time to be oblivious!
Sort of. But there's a lot more recent stuff that I didn't bring in because I wanted to keep my rant semi-coherent.
:-) It's a good thing the microphone in my computer isn't normally on, I've certainly done more than a little verbal ranting at some editors, have to wipe off the screen afterwards...
Anyway, when I've developed a design that may not be self-evident, I usually leave a note on the talk page explaining the theory. I suspect my little notes forestall a lot of ill-considered changes; of the remainder, the people who want to change it anyway either leave their own counterargument and ping me via talk page. As a last resort, they're all on my too-long watchlist...
I hear you.
It occurs to me that maybe we don't actually suggest it anywhere; I just started that to avoid cleaning up after people who made (what seemed like) obvious mistakes, and when I pointed it out, their response was "oh yeah, didn't realize". Wikiprojects do that for standard-setting on a large scale, but a lot of my notes are just "I Googled variants of title and here are the numbers that guided my choice".
Stan
At 10:47 PM 1/24/2005 -0600, John Robinson wrote:
I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
Welcome to the club. Wikipeida is no longer an encyclopedia, in my view. It has devolved into simply another write-enabled website where anyone with an opinion can have a rant.
And that's sad.
He didn't rant on Wikipedia, though, he ranted on a Wikipedia-related mailing list. While it may still be arguable whether it was appropriate to do so at least it doesn't affect Wikipedia itself in any way. User: pages come a little closer, but even in that case User: pages are quite well segregated from the encyclopedia content.
I think you misunderstood my mailing; I think Christopher Mahan has a legitimate gripe, which is not being addressed. Most of the "ranting" goes on in the articles. It doesn't make for an encyclopedia.
-Hephaestos
At 10:47 PM 1/24/2005 -0600, John Robinson wrote:
I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
Welcome to the club. Wikipeida is no longer an encyclopedia, in my view. It has devolved into simply another write-enabled website where anyone with an opinion can have a rant.
And that's sad.
He didn't rant on Wikipedia, though, he ranted on a Wikipedia-related mailing list. While it may still be arguable whether it was appropriate to do so at least it doesn't affect Wikipedia itself in any way. User: pages come a little closer, but even in that case User: pages are quite well segregated from the encyclopedia content.
On 25 Jan 2005, at 4:47 am, John Robinson wrote:
Welcome to the club. Wikipeida is no longer an encyclopedia, in my view. It has devolved into simply another write-enabled website where anyone with an opinion can have a rant.
And that's sad.
Last time I looked it was still an encyclopedia.
Christiaan
--- Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
At Mitsubishi Companies and Mitsubishi, I spent weeks figuring out all the ramifications of the mitsubishi companies.
Then the list of companies gets dropped from the main article, then the mitsubishi companies article gets redirected, and now appears nowhere.
The information on the current mistubishi page is incorrect.
I just merged-in your info into the lead section at [[Mitsubishi]]. Please make any needed changes due to merge errors.
I want a little respect for my work.
I for one respect you and your work. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. It just looks like some things were innocently overlooked.
If it's too much to ask, then, I'll have to leave and remember WP as something which sounded good on paper but didn't work for me in the real world.
Please don't do that. You are a great contributor and we need more people like you. :)
-- mav
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
At Mitsubishi Companies and Mitsubishi, I spent weeks figuring
out
all the ramifications of the mitsubishi companies.
Then the list of companies gets dropped from the main article,
then
the mitsubishi companies article gets redirected, and now appears nowhere.
The information on the current mistubishi page is incorrect.
I just merged-in your info into the lead section at [[Mitsubishi]]. Please make any needed changes due to merge errors.
I want a little respect for my work.
I for one respect you and your work. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. It just looks like some things were innocently overlooked.
If it's too much to ask, then, I'll have to leave and remember WP
as
something which sounded good on paper but didn't work for me in
the
real world.
Please don't do that. You are a great contributor and we need more people like you. :)
-- mav
Thanks for the vote of confidence. The Mitsubishi articles need a lot more work, so it's going to take a while to sort these things out. But thank you for digging.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
On Tuesday 25 January 2005 03:09, Christopher Mahan wrote:
I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
I understand you completely; the problem in Wikipedia is that authors start writing without discussing, planning and organising their efforts. In my wiki projects I will try to follow a different approach, and I believe Wikipedia should consider a change in its attitudes. Here is my design: 1. The wiki is just a place to store articles. Discussions in the wiki are prohibited. 2. The Talk: pages are renamed Test: pages and all the writing and collaborative writing happens there. 3. Non-Test pages (i.e. the real articles) are protected and only admins can edit them. 4. The authors are using a mailing list, a phpBB forum and a special collaboration platform to discuss and decide how to write the article. An example of a very good collaboration platform is phpCollab. 5. There are Article Maintainers who check for copyright violations and check the references, et cetera. 6. Every article is developed in a software-like fashion, i.e. there are versions and when the mains (maintainers) approve an article it will be checked by the admins. The admins then publish the article in a non-Test page (i.e. the main namespace) and give to it a unique version number such as 1.4.
You can learn more about this design at http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Help:Editing_process
Some additional info about versions exists at http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Help:Article_versions
NSK said:
- Every article is developed in a software-like fashion, i.e. there
are versions and when the mains (maintainers) approve an article it will be checked by the admins. The admins then publish the article in a non-Test page (i.e. the main namespace) and give to it a unique version number such as 1.4.
Wouldn't this put a tremendous strain on administrators? Every single article would have to be vetted before publication. I think it would also make contributors less likely to produce articles, too. For instance if I'm copy editing an article it's not unusual for me to encounter a redlink and write a brief stub for that link. This enters my watchlist and, believe me, people do notice those stubs and add material to make them, when I go back a few weeks later, often a very good article on the subject. An example of this is my very brief stub for "Portolan chart" which I produced in the course of copy editing an article uploaded by someone else that was later deleted as a copyright violation. The second and third paragraphs were added more recently by someone else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portolan_chart
This is one thing that works very well in a Wiki. I don't think I would have bothered if the production process had been more complex.
On Tuesday 25 January 2005 13:07, Tony Sidaway wrote:
Wouldn't this put a tremendous strain on administrators? Every single article would have to be vetted before publication. I think it would also make contributors less likely to produce articles, too. For instance if
It is true that my design can work only if a wiki can find lots of *committed* *workaholic* users. Unfortunately this kind of user is very rare, so a wiki following such a policy would expect to have less editors. This is a problem that I have identified and I am working on it. Do you have any suggestions on how to update my design to allow more editors to edit?
Yet again another attempt to make Wikipedia into something completely different. Why do you keep doing this? You are not going to succeed in getting the project corrupted into your version of reality.
RickK
NSK nsk2@wikinerds.org wrote: On Tuesday 25 January 2005 03:09, Christopher Mahan wrote:
I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
I understand you completely; the problem in Wikipedia is that authors start writing without discussing, planning and organising their efforts. In my wiki projects I will try to follow a different approach, and I believe Wikipedia should consider a change in its attitudes. Here is my design: 1. The wiki is just a place to store articles. Discussions in the wiki are prohibited. 2. The Talk: pages are renamed Test: pages and all the writing and collaborative writing happens there. 3. Non-Test pages (i.e. the real articles) are protected and only admins can edit them. 4. The authors are using a mailing list, a phpBB forum and a special collaboration platform to discuss and decide how to write the article. An example of a very good collaboration platform is phpCollab. 5. There are Article Maintainers who check for copyright violations and check the references, et cetera. 6. Every article is developed in a software-like fashion, i.e. there are versions and when the mains (maintainers) approve an article it will be checked by the admins. The admins then publish the article in a non-Test page (i.e. the main namespace) and give to it a unique version number such as 1.4.
You can learn more about this design at http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Help:Editing_process
Some additional info about versions exists at http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Help:Article_versions
Uh, RickK, he is quite permitted to have his opinion. It doesn't mean we'll implement it.
TBSDY
Rick wrote:
Yet again another attempt to make Wikipedia into something completely different. Why do you keep doing this? You are not going to succeed in getting the project corrupted into your version of reality.
RickK
NSK nsk2@wikinerds.org wrote: On Tuesday 25 January 2005 03:09, Christopher Mahan wrote:
I'm pissed, and I want to rant. (you've been warned)
I understand you completely; the problem in Wikipedia is that authors start writing without discussing, planning and organising their efforts. In my wiki projects I will try to follow a different approach, and I believe Wikipedia should consider a change in its attitudes. Here is my design:
- The wiki is just a place to store articles. Discussions in the wiki are
prohibited. 2. The Talk: pages are renamed Test: pages and all the writing and collaborative writing happens there. 3. Non-Test pages (i.e. the real articles) are protected and only admins can edit them. 4. The authors are using a mailing list, a phpBB forum and a special collaboration platform to discuss and decide how to write the article. An example of a very good collaboration platform is phpCollab. 5. There are Article Maintainers who check for copyright violations and check the references, et cetera. 6. Every article is developed in a software-like fashion, i.e. there are versions and when the mains (maintainers) approve an article it will be checked by the admins. The admins then publish the article in a non-Test page (i.e. the main namespace) and give to it a unique version number such as 1.4.
You can learn more about this design at http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Help:Editing_process
Some additional info about versions exists at http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Help:Article_versions
NSK wrote:
- The authors are using ... a phpBB forum and a special collaboration
platform to discuss and decide how to write the article. An example of a very good collaboration platform is phpCollab.
I must admit it would be interesting to experience what it would be like to discuss things on a proper BB while doing editing in a Wiki. I think, partially, the reason that people don't discuss things as much as they should before editing (me included) is the difficulty in keeping up with discussion on talk pages (in comparison to other methods such as BBs).
Christiaan
On Friday 28 January 2005 21:41, Christiaan Briggs wrote:
I must admit it would be interesting to experience what it would be
BBs are great, but a collaboration groupware platform is even better for the core members of a wiki! I have installed one for testing at http://collab.wikinerds.org
A collaboration platform allows the creation of project teams which each member being assigned a task.
For example, with phpCollab, you can start a project for the creation of an article on Quantum Gravity. You can create a project team consisting of a project leader and many members. The leader can assign tasks to the members, such as writing the introduction, composing a section on mathematics involved, collection of royalty-free images that can be used in the article, legal checkup (such as spotting potential copyright violations, getting permission from proprietors to use their work in the article et cetera. Every member will get a different task, for example a journalist could be assigned the introduction, a physicist could get to write the main article, a mathematician could be assigned the maths section, a lawyer could check the document for potential copyright violations, et cetera. Each task is assigned a time priod, for example the introduction should be ready before February while the maths section can be handed in in the summer. The Web-based platform then creates automatically a Gantt Chart showing the progress of the project in time.
In the phpCollab platform, project members can share documents by uploading them via a Web form. They can also discuss in an integrated BB forum and post news in a virtual newsdesk.
After the project finishes, the resulting article can be handed to the wiki sysops to post it on the wiki and assign a distinct version number to it. A stable version of the article would be posted on the main namespace, while a publicly editable version would go to the Test: page (which replaces Talk:). To allow communication between editors and readers, a "Discuss in Wikinerds Portal" link would be added to the article, pointing to a preexisting phpBB forum thread.
This idea, although may seem overly structural, is not antiwiki because the article is still publicly editable in the Test: page. The only difference is that the edits become part of the "official" article only after sysop moderation and checkup from the article maintainers (who, ideally, should be specialists, for example physicists maintaining a quantum gravity article).
Wikipedia is designed to utilise the willingness of thousands of people to edit here and there whenever have some free time to spend. Although this results in a very large user base, it means that the articles are moderately good and not very deep. A good editor could edit for a day and then dissappear. This may happen for many reasons that cause good editors to feel unmotivated to contribute: Their name does not appear in the article, they cannot choose licensing terms for their work, et cetera.
In contrast, my vision is to create wiki communities with very committed motivated users (collaborating through the Web-based platform), while still allowing occasional edits by casual readers (by editing the Test: page and communicating with the authors, if they want, through the phpBB forum). Of course, in order to keep a team of committed authors, we need to offer something to them, and we do that by allowing them to display their name in the articles (or paragraphs) they composed. You can see an example at http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Zsync . Another potential way to motivate wikiauthors would be to develop a micropayment scheme so that the reader can click on a button and transfer some euro to the author of his favourite article. As such a scheme currently doesn't exist, we offer wikiauthors to link their name to a page where users can see a PayPal page, an Amazon wishlist or whatever the author wants.