On 30 June 2011 17:00, Alec Conroy <alecmconroy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
[a git-like distributed wikisphere]
> It's not my idea, I believe it's been independently suggested at
> least five different times that I know of. But it's a HUGE step that
> would require a big, bold push from developers and thus potentially a
> large initial commitment from the foundation to spur development of
> such a thing. That commitment might not be huge in terms of
> resources-- a few professional lead developer-coordinators, perhaps.
> But it would require some courage, leadership, and a vision to rally
> volunteer developers around. If you visibly agree to it being built,
> an amorphous 'they' will likely show up to actually build it for you,
> free of charge. It would will radically change things for everyone
> the instant such a tool is actually created.
Adapting MediaWiki to git has been tried a few times. I suspect the
problem is that the software deeply assumes a database behind it, not
a version-controlled file tree. Wrong model for an easy fix to
MediaWiki itself.
Pouring en:wp's entire history into git is feasible (Greg Maxwell
posted about doing it, IIRC).
svnwiki exists - a wiki engine which uses files version-controlled by
Subversion. Perhaps something like that - articles as files in a git
repository, read by the new parser when that's done.
> Such a wiki is inevitable, I just hope we can be the ones to develop it.
Someone else could actually do it without our weight of organisational
inertia and NIH. We need competitors.
Further to your idea: people developing little specialist wikis along
these lines, and said wikis being mergeable. This makes such wikis
easier to start, without having to start yet another wiki-based
general encyclopedia that directly competes with Wikipedia. Disruptive
innovation starts in niches, not in a position where it'll just end up
a bug on Wikipedia's windscreen.
- d.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Wikimedia Announcements] Language committee report - June 2011
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2011 21:24:03 +0200
From: Robin Pepermans <robinp.1273(a)gmail.com>
Reply-To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To: the Wikimedia Incubator <incubator(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
See the wiki version here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Reports/2011-06
This is the the Language Committee report for June 2011. It is the
second monthly report.
=== Committee ===
* The closing projects policy is approved by the Board and will be
implemented during the following weeks.
* A new policy draft is started, which will be updated and changed
gradually before final approval.
* The committee has discussed simple projects. They will likely be
allowed under certain conditions.
=== Approvals ===
* The Mingrelian Wikipedia has been approved and is waiting for creation.
* The Arabic Wikiversity has been approved.
=== Rejections ===
* After some discussion with the community, the Ottoman Turkish
Wikisource has been rejected. Ottoman Turkish texts should be hosted
on the Turkish Wikisource.
* The Warmian Wikipedia has been rejected due to the lack of an ISO
639 language code.
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Hoi all,
as a recent lengthy CU case on de.wp showed, there is clear evidence
that two people (a lawyer and a PR entrepeneur) working at the law
school of a university in Germany, but on outside funding, have
influenced contents of de.wp (away from a neutral point of view) on at
least two different sites. Aggravatingly, these two work on a project
"Wiki Watch" to evaluate Wikipedia articles on their quality and
contents... The university probably did not even know (now they do,
reaction still pending) about the shenanigans of these people.
The first incident involves a company who fabricates drugs including a
type of insuline, which was deemed possibly potentially cancerogene by
an institute. From WP accounts associated (by checkuser and other
evidence) to these Wiki Watch people, the articles about the
institute, about that drug and about the drug company (and some more
related to this) were changed (in general positivizing/promoting the
company and the drug and adding critics to the article about the
institute).
The second incident involves articles in the field of evangelical
organizations (including such who want to cure homosexuality and stuff
like that, all highly non-scientifical). One of the Wiki Watch guys
worked for such an organization until recently. A number of WP
accounts, also associated to the Wiki Watch people (by CU), was found
editing in this field, adding the views of this sort of organizations
to articles and promoting such views.
For those of you who read German, the FAZ, one of the most widespread
daily newspapers in the country, have published a long article on this
matter online: http://www.faz.net/artikel/C31013/die-dubiosen-verstrickungen-von-wiki-watc…
So, heads up, everyone, this can happen in other Wikipediae, too. (or
it might already have...)
Best regards,
Thogo.
p.s. thanks to the CU people at dewiki and to others who helped to reveal this.