Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Best Regards, Ziyuan Yao
On 22 January 2012 21:43, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Sounds a bit like Article Feedback Tool v.5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AFT5
The Article Feedback Tool v.5 and the current "Talk" tab are for discussing *the editing of the current article*, not for discussing *the topic represented by the current article*, although I think these two goals can coexist in a single discussion area.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:51 AM, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
On 22 January 2012 21:43, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Sounds a bit like Article Feedback Tool v.5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AFT5
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
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For example, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat , we can have a single discussion area that can both talk about the editing of this article and issues related to cats (e.g. petting them).
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:06 AM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
The Article Feedback Tool v.5 and the current "Talk" tab are for discussing *the editing of the current article*, not for discussing *the topic represented by the current article*, although I think these two goals can coexist in a single discussion area.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:51 AM, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
On 22 January 2012 21:43, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Sounds a bit like Article Feedback Tool v.5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AFT5
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
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On 22 January 2012 22:08, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
For example, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat , we can have a single discussion area that can both talk about the editing of this article and issues related to cats (e.g. petting them).
Well, English Wikinews has what you are looking for by having an Opinions namespace. See, for instance, https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_candidate_Newt_Gingrich_wins_...
Given that we informally refer to it as "trollspace", I'm not totally sure of the value of encouraging low-value, anonymous Internet comments. We aren't craven pageview whores like our friends in the commercial news website business who are quite happy to trade intellectual standards (seriously, read a newspaper comment column) for advertising money.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:12 AM, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
On 22 January 2012 22:08, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
For example, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat , we can have a single discussion area that can both talk about the editing of this article and issues related to cats (e.g. petting them).
Well, English Wikinews has what you are looking for by having an Opinions namespace. See, for instance, https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_candidate_Newt_Gingrich_wins_...
Given that we informally refer to it as "trollspace", I'm not totally sure of the value of encouraging low-value, anonymous Internet comments. We aren't craven pageview whores like our friends in the commercial news website business who are quite happy to trade intellectual standards (seriously, read a newspaper comment column) for advertising money.
I forgot to mention, each user can show/hide the proposed comment section under every Wikipedia article. If you're not logged in, the comment section can be hidden by default.
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
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On 22 January 2012 21:43, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All, I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Similar to the "Opinions" tab on Wikinews. Could be interesting. Would need to be plausibly useful to the encyclopedia to be accepted by the communities - what was the rationale for the "opinions" tab on Wikinews?
- d.
There is already a discussion page attached to every article. It's for discussing the article, though, rather than its topic.
While we are more than a conventional encyclopedia, we are still an encyclopaedia and I don't think we should add job and product adverts to our articles.
If people want to make friends, they can go to Facebook. If people want to find or contribute encyclopedic information (and, perhaps, make some friends along the way as an added bonus) then they should come to us. On Jan 22, 2012 9:43 PM, "Yao Ziyuan" yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Best Regards, Ziyuan Yao
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On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:13 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
There is already a discussion page attached to every article. It's for discussing the article, though, rather than its topic.
Besides this, another disadvantage of the current "Talk" tab is it uses the wiki way to talk, not the typical "comment section" we see under every YouTube video, Flickr image, Facebook status update, etc. The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is really weird to the general public.
While we are more than a conventional encyclopedia, we are still an encyclopaedia and I don't think we should add job and product adverts to our articles.
If people want to make friends, they can go to Facebook. If people want to find or contribute encyclopedic information (and, perhaps, make some friends along the way as an added bonus) then they should come to us.
The unique merit of using Wikipedia as a discussion place is its uniqueness. There are many "cat forums" on the Web, but they're scattered all over the Web; in contrast, the Wikipedia article [[Cat]] is a unique and prominent place for the topic "cat". If people want to go to a centralized, unified place to talk about cats, they should come to [[Cat]].
On Jan 22, 2012 9:43 PM, "Yao Ziyuan" yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Best Regards, Ziyuan Yao
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On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:31 AM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:13 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
There is already a discussion page attached to every article. It's for discussing the article, though, rather than its topic.
Besides this, another disadvantage of the current "Talk" tab is it uses the wiki way to talk, not the typical "comment section" we see under every YouTube video, Flickr image, Facebook status update, etc. The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is really weird to the general public.
While we are more than a conventional encyclopedia, we are still an encyclopaedia and I don't think we should add job and product adverts to our articles.
If people want to make friends, they can go to Facebook. If people want to find or contribute encyclopedic information (and, perhaps, make some friends along the way as an added bonus) then they should come to us.
The unique merit of using Wikipedia as a discussion place is its uniqueness. There are many "cat forums" on the Web, but they're scattered all over the Web; in contrast, the Wikipedia article [[Cat]] is a unique and prominent place for the topic "cat". If people want to go to a centralized, unified place to talk about cats, they should come to [[Cat]].
This merit is even more evident when the topic is very specialized, e.g. [[Phonological history of English low back vowels]]. I bet there isn't a forum on the Web dedicated to this very specialized topic, and even if there is one, it can be very hard to find it with Google (because it may use a slightly different term to describe this topic). However, if every Wikipedia article has a corresponding comment section (actually a forum), people with this special interest ("phonological history of English low back vowels") will know where to go to find each other, forming a "special interest group" (SIG).
On Jan 22, 2012 9:43 PM, "Yao Ziyuan" yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Best Regards, Ziyuan Yao
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:40 AM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:31 AM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:13 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
There is already a discussion page attached to every article. It's for discussing the article, though, rather than its topic.
Besides this, another disadvantage of the current "Talk" tab is it uses the wiki way to talk, not the typical "comment section" we see under every YouTube video, Flickr image, Facebook status update, etc. The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is really weird to the general public.
While we are more than a conventional encyclopedia, we are still an encyclopaedia and I don't think we should add job and product adverts to our articles.
If people want to make friends, they can go to Facebook. If people want to find or contribute encyclopedic information (and, perhaps, make some friends along the way as an added bonus) then they should come to us.
The unique merit of using Wikipedia as a discussion place is its uniqueness. There are many "cat forums" on the Web, but they're scattered all over the Web; in contrast, the Wikipedia article [[Cat]] is a unique and prominent place for the topic "cat". If people want to go to a centralized, unified place to talk about cats, they should come to [[Cat]].
This merit is even more evident when the topic is very specialized, e.g. [[Phonological history of English low back vowels]]. I bet there isn't a forum on the Web dedicated to this very specialized topic, and even if there is one, it can be very hard to find it with Google (because it may use a slightly different term to describe this topic). However, if every Wikipedia article has a corresponding comment section (actually a forum), people with this special interest ("phonological history of English low back vowels") will know where to go to find each other, forming a "special interest group" (SIG).
So this can mean very much for scientific research. For example, imagine if there are two mathematicians in the world interested in the same, very deep math concept, but they don't know each other. How do we let them meet and collaborate with each other? With a comment section under that math concept's Wikipedia article.
Take another example. Imagine there are two medical researchers pursuing the same, very novel but very rarely known approach to a major disease, but they don't know each other. How do we let them meet and collaborate with each other? With a comment section under that approach's Wikipedia article.
That's why I said this is of strategic interest to Wikipedia and the humankind.
On Jan 22, 2012 9:43 PM, "Yao Ziyuan" yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Best Regards, Ziyuan Yao
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On 22 January 2012 22:54, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
So this can mean very much for scientific research. For example, imagine if there are two mathematicians in the world interested in the same, very deep math concept, but they don't know each other. How do we let them meet and collaborate with each other? With a comment section under that math concept's Wikipedia article.
Take another example. Imagine there are two medical researchers pursuing the same, very novel but very rarely known approach to a major disease, but they don't know each other. How do we let them meet and collaborate with each other? With a comment section under that approach's Wikipedia article.
That's why I said this is of strategic interest to Wikipedia and the humankind.
They can do what academics have always done: read each other's published works and go to conferences. If a subject is so obscure that only a handle of researchers are involved in it, then it probably isn't sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia article anyway.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:03 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 22 January 2012 22:54, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
So this can mean very much for scientific research. For example, imagine if there are two mathematicians in the world interested in the same, very deep math concept, but they don't know each other. How do we let them meet and collaborate with each other? With a comment section under that math concept's Wikipedia article.
Take another example. Imagine there are two medical researchers pursuing the same, very novel but very rarely known approach to a major disease, but they don't know each other. How do we let them meet and collaborate with each other? With a comment section under that approach's Wikipedia article.
That's why I said this is of strategic interest to Wikipedia and the humankind.
They can do what academics have always done: read each other's published works and go to conferences. If a subject is so obscure that only a handle of researchers are involved in it, then it probably isn't sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia article anyway.
That's exactly an "egg first or chicken first" problem. Great discoveries almost always come from rarely known ideas.
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On 22 January 2012 23:08, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
They can do what academics have always done: read each other's published works and go to conferences. If a subject is so obscure that only a handle of researchers are involved in it, then it probably isn't sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia article anyway.
That's exactly an "egg first or chicken first" problem. Great discoveries almost always come from rarely known ideas.
I don't see a problem. Academia is very good at coming up with new ideas that start off very small and obscure and, if they prove promising, grow and become mainstream. It is only once they have grown, at least a little, that they become appropriate subject-matter for an encyclopaedia.
This comment section idea can be an experiment. If it does more good than bad, we can keep it. Otherwise we can remove it. It's just as simple as enabling/disabling a MediaWiki extension.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:20 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 22 January 2012 23:08, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
They can do what academics have always done: read each other's published works and go to conferences. If a subject is so obscure that only a handle of researchers are involved in it, then it probably isn't sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia article anyway.
That's exactly an "egg first or chicken first" problem. Great discoveries almost always come from rarely known ideas.
I don't see a problem. Academia is very good at coming up with new ideas that start off very small and obscure and, if they prove promising, grow and become mainstream. It is only once they have grown, at least a little, that they become appropriate subject-matter for an encyclopaedia.
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On 22 January 2012 23:25, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
This comment section idea can be an experiment. If it does more good than bad, we can keep it. Otherwise we can remove it. It's just as simple as enabling/disabling a MediaWiki extension.
How would you measure how much good and bad it did? There is no point doing an experiment unless we have clear measures of success.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:27 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 22 January 2012 23:25, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
This comment section idea can be an experiment. If it does more good than bad, we can keep it. Otherwise we can remove it. It's just as simple as enabling/disabling a MediaWiki extension.
How would you measure how much good and bad it did? There is no point doing an experiment unless we have clear measures of success.
If it's useful, we expect to see researchers claiming in the news that they got like-minded colleagues from Wikipedia's comment sections :-)
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Yao Ziyuan wrote:
This merit is even more evident when the topic is very specialized, e.g. [[Phonological history of English low back vowels]]. I bet there isn't a forum on the Web dedicated to this very specialized topic, and even if there is one, it can be very hard to find it with Google (because it may use a slightly different term to describe this topic). However, if every Wikipedia article has a corresponding comment section (actually a forum), people with this special interest ("phonological history of English low back vowels") will know where to go to find each other, forming a "special interest group" (SIG).
I think it's an interesting idea for an outside group to take on. It'd be trivial to re-use Wikimedia's content (page titles or page titles + page text) to create a discussion forum for all kinds of neat articles. But given the cost-benefit analysis for the Wikimedia Foundation getting involved, I don't see it as a very good idea. Lots of costs (implementation and development of the software, monitoring comments, page load increase, etc.) and not many benefits (see below).
While I appreciate your optimistic view of comments on the Internet, I'm generally of the view that the Web needs fewer comment sections, not more. Has anyone ever found (for example) a YouTube comment insightful or useful? Ever? Occasionally a news site with some kind of noise filter (up-votes or the like) can produce an occasional comment that's not completely awful and useless. Most comment sections are filled with vile language (if people are paying viewing the content) or spam (if people aren't).
It's certainly a reasonable idea for a MediaWiki extension, if such an extension doesn't exist already.
MZMcBride
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 8:16 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Yao Ziyuan wrote:
This merit is even more evident when the topic is very specialized, e.g. [[Phonological history of English low back vowels]]. I bet there isn't a forum on the Web dedicated to this very specialized topic, and even if there is one, it can be very hard to find it with Google (because it may use a slightly different term to describe this topic). However, if every Wikipedia article has a corresponding comment section (actually a forum), people with this special interest ("phonological history of English low back vowels") will know where to go to find each other, forming a "special interest group" (SIG).
I think it's an interesting idea for an outside group to take on. It'd be trivial to re-use Wikimedia's content (page titles or page titles + page text) to create a discussion forum for all kinds of neat articles. But given the cost-benefit analysis for the Wikimedia Foundation getting involved, I don't see it as a very good idea. Lots of costs (implementation and development of the software, monitoring comments, page load increase, etc.) and not many benefits (see below).
That outside group could be Google (Google Groups in particular).
While I appreciate your optimistic view of comments on the Internet, I'm generally of the view that the Web needs fewer comment sections, not more. Has anyone ever found (for example) a YouTube comment insightful or useful? Ever? Occasionally a news site with some kind of noise filter (up-votes or the like) can produce an occasional comment that's not completely awful and useless. Most comment sections are filled with vile language (if people are paying viewing the content) or spam (if people aren't).
It's certainly a reasonable idea for a MediaWiki extension, if such an extension doesn't exist already.
Many MediaWiki extensions already do this. As said in my original message:
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
MZMcBride
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On 22 January 2012 22:31, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Besides this, another disadvantage of the current "Talk" tab is it uses the wiki way to talk, not the typical "comment section" we see under every YouTube video, Flickr image, Facebook status update, etc. The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is really weird to the general public.
There has been some work done on ways to improve our talk page interface, although nothing has ever been finished. See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/LiquidThreads_3.0 for some info.
The unique merit of using Wikipedia as a discussion place is its uniqueness. There are many "cat forums" on the Web, but they're scattered all over the Web; in contrast, the Wikipedia article [[Cat]] is a unique and prominent place for the topic "cat". If people want to go to a centralized, unified place to talk about cats, they should come to [[Cat]].
Obligatory xkcd link: http://xkcd.com/927/
On 22 January 2012 23:31, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is really weird to the general public.
The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to what it is. A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so on.
I understand why many people believe it to be a page to talk about the article at hand rather than how to improve it.
A comment section under the article (or a trollpage like on Wikinews) seems unlikely to benefit anything. Most of the comments will be unimportant, useless or altogether pointless. And those few comments THAT DO provide some insight or interest in the subject could either be better used incorporated into the article *or* will get buried among the thousands of other comments.
You think [[Cats]] isn't likely to get a lot of stupid cat comments? And while changes to articles are worthy of maintenance for most people to volunteer to do, I sincerely doubt you will find many who would manage a comment system on Wikipedia. And it *will* require management to be useful.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:39 AM, Svip svippy@gmail.com wrote:
On 22 January 2012 23:31, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is really weird to the general public.
The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to what it is. A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so on.
I understand why many people believe it to be a page to talk about the article at hand rather than how to improve it.
A comment section under the article (or a trollpage like on Wikinews) seems unlikely to benefit anything. Most of the comments will be unimportant, useless or altogether pointless. And those few comments THAT DO provide some insight or interest in the subject could either be better used incorporated into the article *or* will get buried among the thousands of other comments.
You think [[Cats]] isn't likely to get a lot of stupid cat comments? And while changes to articles are worthy of maintenance for most people to volunteer to do, I sincerely doubt you will find many who would manage a comment system on Wikipedia. And it *will* require management to be useful.
What about a Slashdot-like comment section moderated by users themselves? :-)
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On 23 January 2012 00:43, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:39 AM, Svip svippy@gmail.com wrote:
On 22 January 2012 23:31, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is really weird to the general public.
The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to what it is. A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so on.
I understand why many people believe it to be a page to talk about the article at hand rather than how to improve it.
A comment section under the article (or a trollpage like on Wikinews) seems unlikely to benefit anything. Most of the comments will be unimportant, useless or altogether pointless. And those few comments THAT DO provide some insight or interest in the subject could either be better used incorporated into the article *or* will get buried among the thousands of other comments.
You think [[Cats]] isn't likely to get a lot of stupid cat comments? And while changes to articles are worthy of maintenance for most people to volunteer to do, I sincerely doubt you will find many who would manage a comment system on Wikipedia. And it *will* require management to be useful.
What about a Slashdot-like comment section moderated by users themselves? :-)
Slashdot's comment moderation system is my favourite comment moderation system, but it is not perfect. And it works for Slashdot, because it is usually read by computer literate people. We cannot expect the same expertise from people who are likely to be commenting on [[Cat]]. Which unfortunately would mean that a comment system like Slashdot's would become too confusing to most people, even if they did not have to participate in the moderation aspect.
Then one might suggest a Digg/Reddit type system where comments can simply be voted up or down (or perhaps just up), but that is fine for a news site, where comments disappear as a new news story flocks to the top. But on Wikipedia, [[Cat]] will always be there and it will continue to have the same level of importance as it did yesterday, today and tomorrow. Hence the comments there will be carved in brine stone. And if *one* comment is elected to the top, it will continue to get more votes and continue to be the comment most people will see so there will be less ACTUAL new comments. Bash.org is an example of how this works (or lack thereof), as the same popular quotations remain in the Top 100 as they were 5 years ago.
Then we come back to a no user moderated system, and then we run into my former problem. Where it will either way be a Lord of the Flies system where no actual interesting conversation is generated (because people with interesting comments worry their comments might get buried anyway), because either there is no moderation or no one willing to do it.
What's further at issue is that a comment section on Wikipedia may also degenerate people's trust in Wikipedia as a source, because suddenly it would appear as every other Internet website where you comment on articles, forum threads and whatnot. Wikipedia *ought* to steep above that. It needs to be different. It needs to be information only. No discussion.
And that is - in my opinion at least - the beauty of Wikipedia. In a world of a chaos, one remains committed for order.
But if we really *need* a system where we can comment on broad concepts such as [[Cat]] or [[Solar calendar]]s, we could create a 'Wikipedia comment site', that would seemingly seem connected to Wikipedia, but at the same time not. And what's appropriate, it would be less obvious to find, which may gander some headway among people interested in actual conversations with others on the subject.
And I am certain some IT news site out there will cover its formation. And if we can handle it, there might even be a subtle link from every Wikipedia article to this off-site comment site.
In fact, I'm surprised wikicomments.org is still available.
On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svip svippy@gmail.com wrote:
The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to what it is. A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so on.
English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was recently changed back to "talk".
- d.
On 23 January 2012 00:44, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svip svippy@gmail.com wrote:
The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to what it is. A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so on.
English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was recently changed back to "talk".
I know this. But neither of "talk" or "discussion" refers to the actual purpose of the page. It rather refers how the page is functioning. Like calling it "Cellular phone" rather than "Mobile phone", because naming it after the technology it uses is far more descriptive than its benefits for users? Classic English. It's a dust sucker, not a vacuum cleaner.
On 01/22/12 3:44 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svipsvippy@gmail.com wrote:
The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to what it is. A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so on.
English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was recently changed back to "talk".
I don't care what you call it. The talk page is still the best place for wide ranging discussions on a subject.
Ray
Sure; if the objective is to have comments by "people who are interested in the subject, can identify the relevant venue, can identify how to edit the relevant venue, are aware that they *can* edit, can handle wikimarkup and can deal with the fact that a lot of editors see "wide-ranging discussions on a subject" as utterly irrelevant and subject to removal unless they directly suggest alterations to the article content" instead of, well, "people who are interested in the subject".
On 24 January 2012 23:05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
On 01/22/12 3:44 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svipsvippy@gmail.com wrote:
The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to what it is. A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so on.
English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was recently changed back to "talk".
I don't care what you call it. The talk page is still the best place for
wide ranging discussions on a subject.
Ray
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+1.... exactly
There are 3 basic kinds of dialog - ** editors and participants actively hoping to improve the article; ** feedback that is intended to have a decent proportion of useful comments and can be sifted for them quickly; and ** "chat about the topic, article, and anything else people get into".
However you label them, whatever means and venue we were to use, the third of those is where the question mark goes.
FT2
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 11:26 PM, Oliver Keyes okeyes@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sure; if the objective is to have comments by "people who are interested in the subject, can identify the relevant venue, can identify how to edit the relevant venue, are aware that they *can* edit, can handle wikimarkup and can deal with the fact that a lot of editors see "wide-ranging discussions on a subject" as utterly irrelevant and subject to removal unless they directly suggest alterations to the article content" instead of, well, "people who are interested in the subject".
On 24 January 2012 23:05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
On 01/22/12 3:44 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svipsvippy@gmail.com wrote:
The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to what it is. A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so on.
English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was recently changed back to "talk".
I don't care what you call it. The talk page is still the best place
for
wide ranging discussions on a subject.
Ray
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On 01/24/12 3:26 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote:
Sure; if the objective is to have comments by "people who are interested in the subject, can identify the relevant venue, can identify how to edit the relevant venue, are aware that they *can* edit, can handle wikimarkup and can deal with the fact that a lot of editors see "wide-ranging discussions on a subject" as utterly irrelevant and subject to removal unless they directly suggest alterations to the article content" instead of, well, "people who are interested in the subject".
The first part of your comments refer to mechanical issues which shouldn't invite a lot of controversy. Basic wikimarkup will be the same on article and talk pages. For the other, having material "subject to removal" give us the same problem that deletionists cause on article pages. It requires judging what other people write. Even expecting minimal relevance to the subject requires judging. I can go to an article see even a documented point made in it as questionable, but not have the resources to pursue the matter further. I can't validly change the article, but I would be remiss in not addressing the issue. Much of what is on the talk page will be unnecessarily long-winded, but that's a reasonable price for openness.
Ray
On 24 January 2012 23:05, Ray Saintongesaintonge@telus.net wrote:
On 01/22/12 3:44 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svipsvippy@gmail.com wrote:
The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to what it is. A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so on.
English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was recently changed back to "talk".
I don't care what you call it. The talk page is still the best place for
wide ranging discussions on a subject.
Ray
As Facebook already takes our articles for the same general chitchat reasons, it sounds like we could add a Facebook link to every article to get the same result.
Cheers, Fae -- http://enwp.org/user_talk:fae Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/faetags
Hoi, A comment section under every Wikipedia article seems to be a very bad idea. You read a Wikipedia article to learn about the subject at hand, you can read comments on the talk page. Reading the talk page only makes sense when you are interested in learning more about what people have to say about the article or the subject. Typically I am not and I am sure that most of our readers could not care less.
Having comments in your face at the bottom to me is not only something I would resent, it would also add more clutter that I have to download every time I read an article. Given that more and more people read Wikipedia on a mobile, it is added real cost with debatable benefit.
Interesting idea, sure. Strategic hell no. Thanks, GerardM
On 22 January 2012 22:43, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Best Regards, Ziyuan Yao
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On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:15 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, A comment section under every Wikipedia article seems to be a very bad idea. You read a Wikipedia article to learn about the subject at hand, you can read comments on the talk page. Reading the talk page only makes sense when you are interested in learning more about what people have to say about the article or the subject. Typically I am not and I am sure that most of our readers could not care less.
Having comments in your face at the bottom to me is not only something I would resent, it would also add more clutter that I have to download every time I read an article. Given that more and more people read Wikipedia on a mobile, it is added real cost with debatable benefit.
I see this idea is unpopular among the maling list, but I still want to point out that the "download" part is not true. Comments can be dynamically downloaded (e.g. AJAX) on a on-demand basis (only when you click "Show comments" would comments be downloaded and shown to you).
Interesting idea, sure. Strategic hell no. Thanks, GerardM
On 22 January 2012 22:43, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Best Regards, Ziyuan Yao
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On 23 January 2012 18:16, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:15 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Having comments in your face at the bottom to me is not only something I would resent, it would also add more clutter that I have to download every time I read an article.
I see this idea is unpopular among the maling list, but I still want to point out that the "download" part is not true. Comments can be dynamically downloaded (e.g. AJAX) on a on-demand basis (only when you click "Show comments" would comments be downloaded and shown to you).
Perhaps, but Wikipedia (and MediaWiki sites in general) are one of the few remaining websites that benefits from being Web 1.0 rather than Web 2.0, even if it has elements of the latter.
Note that we are adding a sorta-quasi-comments section, just not on the articles; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Article_Feedback_Tool/Version_5
On 23 January 2012 17:31, Svip svippy@gmail.com wrote:
On 23 January 2012 18:16, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:15 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Having comments in your face at the bottom to me is not only something I would resent, it would also add more clutter that I have to download
every
time I read an article.
I see this idea is unpopular among the maling list, but I still want to point out that the "download" part is not true. Comments can be dynamically downloaded (e.g. AJAX) on a on-demand basis (only when you click "Show comments" would comments be downloaded and shown to you).
Perhaps, but Wikipedia (and MediaWiki sites in general) are one of the few remaining websites that benefits from being Web 1.0 rather than Web 2.0, even if it has elements of the latter.
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Since it's unlikely the foundation mailing list will agree to enable such a comment section on every Wikipedia article (although enabling it is quite easy: just choose a "comment" extension from http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and enable it on Wikipedia), maybe we can talk about implementing it on a separate website.
For example, create a website named WikiSocial.com. This will be a Web 2.0 version of Wikipedia, which lets you browse Wikipedia's content but also provides Web 2.0 social features such as the comment section, social sharing buttons (e.g. "Tweet this article").
Any interest? :-)
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:43 AM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Best Regards, Ziyuan Yao
On 23 January 2012 18:09, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Since it's unlikely the foundation mailing list will agree to enable such a comment section on every Wikipedia article (although enabling it is quite easy: just choose a "comment" extension from http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and enable it on Wikipedia), maybe we can talk about implementing it on a separate website.
For example, create a website named WikiSocial.com. This will be a Web 2.0 version of Wikipedia, which lets you browse Wikipedia's content but also provides Web 2.0 social features such as the comment section, social sharing buttons (e.g. "Tweet this article").
Any interest? :-)
There might well be some interest, but it doesn't sound like something the Wikimedia movement would do. There is nothing stopping someone else mirroring Wikipedia's content and adding a comments section. The whole point of having Wikipedia be free (as in speech) is so that other people can re-use it in interesting ways, and this sounds like a good example of that.
Turns out, this "adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article" idea is not necessary, because if two people are interested in the same topic, they can find that topic's Wikipedia article and google that article's title (which is a globally unique term for that topic) and find each other. They don't need a comment section on that article to meet each other.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:43 AM, Yao Ziyuan yaoziyuan@gmail.com wrote:
Hello All,
I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest to Wikipedia:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products, jobs, external references, etc.).
Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable topic in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position, we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every Wikipedia article. Just go to http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for "comment" or "discussion".
Best Regards, Ziyuan Yao
I would like to add my voice to the list of those who say that this is a very bad idea, for reasons already listed.
One kernel of truth is that users who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia expect discussion at the bottom of EVERYTHING on the web. Blog posts, videos, facebook posts.
Maybe at the bottom of the page, put a big fat link to the talk tab?
I would not mind social media buttons at the bottom of a page, but I think I'm the minority here. I certainly don't think it's strategically necessary, but I'm no strategy expert.
David Richfield [[en:User:Slashme]]
The difference is, we tread a narrow line here.
We want talk, but of a contributory kind, high signal-noise, high proportion of information. There are three kinds of "discussion" that can take place:
1. *User feedback* - characterized by specific one-off posts left for others to uprate or downrate and (presumably as far as they're concerned) editors to hopefully do something with or listen to. Ideally this filters 3 ways - (a)* ignore, (b) pass to editors with thanks, or (c) note but no action taken, with explanation and thanks*. 2. *Editor discussion of the article*, high quality dialog specifically about the article, or good points fed back on it. 3. *Discussion of the _topic_, or general chat, forum-y stuff, random whatever*... this is what people also expect. Look at any popular blog or facebook page, the chat below is often just people discussing the subject, what's said about it... low signal to noise generally.
The article feedback tool is working towards (1); when it's closer to complete I imagine articles will have a "give feedback here". (2) we already have. *
What is worth asking is, is there a place in Wikimedia for (3)?* If so it can only be for social interest and "stickiness" (people who discuss may contribute or at the least will be made more aware). It could be very good for that. The downside is it attracts advocates, might draw attention away from content discussion, needs patrolling (distraction from content), etc. So here's the focused question -- is there a net return from the "plus" side, and if so is there a way to get that benefit that returns more than it costs? Where:
- "returns" will be oxygen for the project generally and articles specifically, awareness, wider attention, stickiness, more public eyeballs, a way to get some more focus here of the kind social sites leverage, and maybe a start for more editors from (3), and
- "costs" will be the distraction from working on high quality discussions (1) (2) and article editing as a result of patroling and other needs of (3)
(And of course the standard of comparison could be "better of two evils". For instance if the crystal ball says a wiki project dies due to fading attention then maybe chat and patrolling is net harmful but less harmful than eventual loss)
FT2
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:09 PM, David Richfield davidrichfield@gmail.comwrote:
I would like to add my voice to the list of those who say that this is a very bad idea, for reasons already listed.
One kernel of truth is that users who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia expect discussion at the bottom of EVERYTHING on the web. Blog posts, videos, facebook posts.
Maybe at the bottom of the page, put a big fat link to the talk tab?
I would not mind social media buttons at the bottom of a page, but I think I'm the minority here. I certainly don't think it's strategically necessary, but I'm no strategy expert.
Instead of hosting comment sections on Wikipedia, there is also the possibility to just retrieve external comments using Google Blog Search. For example, if you're viewing [[Cat]], you can click a button called "Show comments" below the article, which will run a Google Blog Search that returns all blog posts mentioning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat, sorted by date or by relevance (PageRank-style sorting, which can automatically surface the best comments to the top).
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 8:40 PM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
The difference is, we tread a narrow line here.
We want talk, but of a contributory kind, high signal-noise, high proportion of information. There are three kinds of "discussion" that can take place:
1. *User feedback* - characterized by specific one-off posts left for others to uprate or downrate and (presumably as far as they're concerned) editors to hopefully do something with or listen to. Ideally this filters 3 ways - (a)* ignore, (b) pass to editors with thanks, or (c) note but no action taken, with explanation and thanks*. 2. *Editor discussion of the article*, high quality dialog specifically about the article, or good points fed back on it. 3. *Discussion of the _topic_, or general chat, forum-y stuff, random whatever*... this is what people also expect. Look at any popular blog or facebook page, the chat below is often just people discussing the subject, what's said about it... low signal to noise generally.
The article feedback tool is working towards (1); when it's closer to complete I imagine articles will have a "give feedback here". (2) we already have. *
What is worth asking is, is there a place in Wikimedia for (3)?* If so it can only be for social interest and "stickiness" (people who discuss may contribute or at the least will be made more aware). It could be very good for that. The downside is it attracts advocates, might draw attention away from content discussion, needs patrolling (distraction from content), etc. So here's the focused question -- is there a net return from the "plus" side, and if so is there a way to get that benefit that returns more than it costs? Where:
- "returns" will be oxygen for the project generally and articles specifically, awareness, wider attention, stickiness, more public eyeballs, a way to get some more focus here of the kind social sites leverage, and maybe a start for more editors from (3), and
- "costs" will be the distraction from working on high quality discussions (1) (2) and article editing as a result of patroling and other needs of (3)
(And of course the standard of comparison could be "better of two evils". For instance if the crystal ball says a wiki project dies due to fading attention then maybe chat and patrolling is net harmful but less harmful than eventual loss)
FT2
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:09 PM, David Richfield davidrichfield@gmail.comwrote:
I would like to add my voice to the list of those who say that this is a very bad idea, for reasons already listed.
One kernel of truth is that users who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia expect discussion at the bottom of EVERYTHING on the web. Blog posts, videos, facebook posts.
Maybe at the bottom of the page, put a big fat link to the talk tab?
I would not mind social media buttons at the bottom of a page, but I think I'm the minority here. I certainly don't think it's strategically necessary, but I'm no strategy expert.
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FT2:
- "costs" will be the distraction from working on high quality discussions (1) (2) and article editing as a result of patroling and other needs of (3)
... and loss of neutrality, when the comments on controversial topics (or even less controversial) are filled with arguments for one cause or another – and all comments *will* be considered to be, in some way, a part of Wikipedia as well.
//Johan Jönsson -- http://johanjonsson.net/wikipedia
Yes. I had thought about one option - a separate website entirely, purely for people to chat about Wikimedia articles. But at a first glance that dead ends for so many reasons.
FT2
2012/1/24 Johan Jönsson brevlistor@gmail.com
FT2:
- "costs" will be the distraction from working on high quality
discussions (1) (2) and article editing as a result of patroling and
other
needs of (3)
... and loss of neutrality, when the comments on controversial topics (or even less controversial) are filled with arguments for one cause or another – and all comments *will* be considered to be, in some way, a part of Wikipedia as well.
//Johan Jönsson
http://johanjonsson.net/wikipedia
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On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 4:50 PM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. I had thought about one option - a separate website entirely, purely for people to chat about Wikimedia articles. But at a first glance that dead ends for so many reasons.
Maybe implement a subreddit schema and some way to create a subreddit for each article? I don't know what Conde Nast's nastiness level is, though.
Or maybe a slashdot portal?
Just throwing ideas around here...
On 24 January 2012 15:31, David Richfield davidrichfield@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe implement a subreddit schema and some way to create a subreddit for each article? I don't know what Conde Nast's nastiness level is, though.
The Reddit code is open source. Apparently takes more than a little work to do useful things with it, though.
- d.
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 10:31 AM, David Richfield davidrichfield@gmail.comwrote:
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 4:50 PM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. I had thought about one option - a separate website entirely, purely for people to chat about Wikimedia articles. But at a first glance that dead ends for so many reasons.
Maybe implement a subreddit schema and some way to create a subreddit for each article? I don't know what Conde Nast's nastiness level is, though.
Or maybe a slashdot portal?
Just throwing ideas around here...
-- David Richfield [[:en:User:Slashme]]
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I doubt relying on a third party service is going to fly.
On 01/24/12 6:50 AM, FT2 wrote:
Yes. I had thought about one option - a separate website entirely, purely for people to chat about Wikimedia articles. But at a first glance that dead ends for so many reasons.
That usually begins to fail when the proponent discovers that he might have to pay to keep that site up.
Ray
Yao Ziyuan is thinking along the right lines. Wikipedia can be more than it currently is. We need experiments, we need to be experimental again.
FT2 makes the excellent case that we need a level of 'insulation' to protect our existing project from the potential negative effects of failed experiments.
FT2 asks:
3. *Discussion of the _topic_, or general chat, forum-y stuff, random whatever* ... What is worth asking is, is there a place in Wikimedia for (3)?
My own answer is a resounding yes. The total set of the world's personal opinion is an exciting data set.
Facebook, Google+, and Twitter capture "discussion" data in bulk. But Facebook and Google and Twitter don't have Wikimedia's Values. I don't trust Facebook with my data. I don't trust Google+ with my data-- they unilaterally change their privacy policies.
For-Profit companies sell out their users and we all know that's a risk. At the same time, we know that Wikimedia respects its users. Wikimedia stops things like SOPA in the tracks. I trust Wikimedia.
The more data we have, the more services we provide, the more our movement thrives and the more we prove that Wikimedia Values work.
Whenever feasible, grow grow. Don't just be Wikipedia-- be more! :) AlecMeta
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