Ed begged: :-)
>Wikipedia is the world's largest wiki, isn't it? When it's 10 times or 100 times the size, with 1,000 to 3,000 logged-in, daily contributors -- how will we manage then? My plea is for some way beyond the personal judgment of an elite, to maintain order, lest a self-perpetuating cabal develop that freezes out the very type of capable and devoted contributor it formed to protect.
>
...
>
>Help me out, here, man.
Well--what's so bad about setting up a page outlining an expected code of conduct? Really that's what we've banned people based on--violation of an expected code of conduct--so let's at least outline what we expect. It's just not fair to ban people based on rules that aren't explicitly and undeniably clear.
I propose e.g. 1) no name-calling; save it for Jerry Springer. 2) don't change other peoples' comments. 3) don't question whether other people are actually people.
kq
> There's a rich history from older wiki communities
> and projects that we can, and should, draw upon, just
> as we draw upon existing sources for encyclopedia articles.
>> Maybe. I'm not actually sure that that's true; Wikipedia
>> is a completely new thing. It's a wiki, but it's a lot
>> more than a wiki.
> Perhaps, but we're still building on a foundation
> that's largely wiki, and many of our problems have
> also been faced by other wikis.
> There are lots of other sources to learn from too:
> older encyclopedia projects (why did they fail?),
> commercial encyclopedias (is there anything we can
> leverage from them in our project?) and the rise(s)
> and fall(s) of other great Internet experiments
> (Usenet, Slashdot).
I think it's important to realize that we are on the
bleeding edge here, and that the experience of others in
other online communities, even wiki, doesn't necessarily
apply. First, the idea that there is a "rich history"
of wikis in particular is laughable, unless there's some
definition of "rich history" that includes things created
in 1995, none of which has ever produced a product even
vaguely resembling what we're trying to produce. I might
apply the term "rich history" to things like mailing lists,
Usenet, IRC, and MUDs; everything else is new ground.
We also differ greatly from a lot of those earlier communities
in that we have a goal: building an encyclopedia. We are not
here /for the purpose/ of building a community; the community
is just a /means/ to the end of building an encyclopedia. If
those other communities teach us something about building
communities, that may or may not apply here, because if the
community gets in the way of the goal, the goal comes first.
I think Wikipedia has more in common with things like open
source software projects, in that the community itself is just
a secondary concern to producing a product. In other words,
we should take our lessons not from MUDs or Everything2, but
from Linux kernel development, the Apache project, Mozilla,
etc. I think it's worth noting that in all of those projects,
there are security and control mechanisms.
So don't tell me what other Wikis have done--it doesn't matter.
Tell me what other /successful productive projects/ have done.
Don't tell me how to build a community; tell me how to make
the community build an encyclopedia.
> It's just that this month's party has so many guests that
> I think Jimmy should deputize a few bouncers--with written
> guidelines as to what's okay and what's not. I don't want
> to have to keep running to some fat old bald guy everytime
> someone on the guest list starts knocking drinks out of the
> other guests' hands.
Hey, I resemble that remark...
I don't think we should count as "articles" any page that was generated by a script. Okay, if someone (i.e., a human contributor) edits such a page, even slightly, we can count it. But as of now I am entirely discounting our "working on X number of articles" blurb. It should say that we wrote Y articles and ran a SQL script to generated Z articles for a total of T. Or better yet, just say we wrote Y articles.
Either delete Ram-Man's crap or be honest about it. (Darn it, I'm starting to sound as curmudgeonly as Cunctator and LDC. Must be due to seeing a gray hair in the mirror the other day.)
Or why can't the SQL script serve up a page on request? That is, when the reader clicks on the link (or enters the URL):
* If there is no "real" page already there, run the script, generate the page, and show it to the user. If they click on edit, let them edit the script results; and if they click save, then save the article with the REAL_PAGE flag set to TRUE.
* If there is already a "real" page there, return that page as usual.
Ed Poor
On Friday 25 October 2002 12:53 pm, wikipedia-l-request(a)wikipedia.org wrote:
> I merged my little script with the fine layout from the other page.
> Please try again
> http://mitglied.lycos.de/manske/wiki/test.php (Sorry for the
> banner, I can't help it)
>
> I included the English and German intro, as well as the localized search
> function. The word "Search" and the intro will appear in English for all
> other browser settings, as English is the default for languages that
> don't have an intro text of their own.
>
> Known problems:
> * Neutral or localized logo is needed
> * Maybe an unobstrusive link in or close to the intro to the English
> wikipedia, as an anchor for anyone who is stuck on a foreign PC ("This
> page in English")
> * Works only for Phase III wikipedias (.org)
>
> Magnus
Looks like a good mock-up and I assume it is possible to automatically update
article and language counts even without a combinded database. However it is
still a static page and since we are a Wiki then this should be on a wiki
page, no? But then, which wiki do we choose?
We might be part of the same project but we ain't all on one database yet.
Without its own Recent Changes, random page function, article search etc that
queries /all/ languages and a unified log-in for /all/ languages at
www.wikipedia.org I don't think this page will be that useful -- even for
first time visitors.
Having one intro page for the whole project seems to indicate that Wikipedia
is one single product on one unified wiki - we aren't there yet (we're not
even all on the same software version yet!). And until we are one wiki I
don't think a pointer page will be that useful in and of itself. NOTE: If a
fork is threatened over there not being a language neutral page at
www.wikipedia.org then it /would/ be useful to put up the static page. But
IMO this really should be done right to begin with and not half now and half
later.
In the meantime I do think it would be a good idea to go ahead and implement
the language sniffer idea so that somebody with a localized browser will be
directed to the same language as the browser is set (however, I don't think
we should redirect people to stub wikis - that makes us look bad). This would
require more tweaks to each of the different language's Main Pages (such as
placing even more emphasis on en.wiki's Main Page that there are in fact
other languages and for non-English wiki's to do the same). We can then work
towards having a multilingual Phase IV with a combined database. IMO, when
Phase IV goes live, then and only then would a unified Main Page really make
sense and be truly useful.
Implementing the sniffer idea does logically require the English Wikipedia to
move to en.wikipedia.org - otherwise there would be no obviously reinforced
way for somebody with a German localized browser to go directly to the the
English Wikipedia's Main Page by typing in the URL.
--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
I hope we are all proud of ourselves about how
tolerant we are with people who consistently exhibit
anti-social behavior. Andre has left the project due
to fatigue with having to deal with these miscreants
and I am so /disgusted/ with loosing yet another great
en.wiki contributor that for at least the next several
days I am going to concentrate on the Spanish
Wikipedia and contemplate priorities on my own future
involvement in en.wiki.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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On Fri, 2002-10-25 at 16:05, elian wrote:
> The Cunctator <cunctator(a)kband.com> writes:
>
> > 1) There doesn't seem to be any major philosophical objection to a browser
> > localization redirect of "http://www.wikipedia.org/".
>
> I have nine browsers on my computer (needed for webdesign and some other
> purposes). Some don't even have a localize-option and do you think I
> bother to configure the rest? So I get english all the time.
<snip>
I'm not saying it would solve every problem. However, it wouldn't create
any new ones. I'd rather implement changes that are invisible first.
Does that seem reasonable?
> Next, I want to see the progress of all wikipedias at one central place
> and not somewhere hidden at an obscure statistics page somewhere at the
> english (Main?) wikipedia where nobody of the non-english contributors
> bothers to look for regularly. The version I proposed stimulates
> competition.
I don't think competition is exactly the right approach, but I agree
with your sentiment. I think the right way to do that is to consolidate
the backend so that integrated Recent Changes, interlanguage linking,
etc., are feasible and automatic.
> Lastly, I want to have a simple, not crowded page to search wikipedia
> where I am not disturbed by masses of text and I have to look very sharply
> to discover the small "search" field in one corner.
> If we want to be an encyclopedia, we should offer people an attractive
> interface for quick and easy searching wikipedia - and where could this be
> better placed than on the Main Page www.wikipedia.org? If I am somewhere
> and I simply want to know something, I don't want categories,
> introductions and masses of links: I want a search box, cursor already
> placed in it, type in something and get my results.
I'm not sure this is the best choice for everyone. That is what Google
is for, more than Wikipedia. The best way for you to get this to happen
would be to develop an incremental change of the homepage. For example,
you might want to advocate changing the default Wikipedia style to
something like Cologne Blue.
> > I only see a secondary philosophical objection. The objection is based on
> > the argument that first people should be encouraged to contribute to the
> > Eng-lang Wikipedia before others, not from the principle that English is
> > better, but from the principle that "from a strict efficiency point of
> > view, the goal of a comprehensive and neutral encyclopedia would benefit
> > from dealing with issues in only one central article with as many actors as
> > possible debating/working together rather than several different articles
> > with only a couple of persons in each place, even though they are updating
> > their own articles from the other wikis", as Anthere eloquently put it. (I'm
> > not claiming she advocates this position. She just described it well.) This
> > objection would be pretty much obviated with better backend integration and
> > interlanguage tools.
>
> If this is the case I vote for abandoning the other language wikipedias,
> but I am not sure if I understood you right: you build sentences of German
> length.
Again, I want to emphasize this isn't a major objection. But it's an
important point.
> Besides, I am no philosopher, my objections are not philosophical
> but practical. If you like to engage in philosophical discussions I
> suggest a philosophy forum, not wikipedia-mailinglist.
Decisions need to derive from basic policy. I think you understand what
I mean by "philosophical".
> We have one thing in common: we both object balcanization,
> however our interpretation seem to vary.
>
> I think a wikipedia, each language on a separate URL without a centralized
> - and a really centralized - main page is a bundle of balkanized
> projects. If this remains like this, I prefer to stay in the nice,
> peaceful, balkanized German wikipedia without having to think about the
> others around - at least we have www.wikipedia.de. Maybe the dutch, the
> french, the polish and so on could also reserve .nl, .fr, .pl...
I do too. As I've said repeatedly, I think there are better and more
important ways to reduce balkanization than to change the homepage to a
portal, and that these things should be done first.
Don't worry, change will happen. Some patience is necessary.
As you may or may not know, Wikipedia has been making a move to a new
server for quite some time now. I have just installed our mailing
list software on the new server, and am in the process of moving the
mailing lists over.
Wikipedia-l was mived over just a couple of minutes ago. This
shouldn't affect too much, but here is what I expect:
* The posting address will change from wikipedia-l(a)nupedia.com to
wikipedia-l(a)wikipedia.org. The old address will remain functional.
* Mailing list options can be updated at
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l. This change
should be reflected in the postings as well.
* The administrative interface has moved to
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/admin/wikipedia-l. The password
should be the same (unless you were using the global administrative
password, which you probably shouldn't have been). Let me know if
you see problems here...
* In the coming day, there may be double postings of a few messages.
Also, digest members may get two separate digests. One will contain
the portion of traffic that came to the old list, the other will
contain the traffic that came to the new list. I don't know for
sure if this will be the case, but it seems plausible.
Please let me know if you have any trouble with the new system. Also,
I will be moving a few other wikipedia specific lists in the coming
hours/days. If you have a list that you think needs moved, please
feel free to let me know.
--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr(a)bomis.com>
mattheww+wikipedia(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk wrote:
> We fix them when we have the energy to do so. When we get tired, we
> trust that others will pick up the slack, rather than assuming that the
> only solution is to ban.
Zoe wrote:
> And when they show no signs of getting tired?
If it turns out that there aren't enough people who are happy to fix
breakage, _then_ we should start thinking of banning people. But we
shouldn't assume that there aren't before we try.
Here's my personal guess: if it comes to the point that the only way to
keep Wikipedia healthy is to have a policy under which we frequently
ban people, Wikipedia will not be viable in any case. Nonetheless, if
we do reach that point, I would support trying such a policy. I am sure
we have not reached that point yet.
-M-
"elian" skribis:
[...]
> Esperanto is not available as language option in all of my browsers. De
> facto, by depending only on browser settings, we would deprive the
> Esperanto wikipedia of many possible contributors (who would be
> enthusiastic discovering an esperanto encyclopedia but have no interest at
> all in contributing to yet another english encyclopedia)
[eo]
Vi povas uzi (almenaux en IE kaj Opera) novaj
lingvoj ("uzante difinita"), kaj tie skribi "eo".
Sed praktike mi pensas, ke multaj esperantistoj
ne scias pri tiu.
[de]
Du kannst (zumindest in IE und Opera) neue Sprachen
hinzufügen ("benutzerdefiniert") und dort "eo" angeben.
Ich nehme allerdings an, dass die meisten Esperantisten
das nicht wissen.
[en]
You can (at least in Opera and the IE) add new
languages ("user defined") and there type "eo".
But I think that most Esperantists do not know
this ...
Paul