Wikipedia-l July 2003

wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

71 participants
114 discussions

New stuff on test.wiki
by Daniel Mayer 22 Jul '03

22 Jul '03

Erik wrote: >... >and the background color for non-article pages >(special pages) has been changed to a light metallic blue. Please change that back. The metallic blue is ugly (the page looks dirty) and we have used light yellow so long it has become part of our unique look/trademark. There is /no/ need to make an arbitrary change like this - without the yellow it doesn't look like Wikipedia. I like most of the changes though (don't know about the ugly box around the footer though...) -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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Be bold in improving Wikipedia's ugly layout!
by Erik Zachte 22 Jul '03

22 Jul '03

What about giving the reader more control over things like font type and size ? This is really not so hard to do. A special page could offer choices in font size, style and colour. The choices would be stored in a cookie (ok, a small minority will not benefit from this). Settings are applied through javascript after the page has loaded. So, minimal overhead for the server, it just includes a static js file. Direct feedback for the user, click a different size and presto! view the results. These formatting options might be added to the preferences page. See for an example of font type switching this service page: (it is in Dutch but choices are obvious): http://www.gemm.nl/webgemms/service.html In this case the javascript changes from one CSS file to another. That is too complicated too maintain. Instead all preferences could be applied on the go by javascript iself. For example my Wikipedia statistics pages remembers table font size: http://www.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/Statistics Erik Zachte

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Re: New stuff on test.wiki
by Daniel Mayer 22 Jul '03

22 Jul '03

Erik wrote: >Here is an alternative (4 levels) without reverting >to those oversized fonts: > >http://members.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/Temp/HeaderSizes2.png I very much like this alternative - if an article needs more than 4 heading levels after H1 then their is something really wrong with the organization of that article. --- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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Re: New stuff on test.wiki
by Erik Zachte 22 Jul '03

22 Jul '03

Since display of the test wiki is probably browser dependant I have a here a MSIE screen shot http://members.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/Temp/HeaderSizes.png Can you spot without an eye blink which header is ==, which === and which ==== ? Here is an alternative (4 levels) without reverting to those oversized fonts: http://members.chello.nl/epzachte/Wikipedia/Temp/HeaderSizes2.png Erik Zachte

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New stuff on test.wiki
by Daniel Mayer 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

Erik wrote: >... I'm personally quite sick of the obnoxious >yellow, though, Then reduce the saturation of the yellow - like the fill color used in the "Community" box on en.wiki's Main Page. But the metallic blue seems really cold and looks more like a monitor glitch than a fill color (eeek! my monitor is going dark!). We should have one color and stick with it - changing the one we already have to another hue is arbitrary. If you think it is obnoxious then try different variations of the same hue - please don't change hues. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com

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Phase IV, Wikibooks.org/.com and WikimediaFoundation.org/.com (was Wikis and uniformity)
by Daniel Mayer 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

Erik wrote: >Making a site like Wiktionary or textbook.wiki >international is a lot of work with the current >setup. A copy of the code and a new database >has to be created for each language, and the >relevant texts have to be adapted. Brion's idea for a multilanguage Phase IV where all the now separate Wikipedia wikis would be in a single database under a single software installation would help a great deal (skins would take care of localization). We could extend that idea by having separate databases/software installations only between different Wikimedia projects (which should all have their own domain names anyway). Subprojects/language versions within the same Wikimedia project would all be in the same database; each wiki page would need a language/subproject tag - or table thingy - and those wiki pages would be in their own directories (again the directories would be named after the appropriate language code). Side note: IMO, "MediaWiki" would be a good name for our officially nameless software. "PediaWiki" never worked for me since the software is used in at least several non-encyclopedia contexts and will likely be used by many more in the next several years. But all that is less important than optimizing the current code. >It is better to wait a bit, but keep internationalization >in mind from the start. The "textbook"-wiki will likely >be relocated to wikibooks.org, where we can then >use the scheme that Mav proposes. Hm. The last thing we need is a porn site at wikibooks.org so since everybody is referring to Wikibook as Wikibooks I went ahead and bought wikibooks.org/.com too. And while I was at it I went ahead and purchased WikimediaFoundation.org/.com as well. All these domain names will be donated to Wikimedia as soon as it is able to accept a legal transfer of ownership. It will be up to the Foundation to decide what to do with all these domain names and whether or not it makes sense to renew them (if so then I'll probably help to finance that too but I'm sure I won't be the only one). But for now they are safe from cyber squatters for at least the next year (I'm still mad at myself for not purchasing wikimedia.com before a squatter got it). -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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Storing "source code" for diagrams in the Wikipedia?
by Robert Graham Merkel 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

I've been working on creating diagrams for the playing arenas of various sports (for instance see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football), using sodipodi (an SVG editor) and then exporting to PNG. It seems to me that it would be useful for the purposes of future editing if people had access to my SVG files. At the moment, if people want to change the diagram they either have to ask me to make the changes, mail me for a copy of the SVG, or try the hack of modifying the exported bitmap on the site. Obviously, I could upload the SVG source, but is this appropriate (we don't do this for any other type of file because of the bandwidth and storage issues) but where would be an appropriate place to put it? So, basically, I'm raising the topic of whether and how we should handle "source files" for media we place in the Wikipedia. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Merkel rgmerk(a)mira.net Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. -- Albert Einstein They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- Carl Sagan --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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No new wikis
by erik_moeller＠gmx.de 21 Jul '03

21 Jul '03

I am a bit concerned about the pace at which new Wikipedia spinoff projects are created. Wiktionary was a good idea, because it filled a gap that was there -- we received lots of dictionary entries, so it seemed like the logical conclusion to start a wiki-dictionary. But now we have a new "Textbook-Wiki" which was started without much discussion - possibly a good idea, but also possibly too specific - and shortly afterwards, a "Wiki-Quote" project was created. Now people are talking about creating a "Wiki-Piki" for pictures. This is all nice and good, but haven't we learned anything from the Wiktionary experience? Wiktionary was set up without much thought as to how the wiki process could be applied to a dictionary; it took months to formulate some kind of standard template, and we still don't have Wiktionaries in other languages. Wiktionary could have benefitted a lot from better planning before it was set up. I'm not sure I like the Wiki- Quote idea at all, as it intersects a lot with Project Sourceberg, is not very wiki-like (a quote is a quote) and not very compatible with the open content idea. Wiki-Quote was only very briefly discussed. Furthermore, it's not exactly like we have lots of free resources. Our database server, pliny, is down on its knees, the full text search on the English wiki is now permanently disabled, we have only a couple of active server administrators, and hardly enough developers to address problems in the software. I propose that 1) we do not start any new Wiki spin-off projects until our current resources have been substantially expanded; 2) we formalize a process for starting such projects, e.g. a planning period of at least 3 months on Meta with exact specifications as to what is to be placed there. After this period, users on the Meta wiki should vote on whether the new wiki should be set up or not. 3 months may seem long, but if interest can't be kept up that long, the idea may not be so great after all. Otherwise I see the danger that we'll end up with lots of nice ideas that all go nowhere, like the sep11.wikipedia.org (which IMHO should never have been set up in the first place). Regards, Erik

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Logo contest launched
by erik_moeller＠gmx.de 20 Jul '03

20 Jul '03

Wikipedians, I have set up a new logo contest at http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logo_contest Please consider adding a link to this meta page, or a translation in your language, to the Main Page of your respective Wikipedia, so that the largest possible number of talented artists can be directed to this page. The deadline for logo submissions is August 20. All further discussion should take place on the Meta talk page. Regards, Erik

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia logo
by Anthere 20 Jul '03

20 Jul '03

--- Lightning <lightning(a)chaos-productions.com> wrote: if i can get a higher res original i could play > with. Ditto but I put my own proposition nevertheless (which could be improved with the high res) http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_logos __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com

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Wikipedia-l July 2003