Its been discussed before but I think we should make a formal decision on
it:
I propose that we change our copyright policy so all anonymous edits have
their copyright assigned to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Imran
--
http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran
After a few months of intensive Perl hacking I can announce completion
of WikiStats Phase II.
Lots of line charts have been added.
Contrary to the existing tables and bar charts which show monthly
figures, these new charts have a resolution of weeks, some of days.
Data acquisition, automatic scaling, filtering, color selection,
ordering and trend analysis, well it was a massive undertaking, even
when the actual plotting is done with a fine open source tool: Ploticus.
Enjoy, Erik Zachte
http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/Sitemap.htm
Sorry about that previous message, I hit the wrong button in my email
program.
I can agree with most of the material. Some remarks, though:
"In some cases the Wikipedia community itself cannot agree on whether
an edit constitutes vandalism or not. In fact there is a vandalism-tracking
page where users discuss and coordinate responses to specific instances
of vandalism."
This makes it seem that the vandalism tracking page is for a large part
to discuss what is and what is not vandalism; it is not. Of the five types
of vandalism mentioned below, I would remove the fifth type - it would not
be considered vandalism, it is a different issue.
"On the other hand, there is also the possibility that a newcomer is someone
who may be unfamiliar with Wikipedia standards." - the word 'standards'
could easily be read wrong here, but I cannot find a good different one
either.
Regarding the 'first-mover advantage', I would like to put forward the
possibility that it is not the fact of being first, but the size of the
edit that makes these 'invulnerable' - if someone adds one or two lines to
an article, someone else may well come along and decide those can be
improved, but if someone adds 3 or 4 paragraphs, others will not as readily
edit them if there happen to be one or two lines they want to do something
about - if they even go so far as to read the whole edit.
Another issue could be that the first edit often will provide the 'core' of
the page, the first two paragraphs or so that give a general overview of
the subject. Later edits then add various sub-subjects. Someone who wants
to add something, will either add a new sub-subject or add it to the applicable
existing one. This would mean that this 'core' is a relatively stable part
of the page.
As a final, but for us most important point: Could you ask for the software
they developed to be made available to Wikipedia? It might be very useful
to check some Wikipedia pages using this software. For example, one could
use it to spot where articles have had major changes, enabling one to check
whether anything has been inadvertedly lost in such a major overhaul.
Andre Engels
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com> schrieb:
> ----- Forwarded message from Fernanda Viegas <fviegas(a)media.mit.edu> -----
>
> From: "Fernanda Viegas" <fviegas(a)media.mit.edu>
> Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 00:32:01 -0500
> To: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com>
> Subject: Wikipedia: academic paper
>
> Hello Jimmy,
>
> I am a graduate student at the MIT Media Laboratory. I hope you remember me from last summer when I sent out a couple of messages to the Wikipedia mailing list about a visualization project I was working on, which looked at wiki sites. Martin Wattenberg from IBM and I built a visualization tool called "history flow" and we used this application to study some of the cooperation and conflict patterns among authors on Wikipedia.
>
> We are happy to announce that the paper we wrote about this project has been accepted at a major academic conference (CHI 2004 - Computer Human Interaction). We will present the paper next month at the conference.
>
> Here is a link to the paper:
> http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf
>
> Feel free to circulate this within the Wikipedia community. It would be great to hear from folks about what they think of the findings and whether these resonate with their experience of the community. Neither Martin nor I are on the mailing list anymore but, if anyone would like to get in touch with us, they can use these email addresses:
> fviegas(a)media.mit.edu
> mwatten(a)us.ibm.com
>
>
> cheers,
> - Fernanda Viegas
>
> http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/
> sociable media group
> mit media laboratory
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com>
> To: "Fernanda Viegas" <fviegas(a)media.mit.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 12:44 PM
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] academic research on Wikis
>
>
> > I can chat at any time, but preferably by email so I can compose my
> > thoughts and answer questions coherently. :-)
> >
> > If you send me email about this, be sure to put wikipedia in the
> > subject line, as I get so much spam and random nonsense that I could
> > easily overlook a generic subject line.
> >
> >
> > Fernanda Viegas wrote:
> >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I am a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab and this summer I'm working on a Wiki related project that uses visualization to understand how Wiki pages evolve over time.
> > >
> > > Because Wikipedia seems like such an interesting and thriving community, I would like to know whether any of you would be available to chat with me about how the community works and how consensus is achieved?
> > >
> > > Also, I would be very appreciative of any pointers you might have to other academic work being done on Wikipedia.
> > >
> > > thanks a lot,
> > > Fernanda Viegas
> > >
> > > http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/
> > > sociable media group
> > > mit media laboratory
> >
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>
----- Forwarded message from Fernanda Viegas <fviegas(a)media.mit.edu> -----
From: "Fernanda Viegas" <fviegas(a)media.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 00:32:01 -0500
To: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com>
Subject: Wikipedia: academic paper
Hello Jimmy,
I am a graduate student at the MIT Media Laboratory. I hope you remember me from last summer when I sent out a couple of messages to the Wikipedia mailing list about a visualization project I was working on, which looked at wiki sites. Martin Wattenberg from IBM and I built a visualization tool called "history flow" and we used this application to study some of the cooperation and conflict patterns among authors on Wikipedia.
We are happy to announce that the paper we wrote about this project has been accepted at a major academic conference (CHI 2004 - Computer Human Interaction). We will present the paper next month at the conference.
Here is a link to the paper:
http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf
Feel free to circulate this within the Wikipedia community. It would be great to hear from folks about what they think of the findings and whether these resonate with their experience of the community. Neither Martin nor I are on the mailing list anymore but, if anyone would like to get in touch with us, they can use these email addresses:
fviegas(a)media.mit.edu
mwatten(a)us.ibm.com
cheers,
- Fernanda Viegas
http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/
sociable media group
mit media laboratory
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com>
To: "Fernanda Viegas" <fviegas(a)media.mit.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] academic research on Wikis
> I can chat at any time, but preferably by email so I can compose my
> thoughts and answer questions coherently. :-)
>
> If you send me email about this, be sure to put wikipedia in the
> subject line, as I get so much spam and random nonsense that I could
> easily overlook a generic subject line.
>
>
> Fernanda Viegas wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I am a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab and this summer I'm working on a Wiki related project that uses visualization to understand how Wiki pages evolve over time.
> >
> > Because Wikipedia seems like such an interesting and thriving community, I would like to know whether any of you would be available to chat with me about how the community works and how consensus is achieved?
> >
> > Also, I would be very appreciative of any pointers you might have to other academic work being done on Wikipedia.
> >
> > thanks a lot,
> > Fernanda Viegas
> >
> > http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/
> > sociable media group
> > mit media laboratory
>
----- End forwarded message -----
I was searching to see if any of the British media had picked up on our
press release when I discovered that the Daily Telegraph has been
linking to us for some time. I've added all the references to the press
pages - but we had 51 links to us when I last checked.
These are links to further reading on the article topic.
This is very good news as the Daily Telegraph is one of the 4 major
national "broadsheet" newspapers in the UK.
Caroline /Secretlondon
"Daniel Mayer" <maveric149(a)yahoo.com> schrieb:
> Or better yet, couldn't we even get rid of the bureaucrat account type by
> requiring at least 3 admins to approve bureaucrat+-type actions? Kinda like
> requiring two keys turned by two people at once and having to enter the correct
> codes in order to launch a nuke.
Might work on en: and de: and nl:, but it would have ridiculous
consequences to use this kind of rule on smaller Wikipedias. fy:
has 3 admins, one of which has not been around for a few months
now. af: has zero admins. And those are small, but not the smallest.
Andre Engels
You probably never hear about that, but there is a TeX module to write the
hieroglyphs text from a specific syntax. For example <-p:t-o-l:m-i-i-s->!
may render the name of the pharaoh Ptolemy into a cartouche. Package is
downloadable here:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/hieroglyph/?action=/tex-archive/fonts/. I
would like to be able to use it on Wikipedia, but if it is not possible, I
thought of an alternative simple idea.
The alternative idea is to generate and load all pictures on the server
(basic set is about 300 small pictures) and to create an external tool (I
can host it) to generate wiki-table that put together those pictures to
create hieroglyph text. This solution needs no modification to the software
but make text modification difficult.
For example, put p:t-o-l:m-i-i-s! in the tool may create the following table
we just have to copy and paste to Wikipedia:
{|
| |[[image:hiero_p.png]] | [[image:hiero_t.png]]
| rowspan="2" | [[image:hiero_o.png]]
| [[image:hiero_l.png]] | [[image:hiero_m.png]]
| rowspan="2" | [[image:hiero_i.png]]
| rowspan="2" | [[image:hiero_i.png]]
| rowspan="2" | [[image:hiero_s.png]]
|}
TeX or WikiTable generator, what is your recommendation?
Aoineko
Tim Starling wrote:
>Daniel Mayer wrote:
>>Why not just add all those abilities to bureaucrat accounts?
>
>Because I tried to do that and I was shouted down from all
>sides, that's why.
I hope I wasn't one of the people doing the shouting because I now see your
point.
>That's far more complicated to implement,...
Fair enough.
>Of course, sorry if I offended you.
No Tim - you did not offend me at all. You in fact gave me a great compliment.
Thank you for that! :)
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
__________________________________
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Great idea Tim! I don't care much for the name - "developer" has been used for
a long time to refer to those blessed and wonderful code junkies that hang out
on WikiTech-l and play with MediaWiki. Replacing their title with
site-administrator will add more confusion as well. Why not just add all those
abilities to bureaucrat accounts?
Or better yet, couldn't we even get rid of the bureaucrat account type by
requiring at least 3 admins to approve bureaucrat+-type actions? Kinda like
requiring two keys turned by two people at once and having to enter the correct
codes in order to launch a nuke.
The idea of adding yet another level of hierarchy to our community doesn't rub
me the right way...
Tim Starling wrote:
>I'll also take this opportunity to drop a few subtle hints.
>Maveric149
>
>Wikipedia's most active contributor,
Not in the article space lately. I think over half my edits are to non-article
pages now (lot's of organizational and meta-type work) I'm also not currently
the most active (just historically and *only* based on number of edits - most
of which are small edits I do while I'm checking anon and other edits on
Recentchanges). To see who is most active currently, look for names off the
'last 30 days' column at
http://www.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#wikipedians
>Maveric149 has done a tremendous amount of work
>for Wikipedia over the last two years.
Thanks for the compliment. :-)
>Mav is always cool and rational when dealing with
>a dispute, and works hard to find a compromise
>amenable to all parties.
I try to be that way - but I've been more or less told by some people that I am
sometimes borderline cold in my coolness. Some of those same people seem to
think I take my rational tendencies a bit too far (I've been accused of not
giving emotional context enough consideration - only looking at the bare
facts). While I don't agree with those criticisms, I cannot say that I really
disagree.
>Respect for him in the community is universal.
If true, which I don't think it is, then I would be very uncomfortable with
that - I don't want my words to have disproportionately more force than their
actual content and inherent merit.
There is also at least one former Wikipedian that would probably disagree with
your statement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:168...
I'm sure there are others but none have yet stated that fact on my RfC page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Mav
>Angela
>
>Angela has been extremely active in the Wikipedia
>and Wikipedia talk namespaces over the last 6
>>months, organising the formation of many policies.
>In her enthusiasm for weeding and quality control,
>she has edited almost every functioning Wikimedia
>wiki.
I completely agree with all that.
>She also lives in a different time zone to Mav,
>so she'll be able to deal with situations arising
>when Mav is unavailable.
IIRC Bryan Derksen lives in British Columbia and is thus in the same timezone
as I am. There are certainly many other highly-respected and very active
Wikipedians in time zones near mine.
--- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Yahoo! Search - Find what you�re looking for faster
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