Wikipedia-l August 2004

wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

96 participants
126 discussions

comment on wikipedia
by Optim 15 Aug '24

15 Aug '24

I was describing to someone how Wikipedia works: "anyone can edit" etc. He answered with this argument: "Wikipedia is the triumph of the average person! of the man in the street!)" (average meaning: not good, not bad, just OK) I asked "why?" His explanation: "Great brilliant works are built by individuals. Groups of people can only create average works. If someone writes something good in the wiki, other average persons will intervene with his/her work and turn it into an average work. If someone writes something bad in the wiki, the others will again turn it into something of average value. with your system (meaning: Wikipedia's system) you can be sure that you will never create something too bad but also never something too good. You can create only average articles." The idea behind his argument was that Wikipedia will be a good resource as long as it attracts good cotnributors. but it will soon become an average site/encyclopaedia because it allows anyone to join the project and edit, and most people are just average persons and not brilliant writers. Do you think it's true? and how can we answer this argument? --Optim __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] multi-headed VANDALS
by Daniel Mayer 18 Jan '23

18 Jan '23

On Sunday 28 July 2002 03:00 am, The Cunctator wrote: > What are the articles this person has been changing? For 66.108.155.126: 20:08 Jul 27, 2002 Computer 20:07 Jul 27, 2002 Exploit 20:07 Jul 27, 2002 AOL 20:05 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 20:05 Jul 27, 2002 Leet 20:03 Jul 27, 2002 Root 20:02 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 19:59 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 19:58 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 19:54 Jul 27, 2002 Principle of least astonishment 19:54 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker 19:52 Jul 27, 2002 Trance music 19:51 Jul 27, 2002 Trance music For 208.24.115.6: 20:20 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker For 141.157.232.26: 20:19 Jul 27, 2002 Hacker Most of these were complete replacements with discoherent statements. Such as "TAP IS THE ABSOLUTE DEFINITION OF THE NOUN HACKER" for Hacker. For the specifics follow http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Special:Ipblocklist and look at the contribs. --mav

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Categories, back to square one
by Magnus Manske 02 Jan '06

02 Jan '06

So, it seems (if I interpret Jimbo's mail on wikitech and the discussion here correctly) that most of us would like *some kind* of category scheme in wikipedia. I do, too! But, we seem to differ on the details (shocked silence!). So far, I saw three concepts: 1. Simple categories like "Person", "Event", etc.; about a dozen total. 2. Categories and subcategories, like "Science/Biology/Biochemistry/Proteomics", which can be "scaled down" to #1 as well ("Humankind/Person" or something) 3. Complex object structures with machine-readable meta-knowledge encoded into the articles, which would allow for quite complex queries/summaries, like "biologists born after 1860". Pros: 1. Easy to edit (the wiki way!) 2. Still easy to edit, but making wikipedia browseable by category, fine-tune Recent Changes, etc. 3. Strong improvement in search functions, meta-knowledge available for data-mining. Cons: 1. Not much of a help... 2. We'd need to agree on a category scheme, and maintenance might get a *little* complicated. 3. Quite complex to edit (e.g., "<category type='person' occupation='biologist' birth_month='5' birth_day='24' birth_year='1874' birth_place='London' death_month=.....>") For a wikipedia I'd have to write myself, I'd choose #3, but with respect to the wiki way, #2 seems more likely to achieve consensus (if there is such a thing;-) Magnus

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Distributing fonts
by Gerard.Meijssen 26 Apr '05

26 Apr '05

I have been amazed at the passions that were stirred up when I proposed that we distribute free fonts. There have been two types of reaction: Point to a source that has a partial solution, sometimes for money and bickering about the level of handholding that a user may need. As there is not one golden solution, it is not simple to say spend $$ and you are ready. It can also become part of the installation of software that goes with a DVD for of-line use. When having enough fonts is needed for the best wikipedia experience, why wouldn't we give a helping hand to our current users and help them in this way ?? Thanks, Gerard

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morguefile.com image use
by Magnus Manske 08 Oct '04

08 Oct '04

<Farnsworth>Good news, everyone!</Farnsworth> I contacted Michael Connors from www.morguefile.com, a free image repository, about use of the images on wikipedia. Short answer: Go ahead! Long answer: below... Happy image-hunting! Magnus -------- Original Message -------- Hey mangus, first off for a site like Wikipedia, you can certainly use any image photographed by mconnors free and clear of all terms or by-lines and you have my written permission. The problem is that I don't own these images, I only have permission to redistribute them. Or at least all of the images that I haven't photographed. And I wrote the disclaimer myself, which is why it's so shoddy. (even more so then the coding) You are correct, what I plan to do is have a lawyer provide us with proper terms. My only real concern was preventing someone from downloading the entire collection and finding a morgeufile CD for sale at wal-mart. And I have gotten request from people who want to just rip off as many prints as they can and sell them at every street vendor in NYC, in which case I tell them they should at least stick a calendar on it. If your using the images on a webpage, that's really not the same- they would be really bad prints. The intent of the site was definitely to serve sites not unlike wikipedia, so I think you should run with using the images, I honestly believe the contributors would be tickled to know there work is being used by your site. Give me another 6 months to hire the lawyers and we'll have a solid license. For now you can contact the contributor of a specific photo- I'm sure you won't have any problems getting permission. Thanks a lot for the advice, it is greatly appreciated. mconnors On 8/25/04 3:43 AM, "Magnus Manske" <magnus.manske(a)web.de> wrote: > Hi, > > I am writing you on behalf of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia > (http://www.wikipedia.org ). > > I recently found your great site at http://www.morguefile.com and > thought it would be a wonderful source for images on Wikipedia. However, > we are a little uncertain about the copyright policy. > > You *do* state that the images on your site are free to use, even for > commercial projects. The Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free > Documentation License, the equivalent of the GPL (think Linux) for > written text. The GFDL allows for commercial use as well, no problem so far. > > But, you also state on your About page "Although selling prints, selling > the images directly or claiming the photo is yours is prohibited." Of > course we will appropriately credit the image source, but by "just" > using an image of yours on our site, someone might produce single prints > and sell them, which is good with the GFDL, but violates your terms of use. > > A solution would be for you to co-license all your images under GFDL, > which would ensure that the information stays free (as in "free speech", > not "free beer":-) but this is of course entirely your decision. IMHO, > it would seem to fit the spirit of your site, though. > > Anyhow, if you allow us to use some of your images on Wikipedia, please > supply us with a short note we can put on the image description below > the source citing, similar to > "This image is *not* under GFDL. You are free to use it in any way > except for selling high-quality versions of it digitally or in print, > and as long as you cite the source." > > Thank you in advance for your time, and for a great image resource. > > Magnus Manske >

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] new wikipedias: extremaduran and galaico-extremaduran
by 100025727＠telefonica.net 01 Sep '04

01 Sep '04

The extremaduran language which I refer to is the "high extremaduran" (probably spoken by some tens of thousands), the one considered to be the language, derived from the historical asturleonese dialect of latin (just as the portuguese derive from the galician-portuguese historical latin dialect, or the spanish from the castilian historical latin dialect). The ethnologue mixes this high extremaduran, the language, with the "middle" and "low" extremaduran, already (and since centuries) castilian dialects. What I said is that the castilian dialect of Extremadura is similar -logically- to the extremaduran language, as the english from Cornwall is similar to the cornish language - both share vocabulary and some verbal and phonological features; much more in this case where extremaduran and the language which absorved it in those territories (spanish) are from the same linguistic family. The fala (or galaico-extremaduran) is a galician-portuguese language, like the galician and portuguese (and by no means a portuguese or galician dialect such as brazilian), so similar to spanish as the portuguese or the galician (both with its own wikipedia). The extremaduran language is so intelligible with spanish as the asturian language or the aragonese (both with its own wikipedia too). Every romanic linguistic variety is more or less intelligible to each other, but there are degrees of comprehension, and one old high extremaduran without having learned spanish at school has no more comprehension of spanish than a norwegian understands swedish, or more than a mother-tongue galician understands spanish (of course they can understand the languages of the same family, and they usually do, but they always loose information). The reason why I said that more than 1.500.000 could use the extremaduran language is to show the number of people who could be interested in using it, the people who -like me- speak the castilian-extremaduran dialect in the provinces of Salamanca, Cáceres, Badajoz and Huelva (counting with the emigrated probably near 2.500.000 people).Just as one basque would be interested in using the basque wikipedia, even if he doesn't really speak the basque language, only because in the castilian that he speaks remains features of the old regional language, and because of 'regional love', so to say, to defend the "own" historical language. But of course I am talking about languages, which by definition are not mutually intelligible (at least to a good degree). I would never propose to make a wikipedia in dialectal spanish from Extremadura, or dialectal spanish from Andalusia or from Murcia, or from the american spanish (argentinian, mexican,...). That would be an aberration, I have always struggled with people not to propose such kind of desintegration of the spanish domain: I speak spanish. Extremaduran spanish. But not extremaduran. Extremaduran is a language derived from latin (through the old astur-leonese dialect). I wouldn't accept ever something like creating the "argentinian language" only because the argentinians may feel they speak a different spanish, to present an example. And so wouldn't I with extremaduran spanish. You have in me a defender of the integration of dialects into standardized languages (so with the extremaduran language). But of course not of absortion of the minority languages by the official and important ones. Anyway, apart from this, I also believe that languages should be used to communicate with the more people possible, that is why I learned english. But the fact that the Wikipedia is written in a lot of regional minority languages of western Europe (where almost everyone learn at school their country's official language, and many also english) reveals that Wikimedia also defends the regional languages, because of its intrinsecal cultural value and because of the attraction that causes in its speakers (and the groups who spoke it in the past, like in the case of the cornish or basques), speakers who other way would maybe never read the wikipedia (if it were only in english or spanish, for example). You have the example of the catalan wikipedia, which as far as I know receives lots of articles - and only a few catalan-speakers cannot communicate in spanish, and I don't think theese ones use the wikipedia or even the internet...-. So there are a lot of people who understands spanish and catalan more willing to use their regional language than the spanish, that is obvious. So: castilian/spanish of Extremadura (dialectal spanish, or dialectal english,...) NO. But extremaduran, why not? No doubt there is a line to be drawn between wikipedia factible languages and not factible ones - we could say: "we will not start any wikipedias in artificial languages", or "we will not start wikipedias in death languages", or even "neither of them, but for the ones actually used" (like the artificial esperanto or the death cornish, both widely accepted today as present languages). But who could so easily say that the last two languages of Spain without wikipedia (the others have it already) don't deserve having it? And, most important, why? Who could say: this tongue is too similar to spanish, while portuguese, asturian or spanish aren't? Sorry for the big mail. Be what it be the final decision, I needed to explain to all those who have interest about the spanish language domain the difference between the spanish of Extremadura and the extremaduran language, almost everywhere in the net confused and mixed altogether (probably because they share the same name: "extremaduran"). By the way, the region of Extremadura is following a programme of massive computer acquisition for public institutions (as a consequence of the money saved in software, due to the use of Linex, a kind of 'Linux from Extremadura'), what makes more and more accessible the internet to those old high extremadurans from little towns who speak the language and have a lot of time to use the www. [For more information on the extremaduran language actual domain you can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain#Languages ; for still more information on the extremaduran language and the extremaduran spanish dialect you can visit http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme%C3%B1o , where it is clearly distinguished between both - the high extremaduran and the rest. The Spanish Linguistic Organization Proel.org also has a good map and some information at http://www.proel.org/lenguas.html . The ethnologue information obviously mixes information about the extremaduran language and the extremaduran spanish dialects, with a map of the administrative region of Extremadura, and not actually its territory]

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L'effet piranha (was Fr.wikipedia 50.000 articles)
by Michael Snow 31 Aug '04

31 Aug '04

Anthere wrote: >A year later, ''the apple is a fruit'' had become a >real article. The pirannah affect was born. > I must admit, something called the "piranha effect" prompted a rather different image in my mind. Instead of an effect produced by editors swarming to a new article and improving it, my first thought was of the current discussions on en: about the problems with Votes for deletion. The concern there is that perhaps the swarm devours and destroys, and not just destroying articles (some of the articles warrant destruction), but also sometimes damaging people's self-esteem and the community atmosphere. I suppose most swarms that I can think of in nature tend to be pretty destructive (locusts, sharks, wasps, crickets, etc.). Perhaps we should consider that we've accomplished a lot just in being able to generate positive results from swarming behavior at all. We may not be perfect at harnessing the swarm yet - sometimes the "smart mob" reverts to being a plain old mob - but it's pretty impressive nonetheless. --Michael Snow

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Fr.wikipedia 50.000 articles
by Anthere 31 Aug '04

31 Aug '04

Hi, The french wikipedia just made it to 50 000 articles today. I must say... I cheated, so as to ensure I would do the 50 000 article :-) I prepared a collection of stubs and saved them in a row at the right moment :-) The trick was to save the right article for the 50 000... Cough. When I first edited the french wikipedia, it was mostly a collection of stubs, perhaps 5 serious articles and 100 stubs. Then months after months, articles got better, more complete. And while they grew, more and more contributors started complaining against stubs, which they judge dishonest toward the readers and not worth for the project. In summer 2002 (the wikipedia was still in the first version of the software then, so there was no notion of namespaces, and about 700 pages all included), a new editor joigned, Tim (Athymik). Tim has now left wikipedia. Tim often wrote stubs; he wrote many in human biology. One day, he wrote a stub, which could even be called substubs, the most famous of which was the article on the apple. The '''apple''' is a [[fruit]]. http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Pomme&oldid=18085. This one, and with it, several other articles on fruits (the pear is a fruit etc...) was really borderline :-) After Tim wrote several of those, some people protested (definitly, me included). A reference of this discussion is here http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discuter%3APoire (this is the discussion page of the pear). The article on the apple is now here : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomme A year later, ''the apple is a fruit'' had become a real article. The pirannah affect was born. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia%3AEffet_piranha Tim throw a few bits on a page, and the other editors ate them. I think that "the apple is a fruit" became a historical reference. Later, Tim grew tired of Wikipedia, and after he dropped his sysop status, he left. I regretted him, because we both played a lot having anonymous funny exchanges on Wikipedia. Today, I made as the 50 000 article, la n�fle, the medlar. The medlar is a fruit. http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=N%C3%A8fle&oldid=784091 http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A8fle The expression "Des n�fles" also means in french "something of little value" Just as a stub is in itself of little value. In doing this, the stub-n�fle, I wished to remind editors that if a stub has nothing very exciting, it is a start. Our collective additions give our common project its value. I also wished to remind that even if Wikipedia is quite young, Wikipedia also has an history. And I wanted to thank all those who brought quite a lot and who are now gone, such as Athymik and so many others, who left some memories, who left content and who are now gone. Thanks to all of them for what their participation. I'll see what the n�fle article is in one year from now. Hopefully in 10 years :-) Hehe. ant Les plus anciens se souviendront de cette histoire que je vais vous relater. Il existait dans les temps anciens un contributeur nomm� Tim. Tim est parti depuis de long mois maintenant, mais il fut un contributeur important � une �poque. Dans ces d�buts, la majeure partie de l'encyclop�die �tait constitu� de stubs (je pourrais probablement dire que le projet comptait environ 100 stubs quand je l'�ditait - anonymement - la premi�re fois. Au cours des mois, les articles se sont am�lior�s enrichis. Et de nouveaux contributeurs se sont mis � ronchonner contre les stubs, jug�s peu dignes du projet. Un jour, Tim �crivit une s�rie de stubs, � la limite de l'indignit�. Un de ces stubs fut celui de la [[pomme]]. Je vous invite � voir l'article de l'�poque : http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Pomme&oldid=18085. Apr�s que Tim eu �crit plusieurs articles du m�me genre, plusieurs personnes protest�rent (dont moi, car en effet, ce genre de stub ne m'enchante pas). Vous trouverez une petite r�f�rence ici : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discuter%3APoire (la poire ayant subi le m�me outrage que la pomme). L'effet pirannah �tait n�. Tim jeta en pature quelques miettes, et les autres �diteurs firent le reste. Presque deux ans plus tard, vous pouvez lire ce qu'il deveint de la [[poire]] (certes moins belle que la pomme). Voir ainsi [[Wikip�dia:Effet piranha]]. Puis Tim s'est lass�, et, apr�s avoir quitt� son statut d'admin, il est parti. Je l'ai regrett�, car j'aimais jouer � l'�diteur anonyme avec lui (jeu r�ciproque). En recr�ant comme 50 000 article la [[n�fle]], j'ai voulu � la fois rappeler aux m�moires que, m�me si un stub n'a rien d'excitant, c'est un point de d�part, et que nos ajouts collectifs donnent sa valeur � notre projet commun. J'ai voulu aussi rappeler que m�me si jeune, Wikip�dia a d�j� une histoire, et remercier ceux qui ont d�j� beaucoup apport�s, et sont partis, comme [[Utilisateur:Athymik]] ou [[Utilisateur:Curry]] (suspendu en plein vol), ou [[Utilisateur:Tibo]] ou tellement d'autres, qui sont pass�s, qui ont laiss� leur trace, et qui sont repartis. Merci � eux et � vous tous :-) ant _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now. http://promotions.yahoo.com/goldrush

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[Fwd: Re: authoritative web site]
by Mathias Schindler 31 Aug '04

31 Aug '04

-------- Original-Nachricht -------- Mathias Schindler <neubau(a)presroi.de> writes: > > >Dear Ms. Stagnitta, > >thank you for your reponse. There were lenghly discussions on several >places in the Internet. May I quote you ? > > >Yours, >Mathias Schindler > I just re-read what I originally sent to Al Fasoldt in the recent Post-Standard column. I'm afraid I do have egg all over my face. Another great illustration for my students about reviewing what they have written in an email before they hit send. I'll probably regret saying this... this is what got me in trouble in the first place, but... you may quote me. I thank you for forwarding this to the ongoing discussion. While I was not happy with the way the column was worded (especially the title), I take responsibility for the way it was interpreted by Mr. Fasoldt. I did say in a direct quote to him...it appears that "the Wikipedia is not an authoritative source. It even states this in their disclaimer on their website." What I was discussing was the difficulty we all face in determining the authority of information found on a web source. In particular... what steps can the average student use to determine the authority of a website for research, if at every turn, there is no author, no sponsor, or very long disclaimers that state the content may or may not be valid. I commented that I thought if he was going to recommend Wikipedia to his readers, that he should comment on how the site was created. Specifically, that the Wikipedia was different from the old fashioned print encyclopedia that his casual web surfing readers may be used to. The message was NOT... do not use Wikipedia as a source.... or that Wikipedia is not an authoritative source. The message was that the best thing about the web (the sharing of information and ideas) can also make it harder for the average high school student to make a judgement call when checking the authority of a source used for research. I'm sorry if this generated controversy over the authority of the site, this is NOT what was intended. It just illustrates the problem. It has generated some wonderful discussions though. Another great thing about the web! ================================================================== Susan E. Stagnitta

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] unnecessary "forks"
by Anthony DiPierro 31 Aug '04

31 Aug '04

> No it is not since the Commons is a common place to host data and files that > are used by more than one wiki. It therefore helps to bind us together, not > divide us. It was my understanding that Wikispecies is to be a common place to host species data that is used by more than one wiki. So why doesn't Wikispecies help to bind us together?

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Wikipedia-l August 2004