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
__________________________________
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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
Dear all,
Most of you would be aware of some of the discussions that have occurred
around Wikipedia in the Norwegian languages. Since the last round of
discussions on this list, there has been a lot of internal debate, as
well as what seems to be a fairly widely accepted agreement following
voting.
This e-mail intends to, after a brief recap on Norwegian language and
wikipedia issues, take those interested through the latest development
and will stake out the road ahead. It is also intended to inform the
international community about the current agreement on no.wikipedia, so
as to prevent misunderstandings in the future.
Finally, we will mention an unfortunate reaction to the vote by a small
number of users at the Norwegian Bokmål/Riksmål (no:) wikipedia who want
to disregard the result of the voting and are planning to create a
_third_ Norwegian wikipedia with the sole mission of mixing the contents
of the two current Norwegian versions.
== A short language history of Norway ==
Spoken Norwegian ("norsk") (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 code "no") is in a fairly
unique situation compared to most other languages of the world in that
it has two widely accepted written standards, Bokmål (ISO 639-2 alpha-2
code "nb") and Nynorsk (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 code "nn"). By national
legislation they are both regarded as official written forms of
Norwegian. In addition, many people still make a distinction between
Bokmål and its precursor which still is in use, Riksmål.
Briefly speaking, Bokmål and Riksmål are descendants of the Danish
written language. Until the 1800s, Danish was the only widely used
written language in Norway as a result of four centuries of union with
Denmark. With increasing independence came a wish to norwegianise the
Danish standard, with Knud Knudsen at the forefront for changing parts
of the vocabulary and orthographics. Thus, Riksmål, and later Bokmål,
resulted. These forms together are today probably used by about 90% of
Norway's population, or somewhere around 3,500,000 people.
Parallel to this development, a new written standard was created by Ivar
Aasen. He travelled extensively throughout Norway, and based his new
language, landsmål, on the grammar and vocabulary of dialect samples
from around the country. This was later renamed Nynorsk. Modern Nynorsk
differs significantly from modern Bokmål, and may be linguistically
looked upon as as different (or as similar if you like) as Swedish is to
Danish. For English or Dutch/German speakers, the differences may be
likened to those between (Lowland) Scots and English or Low German and
Dutch. Today it is estimated that about 500,000-600,000 people have
Nynorsk as their first written language.
More information about the Norwegian language history can be found in
English, German, French, Spanish or Portuguese on the website of the
Norwegian Language Council:
http://www.sprakrad.no/templates/Page.aspx?id=653
== A short history of Wikipedia in Norwegian ==
The first Norwegian wikipedia started 26 November 2001 on the subdomain
no.wikipedia.org. As most wikipedias, its contributor and article count
started really picking up around the end of 2003. At the time, it
accepted all written standards of Norwegian, although the amount of
Nynorsk was minimal. There were already several debates about the
feasibilty and appropriateness of keeping the two languages united on
one Wikipedia. On 31 July 2004 a Wikipedia for Nynorsk was created.
The creation of nn:, however, split the community at no: wikipedia. Many
felt that given that Nynorsk now had its own wikipedia, no: should
become a Bokmål/Riksmål Wikipedia only. Others disapproved and claimed
that there was no need to change and that it should continue its
language policy of accepting all and keep its interwiki link name of
"Norsk".
Nynorsk Wikipedia soon proved a success, as it within the next few
months gathered several people who had felt uncomfortable in the
(mainly) Bokmål environment at no:. The name displayed in interwiki
links became "Norsk (nynorsk)" (languages are not spelt with upper case
in Norwegian). To date it continues to be one of the fastest growing
wikipedias, with a steady article increase, now at over 6000 articles
and >50 editors with more than 10 edits since arrival.
== Votes ==
The issue of no:'s language policy has come up time and again, and a
vote was held in March ([[:no:Wikipedia:Målform]]) as to which policy to
adapt. Independent of the method of the tally (whether or not to include
new contributors etc.) there was a majority for switching to a
Bokmål/Riksmål only language policy (50% for Bokmål/Riksmål, 43.2% for
Bokmål/Riksmål/Nynorsk/Høgnorsk, and 6.8% for the official variants
Bokmål/Nynorsk only).
Following this result, there is now going to be a vote on which
interwiki link name will most appropriately reflect the current language
policy of no:. The result of this vote will most likely be either "Norsk
(bokmål)" or "Norsk (bokmål/riksmål)".
Understandably, there has also been a debate as to whether the subdomain
should change from "no" to "nb", as this is the correct representation
of Bokmål according to ISO 639-2. However, there is some resentment
towards such a move and currently a general acceptance in letting the
Bokmål wikipedia stay at "no". The alternative some have suggested is a
server-side redirect from "no" to "nb", in the same way that "nb" today
is a server-side redirect to the equivalent page on "no".
== Summary of the problem ==
Unfortunately, a small group of users (who all write Bokmål/Riksmål) are
ignoring the results from the vote, and are claiming they want to
re-establish a wikipedia for all written standards of Norwegian. They
claim they have been in touch with people centrally in Wikimedia
(developers? stewards?) and that they have so far received positive
comments. With this email, we would like to state the fact that there
have been no official decisions about creating a third Norwegian
wikipedia containing both Bokmål and Nynorsk, it is merely an unofficial
initiative from a small group of users which started a sign-on list at
[[:no:Bruker:Norsk_Wikipedia]]. A spontaneous list with signatures
against this activity was immediately created at
[[:no:Wikipedia-diskusjon:Fellesnorsk]]. The process of creating a third
Norwegian wikipedia has not gone through a voting process in any of the
two existing Norwegian wikipedias (no: and nn:) and can not be
considered as a decision by the Norwegian Wikipedia community.
We believe the creation of a third wikipedia under the Wikimedia
foundation would have a serious and unfortunate impact on the existing
wikipedias in Norwegian, no: and nn:, and would undermine Wikipedia's
reputation in Norway. This being said, we are all for extensive co-
operation between the four Scandinavian language wikipedias (including
Swedish and Danish), as evident by the recent creation of
[[:meta:Skanwiki]], the Scandinavian meta-pages, and the use of featured
articles from neighbour wikipedias.
== Conclusion ==
Hopefully, this letter will help people better understand the
complicated language situation of the Norwegian Wikipedia community, so
as to give a background on which discussion can take place on this list
in the future, such as the inevitable debate following a possible
request for a re-establishment of the common (and third!) Norwegian
Wikipedia.
>From the community of no.wikipedia.org and nn.wikipedia.org,
Bjarte Sørensen [[:meta:User:BjarteSorensen]] (Administrator/bureaucrat on nn:)
Lars Alvik [[:no:User:Profoss]] (Administrator/bureaucrat on no:)
Øyvind A. Holm [[:no:User:Sunny256]] (Administrator on no:)
Onar Vikingstad [[:no:User:Vikingstad]] (Administrator on no:)
Jon Harald Søby [[:no:User:Jhs]] (Administrator on no:)
Chris Nyborg [[:no:User:Cnyborg]] (Administrator on no:)
Guttorm Flatabø [[:no:User:Dittaeva]] (Administrator on nn:)
Gunleiv Hadland [[:meta:User:Gunnernett]] (Administrator on nn:)
Jarle Fagerheim [[:nn:User:Jarle]] (Administrator on nn:)
Øyvind Jo Heimdal Eik [[:en:User:Pladask]] (Administrator on nn: and no:)
Kristian André Gallis [[:nn:User:Kristaga]]
Vegard Wærp [[:no:User:Vegardw]]
Nina Aldin Thune [[:no:User:Nina]]
Thor-Rune Hansen [[:no:User:ThorRune]]
Claes Tande [[:no:User:Ctande]]
Arnt-Erik Krokaa [[:no:User:AEK]]
Rune Sattler [[:no:User:Shauni]]
Hallo zusammen!
Zahlreiche Artikel in der Wikipedia haben einen Raumbezug aber noch
keine Koordinate. Andererseits kennen sich viele Benutzer in bestimmten
Landstrichen besonders gut aus und wissen aber nicht, dass dort ein
Artikel existiert oder die Koordinate fehlt.
Deshalb hab ich mal eine Liste für jedes Land erstellt, die alle derzeit
noch nicht georeferenzierten Artikel (z.B. Berge, Museen, Orte) enthält.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Georeferenzierung/Artike…
Vielen Dank für eure Mithilfe beim Abarbeiten der Liste.
Stefan
>Thanks for the information. I don't suppose you, or someone else who
can understand Japanese, could translate the article for us?
>Oldak Quill
I've posted a translation of the first page at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tangotango/Asahi . I'll follow up
soon with the second page.
Hope this helps,
Tangotango
[[User:Tangotango]]
I always top post - take it or lump it.
But...the e-mail I use doesn't seem to automatically signal the original e-mail - don't ask me why - I don't know the answer - but I would have thought you would all be smart enough to know that I had included a quote from 5 minutes ago.
Now, about that thesis of mine...
pippu d'a
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
A friend of mine, Wayne Mackintosh of the Commonwealth of Learning
(col.org), is looking for a local wiki expert in Nigeria to help with
wiki skills development "to a group of folk with low technical
experience." The project "is aimed at developing free content for
health professionals." The wiki expert would be paid, of course.
Anyone know someone who might qualify, or someone who might know someone?
Thanks,
Erik
Hello all,
originally this mail was sent to other mailinglist, but someonw urged
me strongly to share it with a broader audience ;)
Asahi Shimbun http://www.asahi.com, one of leading newspaper in Japan
focused on Wikipedia (mainly Japanese edition) on its front page and
the second. The whole space this article taken was equivalent to a
half of page.
Most of space was used to describe how it worked, with three Japanese
Wikipedians' comments (two
anonymous, supposedly sysops, one by Suisui under his real
identification). The general atmosphere seemed very positive to me.
Fact checking seemed to be done properly, and no apparent criticism
was shown. I daresay it is one of the best articles on Wikipedia as
for fact correctness view, and would like to make my applause to the
editors.
Japanese newspapers carry a column ("series" they call) on the front
page (1/4 of pages except advertisements) and Wikipedia was chosen as
the first theme of their new series on net activities. Usually it is
placed on the first
page, but this special version continued to the second page, and there
took 1/4 page too, so 1/2 of first two pages were dedicated to
Wikipedia.
The first part mentioned almost only to the Wikipedia and was signed
by Mr. Yasuda Tomooki, one of their journalist based on Tokyo. The
second part was credited by two journalists including Mr. Yasuda, and
referred to other net communities in the Japanese speaking world, with
comments of authorities, one of them are interesting a researcher and
Wikipedia editor with her real name and her involvement to the
project. "Not job, but as specialist
[I contribute to the Wikipedia] said she ... she found some
remarkable mistakes on articles of her field, and many thought
Wikipedia credible. "As professional, I would like to prevent to
spread misunderstanding" (relying on remembrance, very lough
translation)
Regretfully the column itself can't be available online for free, but
if you are in South Korea, Australia, New Zealand or India, you can
utilize "trial subscription" of Web Asahi Shimbun
(http://wasa.asahi.com/) for 3days (and get the 2 days before
article).
Cheers,
--
Aphaia
aka
Kizu Naoko
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com
The reason for the over-representation of female leaders (in comparison to their overall numbers)? C'mon - we all know the reason! Blokes are bloody hopeless, that's why! Those of us who have had the misfortune of living in all-male accomodation will be able to confirm my thesis. Interestingly, even in a tiny project like the Sicilian wikipedia, the average (and thesis) holds true. One of the 5 "Capi" is female - but we would be absolutely lost without her.
pippu d'a
It is my anecdotal sense based on wikipedia meetups and interactions
online that about 80% of Wikipedians are male, that this number is
better than most free software projects, but worse than I think most of
us would like, and that the leadership of the projects tends to be much
more heavily female than the averages would suggest.
We have many strong female leaders in various projects. I leave it to
others to speculate why this might be. :)
--Jimbo
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
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