Wikipedia-l October 2008

wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

19 participants
13 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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Language policy agreement in the Norwegian Wikipedia community
by Bjarte Sørensen 01 Apr '12

01 Apr '12

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]]

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donation banner
by David Monniaux 05 Nov '08

05 Nov '08

The problem applies to en: but possibly to others: The banner for donations should be hidden by CSS for printing. I don't know which Mediawiki special variable generates this item so I cannot fix it on en:

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R�vocations d'Administrateurs.
by Budelberger, Richard 03 Nov '08

03 Nov '08

Bonjour ! J'en ai assez de ces administrateurs (bureaucrates, stewards, etc. d'autres gros mots) tous plus arrogants, incompétents et vandales les uns que les autres. Ils sont ignares (à part une ''valuable'' maîtrise des /manga/...), et considèrent généralement les Wikipedia comme leur propriété personnelle, d'où il convient de chasser tous les intrus. Ils trahissent les idéaux de la Fondation Wikimedia. Les pires de tous se trouvent dans la fr.Wikipedia (il conviendrait de les révoquer *en bloc* !). Mais d'autres ne sont pas mal non plus (bn, bg, wuu...). Je vous demande de participer à ma consultation du ''vulgum pecus'', à savoir nous : * <http://gn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipetã_myangekõi:Administradores> ; * <http://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedijos_aptarimas:Administratoriai#Révocat…'Administrateurs >. Salut, Budelberger, Richard (inscrit sous le nom de « Budelberger » dans tous les Wikis, si on veut vérifier ses « contributions »).

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Donations/Fundrasing
by Elias Friedman 29 Oct '08

29 Oct '08

I took that new survey that's up and the part about donating got me thinking about a couple of things that have been on my mind about the subject. First, when you go to the donations page, it give you an option to make a "one time donation". Personally I'd like to set up an automatic, periodic donation rather than have to remember to wander by manually. Something like $18/month is what I give some other organizations. It would be really nice if that kind of thing could be implemented. Second, what ever happened to our merchandise store? I think the one on Cafepress is still there http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia, but it isn't linked to from the donations page anymore and good suggestions on the talk page on meta (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Store) have been sitting stale without any action, some for years now. I think the store project should be re-activated and expanded- why should others be making money from the "citation needed" bumper stickers, for example? -- Elias Friedman A.S., EMT-P ⚕ elipongo(a)gmail.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Elipongo

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] Protocol/Etiquette
by DESLIPPE, MICHAEL CIV DCMA CIV DFAS 29 Oct '08

29 Oct '08

Because of intimacy! ----- Original Message ----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org <wikipedia-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org> To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Tue Oct 28 19:40:59 2008 Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Protocol/Etiquette -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 David Goodman wrote: > Opinions cary. . In my view. never more than once a section, and then > only if they are long sections, or the section about that particular > thing. Once per normal screen (40 lines or so) is wildly excessive. > Assuming people get beyond the first screen, they know how to scroll. I was wondering how come I got mentioned! :) - -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Phone: 415.839.6885 Fax: 415.882.0495 E-Mail: cary(a)wikimedia.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkkHowoACgkQyQg4JSymDYnQwACff4dkPrXpLbF/33zDZKlvQgIP /UEAnRK2gptY+ZNqwpPgJuEVEZwH0J3o =khZK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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Protocol/Etiquette
by DESLIPPE, MICHAEL CIV DCMA CIV DFAS 29 Oct '08

29 Oct '08

What is the proper protocol when authoring a page that has multiple references to the page. For example, if I was writing a page and it said: The weather in the USA today is warm. The weather in the USA is always warm this time of year. That's just the way it is in the USA. That uses the acronym USA three times. Is the correct protocol to show all three occurrences as a link to the page on USA, or just the first occurrence of the acronym? Michael P. Deslippe "The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances." -- Martha Washington (1731 - 1802) What was the greatest thing before sliced bread?

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Re: [Wikipedia-l] Protocol/Etiquette (fixed)
by David Goodman 29 Oct '08

29 Oct '08

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 4:12 PM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Opinions vary. . In my view. never more than once a section, and then > only if they are long sections, or the section about that particular > thing. Once per normal screen (40 lines or so) is wildly excessive. > Assuming people get beyond the first screen, they know how to scroll. > > > > > On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> 2008/10/28 DESLIPPE, MICHAEL CIV DCMA CIV DFAS <MICHAEL.DESLIPPE(a)dfas.mil>: >>> Thanks, that was what I needed. My concern was that on some lengthy >>> pages, someone may jump to a section of the page not containing the >>> reference and miss the fact that one exists, but I guess everything has >>> a tradeoff. >> >> If they're in close proximity, it's pretty easy - only link one. As >> you say, though, this becomes a bit trickier for several instances. >> >> The first time in each new section is often a good rule, or the first >> time in a "screen" of text - a very hard to define way, but generally >> a useful one! Certainly don't feel required to only do once per page >> if this seems clumsy or unhelpful. >> >> -- >> - Andrew Gray >> andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikipedia-l mailing list >> Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l >> > > > > -- > David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG > -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

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Multilingual Wikipedia Survey Launched
by Erik Moeller 24 Oct '08

24 Oct '08

Hello, in collaboration with the the Collaborative Creativity Group at UNU-MERIT (www.merit.unu.edu), we want to invite you to take the first multilingual survey of Wikipedia readers and contributors. For the first time, this survey will provide an overview of the Wikipedia community and how the content of Wikipedia is created, used, and perceived. We therefore encourage everyone to participate in this survey and to fill in an online questionnaire that will be made accessible to you in the coming two weeks. We have prepared survey versions in more than 20 languages. In order to keep the traffic manageable we have chosen a staggered approach for the surveys. The survey is currently running in Dutch, Vietnamese, and Tamil, and we have received more than 2500 complete responses already. (We can track the responses by language, so we can choose to examine any subset we want.) The following language versions will be launched in the coming days: Russian, Arabic, Polish, Portuguese, Greek, Esperanto, Czech, Japanese, Italian, Russian, Afrikaans, Indonesian, French, Thai, Spanish, German, English, Chinese-simplified and Chinese-traditional. The survey will be featured in the sitenotice of those languages. We're currently using the local notices, but we may use the CentralNotice system that is used for fundraising messages for the coming languages, because it has some features which make it more manageable for us. I want to extend a BIG thank you to all the volunteers who have worked on this survey, especially all the translators. We will compile translation credits for the press release when the survey is completed. Thanks also to the UNU-Merit team (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Rüdiger Glott, Herman Pijpers, Jan Philipp Schmidt), and to Naoko Komura, who has been project managing the survey since September. And, thanks to all colleagues who have given feedback along the way. We've tried to design questions that make sense. Please feel free to send any and all feedback to <info(at)wikipediastudy(dot)org>. Translations have been reviewed by multiple people, but if anything is an obvious error, we will try to fix it. We will not be able to address all feedback in this first run, but we will try to learn from it for future surveys. This one won't be perfect, but it will tell us lots of things we've never been able to talk about with any degree of confidence. Finally, a note on the coming analysis, and on privacy. In terms of analysis, UNU-Merit will collect and analyze the data, and publish analyses of the results, available under a Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License on a public website as well as in established academic journals. Anonymized data will be published under a CC-BY license for other researchers to study. In terms of privacy, no personally identifiable information will be released by UNU-Merit or the Wikimedia Foundation without permission of the respondents. Personally identifiable data will also only be retained for a year from closure of the survey, except for participants who provide express permission to be included in a panel for a follow-on survey. I'm looking forward to seeing the first results, and I hope many of you will take the survey. :-) -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Wikipedia-l October 2008