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/
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]]
Hi everyone,
This Friday's office hours will feature Mike Godwin, the Wikimedia
Foundation's Legal Counsel. If you don't know Mike Godwin, you can
read about him at <http://enwp.org/Mike_Godwin>.
Office hours this Friday are from 2230 to 2330 UTC (3:30PM to 4:30PM
PDT). Mike will also be taking the following Thursday from 1600 to
1700 UTC (9:00AM to 10:00AM PDT).
The IRC channel that will be hosting Mike's conversation will be
#wikimedia-office on the Freenode network. If you do not have an IRC
client, you can always access Freenode by going to
http://webchat.freenode.net/, typing in the nickname of your choice and
choosing wikimedia-office as the channel. You may be prompted to click
through a security warning. Go ahead.
--
Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hoi,
The creation of a wiki for SignWriting is a* very* exciting development. In
the language committee we have indicated that technical issues are what
prevents a Wikipedia for sign languages at this time. The SignWriting wiki
is effectively an incubator for the technology needed and for the languages
to write the minimum number of articles they need for acceptance as a new
language.
Given all the technical issues, I am of the opinion that a requirement for
localisation can be waved. Sign languages with SignWriting would introduce
the writing in lanes ie top to bottom with characters moving slightly to the
right or left.
What I am looking for is agreement what technical issues need to be solved
before a sign language can become a Wikipedia. Compatible policies are not
an issue. I am thinking of being able to include images in the text and
having wiki links. What else is absolutely required before we can move
forward once there are sufficient articles ?
Thanks,
GerardM
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Valerie Sutton <sutton(a)signwriting.org>
Date: 28 May 2010 21:04
Subject: SignWriting Encyclopedia Projects...new SignWriting Wiki
To: SLLING-L(a)listserv.valenciacc.edu
Hello SLLING List members -
We are working towards the goal of providing written literature in sign
languages.
We have started a new project. It was just posted on the web yesterday. Here
is the information:
New Special Feature
Posted May 27, 2010
Go to:
SignWriting Site
http://www.SignWriting.org
1. SignWriting Encyclopedia Projects
Writing Encyclopedias in the Sign Languages of the World
http://www.signwriting.org/encyclopedia
2. SignWriting Wiki
Wiki-style Articles written in Any Sign Language
http://www.signbank.org/wiki
3. Blogs on the ASL Wikipedia
Incubating ASL for new Wikipedia
http://www.signwriting.org/blogs/#Meijssen
4. SignWriting Image Server (SWIS)
Display and edit SignWriting images with fast installation
http://www.signbank.org/swis
The new SignWriting Wiki is open to anyone who wishes to add a category for
their sign language, and start writing articles in SignWriting using
SignPuddle Online, and then transferring the articles from SignPuddle Online
into the SignWriting Wiki for viewing and reading by the general public.
The SignWriting Wiki is the incubator, or the development site, hopefully
for a future ASL Wikipedia (or Wikipedias in any sign language we hope
someday).
The SignWriting Wiki is the test area for our new software, the SignWriting
MediaWiki Plugin, by Steve Slevinski.
In the future, it will be possible to write the SignWriting articles
directly in the SignWriting Wiki, without having to transfer them from
SignPuddle Online...so there is ongoing software development behind the
scenes to make this happen...
But for right now, this is a big "first step" and I want to thank Steve
Slevinski, Adam Frost (Deaf ASL editor who posted the first two articles in
the SignWriting Wiki in ASL) and Gerard Meijssen from the Language Committee
of the Wikimedia Foundation, for their hard work and encouragement...
The first two articles added to the ASL SignWriting Wiki are based on the
ASL videos by Lucinda O'Grady Batch, of the history of Charles-Michel de
l'Épée and the history of Laurent Clerc. Both videos were first transcribed
into SignWriting by Charles Butler, and placed in SignPuddle Online, and
then Adam Frost transferred them into the SignWriting Wiki for people to
read. You can read them at these links:
ASL SignWriting Wiki
http://www.signbank.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:ASL
History of Charles-Michel de l'Épée
http://www.signbank.org/wiki/index.php?title=Charles-Michel_de_l%27%C3%89p%…
History of Laurent Clerc
http://www.signbank.org/wiki/index.php?title=Laurent_Clerc
Any feedback is much appreciated, so write anytime -
Val ;-)
Valerie Sutton
Sutton(a)SignWriting.org
SignWriting
Read & Write Sign Languages
http://www.SignWriting.org
SignPuddle
Create SignWriting Documents Online
http://www.SignBank.org/signpuddle
SignWriting Wiki
Wiki-style Articles in Sign Languages
http://www.signbank.org/wiki
SignWriting List
Technical Support: Ask questions...
http://www.SignWriting.org/forums/swlist
SignWriting Literature Project
Writing Literature in Sign Languages
http://www.SignWriting.org/literature
SignWriting Encyclopedia Projects
Writing Encyclopedias in Sign Languages
http://www.SignWriting.org/encyclopedia
Deaf Action Committee For SignWriting
Center For Sutton Movement Writing
a US educational nonprofit organization
PO Box 517, La Jolla, CA, 92038, USA
Tel: 858-456-0098 Skype: valeriesutton
Due to numerous requests we have extended the submission deadline for
Wikimania 2010 as follows:
* Abstract Registration: May 24, 11.59 p.m. (Pacific Time)
* Notification for workshops: May 29, 11.59 p.m. (Pacific Time)
* Notification for panels, tutorials, presentations: June 3, 11.59
p.m. (Pacific Time)
See the Call for Participation for more details:
http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/CFP
Thank you for helping make Wikimania 2010 a successful event. :-)
See you in Gdansk, July 9-11!
With best regards,
Wikimania Team
--
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023
I sincerely hate to sound repetitive and annoying, but since the switch to
Vector in en.wikipedia it's impossible to run a full-text search of
Wikipedia using the search box if there's an article by the same name.
The "Search" button is gone, because it was supposed to be possible to run a
full-text search in the redesigned search box without that button, but
apparently this doesn't actually work. It's only possible to run a full-text
search by switching back to Monobook or by manually going to Special:Search
(there's no link to it anywhere).
So basically, for five days already it's practically impossible to search
for information within Wikipedia. Read this again: it's impossible to search
Wikipedia. Am i crazy if i think that this is a very severe problem?
This is reported as a bug:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23558
The right thing to do is to restore the go and search buttons immediately
and consider reintroducing the new search box after it has been thoroughly
tested. Is there any reason not to do this?
--
אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
Amir Elisha Aharoni
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
"We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
The English Wikipedia moved to Vector and the interlanguage links by default
are hidden under the title "Languages".
This is a bad idea.
It is perfectly OK to let people hide the interlanguage links if they don't
want clutter, but by default they should be shown. If by default they aren't
shown, a lot of people may never know that they exist at all.
--
אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
Amir Elisha Aharoni
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
"We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace." - T. Moore