Julie's comments preceded by ------
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 19:56:49 -0500 To: wikipedia-l@nupedia.com From: Vicki Rosenzweig vr@redbird.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Suggestions from Magnus, Mark, and Jimbo Reply-To: wikipedia-l@nupedia.com
At 03:16 PM 2/21/02 -0800, Julie Kemp wrote:
Magnus -- I don't mean to offend, but you don't speak customer -- and I don't expect you to. But to demonstrate my point, you just suggested I start a page (article?) with wikipedia: -- as if I know what that means!
I'm not sure I speak customer, but one of the things I've done as an editor is translate, including between techies and non-techies, so I'll try.
----That used to be my job, too...which is why I find this frustrating. But not as much as about a week ago! ;-)
Are you saying that, if I do that, it will create a special page and show up in the bar at the side? I know you went to the FAQs and added stuff, but I really think you and the others are so closely involved in the programming side that you assume that we all get what you're talking about.
I don't know the answer to this.
There are lots of people out there who have programming backgrounds -- but lots more who don't. You also seem to think users are intelligent beings.
Users are intelligent beings. That they don't speak tech doesn't change this, any more than my not speaking Chinese makes me stupid.
-----Um....I was speaking from a training perspective. One has to assume absolutely no knowledge as well as a desire to know only what immediately affects the user, in order to make sure that the info can be assimilated by everybody. Perhaps intelligent wasn't the best word choice -- but having dealt with users a lot, my experience has been that some of the smartest people I've met (except the techs) turn glassy-eyed when faced with technical details. The information should be there for people who actually have an interest in software design, etc., but my experience in training has taught me that too much information (without understanding it fully) leads to a lot more frustration and a LOT of requests for changes that drive programmers up the wall. Plus, most users (of any software) really do have a profound lack of interest in how the program works -- they just want it up and running. Kind of like car owners -- most folks just want the car to run, and do the least they can themselves to keep it up and running. (oil? Water? Huh? ;-) )
Sorry, but years in customer service and training (including training in DSL, telco processes and an online SQL-based transaction coordination package) have taught me that you have to teach to the lowest common denominator. Even people who are really bright about most things have trouble getting their heads round computer stuff.
Okay, but I don't think it helps to suggest that we're creating an encyclopedia written and edited primarily by the unintelligent. <snip>
3)Is a namespace the same as an article and/or a page?
No. A namespace is a set of articles. "Talk:" is a namespace. So is "User:" Like the main wikipedia, they can have unlimited numbers of articles within them.
-----That helps immensely -- now, when an article is created in the main wikipedia namespace, does it not automatically create a related talk page in the "talk:" namespace? I'd like to be able to explain this in a way that keeps people from adding /Talk at the bottom of all "their" articles.
- Mark mentioned using parentheses rather than a
slash in an article title to indicate what used to be a subpage (I think). Does this mean that the article is independent, or that the parentheses associate it with a main article in a similar manner? How does this relate to the talk page generated with each article? (and for my own sanity, are they related at the same level or do sublevels even exist?)
The parentheses are to distinguish between two or more things of the same name. Rather than have subpages, the wikipedia now uses a "flat" namespace--everything is on the same level. (The following examples are invented, probably not reflecting current actual wikipedia content.) "Niger (river)" and "Niger (country)" distinguish between two entities of the same name. Sometimes we can avoid parentheses by careful naming: the former article could be named "River Niger," for example. But neither is part of the other.
I don't think we have subpages anymore; if I'm wrong, please, would one of the programmers correct me? ----we don't
5)If the system still functions in a way that says "subpage" to the users, is there any reason to even dicuss functionality? It seems to be that the UI may still look like a duck and walk like a duck -- even if it doesn't talk like a duck behind the scenes -- so why not let the users think it is in fact a duck?
Does it function that way, though?
We allow the specific existence of "Talk" pages--but we don't want other subpages. If we make it look and talk like a duck, and call it a duck, people will start creating a whole flock of other waterfowl.
I hope some of this helps. -----It does. And I think that it just needs to be more accessible.