Anthere wrote:
Pete/Pcb21 a écrit:
Anthere wrote:
I do not think there were be links broken now.
It is very strange that no-one seems to have picked up on this. There are clearly many many more links to http://www.wikipedia.org (expecting to link to an English language encyclopedia) than ever before. The decision has been taken to break these links.
- The address www.wikipedia.org become obsolete 2 years ago.
On the net, 2 years is a life-time.
- Besides, 2 years ago, the english wikipedia was far smaller than
today, so most of the pages just never existed at the address in www.
- Finally, unless I really misunderstood something, all pages ARE
redirected, so there are NO links broken. The only thing the reader could notice is the change of url (tiny change). Honestly, most sites just do not pay so much attention to their readers.
Let me give you another example :
Please, type the following url in your browser
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/incivility.
Where does it go ? Broken or english wikipedia article explaining what uncivility is ?
Firstly let me say that I wrote my comment not knowing about many of the mails that had been posted in the last 24 hours on this list as I had failed to refresh my newsgroup list properly. Apologies for that. (and see also further down)
But nevertheless, I was solely talking about the single page http://www.wikipedia.org/ not the article pages. I am pleased that the latter continue to redirect as they have done for months.
I would hazard a guess that there as many external links going to the single page www.wikipedia.org as they are links coming into specific articles. As Walter points out, virtually no articles mentioning Wikipedia mention en. but prefer www. (so as not surprise their readers who are used to seeing www. for internet addresses, I suppose)
Whether the cost of breaking those links is worth the gain of getting a international portal is debatable.
I am ready to listen arguments in favor of keeping www.wikipedia.org the adresse for the english wikipedia. I know of no arguments for now. What are those ?
I think having www.wikipedia.org go to an international portal rather than the English page is at least a broken expectation if not a broken link if the formal sense of a 404 that Tim explained.
The other posts that I've now looked at indicate that this might be mitigated quite a lot by using some funky browser settings to provide a single page in lots of languages.
I know that I instinctly prefer websites that show me English pages. Many portal pages look messy. It will be interesting to see how the Wikipedia one develops.
More interesting to me is how this episode shows how what really matters is in getting something changed is what a tiny number of people think, not what the unwashed masses (who a: can't programme a computer and b: aren't on the board) think.
You are free to organise a poll on meta for the "unwashed masses" with the following choices (while not forgetting to mention no links will be broken)
a) keep www.wikipedia.org a redirect to the english wikipedia b) change it, for example to have www.wikipedia.org a portal mentioning all wikipedia languages (or a similar type of solution)
I expect an absolutely unprecedented support for our project, of at least 80%. I would be happy of a 90% of support. I am quite confident that any non english wikipedia will disapprove keeping the www.wikipedia.org the adresse of the english wikipedia only. And I am confident many english editors will not support it either, as most understand the importance of us being a multilingual project.
May I remind you that today the number of pages in a language which is not english is superior to the number of pages in english, and that the german language is getting a very significant proportion of the english wikipedia as well ?
For this reason, I will not even take the time to do it. I invite you to do this poll if you feel that "unwashed masses" are not taken into consideration (which truely amaze me given the amount of discussion I have seen in 3 years on that topic). But PLEASE, if you feel left out, DO make that poll. This should be a very simple poll which will not require a lot of time to you.
There is a doctrine on Wikipedia which is "be bold", but any true wikipedian knows very well that being bold against community wish generally brings no good. However, it is good to be bold, because this is how things progress. Just need to wait the right moment to do it.
I think this is now :-)
I am sure we could have a poll. We've had three years-worth of polls and talk. But that's all it is talk, a decision would require the backing of a significant selection of { Jimbo , Angela , Anthere , Brion , Tim , Mav , Erik }. 'Tis the truth :)
PEte