The Cunctator wrote: When he got the gumption to do most of the programming work. As has been pointed out before, Wikipedia is a do-ocracy. Single brackets are regularly used for things that _aren't_ links (phonetic transcriptions, programming snippets, etc); making them links would mean a horrible nightmare of <nowiki>s. If such a terrible thing did come to pass, do NOT forget to do automatic conversion on the database to add in the thousands of necessary <nowiki>s. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

The Cunctator wrote: Perhaps you can prove it incorrect; don't do anything, and see whether things go the way you want them to. ;) -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

The Cunctator wrote: Guidance and consensus are lovely and good, but nothing gets _done_ until somebody's willing to _do_ it. If the _doer_ doesn't consent to the consensus, you need to find another one. Ergo, Lee (as the person most likely to be implementing any changes to the wiki syntax) is an important factor in any discussion about changing the wiki syntax. <sarcasm>Shame on him for making suggestions on the mailing list about how he'd prefer to do it, to which you and other interested parties may reply, converse, and attempt to reach a consensus acceptable to all!</sarcasm> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

So, I was browsing in dmoz's open content encyclopedia section (http://dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/Open_Content/Encyclopedias/), and what did I see? The Fact Factory: http://the-fact-factory.com/ Someone has copied a fist-full of Wikipedia content and started his own "collaborative project to create a complete encyclopedia from scratch". This one is loaded with ads. It's been very poorly done; many of the edit links are broken and things like the Wikipedia FAQ have been left unchanged. Of course, there's nothing to stop anyone from doing this, so long as they comply with the GFDL. However,I'm not convinced that The Fact Factory is in compliance. It mentions on the front page that the content was originally from Wikipedia, "but has now taken on a life of its own". The article pages, however, do not mention the original sources of the articles. So, do we want to do anything about this? Looking at the site, I don't think it's going to do any harm, especially considering the shoddy feel of the place. I thought maybe Jimbo would want to contact the webmaster and ask him what his intentions are. Stephen G. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com

|From: Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)ctelco.net&gt; |Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 20:34:37 -0600 | |At 07:19 PM 8/10/02 -0700, Stephen G. wrote: |>So, I was browsing in dmoz's open content encyclopedia |>section |>(http://dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/Open_Content/Encyclopedias/), |>and what did I see? The Fact Factory: |>http://the-fact-factory.com/ |> |>Someone has copied a fist-full of Wikipedia content |>and started his own "collaborative project to create a |>complete encyclopedia from scratch". This one is |>loaded with ads. It's been very poorly done; many of |>the edit links are broken and things like the |>Wikipedia FAQ have been left unchanged. |> <snip> | |Well for one thing the copy was made a few months ago and you can't edit |the pages, despite a link to do so. All the ads remind me of Netscape.com. |Looks like it's going to fall of it's own weight. | |Fred Bauder | | I looked up Louis Armstrong, which I wrote much of in wikipedia, and found no article, but ads for ten different Louis Armstrong books, and ads for a bunch of other books. It seems to be an attempt to get people to go to Amazon. Makes me think twice about the proposal to make the wikipedia's ISBN links go to a bookstore, even though it is really not the same. Tom Parmenter Ortolan88

|X-Sender: fredbaud(a)mail.ctelco.net |From: Fred Bauder &lt;fredbaud(a)ctelco.net&gt; |Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" |Sender: wikipedia-l-admin(a)nupedia.com |X-BeenThere: wikipedia-l(a)nupedia.com |X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.4 |Precedence: bulk |Reply-To: wikipedia-l(a)nupedia.com |List-Help: <mailto:wikipedia-l-request@nupedia.com?subject=help> |List-Post: <mailto:wikipedia-l@nupedia.com> |List-Subscribe: <http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l>, | <mailto:wikipedia-l-request@nupedia.com?subject=subscribe> |List-Id: An unmoderated discussion of all things Wikipedia <wikipedia-l.nupedia.com> |List-Unsubscribe: <http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l>, | <mailto:wikipedia-l-request@nupedia.com?subject=unsubscribe> |List-Archive: <http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/> |Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 08:49:10 -0600 | |At 01:27 AM 8/11/02 -0400, Tom Parmenter wrote: |> |>I looked up Louis Armstrong, which I wrote much of in wikipedia, and |>found no article, but ads for ten different Louis Armstrong books, and |>ads for a bunch of other books. It seems to be an attempt to get |>people to go to Amazon. Makes me think twice about the proposal to |>make the wikipedia's ISBN links go to a bookstore, even though it is |>really not the same. | |Making the ISBN links go to a book store search engine giving you |comparative prices is very different from Amazon links which usually are |quite a ways down the list if you search for comparative prices especially |if you add shipping. I think Addall or ABE search links are pretty helpful |since they can return enormous amounts of useful information. Amazon and |BN live off book buyers ignorance. | |Fred Bauder Well, maybe, but BN/Amazon are a well of information for Wikipedia writers too. I usually get my ISBN numbers there, check book titles, etc. Tom P.

Fred Bauder wrote: I just learned that Amazon.com has some new web services stuff, that might be interesting. You can download their kit, and write your own applications on your own website. I haven't checked it out yet, but the info is on http://www.amazon.com/webservices I guess they are not placing their reviews under GFDL, though... that would have been a great service! Is it OK to put book reviews in Wikipedia (on an Amazon scale)? Do we know how many book reviews are already in Wikipedia? Or should there be a separate wiki for this? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) tel +46-70-7891609 http://aronsson.se/ http://elektrosmog.nu/ http://susning.nu/

Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote: see http://bookshelved.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl

Lars Aronsson wrote: Of course copying Amazon's reviews would carry too much copyright violation risks. Wikipedians have sporadically written about their favorite books, and that does represent some kind of book review even if it's called something else. Since we're not in the book selling business we can give equal treatment to old classics as to the latest best seller. It's been developping even better in the movies area. This all has been functioning quite well, so there's no need for changes. Eclecticology

--- Brion VIBBER &lt;brion(a)pobox.com&gt; wrote: (http://dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/Open_Content/Encyclopedias/), Another stupid thing is all of the user pages from that time have been copied as well. I edited my to say that I am not a contributor to the Fact Factory. Everybody else should check to see if they are listed as well. It's my understanding the the Spanish project did not copy the whole Spanish database, but contributors who left Wikipedia took the content that they wrote and copied it over. I'm not totally sure, however. Stephen G. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com