On Saturday 10 August 2002 10:15 am, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
When someone makes a GUI frontend to Wikipedia, those features will become more sophisticated (wysiwyg).
Blasphemy! GUI? WYSIWYG? Now that would be unwiki.
Seriously; one of the reasons why we are successful is because there is a bit of a learning curve to being a contributor (small, but it is there). I hate to say it, but this small learning curve acts as a kind of filter against those that have nothing but incoherent and random nonsense to "contribute".
If the basic concept ain't broke, why fix it? Wiki is dead easy to learn anyway. But it does require some cognitive faculty and mental discipline to get the hang of.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
On 8/10/02 5:42 PM, "Daniel Mayer" maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Seriously; one of the reasons why we are successful is because there is a bit of a learning curve to being a contributor (small, but it is there). I hate to say it, but this small learning curve acts as a kind of filter against those that have nothing but incoherent and random nonsense to "contribute".
I doubt that, frankly. The learning curve is minimal, and deliberately so. The filter is a byproduct of the everyone-can-edit-every-page.
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
On Saturday 10 August 2002 10:15 am, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
When someone makes a GUI frontend to Wikipedia, those features will become more sophisticated (wysiwyg).
Blasphemy! GUI? WYSIWYG? Now that would be unwiki.
Seriously; one of the reasons why we are successful is because there is a bit of a learning curve to being a contributor (small, but it is there). I hate to say it, but this small learning curve acts as a kind of filter against those that have nothing but incoherent and random nonsense to "contribute".
Ward Cunningham, the founder of Wiki, says on WhyWikiWorks (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorks) "Wiki is not WYSIWYG (WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet). It's an intelligence test of sorts to be able to edit a wiki page. It's not rocket science, but it doesn't appeal to the VideoAddicts. If it doesn't appeal, they don't participate, which leaves those of us who read and write to get on with rational discourse."
I think he's probably right. We should remember that one of the reasons why Wikipedia has been successful while other encyclopedia projects have not is the wiki way of contributing.
Stephen G.
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Stephen Gilbert wrote:
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
On Saturday 10 August 2002 10:15 am, Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
When someone makes a GUI frontend to Wikipedia, those features will become more sophisticated (wysiwyg).
Blasphemy! GUI? WYSIWYG? Now that would be unwiki.
Seriously; one of the reasons why we are successful is because there is a bit of a learning curve to being a contributor (small, but it is there). I hate to say it, but this small learning curve acts as a kind of filter against those that have nothing but incoherent and random nonsense to "contribute".
Ward Cunningham, the founder of Wiki, says on WhyWikiWorks (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorks) "Wiki is not WYSIWYG (WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet). It's an intelligence test of sorts to be able to edit a wiki page. It's not rocket science, but it doesn't appeal to the VideoAddicts. If it doesn't appeal, they don't participate, which leaves those of us who read and write to get on with rational discourse."
I think he's probably right. We should remember that one of the reasons why Wikipedia has been successful while other encyclopedia projects have not is the wiki way of contributing.
I think he is dead wrong. Graphics has been at the fore front of computer development because it is so critical to effective presentation and assimilation of information.
The sections on engineering and technology are not going to improve very fast until we have some type of easy graphics markup for at least diagrams.
Alternatively, I guess we can write some excellent procedures up coaching random drop in technologists who are not computer wizards (there are many in various engineering fields) in how to create png files from diagrams.
A problem with this approach is that we lose the wiki way of contributing that you refer too. Each graphic is a unique work of art and a complete production task in and of itself.
SVG may be a partial or complete solution for this, I have not checked on it for a while.
I am unfamiliar with LaTex, does it do diagrams as part of its typesetting?
I think a lot of people will put up with text wiki currently because of the obvious value of collaboration on the internet. Collaborate with a distributed team of self selected interesting and interested people once and publish it to the entire internet. This is a powerful draw that outweighs the definate drawback of returning to primitive text editors.
If we want to attract specialists to help us improve our content quality and depth we can probably do so by improving our graphics collaboration tools.
Axel, Jan and some others have been after LaTex. Why? Because it greatly improves their efficiency and capability of presentation.
Engineers need diagrams, sketches and drawings. Organic Chemists need molecular diagrams. MDs need anatomical graphics, overlays, Generals need maps. Animation is useful at times .... no I do not know how to allow casual dropins to tweak an animation clip.
Maybe as we expand we will have sub communities evolve around special skillsets and use of appropriate tools.
Encarta was multimedia a decade ago.
It is my prediction that the first simple to start using WYSIWYG (WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet) Wiki will leave all others in the dust.
My opinion is based upon memories of the transitions: Wordstar to WordPerfect (preview what you get before printing) WordPerfect to Word (WYSIWYG)
I know of no word processor user who ever looked back after the ability to see before printing and then see onscreen as you work arrived.
As H2G2.com would recommend ... Don't Panic!
We do not need all these whiz bang tools right away to get started but it is worth keeping in mind that we will/may need them eventually to remain competitive or viable.
regards, mirwin
On Sat, Aug 10, 2002 at 11:29:49PM -0700, Michael R. Irwin wrote:
The sections on engineering and technology are not going to improve very fast until we have some type of easy graphics markup for at least diagrams.
You want editable graphcs? Good news. There is an open W3C standard for that, it's called SVG (scalable vector graphics), and it's in XML. We could probably integrate that by considering it as just another image format. You could even give it an edit screen if one wanted to edit it by hand, but the simplest would be to have people download it and edit it with an SVG editor and then re-upload it. As far as representing it goes, Mozilla is beginning to support it, there is a free Acrobat view/plug-in, but for other browsers we would have to convert it to PNG, and yes, svg2png exists. :-)
There's even a Wiki about this:
http://www.protocol7.com/svg-wiki/default.asp
Why didn't we think of this before?
-- Jan Hidders
On 11-08-2002, Jan Hidders wrote thusly :
On Sat, Aug 10, 2002 at 11:29:49PM -0700, Michael R. Irwin wrote:
The sections on engineering and technology are not going to improve very fast until we have some type of easy graphics markup for at least diagrams.
You want editable graphcs? Good news. There is an open W3C standard for that, it's called SVG (scalable vector graphics), and it's in XML. We could probably integrate that by considering it as just another image format. You could even give it an edit screen if one wanted to edit it by hand, but the simplest would be to have people download it and edit it with an SVG editor and then re-upload it. As far as representing it goes, Mozilla is beginning to support it, there is a free Acrobat view/plug-in, but for other browsers we would have to convert it to PNG, and yes, svg2png exists. :-) There's even a Wiki about this: http://www.protocol7.com/svg-wiki/default.asp Why didn't we think of this before?
Yes, I like the idea. Is this the way to go for Wikipedia ? The developers team, please let us know.
Regards, kpjas
Jan Hidders wrote:
On Sat, Aug 10, 2002 at 11:29:49PM -0700, Michael R. Irwin wrote:
The sections on engineering and technology are not going to improve very fast until we have some type of easy graphics markup for at least diagrams.
You want editable graphcs? Good news. There is an open W3C standard for that, it's called SVG (scalable vector graphics), and it's in XML. We could probably integrate that by considering it as just another image format. You could even give it an edit screen if one wanted to edit it by hand, but the simplest would be to have people download it and edit it with an SVG editor and then re-upload it. As far as representing it goes, Mozilla is beginning to support it, there is a free Acrobat view/plug-in, but for other browsers we would have to convert it to PNG, and yes, svg2png exists. :-)
There's even a Wiki about this:
http://www.protocol7.com/svg-wiki/default.asp
Why didn't we think of this before?
Sorry Jan, I did not mean to imply that graphics editing had not been considered. I was attempting to weigh in on the point that graphics is an important presention tool for our stated project goals.
I agree we must press on with what we have but it makes me nervous to hear people claiming the text only wiki interface is an advantage that should be preserved.
I do not know enough about the software we are currently using to know if this is feasible or worth looking into but there seems to be a full suite of open/free source tools coming available to assist distributed teams in building and managing web sites and content with version controlled collaboration based on W3C open standards.
The links I list below state goals and objectives that sound much like Wikipedia's current functional infrastructure to me.
Perhaps we could plan on completing the current round of development for our current simple text based wiki.
The next round of development, or a separate parallel branch starting soon, (or perhaps already started?) could aim for a complete markup environment as per W3C standards, specifications that allows users to use the next generation of markup WYSIWYG tools of their choice, i.e. the ones that get out of vaporware stage.
Obviously a key point in any feasibility study would be defining the interface or porting route between our current target system and the next generation infrastructure so the database would port with few errors and relatively intact. I doubt we want to hand edit a couple of hundred thousand articles.
These links look applicable to any such feasibility study:
http://www.w3.org/Jigsaw/ http://www.webdav.org/
What is WebDAV? Briefly: WebDAV stands for "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning". It is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers.
http://www.webdav.org/other/faq.html http://www.webdav.org/mod_dav/ http://www.midgard-project.org/midgard/
Midguard looked particularly interesting as it claims to integrate well with PHP.
Once again, please accept my apologies. I realize that much of the discussion going over my head on the list is in regard to these standards. If there is currently a project plan or milestone schedule file somewhere laying these things out as a loose set of current intentions a link to it would be appreciated. If detailed discussion is available in the list archive the approximate time frame would also be useful and appreciated.
regards, mirwin
--- "Michael R. Irwin" mri_icboise@surfbest.net wrote:
<snip>
I agree we must press on with what we have but it makes me nervous to hear people claiming the text only wiki interface is an advantage that should be preserved.
I don't think anyone is claiming that. For my part, I think that the text interface is very important; that doesn't mean that a GUI is out of the question. I just want to be able to do everything with my keyboard. If others think a GUI would be better for them, I have no objection, so long as the GUI doesn't render the text interface obsolete.
Stephen G.
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On 12-08-2002, Stephen Gilbert wrote thusly :
--- "Michael R. Irwin" mri_icboise@surfbest.net wrote:
<snip> > I agree we must press on with what we have but it > makes > me nervous to hear people claiming the text only > wiki > interface is an advantage that should be preserved. I don't think anyone is claiming that. For my part, I think that the text interface is very important; that doesn't mean that a GUI is out of the question. I just want to be able to do everything with my keyboard. If others think a GUI would be better for them, I have no objection, so long as the GUI doesn't render the text interface obsolete.
Another thing worth discussing : is and if so how much is Wikipedia a Web Encyklopedia ?
Web presentation of text (or content) is not like in traditional publications.
It is generally realized that web perception of information is quite different. Layout and use of multimedia resources can contribute greatly to qualities of Web pages. If used wisely, that is.
On the other hand the "content is the king" motto is another point of view that has its merits, I can't deny. One should strike a balance. It is not a top priority obviously but perhaps a subject for an "editorial" discussion.
Regards, kpjas
On Sun, Aug 11, 2002 at 07:32:45PM -0700, Michael R. Irwin wrote:
Sorry Jan, I did not mean to imply that graphics editing had not been considered. I was attempting to weigh in on the point that graphics is an important presention tool for our stated project goals.
No aplogies needed. I agreed that having editable graphics is important and I just wanted to share that the technology is already there. In fact, it is I who has to apologize to the developers because they had already considerd it. They are are discussing it again at the moment.
I agree we must press on with what we have but it makes me nervous to hear people claiming the text only wiki interface is an advantage that should be preserved.
It has to be preserved because we want Wikipedia to be as accessible as possible and not just to people with WebDAV-enabled browsers or something. It's quite possible to provide an extra WebDAV interface, but what problem would that solve? That doesn't mean we cannot also have next to the text-only interface more user-friendly (more graphical, more WYSIWYG, whatever) interfaces. In fact, that will probably happen anyway because there are developers who think it is worth their time. But Wikipedia will always have to stay simple enough to be usable with a text-only interface.
-- Jan Hiders
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
Ward Cunningham, the founder of Wiki, says on WhyWikiWorks (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorks) "Wiki is not WYSIWYG (WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet). It's an intelligence test of sorts to be able to edit a wiki [...] I think he's probably right. We should remember that
I think the Portland Pattern Repository (on the topic of object-oriented programming) and Wikipedia (a general purpose encyclopeida) are enough different in scope and target audience to have different rules. Besides, Wikipedia is now far bigger than the PPR, and no longer a follower but a leader.
I also think a GUI is unwiki only as much as it is unhuman for man to go to the moon. Nobody had done it before 1969. Some thought it was impossible. It might not be really useful, but there could be value in proving that it is possible and learning from the experience.
--- Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Stephen Gilbert wrote:
Ward Cunningham, the founder of Wiki, says on WhyWikiWorks (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorks) "Wiki is not WYSIWYG (WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet).
It's an
intelligence test of sorts to be able to edit a
wiki
[...] I think he's probably right. We should remember
that
I think the Portland Pattern Repository (on the topic of object-oriented programming) and Wikipedia (a general purpose encyclopeida) are enough different in scope and target audience to have different rules.
I'm not suggesting a rule, but simply making an observation. I'm also not against GUIs and multimedia, as long as we don't lose focus, trying to make everything flashy and clickable. If someone wants to make a GUI client for Wikipedia, great. Let's just not make it mandatory for contributing.
I also think a GUI is unwiki only as much as it is unhuman for man to go to the moon. Nobody had done it before 1969. Some thought it was impossible. It might not be really useful, but there could be value in proving that it is possible and learning from the experience.
Sure, as long as it doesn't get in the way of creating a truly useful, copylefted encyclopedia. I don't think there's some doctrinal WikiWay that cannot be bent or reshaped. The very nature of Wikipedia itself is quite different from any other wiki.
Stephen G.
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