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.
Whether the cost of breaking those links is worth the gain of getting a international portal is debatable.
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.
Pete/pcb21
PP> It is very strange that no-one seems to have picked up on this. PP> There are clearly many many more links to http://www.wikipedia.org PP> (expecting to link to an English language encyclopedia) than ever PP> before. The decision has been taken to break these links.
What kind of broken links are you talking about? If they are to the main page, then whoever goes there can simply click on the "English" link with no confusion whatsoever. And if you're talking about the http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/something links, they all redirect to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/something.
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
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.
Whether the cost of breaking those links is worth the gain of getting a international portal is debatable.
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.
The links aren't broken, we've just changed the page. A link is broken when you get a 404, not when you get content which was intended to be served for that address. The fact that there used to be something different there is irrelevant, we don't "break links" every time we update a page on the wiki.
That's just rhetoric of course, the real issue is that we're not serving the content people expect to see. It is indeed debatable whether that is a good idea, but it's been debated extensively over the last two years and I think there's a been a pretty strong consensus for quite some time. Are you saying the "unwashed masses" have not contributed to this discussion? There was nothing stopping them from doing so. Of course the change itself must be performed by someone with shell access, but I was just following community opinion.
-- Tim Starling
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.
1) The address www.wikipedia.org become obsolete 2 years ago. On the net, 2 years is a life-time.
2) 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.
3) 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 ?
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 ?
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 :-)
Pete/pcb21
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
Pete/Pcb21 a écrit:
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)
ya, I know, and the messages seem to be arriving in packs rather than one by one. Probably the servers trying to consider what is more important to display :-)
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.
Okay
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)
True. I might even mention that french press articles writing on the french wikipedia mostly, often use the www.wikipedia.org adress :-(
A comment most journalists I answered to in the past months make is "I have known about wikipedia for a long time, but I thought it was only english; I discovered about french only xx months ago".
They used wikipedia for their information. They typed www.wikipedia.org They saw only english. They discovered fr only recently, because it has only been for the past 6 months or so that fr really started to make a difference on google search and they started to see french articles popping up.
So, while what you say is very true, I see www becoming a portal a real mean for smaller languages to develop.
Now, readers won't find a 404, they will still be on wikipedia, they will just marvel at the discovery there is MORE than english. Maybe it will be ONE MORE click (which is bad), but there will possibly be amazement from them.
I'd like to share with you the reason why I opposed the portal 2 years ago. Only the english wikipedia was decent. All the other projects were infants. I felt it would more be detrimental to Wikipedia to show some so ridiculous little starting blurbs. Now, we have great (the english), we have good (such as de of course, and ja, fr etc...) And we have truely interesting next ones. And we have the smaller languages, to amaze people over our vitality.
What was detrimental 2 years ago imho should now be very beneficial.
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.
Agreed. It is a broken expectation for english readers used to call wikipedia; You are correct.
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.
Agreed. It will be interesting. I am interested because I do not want an ugly page. I would also support a page with content. Though this is technically and politically not so easy to do a multilingual one. The other option is to do something very very simple.
I think many readers in the world like to see websites in languages they can understand though :-)
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 :)
PEt e
The decision to make a poll or the decision to have this portal ? For the decision to have this portal, well, I guess the majority if not all of those above agree with a portal. I think.
If you want a poll, this is fine by me.
--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
The decision to make a poll or the decision to have this portal ? For the decision to have this portal, well, I guess the majority if not all of those above agree with a portal. I think.
If you want a poll, this is fine by me.
Ugh. We *already* had one over a year ago.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org#Voting
The results of that, plus the general consensus on the mailing list was strongly in favor of a multilingual portal. The sticking point was that noone come up with a specific solution that most people liked.
I still favor my idea.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org-mav%27s_Pro...
Basically the top 25 or so languages would have boxes with the below message translated:
--------------- Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia!
We are working on {{xx_NUMBEROFARTICLES}} articles at the:
[X Wikipedia]
-----------------
xx would be a language code and X would be the language name.
The appropriate language would be highlighted based on whatever language the visitor's browser is in. The intro text (with project-wide stats) would also be based on browser language. After arriving a user could select "[Welcome]" in one of a host of different languages to get to whatever translation they want.
-- mav
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Many thanks for your responses Anthere.
That even french journalists quote www.wikipedia.org was surprising to me (I know journalists are dumb... but wow!) However if they do that then it is something we need to work with. If this is the case, then I can see practical advantages of a multi-lingual portal. Before I could only seen the symbolism of "Wikipedia is international" my having a multi-lingual and I am not a big fan of symbolism without practical advantages.
Thus if, as you agree is a good idea, we can get a good-looking page, then doubters like me can be won over.
P.s. re the poll, I do realise this has a decent amount of support and a new poll isn't necessary to my mind, my point was supposed to be about something slightly different, but am not quite sure what :)
On Monday 10 January 2005 00:41, Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
me (I know journalists are dumb... but wow!) However if they do that
Many times they are not dumb, but: 1. They have too little time to write what they are writing 2. They may have no interest in the topic they are writing about 3. They may do it only because someone pays them to do that
So they pay little attention to what they do, resulting in mistakes.
Pete/Pcb21 <pete_pcb21_wpmail@...> writes:
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.
Whether the cost of breaking those links is worth the gain of getting a international portal is debatable.
It is true what you say. There are links to www.wikipedia.org whit the idea that it is the English Wikipedia. There are probably even more to www.wikipedia.com.
The English Wikipedia have used the domain www.wikipedia.com but never www.wikipedia.org. And the time that Wikipedia EN was using www.wikipedia.com is before Wikipedia became famous.
I read almost every article about Wikipedia the you find whit google News. Those articles are about the English Wikipedia. I happens a lot that the write about www.wikipedia.com or www.wikipedia.org in the article.
The fact that many persons, even journalist who write about websites, are so incompetent that the can not even get the url correct is very sad but is not the problem of Wikipdia. Wikipedia is not responsible for the stupidity of the humans.
[[w:nl:gebruiker:walter]]
On Jan 9, 2005, at 8:26 AM, Walter Vermeir wrote:
The English Wikipedia have used the domain www.wikipedia.com but never www.wikipedia.org.
www.wikipedia.com was moved to www.wikipedia.org in August 2002: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-August/021615.html
www.wikipedia.org was moved to en.wikipedia.org in October 2002: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-October/023565.html
We then spent two years on and off bickering about portal designs.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Sure, but that's only a couple of months. What percentage of links to www.wikipedia.org do you think were made during that period?
On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 15:37:45 -0800, Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com wrote:
On Jan 9, 2005, at 8:26 AM, Walter Vermeir wrote:
The English Wikipedia have used the domain www.wikipedia.com but never www.wikipedia.org.
www.wikipedia.com was moved to www.wikipedia.org in August 2002: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-August/021615.html
www.wikipedia.org was moved to en.wikipedia.org in October 2002: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-October/023565.html
We then spent two years on and off bickering about portal designs.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hi,
Le Sunday 9 January 2005 16:45, 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.
Whether the cost of breaking those links is worth the gain of getting a international portal is debatable.
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.
I think you have it wrong. This multilingual portal is long overdue seeing the multilingual nature of our project. However a redirect to the English was kept for various reason (see Anthere's mail). As she said, usually people refer to the whole multilingual project as http://www.wikipedia.org, not to the English Wikipedia only.
Pete/pcb21
Regards, Yann
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org