I just read this blog entry from January: http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/01/04/academia_and_wikipedia.php
The author, Danah Boyd, a notable blogger and expert in social networks, criticized "the Wikipedia entry" for "social network", but she actually referenced the entry on the Simple English Wikipedia. What's worse, nobody in the comments corrected her, even though they clearly went to the English Wikipedia to look up different topics and compare.
I suspect Danah googled for the title rather than visiting Wikipedia. Picking the wrong site is an easy mistake to make, since, except for the word "Simple" in the URL and page title, articles from the two sites look exactly the same. The concept of a "Simple English" Wikipedia is also not a trivial one to grasp even if someone actually does see it in the title, so they may just ignore it and think it's some strange Internet thing. After all, many addresses have things like "www10" or even arbitrary server names in the front.
If an expert can make that mistake, I'm sure many other people have, wondering why all the Wikipedia articles they looked at were written in very juvenile prose and incomplete.
I strongly recommend that we change the look and feel of the Simple English Wikipedia to avoid that confusion, perhaps going so far to add a [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] to that effect. A somewhat different logo would also help. The changes I can make without being a sysop are limited, though, and Simple is not particularly active, so I thought I'd bring this to the attention of the list first.
Regards,
Erik
There _is_ no such thing as "the Wikipedia article on". Wikipedia/ウィキペディア/維基百科/위키백과/װיקיפּעדיע/ויקיפדיה/Wikipédia/Wikiibíídiiya/Vichipedie/ვიკიპედია/ويكيبيديا/ويکيـپـيـډيا/Viquipèdia/Oiquipèdia/Wikipidiya/ਵਿਕਿਪੀਡਿਆ/Вікіпедія/Википедия/Vicipéid/ᏫᎩᏇᏗᏯ/ꀁꇹꀸꄛꀋ/𐍅𐌹𐌺𐌹𐍀𐌰𐌹𐌳𐌴𐌹𐌰/Βικιπαίδεια/Wikipedija/Wicipǽdia/+++ is an INTERNATIONAL project to build a MULTILINGUAL encyclopedia. There should be multiple articles for each topic, and there are for a significant portion, in many different languages.
Mark
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 03:47:19 +0100, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
I just read this blog entry from January: http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/01/04/academia_and_wikipedia.php
The author, Danah Boyd, a notable blogger and expert in social networks, criticized "the Wikipedia entry" for "social network", but she actually referenced the entry on the Simple English Wikipedia. What's worse, nobody in the comments corrected her, even though they clearly went to the English Wikipedia to look up different topics and compare.
I suspect Danah googled for the title rather than visiting Wikipedia. Picking the wrong site is an easy mistake to make, since, except for the word "Simple" in the URL and page title, articles from the two sites look exactly the same. The concept of a "Simple English" Wikipedia is also not a trivial one to grasp even if someone actually does see it in the title, so they may just ignore it and think it's some strange Internet thing. After all, many addresses have things like "www10" or even arbitrary server names in the front.
If an expert can make that mistake, I'm sure many other people have, wondering why all the Wikipedia articles they looked at were written in very juvenile prose and incomplete.
I strongly recommend that we change the look and feel of the Simple English Wikipedia to avoid that confusion, perhaps going so far to add a [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] to that effect. A somewhat different logo would also help. The changes I can make without being a sysop are limited, though, and Simple is not particularly active, so I thought I'd bring this to the attention of the list first.
Regards,
Erik
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Wednesday 09 February 2005 04:47, Erik Moeller wrote:
I strongly recommend that we change the look and feel of the Simple
I think it would be better to merge the two English Wikipedias and display a "Simple" link after every article title.
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 08:18:21 +0200, NSK nsk2@wikinerds.org wrote:
On Wednesday 09 February 2005 04:47, Erik Moeller wrote:
I strongly recommend that we change the look and feel of the Simple
I think it would be better to merge the two English Wikipedias and display a "Simple" link after every article title.
No, that would mean a pain in linking. On the Simple articles, we would have to pipe every link, or readers would have to click on a link and click again to get to the simple version.
On Wednesday 09 February 2005 09:35, Tomer Chachamu wrote:
No, that would mean a pain in linking. On the Simple articles, we
You can use different namespaces.
Erik Moeller said:
I just read this blog entry from January: http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/01/04/academia_and_wikipedia.php
[...]
If an expert can make that mistake, I'm sure many other people have, wondering why all the Wikipedia articles they looked at were written in very juvenile prose and incomplete.
I strongly recommend that we change the look and feel of the Simple English Wikipedia to avoid that confusion, perhaps going so far to add a [[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] to that effect. A somewhat different logo would also help. The changes I can make without being a sysop are limited, though, and Simple is not particularly active, so I thought I'd bring this to the attention of the list first.
I don't think this is really a problem. Experts make mistakes too. Somebody should inform that expert of his mistake so that he can correct it. His criticism of the standard of the entry on the Simple English Wikipedia is valid.
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 11:10:34 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
I don't think this is really a problem. Experts make mistakes too. Somebody should inform that expert of his mistake so that he can correct it. His criticism of the standard of the entry on the Simple English Wikipedia is valid.
Her criticism.
I agree that it is not at all clear what the Simple English encyclopaedia is about if you just link to a random page. I don't think we need any more complex solution than site-specific branding and (possibly) a brief notice at the foot of the page, though.
Steve
I, for one, believe we should merge simple: with en:, but instead of having two articles for each topic, we merge them completely so there is just one en: instead of two.
Using simple: for Simple English is very Anglocentric, and on top of that one could use a site like PopJisyo ( http://www.popjisyo.com/ ) to explain the more difficult words.
I don't think a lot of people will agree with me here and I don't expect a merger will happen in the near future, but that's still my opinion.
Mark
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 09:13:34 -0500, Stephen Forrest stephen.forrest@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 11:10:34 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
I don't think this is really a problem. Experts make mistakes too. Somebody should inform that expert of his mistake so that he can correct it. His criticism of the standard of the entry on the Simple English Wikipedia is valid.
Her criticism.
I agree that it is not at all clear what the Simple English encyclopaedia is about if you just link to a random page. I don't think we need any more complex solution than site-specific branding and (possibly) a brief notice at the foot of the page, though.
Steve _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 15:28:31 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I, for one, believe we should merge simple: with en:, but instead of having two articles for each topic, we merge them completely so there is just one en: instead of two.
Using simple: for Simple English is very Anglocentric, and on top of that one could use a site like PopJisyo ( http://www.popjisyo.com/ ) to explain the more difficult words.
I don't think a lot of people will agree with me here and I don't expect a merger will happen in the near future, but that's still my opinion.
Anglocentric? How? English is a very commonly spoken language. Would you appreciate a rename of the project? "Foreign English"?
A "merge" of en: and simple: wouldn't be a merge. Everything in simple: would be discarded and en: would stay as it is.
I said, USING SIMPLE: for Simple English is Anglocentric.
Simple: might as well be a Wikipedia in Simplified Chinese. It's NOT an ISO code, and it sure doesn't tell you it's in simple ENGLISH. It should be en-simple: or simple-en:
Mark
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 22:42:11 +0000, Tomer Chachamu the.r3m0t@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 15:28:31 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I, for one, believe we should merge simple: with en:, but instead of having two articles for each topic, we merge them completely so there is just one en: instead of two.
Using simple: for Simple English is very Anglocentric, and on top of that one could use a site like PopJisyo ( http://www.popjisyo.com/ ) to explain the more difficult words.
I don't think a lot of people will agree with me here and I don't expect a merger will happen in the near future, but that's still my opinion.
Anglocentric? How? English is a very commonly spoken language. Would you appreciate a rename of the project? "Foreign English"?
A "merge" of en: and simple: wouldn't be a merge. Everything in simple: would be discarded and en: would stay as it is.
Please don't shout. *embarrased* I understand what you mean now. You meant that using "simple" is Anglocentric.
Actually, though, other languages would theoretically use the word "simple" or "basic" in their own language. If only subdomains weren't limited so much as to characters.
I would want en-simple.
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 16:09:29 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I said, USING SIMPLE: for Simple English is Anglocentric.
Simple: might as well be a Wikipedia in Simplified Chinese. It's NOT an ISO code, and it sure doesn't tell you it's in simple ENGLISH. It should be en-simple: or simple-en:
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 23:14:08 +0000, Tomer Chachamu the.r3m0t@gmail.com wrote:
[snip]
Actually, though, other languages would theoretically use the word "simple" or "basic" in their own language. If only subdomains weren't limited so much as to characters.
Except the obvious objection: that this does not guarantee uniqueness. 'Simple' may be 'simple' in some non-English language; a notable example where this is the case is French.
In fact the very idea of a 'Simple French' wikipedia called français-simple is discussed on this page (in French):
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_simple
I would want en-simple.
That would work for me.
Steve
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