Hi all,
I'm very pleased - and somewhat shocked - at the raw percentile amount of support that I've received for Wikipendium. I think this indicates that the community as a whole is sick and tired of Wikipedia's problems and frustrated that they continue unfixed after years.
I'd like to clarify on a few points.
Firstly, when I stated that Wikipendium would be a fork of Wikipedia, I intended it to be more of a social fork than a content fork - i.e., I'm not intending to use any Wikipedia content in Wikipendium. Perhaps the purpose of Wikipendium, you might say, is to provide a valid social alternative to Wikipedia with higher social and content standards.
_Some_ ways in which Wikipendium will differ from Wikipedia include:
- simplicity and clarity of rules - there will be only three policies, a "fundamental policy" (basically a constitution), a "content policy" (essential content standards such as neutrality and verifiability), and a "community policy" (essential community standards such as respect and pleasantness); - a simple governance structure - there will be a Council (basically a less bureaucratic equivalent of the WMF Board of Trustees) which will serve as "project leader", "constables" who will serve as maintainers of social standards, and, of course, the general community; - people in positions of authority will, except in rare cases, be required to use their real names as their account names, thereby increasing accountability of authority and helping avoid abuse.
About me ... well, I'm very flattered that some of my essays and edit counts were brought up. Let me explain ...
- The PWTELW essay lists just _some_ of the problems I see with the English-language Wikipedia. Feel free to read it. - The CWQ essay was badly written; ignore it. - The RARC essay was a replacement of CWQ, and was written in a better way. Feel free to read it. - About my edit counts - I edit Wikipedia infrequently nowadays (no home Internet connection at the moment) and I have spent most of my time on Wikipedia since late last year trying to fix the fundamental problems. So forgive me, but I've had no time to contribute _content_; I've been trying to make my contribution, and that of others, worthwhile.
Best and friendly regards,
Thomas
Firstly, when I stated that Wikipendium would be a fork of Wikipedia, I intended it to be more of a social fork than a content fork - i.e., I'm not intending to use any Wikipedia content in Wikipendium. Perhaps the purpose of Wikipendium, you might say, is to provide a valid social alternative to Wikipedia with higher social and content standards.
You'll struggle to get anywhere starting from scratch. Wikipedia is so far ahead that you won't get any readers and without readers you won't get more than a handful of writers. Citizendium started off with some Wikipedia content (although later removed most of it) and had the advantage of being founded by a known name, and it's nowhere near challenging Wikipedia and probably won't be any time soon. I've never heard anyone in the real world mention it, I hear people mention Wikipedia almost every day.
- simplicity and clarity of rules - there will be only three policies,
a "fundamental policy" (basically a constitution), a "content policy" (essential content standards such as neutrality and verifiability), and a "community policy" (essential community standards such as respect and pleasantness);
A noble goal, but if you're going to get to the kind of size you need to be to compete with Wikipedia you're going to end up needing more than that. What about a deletion policy? A blocking policy? Some method for arbitrating disputes? Nobody likes having pages and pages of rules and procedures, but unfortunately they are necessary if a large group of people are going to work together effectively.
Firstly, when I stated that Wikipendium would be a fork of Wikipedia, I intended it to be more of a social fork than a content fork - i.e., I'm not intending to use any Wikipedia content in Wikipendium. Perhaps the purpose of Wikipendium, you might say, is to provide a valid social alternative to Wikipedia with higher social and content standards.
on 7/7/08 12:20 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
You'll struggle to get anywhere starting from scratch. Wikipedia is so far ahead that you won't get any readers and without readers you won't get more than a handful of writers. Citizendium started off with some Wikipedia content (although later removed most of it) and had the advantage of being founded by a known name, and it's nowhere near challenging Wikipedia and probably won't be any time soon. I've never heard anyone in the real world mention it, I hear people mention Wikipedia almost every day.
Nice words of encouragement. Thomas :-(. What are you afraid of?
- simplicity and clarity of rules - there will be only three policies,
a "fundamental policy" (basically a constitution), a "content policy" (essential content standards such as neutrality and verifiability), and a "community policy" (essential community standards such as respect and pleasantness);
A noble goal, but if you're going to get to the kind of size you need to be to compete with Wikipedia you're going to end up needing more than that. What about a deletion policy? A blocking policy? Some method for arbitrating disputes? Nobody likes having pages and pages of rules and procedures, but unfortunately they are necessary if a large group of people are going to work together effectively.
It isn't size that is going to prove the true competitor of Wikipedia. It is going to be quality, accuracy and consistency. And, a true non-cultist approach to the work.
It's time.
Marc Riddell
Nice words of encouragement. Thomas :-(. What are you afraid of?
Why would I encourage someone to do something I think is a bad idea? I'm trying to be realistic, not encouraging. I'm afraid someone who appears to be a good person is going to end up wasting a lot of time on an idea which is doomed from the outset.
It isn't size that is going to prove the true competitor of Wikipedia. It is going to be quality, accuracy and consistency. And, a true non-cultist approach to the work.
Size is extremely important. As long as you have a reasonable level of quality, size is probably the most important factor. The reason people use Wikipedia is because they know the information will be there because we're so large. Whether we're a cult or not is irrelevant - the important thing is readers and readers care about the end result, not how it got there.
Nice words of encouragement. Thomas :-(. What are you afraid of?
on 7/7/08 12:52 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Why would I encourage someone to do something I think is a bad idea? I'm trying to be realistic, not encouraging. I'm afraid someone who appears to be a good person is going to end up wasting a lot of time on an idea which is doomed from the outset.
Well, Thomas, there are some who don't believe in your prophecy of doom. And that is where the hope lives.
It isn't size that is going to prove the true competitor of Wikipedia. It is going to be quality, accuracy and consistency. And, a true non-cultist approach to the work.
Size is extremely important. As long as you have a reasonable level of quality, size is probably the most important factor. The reason people use Wikipedia is because they know the information will be there because we're so large. Whether we're a cult or not is irrelevant - the important thing is readers and readers care about the end result, not how it got there.
Just what is a "reasonable" level of quality? And, the quality of an end result is very much tied to how it got there.
Marc Riddell
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Just what is a "reasonable" level of quality?
That depends on the person and their purpose in looking up the information.
And, the quality of an end result is very much tied to how it got there.
Of course, but does a "non-cultist" approach actually produce better content than a "cultist" one? I suspect it's just a matter of making the writers happier, which isn't a bad thing, but doesn't actually help attract readers.
thank you On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 11:08 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Just what is a "reasonable" level of quality?
That depends on the person and their purpose in looking up the information.
And, the quality of an end result is very much tied to how it got there.
Of course, but does a "non-cultist" approach actually produce better content than a "cultist" one? I suspect it's just a matter of making the writers happier, which isn't a bad thing, but doesn't actually help attract readers.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Just what is a "reasonable" level of quality?
on 7/7/08 1:38 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
That depends on the person and their purpose in looking up the information.
I don't understand this answer.
And, the quality of an end result is very much tied to how it got there.
Of course, but does a "non-cultist" approach actually produce better content than a "cultist" one? I suspect it's just a matter of making the writers happier, which isn't a bad thing, but doesn't actually help attract readers.
This one I understand quite well. It explains the present state, focus and direction of (at least) the English Wikipedia Project. And what is next, a push to attract advertisers?
Marc Riddell
Just what is a "reasonable" level of quality?
That depends on the person and their purpose in looking up the information.
I don't understand this answer.
Someone just satisfying idle curiosity is going to require a lower level of quality than someone doing research for their doctoral thesis. The level of quality of Wikipedia at the moment is somewhere between the two.
And, the quality of an end result is very much tied to how it got there.
Of course, but does a "non-cultist" approach actually produce better content than a "cultist" one? I suspect it's just a matter of making the writers happier, which isn't a bad thing, but doesn't actually help attract readers.
This one I understand quite well. It explains the present state, focus and direction of (at least) the English Wikipedia Project. And what is next, a push to attract advertisers?
What does advertising have to do with anything we're discussing in this thread?
I'm not talking about ideologies, I'm talking about whether or not the proposed project will actually work. It's a brilliant idea from an ideological standpoint and I agree with the values it represents, but if it isn't actually going to work, what's the point? For an encyclopaedia to be successful, you need people to actually read it.
Just what is a "reasonable" level of quality?
That depends on the person and their purpose in looking up the information.
I don't understand this answer.
on 7/7/08 4:56 PM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Someone just satisfying idle curiosity is going to require a lower level of quality than someone doing research for their doctoral thesis. The level of quality of Wikipedia at the moment is somewhere between the two.
"Somewhere between the two" is the very definition of mediocrity.
<snip>
I'm not talking about ideologies, I'm talking about whether or not the proposed project will actually work. It's a brilliant idea from an ideological standpoint and I agree with the values it represents, but if it isn't actually going to work...
And you're absolutely certain of that?
For an encyclopaedia to be successful, you need people to actually read it.
And how do you get them to do that?
Marc
"Somewhere between the two" is the very definition of mediocrity.
Yeah, I guess it is. What's wrong with being mediocre? Obviously we aim to be the best we can, but we have to be realistic and admit we're not perfect.
I'm not talking about ideologies, I'm talking about whether or not the proposed project will actually work. It's a brilliant idea from an ideological standpoint and I agree with the values it represents, but if it isn't actually going to work...
And you're absolutely certain of that?
Of course not, one cannot be absolutely certain of anything. If I had to put a number on it, I'd say I'm 99% that this proposed project will never rival Wikipedia.
For an encyclopaedia to be successful, you need people to actually read it.
And how do you get them to do that?
By being useful. Marketing also helps, but if you're useful you'll get word of mouth, which is how people find out about Wikipedia. The way I see it, what's useful about Wikipedia is that it has enormous amounts of information for free (as in beer - I doubt many people care that it's free as in speech) and that information is of a decent quality. While it's not reliable enough for serious academic work, it's reliable enough for most people, and while the writing style could do with being more aesthetically pleasing it's generally not unpleasant to read.
While it's not reliable enough for serious academic work, it's> reliable enough for most people
Remember: better is the enemy of good.
Maury _________________________________________________________________ Find hidden words, unscramble celebrity names, or try the ultimate crossword puzzle with Live Search Games. Play now! http://g.msn.ca/ca55/212
Maury Markowitz wrote:
While it's not reliable enough for serious academic work, it's> reliable enough for most people
Remember: better is the enemy of good.
Maury
I am sure you meant to say that "The Perfect is an enemy of Good Enough."
"Better" and "Good" are best buddies, hand and fist, albeit tend towards a friendly competition...
2008/7/7 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
It isn't size that is going to prove the true competitor of Wikipedia. It is going to be quality, accuracy and consistency. And, a true non-cultist approach to the work.
I'm sure this'll be an interesting definition of "cult."
- d.
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 2:20 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Firstly, when I stated that Wikipendium would be a fork of Wikipedia, I intended it to be more of a social fork than a content fork - i.e., I'm not intending to use any Wikipedia content in Wikipendium. Perhaps the purpose of Wikipendium, you might say, is to provide a valid social alternative to Wikipedia with higher social and content standards.
You'll struggle to get anywhere starting from scratch. Wikipedia is so far ahead that you won't get any readers and without readers you won't get more than a handful of writers. Citizendium started off with some Wikipedia content (although later removed most of it) and had the advantage of being founded by a known name, and it's nowhere near challenging Wikipedia and probably won't be any time soon. I've never heard anyone in the real world mention it, I hear people mention Wikipedia almost every day.
I doubt we'll struggle too much starting from scratch. Of course, there will be the same old problems of attracting support, letting people know of its existence, et cetera, but _we must not let these concerns stop us from building a better compendium and maintaining a better social environment_. As it seems that _plenty_ of people are dissatisfied with the Way Wikipedia Works (TM), I don't think that it will be too much of a difficulty to convince many people to join up.
- simplicity and clarity of rules - there will be only three policies,
a "fundamental policy" (basically a constitution), a "content policy" (essential content standards such as neutrality and verifiability), and a "community policy" (essential community standards such as respect and pleasantness);
A noble goal, but if you're going to get to the kind of size you need to be to compete with Wikipedia you're going to end up needing more than that. What about a deletion policy? A blocking policy? Some method for arbitrating disputes? Nobody likes having pages and pages of rules and procedures, but unfortunately they are necessary if a large group of people are going to work together effectively.
No, no, no. This is where I strongly (but respectfully) disagree. Rules need to be _simple_, or their purpose is null and void. If you look at the "Rules" section in the Wikipendium proposal (http://wikipendium.blogspot.com/2008/07/vision-need-and-new-compendium-of-hu...), you'll see that the rules cover practically all situations that are likely to occur in an online community and can still fit into three policy pages - for example, content that does not comply with the "acceptability" rules will be eligible for immediate deletion, the "acceptable behaviour" policy will cover blocking, and methods for arbitrating disputes don't belong in policy (it could simply be stated in the "acceptable behaviour" policy when editors should pursue dispute resolution, and provide links to pages describing how to resolve disputes).
Cheers,
Thomas
As it seems that _plenty_ of people are dissatisfied with the Way Wikipedia Works (TM)
I'm not so sure about that - you have to remember that people that are dissatisfied are always far more vocal than those than are satisfied. There are certainly a significant number of dissatisfied people, but maybe not as many as you think (I don't know how many you think there are, obviously, so I'm just guessing).
No, no, no. This is where I strongly (but respectfully) disagree. Rules need to be _simple_, or their purpose is null and void.
Oh, I agree, rules should always be as simple as possible. The "as possible" part is key, though - they need to be complicated enough to do the job.
If you look at the "Rules" section in the Wikipendium proposal (http://wikipendium.blogspot.com/2008/07/vision-need-and-new-compendium-of-hu...), you'll see that the rules cover practically all situations that are likely to occur in an online community and can still fit into three policy pages - for example, content that does not comply with the "acceptability" rules will be eligible for immediate deletion, the "acceptable behaviour" policy will cover blocking, and methods for arbitrating disputes don't belong in policy (it could simply be stated in the "acceptable behaviour" policy when editors should pursue dispute resolution, and provide links to pages describing how to resolve disputes).
Your constables will unilaterally delete articles they think don't fit the acceptability policy? In that case, you will certainly need a policy for arbitrating disputes!
Your constables will unilaterally delete articles they think don't fit the acceptability policy? In that case, you will certainly need a policy for arbitrating disputes!
I totally agree. Maybe you don't like VfD (oh, sorry, AfD! forgive me for not buying into the newspeak), and that's fine because I don't either, but it would be even worse if we just had admins going around deleting articles based on their own arbitrary interpretation of a set of rules.
Mark
either, but it would be even worse if we just had admins going around> deleting articles based on their own arbitrary interpretation of a set> of rules.
It's not quite the same level of badness, but this bugs me anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#GA appears to be out of control
If this sort of behaviour bugs me, Mr. Grumpy, imagine what wholescale article deletion will do!
Maury
_________________________________________________________________ Find hidden words, unscramble celebrity names, or try the ultimate crossword puzzle with Live Search Games. Play now! http://g.msn.ca/ca55/212
Some administrators have always been "out of control".
Mark
On 10/07/2008, Maury Markowitz maury_markowitz@hotmail.com wrote:
either, but it would be even worse if we just had admins going around> deleting articles based on their own arbitrary interpretation of a set> of rules.
It's not quite the same level of badness, but this bugs me anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#GA appears to be out of control
If this sort of behaviour bugs me, Mr. Grumpy, imagine what wholescale article deletion will do!
Maury
Find hidden words, unscramble celebrity names, or try the ultimate crossword puzzle with Live Search Games. Play now! http://g.msn.ca/ca55/212 _______________________________________________
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Hi.
I'm not so sure about that - you have to remember that people that are dissatisfied are always far more vocal than those than are satisfied. There are certainly a significant number of dissatisfied people, but maybe not as many as you think (I don't know how many you think there are, obviously, so I'm just guessing).
So let's not bother trying to guess the number of dissatisfied users out there - there are undoubtedly thousands of people who would _not_ be satisfied if they knew what Wikipedia's community is like to work with at times and how vandals can change the number "7" to the number "2" in articles without the change being corrected for months or even years. Let's just try to build a more reliable resource with a more pleasant and productive environment, one that many people will be happy working in.
Oh, I agree, rules should always be as simple as possible. The "as possible" part is key, though - they need to be complicated enough to do the job.
Wikipedia's rules are _way_ too complicated: the only rules there that I have ever fully read through, in nearly two years, have been V, N, and NOR. Who's going to spend a day reading all of Wikipedia policy pages, which are contradictory in places? If they aren't, then the policies are practically purposeless; if they are, then we're creating a bureuacracy by making people have to worry about procedure.
People say, "Abide by the spirit of the policies, not the letter," but in this case why not make policies simple? If policies have a "spirit", so to speak, why can they not be contained in three pages instead of 50?
Your constables will unilaterally delete articles they think don't fit the acceptability policy? In that case, you will certainly need a policy for arbitrating disputes!
Articles which obviously fail to fit the acceptability policy will be deletable on sight by any constable. When constables receive a report about a potentially violating article and are unsure about whether or not it meets the acceptability policy, they will bring up the issue in some public venue for, say, 24 hours and invite community input and comments from other constables, then "follow the consensus".
Best and friendly regards,
Thomas
Thomas Larsen wrote: ...
So let's not bother trying to guess the number of dissatisfied users out there - there are undoubtedly thousands of people who would _not_ be satisfied if they knew what Wikipedia's community is like to work with at times and how vandals can change the number "7" to the number "2" in articles without the change being corrected for months or even years. Let's just try to build a more reliable resource with a more pleasant and productive environment, one that many people will be happy working in.
...
Do you feel you are providing enough incentive for the good authors in the new project? Somehow, I think you aren't going to attract *qualitatively* different sort of content creators just on the basis of "less bureaucracy". Are there any open-doc licences which allow for some sort of visible signatures/credits?
---
"2" in articles without the change being corrected for months or even> years. Let's just try to build a more reliable resource with a more> pleasant and productive environment, one that many people will be> happy working in.
You know what makes the Wiki a "pleasant and productive environment"? Not having to deal with people who don't actually write articles telling me how to write articles. For instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Good_articles/Projec...
The Wikipedia is a collection of articles. All else is secondary, especially the rules. If you believe a different set of rules will somehow result in a better encyclopedia, by all means, go for it. In the meantime, does this thread really need to continue? I can't see any changes to your proposal that have resulted from the two weeks of discussion.
Maury
p.s. I'm calling it: it never gets a DNS. _________________________________________________________________ Find hidden words, unscramble celebrity names, or try the ultimate crossword puzzle with Live Search Games. Play now! http://g.msn.ca/ca55/212
Maury Markowitz wrote:
You know what makes the Wiki a "pleasant and productive environment"? Not having to deal with people who don't actually write articles telling me how to write articles.
Brilliant!
The Wikipedia is a collection of articles. All else is secondary, especially the rules. If you believe a different set of rules will somehow result in a better encyclopedia, by all means, go for it.
I may add "go for it... in your own article". But please, for God's sake, do not wipe away articles, peoples wrote sacrificing his time. Make them better, if you only can, but don't delete.
Wikipedia should be an open environment. If you want to evaluate articles maybe there could be some marks for quality granted by specific fora, the same as member of Linkedin can opt to be in specific groups of his choice. Such a forum could have different quality concerns from another. What would be of some value for all this "quality warriors" is to add ability to filter quality in searching articles which - I hope - is a peace of cake to implement.
You add quality by adding value, not by subtracting it.
Marqoz
Okay, fine.
Go start your project, post to this list when it's up to let us all know, and that'll be it.
Either it will be successful or it won't. We'll see.
Mark
On 13/07/2008, Thomas Larsen thomashlarsen.wmf@gmail.com wrote:
Hi.
I'm not so sure about that - you have to remember that people that are dissatisfied are always far more vocal than those than are satisfied. There are certainly a significant number of dissatisfied people, but maybe not as many as you think (I don't know how many you think there are, obviously, so I'm just guessing).
So let's not bother trying to guess the number of dissatisfied users out there - there are undoubtedly thousands of people who would _not_ be satisfied if they knew what Wikipedia's community is like to work with at times and how vandals can change the number "7" to the number "2" in articles without the change being corrected for months or even years. Let's just try to build a more reliable resource with a more pleasant and productive environment, one that many people will be happy working in.
Oh, I agree, rules should always be as simple as possible. The "as possible" part is key, though - they need to be complicated enough to do the job.
Wikipedia's rules are _way_ too complicated: the only rules there that I have ever fully read through, in nearly two years, have been V, N, and NOR. Who's going to spend a day reading all of Wikipedia policy pages, which are contradictory in places? If they aren't, then the policies are practically purposeless; if they are, then we're creating a bureuacracy by making people have to worry about procedure.
People say, "Abide by the spirit of the policies, not the letter," but in this case why not make policies simple? If policies have a "spirit", so to speak, why can they not be contained in three pages instead of 50?
Your constables will unilaterally delete articles they think don't fit the acceptability policy? In that case, you will certainly need a policy for arbitrating disputes!
Articles which obviously fail to fit the acceptability policy will be deletable on sight by any constable. When constables receive a report about a potentially violating article and are unsure about whether or not it meets the acceptability policy, they will bring up the issue in some public venue for, say, 24 hours and invite community input and comments from other constables, then "follow the consensus".
Best and friendly regards,
Thomas
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
So let's not bother trying to guess the number of dissatisfied users out there - there are undoubtedly thousands of people who would _not_ be satisfied if they knew what Wikipedia's community is like to work with at times and how vandals can change the number "7" to the number "2" in articles without the change being corrected for months or even years. Let's just try to build a more reliable resource with a more pleasant and productive environment, one that many people will be happy working in.
Vandalism is a natural consequence of openness and popularity, the only way you're going to avoid it is by either heavily restricting who can edit or by not being popular enough for anyone to bother. I don't see what having a pleasant and non-bureaucratic working environment has to do with it. If you have any suggests on cleaning up vandalism quicker, speak up - we'd love to hear them, and we could implement them on Wikipedia rather than going to the trouble of creating a new project.
Oh, I agree, rules should always be as simple as possible. The "as possible" part is key, though - they need to be complicated enough to do the job.
Wikipedia's rules are _way_ too complicated: the only rules there that I have ever fully read through, in nearly two years, have been V, N, and NOR. Who's going to spend a day reading all of Wikipedia policy pages, which are contradictory in places? If they aren't, then the policies are practically purposeless; if they are, then we're creating a bureuacracy by making people have to worry about procedure.
People read the policies that apply to them. If you just want to write articles, V, N and NOR are probably enough (actually, you should read NPOV too). If you want to be involved in the deletion process, you need to read the deletion policy. If you want to be involved in vandal cleanup, you'll need to read the blocking policy. If you want to edit articles about living people, you'll need to read BLP. Not everyone needs to know every policy, that's the great thing about a wiki, each person can choose what they want to do and ignore the rest. However, the policies do need to be there for those that are doing relevant work.
People say, "Abide by the spirit of the policies, not the letter," but in this case why not make policies simple? If policies have a "spirit", so to speak, why can they not be contained in three pages instead of 50?
For the most part, following the spirit of the policies works, but sometimes people disagree on exactly what that means and it becomes necessary to have a more precise policy rather than having an edit war each time (we just have one edit war on the policy page! ;)).
Your constables will unilaterally delete articles they think don't fit the acceptability policy? In that case, you will certainly need a policy for arbitrating disputes!
Articles which obviously fail to fit the acceptability policy will be deletable on sight by any constable.
You'll eventually find it necessary to define "obviously", because people will disagree on it. That will give you CSD.
When constables receive a report about a potentially violating article and are unsure about whether or not it meets the acceptability policy, they will bring up the issue in some public venue for, say, 24 hours and invite community input and comments from other constables, then "follow the consensus".
And that would be AFD.
The existing Wikipedia policies could probably be trimmed and rewritten to be easier to read - that's what happens when policies are built up over time, they end up getting a little convoluted - but they are needed.
If you decide to go ahead with your project, then best of luck to you, and let us know how it turns out.
Thomas Larsen wrote:
Wikipedia's rules are _way_ too complicated:
This wasn't the case seven years ago, when Wikipedia was new. But since then, two things have happened: Wikipedia has gotten seven years older, and Wikipedia has attracted thousands of people. The number of man-months spent working and thinking on the project has resulted in significant complexity.
We should ask ourselves if the old sentence (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) "that anyone can edit" really holds true any more. I think it's about as true as "anyone can learn to play the piano". Despite this democratic aspect of music, we still have professional musicians. To be a skilled and successful contributor to Wikipedia today requires significant training and practice. If some people can join in without preparation, it's because their background (as programmers, or similar) has prepared them. That's not "anyone".
If you start a project on the basis that Wikipedia is too complicated, you are likely to fool yourself. Your project will be different only as long as (1) it is far younger than Wikipedia and/or (2) it has attracted far fewer people than Wikipedia. For a successful project, you want neither of these.
You need a way to keep a project simple *despite* attracting lots of users and accumulating over time. Maybe you have that formula, only time can tell. The wonder of Wikipedia is that it isn't far more complicated than it is. Ask some people who work on industrial development projects involving the same amount of people and time, and you'll find many examples that have been faster in accumulating complexity ([[Cruft]], feature creep).
People say, "Abide by the spirit of the policies, not the letter," but in this case why not make policies simple?
You're welcome to hack away at this. Did you try to?
Hoi, When you want to edit in a carefree way on a Wikipedia, just write in another language then the English one. There are projects where you can write freely and as long as it is moderately well written and it conforms to what people believe to be true, you will be cherished for your efforts. Please appreciate that it is the English Wikipedia that has grown so much and it is all these other "249" Wikipedias that hope to suffer from the same ills because it will mean that they provide a similar service for the people who read that language...
I wish the Yoruba, Swahili, Igbo, Xhosa, Zulu and even Afrikaans Wikipedia were suffering from the problems the English Wikipedia is known for.
Thanks, GerardM
On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 7:32 PM, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Thomas Larsen wrote:
Wikipedia's rules are _way_ too complicated:
This wasn't the case seven years ago, when Wikipedia was new. But since then, two things have happened: Wikipedia has gotten seven years older, and Wikipedia has attracted thousands of people. The number of man-months spent working and thinking on the project has resulted in significant complexity.
We should ask ourselves if the old sentence (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) "that anyone can edit" really holds true any more. I think it's about as true as "anyone can learn to play the piano". Despite this democratic aspect of music, we still have professional musicians. To be a skilled and successful contributor to Wikipedia today requires significant training and practice. If some people can join in without preparation, it's because their background (as programmers, or similar) has prepared them. That's not "anyone".
If you start a project on the basis that Wikipedia is too complicated, you are likely to fool yourself. Your project will be different only as long as (1) it is far younger than Wikipedia and/or (2) it has attracted far fewer people than Wikipedia. For a successful project, you want neither of these.
You need a way to keep a project simple *despite* attracting lots of users and accumulating over time. Maybe you have that formula, only time can tell. The wonder of Wikipedia is that it isn't far more complicated than it is. Ask some people who work on industrial development projects involving the same amount of people and time, and you'll find many examples that have been faster in accumulating complexity ([[Cruft]], feature creep).
People say, "Abide by the spirit of the policies, not the letter," but in this case why not make policies simple?
You're welcome to hack away at this. Did you try to?
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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I wish the Yoruba, Swahili, Igbo, Xhosa, Zulu and even Afrikaans Wikipedia were suffering from the problems the English Wikipedia is known for.
So the problems are a _good thing_ because they indicate the project is mature and doing good work? The project is _not_ mature - there is plenty of room for improvement, but improvements cannot be made because so many people disagree on what consitutes "improvement" and no group gets a final say, for better or for worse; and people are so insecure that they must use perfectly ridiculous pseudonyms on the project because of some "it's safer" claim. The project is arguably doing good work, but is crushing that work with junk-heaps of bureaucracy, ill-enforced civility and politeness, rules and governance of contested status, allowance of bullying and stalking, and so on, et cetera.
If you disagree with me, feel free to do so. I'm not trying to brainwash you into thinking that Wikipedia is bad; but please maintain an open mind towards Wikipendium, and consider that there are plenty of improvements that it might make on Wikipedia's systems. Consider it this way: some of us are satisfied with Wikipedia, and some of us aren't; and some of us are going to create Wikipendium, because we can't be bothered spending years trying to get an improvement, be it social or technical, into the system - we've got articles to write.
Thank you,
Thomas
Okay, then create it. Go ahead. Nobody is stopping you.
2008/7/18 Thomas Larsen thomashlarsen.wmf@gmail.com:
I wish the Yoruba, Swahili, Igbo, Xhosa, Zulu and even Afrikaans Wikipedia were suffering from the problems the English Wikipedia is known for.
So the problems are a _good thing_ because they indicate the project is mature and doing good work? The project is _not_ mature - there is plenty of room for improvement, but improvements cannot be made because so many people disagree on what consitutes "improvement" and no group gets a final say, for better or for worse; and people are so insecure that they must use perfectly ridiculous pseudonyms on the project because of some "it's safer" claim. The project is arguably doing good work, but is crushing that work with junk-heaps of bureaucracy, ill-enforced civility and politeness, rules and governance of contested status, allowance of bullying and stalking, and so on, et cetera.
If you disagree with me, feel free to do so. I'm not trying to brainwash you into thinking that Wikipedia is bad; but please maintain an open mind towards Wikipendium, and consider that there are plenty of improvements that it might make on Wikipedia's systems. Consider it this way: some of us are satisfied with Wikipedia, and some of us aren't; and some of us are going to create Wikipendium, because we can't be bothered spending years trying to get an improvement, be it social or technical, into the system - we've got articles to write.
Thank you,
Thomas
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2008/7/14 Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
If you start a project on the basis that Wikipedia is too complicated, you are likely to fool yourself. Your project will be different only as long as (1) it is far younger than Wikipedia and/or (2) it has attracted far fewer people than Wikipedia. For a successful project, you want neither of these. You need a way to keep a project simple *despite* attracting lots of users and accumulating over time. Maybe you have that formula, only time can tell. The wonder of Wikipedia is that it isn't far more complicated than it is. Ask some people who work on industrial development projects involving the same amount of people and time, and you'll find many examples that have been faster in accumulating complexity ([[Cruft]], feature creep).
Yes. Wikipedia's problems are largely emergent features of an experiment, rather than a matter of negligent design of an engineered product.
See also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Instruction_creep and understand why it's so.
- d.
professional musicians. To be a skilled and successful > contributor to Wikipedia today requires significant training and > practice.
Oh yes, but I believe this can be greatly improved though technology.
For instance, I think that the entire REF and CITE tagging system is absolutely terrible, one of the worst bits of technology I have ever seen. Among its many problems, the body of the citation has to be inserted into the body of the article. This not only makes it very difficult to edit the article, but also means the actual "source code" of the reference doesn't appear where it does in the rendered article, making it hard to edit the citation too! And a single character mis-typed brings down the entire system, potentially mis-rendering the entire article.
I believe there are a large number of such issues that, if correctly, could reduce the barrier to entry tremendously.
Maury _________________________________________________________________
On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Maury Markowitz maury_markowitz@hotmail.com wrote:
professional musicians. To be a skilled and successful > contributor to Wikipedia today requires significant training and > practice.
Oh yes, but I believe this can be greatly improved though technology.
For instance, I think that the entire REF and CITE tagging system is absolutely terrible, one of the worst bits of technology I have ever seen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOFIXIT
On 14/07/2008, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Maury Markowitz
maury_markowitz@hotmail.com wrote:
professional musicians. To be a skilled and successful > contributor to Wikipedia today requires significant training and > practice.
Oh yes, but I believe this can be greatly improved though technology.
For instance, I think that the entire REF and CITE tagging system is absolutely terrible, one of the worst bits of technology I have ever seen.
That's a little unfair - programming MediaWiki extensions isn't like learning wikitext, it requires a decent amount of programming experience.
Amir, this is a non-sequitur. If a person is confused by the REF system, do you really expect them to be able to re-write the MediaWiki source code to solve it?
Maury
_________________________________________________________________
On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 4:34 PM, Maury Markowitz maury_markowitz@hotmail.com wrote:
Amir, this is a non-sequitur. If a person is confused by the REF system, do you really expect them to be able to re-write the MediaWiki source code to solve it?
You are trying to fix it AND to set up a whole new community. Just fixing it and keeping the current community would be easier.
You are trying to fix it AND to set up a whole new community. Just> fixing it and keeping the current community would be easier.
I believe you have confused the From: with someone else. Maury _________________________________________________________________ If you like crossword puzzles, then you'll love Flexicon, a game which combines four overlapping crossword puzzles into one! http://g.msn.ca/ca55/208
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