On Thursday 26 September 2002 12:01 pm, Brion wrote:
Giskart wrote:
Brion VIBBER wrote:
Pursuant to KQ's suggestions, I've started a page on the English wikipedia:
and now Esperanto: http://eo.wikipedia.com/wiki/Vikipedia_Ambasadorejo
A good idea be would it not be better to use the meta-wikipedia for this ? Now it is used to put stuff on that is out of please on the English wikipedia. I see a future for the Meta - wikipedia as the central conectionpoint between all wikipedias. A truly international, multi-lingual wiki for essays and other non-encycopedia stuff but also as the centre for international co-ordination. For Embassys or some respresantation. You can make different "Main Page"s on the same wiki. Somthing like this; http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?title=Hoofdpagina
>
I think there will be more active in the Embassy pages if the are all on 1 wiki. Then there are only only 2 wikipedias to monitor. . If the Embassy pages are all on the home-wikipedias i think some will be forgotten and the traffic, if any, will only be downstream from the English to the others but not upstream.
My experience with Meta has been that I check it somewhere between very rarely and never, which makes it useless for me for discussion or site announcements. On the other hand, the wikis I participate in *editing* I check rather regularly (en, eo quite frequently, fr at least few times a week; I check de for the bug reports page), and so I'm much more likely to notice big news / help requests / policy discussions there. Likewise the mailing lists (eg intlwiki-l) come directly to my inbox once I've subscribed, so it's tough to ignore them.
Sorry Brion, but your logic here fails me (chicken and the egg scenario). The Meta is practically useless for what it was made for because nobody uses it for much of anything but a dumping ground of POV material. So by ignoring it, you are extending its uselessness.
I really like the idea of having the meta be the neutral ground for all the different Wikipedia projects and I am glad to see that several alternate homepages in different languages have already popped-up. This trend should be encouraged. Why not have the same setup for the Embassy pages? Isn't this /exactly/ what the meta was made for?
If the software made it possible for people to see changes made to Metapedia in their own language's Recent Changes then I can forsee much more activity over at the Meta.
I'm with Giskart on this one.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
On 9/27/02 12:37 AM, "Daniel Mayer" maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
On Thursday 26 September 2002 12:01 pm, Brion wrote:
My experience with Meta has been that I check it somewhere between very rarely and never, which makes it useless for me for discussion or site announcements. On the other hand, the wikis I participate in *editing* I check rather regularly (en, eo quite frequently, fr at least few times a week; I check de for the bug reports page), and so I'm much more likely to notice big news / help requests / policy discussions there. Likewise the mailing lists (eg intlwiki-l) come directly to my inbox once I've subscribed, so it's tough to ignore them.
Sorry Brion, but your logic here fails me (chicken and the egg scenario). The Meta is practically useless for what it was made for because nobody uses it for much of anything but a dumping ground of POV material. So by ignoring it, you are extending its uselessness.
I really like the idea of having the meta be the neutral ground for all the different Wikipedia projects and I am glad to see that several alternate homepages in different languages have already popped-up. This trend should be encouraged. Why not have the same setup for the Embassy pages? Isn't this /exactly/ what the meta was made for?
If the software made it possible for people to see changes made to Metapedia in their own language's Recent Changes then I can forsee much more activity over at the Meta.
The original purpose of Meta was to balkanize discussion about the project from the Wikipedia Recent Changes page. It was clear to me that would inevitably lead (with the alternative of the mailing list) to the decay and disuse of meta-discussion in the WikiWiki Way. And it has.
This can be repaired by unbalkanizing it and by unbalkanizing the mailing list. Users should be able to include both meta and the mailing list updates into the Recent Changes functionality.
On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, The Cunctator wrote:
If the software made it possible for people to see changes made to Metapedia in their own language's Recent Changes then I can forsee much more activity over at the Meta.
The original purpose of Meta was to balkanize discussion about the project
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
from the Wikipedia Recent Changes page.
But that's not how I and the vast majority of people who supported the creation of Meta-Wikipedia would put it. The fact of the matter is that discussion of policy matters was beginning to dominate the Recent Changes log and the article creation process, and nearly everyone (Cunctator at least excepted) thought it was a problem. The word "balkanize" might make it sound as if those of us in favor of creating Meta-Wikipedia wanted to eliminate discussion of policy altogether. Well, speaking for myself anyway, that certainly wasn't the reason. Keeping policy discussions separate from article creation was a good thing, and I at least think it still is.
But I do like the idea of having separate "Recent Changes" pages for articles, for other established namespaces, *and* for a meta: namespace and mailing list: namespace.
It was clear to me that would inevitably lead (with the alternative of the mailing list) to the decay and disuse of meta-discussion in the WikiWiki Way. And it has.
It isn't clear to me that that has been altogether a bad thing. The WikiWiki Way is a grand Way, but it is not the only Way. For purposes of conversational back-and-forth, and arriving at consensus, the mailing list format is arguably better. Web pages can be used to summarize conclusions. Obviously I'm not saying this is the only way or that one way is clearly better--just that our experience seems to indicate that using the mailing list is better.
This can be repaired by unbalkanizing it and by unbalkanizing the mailing list. Users should be able to include both meta and the mailing list updates into the Recent Changes functionality.
Yes, a separate Recent Changes page listing recent mailing list postings would be a very nice feature!
Notice, I've been saying "separate" Recent Changes pages, because I think it would be nice if these different discussion continued, by default, to be *kept* separate, so that we can concentrate on creating encyclopedia articles unmolested by totally different concerns.
What would be even nicer is if we had a Recent Changes page that could combine different Recent Changes lists at the user's preference. For example, it would be nice if I could view the recent changes from Philosophy, Psychology, Classics, and Religion, as well as the Wikipedia namespace, the (to be created) Meta namespace, and the (to be created) Mailing_List namespace, all on one page. Then, if it became too much to deal with, one could unselect a few of the namespaces on the preferences page and blissful silence would descend.
Larry
On 9/27/02 11:31 AM, "Larry Sanger" lsanger@nupedia.com wrote:
What would be even nicer is if we had a Recent Changes page that could combine different Recent Changes lists at the user's preference. For example, it would be nice if I could view the recent changes from Philosophy, Psychology, Classics, and Religion, as well as the Wikipedia namespace, the (to be created) Meta namespace, and the (to be created) Mailing_List namespace, all on one page. Then, if it became too much to deal with, one could unselect a few of the namespaces on the preferences page and blissful silence would descend.
I agree totally. Those who want them separate can keep them separate, those together, together.
BTW, did you take a gander at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/ByTopic (and then, for example, click on Philosophy)? It's not quite as effective as
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&... et=List_of_philosophical_topics
but since it can be generated automatically, it's a good complement.
On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, The Cunctator wrote:
BTW, did you take a gander at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Cunctator/ByTopic (and then, for example, click on Philosophy)? It's not quite as effective as
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchangeslinked&... et=List_of_philosophical_topics
but since it can be generated automatically, it's a good complement.
I did. Both are good examples of the sort of thing we need, but I'd like to see something more complete. But these are both nice to have!
Larry
Larry Sanger wrote:
[cut] It isn't clear to me that that has been altogether a bad thing. The WikiWiki Way is a grand Way, but it is not the only Way. For purposes of conversational back-and-forth, and arriving at consensus, the mailing list format is arguably better. Web pages can be used to summarize conclusions. Obviously I'm not saying this is the only way or that one way is clearly better--just that our experience seems to indicate that using the mailing list is better.
There is also still "Wikipedia Chat" . http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Chat irc://opennet/wikipedia
Is there anybody who use it ? There never seems to be any wikipedians online there.
Giskart
Daniel Mayer wrote:
On Thursday 26 September 2002 12:01 pm, Brion wrote:
My experience with Meta has been that I check it somewhere between very rarely and never, which makes it useless for me for discussion or site announcements. On the other hand, the wikis I participate in *editing* I check rather regularly (en, eo quite frequently, fr at least few times a week; I check de for the bug reports page), and so I'm much more likely to notice big news / help requests / policy discussions there. Likewise the mailing lists (eg intlwiki-l) come directly to my inbox once I've subscribed, so it's tough to ignore them.
Sorry Brion, but your logic here fails me (chicken and the egg scenario). The Meta is practically useless for what it was made for because nobody uses it for much of anything but a dumping ground of POV material. So by ignoring it, you are extending its uselessness.
Is that why it's useless, or do people use it that way _because_ it's useless for what it was made for? Can you really say you know the answer?
I really like the idea of having the meta be the neutral ground for all the different Wikipedia projects and I am glad to see that several alternate homepages in different languages have already popped-up. This trend should be encouraged. Why not have the same setup for the Embassy pages?
Because people need to be able to _find_ the multilingual meta paradise first! That means having a page on your local wiki which can link to it and report on important issues that have come up there that people should check out... and that page, by any name, is the embassy. I see no conflict here.
Isn't this /exactly/ what the meta was made for?
I always got the impression it was for pointing kooks at to keep them out of our hair on the encyclopedic wiki. If we're all watching it, where will we put them now? ;)
If the software made it possible for people to see changes made to Metapedia in their own language's Recent Changes then I can forsee much more activity over at the Meta.
Seriously though, every time some method of merging meta-wiki changes into the regular recentchanges is suggested (either by showing multiple wikis' RC in one list, as I suggested in April, or by integrating it in the main wiki(s) meta as a namespace) somebody says that the point of a separate meta wiki was to keep meta stuff *out* of the regular RC.
I'm with Giskart on this one.
You act as though I'm not. :)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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