There seem to be consensus to apply that.
Warning to certain people: some Polish Wikipedians want to change default skin too, and there's nothing non-Polish Wikipedians can do to stop it, would consensus on it emerge among Polish Wikipedians.
Tomasz-
There seem to be consensus to apply that.
A consensus of one, I presume.
Warning to certain people: some Polish Wikipedians want to change default skin too, and there's nothing non-Polish Wikipedians can do to stop it, would consensus on it emerge among Polish Wikipedians.
If the project leadership decides that Wikipedias are not allowed to change their default skin, they are not allowed to do that, and any change to that effect will be reverted. If, however, the project leadership approves of giving each wiki the right to change the default skin, this is indeed a choice you can make.
Regards,
Erik
On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 09:35:00PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
Tomasz-
There seem to be consensus to apply that.
A consensus of one, I presume.
Was discussed on wikipl-l.
Warning to certain people: some Polish Wikipedians want to change default skin too, and there's nothing non-Polish Wikipedians can do to stop it, would consensus on it emerge among Polish Wikipedians.
If the project leadership decides that Wikipedias are not allowed to change their default skin, they are not allowed to do that, and any change to that effect will be reverted. If, however, the project leadership approves of giving each wiki the right to change the default skin, this is indeed a choice you can make.
There is no global "project leadership" here, unless you count Jimbo's control over servers. Certainly YOU have nothing to say about that.
Tomasz-
There is no global "project leadership" here, unless you count Jimbo's control over servers.
Jimbo's control goes beyond server control, it extends to the domain and project name as well. You can't run a "Wikipedia" without following the rules Jimbo lays out. As for me, I will enforce the existing policies, one of which is that no changes are made without going through CVS. Hm, I notice that you have not bothered to commit your change to CVS. Oh well, it wasn't important anyway.
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Tomasz-
Warning to certain people: some Polish Wikipedians
want to change default
skin too, and there's nothing non-Polish
Wikipedians can do to stop it,
would consensus on it emerge among Polish
Wikipedians.
If the project leadership decides that Wikipedias are not allowed to change their default skin, they are not allowed to do that, and any change to that effect will be reverted. If, however, the project leadership approves of giving each wiki the right to change the default skin, this is indeed a choice you can make.
Please Erik, would you explain what you exactly mean by "the project leadership" ?
Is it a person ? In that case who ?
Is it a group of persons ? In that case who is in that group and who is not ?
When Tarquin is talking of the bilingual glue, I don't think he is talking of those who put international links between pedias. This is indeed very important, but could actually be automated by a "dictionnary" bot. I dare to think the glue has more humanity and intelligence.
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Anthere-
Please Erik, would you explain what you exactly mean by "the project leadership" ?
Currently the project leader is Jimbo Wales, in his absence represented by Magnus Manske. In the future there will possibly a Wikimedia board that can make decisions. For the remaining power structure, see
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_structure
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Anthere-
Please Erik, would you explain what you exactly
mean
by "the project leadership" ?
Currently the project leader is Jimbo Wales, in his absence represented by Magnus Manske. In the future there will possibly a Wikimedia board that can make decisions. For the remaining power structure, see
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_structure
Regards,
Erik
So, to your opinion, Jimbo is the only one (currently, since there is no board yet) to have the power to say whether yes or no, an international wikipedia can have a logo not written in english, or have a different default skin (picked up in the list of all skins available for all wikipedias of course) ?
I am sure Jimbo would not try to "force" the current english logo over the non-english wikipedias, even if he is the "leader project".
Curiously, your arguments yesterday to say no to Rotem propositions were essentially technical. I agree with most of those arguments. We already have too much to do from a technical point of view to lose time with "development conflict".
I also naturally agree over the arguments having to do with NPOV, free encyclopedia, consensus, etc...
I am more dubious of the arguments given for not allowing non similar default skin for example. I maintain that very likely, a reader will limit himself "most of the time" to one language only. Hopefully, very soon :-), the encyclopedia will be big and complete enough to allow this. Hence, most readers will stay on the same language, and won't be disturbed. If they switch, they will perhaps not be "new" to wikipedia concept, hence be able to recognise the place.
As for editors, a default skin is no pb. If they want to edit several wikipedia, they just need to go to the prefs and set the same one.
as long as *all* skins are available to *all* wikipedias, I see not why we would make one wikipedia unhappy with refusing them something that appears to be no big deal.
Why would not we have a very simple skin as Rotem seems to suggest ?
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Anthere wrote:
As for editors, a default skin is no pb. If they want to edit several wikipedia, they just need to go to the prefs and set the same one.
as long as *all* skins are available to *all* wikipedias, I see not why we would make one wikipedia unhappy with refusing them something that appears to be no big deal.
Why would not we have a very simple skin as Rotem seems to suggest ?
Because all English-speaking mathematicians agree that we want maths articles to appear in the Cologne Blue skin. Mathematicians prefer it!
The other articles in the english wikipedia can stay as they are. we don't care.
--- tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com wrote:
Anthere wrote:
As for editors, a default skin is no pb. If they
want
to edit several wikipedia, they just need to go to
the
prefs and set the same one.
as long as *all* skins are available to *all* wikipedias, I see not why we would make one
wikipedia
unhappy with refusing them something that appears
to
be no big deal.
Why would not we have a very simple skin as Rotem seems to suggest ?
Because all English-speaking mathematicians agree that we want maths articles to appear in the Cologne Blue skin. Mathematicians prefer it!
The other articles in the english wikipedia can stay as they are. we don't care.
un r�ve fou Tarquin !
Puisque des cat�gories vont �tre mises en place...imagine...quelque soit la skin choisie par d�faut, d�s qu'on arrive sur un article dans la cat�gorie math�matique, hop, cologne blue (la plus belle de toutes fa�ons)
pourrais-je avoir une Dublin verte ?
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--- tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Puisque des cat�gories vont �tre mises en place...imagine...quelque soit la skin choisie par d�faut, d�s qu'on arrive sur un article dans la cat�gorie math�matique, hop, cologne blue (la plus belle de toutes fa�ons)
c'etait de la rhetorique. quelle horreur!
tu me rassures :-))))
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Anthere-
So, to your opinion, Jimbo is the only one (currently, since there is no board yet) to have the power to say whether yes or no, an international wikipedia can have a logo not written in english, or have a different default skin (picked up in the list of all skins available for all wikipedias of course) ?
Look, we both agree that the current English logo sucks, OK? So basing an argument against a largely similar logo among all Wikipedias on the current logo is really not very fair. I have not voiced any objections to the French Wikipedia coming up with their own logo because it is reasonable for you to choose a French logo over an English one, but I would have preferred it if you had made an effort to push for a new, international logo instead.
As for changing the default skin, the only wiki that has done so, so far, is the Esperanto wiki, and this was done by Brion without much (any?) discussion. We currently have no policy on this, and there are only two ways to set up such a policy within our current system: - decision by Jimbo Wales - authorization of a vote by Jimbo Wales - consensus among all Wikipedians, including Jimbo Wales (not gonna happen)
Since Wikipedia is not a dictatorship where everything that is not expressly allowed is forbidden, in the absence of a policy, it would be OK for any of the existing wikis to change its default skin. It would be courteous and wise to wait for a word from Jimbo before doing so.
I am more dubious of the arguments given for not allowing non similar default skin for example. I maintain that very likely, a reader will limit himself "most of the time" to one language only.
While that it is quite possibly true, even if only a minority of authors spends time on two or more wikis, and even if this time is spent 90/10 on one wiki vs. the other, having different skins will be confusing. I speak from first hand experience: To do some usability testing on the Cologne Blue skin (which I personally have grown to dislike quite strongly) I have set up my account on de: to use CB. Now when I switch between en: and de:, finding the navigational elements becomes *very* difficult, because CB is so much different from the standard skin.
There is another effect: When I first visited the Esperanto Wikipedia out of curiosity, I didn't know about CB yet and initially wondered whether this was still part of the same project -- there was no logo, the site was called "Vikipedio", and it looked entirely different. Many other visitors have reported the same experience on the Village Pump and elsewhere. This kind of reaction goes against anything that a common project with a common name stands for. It deteriorates the Wikipedia brand and common identity.
If they switch, they will perhaps not be "new" to wikipedia concept,
It's *especially* the new users that will likely check out other languages simply to see what's there.
as long as *all* skins are available to *all* wikipedias, I see not why we would make one wikipedia unhappy
Who will be unhappy? Are we really talking about strong tendencies within the Wikipedias, or only about single individuals who are very vocal? Is there such a thing as a "cultural preference" for a certain skin? The numbers certainly do not indicate this. The following percentages of users have changed their skin from the default to "Cologne Blue":
German: 19.4% English: 8.58% French: 11.8% Polish: 12% Chinese: 9.18% Dutch: 7.42% Swedish: 7.55%
The only Wikipedia here that has a substantially different number from all others is the German one. Is this because Cologne is a city in Germany? Probably not -- the current German main page has been heavily changed in favor of Cologne Blue, and there has been lots of propaganda for CB on some German Wikipedia pages and on the mailing list, raising awareness of the existence of the skin. I conclude that the different cultures are reasonably similar for us to set an international default, and that it is only a vocal minority that opposes such a step.
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Anthere- Look, we both agree that the current English logo sucks, OK?
I would not have been so...:-)
So basing an
argument against a largely similar logo among all Wikipedias on the current logo is really not very fair. I have not voiced any objections to the French Wikipedia coming up with their own logo because it is reasonable for you to choose a French logo over an English one, but I would have preferred it if you had made an effort to push for a new, international logo instead.
Just a word there I wonder if the "you" is general, or if it is "me". If me, I will just indicate here that the logo was changed less than a month after I got under my name on the fr wiki. It was not discussed. We were few at that time, so one editor just designed a logo, and send it to Jason to have it placed. He then raised an uproar becaues Jason hesitated to immediately place it, without Jimbo aggrement.
As far as I remember, this lead to 1) noise on the international list 2) one of my first mail to the mailing list to try to explain where that change came from (I was also wondering, I found it http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/intlwiki-l/2002-June/000459.html) 3) a lot of noise afterward on the french wiki, because that had been done without discussion before hand
Afterhand, we decided to keep it :-) Two times, there were some discussions to change it, with no result. Several of us also participated on meta for the choice of a mascott. From time to time, some people try to raise the topic of changing the name for a more french-sound.
I think your comment "I would have preferred it if you had made an effort to push for a new, international logo instead." is quite strange. Very strange.
when we made the change, there was *no* (I insist on the no) communication between the french and the english wikipedias. We were about 10 while you already were hundred. We had about 600 pages. We were still phase I. We were unwelcome on meta. We had no mailing list. The wikipedia-l was for english matters only. I think the only traveller with me was Youssef. There was no place to discuss *anything* in common.
Which is why my first two participations on an english mailing list was to try to explain to Jimbo the matter of the logo, and to try to explain what could have lead the spanish to fork.
I think the third was to call for help because we had *no* sysop, and thus no one had any power against vandals and no one could do house keeping.
And the fourth was to complain there had been an unilateral decision on putting red underlined links default, with no international being ask their opinion. At that time, it was agreed we could have the question marks as preference. It was never done. Anyway, at that time, we were not even internationals. We were basically nothing.
Consequently, I find your comment quite out of context Erik. Now is different (I think in part of all the noise I made :-)). But back then, the idea of french wikipedians suggesting the english to change their logo is totally...
As for changing the default skin, the only wiki that has done so, so far, is the Esperanto wiki, and this was done by Brion without much (any?) discussion. We currently have no policy on this, and there are only two ways to set up such a policy within our current system:
- decision by Jimbo Wales
- authorization of a vote by Jimbo Wales
- consensus among all Wikipedians, including Jimbo
Wales (not gonna happen)
lol. Perhaps not.
Since Wikipedia is not a dictatorship where everything that is not expressly allowed is forbidden, in the absence of a policy, it would be OK for any of the existing wikis to change its default skin. It would be courteous and wise to wait for a word from Jimbo before doing so.
quite true. But we can discuss it :-)
There is another effect: When I first visited the Esperanto Wikipedia out of curiosity, I didn't know about CB yet and initially wondered whether this was still part of the same project -- there was no logo, the site was called "Vikipedio", and it looked entirely different. Many other visitors have reported the same experience on the Village Pump and elsewhere. This kind of reaction goes against anything that a common project with a common name stands for. It deteriorates the Wikipedia brand and common identity.
Agreed. Having a the same time not the same skin, not the same logo, and not the same name...is certainly a pb
as long as *all* skins are available to *all* wikipedias, I see not why we would make one
wikipedia
unhappy
Who will be unhappy? Are we really talking about strong tendencies within the Wikipedias, or only about single individuals who are very vocal?
Well, we can't know this for sure without a poll...
what about setting a poll system ?
Is
there such a thing as a "cultural preference" for a certain skin? The numbers certainly do not indicate this. The following percentages of users have changed their skin from the default to "Cologne Blue":
German: 19.4% English: 8.58% French: 11.8% Polish: 12% Chinese: 9.18% Dutch: 7.42% Swedish: 7.55%
very interesting numbers ! perhaps biased for a lack of choice though
I conclude that the different cultures are reasonably similar for us to set an international default, and that it is only a vocal minority that opposes such a step.
I think the numbers would not be so obvious with one or two good skins. Perhaps you go to quickly to the conclusion. Let's wait Tarquin proposition :-)
Regards,
Erik
Best Erik
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Anthere-
Just a word there I wonder if the "you" is general, or if it is "me".
Well, I had no idea how long the logo has been there. Apologies if it was not possible at the time to discuss these things. But it could be worse: The first Wikipedia logo was an American flag. Imagine trying to impose that on every 'pedia :-)
Who will be unhappy? Are we really talking about strong tendencies within the Wikipedias, or only about single individuals who are very vocal?
Well, we can't know this for sure without a poll... what about setting a poll system ?
Ohhh, voting systems -- I'm all for it :-). However, Jimbo has not yet authorized voting as a general decision making process, otherwise I'd be happy to set up a vote on what kind of changes can and cannot be made to the various international wikis. Note also that there may be cases where Jimbo has a different opinion than the majority of users; for example, Jimbo certainly has a strong interest in preserving and strengthening the Wiki[mp]edia brand, which is somewhat undermined by too large variations in the look and feel.
German: 19.4% English: 8.58% French: 11.8% Polish: 12% Chinese: 9.18% Dutch: 7.42% Swedish: 7.55%
very interesting numbers ! perhaps biased for a lack of choice though
I'm all for new skins. Send me a good HTML mock-up and I might even make one myself. I like Tarquin's proposal for the most part, even though it is not much different from the standard skin. I do think the bottom links should not have been removed.
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Anthere-
Just a word there I wonder if the "you" is general, or if it is
"me".
Well, I had no idea how long the logo has been there. Apologies if it was not possible at the time to discuss these things.
first days of June 2002. More than a year ago.
From Erik very interesting stats, french Anthere first
contribution was made on the 26/05/02
english Anthere was older
english nothing even older
Erik...you know me...you know I would make noise do you ?
But it could be worse: The first Wikipedia logo was an American flag. Imagine trying to impose that on every 'pedia :-)
I don't even want to talk about it ;-)
Who will be unhappy? Are we really talking about strong tendencies within the Wikipedias, or only about single individuals
who
are very vocal?
Well, we can't know this for sure without a
poll...
what about setting a poll system ?
Ohhh, voting systems -- I'm all for it :-).
Me not really but must admit that when the population interested is over, say 25 people, the common consensus process is problematic
However, the biggest issue would not so much to "decide" upon a logo, but to have some acceptable propositions:-)
Jimbo has not yet authorized voting as a general decision making process, otherwise I'd be happy to set up a vote on what kind of changes can and cannot be made to the various international wikis. Note also that there may be cases where Jimbo has a different opinion than the majority of users; for example, Jimbo certainly has a strong interest in preserving and strengthening the Wiki[mp]edia brand, which is somewhat undermined by too large variations in the look and feel.
Agreed.
German: 19.4% English: 8.58% French: 11.8% Polish: 12% Chinese: 9.18% Dutch: 7.42% Swedish: 7.55%
very interesting numbers ! perhaps biased for a lack of choice though
I'm all for new skins. Send me a good HTML mock-up and I might even make one myself. I like Tarquin's proposal for the most part, even though it is not much different from the standard skin. I do think the bottom links should not have been removed.
Regards,
Erik
I'll send you a flower instead. I am better with pict than mock up html. Consider that training ;-)
Sunflower is ok ?
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Ok, well there is all this arguing about skins and different usability of certain visible elements, and cheese (etc.) . I mentioned templates the otehr day. We need them, it's the only way to put an end to this stuff, plus It'll make The whole process of changing the look of the wikipedia a lot easier. This is the standard I am proposing, if anyone wants to start coding this cheese up drop me a line and we'll do it, I don't have CVS access but I have a sourceforge account, besides I don'nt need it, I'll just submit it as a patch because it might not even get accepted. Point being, heres my idea
Template sytem: SMARTY (http://smarty.php.net)
-/WIKIROOT |-/skins |-/skin1 |-view_article.php |-edit_article.php |-preview_edit.php |-/templates |-template1.tpl |-template2.tpl |-template3.tpl ... |-/skin2 |-/skin3 ...
You get me? Baiscally wiki.phtml just gathers the data, places it into variables and then includes() the necessary file from the correct skin directory. That file puts the data into its necessary templates and then spits it out. What do you think?
Here is the crucial part. HTML should completely disappear from the rest of the script. EVERYTHING. no HTML and no strings in the code, AT ALL. strings go into a localization file, HTML goes into templates. The apropriate *.php file from the skin's dir.
i8n is handled by the main program, the skin files should be "dumb" to a certain degree. They should be handed all the data they need, all they have to do is put it in the right place and format it a little bit. To acomodate localization correctly we should have a couple of flags, for example one for bi-di. The rest is up to the skin.
Markup. This is kinda weird.. because if the main script handles it then we break the no HTML thing, but then again, if it doesn't we have a bunch of skins with different mark-up parsers? I don't know. The only thing I can think off is to have a file especially for that function. Skins should include() that file and use that function, but if it comes down to it. we could just switch files for different markup parsers. eg, we could have a normal html one, and one that makes totally valid, (no depracated) html, and even one that spits out XHTML. of course It'd be important to make sure these are synched up. anyways, what does everyone think? Anyone want to Join me on this task?? I mean I want to do it, but if no one really thinks this is a good idea it's kind of a lot of work to do, so I only really would be willing to do it if people think this is a worthwhile effort.
Lightning
Lightning wrote:
Ok, well there is all this arguing about skins and different usability of certain visible elements, and cheese (etc.) . I mentioned templates the otehr day. We need them, it's the only way to put an end to this stuff, (**snip**) Anyone want to Join me on this task?? I mean I want to do it, but if no one really thinks this is a good idea it's kind of a lot of work to do, so I only really would be willing to do it if people think this is a worthwhile effort.
I can help with making the HTML templates :) It would be much easier to make skins if they are put into the system as HTML documents.
We could have: * default * power user * old browsers (Netscape etc) * text browsers
if the British summer turns REALLY lousy, I could make something with DHTML menus at the top!
tarquin wrote:
We could have:
- default
- power user
- old browsers (Netscape etc)
- text browsers
if the British summer turns REALLY lousy, I could make something with DHTML menus at the top!
I will help too, but I'm interested mostly in making a very simple skin (default), to present a friendly and beautiful encyclopedia for those journalists, readers, and reviewers who give a strong emphasis on presentation and layout. (Just look at the Israeli internet directories, the biggest three give wikipedia a rating of C- probably just because of its "so early nineties" look, but Everything2 gets an A. They don't really bother to read their content or anything, they wouldn't understand it anyway)
And I myself think it is very important because Wikipedia, at least the English version, is no longer a "toolbox to create an encyclopedia", but a regarded encyclopedia in it's own right, let's make justice for the great content it has.
Just tell me where is the PHP code you're working on, Tarquin. Let's get this forward, I want to update it on the wiki.. Here's my motto: "Be bold in improving Wikipedia's ugly layout!" or "..yadda yadda.. learn how you can improve this website's ugly look /right now/! ;-)
Rotem
Rotem Dan wrote:
Just tell me where is the PHP code you're working on, Tarquin. Let's get this forward, I want to update it on the wiki.. Here's my motto: "Be bold in improving Wikipedia's ugly layout!" or "..yadda yadda.. learn how you can improve this website's ugly look /right now/! ;-)
I don't know PHP. I started work on a redesign of the default skin. You can see my work in progress here: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddington_skin
note this is *work in progress*. comments are welcome!
On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 09:22:02PM +0200, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
There seem to be consensus to apply that.
Warning to certain people: some Polish Wikipedians want to change default skin too, and there's nothing non-Polish Wikipedians can do to stop it, would consensus on it emerge among Polish Wikipedians.
Yeah, as if it could possibly work.
There's error: except Nl, no LanguageXX.php overrides method getDefaultUserOptions, so %wgDefaultUserOptionsXX variables are useless in language files.
Fix for Pl.
Already applied to pl.wikipedia.org
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org