But if you mean "democratic" as in voting, then no, we
don't do that.
I didn't mean that. I don't believe in voting.
Actually I am not so sure about what is more democratic system. I said the system of wikipedia should be more democratic because it seems to me that the decision about the wikipedia system doesn't reflect well the opinion among the majority of wikipedians, if not totally. First, simply really few people subscribe this mailing list. Second, changes are somewhat invisible. Basically there is no announcement about the changes. For example, new text for new pages. (Forget the talk pages or Village pump. They exist for conversation not for announcement)
I don't want to mean people who have access to CVS should speak more (I am implying Brion). I am saying we should make the management (including decision-making) more visible and closer to oridanly wikipedians. Sure, now people dicuss in Village pump or some send direct message to Brion personally in his talk page. But it is not the democracy in the essence.
Wikipedia is great because not only it is free, open-content but also because it is democratic. People made decision in their own. People go where they want to go without discussion. The important distinction is wikipedia is the place where not the rulers listen to people's demands but all of people rule.
Sorry I am just talking about something abstract. But this is why I felt the management should be more democratic. And again I don't know practical way. Developing wikipedia system in wiki? I don't know.
Sure, it is usuall that the system of the site changes suddenly. Think of amazon.com or google. They are not democratic. But we can do better.
Oh, anyway, can we set up the wikipedia for developing? Like hacker.wikipedia.org
I like to document more information about the wikipedia software and also it would be nice if there is the place the developers find the tasks wikipedias want and exchange brainstorms. (Well, there is sourceforge. But no one is using it anyway. Most of stuff in sourceforge seems outdated like bug reports several months ago)
Again, I don't want to blame anyone. I just hope the system of wikipedia is as good as the articles of wikipedia.
(Sorry pieter. I prefer hacker to developer. hehe)
On mer, 2003-01-29 at 20:09, Takuya Murata wrote:
Wikipedia is great because not only it is free, open-content but also because it is democratic. People made decision in their own. People go where they want to go without discussion. The important distinction is wikipedia is the place where not the rulers listen to people's demands but all of people rule.
Democracy is a two-way street, and the way to get involved is, well, to get involved. ;) This mailing list is open to subscription and can be read on the web by anyone. Our source repository can be examined on the web or by anonymous CVS access, and anyone showing interest and with a sourceforge account can be given commit access.
Pick a task, find an itch to scratch, and get working on it. The only reason I'm here is because I got involved in the Esperanto Wikipedia and wanted to modify the software to better support my favorite language. If I do anything else here, it's just to provide the infrastructure for the supersigno-conversion code. Now, if only I had the time to write some articles! ;)
Sorry I am just talking about something abstract. But this is why I felt the management should be more democratic. And again I don't know practical way. Developing wikipedia system in wiki? I don't know.
Oh, it can be done in theory: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?FileReplacement
I dunno if we want to do that for our source, though...
Oh, anyway, can we set up the wikipedia for developing? Like hacker.wikipedia.org
I'd prefer to work on meta.wikipedia.org. But that's just me.
I like to document more information about the wikipedia software and also it would be nice if there is the place the developers find the tasks wikipedias want and exchange brainstorms. (Well, there is sourceforge. But no one is using it anyway. Most of stuff in sourceforge seems outdated like bug reports several months ago)
Those bug reports are still open because they're still not fixed. :) There are a lot of little parser errors, and little search errors, that can be best fixed by replacing the horribly fragile subsystems they're in with clean, testable code.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
On Don, 2003-01-30 at 05:09, Takuya Murata wrote:
Actually I am not so sure about what is more democratic system. I said the system of wikipedia should be more democratic because it seems to me that the decision about the wikipedia system doesn't reflect well the opinion among the majority of wikipedians,
Actually, the wiki code is developed in a manner very similar to wiki articles themselves. CVS access is granted fairly liberally, so almost anyone can modify the software. Like wiki, CVS stores all previous revisions, so it's always possible to revert if necessary. To avoid problems, we use a manual mechanism similar to FileCopy, in the form of Brion occasionally updating the live sever. This part could be more formalized, and probably should be eventually.
Given this, I'm surprised we don't have more active coders. Right now, it's mostly Brion, Magnus, Tomasz (TeX) and me. There are really few valid excuses not to participate, given that PHP is easy to learn and all the tools you need are free. If you have time to work on Wikipedia articles, you have time to work on Wikipedia code.
The only real difference is that you need to be a coder to participate. Since we're dealing with code, I don't think this can be much improved. Importing the code into wiki doesn't make much sense -- we should use the right tool for the right job. CVS is tried and tested and works well in this situation, so do SourceForge's tools.
When there are conflicts about features we try to resolve them either before or after the feature is introduced, depending on personal judgment. Knowing that there are *always* people who disagree about something if you ask if there are people who disagree makes it tempting to wait until someone complains *after* a feature has been added. Compare it to asking on a Talk page before making a change, or just making the change and waiting until someome complains.
But if by "democratic" you mean that the coders need to work on what the non-coders decide then, sorry, that's not gonna happen. If you want that, I have a long list of articles that I want to be written ..
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
On Don, 2003-01-30 at 05:09, Takuya Murata wrote:
Actually I am not so sure about what is more democratic system. I said the system of wikipedia should be more democratic because it seems to me that the decision about the wikipedia system doesn't reflect well the opinion among the majority of wikipedians,
Actually, the wiki code is developed in a manner very similar to wiki articles themselves. CVS access is granted fairly liberally, so almost anyone can modify the software. Like wiki, CVS stores all previous revisions, so it's always possible to revert if necessary. To avoid problems, we use a manual mechanism similar to FileCopy, in the form of Brion occasionally updating the live sever. This part could be more formalized, and probably should be eventually.
Given this, I'm surprised we don't have more active coders. Right now, it's mostly Brion, Magnus, Tomasz (TeX) and me. There are really few valid excuses not to participate, given that PHP is easy to learn and all the tools you need are free. If you have time to work on Wikipedia articles, you have time to work on Wikipedia code.
The only real difference is that you need to be a coder to participate. Since we're dealing with code, I don't think this can be much improved. Importing the code into wiki doesn't make much sense -- we should use the right tool for the right job. CVS is tried and tested and works well in this situation, so do SourceForge's tools.
When there are conflicts about features we try to resolve them either before or after the feature is introduced, depending on personal judgment. Knowing that there are *always* people who disagree about something if you ask if there are people who disagree makes it tempting to wait until someone complains *after* a feature has been added. Compare it to asking on a Talk page before making a change, or just making the change and waiting until someome complains.
But if by "democratic" you mean that the coders need to work on what the non-coders decide then, sorry, that's not gonna happen. If you want that, I have a long list of articles that I want to be written ..
It is more about what you should NOT do that we non-coders want to have influence on. (Don't add any more feautures please.) Otherwise you are playing 'Gods' over us 'normal' wikipedians. Sorry, I'm coding for more than 20 years now but I do not dare to fiddle around in codes that I don't know nor fully understand (I don't want to disturb you or the non-coding-wikipedians (99.9999%). Kind Regards, Pieter Suurmond
Regards,
Erik
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Takuya Murata wrote:
Sorry I am just talking about something abstract. But this is why I felt the management should be more democratic. And again I don't know practical way. Developing wikipedia system in wiki? I don't know.
Your discussion is good. You have thoughtful criticisms here, and these are always appreciated. However, I will say that this particular discussion should take place on wikipedia-l, not on wikitech-l.
Never hesitate to talk in the abstract, and big-picture ideas with the good of wikipedia in mind are the best!
--Jimbo
But if you mean "democratic" as in voting, then no,
we don't do that.
I didn't mean that. I don't believe in voting. Actually I am not so sure about what is more democratic system. I said the system of wikipedia should be more democratic because it seems to me that the decision about the wikipedia system doesn't reflect well the opinion among the majority of wikipedians, if not totally. First, simply really few people subscribe this mailing list. Second, changes are somewhat invisible. Basically there is no announcement about the changes. For example, new text for new pages. (Forget the talk pages or Village pump. They exist for conversation not for announcement) I don't want to mean people who have access to CVS should speak more (I am implying Brion). I am saying we should make the management (including decision-making) more visible and closer to oridanly wikipedians. Sure, now people dicuss in Village pump or some send direct message to Brion personally in his talk page. But it is not the democracy in the essence. Wikipedia is great because not only it is free, open-content but also because it is democratic. People made decision in their own. People go where they want to go without discussion. The important distinction is wikipedia is the place where not the rulers listen to people's demands but all of people rule. Sorry I am just talking about something abstract. But this is why I felt the management should be more democratic. And again I don't know practical way.
Hello Takuya
What you say makes a lot of sense. I agree the current system is far from being the perfect one.
Just wanted to add that if people want to get involved, they may come here if they want. But, if all the discussions take place on the en.wiki, you just remove internationals the possibility to say their word too. We can't follow what is happening on the en.wiki.
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Anthere wrote:
But if you mean "democratic" as in voting, then no,
we don't do that.
I didn't mean that. I don't believe in voting. Actually I am not so sure about what is more democratic system. I said the system of wikipedia should be more democratic because it seems to me that the decision about the wikipedia system doesn't reflect well the opinion among the majority of wikipedians, if not totally. First, simply really few people subscribe this mailing list. Second, changes are somewhat invisible. Basically there is no announcement about the changes. For example, new text for new pages. (Forget the talk pages or Village pump. They exist for conversation not for announcement) I don't want to mean people who have access to CVS should speak more (I am implying Brion). I am saying we should make the management (including decision-making) more visible and closer to oridanly wikipedians. Sure, now people dicuss in Village pump or some send direct message to Brion personally in his talk page. But it is not the democracy in the essence. Wikipedia is great because not only it is free, open-content but also because it is democratic. People made decision in their own. People go where they want to go without discussion. The important distinction is wikipedia is the place where not the rulers listen to people's demands but all of people rule. Sorry I am just talking about something abstract. But this is why I felt the management should be more democratic. And again I don't know practical way.
Sorry for bothering again but I very much agree with the above. Having no solution, it is at least good to talk about it (clear and visible management, democracy, etc).
Maybe, closing down meta.wikipedia.org is a good idea? Designers, developers, programmers, administrators, etc should be on the 'normal' wikipedia, they should _not_ be 'gods'.
This relates to (inter)language problem: there is no central wikipedia (or do you regard the English-speaking one, www.wikipedia.org, as the central one?). Wikipedia thus already DOES work with distributed servers, isn't it? (Spanish wikipedia is on another machine than the Dutch, and the English, etc?)
Sorry for speaking here (I did not read _all_ previous e-mails). Pieter Suurmond
Hello Takuya
What you say makes a lot of sense. I agree the current system is far from being the perfect one.
Just wanted to add that if people want to get involved, they may come here if they want. But, if all the discussions take place on the en.wiki, you just remove internationals the possibility to say their word too. We can't follow what is happening on the en.wiki.
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On ĵaŭ, 2003-01-30 at 15:33, Pieter Suurmond wrote:
Sorry for bothering again but I very much agree with the above. Having no solution, it is at least good to talk about it (clear and visible management, democracy, etc).
Great!
Maybe, closing down meta.wikipedia.org is a good idea?
What??! Why??
Are you saying that discussion about the site should be hidden away on a secret "hackers-only" wiki where people can't find it instead of the open-to-everyone meta wiki?
Or buried in a thousands-of-edits-per-day encyclopedia where people can't find it instead of a more leisurely specifically-for-discussion- about-running-the-site meta wiki? Buried on the English Wikipedia where people coming from other languages won't have a *clue* how to find things, and people who don't speak English don't have a chance of having their voices heard?
I say NO to that. Closing meta would be undemocratic, bigoted, and wrong in every way.
Designers, developers, programmers, administrators, etc should be on the 'normal' wikipedia, they should _not_ be 'gods'.
Not sure what this means.
This relates to (inter)language problem: there is no central wikipedia (or do you regard the English-speaking one, www.wikipedia.org, as the central one?).
meta.wikipedia.org is the central wiki for discussion about the workings of Wikipedia and plans for changing it. It is officially multilingual, and open to all (though _so far_ most content is only in English).
Wikipedia thus already DOES work with distributed servers, isn't it? (Spanish wikipedia is on another machine than the Dutch, and the English, etc?)
They're all on the same machine, and will be integrated further when the user accounts and upload sections are rolled into one to avoid the numerous headaches encountered currently by people working in multiple languages (separate logins; have to copy images multiple times, have to put in interlanguage links multiple times, etc).
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Thanks very much for explaining Brion! I'm very pleased with what I hear about all that intergration on 1 machine. Sounds great.
Sorry for mentioning 'gods' It's just that I dislike the word 'meta', I would prefer the word "development" or "admin" or.... (?)
I'm now considering the following:
Read-Only Caching: Cache some of the wikipedia-documents on my own server for read-only. Just when I might want to edit, I 'll get redirected to your real wikipedia-server to read the latest version, and perhaps write..
Or maybe your server (or a second machine) might run a read-only version of the wikipedia-content, as a regular webserver?... Just for quick reading, there should be no locks. Locks are only required for writing documents (conflicts and such). For someone that quickly wants to read-only, it is no problem when he or she does not really get the *latest* version of that page, but a cached version from yesterday. .... ? ....
Well, anyway, thanks for your very informative and clear reply. Thanks to all other Wikipedia-maintainers as well for making Wikipedia possible.
Pieter
Brion Vibber wrote:
On ĵaÅ, 2003-01-30 at 15:33, Pieter Suurmond wrote:
Sorry for bothering again but I very much agree with the above. Having no solution, it is at least good to talk about it (clear and visible management, democracy, etc).
Great!
Maybe, closing down meta.wikipedia.org is a good idea?
What??! Why??
Are you saying that discussion about the site should be hidden away on a secret "hackers-only" wiki where people can't find it instead of the open-to-everyone meta wiki?
Or buried in a thousands-of-edits-per-day encyclopedia where people can't find it instead of a more leisurely specifically-for-discussion- about-running-the-site meta wiki? Buried on the English Wikipedia where people coming from other languages won't have a *clue* how to find things, and people who don't speak English don't have a chance of having their voices heard?
I say NO to that. Closing meta would be undemocratic, bigoted, and wrong in every way.
Designers, developers, programmers, administrators, etc should be on the 'normal' wikipedia, they should _not_ be 'gods'.
Not sure what this means.
This relates to (inter)language problem: there is no central wikipedia (or do you regard the English-speaking one, www.wikipedia.org, as the central one?).
meta.wikipedia.org is the central wiki for discussion about the workings of Wikipedia and plans for changing it. It is officially multilingual, and open to all (though _so far_ most content is only in English).
Wikipedia thus already DOES work with distributed servers, isn't it? (Spanish wikipedia is on another machine than the Dutch, and the English, etc?)
They're all on the same machine, and will be integrated further when the user accounts and upload sections are rolled into one to avoid the numerous headaches encountered currently by people working in multiple languages (separate logins; have to copy images multiple times, have to put in interlanguage links multiple times, etc).
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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