[WikiEN-l] unintended consequences

[Brock Weller]

I didn't mean winning in the confrontational sense. Forgive me, its just a
slang term meaning 'he's right'. I happen to agree with his point on stable
versioning.

On 5/27/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> I don't understand why you make it about "winning".  I don't think that
> either Andrew or I were approaching it in that spirit.  Being dismissive
> from the beginning of possible solutions doesn't solve anything either.
> Both ideas being presented are possibilities, and no-one is treating
> them as certainties.
>
> Wanting people to use your encyclopedia is an underlying theme in the
> same way that any author would want the public to read his book.  Sure
> we want people to use Wikipedia, and showing up in search engines will
> enhance the possibility of that happening.  Nevertheless that should not
> be the driving force behind the way we do things.  Having a good product
> is far more important than marketing that product.  Wikipedia did not
> get where it is by developing a marketing strategy.  We don't need to
> engage in grandstanding to develop an audience.
>
> We don't want people to look ONLY at Wikipedia.  We want our readers to
> find alternatives, and must support teachers who downgrade student
> papers when those students use Wikipedia as the only source for
> significant facts in that paper.  We are not the Borg.
>
> Ec
>
> Brock Weller wrote:
>
> >And Andrew wins. Stable versioning wont solve anything, nor will
> noindexing.
> >Part of being an encyclopedia means wanting people to use you, which (for
> >one on-line) means showing up in search engines.
> >
> >On 5/26/07, Andrew Gray wrote:
> >
> >
> >>On 26/05/07, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>David Mestel wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>>You said Devs said "No" to noindexing given pages, right?  It's too
> bad we
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>can't make a template for all BLPs that injects noindex...
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>That seems a bit pointless to me: either we want people to find an
> article
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>or we don't.  If we don't, I have a better solution: delete it.  If we
> do,
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>why not let the search engines index it?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>Stable versioning has been imminent for a long time now.   Perhaps when
> >>>it is operational indexing should only apply to stable versions.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>That wouldn't really solve the problem at all - it's quite possible to
> >>have a stable-but-crap article. "Stable" only really means "pretty
> >>likely it doesn't say Joe is Gay anywhere"...
> >>
> >>
>
>
>
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-- 
-Brock