[Wikipedia-l] RE: Plea for help

[Julie Hofmann Kemp]

Larry, I have to apologize --

I've been so wrapped up trying to keep my course on track that I didn't
respond at all to your letter.  I was frankly just glad you were still
going to be around!  I'll help any way I can.  

Also, (since I'm hoping lots of people are still reading this) we still
have NO ACCEPTABLE INFORMATION  on how some of the programming changes
affect day to day use.  I've offered to write something up -- given an
explanation, but have been repeatedly ignored or blown off (partially
because I seem to have offended some delicate programmer sensibilities
by saying that they were acting exactly like programmers -- good at what
they do, but less interested in making it clear to the user through
documentation).  

Whether or not people want to hear it, the new site is not all that
user-friendly as far as explaining subpages and namespaces goes (or how
to report bugs, for that matter -- why isn't there a bug report link?).
People are still trying to create /Talk pages and /whatever subpages.
All we need is a carefully placed announcement or two -- I suggest
adding a special page (changes to the system) and links on the home
page, on how to edit a page, and on recent changes.  I know that Lars
added some stuff on namespaces under the article, but what is needed is
a primer -- something that says...where one did  x in the old version,
please do y in the new.    I'd do this myself, but am pretty sure I
can't create a special page (guessing it's an admin thing) and I'm still
not clear on it.  It appears that, instead of subpages, we should be
creating link pages (maybe) and that each page is generated with an
associated talk page.  

JHK -- feeling very resentful that no one actually seems to think this
is worth their time.

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 09:45:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Larry Sanger <lsanger at nupedia.com>
To: <wikipedia-l at nupedia.com>
cc: <intlwiki-l at nupedia.com>
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Plea for help
Reply-To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com

This is an unusual plea for help.  It's possible I'm going out of my
mind--I mean, I guess I don't think so, but sometimes it seems like it.
:-)

Occasionally in the past, controversy has erupted that has occupied
unfortunately large amounts of my time.  Sometimes the controversy is
definitely worth the time, but just as often it seems it isn't, not at
all.  Most recently, in the wake of my announcement that I am no longer
a paid employee, that I will still be working though as a volunteer, and
that we might (if we can) start selling ads and soliciting donations to
help pay for me once again, apparently some people reacted not by
saying, very kindly, "Oh, poor Larry, whatever will we do without him?"
but instead, "Huh?  There was a paid employee?  And they might sell
ads?! Someone was making money?!  This must be a greedy capitalist
exploitative project.  This shouldn't be!  We've got to do something
about it!"

Well, I and sometimes Jimbo then spend a lot of time putting out fires.
In the present case, we inform the newcomers that, yes, I did do a few
useful things for the projects oh maybe occasionally; yes, the idea of
fees for viewing content is absolutely ludicrous and has never been
considered; yes, we *really, really are* committed to making and keeping
the content always completely free forever; and yes, we have been
considering making a nonprofit foundation for Wikipedia and Nupedia for
a long time now; it's mainly a matter of getting enough time to actually
start us formally down the road.  (We can start with a "OK now, we're
really going to do it, it's official, we're asking for pro bono legal
help to set it up" kind of announcement, but we don't want to do that
until we have the time to follow through properly.  "We" in this case
mainly means
Jimbo.)

I think some people just sit back and enjoy the show, and figure that I
can hold my own well enough.

Well, er, not exactly.  I can, usually, if I spend the time.  But I
don't have the time anymore.  I literally *don't have the time* for this
kind of nonsense.  I've spent, I don't know, three hours so far today
working on various Wikipedia stuff, and it's not even 1 PM yet.  I
should instead have been, er, looking for a job, or a lot of other
things my wife wants me to do.  :-)

So, please, critics, have mercy--be gentle--and, non-critics, if you
support my cause and think you can supply the correct response to an
e-mail that, you can predict, I will want to have answered, please do
that.  Don't hold back waiting for me to do it.  I'll be very grateful.

Larry



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