[Wikipedia-l] Some history (was: Goings-on)

[Timwi]

Anthere Anthere wrote:

> I know not who had the idea of goings-on, but I think
> that is a *brillant* idea.

I'm very glad that you like it. :-)

The following snippets are taken from a chat log of the evening of Sat 6 
March, times are in UTC. I believe the idea was originally Pilaf's:

     [23:35] <Pilaf> Is there anything like a "weekly digest" in en:?

but people originally misunderstood his vision:

     [23:35] <AdamBishop> current events?

but I didn't ;-)

     [23:41] <Timwi> No, such a thing does not exist to my knowlege.
     [...]
     [23:43] <SethIlys> Pilaf: What would go there?
     [23:44] <Timwi> I assume just about everything that has some sort of
                     impact on the community of Wikipedians.
     [23:44] <Pilaf> Important and not so important announcements,
                     important discussions going on, new "featured
                     articles", statistics, etc.
     [23:44] <Timwi> Probably things like the VfD redesign (even if
                     unsuccessful), the addition of new features to the
                     software, etc.
     [23:44] <Pilaf> Timwi resumes it quite well :)

After a bit of organisatorial pain...

     [23:52] <Timwi> Argh.

... as well as some contructive discussion ...

     [23:52] <Timwi> I fear that mediation/arbitration info would drown
                     all the rest of the information...
     [23:52] <SethIlys> Oh, I doubt it...

... the decision was finally made:

     [23:53] <Timwi> OK, I'll start such a page.
     [23:53] <Pilaf> I'll help you if you let me :)

Quick decision upon the name:

     [23:53] <Pilaf> What will it be called?
     [23:54] <Timwi> Since we've already had confusion problems with
                     "Main Page"/"Wikipedia:Main Page", I'll call it
                     "Wikipedia:Recent happenings" rather than
                     "Wikipedia:Current events". Is that OK?
     [23:54] <Angela> not happenings
     [23:54] <SethIlys> [[Wikipedia:Goings-on]] ?
     [23:54] <Timwi> Goings-on is very nice!

and later, lo and behold:

     [00:03] <Timwi> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Goings-on
     [00:04] <Timwi> It does help that it's Sunday 0:00 UTC just now! :-D

The first version of the page which I demonstrated here is now at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Goings-on/March_7%2C_2004&oldid=2658757
and it already contained the first going-on! :-)

SethIlys and Fabiform kindly helped me collect the goings-on from the 
week that had just passed and ended up creating the page that is now 
[[Wikipedia:Goings-on/February 29, 2004]].

End of history lesson! :)

Timwi