Mailing List Archive

On 21/09/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:

> Accordng to Gmaxwell, the largest candidate statement is approximately 20,000 words, i.e., a novella. We have 17 candidates this election. If each one wrote a statement of that length, we would have 340,000 words to read, i.e., statements totalling several times the length of "War and Peace" or a standard Dickens novel. We are talking "A la recherche du temps perdu."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_novels (which I started)
gives it as 1.5 million words. A better comparison might be
[[:en:Mission Earth (novel)]] ... in all sorts of ways.


> I suggest that the time of Wikimedians can be better spent than reading statements of this length by, for example, researching articles. I would suggest that the time of our translators could be better spent working on making high quality content available in all languages.


Yes, but is suggesting that articles are more productive work than
process out of process?


> In the first election, I set a limit of 500 words on each candidate's statement. Despite the complaints back then, there was a reason for that.


Seconded. They can write the novel on their own pages, but expecting
people to read it is ridiculous.


- d.
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On 21/09/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:

> I recently finished writing a book (due for released in 2007). I was
> commissioned to write 25,000 words. It is a small book, but it is a
> complete book nonetheless.

What's the book? Go on, you have to tell us...

> Accordng to Gmaxwell, the largest candidate statement is approximately
> 20,000 words, i.e., a novella. We have 17 candidates this election. If each
> one wrote a statement of that length, we would have 340,000 words to read,
> i.e., statements totalling several times the length of "War and Peace" or a
> standard Dickens novel. We are talking "A la recherche du temps perdu."

Your list there seems a bit odd - the standard three-decker Victorian
novel, which are usually not hideously long by modern standards,
weighed in at ~170,000 words.

But I agree with the actual point! Keep it short and succinct, people
will read the things, people might even care.

--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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daniwo59@aol.com wrote:

> In the first election, I set a limit of 500 words on each candidate's statement. Despite the complaints back then, there was a reason for that.
>
> Danny

You just raised a memory here...

I remember trying to have the statement fitting in those 500 in 2004.

Except it was not 500 words. It was 500 caracters.
I was counting those with Word, and I had just a few less than 500.
I was delighted. I published the statement.

Then Erik complained that I was over 500 caracters. Uh ?
Counted again. Got less than 500. He insisted I was above.
I then realised he was counting the spaces as caracters, and I was not
counting them. So, of course, I had maybe 20 spaces to separate words. I
was around 510. Invalid. Too lengthy !

I considered removing a couple of spaces, hence merging some words to
got to exactly 500... maybe not such a good idea for readability.

Then, we discussed whether the 500 caracters should be the limit in
english... or in the original language the candidate was writting in...
But I had no door out, since french tends to be longuer than english, so
I was maybe 600 in french.

So I decided to make an effort, did a bit of rewritting of my english
text... and got it under 500 in the end !!!

SO proud !

Ahum. What happened in reality, is that the official statement on the
candidate page was restricted to 500.... but several candidates wrote
another page, much more lengthy. This is no different from what was done
this year. Each candidate had the short statement and some had a long
statement.

Frankly... I find such issue... a little bewildering :-)

Errrr. I like reading what candidates propose to do if they are on
board. It is interesting. It is enlightning.

And then, if they get elected, we can later complain an issue was on
their election plateform and they did not take care of it ;-)

------

Sorry, I am certainly over the 500 threashold here...




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I prefer 1000 characters of simple english above 500 of condensed
hard-to-read and high-level english though... I think every candidate
should be feeling responsible, and be nice to the readers :)

By the way, you were lucky then that there was no chinese or japanese
candidate, as they have characters that take up in english much more
space... :P

Lodewijk

2006/9/21, Anthere <Anthere9@yahoo.com>:
> daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
>
> > In the first election, I set a limit of 500 words on each candidate's statement. Despite the complaints back then, there was a reason for that.
> >
> > Danny
>
> You just raised a memory here...
>
> I remember trying to have the statement fitting in those 500 in 2004.
>
> Except it was not 500 words. It was 500 caracters.
> I was counting those with Word, and I had just a few less than 500.
> I was delighted. I published the statement.
>
> Then Erik complained that I was over 500 caracters. Uh ?
> Counted again. Got less than 500. He insisted I was above.
> I then realised he was counting the spaces as caracters, and I was not
> counting them. So, of course, I had maybe 20 spaces to separate words. I
> was around 510. Invalid. Too lengthy !
>
> I considered removing a couple of spaces, hence merging some words to
> got to exactly 500... maybe not such a good idea for readability.
>
> Then, we discussed whether the 500 caracters should be the limit in
> english... or in the original language the candidate was writting in...
> But I had no door out, since french tends to be longuer than english, so
> I was maybe 600 in french.
>
> So I decided to make an effort, did a bit of rewritting of my english
> text... and got it under 500 in the end !!!
>
> SO proud !
>
> Ahum. What happened in reality, is that the official statement on the
> candidate page was restricted to 500.... but several candidates wrote
> another page, much more lengthy. This is no different from what was done
> this year. Each candidate had the short statement and some had a long
> statement.
>
> Frankly... I find such issue... a little bewildering :-)
>
> Errrr. I like reading what candidates propose to do if they are on
> board. It is interesting. It is enlightning.
>
> And then, if they get elected, we can later complain an issue was on
> their election plateform and they did not take care of it ;-)
>
> ------
>
> Sorry, I am certainly over the 500 threashold here...
>
>
>
>
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Oh, but.... there was one. Shizao was candidate. He wrote in english :-(

Ant

effe iets anders wrote:
> I prefer 1000 characters of simple english above 500 of condensed
> hard-to-read and high-level english though... I think every candidate
> should be feeling responsible, and be nice to the readers :)
>
> By the way, you were lucky then that there was no chinese or japanese
> candidate, as they have characters that take up in english much more
> space... :P
>
> Lodewijk
>
> 2006/9/21, Anthere <Anthere9@yahoo.com>:
>
>>daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>> In the first election, I set a limit of 500 words on each candidate's statement. Despite the complaints back then, there was a reason for that.
>>>
>>> Danny
>>
>>You just raised a memory here...
>>
>>I remember trying to have the statement fitting in those 500 in 2004.
>>
>>Except it was not 500 words. It was 500 caracters.
>>I was counting those with Word, and I had just a few less than 500.
>>I was delighted. I published the statement.
>>
>>Then Erik complained that I was over 500 caracters. Uh ?
>>Counted again. Got less than 500. He insisted I was above.
>>I then realised he was counting the spaces as caracters, and I was not
>>counting them. So, of course, I had maybe 20 spaces to separate words. I
>>was around 510. Invalid. Too lengthy !
>>
>>I considered removing a couple of spaces, hence merging some words to
>>got to exactly 500... maybe not such a good idea for readability.
>>
>>Then, we discussed whether the 500 caracters should be the limit in
>>english... or in the original language the candidate was writting in...
>>But I had no door out, since french tends to be longuer than english, so
>>I was maybe 600 in french.
>>
>>So I decided to make an effort, did a bit of rewritting of my english
>>text... and got it under 500 in the end !!!
>>
>>SO proud !
>>
>>Ahum. What happened in reality, is that the official statement on the
>>candidate page was restricted to 500.... but several candidates wrote
>>another page, much more lengthy. This is no different from what was done
>>this year. Each candidate had the short statement and some had a long
>>statement.
>>
>>Frankly... I find such issue... a little bewildering :-)
>>
>>Errrr. I like reading what candidates propose to do if they are on
>>board. It is interesting. It is enlightning.
>>
>>And then, if they get elected, we can later complain an issue was on
>>their election plateform and they did not take care of it ;-)
>>
>>------
>>
>>Sorry, I am certainly over the 500 threashold here...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l@wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>

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To finally say a few words about the length debate:

The length limit on the candidate statements page is important.
Reading the statements should be sufficient to make a reasonably
informed decision. I tried to keep reasonably close to the limit this
time (the table of goals has 734 characters), which wasn't easy.

I think it should be up to the candidates to decide how much further
information they want to provide. This has been practice since the
2004 election. I tried to structure my platform in such a way that one
could read parts of it:
- a letter
- a summary in pictures
- sections on different topics
- an interview.

If it had gotten any longer, I would have started writing summaries
for the individual sections as well. Nobody has to read the whole
thing -- just the parts that interest you. Last time I checked, I
don't have a "By the way, I also eat babies" clause hidden anywhere.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
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What amazes me is how *little* space we all devote to writing about
the fundamental issues the projects as collections, their communities,
and the foundation face. We have spurts of conversation that trail
off, with many interested parties not joining in at all (though they
surely have strong and interesting opinions).

On 9/21/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
> Accordng to Gmaxwell, the largest candidate statement is approximately 20,000 words, i.e., a novella. We have 17 candidates this election. If each one wrote a statement of that length, we would have 340,000 words to read, i.e., statements totalling several times the length of "War and Peace" or a standard Dickens novel. We are talking "A la recherche du temps perdu."

What I wouldn't give to have such material to read! 350,000 words of
serious statements about what the future of the foundation and
projects should be, or about how to come to shared understandings of
these goals and how to work better together... I could fill a
bookshelf, if not a library, with that kind of discourse, and it would
still be too little. Extend this idea to the span of all possible
collaborative projects, and one could fill a library.

There *will* be libraries filled with such writing someday; what a
pity if it is all done by sociologists and historians who were not
part of these events, rather than by those of us who were.


> I suggest that the time of Wikimedians can be better spent than reading statements of this length by, for example, researching articles. I would suggest that the time of our translators could be better spent working on making high quality content available in all languages.

Those with better things to do will not read. Those who are willing
and able to write, please do so. The sooner and the more attentively
to detail, the better.

--SJ
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In a message dated 9/21/2006 6:24:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
2.718281828@gmail.com writes:

Those with better things to do will not read. Those who are willing
and able to write, please do so. The sooner and the more attentively
to detail, the better.



I thought we were busy writing an encyclopedia.

Danny
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Encyclo-WHAT? :D

On 9/21/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 9/21/2006 6:24:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> 2.718281828@gmail.com writes:
>
> Those with better things to do will not read. Those who are willing
> and able to write, please do so. The sooner and the more attentively
> to detail, the better.
>
>
>
> I thought we were busy writing an encyclopedia.
>
> Danny
> _______________________________________________
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>
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daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 9/21/2006 6:24:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> 2.718281828@gmail.com writes:
>
> Those with better things to do will not read. Those who are willing
> and able to write, please do so. The sooner and the more attentively
> to detail, the better.
>
>
>
> I thought we were busy writing an encyclopedia.
>
> Danny
Danny,
We are not writing an encyclopaedia. We are also writing an
encyclopaedia. It is just one of the things that we do. The Foundation
is NOT about writing an encyclopaedia. The Foundation is about enabling
projects like Wiktionary in many languages, Wikibooks in many languages,
Wikiquote Wikinews and ALSO Wikipedia in many languages.

Given that the election is about governing the Foundation it is highly
relevant that people can be explicit in what they aim to do. When people
want to write a platform why they should be elected, it is for the
people that read it to comment on it and maybe even inform the rest
about potential silliness.

NB It has been said both by Anthere and Jimmy that the Foundation is
/not /about Wikipedia when commenting on some of the initial platforms
of Wikimedia Foundation board candidates.

Thanks,
GerardM
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In a message dated 9/21/2006 6:43:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
gerard.meijssen@gmail.com writes:

Danny,
We are not writing an encyclopaedia. We are also writing an
encyclopaedia. It is just one of the things that we do. The Foundation
is NOT about writing an encyclopaedia. The Foundation is about enabling
projects like Wiktionary in many languages, Wikibooks in many languages,
Wikiquote Wikinews and ALSO Wikipedia in many languages.

Given that the election is about governing the Foundation it is highly
relevant that people can be explicit in what they aim to do. When people
want to write a platform why they should be elected, it is for the
people that read it to comment on it and maybe even inform the rest
about potential silliness.

NB It has been said both by Anthere and Jimmy that the Foundation is
/not /about Wikipedia when commenting on some of the initial platforms
of Wikimedia Foundation board candidates.

Thanks,
GerardM



Thankl you for the reminder, Gerard. Without it I would have forgotten my
15,000 edits in Wikisource over the past two months.

Wait ... you forgot to list Wikisource ... I guess that doesnt count.

Danny
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On 9/21/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
>
> In a message dated 9/21/2006 6:24:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> 2.718281828@gmail.com writes:
>
> Those with better things to do will not read. Those who are willing
> and able to write, please do so. The sooner and the more attentively
> to detail, the better.
>
> I thought we were busy writing an encyclopedia.

Not while on mailing lists, we're not; certainly not on this one.

But consider Wikipedia: the vast majority of pages are not in the main
namespace. Is this in accordance with, or in opposition to, the
natural order of what we are supposed to be busy doing?

++SJ
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In a message dated 9/21/2006 7:02:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
2.718281828@gmail.com writes:

Not while on mailing lists, we're not; certainly not on this one.

But consider Wikipedia: the vast majority of pages are not in the main
namespace. Is this in accordance with, or in opposition to, the
natural order of what we are supposed to be busy doing?

++SJ



If you mean the talk pages, those are intended to work out the nuances of
articles. In effect, they are an essential--integral--part of article building.
If you mean policy pages, they are a small percentage of our 1.3 million
article pages. Other than that, I have no idea what you are talking about. Do you?

Danny
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> If you mean the talk pages, those are intended to work out the nuances of
> articles. In effect, they are an essential--integral--part of article building.
> If you mean policy pages, they are a small percentage of our 1.3 million
> article pages. Other than that, I have no idea what you are talking about. Do you?

Also, user pages, user subpages, user talk, templates, categories,
portals, images and other files and their descriptions, guidelines,
essays, proposals, FAC. RfA, AfD, other "votes" and discussions,
interface pages, help pages, draft articles, archives, WikiProjects,
vandalism reports, mediation, arbitration, other committees, etc, etc.
Articles only make up 25% of the English Wikipedia.

Angela.
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On 9/21/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
>
> In a message dated 9/21/2006 6:24:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> 2.718281828@gmail.com writes:
>
> Those with better things to do will not read. Those who are willing
> and able to write, please do so. The sooner and the more attentively
> to detail, the better.
>
>
>
> I thought we were busy writing an encyclopedia.
>
> Danny

Right now you're busy writing about being busy writing an encyclopedia.
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On 21-Sep-06, at 4:46 PM, Angela wrote:

>> If you mean the talk pages, those are intended to work out the
>> nuances of
>> articles. In effect, they are an essential--integral--part of
>> article building.
>> If you mean policy pages, they are a small percentage of our 1.3
>> million
>> article pages. Other than that, I have no idea what you are
>> talking about. Do you?
>
> Also, user pages, user subpages, user talk, templates, categories,
> portals, images and other files and their descriptions, guidelines,
> essays, proposals, FAC. RfA, AfD, other "votes" and discussions,
> interface pages, help pages, draft articles, archives, WikiProjects,
> vandalism reports, mediation, arbitration, other committees, etc, etc.
> Articles only make up 25% of the English Wikipedia.
>
> Angela.

Actually, I just requested a run against the database on Toolserver.
48% of entries in the dataset are in the main namespace, and 13% are
Talk pages. This number includes redirects and stubs, of course, but
it's a rather different number than is being discussed here.


Amgine

On 9/22/06, Amgine <amgine@saewyc.net> wrote:
> > Articles only make up 25% of the English Wikipedia.
> Actually, I just requested a run against the database on Toolserver.
> 48% of entries in the dataset are in the main namespace

I was defining "article" in the same way [[Special:Statistics]] does.

Angela.
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On 21-Sep-06, at 5:22 PM, Angela wrote:

> On 9/22/06, Amgine <amgine@saewyc.net> wrote:
>>> Articles only make up 25% of the English Wikipedia.
>> Actually, I just requested a run against the database on Toolserver.
>> 48% of entries in the dataset are in the main namespace
>
> I was defining "article" in the same way [[Special:Statistics]] does.
>
> Angela.

Ah... when we attempted apply that metric (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Wikipedia:What_is_an_article) to all the namespaces the numbers
did change dramaticaly. Main namespace articles dropped to 33%, and
article talk pages climbed to 16%. So then the articles *do* drop
below 50% of the content.

Amgine

On 9/21/06, Amgine <amgine@saewyc.net> wrote:
> Actually, I just requested a run against the database on Toolserver.
> 48% of entries in the dataset are in the main namespace, and 13% are
> Talk pages. This number includes redirects and stubs, of course, but
> it's a rather different number than is being discussed here.

It's WAY more than 50% if you count by revision.

wikidb=> select page_namespace=0 as main_ns,count(page_title) from
analysis_user group by (page_namespace=0);
main_ns | count
-------------+----------
t | 42893625
f | 15652166
(2 rows)

If in fact waking about writing an encyclopedia were indeed more
popular, it would be a sad thing indeed... But I suppose it's only
natural for everyone to think their own involvement is the most
important...

I for one am glad that Wikipedia isn't MYSPACE... although I suppose
that the truth might suck for those from Wikia.
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On 9/21/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:

> It's WAY more than 50% if you count by revision.
>
> wikidb=> select page_namespace=0 as main_ns,count(page_title) from
> analysis_user group by (page_namespace=0);
> main_ns | count
> -------------+----------
> t | 42893625
> f | 15652166
> (2 rows)
>
> If in fact waking about writing an encyclopedia were indeed more
> popular, it would be a sad thing indeed... But I suppose it's only
> natural for everyone to think their own involvement is the most
> important...

Now, now :-)

I like these numbers. To restate my last question -- 25% of all
revisions are to non-article pages. Is this in accordance with the
goal of producing a great encyclopedia, or is this noise that we
should eventually reduce to a more manageable level?

--SJ
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On 9/21/06, SJ <2.718281828@gmail.com> wrote:
> I like these numbers. To restate my last question -- 25% of all
> revisions are to non-article pages. Is this in accordance with the
> goal of producing a great encyclopedia, or is this noise that we
> should eventually reduce to a more manageable level?
>
Some of it is noise. Some of it is necessary. But pretty much none
of it can be reduced, as stopping people from creating noise would
produce more noise than it would eliminate.

Anthony
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On 9/22/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21/09/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:

> > I suggest that the time of Wikimedians can be better spent than reading statements of this length by, for example, researching articles. I would suggest that the time of our translators could be better spent working on making high quality content available in all languages.
>
>
> Yes, but is suggesting that articles are more productive work than
> process out of process?

Dunno, but it is sure, the article in a same number of words will be
read on the project, printed on papers, copied to other websites,
linked from other websites, edited by another editor, refined,
featured on your Wiki* main page, etc etc, but election candidate
presentation will be read by tens or at maximum hundreds of people in
some weeks and soon forgotten.

Personally I think it will be one of things we are better to outsource
and/or finantially motivate them to keep the deadline in the next
occasion.

One another aspect. Most of candidates show no appreciation for
translators. I know less than five people went to their talks and
thanked them. I am sure most of translators don't demand such, but as
one of coordinators I have been very much embarassed with this lack of
appreciation and respect for others by some editors.

Sincerely,

--
Kizu Naoko
Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
* vox populi, vox dei *
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2006/9/21, effe iets anders <effeietsanders@gmail.com>:
>
> I prefer 1000 characters of simple english above 500 of condensed
> hard-to-read and high-level english though...


Oh yes! A handful of candidates made their statements hard to read maybe
because of tries to stay within the limit, or at least not too far above,
and maybe also partly because attempts to write more formally often result
in a style with fewer longer words rather than several shorter.

/habj
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2006/9/23, Aphaia <aphaia@gmail.com>:

> One another aspect. Most of candidates show no appreciation for
> translators. I know less than five people went to their talks and
> thanked them. I am sure most of translators don't demand such, but as
> one of coordinators I have been very much embarassed with this lack of
> appreciation and respect for others by some editors.


I am not sure if the translators need appreciation from the candidates. I
think it would be more appreciated if more of them made their texts more
easy to translate. Things to avoid are things like puns: "Bored? Board
Questions for Improv." OK of course I just skipped the pun, but he risked
getting it translated to something strange in a couple of languages. So do
the people who write "endowment" rather than "finansial reserve" or
something similar (if I understood that term correct in context - I am still
not 100% sure that I did. I believe I can translate texts on proteins or
gene cloning on a professional level, but I know nothing about financial and
business vocabulary.) To write a good essay one would probably use the term
one feels is best in context, and use a subclause or so to expand on it;
that way you don't loose those who do neither know the complicated word nor
look it up in the dictionary but you don't sound like a silly person who
don't know the terminology. Trying to reduce the word count does not help
here, of course.

/habj
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