Mailing List Archive

>Why in the world are we now giving anon users the option to
create user pages?

Also, I was wondering where such a decision was made. The
main wikipedia mailing-list? The decision process should be
more clear and more democratic.

Best wishes,
Takuya Murata

Most policy decisions should be made on wikipedia-l. This should
be more clear, sure. But it's pretty 'democratic' already, and doing
it on the wiki itself might not help.

Takuya Murata wrote:

> >Why in the world are we now giving anon users the option to
> create user pages?
>
> Also, I was wondering where such a decision was made. The
> main wikipedia mailing-list? The decision process should be
> more clear and more democratic.
>
> Best wishes,
> Takuya Murata
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l@wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

> Why in the world are we now giving anon users the option to create user
> pages? Talk pages are a good idea but please don't display an edit link to
> "View user page" on anon talk pages. We don't want to give them too much
> since that will only result in fewer of them actually signing up for and
> using a user account (which is still something we want to encourage, no?).

That was simply a side effect of the new Talk code. However, I'm not sure
it needs to be changed. Just today I talked to an anonymous user who told
me that he would only login when at home, but who had a fixed IP address.
By using the "View user page" link, he could put a redirect to his normal
user page on it. I think that sidebar link is too obscure to be abused but
can have reasonable uses. At the same time, the more frequently displayed
user link in recent changes still points to the user contributions.

If it's not wanted, I can take it out, though. Any other opinions?

Regards,

Erik

> Also, I was wondering where such a decision was made.

The new Talk code was requested both on Village Pump and on the mailing
list repeatedly. The user page stuff was simply a side effect of that.
However, if you want to keep up with the latest changes and possibly have
some influence, check out the code and start hacking.

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_become_a_Wikipedia_hacker

Regards,

Erik

>Most policy decisions should be made on wikipedia-l.

I see.

> doing it on the wiki itself might not help.

Why is that?

>> Also, I was wondering where such a decision was made.
>
>The new Talk code was requested both on Village Pump and on
the mailing
>list repeatedly. The user page stuff was simply a side
effect of that.

I mean is there someone who made the final decision?
(probably one who has a right to submit a code to CVS) For
example, in Linux after all Linus decided to apply a patch
or not. Of course, he listen to people's opinion but he made
a decision.

>However, if you want to keep up with the latest changes and
possibly have
>some influence, check out the code and start hacking.
>
>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_become_a_Wikipedia_hac
ker

Yeah, thanks. I don't think I can have influence though.

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 06:05:51PM -0600, Takuya Murata wrote:
> I mean is there someone who made the final decision?
> (probably one who has a right to submit a code to CVS) For
> example, in Linux after all Linus decided to apply a patch
> or not. Of course, he listen to people's opinion but he made
> a decision.

It seems it's usually Brion who commits stuff here, but it's
less formal than with Linux kernel. And it's Jimbo who owns servers.

Anyway, this was rather uncontroversial change.

>It seems it's usually Brion who commits stuff here, but it's
>less formal than with Linux kernel.

So, it is a kind of arbitrary.

>And it's Jimbo who owns servers.

What do you mean? I thought Bomis owns the server. Am I
right?

>Anyway, this was rather uncontroversial change.

I don't remember saying it is controversial. I am sorry for
giving wrong impression. I was just wondering about the
decision process. I don't mean to object to this change at
all. (though I advocate the system should be more democratic)

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 09:08:12PM -0600, Takuya Murata wrote:
> >And it's Jimbo who owns servers.
>
> What do you mean? I thought Bomis owns the server. Am I
> right?

And Jimbo owns Bomis.

[cut&paste]
> >It seems it's usually Brion who commits stuff here, but it's
> >less formal than with Linux kernel.
>
> So, it is a kind of arbitrary.
>
> >Anyway, this was rather uncontroversial change.
>
> I don't remember saying it is controversial. I am sorry for
> giving wrong impression. I was just wondering about the
> decision process. I don't mean to object to this change at
> all. (though I advocate the system should be more democratic)

Generally if change is not controversial, anyone with CVS access
can apply it, and if you don't have CVS access you can just
send it to such person (usually to Brion). For example most
translations get updated without any discussion.

If change is controversial, there is usually lot of discussion,
and it usually doesn't get applied unless there is consensus that
it should be. There were some exceptions, for example there was no
consensus about banning subpages, but usually we try to make
everyone either agree or at least not strongly oppose change.

But if you mean "democratic" as in voting, then no, we don't do that.

>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
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de

Takuya Murata wrote:
> >Most policy decisions should be made on wikipedia-l.
>
> I see.
>
> > doing it on the wiki itself might not help.
>
> Why is that?

Lots of things happen on the wiki that lots of people miss. There are
a lot of pages flying around everywhere, recentchanges is really
pretty big, and so on. Here, there are threads and a degree of
linearity to the conversation.

Takuya Murata wrote:
> I mean is there someone who made the final decision?

In theory that's me, and for anything that really affects real policy
in a real way, it should be discussed before implemented. On the
other hand, lots of minor changes go in whenever the developers feel
like it.

Erik instituted subpages on talk and user spaces and asked the world
about it at the same time that it was installed. That wasn't really
best practice. It turned out o.k., though, because in the ensuing
discussion it turned out that I was pretty much the only person
against it.

Generally, though, major things should be discussed before being
implemented.

What counts as major versus minor? Well, that's a judgment call
sometimes.

--Jimbo

Takuya Murata wrote:
> >And it's Jimbo who owns servers.
>
> What do you mean? I thought Bomis owns the server. Am I
> right?

Bomis owns the server; I own Bomis. So, that's what he meant.

Very soon now, the server will be owned by the nonprofit foundation.

--Jimbo

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

>Very soon now, the server will be owned by the nonprofit
foundation.

Oh, really. Do you have more information regarding this? I'd
love to mention about this in wikipedia article.

On ĵaŭ, 2003-01-30 at 03:23, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Takuya Murata wrote:
> > I mean is there someone who made the final decision?
>
> In theory that's me, and for anything that really affects real policy
> in a real way, it should be discussed before implemented. On the
> other hand, lots of minor changes go in whenever the developers feel
> like it.

Just like wiki. :)

> Erik instituted subpages on talk and user spaces and asked the world
> about it at the same time that it was installed. That wasn't really
> best practice. It turned out o.k., though, because in the ensuing
> discussion it turned out that I was pretty much the only person
> against it.
>
> Generally, though, major things should be discussed before being
> implemented.

Subpage support features for user-space had, in fact, been discussed on
the mailing list before, and was approved by many. (If it hadn't, I
definitely would have taken it out when installing updates.) The key
feature, though, which still hasn't gotten done, is changing the
'contribs' and 'email' links on subpages to point to the user!

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

>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.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

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.
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
> http://mailplus.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l@wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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 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)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Name: signature.asc
> signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature
> Description: This is a digitally signed message part

I have to reply this, though we should move this discussion
to wikipedia-l. It is because Brion, you got a wrong idea.

>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?

1. The current meta-wiki is dead.

I certainly understand the initial motivation of meta-
wikipedia.org. We should talk about development, management,
or policy in the different place than English-edition
wikipedia or meta?? (It seems apparent that the site should
be renamed)

But what kind of contents are there? There is almost
anything but inproper in the main wikipedia. There are
haiku, september 11, ....

As the saying goes, bad eats good (Forgive me. I can't
remember phrase). Weird (at least to most of people) stuff ,
including non-English contents just makes meta-wikipedia
look anything but the place to conduct decent discussion.
What if I submited a Japanese essay? It is acceptable in the
current policy, but it aggregate the situation because no
one can review it.

As I said, if we decided to change the policy of meta-
wikipedia, I certain second it. But otherwise, meta-
wikipedia seems dead or going to be dead.

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?

Oh, that is great! I can type even Japanese (I tried. See
SandBox)

Anyway,

2. The meta-wikipedia is not multilingual at all and it
cannot be.

I don't see any reason that the sole wiki site has contents
written in several languages. Sure, technologically
speaking, meta-wiki is multilingual, but in practice, is it
really? What if I started to post Japanese comments, who
will reply to them? If I did, I just only increase the bunch
of mess. You can't discuss one theme in more than one
languages. That is for sure. The discussion

So, there is no reason to have a multilingual wiki site,
hence there is no reason to separate English discussion from
the English-edition wikipedia.

3. Practically meta-wikipedia and maing lists segregate the
majoriy of wikipedians from the decision-making.

What is now happing is decision-making occurs in the place
that most of people don't see. The recent changes in English-
edition wikipedia is the critical place where most of people
notice even minor changes. In the reality, meta-wikipedia
practically separate people to express their voices.

You can speak, but only if you go to travel to Alaska. It is
not democratic. The discussion about the policies should
take place in where people are actually living.

>I say NO to that. Closing meta would be undemocratic,
bigoted, and wrong
>in every way.

Closing meta means nothing because meta means nothing.

On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 09:38:36PM -0600, Takuya Murata wrote:
> 2. The meta-wikipedia is not multilingual at all and it
> cannot be.
>
> I don't see any reason that the sole wiki site has contents
> written in several languages. Sure, technologically
> speaking, meta-wiki is multilingual, but in practice, is it
> really? What if I started to post Japanese comments, who
> will reply to them? If I did, I just only increase the bunch
> of mess. You can't discuss one theme in more than one
> languages. That is for sure. The discussion
>
> So, there is no reason to have a multilingual wiki site,
> hence there is no reason to separate English discussion from
> the English-edition wikipedia.

[en]
Because Japanese Wikipedia is small now and there aren't many
people who can understand Japanese here, it's not good idea to use
Japanese on meta. But there's nothing special about English,
and any language understood by sufficient number of Wikipedians is ok.
And so will be Japanese in the future.

[jp]
Nihongo no wikipedia chiisakute nihongo ga wakaru hito ga wikipedia ni
sukosi kara nihongo de meta de kaku ha ii koto ja arimasen
Demo eigo wa tokubetu ja arimasen, sosite mai no wikipedian no takusan no
gengo ga ii desu. Mirai ni nihongo mo ii desu.

(yes, i know that my japanese is no good)

[pl]
Poniewaz japonska Wikipedia jest na razie niewielka i niewiele
osob rozumie tu japonski, uzywanie japonskiego na meta nie
jest najlepszym pomyslem. Ale nie ma nic specjalnego w angielskim,
i kazdy jezyk z wystarczajaca liczba rozumiejacych go osob jest ok.
W przyszlosci bedzie to rowniez japonski.

> 1. The current meta-wiki is dead.

No it is not. Look at the Recent Changes. If you are missing something
there, start a new page, hope that enough people (able to speak the
language you choose)are interrested in the topic, and see what happens.
Maybe announce it on one of the mailing lists.

Yes, there is a lot of crap. If something really annoys you, start a
page [[Pages that should be deleted]] and explain it there or ask on the
talk page for deletion.

The name meta.wikipedia sounds good to me. Where is the problem?


> 2. The meta-wikipedia is not multilingual at all and it
> cannot be.

Tomasz already answered this one.


> 3. Practically meta-wikipedia and maing lists segregate the
> majoriy of wikipedians from the decision-making.
>
> What is now happing is decision-making occurs in the place
> that most of people don't see. The recent changes in English-
> edition wikipedia is the critical place where most of people
> notice even minor changes. In the reality, meta-wikipedia
> practically separate people to express their voices.

So everything should be discussed in the English Wikipedia:-namespace? I
already overlook things on the German Wikipedia, how could I notice them
on the English one? Or should we start to discuss e.g. a new table
syntax also on the German Wikipedia? And on all the other Wikipedias? It
doesn't sound like a good idea.

BTW, I'd like to have every Wikipedia:-namespace page on my watchlist
automatically. Whould this be easy to implement?

The majority of users just aren't interrested in the software
developement and administration. Everybody who is can subscribe to our
lists and/or go to meta. It's just one click away (unlike Alaska) :-)

Kurt

>On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 09:38:36PM -0600, Takuya Murata
wrote:
>> 2. The meta-wikipedia is not multilingual at all and it
>> cannot be.
>>
>> I don't see any reason that the sole wiki site has
contents
>> written in several languages. Sure, technologically
>> speaking, meta-wiki is multilingual, but in practice, is
it
>> really? What if I started to post Japanese comments, who
>> will reply to them? If I did, I just only increase the
bunch
>> of mess. You can't discuss one theme in more than one
>> languages. That is for sure. The discussion
>>
>> So, there is no reason to have a multilingual wiki site,
>> hence there is no reason to separate English discussion
from
>> the English-edition wikipedia.
>
>[en]
>Because Japanese Wikipedia is small now and there aren't
many
>people who can understand Japanese here, it's not good idea
to use
>Japanese on meta. But there's nothing special about English,
>and any language understood by sufficient number of
Wikipedians is ok.
>And so will be Japanese in the future.
>
> ....
>
>(yes, i know that my japanese is no good)

No, it is good. I am impressed really. (Nihongo jyuzu desu
ne) Truely the linguistic diversity of wikipedia is great.

Anyway, I don't mean the discussion in non-English language
is meaningless, but I meant it doesn't make sense that the
same discussion conducted in more than one language unless
the participants are generally bilingual.

You may say Japanese speakers discuss in Japanese. Polish
speakers discuss in Polish (Polska?). But if discussions
occur in different language, why do we need to put them
together? The number doesn't matter.

Do you really believe debate in more than one lanugage makes
sense? UseNet, SlashDot, .... I don't see any successful
forum dedicated to discussion in more than one language.
SlashDot in Japanese is active, but it is seprated from
English SlashDot.

>> 1. The current meta-wiki is dead.
>
>No it is not. Look at the Recent Changes. If you are
missing something
>there, start a new page, hope that enough people (able to
speak the
>language you choose)are interrested in the topic, and see
what happens.
>Maybe announce it on one of the mailing lists.

Yes, and doesn't it mean chaning the policy of meta-wiki? I
am the one who advocates it. Meta-wikipedia can be better,
of course.

Actually both of I and you are right and wrong. This is the
exactly same discussion about some say usenet is dead, some
say no usenet has still good stuff and can have.

Saying meta-wikipedia is dead, I don't want to mean
dismissing the motivation of meta-wikipedia. I agree with
the idea that we need the place.

To make my arguments clear, I advocate proposals below.

1. Let's make discussion about policy in its native language
wikipedia. (What if there is no corresponding wikipedia? It
would be a problem. I don't know about such a case)

If a discussion takes place in the meta but it is not in
English, the problem is the same thing. Putting discussion
together really doesn't mean reflecting their voices.

2. Quit sourceforge. Objections?

3. Publishing wiki sourcecode in wiki and make it editable
just like wikipedia articles.

I don't know if this works but we can try. Probably the
first step is publishing "language.php"s and probably sysop
applies them.

>Yes, there is a lot of crap. If something really annoys
you, start a
>page [[Pages that should be deleted]] and explain it there
or ask on the
>talk page for deletion.
>

> The name meta.wikipedia sounds good to me. Where is the
problem?

Because if meta is the place for development and
administration, the name like admin, develop should make
more sense. Don't you think?

>> 3. Practically meta-wikipedia and maing lists segregate
the
>> majoriy of wikipedians from the decision-making.
>
>So everything should be discussed in the English Wikipedia:-
namespace?

No, no no at all. Discussion about the policy should occur
in the native language.

>The majority of users just aren't interrested in the
software
>developement and administration. Everybody who is can
subscribe to our
>lists and/or go to meta.

Probably. If meta is the place only for those who are
interested in development and administration, I would like
to participate in meta.

On ĵaŭ, 2003-01-30 at 21:20, Takuya Murata wrote:
> 2. Quit sourceforge. Objections?

Not until everything in that bug report list is fixed! :)

We can take the CVS backup tarball and move it elsewhere if desired.

> 3. Publishing wiki sourcecode in wiki and make it editable
> just like wikipedia articles.
>
> I don't know if this works but we can try.

Source is fragile enough that I'd be very wary of this. That, and I
really do want a better editor than Mozilla when working with code. ;)

> Probably the
> first step is publishing "language.php"s and probably sysop
> applies them.

The current format of those files (a bunch of arrays and a class
definition in a PHP source file!) is horrible, arcane, and very very
fragile. (About half the updates I get submitted to me ends up with a
missing comma, an extra quotation mark, whatever, and hence syntax
error. And that includes the ones I make myself!)

What we need is a human-friendly interface for editing the messages,
being able to compare all or selected language versions of each one
side-by-side. The ability to incrementally and safely update 99% of this
stuff without waiting for a developer's intervention will be a big help
for newer language sections being established.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

>> 3. Publishing wiki sourcecode in wiki and make it
editable
>> just like wikipedia articles.
>>
>> I don't know if this works but we can try.
>
>Source is fragile enough that I'd be very wary of this.
That, and I
>really do want a better editor than Mozilla when working
with code. ;)
>
>> Probably the
>> first step is publishing "language.php"s and probably
sysop
>> applies them.
>
>The current format of those files (a bunch of arrays and a
class
>definition in a PHP source file!) is horrible, arcane, and
very very
>fragile. (About half the updates I get submitted to me ends
up with a
>missing comma, an extra quotation mark, whatever, and hence
syntax
>error. And that includes the ones I make myself!)
>
>What we need is a human-friendly interface for editing the
messages,
>being able to compare all or selected language versions of
each one
>side-by-side. The ability to incrementally and safely
update 99% of this
>stuff without waiting for a developer's intervention will
be a big help
>for newer language sections being established.

I totally agree with that. Then why don't we employ wiki to
improve the sourcecode? Also, I don't know if it will work.
Then why don't we try?

> Yes, and doesn't it mean chaning the policy of meta-wiki?

From the MainPage:
"Meta-Wikipedia is a site meant to work alongside the main Wikipedia
project. Here Wikipedians can post essays and discussions about
Wikipedia-related topics. You can also post about other topics."

Hmm, it seems everything is on topic, including software developement
and administration :-)

I guess we don't need dev.wikipedia.org but trashcan.wikipedia.org for
things people don't dare to delete completely from wikipedia. Be bolder!
;-)

Kurt

> I totally agree with that. Then why don't we employ wiki to
> improve the sourcecode? Also, I don't know if it will work.
> Then why don't we try?

I've already replied to this:

http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2003-January/002384.html

It would help if you would read the arguments instead of constantly
repeating yourself.

Regards,

Erik

Takuya Murata wrote:
> 2. Quit sourceforge. Objections?
>
> 3. Publishing wiki sourcecode in wiki and make it editable
> just like wikipedia articles.

These are little bit nervewracking to me. Sourceforge tools, and CVS,
and so forth, are standard development tools that have grown up and
been tested and refined by social processes for many years now for
*exactly* this mission: development of open source software by
geographically separated volunteers.

It strikes me as very likely that if we try to "roll our own" by using
a wiki to edit code, we are going to end up with something
significantly worse, and for no good purpose.

It is true, I guess, that CVS and all the rest provides a barrier to
entry for developers. But not much of one, since it's easy to learn
and since most developers will already know about it.

> Probably. If meta is the place only for those who are
> interested in development and administration, I would like
> to participate in meta.

The best place for discussion of development and administration, the
technical aspects, is right here on wikitech-l.

--Jimbo

>> Yes, and doesn't it mean chaning the policy of meta-wiki?

>Hmm, it seems everything is on topic, including software
developement
>and administration :-)

I meant if I deleted contents that are personal and not
related to development and administration, doesn't it mean I
am against the policy of meta-wiki, which says everything is
acceptable as the name meta implies?

>I guess we don't need dev.wikipedia.org but
trashcan.wikipedia.org for
>things people don't dare to delete completely from
wikipedia. Be bolder!

Again, if meat becomes anything but trashcan I would love to
contribute to meta. But can we do that without the
agreement? Actually, I am not only talking to Kurl but just
asking anyone who objects to clean up meta-wikipedia.

I don't aim to discuss which one is better CVS or wiki.

First of all, again I am not so sure developing in wiki
works. Some think it won't work and some (including me, only
me?) think it might.

But think of the reality. Don't we need better mechanism for
development? Wiki might not work I know that. But I am not
sure yet.

Why don't we try? Is there any technical trouble to publish
wikipedia software sourcecode? It seems to me that it is
possible to publish sourcecode and some sysops apply them
regularly. If it didn't yield good result, it doesn't hurt
anything anyway.

Oh, maybe am I only one who believes development in wiki
might work? If so, I should do that in my own.

>> Probably. If meta is the place only for those who are
>> interested in development and administration, I would
like
>> to participate in meta.
>
>The best place for discussion of development and
administration, the
>technical aspects, is right here on wikitech-l.

What about the rest of stuff? Like documentation, testing,
bug reports and so on. Sourceforge?

I understand CVS seems better than wiki. Does anyone give
the opinion that the bug reports system of sourceforge is
better than meta-wikipedia. If I remember, there is none. I
would like to move bug reports in sourceforge to meta-wiki
(gradually). Objections?

I probably am going to post more detailed documents to meta-
wikipedia. (and hopefully more people will help
documentation)

I know my proposal is not good enough, what else we can do
to encourage more people to partipicate development?

>It would help if you would read the arguments instead of
constantly
>repeating yourself.

Sorry for annoying you and the rest of everyone. I read the
arguments and I don't disagree with that. I think you
thought I didn't read your arugment because I didn't post a
mail arguing against your point.

Also, you have to notice that the fact is you believe wiki
might not help, and I believe it might. Then what do we do?.
Do I always have to convice you to try something new?
Consensus? Can we always reach the sole agreement?

Actually this is why I hate to partipate in the debate,
which is always endless and counterproductive. See Biography
standard in English wikipedia.

On Fre, 2003-01-31 at 17:29, Takuya Murata wrote:

Wiki instead of CVS:
> Why don't we try?

Because it doesn't work. CVS is a lot more than just an editing system.
Please familiarize yourself with it before suggesting this yet another
time:
http://www.cvshome.org/docs/manual/cvs.html

> I know my proposal is not good enough, what else we can do
> to encourage more people to partipicate development?

Generally, give higher exposure to the open source side of Wikipedia.
Most people who come to the Wikipedia project simply don't do so from a
software development perspective, so we need to highlight more that this
side exists as well.

We need to make the Wikipedia-code Wikipedia-independent. This isn't
very hard, but some stuff needs to be fixed before Wikipedia can really
be recommended as a general wiki, especially in the interlanguage links
department (fortunately for us, most other wikis don't have
multilanguage support at all).

The fact that with OpenFacts there will soon be another Wikipedia
specifically for open source documentation should also help in
attracting new developers.

Regards,

Erik
--
FOKUS - Fraunhofer Insitute for Open Communication Systems
Project BerliOS - http://www.berlios.de

Takuya Murata wrote:

> I don't aim to discuss which one is better CVS or wiki.
>
> First of all, again I am not so sure developing in wiki
> works. Some think it won't work and some (including me, only
> me?) think it might.
>
> But think of the reality. Don't we need better mechanism for
> development? Wiki might not work I know that. But I am not
> sure yet.
>
> Why don't we try? Is there any technical trouble to publish
> wikipedia software sourcecode? It seems to me that it is
> possible to publish sourcecode and some sysops apply them
> regularly. If it didn't yield good result, it doesn't hurt
> anything anyway.
>
> Oh, maybe am I only one who believes development in wiki
> might work? If so, I should do that in my own.
>

There is no benifit from using a wiki to develop software. There are
only cons:

1) There is no "barrier" so everybody who has read a 2 hour tutorial on
PHP can just start editing,
which will help nobody.
2) Versions of articles (or source code files) are only linear, and
there is no connection between distinct files (their versions).
3) It encourages small edits which lead to choas.
4) Think about an edit war on source files. That´s rediculous.
5) You can´t run/compile etc. it. You can´t edit it offline or with an
appropriate editor. You can´t use
any tools.
6) all the things I forgot

To sum it up: There will be a chaos in versions, small changes which
don´t fit together and lose the view for the large picture, you can´t
use editors, run it, use tools ... at best the software will be hacked
(in the worst sense) together trash which somehow manages to run.

A wiki might be the right thing for geniouses: Ah, he did that change,
that was because of this and that, it leads to that and this, now put it
toghether with my ideas, ...
If anybody who could handle that exists, he would do just fine with
CVS/sourceforge.

Hope this is not to harsh :)

Flo

If I'm not mistaken, it is totally within YOUR power to get the source
code from CVS and import it into (Meta?) Wikipedia somewhere. I don't
think it's a good idea, but it is possible for you to do. I think
that, if you were to perform this exercise, you would see that wiki
isn't very well suited for source code modification/viewing.

I understand that you want to see if it works. That's perfectly
reasonable. However, you are asking other volunteers, who are already
busy with other important things, to do something that, for the most
part, they are not willing to do.

Jason Richey

Takuya Murata wrote:

> I don't aim to discuss which one is better CVS or wiki.
>
> First of all, again I am not so sure developing in wiki
> works. Some think it won't work and some (including me, only
> me?) think it might.
>
> But think of the reality. Don't we need better mechanism for
> development? Wiki might not work I know that. But I am not
> sure yet.
>
> Why don't we try? Is there any technical trouble to publish
> wikipedia software sourcecode? It seems to me that it is
> possible to publish sourcecode and some sysops apply them
> regularly. If it didn't yield good result, it doesn't hurt
> anything anyway.
>
> Oh, maybe am I only one who believes development in wiki
> might work? If so, I should do that in my own.
>
> >> Probably. If meta is the place only for those who are
> >> interested in development and administration, I would
> like
> >> to participate in meta.
> >
> >The best place for discussion of development and
> administration, the
> >technical aspects, is right here on wikitech-l.
>
> What about the rest of stuff? Like documentation, testing,
> bug reports and so on. Sourceforge?
>
> I understand CVS seems better than wiki. Does anyone give
> the opinion that the bug reports system of sourceforge is
> better than meta-wikipedia. If I remember, there is none. I
> would like to move bug reports in sourceforge to meta-wiki
> (gradually). Objections?
>
> I probably am going to post more detailed documents to meta-
> wikipedia. (and hopefully more people will help
> documentation)
>
> I know my proposal is not good enough, what else we can do
> to encourage more people to partipicate development?
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l@wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr@bomis.com>

--- Takuya Murata <takusi@manjiro.net> wrote:
> >> Yes, and doesn't it mean chaning the policy of
> meta-wiki?
>
> >Hmm, it seems everything is on topic, including
> software
> developement
> >and administration :-)
>
> I meant if I deleted contents that are personal and
> not
> related to development and administration, doesn't
> it mean I
> am against the policy of meta-wiki, which says
> everything is
> acceptable as the name meta implies?
>
> >I guess we don't need dev.wikipedia.org but
> trashcan.wikipedia.org for
> >things people don't dare to delete completely from
> wikipedia. Be bolder!
>
> Again, if meat becomes anything but trashcan I would
> love to
> contribute to meta. But can we do that without the
> agreement? Actually, I am not only talking to Kurl
> but just
> asking anyone who objects to clean up
> meta-wikipedia.

I object.

These pages do not disturb anyone but you. As long as
Jimbo has room on his server, what would you remove
pages that *you* think are personals ? Why does it
disturb you so much that we are offered a tiny
personal space ?

I don't think the encyclopedic wikis it is the right
place really to put pov stuff on, for these are public
places. There are no limits to povs, and I don't think
proper that these pov positions coexist with
supposingly neutral articles. For readers could find
them pretty easily and wonder over them.


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--- Takuya Murata <takusi@manjiro.net> wrote:
> >> Yes, and doesn't it mean chaning the policy of
> meta-wiki?
>
> >Hmm, it seems everything is on topic, including
> software
> developement
> >and administration :-)
>
> I meant if I deleted contents that are personal and
> not
> related to development and administration, doesn't
> it mean I
> am against the policy of meta-wiki, which says
> everything is
> acceptable as the name meta implies?
>
> >I guess we don't need dev.wikipedia.org but
> trashcan.wikipedia.org for
> >things people don't dare to delete completely from
> wikipedia. Be bolder!
>
> Again, if meat becomes anything but trashcan I would
> love to
> contribute to meta. But can we do that without the
> agreement? Actually, I am not only talking to Kurl
> but just
> asking anyone who objects to clean up
> meta-wikipedia.

I object.

These pages do not disturb anyone but you. As long as
Jimbo has room on his server, what would you remove
pages that *you* think are personals ? Why does it
disturb you so much that we are offered a tiny
personal space ?

I don't think the encyclopedic wikis it is the right
place really to put pov stuff on, for these are public
places. There are no limits to povs, and I don't think
proper that these pov positions coexist with
supposingly neutral articles. For readers could find
them pretty easily and wonder over them.


__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

>I object.
>
>These pages do not disturb anyone but you. As long as
>Jimbo has room on his server, what would you remove
>pages that *you* think are personals ? Why does it
>disturb you so much that we are offered a tiny
>personal space ?

I am not sure what makes you think so. I don't remember
saying because I don't like those pages, we should delete
them. But I said we need more concrete mission about meta-
wikipedia. I think the difference is apparent.

>I don't think the encyclopedic wikis it is the right
>place really to put pov stuff on, for these are public
>places. There are no limits to povs, and I don't think
>proper that these pov positions coexist with
>supposingly neutral articles. For readers could find
>them pretty easily and wonder over them.

I too do think some people need to put their pov stuff. Then
again why do we have to put pov stuff and other totally
different materials (like documentation about wikipedia
software) togehter? And if I remember, no one answered such
a question. Those stuff are not pov but only I think they
are? I doubt it.

That is for sure that the current policy of meta-wikipedia
makes nothing but chaos. I said I would like to propose we
should put more order.

>There is no benifit from using a wiki to develop software.
There are
>only cons:

I don't think so, but anyway it is off-topic.

>Hope this is not to harsh :)

Not at all.

>I understand that you want to see if it works. That's
perfectly
>reasonable. However, you are asking other volunteers, who
are already
>busy with other important things, to do something that, for
the most
>part, they are not willing to do.

Don't you think of the possibility other people who are not
involed now are possibly willing to do?

Anyway, it seems to me that no one wants to do this kind of
debate, so just forget it.

I hope this mail won't get more nerve.

>Generally, give higher exposure to the open source side of
Wikipedia.
>Most people who come to the Wikipedia project simply don't
do so from a
>software development perspective, so we need to highlight
more that this
>side exists as well.

I agree. If you remember, isn't it good idea to rename
wikipedia software *or* set up a independent wiki for it?

>We need to make the Wikipedia-code Wikipedia-independent.

That is exactly what I meant before (but not all though). If
wikipedia software becomes more independent, it makes more
sense to seprate development process from meta-wikipedia.
But it is not necessary to prohibit discussion in meta-
wikipedia about the development. I am imagining of UseMod.

(I bet no one advocates all of my ideas are wrong because I
am ignorant, which I admit)

>The fact that with OpenFacts there will soon be another
Wikipedia
>specifically for open source documentation should also help
in
>attracting new developers.

What are OpenFacts?

Hi Taku,

the only thing that annoyed me was the "code in wiki" idea. Everything
else is debatable.

> I agree. If you remember, isn't it good idea to rename
> wikipedia software *or* set up a independent wiki for it?

Rename - yeah, makes sense. When I suggested Wikipedia in some contexts,
people were frightened by the encyclopedia-notion, which would not be
appropriate for their project. (For example, the Open Source Applications
Foundation decided to use the inferior TWiki software for this reason,
among others.) But please, no endless name debate on wikitech. This is
exactly what meta is for.

One advantage of the Wikipedia name is that it might make people more
willing to participate. "Oh, the Wikipedia wiki? Sure, I'd love to help
with that." But I don't know how strong that argument is. I'm not opposed
to a name change.

Independent wiki - I don't really see the point. Meta works, we just need
to define it properly (for the record, I absolutely encourage you to clean
it up, and I don't think it should be used for personal essays, sorry,
Anthere). Using subpages on Meta might also help for organization.

If you can't convince people to clean up Meta, ask me for help ;-)

>> We need to make the Wikipedia-code Wikipedia-independent.

> That is exactly what I meant before (but not all though). If
> wikipedia software becomes more independent, it makes more
> sense to seprate development process from meta-wikipedia.

That's only a valid argument if you move it really away, say, to another
server. hacker.wikipedia.org would *still* be associated with Wikipedia.
We probably do not want such an almost complete separation, though --
people who work on the Wikipedia software will hopefully also be
encouraged to work on Wikipedia, instead of cloning it.

> (I bet no one advocates all of my ideas are wrong because I
> am ignorant, which I admit)

Become a Wikipedia hacker! Free yourself from ignorance! :-)

> What are OpenFacts?

Wikipedia-like wiki specifically for open source documentation
maintenance. Will probably be officially launched next week. There will
also be Wikipedia-based wikis for two other projects I'm working on.

Regards,

Erik

> it up, and I don't think it should be used for
> personal essays, sorry,
> Anthere). Using subpages on Meta might also help for
> organization.

Ah ? Well, I disagree. Of course permanent deletions
of personal essays can only occur after a consensus is
reached about that, no ?


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>> I agree. If you remember, isn't it good idea to rename
>> wikipedia software *or* set up a independent wiki for it?
>
>Rename - ... But please, no endless name debate on
wikitech. This is
>exactly what meta is for.

I will post a question to meta-wikipedia. Or how about the
main wikipedia maining list? I would like to conduct
discussion in the place other than meta-wikipedia (Yeah,
consider this is my preference)

>One advantage of the Wikipedia name is that it might make
people more
>willing to participate. "Oh, the Wikipedia wiki? Sure, I'd
love to help
>with that." But I don't know how strong that argument is.
I'm not opposed
>to a name change.

Is there any objection to rename the wikipedia software so
far?

>Independent wiki - I don't really see the point. Meta
works, we just need
>to define it properly (for the record, I absolutely
encourage you to clean
>it up, and I don't think it should be used for personal
essays, sorry,
>Anthere).

I don't think either we need an independt wiki as long as
meta is dedicated to its meta purpose.

I will post a proposal to the main wikipedia regarding this.

>If you can't convince people to clean up Meta, ask me for
help ;-)

Haha.

>> What are OpenFacts?
>
>Wikipedia-like wiki specifically for open source
documentation
>maintenance. Will probably be officially launched next
week. There will
>also be Wikipedia-based wikis for two other projects I'm
working on.

Cool!

On Friday 31 January 2003 05:41 pm, Anthere wrote:
> > it up, and I don't think it should be used for
> > personal essays, sorry,
> > Anthere). Using subpages on Meta might also help for
> > organization.
>
> Ah ? Well, I disagree. Of course permanent deletions
> of personal essays can only occur after a consensus is
> reached about that, no ?

I agree with Anthere and strongly disagree with eliminating personal essays
from meta. If POV material isn't allowed on meta then where should it go?
This will only make it more difficult to keep this stuff out of the
encyclopedias.

Meta can and should be many things. Simply create an alternate Main Page for
whatever you want to focus on (software for example) and organize everything
on that page and the pages linked from it in any way you wish. Heck even
create another namespace if you really want to organize things, but I see no
reason whatsoever why meta shouldn't be more like a regular wiki with a
fairly undefined scope. What really is needed is more integration between
topics discussed on the mailing lists and meta.

--mav

> I agree with Anthere and strongly disagree with eliminating personal essays
> from meta. If POV material isn't allowed on meta then where should it go?

Um .. how about just getting rid of it? Why is it within Wikipedia's
mission to somehow provide storage space for personal essays? We're an
encyclopedia, not a hosting provider.

Taku is correct in that this only makes Meta hard to use, especially for
other people who want to help working on the Wikipedia software. While it
is possible to better organize meta, the Recent Changes list is cluttered
by this stuff. There are literally hundreds of entries like this:

...
# diff) (hist) . . MN Meta-symbiosis; 15:25 . . Saprtacus
# (diff) (hist) . . M User talk:Saprtacus; 15:43 . . Saprtacus
# (diff) (hist) . . M User talk:Saprtacus; 15:39 . . Saprtacus
# (diff) (hist) . . M User:Saprtacus; 15:38 . . Saprtacus
# (diff) (hist) . . MN Meta-etiology; 15:33 . . Saprtacus
# (diff) (hist) . . M User talk:Saprtacus; 15:31 . . Saprtacus
...

Now try to find the critical "How Wikipedia can be really, really fast"
development proposal hidden deep within this idiosyncratic nonsense.

Regards,

Erik

--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller@gmx.de> wrote:
> > I agree with Anthere and strongly disagree with
> eliminating personal essays
> > from meta. If POV material isn't allowed on meta
> then where should it go?
> Um .. how about just getting rid of it? Why is it
> within Wikipedia's
> mission to somehow provide storage space for
> personal essays? We're an
> encyclopedia, not a hosting provider.
>
> Taku is correct in that this only makes Meta hard to
> use, especially for
> other people who want to help working on the
> Wikipedia software. While it
> is possible to better organize meta, the Recent
> Changes list is cluttered
> by this stuff. There are literally hundreds of
> entries like this:
>
> ...
> # diff) (hist) . . MN Meta-symbiosis; 15:25 . .
> Saprtacus
> # (diff) (hist) . . M User talk:Saprtacus; 15:43 . .
> Saprtacus
> # (diff) (hist) . . M User talk:Saprtacus; 15:39 . .
> Saprtacus
> # (diff) (hist) . . M User:Saprtacus; 15:38 . .
> Saprtacus
> # (diff) (hist) . . MN Meta-etiology; 15:33 . .
> Saprtacus
> # (diff) (hist) . . M User talk:Saprtacus; 15:31 . .
> Saprtacus
> ...
>
> Now try to find the critical "How Wikipedia can be
> really, really fast"
> development proposal hidden deep within this
> idiosyncratic nonsense.

Meta is not only about software development, so don't
try to restrict his use for that matter.

Besides, you'll have to define what a "personal" essay
is. So not only would we need a consensus for removal
of pages from the meta, but we'll need a consensus
about what a personal essay is, and we'll need to
decide whether each and other page a personal essay
is.

All that to make a couple of articles more visible
(some on software development) or rather some less
visible (those you think are trashing meta).

A simpler way could be to implement a little something
which would allow a user to hide changes made by
another given user.

This was asked on the french wiki btw (not by me). I
think it would for example make sense to hide all the
automatic generation of bots (after it is checked
these are correct). That option sounds to me feasible,
and more desirable than just arbitrarily removing
other people stuff and upsetting them.

(oh crumbs, another feature to reject...)


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> Meta is not only about software development, so don't
> try to restrict his use for that matter.

I did not. But I don't think it's about personal essays either.

> Besides, you'll have to define what a "personal" essay
> is.

That's not so hard to do - anything outside the scope of Wikipedia's /
meta's defined mission is, by definition, personal stuff. I still think
that it should be deleted, but because people will cry "censorship" if it
is, the creation of a Crap:, excuse me, Scratch: namespace might satisfy
those who need Meta for mental masturbation, while it still allows us to
filter the RC accordingly. (If you think I'm harsh here, read the stuff
that Saprtacus puts on meta.)

I would prefer it if Jimbo would just state categorically that Wikipedia
is not a hosting provider, and give us authority to clean it up according
to the criteria I have outlined in:
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-January/008747.html

But if Jimbo wants meta to be our general wiki for everything, then we
should at least be able to filter that defined subset.

> This was asked on the french wiki btw (not by me). I
> think it would for example make sense to hide all the
> automatic generation of bots (after it is checked
> these are correct).

We already have that feature. See Wikipedia:Bots. Any registered bot is
hidden by default from RC. Currently, Brion is our bot-registrar.

Regards,

Erik

(This is a policy discussion and should be on wikipedia-l, not
wikitech-l.)

Erik Moeller wrote:
> Um .. how about just getting rid of it? Why is it within Wikipedia's
> mission to somehow provide storage space for personal essays? We're an
> encyclopedia, not a hosting provider.

Right, but...

It's pretty easy to say, with no insult or offense offered, or taken,
that a particular piece is "not encyclopedic". So it's easy to boot
stuff out of the article namespace into somewhere else.

But the next step, i.e. we allow meta discussion of some kinds, but
not if it's "personal", is problematic. People want to write about
their own views of how wikipedia should operate, etc. And that's
fine, that's what meta is for. If that tends to allow people to also
write about other topics, well, I'm reluctant to get into policing it
at that level.

As you've surely noticed, I have a rather full plate just trying
to keep the murder rate law around here. :-)

--Jimbo

Erik Moeller wrote:
> Rename - yeah, makes sense. When I suggested Wikipedia in some
> contexts, people were frightened by the encyclopedia-notion, which
> would not be appropriate for their project.

We should name it "Phase III, Version 1.0". Because that's what we
call it anyway, Phase III.

--Jimbo