Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Alec Meta]

Yao Ziyuan is thinking along the right lines.   Wikipedia can be more
than it currently is.  We need experiments, we need to be experimental
again.

FT2 makes the excellent case that we need a level of 'insulation' to
protect our existing project from the potential negative effects of
failed experiments.

FT2 asks:

>   3. *Discussion of the _topic_, or general chat, forum-y stuff, random
>   whatever*
> ...
> What is worth asking is, is there a place in Wikimedia for (3)?

My own answer is a resounding yes.The total set of the world's
personal opinion is an exciting data set.

Facebook, Google+, and Twitter capture "discussion" data in bulk.
But Facebook and Google and Twitter don't have Wikimedia's Values.
I don't trust Facebook with my data.  I don't trust Google+ with my
data-- they unilaterally change their privacy policies.

For-Profit companies sell out their users and we all know that's a
risk.   At the same time, we know that  Wikimedia respects its users.
Wikimedia stops things like SOPA in the tracks. I trust Wikimedia.

The more data we have, the more services we provide, the more our
movement thrives and the more we prove that Wikimedia Values work.

Whenever feasible, grow grow.   Don't just be Wikipedia-- be more!   :)
AlecMeta

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Ray Saintonge]

On 01/24/12 3:26 PM, Oliver Keyes wrote:

Sure; if the objective is to have comments by "people who are interested in
the subject, can identify the relevant venue, can identify how to edit the
relevant venue, are aware that they *can* edit, can handle wikimarkup and
can deal with the fact that a lot of editors see "wide-ranging discussions
on a subject" as utterly irrelevant and subject to removal unless they
directly suggest alterations to the article content" instead of, well,
"people who are interested in the subject".
The first part of your comments refer to mechanical issues which 
shouldn't invite a lot of controversy. Basic wikimarkup will be the same 
on article and talk pages. For the other, having material "subject to 
removal" give us the same problem that deletionists cause on article 
pages. It requires judging what other people write. Even expecting 
minimal relevance to the subject requires judging. I can go to an 
article see even a documented point made in it as questionable, but not 
have the resources to pursue the matter further. I can't validly change 
the article, but I would be remiss in not addressing the issue. Much of 
what is on the talk page will be unnecessarily long-winded, but that's a 
reasonable price for openness.


Ray



On 24 January 2012 23:05, Ray Saintonge  wrote:


On 01/22/12 3:44 PM, David Gerard wrote:


On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svip   wrote:


The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to
what it is.  A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name
would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so
on.


English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it
used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was
recently changed back to "talk".


  I don't care what you call it. The talk page is still the best place for

wide ranging discussions on a subject.


Ray




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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[FT2]

+1 exactly

There are 3 basic kinds of dialog - ** editors and participants actively
hoping to improve the article; ** feedback that is intended to have a
decent proportion of useful comments and can be sifted for them quickly;
and **  "chat about the topic, article, and anything else people get into".

However you label them, whatever means and venue we were to use, the third
of those is where the question mark goes.

FT2


On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 11:26 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:

> Sure; if the objective is to have comments by "people who are interested in
> the subject, can identify the relevant venue, can identify how to edit the
> relevant venue, are aware that they *can* edit, can handle wikimarkup and
> can deal with the fact that a lot of editors see "wide-ranging discussions
> on a subject" as utterly irrelevant and subject to removal unless they
> directly suggest alterations to the article content" instead of, well,
> "people who are interested in the subject".
>
> On 24 January 2012 23:05, Ray Saintonge  wrote:
>
> > On 01/22/12 3:44 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> >
> >> On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svip  wrote:
> >>
> >>> The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to
> >>> what it is.  A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name
> >>> would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so
> >>> on.
> >>>
> >> English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it
> >> used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was
> >> recently changed back to "talk".
> >>
> >>
> >>  I don't care what you call it. The talk page is still the best place
> for
> > wide ranging discussions on a subject.
> >
> >
> > Ray
> >
> > __**_
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> >
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Oliver Keyes]

Sure; if the objective is to have comments by "people who are interested in
the subject, can identify the relevant venue, can identify how to edit the
relevant venue, are aware that they *can* edit, can handle wikimarkup and
can deal with the fact that a lot of editors see "wide-ranging discussions
on a subject" as utterly irrelevant and subject to removal unless they
directly suggest alterations to the article content" instead of, well,
"people who are interested in the subject".

On 24 January 2012 23:05, Ray Saintonge  wrote:

> On 01/22/12 3:44 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>
>> On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svip  wrote:
>>
>>> The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to
>>> what it is.  A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name
>>> would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so
>>> on.
>>>
>> English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it
>> used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was
>> recently changed back to "talk".
>>
>>
>>  I don't care what you call it. The talk page is still the best place for
> wide ranging discussions on a subject.
>
>
> Ray
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Ray Saintonge]

On 01/22/12 3:44 PM, David Gerard wrote:

On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svip  wrote:

The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to
what it is.  A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name
would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so
on.

English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it
used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was
recently changed back to "talk".


I don't care what you call it. The talk page is still the best place for 
wide ranging discussions on a subject.


Ray

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Ray Saintonge]

On 01/24/12 6:50 AM, FT2 wrote:

Yes. I had thought about one option - a separate website entirely, purely
for people to chat about Wikimedia articles. But at a first glance that
dead ends for so many reasons.



That usually begins to fail when the proponent discovers that he might 
have to pay to keep that site up.


Ray

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[John Du Hart]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 10:31 AM, David Richfield
wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 4:50 PM, FT2  wrote:
> > Yes. I had thought about one option - a separate website entirely, purely
> > for people to chat about Wikimedia articles. But at a first glance that
> > dead ends for so many reasons.
>
> Maybe implement a subreddit schema and some way to create a subreddit
> for each article?  I don't know what Conde Nast's nastiness level is,
> though.
>
> Or maybe a slashdot portal?
>
> Just throwing ideas around here...
>
> --
> David Richfield
> [[:en:User:Slashme]]
>
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I doubt relying on a third party service is going to fly.

-- 
John
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[David Gerard]

On 24 January 2012 15:31, David Richfield  wrote:

> Maybe implement a subreddit schema and some way to create a subreddit
> for each article?  I don't know what Conde Nast's nastiness level is,
> though.


The Reddit code is open source. Apparently takes more than a little
work to do useful things with it, though.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[David Richfield]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 4:50 PM, FT2  wrote:
> Yes. I had thought about one option - a separate website entirely, purely
> for people to chat about Wikimedia articles. But at a first glance that
> dead ends for so many reasons.

Maybe implement a subreddit schema and some way to create a subreddit
for each article?  I don't know what Conde Nast's nastiness level is,
though.

Or maybe a slashdot portal?

Just throwing ideas around here...

-- 
David Richfield
[[:en:User:Slashme]]

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[FT2]

Yes. I had thought about one option - a separate website entirely, purely
for people to chat about Wikimedia articles. But at a first glance that
dead ends for so many reasons.

FT2




2012/1/24 Johan Jönsson 

> FT2:
>
> >   - "costs" will be the distraction from working on high quality
> >   discussions (1) (2) and article editing as a result of patroling and
> other
> >   needs of (3)
>
> ... and loss of neutrality, when the comments on controversial topics
> (or even less controversial) are filled with arguments for one cause
> or another – and all comments *will* be considered to be, in some way,
> a part of Wikipedia as well.
>
> //Johan Jönsson
> --
> http://johanjonsson.net/wikipedia
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Johan Jönsson]

FT2:

>   - "costs" will be the distraction from working on high quality
>   discussions (1) (2) and article editing as a result of patroling and other
>   needs of (3)

... and loss of neutrality, when the comments on controversial topics
(or even less controversial) are filled with arguments for one cause
or another – and all comments *will* be considered to be, in some way,
a part of Wikipedia as well.

//Johan Jönsson
--
http://johanjonsson.net/wikipedia

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

Instead of hosting comment sections on Wikipedia, there is also the
possibility to just retrieve external comments using Google Blog
Search. For example, if you're viewing [[Cat]], you can click a button
called "Show comments" below the article, which will run a Google Blog
Search that returns all blog posts mentioning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat, sorted by date or by relevance
(PageRank-style sorting, which can automatically surface the best
comments to the top).

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 8:40 PM, FT2  wrote:
> The difference is, we tread a narrow line here.
>
> We want talk, but of a contributory kind, high signal-noise, high
> proportion of information. There are three kinds of "discussion" that can
> take place:
>
>
>   1. *User feedback* - characterized by specific one-off posts left for
>   others to uprate or downrate and (presumably as far as they're concerned)
>   editors to hopefully do something with or listen to.  Ideally this filters
>   3 ways - (a)* ignore, (b) pass to editors with thanks, or (c) note but
>   no action taken, with explanation and thanks*.
>   2. *Editor discussion of the article*, high quality dialog specifically
>   about the article, or good points fed back on it.
>   3. *Discussion of the _topic_, or general chat, forum-y stuff, random
>   whatever*... this is what people also expect. Look at any popular blog
>   or facebook page, the chat below is often just people discussing the
>   subject, what's said about it... low signal to noise generally.
>
> The article feedback tool is working towards (1); when it's closer to
> complete I imagine articles will have a "give feedback here". (2) we
> already have. *
>
> What is worth asking is, is there a place in Wikimedia for (3)?* If so it
> can only be for social interest and "stickiness" (people who discuss may
> contribute or at the least will be made more aware). It could be very good
> for that. The downside is it attracts advocates, might draw attention away
> from content discussion, needs patrolling (distraction from content), etc.
> So here's the focused question -- is there a net return from the "plus"
> side, and if so is there a way to get that benefit that returns more than
> it costs?  Where:
>
>
>   - "returns" will be oxygen for the project generally and articles
>   specifically, awareness, wider attention, stickiness, more public eyeballs,
>   a way to get some more focus here of the kind social sites leverage, and
>   maybe a start for more editors from (3), and
>
>   - "costs" will be the distraction from working on high quality
>   discussions (1) (2) and article editing as a result of patroling and other
>   needs of (3)
>
> (And of course the standard of comparison could be "better of two evils".
> For instance if the crystal ball says a wiki project dies due to fading
> attention then maybe chat and patrolling is net harmful but less harmful
> than eventual loss)
>
> FT2
>
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:09 PM, David Richfield
> wrote:
>
>> I would like to add my voice to the list of those who say that this is
>> a very bad idea, for reasons already listed.
>>
>> One kernel of truth is that users who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia
>> expect discussion at the bottom of EVERYTHING on the web.  Blog posts,
>> videos, facebook posts.
>>
>> Maybe at the bottom of the page, put a big fat link to the talk tab?
>>
>> I would not mind social media buttons at the bottom of a page, but I
>> think I'm the minority here.  I certainly don't think it's
>> strategically necessary, but I'm no strategy expert.
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[FT2]

The difference is, we tread a narrow line here.

We want talk, but of a contributory kind, high signal-noise, high
proportion of information. There are three kinds of "discussion" that can
take place:


   1. *User feedback* - characterized by specific one-off posts left for
   others to uprate or downrate and (presumably as far as they're concerned)
   editors to hopefully do something with or listen to.  Ideally this filters
   3 ways - (a)* ignore, (b) pass to editors with thanks, or (c) note but
   no action taken, with explanation and thanks*.
   2. *Editor discussion of the article*, high quality dialog specifically
   about the article, or good points fed back on it.
   3. *Discussion of the _topic_, or general chat, forum-y stuff, random
   whatever*... this is what people also expect. Look at any popular blog
   or facebook page, the chat below is often just people discussing the
   subject, what's said about it... low signal to noise generally.

The article feedback tool is working towards (1); when it's closer to
complete I imagine articles will have a "give feedback here". (2) we
already have. *

What is worth asking is, is there a place in Wikimedia for (3)?* If so it
can only be for social interest and "stickiness" (people who discuss may
contribute or at the least will be made more aware). It could be very good
for that. The downside is it attracts advocates, might draw attention away
from content discussion, needs patrolling (distraction from content), etc.
So here's the focused question -- is there a net return from the "plus"
side, and if so is there a way to get that benefit that returns more than
it costs?  Where:


   - "returns" will be oxygen for the project generally and articles
   specifically, awareness, wider attention, stickiness, more public eyeballs,
   a way to get some more focus here of the kind social sites leverage, and
   maybe a start for more editors from (3), and

   - "costs" will be the distraction from working on high quality
   discussions (1) (2) and article editing as a result of patroling and other
   needs of (3)

(And of course the standard of comparison could be "better of two evils".
For instance if the crystal ball says a wiki project dies due to fading
attention then maybe chat and patrolling is net harmful but less harmful
than eventual loss)

FT2

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:09 PM, David Richfield
wrote:

> I would like to add my voice to the list of those who say that this is
> a very bad idea, for reasons already listed.
>
> One kernel of truth is that users who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia
> expect discussion at the bottom of EVERYTHING on the web.  Blog posts,
> videos, facebook posts.
>
> Maybe at the bottom of the page, put a big fat link to the talk tab?
>
> I would not mind social media buttons at the bottom of a page, but I
> think I'm the minority here.  I certainly don't think it's
> strategically necessary, but I'm no strategy expert.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[David Richfield]

I would like to add my voice to the list of those who say that this is
a very bad idea, for reasons already listed.

One kernel of truth is that users who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia
expect discussion at the bottom of EVERYTHING on the web.  Blog posts,
videos, facebook posts.

Maybe at the bottom of the page, put a big fat link to the talk tab?

I would not mind social media buttons at the bottom of a page, but I
think I'm the minority here.  I certainly don't think it's
strategically necessary, but I'm no strategy expert.

David Richfield [[en:User:Slashme]]

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

Turns out, this "adding a comment section under every Wikipedia
article" idea is not necessary, because if two people are interested
in the same topic, they can find that topic's Wikipedia article and
google that article's title (which is a globally unique term for that
topic) and find each other. They don't need a comment section on that
article to meet each other.

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:43 AM, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
> to Wikipedia:
>
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>
> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>
> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
> jobs, external references, etc.).
>
> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable 
> topic
> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's
> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position,
> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>
> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
> Wikipedia article. Just go to
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for
> "comment" or "discussion".
>
> Best Regards,
> Ziyuan Yao

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Thomas Dalton]

On 23 January 2012 18:09, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> Since it's unlikely the foundation mailing list will agree to enable
> such a comment section on every Wikipedia article (although enabling
> it is quite easy: just choose a "comment" extension from
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and
> enable it on Wikipedia), maybe we can talk about implementing it on a
> separate website.
>
> For example, create a website named WikiSocial.com. This will be a Web
> 2.0 version of Wikipedia, which lets you browse Wikipedia's content
> but also provides Web 2.0 social features such as the comment section,
> social sharing buttons (e.g. "Tweet this article").
>
> Any interest? :-)

There might well be some interest, but it doesn't sound like something
the Wikimedia movement would do. There is nothing stopping someone
else mirroring Wikipedia's content and adding a comments section. The
whole point of having Wikipedia be free (as in speech) is so that
other people can re-use it in interesting ways, and this sounds like a
good example of that.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

Since it's unlikely the foundation mailing list will agree to enable
such a comment section on every Wikipedia article (although enabling
it is quite easy: just choose a "comment" extension from
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and
enable it on Wikipedia), maybe we can talk about implementing it on a
separate website.

For example, create a website named WikiSocial.com. This will be a Web
2.0 version of Wikipedia, which lets you browse Wikipedia's content
but also provides Web 2.0 social features such as the comment section,
social sharing buttons (e.g. "Tweet this article").

Any interest? :-)

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:43 AM, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
> to Wikipedia:
>
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>
> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>
> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
> jobs, external references, etc.).
>
> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable 
> topic
> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's
> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position,
> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>
> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
> Wikipedia article. Just go to
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for
> "comment" or "discussion".
>
> Best Regards,
> Ziyuan Yao

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Oliver Keyes]

Note that we are adding a sorta-quasi-comments section, just not on the
articles; see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Article_Feedback_Tool/Version_5

On 23 January 2012 17:31, Svip  wrote:

> On 23 January 2012 18:16, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:15 AM, Gerard Meijssen
> >  wrote:
> >
> >> Having comments in your face at the bottom to me is not only something I
> >> would resent, it would also add more clutter that I have to download
> every
> >> time I read an article.
> >
> > I see this idea is unpopular among the maling list, but I still want
> > to point out that the "download" part is not true. Comments can be
> > dynamically downloaded (e.g. AJAX) on a on-demand basis (only when you
> > click "Show comments" would comments be downloaded and shown to you).
>
> Perhaps, but Wikipedia (and MediaWiki sites in general) are one of the
> few remaining websites that benefits from being Web 1.0 rather than
> Web 2.0, even if it has elements of the latter.
>
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-- 
Oliver Keyes
Community Liaison, Product Development
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Svip]

On 23 January 2012 18:16, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:15 AM, Gerard Meijssen
>  wrote:
>
>> Having comments in your face at the bottom to me is not only something I
>> would resent, it would also add more clutter that I have to download every
>> time I read an article.
>
> I see this idea is unpopular among the maling list, but I still want
> to point out that the "download" part is not true. Comments can be
> dynamically downloaded (e.g. AJAX) on a on-demand basis (only when you
> click "Show comments" would comments be downloaded and shown to you).

Perhaps, but Wikipedia (and MediaWiki sites in general) are one of the
few remaining websites that benefits from being Web 1.0 rather than
Web 2.0, even if it has elements of the latter.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:15 AM, Gerard Meijssen
 wrote:
> Hoi,
> A comment section under every Wikipedia article seems to be a very bad
> idea. You read a Wikipedia article to learn about the subject at hand, you
> can read comments on the talk page. Reading the talk page only makes sense
> when you are interested in learning more about what people have to say
> about the article or the subject. Typically I am not and I am sure that
> most of our readers could not care less.
>
> Having comments in your face at the bottom to me is not only something I
> would resent, it would also add more clutter that I have to download every
> time I read an article. Given that more and more people read Wikipedia on a
> mobile, it is added real cost with debatable benefit.

I see this idea is unpopular among the maling list, but I still want
to point out that the "download" part is not true. Comments can be
dynamically downloaded (e.g. AJAX) on a on-demand basis (only when you
click "Show comments" would comments be downloaded and shown to you).

>
> Interesting idea, sure. Strategic hell no.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> On 22 January 2012 22:43, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
>> to Wikipedia:
>>
>> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>>
>> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>>
>> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
>> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
>> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
>> jobs, external references, etc.).
>>
>> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
>> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable
>> topic
>> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the
>> article's
>> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this
>> position,
>> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
>> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
>> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>>
>> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
>> Wikipedia article. Just go to
>> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search
>> for
>> "comment" or "discussion".
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Ziyuan Yao
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
A comment section under every Wikipedia article seems to be a very bad
idea. You read a Wikipedia article to learn about the subject at hand, you
can read comments on the talk page. Reading the talk page only makes sense
when you are interested in learning more about what people have to say
about the article or the subject. Typically I am not and I am sure that
most of our readers could not care less.

Having comments in your face at the bottom to me is not only something I
would resent, it would also add more clutter that I have to download every
time I read an article. Given that more and more people read Wikipedia on a
mobile, it is added real cost with debatable benefit.

Interesting idea, sure. Strategic hell no.
Thanks,
 GerardM

On 22 January 2012 22:43, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
> to Wikipedia:
>
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>
> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>
> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
> jobs, external references, etc.).
>
> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable
> topic
> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the
> article's
> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this
> position,
> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>
> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
> Wikipedia article. Just go to
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search
> for
> "comment" or "discussion".
>
> Best Regards,
> Ziyuan Yao
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 8:16 AM, MZMcBride  wrote:
> Yao Ziyuan wrote:
>> This merit is even more evident when the topic is very specialized,
>> e.g. [[Phonological history of English low back vowels]]. I bet there
>> isn't a forum on the Web dedicated to this very specialized topic, and
>> even if there is one, it can be very hard to find it with Google
>> (because it may use a slightly different term to describe this topic).
>> However, if every Wikipedia article has a corresponding comment
>> section (actually a forum), people with this special interest
>> ("phonological history of English low back vowels") will know where to
>> go to find each other, forming a "special interest group" (SIG).
>
> I think it's an interesting idea for an outside group to take on. It'd be
> trivial to re-use Wikimedia's content (page titles or page titles + page
> text) to create a discussion forum for all kinds of neat articles. But given
> the cost-benefit analysis for the Wikimedia Foundation getting involved, I
> don't see it as a very good idea. Lots of costs (implementation and
> development of the software, monitoring comments, page load increase, etc.)
> and not many benefits (see below).

That outside group could be Google (Google Groups in particular).

>
> While I appreciate your optimistic view of comments on the Internet, I'm
> generally of the view that the Web needs fewer comment sections, not more.
> Has anyone ever found (for example) a YouTube comment insightful or useful?
> Ever? Occasionally a news site with some kind of noise filter (up-votes or
> the like) can produce an occasional comment that's not completely awful and
> useless. Most comment sections are filled with vile language (if people are
> paying viewing the content) or spam (if people aren't).
>
> It's certainly a reasonable idea for a MediaWiki extension, if such an
> extension doesn't exist already.

Many MediaWiki extensions already do this. As said in my original message:

There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to
every Wikipedia article. Just go to
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and
search for "comment" or "discussion".

>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[MZMcBride]

Yao Ziyuan wrote:
> This merit is even more evident when the topic is very specialized,
> e.g. [[Phonological history of English low back vowels]]. I bet there
> isn't a forum on the Web dedicated to this very specialized topic, and
> even if there is one, it can be very hard to find it with Google
> (because it may use a slightly different term to describe this topic).
> However, if every Wikipedia article has a corresponding comment
> section (actually a forum), people with this special interest
> ("phonological history of English low back vowels") will know where to
> go to find each other, forming a "special interest group" (SIG).

I think it's an interesting idea for an outside group to take on. It'd be
trivial to re-use Wikimedia's content (page titles or page titles + page
text) to create a discussion forum for all kinds of neat articles. But given
the cost-benefit analysis for the Wikimedia Foundation getting involved, I
don't see it as a very good idea. Lots of costs (implementation and
development of the software, monitoring comments, page load increase, etc.)
and not many benefits (see below).

While I appreciate your optimistic view of comments on the Internet, I'm
generally of the view that the Web needs fewer comment sections, not more.
Has anyone ever found (for example) a YouTube comment insightful or useful?
Ever? Occasionally a news site with some kind of noise filter (up-votes or
the like) can produce an occasional comment that's not completely awful and
useless. Most comment sections are filled with vile language (if people are
paying viewing the content) or spam (if people aren't).

It's certainly a reasonable idea for a MediaWiki extension, if such an
extension doesn't exist already.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Svip]

On 23 January 2012 00:44, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svip  wrote:
>
>> The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to
>> what it is.  A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name
>> would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so
>> on.
>
>
> English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it
> used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was
> recently changed back to "talk".

I know this.  But neither of "talk" or "discussion" refers to the
actual purpose of the page.  It rather refers how the page is
functioning.  Like calling it "Cellular phone" rather than "Mobile
phone", because naming it after the technology it uses is far more
descriptive than its benefits for users?  Classic English.  It's a
dust sucker, not a vacuum cleaner.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Svip]

On 23 January 2012 00:43, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:39 AM, Svip  wrote:
>
>> On 22 January 2012 23:31, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>>
>>> The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is
>>> really weird to the general public.
>>
>> The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to
>> what it is.  A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name
>> would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so
>> on.
>>
>> I understand why many people believe it to be a page to talk about the
>> article at hand rather than how to improve it.
>>
>> A comment section under the article (or a trollpage like on Wikinews)
>> seems unlikely to benefit anything.  Most of the comments will be
>> unimportant, useless or altogether pointless.  And those few comments
>> THAT DO provide some insight or interest in the subject could either
>> be better used incorporated into the article *or* will get buried
>> among the thousands of other comments.
>>
>> You think [[Cats]] isn't likely to get a lot of stupid cat comments?
>> And while changes to articles are worthy of maintenance for most
>> people to volunteer to do, I sincerely doubt you will find many who
>> would manage a comment system on Wikipedia.  And it *will* require
>> management to be useful.
>
> What about a Slashdot-like comment section moderated by users themselves? :-)

Slashdot's comment moderation system is my favourite comment
moderation system, but it is not perfect.  And it works for Slashdot,
because it is usually read by computer literate people.  We cannot
expect the same expertise from people who are likely to be commenting
on [[Cat]].  Which unfortunately would mean that a comment system like
Slashdot's would become too confusing to most people, even if they did
not have to participate in the moderation aspect.

Then one might suggest a Digg/Reddit type system where comments can
simply be voted up or down (or perhaps just up), but that is fine for
a news site, where comments disappear as a new news story flocks to
the top.  But on Wikipedia, [[Cat]] will always be there and it will
continue to have the same level of importance as it did yesterday,
today and tomorrow.  Hence the comments there will be carved in brine
stone.  And if *one* comment is elected to the top, it will continue
to get more votes and continue to be the comment most people will see
so there will be less ACTUAL new comments.  Bash.org is an example of
how this works (or lack thereof), as the same popular quotations
remain in the Top 100 as they were 5 years ago.

Then we come back to a no user moderated system, and then we run into
my former problem.  Where it will either way be a Lord of the Flies
system where no actual interesting conversation is generated (because
people with interesting comments worry their comments might get buried
anyway), because either there is no moderation or no one willing to do
it.

What's further at issue is that a comment section on Wikipedia may
also degenerate people's trust in Wikipedia as a source, because
suddenly it would appear as every other Internet website where you
comment on articles, forum threads and whatnot.  Wikipedia *ought* to
steep above that.  It needs to be different.  It needs to be
information only.  No discussion.

And that is - in my opinion at least - the beauty of Wikipedia.  In a
world of a chaos, one remains committed for order.

But if we really *need* a system where we can comment on broad
concepts such as [[Cat]] or [[Solar calendar]]s, we could create a
'Wikipedia comment site', that would seemingly seem connected to
Wikipedia, but at the same time not.  And what's appropriate, it would
be less obvious to find, which may gander some headway among people
interested in actual conversations with others on the subject.

And I am certain some IT news site out there will cover its formation.
 And if we can handle it, there might even be a subtle link from every
Wikipedia article to this off-site comment site.

In fact, I'm surprised wikicomments.org is still available.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[David Gerard]

On 22 January 2012 23:39, Svip  wrote:

> The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to
> what it is.  A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name
> would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so
> on.


English Wikinews calls it "collaboration". On English Wikipedia it
used to be called "talk", this was changed to "discussion", and it was
recently changed back to "talk".


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:39 AM, Svip  wrote:
> On 22 January 2012 23:31, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>
>> The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is
>> really weird to the general public.
>
> The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to
> what it is.  A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name
> would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so
> on.
>
> I understand why many people believe it to be a page to talk about the
> article at hand rather than how to improve it.
>
> A comment section under the article (or a trollpage like on Wikinews)
> seems unlikely to benefit anything.  Most of the comments will be
> unimportant, useless or altogether pointless.  And those few comments
> THAT DO provide some insight or interest in the subject could either
> be better used incorporated into the article *or* will get buried
> among the thousands of other comments.
>
> You think [[Cats]] isn't likely to get a lot of stupid cat comments?
> And while changes to articles are worthy of maintenance for most
> people to volunteer to do, I sincerely doubt you will find many who
> would manage a comment system on Wikipedia.  And it *will* require
> management to be useful.

What about a Slashdot-like comment section moderated by users themselves? :-)

>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Svip]

On 22 January 2012 23:31, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:

> The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is
> really weird to the general public.

The name 'talk page' is also a terrible name and very ambiguous as to
what it is.  A far more appropriate candidate for such a page's name
would be 'collaboration page', 'work page', 'improvement page' and so
on.

I understand why many people believe it to be a page to talk about the
article at hand rather than how to improve it.

A comment section under the article (or a trollpage like on Wikinews)
seems unlikely to benefit anything.  Most of the comments will be
unimportant, useless or altogether pointless.  And those few comments
THAT DO provide some insight or interest in the subject could either
be better used incorporated into the article *or* will get buried
among the thousands of other comments.

You think [[Cats]] isn't likely to get a lot of stupid cat comments?
And while changes to articles are worthy of maintenance for most
people to volunteer to do, I sincerely doubt you will find many who
would manage a comment system on Wikipedia.  And it *will* require
management to be useful.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:27 AM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 22 January 2012 23:25, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>> This comment section idea can be an experiment. If it does more good
>> than bad, we can keep it. Otherwise we can remove it. It's just as
>> simple as enabling/disabling a MediaWiki extension.
>
> How would you measure how much good and bad it did? There is no point
> doing an experiment unless we have clear measures of success.

If it's useful, we expect to see researchers claiming in the news that
they got like-minded colleagues from Wikipedia's comment sections :-)

>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Thomas Dalton]

On 22 January 2012 23:25, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> This comment section idea can be an experiment. If it does more good
> than bad, we can keep it. Otherwise we can remove it. It's just as
> simple as enabling/disabling a MediaWiki extension.

How would you measure how much good and bad it did? There is no point
doing an experiment unless we have clear measures of success.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

This comment section idea can be an experiment. If it does more good
than bad, we can keep it. Otherwise we can remove it. It's just as
simple as enabling/disabling a MediaWiki extension.

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:20 AM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 22 January 2012 23:08, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>>> They can do what academics have always done: read each other's
>>> published works and go to conferences. If a subject is so obscure that
>>> only a handle of researchers are involved in it, then it probably
>>> isn't sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia article anyway.
>>
>> That's exactly an "egg first or chicken first" problem. Great
>> discoveries almost always come from rarely known ideas.
>
> I don't see a problem. Academia is very good at coming up with new
> ideas that start off very small and obscure and, if they prove
> promising, grow and become mainstream. It is only once they have
> grown, at least a little, that they become appropriate subject-matter
> for an encyclopaedia.
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Thomas Dalton]

On 22 January 2012 23:08, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>> They can do what academics have always done: read each other's
>> published works and go to conferences. If a subject is so obscure that
>> only a handle of researchers are involved in it, then it probably
>> isn't sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia article anyway.
>
> That's exactly an "egg first or chicken first" problem. Great
> discoveries almost always come from rarely known ideas.

I don't see a problem. Academia is very good at coming up with new
ideas that start off very small and obscure and, if they prove
promising, grow and become mainstream. It is only once they have
grown, at least a little, that they become appropriate subject-matter
for an encyclopaedia.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 7:03 AM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> On 22 January 2012 22:54, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>> So this can mean very much for scientific research. For example,
>> imagine if there are two mathematicians in the world interested in the
>> same, very deep math concept, but they don't know each other. How do
>> we let them meet and collaborate with each other? With a comment
>> section under that math concept's Wikipedia article.
>>
>> Take another example. Imagine there are two medical researchers
>> pursuing the same, very novel but very rarely known approach to a
>> major disease, but they don't know each other. How do we let them meet
>> and collaborate with each other? With a comment section under that
>> approach's Wikipedia article.
>>
>> That's why I said this is of strategic interest to Wikipedia and the 
>> humankind.
>
> They can do what academics have always done: read each other's
> published works and go to conferences. If a subject is so obscure that
> only a handle of researchers are involved in it, then it probably
> isn't sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia article anyway.

That's exactly an "egg first or chicken first" problem. Great
discoveries almost always come from rarely known ideas.

>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Thomas Dalton]

On 22 January 2012 22:54, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> So this can mean very much for scientific research. For example,
> imagine if there are two mathematicians in the world interested in the
> same, very deep math concept, but they don't know each other. How do
> we let them meet and collaborate with each other? With a comment
> section under that math concept's Wikipedia article.
>
> Take another example. Imagine there are two medical researchers
> pursuing the same, very novel but very rarely known approach to a
> major disease, but they don't know each other. How do we let them meet
> and collaborate with each other? With a comment section under that
> approach's Wikipedia article.
>
> That's why I said this is of strategic interest to Wikipedia and the 
> humankind.

They can do what academics have always done: read each other's
published works and go to conferences. If a subject is so obscure that
only a handle of researchers are involved in it, then it probably
isn't sufficiently notable to have a Wikipedia article anyway.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:40 AM, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:31 AM, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:13 AM, Thomas Dalton  
>> wrote:
>>> There is already a discussion page attached to every article. It's for
>>> discussing the article, though, rather than its topic.
>>
>> Besides this, another disadvantage of the current "Talk" tab is it
>> uses the wiki way to talk, not the typical "comment section" we see
>> under every YouTube video, Flickr image, Facebook status update, etc.
>> The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is
>> really weird to the general public.
>>
>>>
>>> While we are more than a conventional encyclopedia, we are still an
>>> encyclopaedia and I don't think we should add job and product adverts to
>>> our articles.
>>>
>>> If people want to make friends, they can go to Facebook. If people want to
>>> find or contribute encyclopedic information (and, perhaps, make some
>>> friends along the way as an added bonus) then they should come to us.
>>
>> The unique merit of using Wikipedia as a discussion place is its
>> uniqueness. There are many "cat forums" on the Web, but they're
>> scattered all over the Web; in contrast, the Wikipedia article [[Cat]]
>> is a unique and prominent place for the topic "cat". If people want to
>> go to a centralized, unified place to talk about cats, they should
>> come to [[Cat]].
>
> This merit is even more evident when the topic is very specialized,
> e.g. [[Phonological history of English low back vowels]]. I bet there
> isn't a forum on the Web dedicated to this very specialized topic, and
> even if there is one, it can be very hard to find it with Google
> (because it may use a slightly different term to describe this topic).
> However, if every Wikipedia article has a corresponding comment
> section (actually a forum), people with this special interest
> ("phonological history of English low back vowels") will know where to
> go to find each other, forming a "special interest group" (SIG).

So this can mean very much for scientific research. For example,
imagine if there are two mathematicians in the world interested in the
same, very deep math concept, but they don't know each other. How do
we let them meet and collaborate with each other? With a comment
section under that math concept's Wikipedia article.

Take another example. Imagine there are two medical researchers
pursuing the same, very novel but very rarely known approach to a
major disease, but they don't know each other. How do we let them meet
and collaborate with each other? With a comment section under that
approach's Wikipedia article.

That's why I said this is of strategic interest to Wikipedia and the humankind.

>
>>
>>> On Jan 22, 2012 9:43 PM, "Yao Ziyuan"  wrote:
>>>
 Hello All,

 I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
 to Wikipedia:

 https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889

 Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article

 By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
 people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
 exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
 jobs, external references, etc.).

 Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
 navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable
 topic
 in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the
 article's
 URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this
 position,
 we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
 paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
 information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.

 There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
 Wikipedia article. Just go to
 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search
 for
 "comment" or "discussion".

 Best Regards,
 Ziyuan Yao

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 foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Thomas Dalton]

On 22 January 2012 22:31, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> Besides this, another disadvantage of the current "Talk" tab is it
> uses the wiki way to talk, not the typical "comment section" we see
> under every YouTube video, Flickr image, Facebook status update, etc.
> The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is
> really weird to the general public.

There has been some work done on ways to improve our talk page
interface, although nothing has ever been finished. See
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/LiquidThreads_3.0 for some info.


> The unique merit of using Wikipedia as a discussion place is its
> uniqueness. There are many "cat forums" on the Web, but they're
> scattered all over the Web; in contrast, the Wikipedia article [[Cat]]
> is a unique and prominent place for the topic "cat". If people want to
> go to a centralized, unified place to talk about cats, they should
> come to [[Cat]].

Obligatory xkcd link: http://xkcd.com/927/

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:31 AM, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:13 AM, Thomas Dalton  
> wrote:
>> There is already a discussion page attached to every article. It's for
>> discussing the article, though, rather than its topic.
>
> Besides this, another disadvantage of the current "Talk" tab is it
> uses the wiki way to talk, not the typical "comment section" we see
> under every YouTube video, Flickr image, Facebook status update, etc.
> The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is
> really weird to the general public.
>
>>
>> While we are more than a conventional encyclopedia, we are still an
>> encyclopaedia and I don't think we should add job and product adverts to
>> our articles.
>>
>> If people want to make friends, they can go to Facebook. If people want to
>> find or contribute encyclopedic information (and, perhaps, make some
>> friends along the way as an added bonus) then they should come to us.
>
> The unique merit of using Wikipedia as a discussion place is its
> uniqueness. There are many "cat forums" on the Web, but they're
> scattered all over the Web; in contrast, the Wikipedia article [[Cat]]
> is a unique and prominent place for the topic "cat". If people want to
> go to a centralized, unified place to talk about cats, they should
> come to [[Cat]].

This merit is even more evident when the topic is very specialized,
e.g. [[Phonological history of English low back vowels]]. I bet there
isn't a forum on the Web dedicated to this very specialized topic, and
even if there is one, it can be very hard to find it with Google
(because it may use a slightly different term to describe this topic).
However, if every Wikipedia article has a corresponding comment
section (actually a forum), people with this special interest
("phonological history of English low back vowels") will know where to
go to find each other, forming a "special interest group" (SIG).

>
>> On Jan 22, 2012 9:43 PM, "Yao Ziyuan"  wrote:
>>
>>> Hello All,
>>>
>>> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
>>> to Wikipedia:
>>>
>>> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>>>
>>> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>>>
>>> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
>>> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
>>> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
>>> jobs, external references, etc.).
>>>
>>> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
>>> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable
>>> topic
>>> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the
>>> article's
>>> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this
>>> position,
>>> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
>>> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
>>> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>>>
>>> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
>>> Wikipedia article. Just go to
>>> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search
>>> for
>>> "comment" or "discussion".
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>> Ziyuan Yao
>>>
>>> ___
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:13 AM, Thomas Dalton  wrote:
> There is already a discussion page attached to every article. It's for
> discussing the article, though, rather than its topic.

Besides this, another disadvantage of the current "Talk" tab is it
uses the wiki way to talk, not the typical "comment section" we see
under every YouTube video, Flickr image, Facebook status update, etc.
The wiki way to talk may be favored by the Wikipedia community, but is
really weird to the general public.

>
> While we are more than a conventional encyclopedia, we are still an
> encyclopaedia and I don't think we should add job and product adverts to
> our articles.
>
> If people want to make friends, they can go to Facebook. If people want to
> find or contribute encyclopedic information (and, perhaps, make some
> friends along the way as an added bonus) then they should come to us.

The unique merit of using Wikipedia as a discussion place is its
uniqueness. There are many "cat forums" on the Web, but they're
scattered all over the Web; in contrast, the Wikipedia article [[Cat]]
is a unique and prominent place for the topic "cat". If people want to
go to a centralized, unified place to talk about cats, they should
come to [[Cat]].

> On Jan 22, 2012 9:43 PM, "Yao Ziyuan"  wrote:
>
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
>> to Wikipedia:
>>
>> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>>
>> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>>
>> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
>> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
>> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
>> jobs, external references, etc.).
>>
>> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
>> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable
>> topic
>> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the
>> article's
>> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this
>> position,
>> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
>> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
>> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>>
>> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
>> Wikipedia article. Just go to
>> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search
>> for
>> "comment" or "discussion".
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Ziyuan Yao
>>
>> ___
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:12 AM, Tom Morris  wrote:
> On 22 January 2012 22:08, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>> For example, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat , we can have a
>> single discussion area that can both talk about the editing of this
>> article and issues related to cats (e.g. petting them).
>>
>
> Well, English Wikinews has what you are looking for by having an
> Opinions namespace. See, for instance,
> https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_candidate_Newt_Gingrich_wins_South_Carolina_primary
>
> Given that we informally refer to it as "trollspace", I'm not totally
> sure of the value of encouraging low-value, anonymous Internet
> comments. We aren't craven pageview whores like our friends in the
> commercial news website business who are quite happy to trade
> intellectual standards (seriously, read a newspaper comment column)
> for advertising money.

I forgot to mention, each user can show/hide the proposed comment
section under every Wikipedia article. If you're not logged in, the
comment section can be hidden by default.

>
> --
> Tom Morris
> 
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Fae]

As Facebook already takes our articles for the same general chitchat
reasons, it sounds like we could add a Facebook link to every article to
get the same result.

Cheers,
Fae
--
http://enwp.org/user_talk:fae
Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/faetags
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Thomas Dalton]

There is already a discussion page attached to every article. It's for
discussing the article, though, rather than its topic.

While we are more than a conventional encyclopedia, we are still an
encyclopaedia and I don't think we should add job and product adverts to
our articles.

If people want to make friends, they can go to Facebook. If people want to
find or contribute encyclopedic information (and, perhaps, make some
friends along the way as an added bonus) then they should come to us.
On Jan 22, 2012 9:43 PM, "Yao Ziyuan"  wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
> to Wikipedia:
>
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>
> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>
> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
> jobs, external references, etc.).
>
> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable
> topic
> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the
> article's
> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this
> position,
> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>
> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
> Wikipedia article. Just go to
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search
> for
> "comment" or "discussion".
>
> Best Regards,
> Ziyuan Yao
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Tom Morris]

On 22 January 2012 22:08, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> For example, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat , we can have a
> single discussion area that can both talk about the editing of this
> article and issues related to cats (e.g. petting them).
>

Well, English Wikinews has what you are looking for by having an
Opinions namespace. See, for instance,
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_candidate_Newt_Gingrich_wins_South_Carolina_primary

Given that we informally refer to it as "trollspace", I'm not totally
sure of the value of encouraging low-value, anonymous Internet
comments. We aren't craven pageview whores like our friends in the
commercial news website business who are quite happy to trade
intellectual standards (seriously, read a newspaper comment column)
for advertising money.

-- 
Tom Morris


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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[David Gerard]

On 22 January 2012 21:43, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:

> Hello All,
> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
> to Wikipedia:
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889


Similar to the "Opinions" tab on Wikinews. Could be interesting. Would
need to be plausibly useful to the encyclopedia to be accepted by the
communities - what was the rationale for the "opinions" tab on
Wikinews?


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

For example, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat , we can have a
single discussion area that can both talk about the editing of this
article and issues related to cats (e.g. petting them).

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:06 AM, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> The Article Feedback Tool v.5 and the current "Talk" tab are for
> discussing *the editing of the current article*, not for discussing
> *the topic represented by the current article*, although I think these
> two goals can coexist in a single discussion area.
>
> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:51 AM, Tom Morris  wrote:
>> On 22 January 2012 21:43, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>>> Hello All,
>>>
>>> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
>>> to Wikipedia:
>>>
>>> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>>>
>>> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>>>
>>> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
>>> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
>>> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
>>> jobs, external references, etc.).
>>>
>>> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
>>> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable 
>>> topic
>>> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the 
>>> article's
>>> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this 
>>> position,
>>> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
>>> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
>>> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>>>
>>> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
>>> Wikipedia article. Just go to
>>> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for
>>> "comment" or "discussion".
>>>
>>
>> Sounds a bit like Article Feedback Tool v.5:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AFT5
>>
>> --
>> Tom Morris
>> 
>>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Yao Ziyuan]

The Article Feedback Tool v.5 and the current "Talk" tab are for
discussing *the editing of the current article*, not for discussing
*the topic represented by the current article*, although I think these
two goals can coexist in a single discussion area.

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 5:51 AM, Tom Morris  wrote:
> On 22 January 2012 21:43, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
>> to Wikipedia:
>>
>> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>>
>> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>>
>> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
>> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
>> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
>> jobs, external references, etc.).
>>
>> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
>> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable 
>> topic
>> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the 
>> article's
>> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position,
>> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
>> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
>> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>>
>> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
>> Wikipedia article. Just go to
>> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for
>> "comment" or "discussion".
>>
>
> Sounds a bit like Article Feedback Tool v.5:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AFT5
>
> --
> Tom Morris
> 
>
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Re: [Foundation-l] Adding a comment section under every Wikipedia article

[Tom Morris]

On 22 January 2012 21:43, Yao Ziyuan  wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I just filed a feature request which I think is of strategic interest
> to Wikipedia:
>
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33889
>
> Bug 33889 - Request to add a comment section under every Wikipedia article
>
> By providing a comment section under every Wikipedia article, we can enable
> people interested in that topic to talk with each other, make friends and
> exchange external resources pertaining to that topic (e.g. books, products,
> jobs, external references, etc.).
>
> Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia; it is also a very valuable "topic
> navigation and positioning service" that navigates you to any conceivable 
> topic
> in your mind, and once you're at that topic's Wikipedia article, the article's
> URL becomes a unique address that "positions" that topic. With this position,
> we can do many useful things (such as the ones mentioned in the previous
> paragraph), just like we can do many useful things with a geographic
> information system (GIS) such as Google Earth.
>
> There are many MediaWiki extensions that can add a comment section to every
> Wikipedia article. Just go to
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_Matrix/AllExtensions and search for
> "comment" or "discussion".
>

Sounds a bit like Article Feedback Tool v.5:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AFT5

-- 
Tom Morris


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