Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 10:12 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: -Original Message- From: Daniel R. Tobias d...@tobias.name To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 6:56 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales and Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the World Wide Web; the ARPAnet pioneers for creating the network on which the Web operated; Ted Nelson for inventing hypertext; .; Edison and/or Tesla for making electricity ubiquitous and all those later devices possible; Ben Franklin for making discoveries about electricity the later inventors could build on and so on and on and on. Everybody builds on the discoveries and inventions of those who came before. -- And I would like to thank the Phoenicians for inventing the alphabet. W.J. the Current. I'd like to thank Necessity and her baby-daddy for inventing inventions. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
I know it will only be a small satisfaction, but I wanted to mention that in the French speaking user guide book I recently co-wrote with Guillaume Paumier, you are recognised as a co-founder. There is even a paragraph clearly mentionning you. I invite you to check: http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikipedia, and in particular http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikipédia/Découvrir_Wikipédia/Explorer_l%27histoire If you are generous, you may even buy it (book available on Amazon for example :-)). See references here: http://www.pug.fr/titre.asp?Num=1072 As for the other points... I have had enough opportunities to see that what the public/journalists say and believe is frequently highly different from the reality and I fear we all have to live with this. For many, Jimmy is still the one doing all the work at the Wikimedia Foundation, and sometimes even the one approving any article before publishing. LOL. People need icons to focus on, and Jimbo is a better icon than most of us. Live with it. Ant ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] An open letter to Jimmy Wales
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 4:38 AM, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 10:12 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: And I would like to thank the Phoenicians for inventing the alphabet. W.J. the Current. I'd like to thank Necessity and her baby-daddy for inventing inventions. I was going to thank the Proto-Indo-Europeans, but this is getting silly. --Oskar ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium
It is my understanding that Citizendium requires users to submit a brief biography (a) to help other authors and editors know with whom they are working and (b) ensure accountability (a biography in addition to a real name can be used to almost perfectly identify a person). Citizendium has a pleasant atmosphere; I've registered an account there. Nevertheless, I'm not confident that they have the right model for success. My personal opinion is that a new model is needed, one that goes even beyond the traditional wiki concept and implements novel procedures for collaborative contribution, moderation, and rating. —Thomas Larsen ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium
-Original Message- From: Thomas Larsen larsen.thoma...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 6:38 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium It is my understanding that Citizendium requires users to submit a brief biography (a) to help other authors and editors know with whom they are working and (b) ensure accountability (a biography in addition to a real name can be used to almost perfectly identify a person). -- I don't see that at all. In my biography I write : I was first a world-known plastic surgeon, but then I decided to go into soft porn. After that I wrote 12 books on nematodes. How does that identify me? You can write anything you want. Wikipedia also has a biographical area (your user page), but they don't compel you to fill it out. I wonder if anyone can name any other website at all, that requires you to fill out a biography before they will allow you to log in? I don't mean check boxes and short fields (like city, birthdate, etc), I mean a free-form field. This is the first time I've ever encountered a site, that requires you to fill in a free-form field, then has a human read that field, and decide on the basis of that, whether or not they will grant you access. Will Johnson ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium
-Original Message- From: Thomas Larsen larsen.thoma...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 6:38 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium It is my understanding that Citizendium requires users to submit a brief biography (a) to help other authors and editors know with whom they are working and (b) ensure accountability (a biography in addition to a real name can be used to almost perfectly identify a person). -- I don't see that at all. In my biography I write : I was first a world-known plastic surgeon, but then I decided to go into soft porn. After that I wrote 12 books on nematodes. How does that identify me? You can write anything you want. Wikipedia also has a biographical area (your user page), but they don't compel you to fill it out. I wonder if anyone can name any other website at all, that requires you to fill out a biography before they will allow you to log in? I don't mean check boxes and short fields (like city, birthdate, etc), I mean a free-form field. This is the first time I've ever encountered a site, that requires you to fill in a free-form field, then has a human read that field, and decide on the basis of that, whether or not they will grant you access. Will Johnson Linkedin has procedures like that. If you say you are with a company they will insist on an email message from some account at the company. You chose to play an ass on Citizendium and were treated like one. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium
Will—in terms of identification, that biography would not match that of any other Will Johnson in the world, and it thus identifies you. It also gives other authors some idea of your interests and biases. Perhaps Citizendium has too high a barrier to entry, but I wouldn't say it's /unreasonable/ per se. Cheers, —Thomas Larsen ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium
-Original Message- From: Thomas Larsen larsen.thoma...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 7:00 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Citizendium Will—in terms of identification, that biography would not match that of any other Will Johnson in the world, and it thus identifies you. It also gives other authors some idea of your interests and biases. Perhaps Citizendium has too high a barrier to entry, but I wouldn't say it's /unreasonable/ per se. Cheers, —Thomas Larsen What is unreasonable is that nowhere on the page does it state anything like what they actually do with the information you enter. It does not say, Write a biography because we are going to have a person review it and decide whether to accept you or not based on what you write. It does not say, Write a biography because we are going to use it to verify who you are. It does not say, Write a biography because we are going to use that to determine what areas of expertise you have. Nothing. There are many sites with a biographical box. They don't compel you to fill it in, and they don't use it for anything except for you to *self* identify. They do not use it for their own purposes. That is why Citizendium fails my test for reasonableness. They collect information, and explain neither why they are, nor what they are going to do with that. It 's not the point whether someone else knows that. The point is that the initial user should be told right up-front on that page. Will Johnson ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
