Re: [WikiEN-l] CZ fork: Tendrl
I meant, of course, a fork of Citizendium. Buh. On 23 November 2010 11:15, David Gerard wrote: > Thomas Larsen has started a fork of Wikipedia. > > http://www.basicprogramming.org/larsent/tendrl/index.php/Welcome! > http://www.basicprogramming.org/larsent/tendrl/index.php/Tendrl:Rules > http://www.basicprogramming.org/larsent/tendrl/index.php/Tendrl:Differences > http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki_talk:What_is_going_on_at_Citizendium%3F#Tendrl > http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tendrl > http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,3624.msg37381.html#msg37381 > > > - d. > ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 23/11/2010 11:15, David Gerard wrote: > I meant, of course, a fork of Citizendium. Buh. > The knives seem to be out for the fork of (fork of WP). As you say, if Tendrl is CC-by-SA it's all good, in terms of spooning content around. Apart from noting that social dynamics of the uneasy kind is not confined to our own shores, is there anything to do here? Charles ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 10:15 PM, David Gerard wrote: > http://www.basicprogramming.org/larsent/tendrl/index.php/Tendrl:Differences >Everyone uses their own real names. Meh. You lose good editors that way. >Potential contributors need to create an account to edit, but don't have to >provide an autobiography. Sure, why not? >Have only one or two bodies with clearly-defined authority. People have common >sense: trust them to use it. That'll scale. >Experts are invited to review articles, but they need to contribute as a >regular editor for some time first. I'm sure the experts who are already tripping over themselves to write wikipedia articles will love that. >We have a zero-tolerance policy on sniping and offensive remarks. >Have a culture that looks down upon incivility and poisonousness with a sense >of humour: >laugh about things. That's not zero-tolerance. That's the way every project starts. >Ensure that (administrators|wardens|whatever we decide to call them) feel no >qualms about >kicking out clearly disruptive people. If it was clear to everyone who the disruptive people were, there would never be any problems. But one person's troll is another person's misunderstood genius. Steve ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 12:02 AM, Steve Bennett wrote: > On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 10:15 PM, David Gerard wrote: >>Ensure that (administrators|wardens|whatever we decide to call them) feel no >>qualms about >kicking out clearly disruptive people. > > If it was clear to everyone who the disruptive people were, there > would never be any problems. But one person's troll is another > person's misunderstood genius. It doesn't have to be clear to everyone, just to the people in charge. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 10/12/2010 05:02, Steve Bennett wrote: > On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 10:15 PM, David Gerard wrote: >> http://www.basicprogramming.org/larsent/tendrl/index.php/Tendrl:Differences >> Everyone uses their own real names. > Meh. You lose good editors that way. > >> Potential contributors need to create an account to edit, but don't have to >> provide an autobiography. > Sure, why not? > >> Have only one or two bodies with clearly-defined authority. People have >> common sense: trust them to use it. > That'll scale. > >> Experts are invited to review articles, but they need to contribute as a >> regular editor for some time first. > I'm sure the experts who are already tripping over themselves to write > wikipedia articles will love that. > >> We have a zero-tolerance policy on sniping and offensive remarks. >> Have a culture that looks down upon incivility and poisonousness with a >> sense of humour:>laugh about things. > That's not zero-tolerance. That's the way every project starts. > >> Ensure that (administrators|wardens|whatever we decide to call them) feel no >> qualms about>kicking out clearly disruptive people. > If it was clear to everyone who the disruptive people were, there > would never be any problems. But one person's troll is another > person's misunderstood genius. Hmm. I've just thought of a generalisation about WP, which I haven't immediately discarded (a freakish circumstance). WP has problems - hoo boy - but they are the problems of success. When they bring out the cake with the ten candles, let's all make a wish: that we continue to have that sort of problem, not the ones the competition has. Charles ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 10 December 2010 20:52, Charles Matthews wrote: > Hmm. I've just thought of a generalisation about WP, which I haven't > immediately discarded (a freakish circumstance). WP has problems - hoo > boy - but they are the problems of success. When they bring out the cake > with the ten candles, let's all make a wish: that we continue to have > that sort of problem, not the ones the competition has. I wonder at competitors that attempt to solve problems of huge success, but don't address the problem of utter obscurity, i.e. the one they actually have. - d. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
Four or five years ago I quite confidently pronounced it unlikely that the success of Wikipedia could be sustained beyond 2010. Once the novelty wore off, I thought, people would drift away to the next shiny new thing. By now it seems clear that Wikipedia could last at least another six months or so, to my surprise and delight. I too will toast the problems of success in our January celebrations. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 11/12/2010 04:12, Tony Sidaway wrote: > Four or five years ago I quite confidently pronounced it unlikely that > the success of Wikipedia could be sustained beyond 2010. Once the > novelty wore off, I thought, people would drift away to the next shiny > new thing. You weren't wrong about that, in the sense that the twittersphere has attracted (at leas some of) those mostly driven by instant updating. Leaving an adequate but hardly overmanned reference utility that is actually used by tens of millions daily to look things up. We appear to have avoided the death spiral, and it is even possible that a somewhat smaller workforce that had higher median clue was what the project needed. Charles ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
This is true - but needs some thought. That the social network enthusiasts and instant updaters have shiny new toys and have left the wiki-building isn't a bad thing. It will mean for a smaller, more committed, (somewhat) more cohesive workforce consisting of people who want to make an encyclopedia, and some others who've become so addicted to specifically Wikipedia that they'll hang about and do some useful things sometimes. However, it does change things a bit. A lot of the way Wikipedia has developed has been predicated on the benefits and problems of exponential growth. If those days are now over we may need to ask some questions. Maintainability: what are the implications of maintaining a database created with a larger usebase and with more optimistic future user-growth expectations? We don't want all our remaining workforce spending all their time trying to hold up the walls of a house that's too big. That doesn't necessarily mean we need to reduce the number of articles - but it may mean we need to change our attitude to things like semi-protection. Creation vs improvement: we've tended to encourage article creation more than improvement (our most popular growth metric is "million articles") and the easiest way to get your article on the main-page for your 15min of fame is to create a start article for DYK, rather than fix an article to GA or FA status (GA are not on the mainpage, and FA only eventually get on perhaps years later). Is it time, without preventing or discouraging new articles, to say - "we need to encourage people to complete and not start." We need more transparent encouragement for fixing up articles (particularly core one)? We need better ways of getting rid of the POV pushers that keep articles as a constant battle ground? There are probably other implications as well. My concern is that when Wikipedia was started, its small size allowed it to adapt flexibly and pragmatically to the circumstances in which it found itself - small but increasing quickly. That was a main reason for it finding the winning formula. It's now in very different circumstances - large but decreasing slowly. Does it have the mechanisms to analyse and adapt to these new circumstances as they slowly but surely emerge - or is it stuck with the formulae developed in its early years? If it's stuck, then we may see slow but steady decline to irrelevancy over the next 2-10 years. Scott -Original Message- From: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Charles Matthews Sent: 11 December 2010 10:49 To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] CZ fork: Tendrl On 11/12/2010 04:12, Tony Sidaway wrote: > Four or five years ago I quite confidently pronounced it unlikely that > the success of Wikipedia could be sustained beyond 2010. Once the > novelty wore off, I thought, people would drift away to the next shiny > new thing. You weren't wrong about that, in the sense that the twittersphere has attracted (at leas some of) those mostly driven by instant updating. Leaving an adequate but hardly overmanned reference utility that is actually used by tens of millions daily to look things up. We appear to have avoided the death spiral, and it is even possible that a somewhat smaller workforce that had higher median clue was what the project needed. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 11 December 2010 10:49, Charles Matthews wrote: > You weren't wrong about that, in the sense that the twittersphere has > attracted (at leas some of) those mostly driven by instant updating. > Leaving an adequate but hardly overmanned reference utility that is > actually used by tens of millions daily to look things up. We appear to > have avoided the death spiral, and it is even possible that a somewhat > smaller workforce that had higher median clue was what the project needed. Our edit rate is about *half* what it was in 2005 - across all projects, not just the huge ones.[1] This suggests it's something about the Internet, not us. Coincidentally, I understand that the number of active users on LiveJournal is half what it was in 2005. The usual site blamed is Facebook, which is the place where Internet humanity goes to babble rubbish about nothing in particular at each other. LJ is currently working really hard to enhance its usefulness as a satellite of Facebook. Suggestion: you know the Wikipedia mirroring on Facebook? Ask for a link: "See a problem with this article? _Fix it!_" - d. [1] citation needed ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 08:17:36 -0500, Anthony wrote: > On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 12:02 AM, Steve Bennett wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 10:15 PM, David Gerard wrote: > >>Ensure that (administrators|wardens|whatever we decide to call them) feel > >>no qualms > >>about >kicking out clearly disruptive people. > > > > If it was clear to everyone who the disruptive people were, there > > would never be any problems. But one person's troll is another > > person's misunderstood genius. > > It doesn't have to be clear to everyone, just to the people in charge. ...if you favor a top-down authoritarian model in which nobody outside a small ruling clique has any say in things. And if any of the rabble object to that, just call them trolls too and kick them out as well. -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/ ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
I know everybody is tired of hearing me bang on about this, but the whole "Featured article" edifice has always seemed dubious to me. It seems to concentrate our limited resources on a tiny number of articles, and the emphasis has always been more on dotting eyes and crossing tees than improving overall quality of coverage. At least one intensive study has shown that much of Wikipedia works best when multiple loosely committed editors (domain experts) add most of the useful content then Wikipedians take care of filtering and improving presentation. I don't see anything wrong with that; there's no way that our relatively small active userbase (and it was *always* small) could have built this huge encyclopedia. If we're getting fewer people jumping in and adding stuff, at least part of the reason is that nearly everything that is worth adding is already here and by now most people know the line of material we are likely to reject. Exponential growth was never an expectation of the Wikipedia project. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
The problem with both FA and DYK is they tend to magnify the obscure rather than the core subjects. DYK is basically trivia because the only subject you can find to create a new article on at this point will be obscure. FA tends to concentrate on specialist articles - because it is the only place a FA writer or two can be left alone to work on it without a hoard on POV pushers and school kids. It is a pity we can't find ways of getting people to work on bringing core articles (by which I mean subjects that would be in a 3,000 article max set of paper encyclopaedias) up to scratch. It is ridiculous that we have the best possible article on the somewhat obscure baroque painter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Wright (yes, I wrote that single-handedly) or some bit of Italian architecture and, on the other hand, articles which suck at: *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worship *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament What about having a new section "today's core article" and featuring recently improved core articles? -Original Message- From: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway Sent: 11 December 2010 17:37 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] CZ fork: Tendrl I know everybody is tired of hearing me bang on about this, but the whole "Featured article" edifice has always seemed dubious to me. It seems to concentrate our limited resources on a tiny number of articles, and the emphasis has always been more on dotting eyes and crossing tees than improving overall quality of coverage. At least one intensive study has shown that much of Wikipedia works best when multiple loosely committed editors (domain experts) add most of the useful content then Wikipedians take care of filtering and improving presentation. I don't see anything wrong with that; there's no way that our relatively small active userbase (and it was *always* small) could have built this huge encyclopedia. If we're getting fewer people jumping in and adding stuff, at least part of the reason is that nearly everything that is worth adding is already here and by now most people know the line of material we are likely to reject. Exponential growth was never an expectation of the Wikipedia project. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 11 December 2010 17:36, Tony Sidaway wrote: > I know everybody is tired of hearing me bang on about this, but the > whole "Featured article" edifice has always seemed dubious to me. It > seems to concentrate our limited resources on a tiny number of > articles, and the emphasis has always been more on dotting eyes and > crossing tees than improving overall quality of coverage. As far as I know, only a small minority of Wikipedians work on getting articles featured. There are plenty that like to create lots of articles that are just of reasonable quality. There are plenty that like to go around making small improvements to lots of existing articles. A big part of Wikipedia's success is our diverse community. There are lots of jobs that need doing (including dotting i's and crossing t's) and everyone can choose for themselves which job they want to do and (rather amazingly) we end up with almost every job getting done (there are a few backlogs that build up, but relative to the size of the project they are pretty small). ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
> On 11 December 2010 17:36, Tony Sidaway wrote: >> I know everybody is tired of hearing me bang on about this, but the >> whole "Featured article" edifice has always seemed dubious to me. It >> seems to concentrate our limited resources on a tiny number of >> articles, and the emphasis has always been more on dotting eyes and >> crossing tees than improving overall quality of coverage. > > As far as I know, only a small minority of Wikipedians work on getting > articles featured. There are plenty that like to create lots of > articles that are just of reasonable quality. There are plenty that > like to go around making small improvements to lots of existing > articles. A big part of Wikipedia's success is our diverse community. > There are lots of jobs that need doing (including dotting i's and > crossing t's) and everyone can choose for themselves which job they > want to do and (rather amazingly) we end up with almost every job > getting done (there are a few backlogs that build up, but relative to > the size of the project they are pretty small). > Like what goes on the Main Page, featured articles is pretty much a snake pit (IMO), but a small group gets a lot out of both of them, so it's fine, but not central. You gotta give the devil his due. Fred User:Fred Bauder ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Daniel R. Tobias wrote: > On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 08:17:36 -0500, Anthony wrote: > >> On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 12:02 AM, Steve Bennett wrote: >> > On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 10:15 PM, David Gerard wrote: >> >>Ensure that (administrators|wardens|whatever we decide to call them) feel >> >>no qualms >> >>about >kicking out clearly disruptive people. >> > >> > If it was clear to everyone who the disruptive people were, there >> > would never be any problems. But one person's troll is another >> > person's misunderstood genius. >> >> It doesn't have to be clear to everyone, just to the people in charge. > > ...if you favor a top-down authoritarian model in which nobody > outside a small ruling clique has any say in things. You make it sound like a bad thing. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 11 December 2010 20:55, Anthony wrote: > On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Daniel R. Tobias wrote: >> ...if you favor a top-down authoritarian model in which nobody >> outside a small ruling clique has any say in things. > You make it sound like a bad thing. Wikipedia is, of course, a miserable failure. How can we duplicate this failure? - d. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
The problem will always be with us; by our basic nature, we cannot compel people to work on anything except what they want to work on. The success from the start has been driven by hobbyists, people coming specifically to write on what interests them and nothing else; the only way to get a wider diversity of knowledgable writing is to attract a wider diversity of hobbyists. Areas where there are few such people will inevitably be short changed--achieving balanced coverage of different topics is possible only with conventional editorial control. Butthere is no reason why we should necessarily cover every field to the same degree of thoroughness. We are not the only encyclopedia in the world, and I hope we will never become one. If I were running EB, I'd use as much Wikipedia content as possible and have the paid writers add the ones that are missing; that's of course what Citizendium should have done, but Larry insisted on starting from scratch. On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 4:27 PM, David Gerard wrote: > On 11 December 2010 20:55, Anthony wrote: >> On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Daniel R. Tobias wrote: > >>> ...if you favor a top-down authoritarian model in which nobody >>> outside a small ruling clique has any say in things. > >> You make it sound like a bad thing. > > > Wikipedia is, of course, a miserable failure. How can we duplicate this > failure? > > > - d. > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 13:43, wiki wrote: > FA tends to concentrate on specialist articles - because it is the only > place a FA writer or two can be left alone to work on it without a hoard on > POV pushers and school kids. > > It is a pity we can't find ways of getting people to work on bringing core > articles (by which I mean subjects that would be in a 3,000 article max set > of paper encyclopaedias) up to scratch. To get people to work on improving these to FA standard, you would need to protect them against editing by others, and no one would buy that. That's why most FA articles are on topics where fewer people want to contribute. The process of getting an article to FA standard usually depends on one person, or perhaps a small group of like-minded people. Sarah ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 11 December 2010 21:41, David Goodman wrote: > The problem will always be with us; by our basic nature, we cannot > compel people to work on anything except what they want to work on. > The success from the start has been driven by hobbyists, people coming > specifically to write on what interests them and nothing else; the > only way to get a wider diversity of knowledgable writing is to > attract a wider diversity of hobbyists. Areas where there are few such > people will inevitably be short changed--achieving balanced coverage > of different topics is possible only with conventional editorial > control. Motivating volunteers is like herding cats. To herd cats, find out the local value of tuna. - my law of volunteer motivation. > Butthere is no reason why we should necessarily cover every field to > the same degree of thoroughness. We are not the only encyclopedia in > the world, and I hope we will never become one. If I were running EB, > I'd use as much Wikipedia content as possible and have the paid > writers add the ones that are missing; that's of course what > Citizendium should have done, but Larry insisted on starting from > scratch. You forget that he tried that, but his volunteers didn't find it all that interesting. I can picture a model in which lots of other people write what turn out to be feeder wikis for Wikipedia. But I can't see what's really in it for the volunteers on those wikis. - d. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 4:27 PM, David Gerard wrote: > Wikipedia is, of course, a miserable failure. How can we duplicate this > failure? Huh? Why would you want to duplicate a failure? ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 11 December 2010 21:50, David Gerard wrote: > I can picture a model in which lots of other people write what turn > out to be feeder wikis for Wikipedia. But I can't see what's really in > it for the volunteers on those wikis. To a degree, we have that already - some of our wikiprojects are essentially autonomous little organisations knocking out articles on their specialist fields and not interacting much with the outside world. (The individual users do, but the projects could effectively be hosted elsewhere and use interwikis a lot - it wouldn't much affect their end product) Perhaps we've bypassed the feeder-wiki stage by absorbing them before they even formed - and once it's there, why split? -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 3:12 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote: > Four or five years ago I quite confidently pronounced it unlikely that > the success of Wikipedia could be sustained beyond 2010. Once the > novelty wore off, I thought, people would drift away to the next shiny > new thing. > > By now it seems clear that Wikipedia could last at least another six > months or so, to my surprise and delight. I too will toast the > problems of success in our January celebrations. Yup, I reckon Wikipedia got really lucky. It was created at a time when there weren't many other collaborative projects that the average schmoe could get involved in. Then it managed to hit this critical size where there was a massive passive user community. Whenever you have a large number of people who *need* something, sustainability gets a lot easier. Also, I credit the WMF with some amazingly good governance in the last couple of years. I'm incredibly impressed with how they've taken Wikipedia to "the next level", in terms of outreach, fundraising, user interface improvements, etc etc. They're doing all the things a foundation should. Steve ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 11/12/2010 17:21, Daniel R. Tobias wrote: > On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 08:17:36 -0500, Anthony wrote: > >> On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 12:02 AM, Steve Bennett wrote: >>> On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 10:15 PM, David Gerard wrote: Ensure that (administrators|wardens|whatever we decide to call them) feel no qualms about>kicking out clearly disruptive people. >>> If it was clear to everyone who the disruptive people were, there >>> would never be any problems. But one person's troll is another >>> person's misunderstood genius. >> It doesn't have to be clear to everyone, just to the people in charge. > ...if you favor a top-down authoritarian model in which nobody > outside a small ruling clique has any say in things. And if any of > the rabble object to that, just call them trolls too and kick them > out as well. > Interestingly (for some of us) that authoritarian model has had a bad couple of years, in some senses. Or perhaps not, depending on your perspective. Two or three years ago I was much more in the thick of things, and I remember telling a rather bemused American at dinner at the Alexandria Wikimania about the four political parties on enWP. With that as my baseline, things have shifted somewhat. ArbCom itself is "doing a Jimbo" - holding itself in reserve from acting more in public than it has to, and dealing with much mail in private. This is no bad thing in itself, and I of course having been there understand the reason. (Not many people know that I once posted to the arbwiki an analysis of incoming mail into 11 types - well ahead of my time there.) Leaving the field open for AN/I to be the main centre of overt authority, with serious disadvantages in some cases. Of course AN/I is not a "cabal", but an unchartered process and free-for-all. What of those "parties"? Naming no names, except perhaps Dan's since he belongs to party D in my book, and Tony's since he at least belonged to party B, there were parties A and B of the (authoritarian) right, and parties C (my natural home, surprisingly to some), and D (extreme free speechers) on the (permissive) left. For a while the main conflicts were A with D, B with C, and A and B were at daggers drawn. In other words in the so-called authoritarian or pre-Obama era up to the 2008 ArbCom elections, the right was split. Parties A and B emerged somewhat battered, but basically A has rebuilt and B hasn't. Party C is going strong but turns out not to have any real reforming ideas. The Ds were always a noisy fringe not doing much but take WR way, way too seriously. So that's everyone card marked, then. I notice that people on enWP talk at the top of their rhetorical voices still, making themselves ridiculous just for effect, in my view. Reactivity and ranting in the world according to AN/I, and random decisions can be taken. I'm no longer interested in the police work, as I told David Gerard early in 2009. Other stuff to do. Charles ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
The challenge facing us in 2006 was improving what was in those days sometimes rather dire but promising content at the same time as we held the basic shape of the thing together. We had seen a population explosion in which our registered userbase had suddenly doubled. It was during that turbulent era that our science content matured as never before. People who had stood at the sidelines stepped forward and the quality of the resulting content began to attract serious attention. We've also taken effective steps to improve a significant point of weakness: coverage of living people. I didn't foresee any of that. What I did foresee was the way the community would evolve. As Charles says, the Committee has begun to act more like Jimmy Wales. The arbitrators have led in dealing with behavioral problems and we have developed community processes that would have been impossible to contemplate publicly just five years ago. The upshot: we've retained and improved our community in the face of serious challenges. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
Oops! "arbitrators have led" should of course read "administrators have led." Sadly this hasn't been a cost-free change, though I think it was unavoidable. Adminship was originally seen as a mop-and-bucket function, but that idea has collapsed in the face of the actual requirement to have neutral adjudication and enforcement that scales. So admins who are willing to enforce are the most powerful and most controversial editors, and the community is torn on who gets to wield that power. There is also persistent though not unanimous demand for community desysop. But the pressure on working sysops, it seems to me, has not increased because of that. The Committee has done much to improve admin protocols and empower active admins, and that has tended to defuse once-dangerous situations. An admin in 2010 knows much more about what is expected of him. A score or so of arbitration cases have settled that. On 12/12/2010, Tony Sidaway wrote: > The challenge facing us in 2006 was improving what was in those days > sometimes rather dire but promising content at the same time as we > held the basic shape of the thing together. We had seen a population > explosion in which our registered userbase had suddenly doubled. > > It was during that turbulent era that our science content matured as > never before. People who had stood at the sidelines stepped forward > and the quality of the resulting content began to attract serious > attention. We've also taken effective steps to improve a significant > point of weakness: coverage of living people. > > I didn't foresee any of that. What I did foresee was the way the > community would evolve. As Charles says, the Committee has begun to > act more like Jimmy Wales. The arbitrators have led in dealing with > behavioral problems and we have developed community processes that > would have been impossible to contemplate publicly just five years > ago. > > The upshot: we've retained and improved our community in the face of > serious challenges. > ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
Trends to watch for the future. The arbitration committee will continue to benefit from diversity of membership. It's always been a strength though it has not often been recognised; it's so easy to depict it as monolithic because its deliberations are closed. The trend is accelerating. Automation has grown up from the ugly duckling of Wikipedia and will take a bigger role as we develop more sophisticated ways of organizing and mining our huge data repository. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:49:28 +, Charles Matthews wrote: > Two or three years ago I was much more in the thick of things, and I > remember telling a rather bemused American at dinner at the Alexandria > Wikimania about the four political parties on enWP. Do you have an online description of those four parties? It's harder to follow your comments without that. -- == Dan == Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/ Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/ Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/ ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 12 December 2010 19:19, Daniel R. Tobias wrote: > On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:49:28 +, Charles Matthews wrote: >> Two or three years ago I was much more in the thick of things, and I >> remember telling a rather bemused American at dinner at the Alexandria >> Wikimania about the four political parties on enWP. > Do you have an online description of those four parties? It's harder > to follow your comments without that. +1 I had NO IDEA someone had actually worked this out in a fashion that gave an actually useful theory. - d. ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 12/12/2010 19:19, Daniel R. Tobias wrote: > On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:49:28 +, Charles Matthews wrote: > >> Two or three years ago I was much more in the thick of things, and I >> remember telling a rather bemused American at dinner at the Alexandria >> Wikimania about the four political parties on enWP. > Do you have an online description of those four parties? It's harder > to follow your comments without that. > Quite unintentional, sorry. Charles ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 8:50 AM, David Gerard wrote: > I can picture a model in which lots of other people write what turn > out to be feeder wikis for Wikipedia. But I can't see what's really in > it for the volunteers on those wikis. Are you serious? What's in it for them is the ability to participate in the community of their choice, protected from the occasional madness that is Wikipedia. And more to the point, *knowing* they're protected. They would never have random strangers coming along criticising their work (or if it happened, they wouldn't know about it), or complaining that they used the wrong template or category or something. (Not that that happens all that much, but perception is what it is.) How you manage the feeding process would be very interesting. Steve ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 10:50 AM, Steve Bennett wrote: > On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 8:50 AM, David Gerard wrote: >> I can picture a model in which lots of other people write what turn >> out to be feeder wikis for Wikipedia. But I can't see what's really in >> it for the volunteers on those wikis. > > Are you serious? What's in it for them is the ability to participate > in the community of their choice, protected from the occasional > madness that is Wikipedia. And more to the point, *knowing* they're > protected. Actually, there have been cases of editors on Wikipedia getting into conflicts here, with one of the parties going off to a "feeder wiki" (as you term it) and instead of the parties staying apart sometimes the conflicts carry on when the other party follows them there, and then the departed party returns here to complain, and so on. When there are certain types of personalities involved, sometimes the whole internet is not big enough for them. Carcharoth ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 11:49 AM, David Gerard wrote: > On 12 December 2010 19:19, Daniel R. Tobias wrote: >> On Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:49:28 +, Charles Matthews wrote: > >>> Two or three years ago I was much more in the thick of things, and I >>> remember telling a rather bemused American at dinner at the Alexandria >>> Wikimania about the four political parties on enWP. > >> Do you have an online description of those four parties? It's harder >> to follow your comments without that. > > > +1 > > I had NO IDEA someone had actually worked this out in a fashion that > gave an actually useful theory. I think Charles is describing groupings as of 2 years ago rather than current. They've changed. Elonka? Do you have a writeup of your more modern grouping/tribe/alignment sets from analyzing the latest election? -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ 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] CZ fork: Tendrl
On 14/12/2010 19:40, George Herbert wrote: > I think Charles is describing groupings as of 2 years ago rather than > current. They've changed. Oh, quite. What I described was history. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
