Thanks Nemo and James. In case you haven't guessed already, I am wondering whether having this message is a good idea or a bad idea.
I don't really know and I can only make some guesses. I knew what a wiki was when I first encountered Wikipedia in 2004. Because of this, the "edited mercilessly" part made sense to me, but I was still happy to see that message - it helped me know that I indeed understand what "wiki" means. I presume that a lot of other people didn't know what a wiki is back then, because Wikipedia was the first wiki that became so popular, and that's probably why the message was put there. In 2014, Wikipedia is still more popular than any other wiki, by far. I (further) presume that lot of people today don't know what a wiki actually is, and just think that it's the shorter name of that website that keeps popping up when they google for stuff. If this is true, then when new users try to join, they are likely not to fully understand that their contributions will be edited mercilessly. So what I'm wondering about is: Should that message be put back there to set the right expectations? Should it be put back only on article creation, to make sure that people don't think that they own the articles they are creating? Should it not be put back there because people just need to be smart enough to figure out for themselves that if they can edit an article, everybody else can, too? Should it not be put back there because it would create clutter? Should it not be put back there because the word "mercilessly" is quite unpleasant? Should any other message be put instead? I honestly don't know; I'm just throwing ideas around, and your input is welcome. As always, I'd be especially happy to hear opinions not just from the English Wikipedia. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore 2014-12-03 19:01 GMT+02:00 James Forrester <jforres...@wikimedia.org>: > On 3 December 2014 at 05:08, Amir E. Aharoni <amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il > > > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I have a vague recollection that when I started editing the English > > Wikipedia ten years ago, there was a notice near the Save button, which > > said something like this: "Your changes will be edited mercilessly". > > > > I remember similar notices in other languages as well, though even more > > vaguely. > > > > I don't see it now. I checked English, Hebrew and Russian. > > > > Does anybody know why was it removed? Did the editors communities just > > decide independently to remove it for whatever reason? If it was, I'd > love > > to see links to discussions if anybody has them. Or was it a design > > decision by the Foundation? > > > > The messages in question are <copyrightwarning > < > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/MW/browse/master/languages/i18n/en.json;2e2958d6d9107fcc479183eaf2dc86247f87072e$650 > >> > and <copyrightwarning2 > < > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/diffusion/MW/browse/master/languages/i18n/en.json;2e2958d6d9107fcc479183eaf2dc86247f87072e$651 > >> > in MediaWiki core, which still use this term. However, as Nemo says, > Wikimedia cluster wikis use a different message provided by the > WikimediaMessages extension that doesn't currently include the term. I > imagine it fell foul of the work to make the language simple and easy to > understand when those were written. > > J. > -- > James D. Forrester > Product Manager, Editing > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. > > jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
