WikiEN-l February 2011

59 participants
46 discussions

Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Do you want to write pages that thousands of people see every day?
by Elias Friedman 20 Feb '11

20 Feb '11

Definitely NOT the "bookshelf" version! Whatever version you go with, DO include the link to those instructional videos. I didn't even know we had those! Sent from my Droid2 Elias Friedman A.S., CCEMT-P אליהו מתתיהו בן צבי elipongo(a)gmail.com On Feb 20, 2011 5:28 PM, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Do you want to write pages that thousands of people see every day?
by Lennart Guldbrandsson 20 Feb '11

20 Feb '11

Hello, Just a quick note from the Account Creation Improvement Project: Tomorrow we will start testing the pages that newcomers see once they have created their accounts. So far we have six new versions of the landing pages, but we would very much like your input and your help. You can check out the pages we have already (and make changes to them - and of course, create new ones) here: * Original version - this is the one we have now: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project/Tes… * Redesign version - http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project/Tes… * Version based on Polish version - http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project/Tes… * 'Options' version - http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project/Tes… * Video version - http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project/Tes… * Easy steps version - http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project/Tes… * Bookshelf version - http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project/Tes… If you don't like them, that's fine! In fact, make your own version. We want as many Wikipedians and non-Wikipedians as possible to create their versions and improve the versions we have. Tomorrow, February 21st, we will start testing all these pages live on Wikipedia to see which ones make the newcomers more likely to start editing. And every day thousands of newcomers will see some of these versions. (By the way, if you're not familiar with the Account Creation Improvement Project and what we've done so far, go to http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project for more background.) Best wishes, Lennart Guldbrandsson -- Lennart Guldbrandsson, Fellow of the Wikimedia Foundation and chair of Wikimedia Sverige // Wikimedia Foundation-stipendiat och ordförande för Wikimedia Sverige

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Template:Outdent freezing my browser
by Elias Friedman 20 Feb '11

20 Feb '11

Hello all; I'm hoping you can help me. Any page where Template:Outdent is used more than once is causing my Android's browser to freeze-up. This includes the template page itself and all the on-wiki fora (VPT, ANI, etc.) where I might bring up my problem, which is why I'm posting here. I was having no problems just the other day, so I figure something must have changed recently. Thanks for your help! [[User:Elipongo]] Sent from my Droid2 Elias Friedman A.S., CCEMT-P אליהו מתתיהו בן צבי elipongo(a)gmail.com

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Missing Wikipedians: An Essay
by aude 20 Feb '11

20 Feb '11

Heather Ford, a former Wikimedia advisory board member and researcher/writer in South Africa has written an essay, "The Missing Wikipedians" about systematic bias on English Wikipedia (especially) against new users and topics pertinent to Africa and other diverse places/people. As an example, she cites the English Wikipedia article [[Makmende]] and the deletion request made, biting the newbie. http://hblog.org/2011/02/16/the-missing-wikipedians/ Please read and discuss. What might we do to help make Wikipedia a more welcoming place for newbies and for such diverse topics? Cheers, Katie (@aude)

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List of includipedias
by David Gerard 18 Feb '11

18 Feb '11

Every now and then something gets nominated for deletion and fans of it go feral and say "I'm going to start an inclusionist fork! No notability policy!" Do we have a list of these anywhere? - d.

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Accessibility of technical articles
by Carcharoth 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

There has been some interesting debate on the site about technical articles. There has been some (fairly heated) discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:FAC#Some_thoughts_from_an_FA-ne… (That discussion is mostly over, so best not to stir it up again). And more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Make_technical_articles_underst… And the section immediately below it. I found it ironic that when I discussed a particular article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CBM#Mathematics_article_I_found_diff… The edit that was made to make the article more accessible (to me, at least), was reverted: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Poincar%C3%A9_conjecture&diff=pre… With the edit summary: "It's a boundary not a surface--but no need to put in the lede, people can follow the link)". Unfortunately, following the link didn't really help me. "In mathematics, a 3-manifold is a 3-dimensional manifold. The topological, piecewise-linear, and smooth categories are all equivalent in three dimensions, so little distinction is made in whether we are dealing with say, topological 3-manifolds, or smooth 3-manifolds." I found the edit made to the original article much clearer, in that it said that the 3-sphere is the "the surface of the [[unit ball]] in four-dimensional space." I suppose adding the word "informally" might soothe mathematicians who insist on precise language. Carcharoth

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Effect on the parser of large navboxes
by Carcharoth 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

I just read this mini-essay here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemis… It is about the effect on the parser of large navboxes (and of other templates). It is a bit technical, but I thought it might be of interest. And I don't know how I ever missed this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Overlink_crisis It really is worth reading all that essay and its talk page. Carcharoth

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Fwd: Accessibility of technical articles
by David Gerard 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

(to list as well) On 17 February 2011 18:37, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On 17 February 2011 17:52, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> That said, the trouble with obsessive nerds who want things 100% right >> is that articles become hideous unreadable thickets of subclauses. But >> then, research appears to be a more widely available skill than good >> writing. > Or is it because writing well is difficult, and writing accurately is > difficult, and writing well AND accurately is difficulty squared? I believe that was precisely what I said in the quoted paragraph, yes. > Nah, that would be ridiculous, it's just obsessive nerds who are broken; of > course. At this point you're reading things inside your own head rather than things I wrote. - d.

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Third Opinion wanted on Alternative names and Ottoman History
by Mike Dupont 16 Feb '11

16 Feb '11

HI, I am trying to add inthe missing ottman history of Prizren and getting into some petty dispute. please help advise on how to procede, in the city of Prizren the official languages are Serbian, Albanian and Turkish, and there is a large Bosnian and Gorani population, if there are alternative names for mosques (and webpages) in those languages, we should list them, no? How will people who want to research more be able to find the, it took me a long time to do the research and find references, and now they are just being removed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Prizren#Not_all_Viewpoints_Third_opinion please help, mike -- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova and Albania flossk.org flossal.org

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Two stories from Lorcan Dempsey
by Liam Wyatt 15 Feb '11

15 Feb '11

Interesting post in Lorcan Dempsey's blog (influential librarian-blogger) relates two interesting stories (neither of which are unique/new to us, but interesting nevertheless): "Using Wikipedia" February 13: http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/002155.html Story one. "Edward Glaeser includes a reference to Wikipedia in the acknowledgements to his new book, *Triumph of the city <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/650211168>* : 'Following common practices, Wikipedia is not listed in the bibliography or citations, because any Wikipedia fact was verified with a more standard source. But I still have a great debt to the anonymous toilers of Wikipedia who made my research much easier at many points in time. I apologize if any phrases from that, or any other source, crept into my prose - one research assistant was assigned the explicit task of purging such inadvertent borrowing - but mistakes do sometimes get through. [272-273]' " Story two. "My daughter (a sophomore in high school) was given an assignment to introduce errors into Wikipedia. Presumably, the intention was to demonstrate that entries could be 'unreliable'. Now, she chose a popular page, and had her changes corrected almost straightaway, to the extent that it was not possible to complete the assignment as given. In fact, she ended up being barred from editing pages as her behavior was seen as unacceptable." >From which he goes on to say... "Wikipedia is a collection. ... One cannot summarily judge its value in the way that one might have done when deciding whether or not to buy or recommend a reference book. Judgements about 'authority' and utility have to be made at the article level, and who has the time and expertise to flag individual articles in this way? Rather than continuing a tedious Wikipedia good/Wikipedia bad conversation, we should recognize the attraction it has as an addressable knowledge base, understand the variety of uses to which it is put, and remind folks of the judgments they need to make depending on those uses." Nice. -Liam wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata

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WikiEN-l February 2011