WikiEN-l February 2011

59 participants
46 discussions

Rating the English wikipedia
by Fences&Windows 31 Jul '11

31 Jul '11

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2011 03:16:12 +0000 From: Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rating the English wikipedia >This encyclopedia has been rated as C-Class on the project's quality scale. >This encyclopedia has been checked against the following criteria for >B-Class status: <snip> >2. Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met (currently 3.5 million >of an estimated 4.4 million articles) <snip> You think there are only 4.4 million possible topics? Based on what criteria? Stevertigo also thought this in the essay Wikipedia:Concept limit, which I tagged as [citation needed]. There are probably tens of millions of potentially notable topics, if not hundreds of millions. However, we're better at deleting new articles than writing them and writing a new article that will survive these days requires more detailed research than in years gone by.

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editing wikipedia by thought
by WereSpielChequers 28 Feb '11

28 Feb '11

I'm all for disability access, but why specifically to Wikimedia as opposed to The Internet or computing in general? There are some things that we could and in my view should be doing to make our sites more open to people with disabilities. Colour schemes in templates maps and so forth should be designed to give contrast that works for various forms of colour blindness, and there are still lots of images in wikipedia that need alt text for people using text readers. WereSpielChequers > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:35:18 +0000 > From: Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia, coming to a pen near you. > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> > Message-ID: > <AANLkTikUP7XWMf6Gqe1F+jB=Y4Qvub-PMXvT4Nb3b3Gm(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > How about a pen that you can use to *edit* Wikipedia? No, wait, that > takes longer than typing doesn't it? > > I'm waiting for the app that let's you edit Wikipedia just by > *thinking* (or indeed any application that you can use just by > thinking - some are sort of available already for paraplegics, but the > technology is still in its infancy). > > http://www.technoscan.com/tracking.php?ID=15 > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interface > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_interaction > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroprosthetics > > None of those seem to cover eyeball movement technology. > > This does, but not the application to paraplegics: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_tracking > > Here's an interesting page (and an interesting wiki site as well): > > http://abilitynet.wetpaint.com/page/Eye+Pointing > > The closest I could get to anything similar on Wikipedia was one line here: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_technology > > But I'm probably searching using the wrong terms. > > Carcharoth >

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Wikipedia, coming to a pen near you.
by Tony Sidaway 27 Feb '11

27 Feb '11

Is this even possible? Apparently you write the word on a piece of paper, and then the pen displays the article from a memory dump containing the top 100,000 English Wikipedia articles. It's very cheap, too, so it would make a neat novelty gift to the Wikipedian who already has the mugs and t-shirts. http://www.livescribe.com/store/20070723002/wikipedia-en/p-545.htm

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Announcement: Survey study on the categorization of contributors to Wikipedia
by Jeroen Kleijn 23 Feb '11

23 Feb '11

Dear all, I'm a Master student and currently busy with my thesis concerning Wikipedia. This survey is part of a Master Thesis research project which investigates the effects of the increasing participation at reliability of Wikipedia. The survey is designed to collect information that will help me to identify the contributors to Wikipedia. I would like to invite you to answer my online survey, which is available at: http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=ag5flewr68z06ay867574 To be eligible for this investigation you should be an user of Wikipedia who has contributed to the website by creating or editing an article. The questionnaire will take approximately 5 minutes to complete. To allow for reliable results, I hope that as many contributors as possible complete the questionnaire. You would especially help me if you could link to the questionnaire or forward this e-mail to people who don't regularly read this list. Your support would be greatly appreciated! With regards, Jeroen Kleijn

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Do you want to write pages that thousands of people see every day?
by Elias Friedman 22 Feb '11

22 Feb '11

Okay then, let me ask how do you intend to measure "start them editing"? Raw edit counts? Over what period of time? Will what namespace matter? Frankly I'm not as interested in getting new people *started* editing as I am I in *keeping* them editing. Many new editors get frustrated because they don't understand basic rules like proper sourcing and citation. Many are not good at reading our written rules - that's why I was excited to see those tutorial videos. I really think they can bridge the gap for the majority of people who don't do well with just RTFM. That's why I say that at least a link to those videos should be on *every* version of that landing page. Sent from my Droid2 Elias Friedman A.S., CCEMT-P אליהו מתתיהו בן צבי elipongo(a)gmail.com On Feb 20, 2011 6:33 PM, "Lennart Guldbrandsson" <wikihannibal(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Missing Wikipedians: An Essay
by Fences&Windows 22 Feb '11

22 Feb '11

>Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:40:35 +0100 >From: Mike Dupont <jamesmikedupont(a)googlemail.com> >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] [Foundation-l] Missing Wikipedians: An Essay > >Well this is a similar problem I am having with adding details to, or new >articles about Kosovo, even my attempts are getting deleted. Mike, certainly this would be a systemic bias issue, but some of your editing needs refining to avoid running into problems. >Having problems even getting the Turkish, Bosnian or Albanian alternative names >added without being deleted, even if sources Why should all these alternate names by included in the English Wikipedia? I've seen you raising these name disputes repeatedly on this list and at various noticeboards; you need to stop forum-shopping and instead open an RfC so this can be centrally discussed. You're looking a bit like a single-purpose account on this issue and such issues have been taken to ArbCom before, see [[WP:ARBMAC]]. Tread carefully. >let alone a coverage of members of parliament (list of them deleted as not >notable). That list was 1) formatted in a very unusual way, with each person having a heading and with almost no wikilinks 2) almost entirely unsourced. It wasn't deleted as non-notable, it was deleted as being a directory. If you want lists of living people to stay you need to format them according to the manual of style for lists and source them properly. Particularly for such a controversial area as Kosovan politics we cannot be cavalier about making claims to do with living people. I have restored the history to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mdupont/List_of_politicians_… and I have begun cleanup. If you want such a list back in mainspace, it needs formatting and sourcing properly. >Also local pop-stars who are not notable by English newspapers are deleted, even >if they are well know and unavoidable. If you can provide reliable sources in non-English languages, such articles can certainly be kept. I've done so before. The key is to actually provide the sources and not merely assert notability. p.s. The format of my emails tends to come out weird on this list - sorry.

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Points to Ponder
by Marc Riddell 21 Feb '11

21 Feb '11

All, Familiar points to ponder. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/us/politics/21civility.html?nl=todaysheadl ines&emc=tha23 Marc

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Points to Ponder
by Marc Riddell 21 Feb '11

21 Feb '11

All, Familiar points to ponder. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/us/politics/21civility.html?nl=todaysheadl ines&emc=tha23 Marc

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FW: [Gendergap] Nine Reasons Women Don't Edit Wikipedia
by Marc Riddell 21 Feb '11

21 Feb '11

---------- From: Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net> Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:51:38 -0500 To: Gendergap List <gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: FW: [Gendergap] Nine Reasons Women Don't Edit Wikipedia ---------- From: Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net> Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2011 18:34:48 -0500 To: Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Nine Reasons Women Don't Edit Wikipedia > On 20 February 2011 14:24, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net> wrote: > >> Sue, as you know, this is the area of my greatest concern regarding the >> future of the Wikipedia Project. The gender gap is a part of the larger >> problem you described above: That of a combative, hostile and defensive >> culture that presents an unchecked arena for Community Member harassment and >> abuse - that prevents the type of healthy, intelligent and productive >> collaboration that can, and will, improve and maintain the quality of the >> Project. Is there, are there, plans to mount a similar initiative to tackle >> this larger problem? To approach it as a gender-neutral problem? > on 2/20/11 5:46 PM, Sue Gardner at sgardner(a)wikimedia.org wrote: > Yes, absolutely. And it's not just plans: people are actively working > on the issue, today. This is the primary work of the Community > department at the Wikimedia Foundation -- the staff there are > currently working with community members on a bunch of projects and > activities to help make the Wikimedia projects more inclusive. A lot > of that is happening on the outreach wiki -- for example, the Account > Creation improvement project, the Bookshelf project, the Ambassador > program, support for student campus associations, and so forth. > > http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project > http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf_Project > http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Ambassador_Program > http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_student_clubs > > There's also some outreach-related/outreach-supportive activities that > have been announced on the Wikimedia blog: > > http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/12/new-wikimedia-fellow/ > http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/11/30/upload-wizard-launches-beta-wikim… > a-commons/ > http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/30/two-new-community-department-fello ws> / > > I agree with you Marc that our central challenge is the need for deep > culture change, to help Wikimedia be more inclusive and open. I think > the gender challenge is part of that, but it's obviously not the whole > story: we need more women, and we also need more editors from outside > North America and Europe, as well as other underrepresented groups. > And we want current editors to be having better, more positive > experiences on the projects, as well. > > Thanks, > Sue Thank you, for this, Sue. And, at the most basic level, we a faced with the reality that this cultural change can only begin, and grow, at the most basic level: The individual. Sue, there are key persons in the Project that, by virtue of their official position or, simply because they are more frequently vocal on the various Project conversation sites, who must lead by example. Each one must be actively working toward this healthier culture. They, and all of us, must set the tone. I truly believe that if the climate is healthy, the culture will be also. Marc

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Somebody must correct this
by michael west 21 Feb '11

21 Feb '11

How on earth can we have an un-sourced article on the founder of the PPP? The whole article is outlandish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulfikar_Ali_Bhutto a complete re-write of history, anybody with any knowledge on Pakistan help me correct it?

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WikiEN-l February 2011