subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Years in review and the need for editorial judgement

body:
Robert Merkel wrote in part:

>Let me play Devil's advocate for a minute. The fact that we might need
>special rules for Year In Review articles makes me wonder whether
>they are, indeed encyclopedia articles or something else entirely.
>If not, do they really belong as part of the Wikipedia or are they
>a job for another projct with different rules?  Probably not, but it's
>something to think about.

My intuition is clear that they are appropriate for encyclopaedias.
What happened in a given year is the substance of an article on that year,
and the passage of any specific year is a general phenemon,
suitable for inclusion in a compendium of the world's knowledge.
What Year in Review may be inappropriate for is simply
our *style* of encyclopaedia.

Ordinary encyclopaedias judge all the time that
a specific point, however correct and neutral,
is just too particular to belong in the article.
We don't.  We include every minor point mentioned,
no matter how petty, and even spin off subpages dedicated to them.

Would an ordinary encyclopaedia include a detailed outline
of Goedel's original proof of his Completeness Theorem?
Of course not, it would clutter up the article on the theorem,
which should be about the theorem in more general terms,
stating it only roughly (since precisely is complicated)
and talking about its effect on logic and mathematics,
not getting into the nitty gritty of its minor details.
We, OTOH, simply spin this proof off into a subpage.
The article [[Goedels_completeness_theorem]] reads well,
and [[Goedels_completeness_theorem/Original_Proof]] has the details
that somebody decided it was worth the trouble to spell out.
Unnecessary, maybe, but not problematic.

So this is what we do with material that is correct and neutral,
but still more information than a main article needs.
I'm confident that if Wikipedia continues, say, another hundred years,
then someday we will have a page like [[List_of_books_published_in_1962]]
that lists every book published that year with an article.
(And someday that page title will be too broad as well.)
Since we agree that Heinlein's books deserve articles, then they'll be there.
In [[1962]] itself, we'll list only Silent Spring,
but there will be a link to [[List_of_books_published_in_1962]],
and Stranger in a Strange Land will show up there.

Ellmist is placing these listings under a new heading of '''Books''',
and while I think that it's silly to spend time listing books *now*,
someday there will be Wikipedians whose normal Wikipedia activities
include checking that every book with an article is in the yearly listings,
just as today there are those that sometimes check for births and deaths.
When a newbie looks at [[1962]] today, they won't think <How excessive!>;
they'll think <How incomplete!>; and if they have enough time to waste,
they'll start adding their favorite author's books.
While a poor priority, I don't think that this is a bad thing;
it'll start out slow, and when it gets to be too much to handle,
a simple cut & paste job (maybe aided by a script?)
will create [[List_of_books_published_in_1962]] and its ilk,
and the future will have arrived.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby at math.ucr.edu


list: wikipedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Years in review and the need for editorial judgement

body:
Jan Hidders wrote in part:

>If someone comes along and thinks a very important event is missing but
>the list is already full then he or she has to remove the least important
>one.

I can see the value behind this.  If we do end up going this route,
then people will find it more palatable when their additions are removed
if they're placed on [[List_of_people_born_in_1962]] instead of deleted.
Then we can get very selective indeed about what goes on [[1962]] itself.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby at math.ucr.edu


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
> The NPOV isn't a great help here.  It says we should resolve disputes
> by by characterising the
> dispute and letting the differing opinions speak for themselves.
> I can't see how that helps.  Because we are space-limited, we *can't*
> just list every event that somebody (or even a large group of people)
> thinks is important, state why those people think it was important,
> and let the reader come to their own conclusions.

Having no particularly helpful positive contributions of my own to make
this morning, I'll just acknowledge that Robert has a very strong point
here.

However, it occurs to me that NPOV is not exactly the same thing as
"going meta".  "going meta" is a useful technique for achieving NPOV,
but it isn't NPOV itself.

So special rules of the type Robert is suggesting are actually just
new techniques for working towards NPOV, rather than an exception to
NPOV.

> Let me play Devil's advocate for a minute. The fact that we might need
> special rules for Year In Review articles makes me wonder whether
> they are, indeed encyclopedia articles or something else entirely.
> If not, do they really belong as part of the Wikipedia or are they
> a job for another projct with different rules?  Probably not, but it's
> something to think about.

It is something to think about.  I really like your approach to thinking about it.

One of our "discoveries" is that people of very diverse opinions can
write encyclopedia articles together, using NPOV as a guideline to
mediate conflict.  It works remarkably well.  It would not work for
poetry, for political commentary, for fiction, etc.

Therefore, whenever something is "tickling" us as a potential problem
for NPOV, we might consider whether or not that something is really
an encyclopedia article!  That's a neat approach.

But, it seems on the face of it that an article about '1976', telling
in neutral terms what happened that year is an encyclopedia article.

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Lag


body:
On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 04:11:28PM +1000, Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
>
> I agree that [[List of Books Published in 1962]] and its ilk are
> completely appropriate.  What I am concerned about is maintaining the
> integrity of the year in review pages in the process by keeping them a)
> short and thus useful, and b) ensuring that only really important stuff
> gets on there as we build content so that we keep the integrity of the
> pages as a reference *now*.

How about the following:

- We make a guideline that says that there should be no more than, say, 10
  births / deaths / events on the page and that these should be the most
  important ones in that year.

- We give some hints on what might be considered important and what not.

- If someone comes along and thinks a very important event is missing but
  the list is already full then he or she has to remove the least important
  one.

Of course this will generate some debates but that is inherent in the nature
of Wikpedia and these types of pages.

-- Jan Hidders


in_reply_to: <3D1C3883.569F9D39@labyrinth.net.au>; from kaji@labyrinth.net.au on Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 08:20:51PM +1000

body:
On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 08:20:51PM +1000, Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
>
> I STRONGLY disagree with this. Who's going to judge what is more
> 'important' or what to delete?

The usual suspects.

> I don't think it's a big deal to have books listed or movies or
> anything...

It reduces the usefulness of these pages. It's less interesting to
have a page that lists every little thing that happened in a certain year
including the death of somebodies favorite goldfish.

> when the page gets too lengthy then it can be broken up.

That would mean the format depends upon how much has been added for a certain
year.

> Then we'll have a ready-made list for a
> subpage.

Please don't mention the s-word.

> Of course if you really want to keep them off the year pages what you need
> to do is to make a template for a 'Published/Produced in this year' page
> for people to put them on...

The problem is not that we don't want published works on these pages, but
only the ones that are considered very important.

> the wikipedia's supposed to be about completeness after all!

Wikipedia as a whole is, yes, but this is not necessarily true for
all individual pages.

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Robert Graham Merkel

body:
A relatively new contributor, Ellmist, has been adding articles
about Robert Heinlein's novels.  This is a good thing - Heinlein
was an important sci-fi writer, and we should cover his work in
some detail.

However, they have added the publication dates of his books
to the applicable "Year In Review" articles.  Is this such a
good idea?  Probably not.  I doubt that everything Heinlein
wrote was so momentous to warrant such a listing.

This is a more general problem with the year in review listing.
Unlike virtually everything else in the 'Pedia, these articles are
space-limited by their very intention (to provide a concise overview
of what went on in the world in that year).  Therefore, if we wish
to retain them in the current form, we're
going to have to exercise editorial judgement as to the things
sufficiently important to list there.

The NPOV isn't a great help here.  It says we should resolve disputes
by by characterising the
dispute and letting the differing opinions speak for themselves.
I can't see how that helps.  Because we are space-limited, we *can't*
just list every event that somebody (or even a large group of people)
thinks is important, state why those people think it was important,
and let the reader come to their own conclusions.

Lists like this are a special case, and so I would argue that we should
make special rules to handle it.  What those special rules should be I'm
not sure.  As a "meta-rule" I think we need fairly strict section
guidelines on what can go into each section of the Year in Review
entry.

Let me play Devil's advocate for a minute. The fact that we might need
special rules for Year In Review articles makes me wonder whether
they are, indeed encyclopedia articles or something else entirely.
If not, do they really belong as part of the Wikipedia or are they
a job for another projct with different rules?  Probably not, but it's
something to think about.

Opinions?

-----------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Work of art rule

body:
On Thu, Jun 27, 2002 at 10:21:24PM -0700, Sean Barrett wrote:
> A suggested rule: a work of art can be (but doesn't have to be) listed
> on the year of its creation if it won an important award (for
> sufficiently momentous values of "important").  This would limit
> Heinlein to four items (none of them short stories): Double Star,
> Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and Moon is a Harsh
> Mistress.
>
That sounds like a reasonable rule.  Additionally, I'd think
that no more than two creative works per artist would be worthy
of recognition in the Year In Review articles, as a general rule.

I gather then you approve of the idea of a set of per-section guidelines
for the Year in Review articles?

--
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


subject: [Wikipedia-l] 1911 text

body:
On Thu, Jun 27, 2002 at 10:28:30PM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
> I do hate it when people just dump, unwikified, unchecked, incorrectly named
> and OCR error ridden 1911 text into wikipedia expecting others to tidy things
> after them. It is oftentimes far more difficult to update all this AND
> modernize pedandic Victorian, often wrong and ultra-biased prose than it is
> to do some research on the topic and create an article from scratch. Dumping
> of unimproved 1911 text should be highly discouraged.
>
Yes.  It's useful source material, but very few articles are of
a standard that makes them useful even as a first draft of
a Wikipedia article.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


body:
On Thu, Jun 27, 2002 at 10:48:44PM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
<snipped good points on nature of Wikipedia that I agree with entirely>

> So this is what we do with material that is correct and neutral,
> but still more information than a main article needs.
> I'm confident that if Wikipedia continues, say, another hundred years,
> then someday we will have a page like [[List_of_books_published_in_1962]]
> that lists every book published that year with an article.
> (And someday that page title will be too broad as well.)
> Since we agree that Heinlein's books deserve articles, then they'll be there.
> In [[1962]] itself, we'll list only Silent Spring,
> but there will be a link to [[List_of_books_published_in_1962]],
> and Stranger in a Strange Land will show up there.
>
> Ellmist is placing these listings under a new heading of '''Books''',
> and while I think that it's silly to spend time listing books *now*,
> someday there will be Wikipedians whose normal Wikipedia activities
> include checking that every book with an article is in the yearly listings,
> just as today there are those that sometimes check for births and deaths.
> When a newbie looks at [[1962]] today, they won't think <How excessive!>;
> they'll think <How incomplete!>; and if they have enough time to waste,
> they'll start adding their favorite author's books.
> While a poor priority, I don't think that this is a bad thing;
> it'll start out slow, and when it gets to be too much to handle,
> a simple cut & paste job (maybe aided by a script?)
> will create [[List_of_books_published_in_1962]] and its ilk,
> and the future will have arrived.
>
>
I agree that [[List of Books Published in 1962]] and its ilk are
completely appropriate.  What I am concerned about is maintaining
the integrity of the year in review pages in the process by keeping
them a) short and thus useful, and b) ensuring that only really
important stuff gets on there as we build content so that we keep
the integrity of the pages as a reference *now*.  In this specifi*
case, excluding material is just as important as including it.
If we just let everybody list their favourite books, we could quite
conceivably end up with a list mainly consisting of Terry Pratchett
and Star Wars novels.  That would be worse than useless in my opinion
- while Star Wars novels and Terry Pratchett books are perfectly worthy
of encyclopedia articles, they are *not* in general worthy of Year In
Review listings.

So, list all you like elsewhere, but IMHO not on Year in Review.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Year pages: argument against artificially setting the number of things listed

body:
On Friday 28 June 2002 04:12 am, Jan Hidders wrote:
> How about the following:
>
> - We make a guideline that says that there should be no more than, say, 10
> ? births / deaths / events on the page and that these should be the most
> ? important ones in that year.

I don't think that would be a good idea. Some years are just loaded with many
notable people who were either born, did something really important, or died
during that year that continue to be relevant to us in the present. We
shouldn't place any type of artificial rule on the number of things listed.

After the page gets too long on a readability standpoint weighed against the
relevance that year has to us in the present  (1940 being more relevant to us
than say 1840 -- therefore 1940 should naturally be longer no matter what),
it can be broken up and the less notable stuff placed in a "List of .." page.

> - ....
>
> - If someone comes along and thinks a very important event is missing but
> ? the list is already full then he or she has to remove the least important
> ? one.

Again, this wouldn't be desirable with such an artificially short and
contraining list -- what is important to a geneticist is going to be
different than what is important to a painter and these two different
contributors would cull very different things when having to choose such a
"top ten list" (esp. for years that both geneticists and painters were doing
astounding things during the same year). And when the time comes for a
break-up of the article, less contraining rules should prevail so as not to
impugn any truly notable events just because those events happened to occur
in a year in which even more notable events occurred in.

There is also the issue that the 20th century has a HUGE amount of history
(more people, more things happening) than any other century in history (both
in terms in sheer amount and more importantly, in terms of what is relevant
to us today). If there are to be any rules to keep these list-type articles
readably short, then much of that should be directed to these pages and not
say, many of the pre-Renaissance AD or BC entries which have one or two
things listed if anything at all. Besides, if the event weren't at least a
little important, chances are very good that any written history from those
earlier times wouldn't have even survived to us today. So this issue might be
self correcting for these earlier year pages.

--maveric149


from_name: Axel Boldt

body:
I agree with the point that the Year in Review articles are "space
limited" in a sense, but I don't see what's wrong with Toby's
solution: let the articles grow until they get too big, then unload
the less important stuff to something like [[Books published in
1962]], of course linked to from [[1962]]. The most important books
could still stay on [[1962]].

We could now try to come up with some hard and fast rule as to
when a list in a year's article is too long and deserves its own page,
but we could also just leave that up to judgement calls, like anything
else really.

Robert mentions another problem: some fans will add entries to years'
pages, thus skewing their "importance". That's true, but it is a
problem throughout Wikipedia. Many topics are covered from a certain
angle, probably because that's the angle the original author liked
and/or understood best. The hope is that other authors will show up
over time and add other angles. We should expect the same to happen on
the years' pages.

Axel


from_name: Karen AKA Kajikit

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Years in review and the need for editorial
 judgement

body:
"Jan.Hidders" wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 04:11:28PM +1000, Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
> >
> > I agree that [[List of Books Published in 1962]] and its ilk are
> > completely appropriate.  What I am concerned about is maintaining the
> > integrity of the year in review pages in the process by keeping them a)
> > short and thus useful, and b) ensuring that only really important stuff
> > gets on there as we build content so that we keep the integrity of the
> > pages as a reference *now*.
>
> How about the following:
>
> - We make a guideline that says that there should be no more than, say, 10
>   births / deaths / events on the page and that these should be the most
>   important ones in that year.
>
> - We give some hints on what might be considered important and what not.
>
> - If someone comes along and thinks a very important event is missing but
>   the list is already full then he or she has to remove the least important
>   one.
>
> Of course this will generate some debates but that is inherent in the nature
> of Wikpedia and these types of pages.

I STRONGLY disagree with this. Who's going to judge what is more
'important' or what to delete? I don't think it's a big deal to have
books listed or movies or anything... when the page gets too lengthy
then it can be broken up. Then we'll have a ready-made list for a
subpage. Of course if you really want to keep them off the year pages
what you need to do is to make a template for a 'Published/Produced in
this year' page for people to put them on... the wikipedia's supposed to
be about completeness after all!

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

body:
I am becoming increasingly concerned over seeing seeing greater and greater
numbers of non-article disambiguation pages. The concept of having
disambiguation pages was started for perfectly valid reasons -- for roughly
well-known cities that have the same name, monarchs with the same names, or
for other things where precedence over which term should be at a
non-disambiguated title cannot be determined (such as Mercury).

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia but it is also a wiki - so we must name articles
to (hopefully naturally) differentiate terms that would otherwise have the
same name AND encourage spontaneous linking. Full disambiguation should ONLY
be used as a last resort (such as with Mercury - planet Mercury doesn't cut
it in the same way as [[biological virus]] because "planet" is not part of
the planet's name - but makes for a useful redirect). If we don't encourage
spontaneous linking wherever possible, the project will eventually be lost
because contributors will increasingly find it tedious to use pipes all the
time when linking to articles. Alleviating unnecessary tedium is why I killed
the subpages in the Star Wars and Star Trek articles - contributions to those
articles have since significantly increased now that pipes don't have to be
used to link every term.

All I am saying, is that full disambiguation which turns a page named
[[example]] into a non-article list with a disambiguation notice and links to
[[example (discipline 1)]], [[example (discipline 2)]], [[example (discipline
3)]] should only be used as a last resort when valid non-parenthetical
alternatives are not used at all and there is a <reasonable> ambiguity issue.

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] RE: Disambiguation pages (parenthetical)

body:
I hit the send button too fast, here is the rest:

Parenthetical disambiguation should also be avoided whenever possible.

It would be idiotic to have a non-article list with a disambiguation notice
at [[Paul Simon]] with links to [[Paul Simon (musician)]] and [[Paul Simon
(politician)]] just because these two people share the same name. Of course,
the musician (who is hands down the most widely known person by the name
"Paul Simon") should be at [[Paul Simon]] and the politician should be at an
article that has his middle initial (Like [[George W. Bush]]) and if that
doesn't work then the hideous [[Paul Simon (politician)]] would have to be
used. Notice, the decision to use a parenthetical title here was a last
resort and was only used for the less well-known Paul Simon.

In addition; if one thing is known only by a one word name, and another thing
is usually called by the same one word name in its native context but is
often also called by a naturally disambiguated two word name, there is NO
need to have a disambiguation page at the one word page title (because the
context here is an online hyper-linked encyclopedia, not the native context
of the two word term). We can reasonably assume a person of average or
greater intelligence making a link intended for the two word term, will make
a link to the two word term and not the one word term because this is an
encyclopedia and we should assume that person has enough sense to naturally
disambiguate the link.

For example: It would be equally dumb to turn [[worm]] into a non-article
disambiguation page just because there is also such things as computer worms
and candy worms.

It is my opinion that one of the reasons why wikipedia has been as
preposterously successful as it has, is due the ease with which links can be
made from one article to the next. Unfortunately, as wikipedia grows,
ambiguities will increasingly pop up and resolving those ambiguities might
make linking more and more tedious as time goes by -- if we are not careful.

In order to dramatically slow this, I propose that we should be very careful
when deciding to make disambiguation pages and only make them when true
ambiguities exist (also, to avoid parenthetical disambiguation whenever
possible). No one of average or greater intelligence would link to [[Paris]]
in the context of a hyper-linked encyclopedia and reasonably expect that link
to go to an article about Paris, Texas. I also proposse to make it a policy
that whoever makes these pages should have to fix each and every misdirected
link so that they point directly to where they intend.

--maveric149


in_reply_to: <3D1C3883.569F9D39@labyrinth.net.au>; from kaji@labyrinth.net.au on Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 20:20:51 +1000

body:
On Fri, 28 Jun 2002 20:20:51 Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> "Jan.Hidders" wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 04:11:28PM +1000, Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
> > >
> > > I agree that [[List of Books Published in 1962]] and its ilk are
> > > completely appropriate.  What I am concerned about is maintaining the
> > > integrity of the year in review pages in the process by keeping them
> a)
> > > short and thus useful, and b) ensuring that only really important
> stuff
> > > gets on there as we build content so that we keep the integrity of
> the
> > > pages as a reference *now*.
> >
> > How about the following:
> >
> > - We make a guideline that says that there should be no more than, say,
> 10
> >   births / deaths / events on the page and that these should be the
> most
> >   important ones in that year.
> >
> > - We give some hints on what might be considered important and what
> not.
> >
> > - If someone comes along and thinks a very important event is missing
> but
> >   the list is already full then he or she has to remove the least
> important
> >   one.
> >
> > Of course this will generate some debates but that is inherent in the
> nature
> > of Wikpedia and these types of pages.
>
> I STRONGLY disagree with this. Who's going to judge what is more
> 'important' or what to delete? I don't think it's a big deal to have
> books listed or movies or anything... when the page gets too lengthy
> then it can be broken up. Then we'll have a ready-made list for a
> subpage. Of course if you really want to keep them off the year pages
> what you need to do is to make a template for a 'Published/Produced in
> this year' page for people to put them on... the wikipedia's supposed to
> be about completeness after all!
>

Firstly, as I already agreed, it's entirely reasonable to have
a complete list of "people who have an entry in Wikipedia who died in 1976"
or "books in Wikipedia first published in 1976".  My point refers
specifically
to keeping the main "year in review" pages useful by being a) short enough
to read quickly, and b) reflect the actually important things that happened
in that year in the area concerned.

If we let people add stuff willy-nilly, you will end up with people
listing the
fact that series 2 of "Walker: Texas Ranger" first screened in the US in
1994 to
the [[1994]] page (if you don't know what that is, be very grateful and
just rest
assured that there are approximately 27,543 things that happened in the
telvision world
in 1994 that were more important).  Now, two things might then happen.  We
might
already have, or build up a list of lots of things that happened in
television in
1994, and after discussion decide that, indeed, Chuck Norris and his
buddies second
series wasn't really that important.  That might cause a bunfight, but the
reason
for the removal is at least clear.

A more tricky situation, however, is the case where there *aren't*
immediately things there
replacing it.  Now, having an entry for that (and entries in 1993, 1995,
1996, 1997, 1998,
1999, 2000, and 2001 for series 1 through 9), even if there aren't
sufficient entries
on "television" for it to be causing length problems, is giving a totally
misleading
indication of the significance of the events.

If you want a more realistic scenario, think popular music and a bunch of
fans of
some particular musical genre discovering the 'pedia.

Without some guidelines, there's nothing stopping them adding a bunch of
listings
of events interesting only to a small subculture, and no justification for
people
to delete the entries (or, as you point out, move them to a [[List of Acid
Jazz Albums
Released in 1993]] page).
I don't have all the answers yet on exactly *what* guidelines we'll come
up with
yet, but I'm convinced that we need some.  As others have pointed out, this
is one of the few places in wikipedia where we are space-limited, and we
need
some extra smarts to deal with it IMHO.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


in_reply_to: <20020628233311.IEQT29588.sccrmhc01.attbi.com@there>; from maveric149@yahoo.com on Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 04:25:46PM -0700

body:
On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 04:25:46PM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> On Friday 28 June 2002 04:12 am, Jan Hidders wrote:
> > How about the following:
> >
> > - We make a guideline that says that there should be no more than, say, 10
> > ? births / deaths / events on the page and that these should be the most
> > ? important ones in that year.
>
> I don't think that would be a good idea. Some years are just loaded with many
> notable people who were either born, did something really important, or died
> during that year that continue to be relevant to us in the present. We
> shouldn't place any type of artificial rule on the number of things listed.

Apologies for being a bit too simplistic here. I fully agree with you and
Axel that there should not be an exact number for this and should be judged
separately each time. On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt if we would have
some policy statement that says that these page are not supposed to be
exhaustive plus a rough estimate of what would be considered "too large" for
which periods in time. Just to given an idea of what would still be
considered "readably short" and how important something has to be in order
to be on the list.

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

body:
At 01:21 AM 6/29/02 -0700, you wrote:
>I am becoming increasingly concerned over seeing seeing greater and greater
>numbers of non-article disambiguation pages.
>Wikipedia is an encyclopedia but it is also a wiki - so we must name articles
>to (hopefully naturally) differentiate terms that would otherwise have the
>same name AND encourage spontaneous linking.

To play devil's advocate, I think a case can be made that disambiguation
pages make spontaneous linking much easier. For example, a contributor
working on an article about Klez or Ebola could link to [[virus]] without
having to even realize that there _are_ two alternate uses for the term,
let alone knowing what specific names they're under; the "virus" link will
show up as valid, and anyone following it will presumably be able to figure
out which type of virus was being referred to and move on to the full-scale
article from there. In other words, disambiguation pages allow for overly
simplified and ambiguous links to still be perfectly useful to the
encyclopedia editor and user.

Changing all links to always bypass the disambiguation page is nice and
convenient, but it's not absolutely necessary. If it were, then why have
the disambiguation page at all?

BTW, I dislike artucles which have a full-length (usually multiple screen)
article on one meaning of the article's title, and then at the bottom have
a "see also: [[alternate meaning of title]]." It forces the reader to
scroll down through the entire first article before seeing that there's a
second one; a small disambiguation page with a simple bulleted list of
articles is much nicer IMO even if it's not "absolutely necessary" because
you can take it all in with a single glance.

The issue of whether parenthetical additions to the base title are used as
part of the disambiguation process is a separate issue, though, and I
certainly agree that parentheses are inelegant. A pity the software doesn't
have a built in method of creating child articles explicitly associated
with a root, a sort of "sub-article" thing perhaps... :)

--
"Let there be light." - Last words of Bomb #20, "Dark Star"


body:
At 01:49 AM 6/29/02 -0700, you wrote:
>We can reasonably assume a person of average or
>greater intelligence making a link intended for the two word term, will make
>a link to the two word term and not the one word term because this is an
>encyclopedia and we should assume that person has enough sense to naturally
>disambiguate the link.

But with a disambiguation page, we don't have to impose upon the editor's
intelligence even _this_ much. Disambiguation pages make linking easier.

Besides, I thought the idea of using [[planet Mercury]] had already been
rejected. :)

>For example: It would be equally dumb to turn [[worm]] into a non-article
>disambiguation page just because there is also such things as computer worms
>and candy worms.

Candy worms, sure, but I can easily imagine writing an article about
something computery and referring simply to "worms" within it because the
"computer" context is already clear to the reader of the article. Why make
the editor check every link to be sure that it doesn't lead to some
completely irrelevant article that just happens to have a name in common
with what you really wanted?

>I also proposse to make it a policy
>that whoever makes these pages should have to fix each and every misdirected
>link so that they point directly to where they intend.

This is already mentioned on the disambiguation page:
"A code of honor for creating disambiguation pages is to fix the
mis-directed links that will be created when the disambiguation page is made."
What's the difference between a policy and a code of honor on Wikipedia?

--
"Let there be light." - Last words of Bomb #20, "Dark Star"


in_reply_to: <200206281707.TAA05203@linde.uni-paderborn.de>; from axel@uni-paderborn.de on Sat, Jun 29, 2002 at 03:07:57 +1000

body:
On Sat, 29 Jun 2002 03:07:57 Axel Boldt wrote:
> I agree with the point that the Year in Review articles are "space
> limited" in a sense, but I don't see what's wrong with Toby's
> solution: let the articles grow until they get too big, then unload
> the less important stuff to something like [[Books published in
> 1962]], of course linked to from [[1962]]. The most important books
> could still stay on [[1962]].
>
> We could now try to come up with some hard and fast rule as to
> when a list in a year's article is too long and deserves its own page,
> but we could also just leave that up to judgement calls, like anything
> else really.
>
> Robert mentions another problem: some fans will add entries to years'
> pages, thus skewing their "importance". That's true, but it is a
> problem throughout Wikipedia. Many topics are covered from a certain
> angle, probably because that's the angle the original author liked
> and/or understood best. The hope is that other authors will show up
> over time and add other angles. We should expect the same to happen on
> the years' pages.
>

Two issues:

1) How do we decide what stays and what goes when the time
comes to weed entries to a more specialised page?

2) I think it's important to be able to weed entries that
clearly aren't of much importance even when the page isn't
full, so the Year In Review articles remain useful even as
they are constructed.  However, I'd like guidelines to back
up any edits so there's reasons I can point to that say,
"No, the release of GigaBlaster XIV for the Nintendo 64 isn't
important enough to warrant a mention here.  That's why I've
moved it to the [[Video Games released in 1997]] page according
to the criteria for inclusion on the Year In Review" page.

  --
------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
------------------------------------------------------------


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Pierre Abbat

subject: [Wikitech-l] SQL files in upload space

body:
There are two SQL files in upload space, and no record of them being
uploaded. I am deleting them because passwords are exposed. Whoever is
working with them, please use somewhere else to put them.

phma


from_name: Tim Chambers

subject: [Wikipedia-l] EVERYONE CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD

body:
I tried, but the page timed out while changing it. Now neither my old
nor my new passwords work. Can someone please help me?

Just reset my password to anything, then reply, and I'll try changing
it again.

Also, just checking: will the software accept a passphrase 28
characters long? (That's the length of the one I was going to use.)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


body:
During a routine check for uploaded junk, I saw two gzipped SQL files. I
downloaded one (the other was huge) and found that it contained my password,
as well as other user names. This means that any of our junk uploaders (and
junk was uploaded) could have found this file, read it, and log in as anyone,
including a sysop (the file also tells who is a sysop). Please change your
passwords immediately to prevent this.

phma


body:
On Saturday 29 June 2002 12:01 pm,  Jan Hidders  wrote:
> Apologies for being a bit too simplistic here. I fully agree with you and
> Axel that there should not be an exact number for this and should be judged
> separately each time. On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt if we would have
> some policy statement that says that these page are not supposed to be
> exhaustive plus a rough estimate of what would be considered "too large"
> for which periods in time. Just to given an idea of what would still be
> considered "readably short" and how important something has to be in order
> to be on the list.
>
> -- Jan Hidders

No apology needed. Rough guidelines are fine with me, so long as some
exceptions are allowed for years that are just super-full of history. The
amount of listings in an of itself should also (eventually) give a person a
visual idea of how much history was made in that year. We can discuss the
specifics at the year pages (can't say where exactly, because wikipedia.com
is not accessible right now).

--maveric149


from_name: lcrocker at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Passwords, the whole scoop.

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body:
On Saturday 29 June 2002 12:01 pm,  Bryan Derksen wrote:
> Candy worms, sure, but I can easily imagine writing an article about
> something computery and referring simply to "worms" within it because the
> "computer" context is already clear to the reader of the article. Why make
> the editor check every link to be sure that it doesn't lead to some
> completely irrelevant article that just happens to have a name in common
> with what you really wanted?

Why would [[computer worm]] be anything else? Why wouldn't [[worm]] be about
the most common usage? This is why we have naming conventions that aim to
naturally disambiguate terms from each other using the least complex naming
scheme.

The context here is a hypertext, cross-linked encyclopedia -- not some
limited jargon file on computers. Using the word "worm" by itself is jargon
when you mean "computer worm" (which <is> the term used in news reporting and
anywhere else where context must be established by the term itself -- such as
in a hyperlinked encyclopedia).

If we can't assume at least some intelligence from our contributors to
naturally disambiguate terms then we might as well turn [[Paris]] into a
non-article disambiguation page to catch those pitiful souls who expect to
link to an article on Paris, Texas by typing [[Paris]] -- just because the
article they were writing in was in the context of Texas history.

There are higher level contexts we are dealing with here.

--maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Possible compromise for disambiguation

body:
On Saturday 29 June 2002 12:01 pm, you wrote:
> Changing all links to always bypass the disambiguation page is nice and
> convenient, but it's not absolutely necessary. If it were, then why have
> the disambiguation page at all?

The reason is to catch any future honest mistakes for true disambiguation
issues. Such as this conundrum: "Where might the article on [[Mars]] be in
the in context of a hyperlinked encyclopedia? Now "planet" is not a part of
its name in any context, so it would be silly to find it at [[planet Mars]].
Hum, how about I just type in [[Mars]], hit preview and see where it takes
me."

The bingo! They find out that an article about the planet lives at [[Mars
(planet)]].

This is different when alternate two word terms are actually a part of a
title that <naturally> disambiguates a term. Such as <computer worm> -- here
the addition of the word "computer" is totally valid and widely used. We can
reasonably expect a person to think: "Hum, I'm witting here in an on-line,
cross-linked encyclopedia. Where might an article about computer worms be....
How about [[computer worm]]. Yep there it is." Besides, there is a link to
[[computer worm]] at [[worm]].

If you like, we can move this to the top in a short row stating: Other uses:
[[computer worm]].  Then the obvious disambiguation you want is there and an
actual article is at [[worm]] that is about creepy, crawly, slimy worms and
we don't have to place that article at [[worm (biology)]] which can only be
linked to through pipes.

In fact, it might be a good idea to have a very short row list like this in
other places in order to prevent the subvertion of a the common use of a
single word term for non-article disambiguation pages just because other
terms also share the same single word within narrow contexts (but are also
widely known by two or more word equivalent). I would suggest having this at
a -1 font and be limited to a row with maybe a line separating it from the
actual article. This shouldn't be any more obtrusive than having language
links for articles AND also acts as a disambiguation page without turning it
into a non-article list.

I could be very happy with this.

---maveric149


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: EVERYONE CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD

body:
On Saturday 29 June 2002 12:01 pm, you wrote:
> During a routine check for uploaded junk, I saw two gzipped SQL files. I
> downloaded one (the other was huge) and found that it contained my
> password, as well as other user names. This means that any of our junk
> uploaders (and junk was uploaded) could have found this file, read it, and
> log in as anyone, including a sysop (the file also tells who is a sysop).
> Please change your passwords immediately to prevent this.
>
> phma

I would like to, but I can't even access the main page right now. :(

I'm sure impersonators will have similar difficulty -- just nobody get mad if
user:maveric149 goes on a rampage against disambiguation pages.

It isn't me, honest. ;)

Just kidding.

--maveric149


body:
On Saturday 29 June 2002 15:11, Tim Chambers wrote:
> I tried, but the page timed out while changing it. Now neither my old
> nor my new passwords work. Can someone please help me?
>
> Just reset my password to anything, then reply, and I'll try changing
> it again.
>
> Also, just checking: will the software accept a passphrase 28
> characters long? (That's the length of the one I was going to use.)

The password is a "tinytext", whatever that is. (I know Postgres, not MySQL.)
If the page timed out and it claims that you are not logged in, the new
password is in effect. My guess is that a tinytext is shorter than 28
characters. Try the first 16 characters, and other lengths, of your password.

phma


body:
> The password is a "tinytext", whatever that is. (I know Postgres, not
> MySQL.) If the page timed out and it claims that you are not logged in, the
> new password is in effect. My guess is that a tinytext is shorter than 28
> characters. Try the first 16 characters, and other lengths, of your
> password.

Scratch that idea. A tinytext is up to 255 characters.

phma


body:
At 02:13 PM 6/29/02 -0700, you wrote:
>On Saturday 29 June 2002 12:01 pm,  Bryan Derksen wrote:
> > Candy worms, sure, but I can easily imagine writing an article about
> > something computery and referring simply to "worms" within it because the
> > "computer" context is already clear to the reader of the article. Why make
> > the editor check every link to be sure that it doesn't lead to some
> > completely irrelevant article that just happens to have a name in common
> > with what you really wanted?
>
>Why would [[computer worm]] be anything else? Why wouldn't [[worm]] be about
>the most common usage? This is why we have naming conventions that aim to
>naturally disambiguate terms from each other using the least complex naming
>scheme.

The question of what's the "most common usage" is a matter of opinion,
however. Wikipedia is on the Internet, so naturally there's going to be a
lot of computer-oriented people accessing it. I know that when I'm in a
conversation specifically about computer security, I never say "computer
worms" or "computer viruses"; I just say "worms" and "viruses," and the
people I'm talking to know what I'm talking about. Likewise, when I'm
talking about genetics and I mention "viruses", there's usually no
ambiguity there either. I don't think it's good to hard-code an assumption
about what the subject of the linked-from articles will be about.

I recall briefly debating about whether the planet/greek god pages should
be disambiguated or whether the page should belong to the god with a "see
also:" for the planet, and this was another case where I felt that it was
far too opinion-dependant deciding whether the greek god or the planet
should have "precedence."  When I hear "Venus" I think "planet" first, but
I'm sure there are plenty of less astronomically-oriented people out there
who think "god" first and would be put off by having their links lead to
the "wrong" article.

I guess that's my main point, really; I am much less disturbed by clicking
on [[blah]] and getting an article containing a list of alternate meanings
than I am by clicking on [[blah]] and getting a full article about the
_wrong_ meaning ("wrong" in this case simply meaning "not the meaning I had
in mind when I clicked on the link").

>If we can't assume at least some intelligence from our contributors to
>naturally disambiguate terms then we might as well turn [[Paris]] into a
>non-article disambiguation page to catch those pitiful souls who expect to
>link to an article on Paris, Texas by typing [[Paris]] -- just because the
>article they were writing in was in the context of Texas history.

It's a rather extreme example, but yes, I wouldn't have a problem with
that. :) At least it makes Paris, France's article title more standardized
with the other city titles when the reader gets to it.

I think it's a bad idea to assume some kind of universal context when
writing articles, because everyone has a slightly different idea of what
the universal context is.

--
"Let there be light." - Last words of Bomb #20, "Dark Star"


from_name: D Fisher

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Complete breakdown of wikipedia?

body:
For the first month or so that I was involved with wikipedia, I found it great fun and very rewarding.  Then the response problems started, and the enjoyment I get from it has gradually waned until I am now wondering why I even bother to try and log on.  Today, for example, I have attempted to access wikipedia at regular intervals and have never managed to get further than "Recent Changes".  Yesterday was the same.

I realise that the software is maintained on a voluntary basis.  However, if we can't do any better than this, I think we may as well throw in the towel.  What is the point of an encyclopedia that no one is able to read?

Deb

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Nupedia question

body:
I looked for Nupedia and found that it's in Anthomyiidae. I looked on
Nearctica for Anthomyiidae and found that it lists Nupedia only in
parentheses after Pegoplata. Is the name valid?

phma


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
We're getting a new server, and a completely rewritten software (try it out
at http://www.piclab.com/newwiki/wiki.phtml)! Just hang on a little while:)

Magnus

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On
Behalf Of D Fisher
Sent: Saturday, June 29, 2002 7:19 PM
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Complete breakdown of wikipedia?

For the first month or so that I was involved with wikipedia, I found it
great fun and very rewarding.  Then the response problems started, and the
enjoyment I get from it has gradually waned until I am now wondering why I
even bother to try and log on.  Today, for example, I have attempted to
access wikipedia at regular intervals and have never managed to get further
than "Recent Changes".  Yesterday was the same.

I realise that the software is maintained on a voluntary basis.  However, if
we can't do any better than this, I think we may as well throw in the towel.
What is the point of an encyclopedia that no one is able to read?

Deb


subject: [Wikitech-l] Lee, please remove "Jan hidders"

body:
Lee,

Could you please remove the user 'Jan hidders' from the test-Wikipedia.
There seem to be some straing side-effects:
- I cannot get permanently logged out.
- I cannot edit my personal page. (I get an edit-conflect and after saving I
  see the edited result but nothing is reported in Recent Changes and the next
  time I visit the page nothing has changed.)

-- Jan Hidders


from_name: Stephen Gilbert

body:
I know. I've been having the same problems. I'm pretty
busy these days, and it seems that when I have a few
minutes to work on Wikipedia, I can't get anywhere.
Today I was trying to pull up some articles on
copyright issues, but it was slow to the point of
painful.

Are the web server and the database server the same
machine?

-- Stephen Gilbert

--- D Fisher <fisherd at btinternet.com> wrote:
> For the first month or so that I was involved with
> wikipedia, I found it great fun and very rewarding.
> Then the response problems started, and the
> enjoyment I get from it has gradually waned until I
> am now wondering why I even bother to try and log
> on.  Today, for example, I have attempted to access
> wikipedia at regular intervals and have never
> managed to get further than "Recent Changes".
> Yesterday was the same.
>
> I realise that the software is maintained on a
> voluntary basis.  However, if we can't do any better
> than this, I think we may as well throw in the
> towel.  What is the point of an encyclopedia that no
> one is able to read?
>
> Deb
>
>
>
>

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disabling direct SQL access

body:
Since the passwords are out, it might be advisable to disable all
direct SQL access to the database for now; anything else a sysop or
developer can do is logged and so doesn't pose a big problem.

Simply removing special_asksql.php should do the job.

Axel


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Workaround Complete Breakdown

body:
What I have done in order to get in, since I have to be online for hours
anyway, is to open up two browsers. In my case Netscape and Explorer. I put
Explorer (which I don't use at work) on Wiki; then go ahead and work using
Netscape.

When I get in the other browser is useful for looking stuff up and external
sites. Easy to check when there is a lull in things to see if the Wiki page
has come up. Only problem is sometimes have to abandon some edits in the
middle.

Good to see this finally being talked about.

Fred Bauder


from_name: Neil Harris

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia software; Apache vulnerability

body:
I'm seeing the same problems -- Wikipedia is locked up most of the time,
only responding occasionally at random, making it effectively unusable.

Netcraft reports that is is running Apache/1.3.23 (Unix) PHP/4.0.6
mod_fastcgi/2.2.12 on Linux.

There is now a severe Apache  security vulnerability that affects

Apache 1.3 all versions including 1.3.24;
Apache 2.0 all versions up to 2.0.36;
Apache 1.2 all versions.

This looks like something that should be fixed ASAP. And it just might explain some of the problems seen.

-- Neil


body:
On Sunday 30 June 2002 09:51, Jan.Hidders wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 30, 2002 at 08:42:47AM +0100, Neil Harris wrote:
> > I'm seeing the same problems -- Wikipedia is locked up most of the time,
> > only responding occasionally at random, making it effectively unusable.
>
> Indeed. I still have the impression that it has to do with unsuccesful
> searches, but I may be mistaken. Does anybody know when Wikipedia's code
> was updated from CVS for the last time? Or has anybody taken a good look at
> the log-files to see what it is that is causing Wikipedia to grind
> practically to a halt? Are we really sure that it is greedy spiders?

I suspect it is searches for users' contributions. These always take a long
time and almost always time out, even when browsing was fast just before I do
one. It makes no difference how many contributions the user has made. Perhaps
an index is missing and needs to be made.

phma


body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> What I have done in order to get in, since I have to be online for
> hours anyway, is to open up two browsers.

You don't have to run two. Ctrl-N will open a new window of either IE
or Netscape.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


body:
On Sunday 30 June 2002 07:33 am, you wrote:
> The question of what's the "most common usage" is a matter of opinion,
> however. Wikipedia is on the Internet, so naturally there's going to be a
> lot of computer-oriented people accessing it.

OK, then why were there over 50 links to [[virus]] intending to access an
article on the viruses that attack living cells and only 7 that intended to
access computer viruses? The "computer" here naturally disambiguates the term
about viruses that attack computer systems but there is no natural way to
disambiguate the other type of virus. Now each time somebody wants to link
directly to that article about viruses that attack living cells, they have to
write [[virus (biology)|virus]] which is needlessly tedious and can only tend
to_discourage_contributions to those articles.

We need to make linking to articles as easy as possible respecting
<reasonable> ambiguities (50+/7 doesn't cut it).

> I know that when I'm in a
> conversation specifically about computer security, I never say "computer
> worms" or "computer viruses"; I just say "worms" and "viruses," and the
> people I'm talking to know what I'm talking about. Likewise, when I'm
> talking about genetics and I mention "viruses", there's usually no
> ambiguity there either.

Exactly my point. You are talking about these thing in their native context
-- not in the context of a hyperlinked encyclopedia. New contributors get
this concept rather quickly when presented with examples. I don't think it
would be wise to present too many needless examples of parenthetical
disambiguation. As a matter of fact, I am beginning to see the use of
parentheticals when they are not at all needed. For example, one contributor
is making articles on punctuation marks. However, this person at first used
this format: [[exclamation point (punctuation)]] -- as if there was something
else named exclamation points that needed to be differentiated from. New
contributors naturally begin to mimic what they see after their first few
articles.

> I recall briefly debating about whether the planet/Greek god pages should
> be disambiguated or whether the page should belong to the god with a "see
> also:" for the planet, and this was another case where I felt that it was
> far too opinion-dependant deciding whether the Greek god or the planet
> should have "precedence."

I don't have any major issue with the planet/god disambiguation thing -- this
is a case where both things are only known as the same one word term AND
priority really can't be assigned based on amount of usage because the god
usage is much less, but still very significant compared to the planet usage.
Cases like [[Paris]] are less ambiguous with only a small number of
references to the mythical figure and an even smaller number of references to
the other cities by the same name. So priority CAN be assigned.

My whole spin on the parenthetical disambiguation thing, is that it should
only be used in extreme cases where no alternate terms are used. I just HATE
breaking links by directing users to non-articles and I also HATE needless
tedium in creating links (and creating direct links isn't fixed piecemeal as
visitors "drop in by accident" like it was intended -- these links are only
made direct by a systematic campaign by a user or two who have the time and
inclination).

Spontaneous linking is one of the reasons why wikipedia has been a success --
we should do everything reasonable to preserve this by limiting the use of
parenthetical disambiguation and by also limiting the creation of non-article
list disambiguation pages.

--maveric149


body:
On Sunday 30 June 2002 07:33 am, Bryan wrote:
> [Paris] a rather extreme example, but yes, I wouldn't have a problem with
> [[[Paris]] being a disambiguation page] :) At least it makes Paris,
> France's article title more standardized
> with the other city titles when the reader gets to it.

OK, go ahead and fix the hundreds of links to [[Paris]] so that they point to
[[Paris, France]] (which is going to be the new home for this article under
the new city naming convention) and the 10 or so that need to be redirected
to one of the several other meanings of [[Paris]] and then maintain that
disambiguation page by doing the same thing every so often as new
contributors naturally link to THE Paris by simply linking to [[Paris]]. The
whole concept of the disambiguation notice has failed -- people just don't
"go back and fix the link" as requested. Therefore, maintenance shifts to the
person creating these non-articles.

I would prefer however, that since simply saying Paris is almost any context
almost always is unambiguously meant to mean [[Paris, France]], that
[[Paris]] should be a redirect to [[Paris, France]] (giving the French city
redirect priority over the use of the page [[Paris]]).

> I think it's a bad idea to assume some kind of universal context when
> writing articles, because everyone has a slightly different idea of what
> the universal context is.

Well, I guess we should abandon all naming conventions then (which is where
the universal context arises here). If there is no universal context, then
there is no need to naturally disambiguate terms and wikipedia degenerates
into a Jargon file with loads of naming conflicts, misdirected links and an
inordinate amount of the use of tedious piping.

--maveric149


in_reply_to: <3D1EB677.4070803@tonal.clara.co.uk>; from usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk on Sun, Jun 30, 2002 at 08:42:47AM +0100

body:
On Sun, Jun 30, 2002 at 08:42:47AM +0100, Neil Harris wrote:
> I'm seeing the same problems -- Wikipedia is locked up most of the time,
> only responding occasionally at random, making it effectively unusable.

Indeed. I still have the impression that it has to do with unsuccesful
searches, but I may be mistaken. Does anybody know when Wikipedia's code was
updated from CVS for the last time? Or has anybody taken a good look at the
log-files to see what it is that is causing Wikipedia to grind practically
to a halt? Are we really sure that it is greedy spiders?

Jimbo? Anybody?

-- Jan Hidders


body:
At 02:33 PM 6/30/02 -0700, you wrote:
>On Sunday 30 June 2002 07:33 am, Bryan wrote:
> > [Paris] a rather extreme example, but yes, I wouldn't have a problem with
> > [[[Paris]] being a disambiguation page] :) At least it makes Paris,
> > France's article title more standardized
> > with the other city titles when the reader gets to it.
>
>OK, go ahead and fix the hundreds of links to [[Paris]] so that they point to
>[[Paris, France]]

I said I wouldn't have a problem with it, not that I was interested in the
work required to actually do it myself. There are plenty of other things
that are more important to do first IMO. :)

I'm a big supporter of disambiguation pages, I like what they add to the
structure of Wikipedia and don't have a problem with "non-article" pages as
long as they have a useful function. But for the most part, I have largely
just been going around and finding existing disambiguation pages and adding
the proper notices and format to them, and sometimes fixing some of their
links. Perhaps someday the wikipedia software will have tools specifically
tailored to disambiguation, a separate namespace maybe? Or a new type of
redirect syntax that allows for multiple possibilities? That way, the
non-articleness of disambiguation pages wouldn't be as much of an issue.

> > I think it's a bad idea to assume some kind of universal context when
> > writing articles, because everyone has a slightly different idea of what
> > the universal context is.
>
>Well, I guess we should abandon all naming conventions then (which is where
>the universal context arises here). If there is no universal context, then
>there is no need to naturally disambiguate terms and wikipedia degenerates
>into a Jargon file with loads of naming conflicts, misdirected links and an
>inordinate amount of the use of tedious piping.

Now you're just being silly. Good naming conventions are exactly the thing
that helps Wikipedia become a coherent resource _despite_ the fact that
every editor approaches it with a slightly different context; they're the
way we make it clear that an article is about _that_ particular Paris, or
_this_ particular god without having to assume a common context. Naming
conventions mean you don't have to guess a context for an article, it's
explicitly provided in the title.

Redirects and disambiguation pages exist as a way to take links which don't
conform to unambiguous conventions and make them useful anyway; they are
there specifically to _remove_ misdirected links and tedious piping. You
can just link to [[Blah]] and not worry about the reader winding up in the
wrong place. Ideally you'd link to [[Blah (god)|Blah]] or whatever instead,
but with a disambiguation page in place a little sloppiness or laziness
isn't going to hurt anything.

--
"Let there be light." - Last words of Bomb #20, "Dark Star"


body:
On Sun, Jun 30, 2002 at 10:26:19AM -0400, Pierre Abbat wrote:
>
> I suspect it is searches for users' contributions. These always take a
> long time and almost always time out, even when browsing was fast just
> before I do one. It makes no difference how many contributions the user
> has made. Perhaps an index is missing and needs to be made.

Er, surely the developer who programmed that ...

Jimbo? Could you check if there is an index on 'old_user_text' in the table
'old' and on 'cur_user_text' in the table 'cur'? If not please tell MySQL
the following:

ALTER TABLE old ADD INDEX ( old_user_text );

ALTER TABLE cur ADD INDEX ( cur_user_text );

-- Jan Hidders


body:
cur_user_text and old_user_text are "tinyblob", so MySQL won't index them.

I'm not sure, however, if we should make big changes to the database
anymore. The new source from Lee is pretty stable and has a more elaborate
database structure. Try

http://www.piclab.com/wikitest/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target
=Magnus_Manske

for an example of the user contributions.

As we will switch to that codebase when we switch servers, there's probably
no need to fix minor bugs here for the time being.

Magnus

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
> [mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of Jan.Hidders
> Sent: Sunday, June 30, 2002 5:28 PM
> To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia software; Apache vulnerability
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 30, 2002 at 10:26:19AM -0400, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> >
> > I suspect it is searches for users' contributions. These always take a
> > long time and almost always time out, even when browsing was fast just
> > before I do one. It makes no difference how many contributions the user
> > has made. Perhaps an index is missing and needs to be made.
>
> Er, surely the developer who programmed that ...
>
> Jimbo? Could you check if there is an index on 'old_user_text' in
> the table
> 'old' and on 'cur_user_text' in the table 'cur'? If not please tell MySQL
> the following:
>
> ALTER TABLE old ADD INDEX ( old_user_text );
>
> ALTER TABLE cur ADD INDEX ( cur_user_text );
>
> -- Jan Hidders
>
>
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


in_reply_to: <MLEPJFEEOFMFHGIHGJPIIEKMCBAA.magnus.manske@epost.de>; from magnus.manske@epost.de on Sun, Jun 30, 2002 at 05:55:12PM +0200

body:
On Sun, Jun 30, 2002 at 05:55:12PM +0200, Magnus Manske wrote:
> cur_user_text and old_user_text are "tinyblob", so MySQL won't index them.

Hmm, any reason why you didn't make them binary varchar's? But are you sure
our MySQL can't index those? The manual says that since version 3.23.2 you
can index BLOB's if you are using MyISAM tables and we use those.

> As we will switch to that codebase when we switch servers, there's probably
> no need to fix minor bugs here for the time being.

The query without an index looks really really expensive to me. If this is
what makes Wikipedia unusable at the moment, I wouldn't call it a minor bug.
Maybe we could simply turn it off for a short period and see what happens?

-- Jan Hidders


body:
> > cur_user_text and old_user_text are "tinyblob", so MySQL won't
> index them.
>
> Hmm, any reason why you didn't make them binary varchar's? But
> are you sure
> our MySQL can't index those? The manual says that since version 3.23.2 you
> can index BLOB's if you are using MyISAM tables and we use those.

I tried your commands; didn't work because of the BLOB thing.

> > As we will switch to that codebase when we switch servers,
> there's probably
> > no need to fix minor bugs here for the time being.
>
> The query without an index looks really really expensive to me. If this is
> what makes Wikipedia unusable at the moment, I wouldn't call it a
> minor bug.

Any hard evidence to cover that theory?

> Maybe we could simply turn it off for a short period and see what happens?

That's probably worth a shot; we could live without that function for a
while, and there'd be no information loss if we turn it off. Jimbo? Jason?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disabling some features for speed

body:
As an experiment which wouldn't hurt much (certainly not as much as
the current slowdowns), I second the plan to disable the user
contributions feature for now.

Jason or Jimbo, the quickest and dirtiest way to do that would be to
remove/rename the special_contributions.php file.

As mentioned earlier, it would also be good to remove/rename
special_asksql.php because the developer passwords have been
compromised. It is even possible that some of the direct sql queries
are slowing down the site.

Axel


body:
On Sunday 30 June 2002 12:40, Magnus Manske wrote:
> > Maybe we could simply turn it off for a short period and see what
> > happens?
>
> That's probably worth a shot; we could live without that function for a
> while, and there'd be no information loss if we turn it off. Jimbo? Jason?

Well I use it to figure out if a file's junk: if the uploader hasn't
contributed anything, it's junk. But it may be enough to put
special:contributions in robots.txt. I suspect that the robots are reading
those pages more than the people.

phma


from_name: tarquin

body:
If we're going on seniority, [[Paris]] should be the character of Greek
mythology.
At the risk of pouring oil onto the fire, nomenclature like "Paris,
France" is an americanism. In both French and British English, we'd write
Chester (Cheshire), or Antony (Hauts-de-Seine), giving the county or the
departement respectively. For foreign place-names the same style
applied: Delhi (India).
To British ears, expressions like "Paris, Texas" give the impression of
being a single name, that the name isn't "Paris", it actually really is
"Paris, Texas".
Parentheses would fit in with the house style for other diambiguation pages.

On the wider subject of disamb. in general, I think we're getting a
little too bogged down.
Part of what makes an encyclopedia useful -- no, fun -- is crosstalk:
encountering a dozen interesting article while searching for something,
stopping to read them and completely forgetting to look up whatever it
was that prompted one to open the book in the first place.
That's something we don't have on Wikipedia. There's "random page", but
that requires a conscious choice.
What we do have is disambiguation pages. They're a way to hop between
often very different sections of the encyclopedia.
I think we shouldn't bother going back to create pipe links. In brief:

* they're a pain to make
* they're a pain to read in raw markup
* landing on a disambiguation page adds one click to a reader's stream.
big deal. they'll live
* and further, it adds to the diversity of what they read

I'd also like to suggest that in cases where one context of an article
title is particularly prominent, we use a "disambiguation BLOCK" instead
of a page -- that is, open with the standard disambiguation text and
links, but run the principal article below on that page.

tarquin


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

body:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
> To play devil's advocate, I think a case can be made that disambiguation
> pages make spontaneous linking much easier. For example, a contributor
> working on an article about Klez or Ebola could link to [[virus]] without
> having to even realize that there _are_ two alternate uses for the term,
> let alone knowing what specific names they're under; the "virus" link will
> show up as valid, and anyone following it will presumably be able to figure
> out which type of virus was being referred to and move on to the full-scale
> article from there.

Here's a cute idea.

Suppose the virus page is a pure disambiguation page.  It links to
[[biological virus]] and [[computer virus]].  Suppose further that
there is a true/false flag in the database which can be turned on to
indicate that this is a disambiguation page.

Whenever someone saves a page with a link to [[virus]], the system
notices that [[virus]] is a pure disambiguation page, because someone
set that flag.  Then the author is given a chance to select which of
the pages that is really intended: [[virus]], [[biological virus]],
[[computer virus]].

If someone really wants to link to the disamb. page, then they can.  Else,
they are given alternatives.

The text of the article would not be changed, just the link.  [[virus|biological virus]]
for example.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] [lcwiki@hotmail.com: Wikipedia Administrator Access]

body:
Can other people grant this access now, or do I still need to go into the
database directly?

----- Forwarded message from L C <lcwiki at hotmail.com> -----

From: "L C" <lcwiki at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 08:33:45 +0000
To: jwales at bomis.com
Subject: Wikipedia Administrator Access

Jimbo Wales,

I'd like to have wikipedia administrator access, please. I've been
contributing for 11 months (my larger contributions are on user:LC), and
I've collaborated with people like Axel on a number of pages. I'll use the
administrator access carefully.   Thanks,

  --LC

_________________________________________________________________
Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
http://www.hotmail.com

----- End forwarded message -----


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Nupedia question

body:
Pierre Abbat wrote:
> I looked for Nupedia and found that it's in Anthomyiidae. I looked on
> Nearctica for Anthomyiidae and found that it lists Nupedia only in
> parentheses after Pegoplata. Is the name valid?

Wow, I don't know what this means.


subject: [Wikipedia-l] More Arabic

body:
Asmar uploaded a photocopy of a letter in Arabic with the heading
"Al-`ahrab", with what I at firt was a date, but as it says "Almand 50,
1355", it can't be a date on any calendar I'm aware of. It is a list with
five numbered items, but as I don't know Arabic, I have no idea what they are.

If someone uploads something in Arabic to Wikipedia, what, besides delete it,
should I do?

phma


body:
Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:
> I hope that whatever's going on can be fixed quickly... because if
> it's stopping us from working on the pedia it's also stopping anyone
> from accessing articles through Google and using them for research
> purposes.

Well put! I received a complaint [1] Friday at Kuro5hin because I
cited 'pedia articles that couldn't be accessed.

Jimbo, Magnus, Jason, et. al. -- I once again express my deep
gratitude for the resources that you all supply (hardware, software,
bandwidth, and admin). Please keep us all updated about how the
improvements are going and what we can do to help!

I tried to get to http://meta.wikipedia.com/ to see if there was
already a page started to talk about this issue, but I can't get to
it, either. FWIW, I also can't get to http://www.nupedia.com/.

Lest this be a matter of money, follow K5's lead! [2]

<>< Tim

[1] http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2002/6/28/154536/277/10#10
[2] http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/17/23933/5831

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] I'm "published!" Anyone else care about Great Books?

body:
Yesterday was my   4 0 t h   b i r t h d a y. [1] So what a pleasing
gift it was that K5 saw fit to publish to the Culture section a
tribute to Mortimer Adler that I wrote. It was based on edits I
made to Adler's 'pedia article!

Here's the intro the the article [2].  I'd love to hear from
'pedia list members in the K5 comments section.

    Friday, June 28th marked the first anniversary of the passing
    of Mortimer Adler, founder of the Great Books program, so it
    is fitting to enter into a discussion about what should be on
    a list of the absolute best books to read...and why.  Then
    there are the related questions, such as: why did Adler see
    fit to declare a "canon" of great books in the first place?

[1] but I don't want search engines to reveal that fact. :-)
[2] http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/30/10131/1418

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [Wikipedia-l] More Arabic

body:
At 07:05 AM 7/1/02 -0400, Pierre Abbat wrote:
>Asmar uploaded a photocopy of a letter in Arabic with the heading
>"Al-`ahrab", with what I at firt was a date, but as it says "Almand 50,
>1355", it can't be a date on any calendar I'm aware of. It is a list with
>five numbered items, but as I don't know Arabic, I have no idea what they are.
>
>If someone uploads something in Arabic to Wikipedia, what, besides delete it,
>should I do?

Don't delete it.

The upload area is shared by all the Wikipedias, not just the English-language
one; this could very well be an entirely reasonable example or illustration for
the Arabic wiki.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

body:
There might be a half-automatic solution to the problem:
1. We agree that all DPs link to [[wikipedia:Disambiguation page]] or something.
This needs to be done by whomever generates a new DP.
2. It would then be easy to find all DPs by their link to [[wikipedia:Disambiguation
page]].
3. Then, a special page could list all pages that link to these DPs (for
example, all links to [[virus]]). These would be the pages that need to
be "fixed" manually.

4. In a next step, there could be a list of all links from the DP (in this
case, all the pages that [[virus]] links to) as a list next to each page
that needs to be fixed. Choosing one could automagically fix the link.

Note that point 4 is a thing for the far future;)

Magnus

________________________________________
Zeitschriftenabos online bestellen - jetzt neu im Infoboten! http://www.epost.de


subject: [Wikipedia-l] More Arabic

body:
On Monday 01 July 2002 08:40, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> Don't delete it.
>
> The upload area is shared by all the Wikipedias, not just the
> English-language one; this could very well be an entirely reasonable
> example or illustration for the Arabic wiki.

It's still at http://www.wikipedia.com/upload/jj.jpg (I've been repeatedly
hitting reload on the upload page and getting timeouts). Does it look like an
example or illustration for an encyclopedia? Not to me. It looks to me more
like an Arab is using our website as a dead drop.

phma


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] I'm "published!" Anyone else care about Great
    Books?

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition plan

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Nupedia question

body:
:-)  Ahhhhh....

Pierre Abbat wrote:

> On Monday 01 July 2002 09:57, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > Pierre Abbat wrote:
> > > I looked for Nupedia and found that it's in Anthomyiidae. I looked on
> > > Nearctica for Anthomyiidae and found that it lists Nupedia only in
> > > parentheses after Pegoplata. Is the name valid?
> >
> > Wow, I don't know what this means.
>
> Haven't you read on Wikipedia that Nupedia is a kind of fly? Anthomyiidae is
> what kind of fly it is (a flower fly). Nearctica is a website that has some
> taxonomy data.
>
> phma
> [Wikipedia-l]
> To manage your subscription to this list, please go here:
> http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


body:
I'm having zero ability to access the wikipedia over the last few days
too... it used to be that I could use it just fine during the Australian
daytime, but once the sun rose in America I couldn't do anything because
there was too much traffic and everything timed out. This week access
speed has dropped down to zero 24/7...

I hope that whatever's going on can be fixed quickly... because if it's
stopping us from working on the pedia it's also stopping anyone from
accessing articles through Google and using them for research purposes.

--

Karen AKA Kajikit

You can take the dragon out of Alfandra, but you can never take Alfandra
out of the dragon (or the Kitty)...

Come and visit my part of the web:
Kajikit's Corner: http://Kajikit.netfirms.com/
Aussie Support Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AussieSupport
Allergyfree Eating Recipe Swap:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Allergyfree_Eating

Love and huggles to all!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Nupedia question

body:
On Monday 01 July 2002 09:57, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Pierre Abbat wrote:
> > I looked for Nupedia and found that it's in Anthomyiidae. I looked on
> > Nearctica for Anthomyiidae and found that it lists Nupedia only in
> > parentheses after Pegoplata. Is the name valid?
>
> Wow, I don't know what this means.

Haven't you read on Wikipedia that Nupedia is a kind of fly? Anthomyiidae is
what kind of fly it is (a flower fly). Nearctica is a website that has some
taxonomy data.

phma


from_name: Brion L. VIBBER

subject: [Wikipedia-l] More Arabic

body:
> At 07:05 AM 7/1/02 -0400, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> >Asmar uploaded a photocopy of a letter in Arabic with the heading
> >"Al-`ahrab", with what I at firt was a date, but as it says "Almand 50,
> >1355", it can't be a date on any calendar I'm aware of. It is a list with
> >five numbered items, but as I don't know Arabic, I have no idea what they are.

Note another number at the bottom that looks like a Gregorian year:
1937, which is equivalent for part of the year to 1355 in the Islamic
calendar.

However, I also cannot read Arabic (nor other languages written in
arabic script), so can't much help to figure out what it is.

> >If someone uploads something in Arabic to Wikipedia, what, besides delete it,
> >should I do?

On lun, 2002-07-01 at 05:40, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> Don't delete it.
>
> The upload area is shared by all the Wikipedias, not just the English-language
> one; this could very well be an entirely reasonable example or illustration for
> the Arabic wiki.

Doubtful. The Arabic wiki is not what I'd call very active:
http://ar.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=rc&days=90

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Nupedia question

body:
Turns out I was wrong: Anthomyiidae are root-maggot flies, and Syrphidae are
flower flies. Anthomyia sounds like flower fly to me...

phma


body:
On Monday 01 July 2002 07:34 am, you wrote:
> I'd also like to suggest that in cases where one context of an article
> title is particularly prominent, we use a "disambiguation BLOCK" instead
> of a page -- that is, open with the standard disambiguation text and
> links, but run the principal article below on that page.
>
>
> tarquin

Sounds good to me - just have to work some type of acceptable format.

--maveric149


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] I'm "published!" Anyone else care about Great
	Books?

body:
On 7/1/02 10:35 AM, "Tim Chambers" <tbchambers at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Yesterday was my   4 0 t h   b i r t h d a y. [1] So what a pleasing
> gift it was that K5 saw fit to publish to the Culture section a
> tribute to Mortimer Adler that I wrote. It was based on edits I
> made to Adler's 'pedia article!
>
And my 26th! How about that. June 30th is a good day.

yours,
tc


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

subject: [Wikitech-l] Transition plan

body:
On Mon, Jul 01, 2002 at 11:00:17AM -0700, lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> I got all the conversion scripts working well now, and the runtime
> down to under 3 hours (it was over 12 when I started!), so I think a
> smooth transition will be possible.  The code has been running on the
> new server for couple of days now and seems fast, but then it has no
> load.  If someone out there has a good way to stress test it, let me
> know.
>
> We've had a great round of QA--lots of testing this last week, and
> while I've kept the code semi-frozen I did fix some things that would
> have been problems for the live installation, and I've got a good
> list of feature requests to work on (though I suspect the first week
> or two after installation will be devoted to performance tuning the
> server settings with timing data we get from live operation).
> Special thanks to Magnus, who did a lot of testing and found some
> good stuff.
>
> I still don't have all the images--I'd really like to get all of
> those over and installed and tested before I do anything else, but
> assuming that goes well, below is my initial idea for a transition
> plan.  Give me some feedback on it:
[cut]

1. Where is test site for new Wikipedia now ? Old address doesn't seem
   to work anymore.
2. Will links from non-English Wikipedias to images on their old
   locations still work ?
3. Will non-English Wikipedias be affected by the move.

(I cc to intlwiki because of these issues)


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Batman

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from_name: Toby Bartels

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Years in review and the need for editorial judgement

body:
Robert Merkel wrote in part:

>2) I think it's important to be able to weed entries that
>clearly aren't of much importance even when the page isn't
>full, so the Year In Review articles remain useful even as
>they are constructed.  However, I'd like guidelines to back
>up any edits so there's reasons I can point to that say,
>"No, the release of GigaBlaster XIV for the Nintendo 64 isn't
>important enough to warrant a mention here.  That's why I've
>moved it to the [[Video Games released in 1997]] page according
>to the criteria for inclusion on the Year In Review" page.

As far as what I was thinking of for [[Books_published_in_1962]],
a valid excuse for exclusion even from *that* page is
"This is not a reasonable subject for an encyclopaedia article.".
If you would vote for a page to be deleted on those grounds,
then you could remove it from [[1962]], citing the same reasons.
And we could make it policy that nothing be added to
[[Books_published_in_1962]] until *after* an article has been written;
in fact, this page would begin something like:

"This is a list of all [[book]]s published in [[1962]]
"that have articles about them on Wikipedia.
"
"* [[Silent Spring]], by [[Rachel Carson]]
"* [[Stranger in a Strange Land]], by [[Robert Heinlein]]
etc.

(Hopefully we would *have* an article on Silent Spring by this point,
given that we seem to agree that it deserves to be listed on [[1962]] itself.)

I also suspect that, if old hands get into arguments with rabid fans,
that rather than "You need to write an article on this book before listing it.",
the discussion will be more effective it goes like this:
* "This is not a reasonable subject for an encyclopaedia article."
* "It is too!!1  Robert Heinlein is the l33test writer ever, d00d."
* "OK, then prove it: write an interesting, substantive article
   on this particular book, and ''then'' list it."
After all, if they meet a challenge put like *that*,
then it will all be worth it.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby at math.ucr.edu


subject: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

in_reply_to: <20020629082912.HYWQ903.sccrmhc03.attbi.com@there>; from maveric149@yahoo.com on Sat, Jun 29, 2002 at 01:21:43AM -0700

body:
As a relative newbie that entered Wikipedia
during the full flower of disambiguation pages,
I'd like to give my response to the discussion so far.

I think it's clear that some ambiguous pages,
most obviously [[Paris]] but also for that matter [[Virus]],
should be primarily about the most common sense of the term,
while other pages such as [[Venus]] should only disambiguate.
However, the difference between these examples is not vital
and can safely be decided on a case by case basis.

What's important to me is that Bryan Derksen is right,
and we should make sure that he continues to be right:
If a writer makes a spontaneous link to an ambiguous name,
then readers can get to the right page after one more link.
Is it ideal that the link read "[[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]]"
rather than just "[[Mercury]]"?  Yes.  Is it necessary?  No.
I can easily imagine a writer in the heat of a computer article
typing "[[worm]]" without thinking if that makes global sense,
but if they do, then this causes only minimal damage.
The encyclopaedia is still readable, even easily so,
as long as the article [[Worm]] begins something like

"''This article is about worms, the animals. There is also a Wikipedia article about [[computer worm]]s.''
"
"----
"
"A '''worm''' is any of numerous relatively small elongated soft-bodied
etc.

(Currently, the computer bit is at the bottom, which I too don't like.
But I think that it's important to keep the top stuff *short* --
get people to the right page, and then start the article.)

As a reader, disambiguation pages have worked for me.
As a writer, I try to link directly but I know that I make mistakes;
I hope that disambiguation pages are there to catch them.

-- Toby Bartels
   toby at math.ucr.edu

PS:

You know what would make writing unambiguous links easier?
I'd like to say "[[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]]" without repeating "Mercury".
Would it work to have a feature such that, say, "[[Mercury]](planet)"
(with no space) produces that effect?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Batman

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Batman

body:
A ...Batman.mp3 file appeared in uploads without anyone uploading it. Who
uploaded it? Is it a delenda, or does it pertain to a Batman article?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Batman

body:
On Tuesday 02 July 2002 00:51, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> I don't see that file in log:uploads. --?

As I said. You have to hit the upload files link to see it.

phma


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

body:
On Tuesday 02 July 2002 01:29, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> كاس العالم 01.jpg

Several people have tried to delete it. Can someone who can log in to the box
delete it?

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Batman

body:
On Tuesday 02 July 2002 01:18, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> I'm sorry.  Not reading closely enough.  Well, that's a copyright
> violation, as is batman.bmp.  "off with their heads".  :-)  I'd delete them
> myself, except I changed my password and promptly forgot what I changed it
> to--hence I'm no longer logged in & can't log in.

.i mi vimcu le stedu ti .ijafu'inai mi troci

mi'e pier.


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

body:
Do not delete che.png.  I uploaded it, and it is not a copyright
violation.
--
 Sean Barrett     | Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
 sean at epoptic.com |

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 22:30
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

كاس العالم 01.jpg
honey.jpg
sebasww203.jpg (just too large to be of practical use, though its
companion may be relevant)
2.bmp (uncompressed)
murf.jpg (cute dog.  did he save the President's life?)
murf2.jpg ""
che.png (I love you, Che, but 10 gets you 100 you're a copyright
violation)Foto1.JPG (nice lighting.  adjust levels in photoshop and crop
some and you'd have a good picture.  do that and put it on a personal
page and you'd have a good picture in its proper context)

0


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

body:
United States government, which was rather interested in the fellow.
;->
Specifically the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of
Congress.

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com
[mailto:wikipedia-l-admin at nupedia.com]On Behalf Of
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 07:32
To: wikipedia-l at nupedia.com
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

wow.  My first impression of any post-1900 artwork is "copyrighted."
Where did you find it (commissioned by the Cuban government?).

kq

You Wrote:
>Do not delete che.png.  I uploaded it, and it is not a copyright
>violation.
>--
> Sean Barrett     | Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
> sean at epoptic.com |
0


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Batman

body:
On Tuesday 02 July 2002 04:28, koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> I don't speak lojban, I'm sorry.  Could you translate that?

I'm taking their heads off - or at least I'm trying.
To which Lee Daniel answered:
Are you wrong you're aware of the Nupedia group?

({ko le stedu ti vimcu} or {ko vimcu le stedu ti} is what the Queen says in
the Lojban translation of Alice.)

phma


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

body:
While we're on the subject:

Someone seems to be a little too focused on small towns in the United
States. I came across the disambiguation page for "Eureka" a couple of
days ago. It had what seems to be boilerplate of "is the name of some
places in the United States," then a list of two, one with an article, the
other not.

No mention of Archimedes, what "eureka" means, or why towns might be
named that.

I added same (brief, with link to Archimedes), but it has me wondering
whether umpteen pages that note that there are two or more US towns named X,
none of which you've heard of or we've written about, and nothing else are
useful
even as disambiguation.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


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subject: [Wikipedia-l] other irrelevant uploads

body:
At 07:32 AM 7/2/02 -0700, Sean Barrett wrote:
>United States government, which was rather interested in the fellow.
>;->
>Specifically the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of
>Congress.
Did the US government produce this image? If so, it's public domain.
Otherwise, probably not: just about everything in copyright in the US is
in the Library of Congress, because of how copyright registration works.

>wow.  My first impression of any post-1900 artwork is "copyrighted."
>Where did you find it (commissioned by the Cuban government?).
>
>kq
>
>You Wrote:
> >Do not delete che.png.  I uploaded it, and it is not a copyright
> >violation.
> >--
> > Sean Barrett     | Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
> > sean at epoptic.com |

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Disambiguation pages

body:
On Tuesday 02 July 2002 02:10 am, Toby Bartels wrote:
> What's important to me is that Bryan Derksen is right,
> and we should make sure that he continues to be right:

Just a clarification -- I have not been arguing for the abolition, or even
serious curtailing of the disambiguation process or even of disambiguation
pages themselves as they currently are. My concern has been over the increase
in the creation of disambiguation pages in cases where there has
been_any_ambiguity over what is meant by a given term -- even when there is
an obvious most common use of the term (at least in the form presented --
[[worm]] for example). The reasoning behind my view, is that I wish to
preserve spontaneous linking to articles whenever possible, so that we can
avoid parenthetical disambiguation like [[worm (biology)]] (because, unlike
computer worms, the animals are only known as "worms" in English -- which
included several phyla of animals).

> "''This article is about worms, the animals. There is also a Wikipedia
> article about [[computer worm]]s.'' "

I love it! Short, to the point and quickly directs people to where they need
to go. This way the page titled [[worm]] can be both a disambiguation page
(in block format) AND an article about the most common usage of the simple
term "worm" (use of the word "worm" by itself in a computer article is just
jargon, "computer worm" is what is used when context must be established by
the term itself -- such as in a hypertext encyclopedia or in news reporting).

> Currently, the computer bit is at the bottom, which I too don't like.

I've never been very comfortable with using "see also" for disambiguation
either -- I just couldn't think of a way to make it work at the top of the
page (and my early attempts were ugly and quickly reverted by others).

> But I think that it's important to keep the top stuff *short* --
> get people to the right page, and then start the article.

I agree.

--maveric149