Wikipedia is a project to write an encyclopedia for the world, not just for comfortable well-fed First World citizens with good broadband. We've always intended to release stable finished versions.
Complaining about errors in Wikipedia is like running CVS HEAD and complaining about bugs.
You realise of course that anyone can now check anon edits by/24 or/16, and those with CheckUser power can check all edits from any range from/31 to/16...
Actually, no - the default MediaWiki search is the crappy MySQL text search. The Wikimedia projects actually use another text search, written in Mono and based on Lucene. Which sucks ass a little less. Marginally.
Yes, except the community of News Limited editors don't frequently tell Rupert Murdoch to get knotted...
Wikimedia is not top-down at all. It's nonprofit politics all the way through. (Anyone in academia or the nonprofit sector should be recoiling in horror right now.) I'm occasionally amazed that somehow enough of the politics has been gotten past to get a useful web encyclopedia actually written.
Or Wine. We use Wine to run an obscure piece of Windows crapware written by a company that's out of business. The current Wine versions are surprisingly good. If shifting off Windows is being held back by one piece of crapware, it's really really worth seeing if you can beat Wine into running it.
Search on Wikipedia is indeed deeply sucky. But there's about ten active developers. Like, for the whole thing. So the solution to the problem is to think really hard and get coding.
(At least the present Lucene-based search is better than the old MySQL inbuilt search. Ew.)
Hi, I'm a UK press volunteer for Wikimedia and got quoted in some of yesterday's media coverage. As well as answering press calls all afternoon yesterday, I was writing emails back and forth and drafting possible press releases for Wikipedia all evening.
At this stage, I think the team at Microsoft have realised this isn't a good way to get their point of view covered sensibly in the article, and get the idea that this is a conflict of interest. So now it's an editorial matter, really.
IMO, the main problem to deal with is that both the OOXML and OpenDocument articles need serious attention from editors who are knowledgeable in the areas but care most about writing the encyclopedia. I put some calls out on the wikien-l mailing list for editors experienced in this sort of on-wiki conflict.
(What tends to happen is that an article or subject area attracts a core of editors who may have vast disagreements on the topic, but are (a) capable of writing neutrally in ways all sides can live with (b) are most annoyed when people they nominally agree with write stupid things.)
It should be obvious that paid editing from a very interested player is a conflict of interest, and no reasonable person should need more than to have it pointed out. That said, I've asked Doug Mchugh and Rick Jelliffe to keep contributing to the OOXML talk page and I hope they'll give some much-needed cluefulness to both the OOXML and OpenDocument pages. MS technical participation via the talk page is entirely appropriate.
And damn the advocates and anti-advocates; I certainly do, frequently.
Your use of it is absolutely correct - it's not a primary source, but it's a damn good backgrounder with (hopefully) good references, and often very good indeed (we do try to make it as good as we can, and IMAO often do very well).
We say to the press "it's not 'reliable' but it is useful" every time the question comes up (they understand this, as every journalist LOVES Wikipedia because it's the universal backgrounder resource), and we have a lengthy disclaimer linked on every single page. I suppose we could have a flashing popup every time someone looks at an article... but ultimately, there's no possible disclaimer we could put on a page that absolves a hypothetical stupid reader of stupid. If they're not going to apply some minimal quantity of thought, we can't apply it for them. If they're looking for someone to blame for them not thinking and are upset we're unwilling to take the blame for them not thinking, erm, too bad.
"Most people think of encyclopedia as being one of the most authoritative references around."
See, that may be the problem. Wikipedia obviously cannot claim that sort of authority by the way it's written. However, the science articles tested out about as good as the ones in Britannica, which does claim that sort of authority.
Ultimately, anyone who claims "trust us, you can stop thinking now" is selling you snake oil. Wikipedia unfortunately serves to show up other sources as unreliable.
MUSTELASBURG, Deutsche Demokratische Republik, Monday (Neues Deutschland) -- Microsoft and Trabant have unveiled a complete new software system for car drivers. The "Sink" platform, introduced at the Mustelasburg auto show, will be available in over 12 Trabant vehicles this year.
The agreement is part of a constant quest by Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, for fresh vistas beyond the office supply market it dominates. Trabant, meanwhile, hopes that new technology will help it solve the problem of dwindling market share even in its home German market. "The market potential is absolutely enormous," said Markus Fields, Trabant's president for the DDR. The Trabant Langeshorn promises to be "an experience like no other."
Microsoft is bringing its expertise to bear on all aspects of the new Trabant Langeshorn:
* Improved compatibility with the original motor-tricycle version of the Trabant, while maintaining at least its level of crash safety. Not that the Trabant Langeshorn crashes. * The two cylinders of the two-stroke engine will be doubled in size, shortening the 0 to 100 km/h time to three hours and forty minutes, half what it was in previous models. * A colouring agent ("Aero") will be added to the exhaust, to accurately recreate the vapour trail of the twenty-first century flying car those people in the West are supposed to have by now. * The phenolic reinforced plastic body will be doubled in thickness for added crash protection. Not that the Trabant Langeshorn crashes. * Other "Aero" enhancements in the Trabant Langeshorn include pink alloy wheels, a musical horn playing "Die Internationale" and a metre-high spoiler.
"The thrust of our new model of car is to make it more attractive to Trabant owners," said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. "Any Trabant driver knows Ferrari owners are just losers with penis-size issues and that their market share is insignificant. Ferrari just keeps proving over and over that it can't come out with a popularly priced Trabant-like model."
Microsoft expected its marketing muscle to go far in this new market battle. "Just imagine the joy a Ferrari mechanic will feel when they finally get to work on a market leader with industry muscle behind it like the Trabant."
THE BUNKER, Redmond, Monday (UnSlash) -- Microsoft is expanding its fight against software piracy with a new educational effort that includes comics. The online campaign, set to start on Monday, is meant to tell people the benefits of using properly licensed software.
Dubbed "Genuine Fact Files," Microsoft plans to draw attention to it through banner ads on its Web sites and promotional material that it will hand out through partners.
The campaign is designed to degrade the comic if viewed by unlicensed readers. Legitimate verified licensed users of Vista with Aero will see it in three-dimensional High Definition at 1080×600 at 80 frames per second. Legitimate verified users of Windows XP will see it in two-dimensional 640×480 at 30 frames per second. People attempting to read it on a Macintosh will see 160×120 double-sized "chunky" black and white pixel art at ten frames per second, and users trying to view it on Linux will automatically be reported to local law enforcement.
Microsoft has escalated its effort to combat piracy since mid-2005. Windows XP now checks your license key against Microsoft's database each login. Windows Vista requires a retina scan before enabling high-end features, and the forthcoming Windows Blackcomb will require a blood sample each time you log on.
Microsoft tried to enlist Disney to its anti-piracy efforts, but this was vetoed for some reason by Disney board member and single largest shareholder Steve Jobs. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA," Jobs was reported to have reacted to the suggestion. "Bill, you kill me," he said, looking forward to the next time he visited the Gates for dinner.
While some of the measures have irked some users, Microsoft says such steps are justified because piracy is rampant and hurting its sales. Linux users fired up their copies of AIGLX and Looking Glass, with fast 3-D rotating graphics, running two to six times as fast as similar effects on Vista on one-third the CPU, and laughed and laughed and laughed, looking forward to the next few years.
Slashdot Mirror
Because this is pretty much a proof of concept release. It says "0.5" and means it.
The version number says 0.5 and means it. This is pretty much proof of concept for the method.
Complaining about errors in Wikipedia is like running CVS HEAD and complaining about bugs.
You realise of course that anyone can now check anon edits by /24 or /16, and those with CheckUser power can check all edits from any range from /31 to /16 ...
And in Wikipedia ... the devs are the ones with the real power.
Extensions are good because you can track the main releases and help make existing extensions to this end more robust, which is the secret open sauce.
Actually, no - the default MediaWiki search is the crappy MySQL text search. The Wikimedia projects actually use another text search, written in Mono and based on Lucene. Which sucks ass a little less. Marginally.
Wikimedia is not top-down at all. It's nonprofit politics all the way through. (Anyone in academia or the nonprofit sector should be recoiling in horror right now.) I'm occasionally amazed that somehow enough of the politics has been gotten past to get a useful web encyclopedia actually written.
Or Wine. We use Wine to run an obscure piece of Windows crapware written by a company that's out of business. The current Wine versions are surprisingly good. If shifting off Windows is being held back by one piece of crapware, it's really really worth seeing if you can beat Wine into running it.
File a bug ;-p
Not sure about storage. The database dumps are here: http://download.wikimedia.org/ - those are bzipped or 7zipped.
http://isr.uncc.edu/repliwiki/
(At least the present Lucene-based search is better than the old MySQL inbuilt search. Ew.)
And Jimbo is an Ayn Rand fan, libertarian and Objectivist who made his bucks in options trading. If that's socialist ...
I am unaware of this alleged "busting", FWIW.
What you're after is http://wikinfo.org/ .
At this stage, I think the team at Microsoft have realised this isn't a good way to get their point of view covered sensibly in the article, and get the idea that this is a conflict of interest. So now it's an editorial matter, really.
IMO, the main problem to deal with is that both the OOXML and OpenDocument articles need serious attention from editors who are knowledgeable in the areas but care most about writing the encyclopedia. I put some calls out on the wikien-l mailing list for editors experienced in this sort of on-wiki conflict.
(What tends to happen is that an article or subject area attracts a core of editors who may have vast disagreements on the topic, but are (a) capable of writing neutrally in ways all sides can live with (b) are most annoyed when people they nominally agree with write stupid things.)
It should be obvious that paid editing from a very interested player is a conflict of interest, and no reasonable person should need more than to have it pointed out. That said, I've asked Doug Mchugh and Rick Jelliffe to keep contributing to the OOXML talk page and I hope they'll give some much-needed cluefulness to both the OOXML and OpenDocument pages. MS technical participation via the talk page is entirely appropriate.
And damn the advocates and anti-advocates; I certainly do, frequently.
There is such a fork: wikinfo.org, a Wikipedia fork which has a Sympathetic Point Of View policy.
We say to the press "it's not 'reliable' but it is useful" every time the question comes up (they understand this, as every journalist LOVES Wikipedia because it's the universal backgrounder resource), and we have a lengthy disclaimer linked on every single page. I suppose we could have a flashing popup every time someone looks at an article
See, that may be the problem. Wikipedia obviously cannot claim that sort of authority by the way it's written. However, the science articles tested out about as good as the ones in Britannica, which does claim that sort of authority.
Ultimately, anyone who claims "trust us, you can stop thinking now" is selling you snake oil. Wikipedia unfortunately serves to show up other sources as unreliable.
MUSTELASBURG, Deutsche Demokratische Republik, Monday (Neues Deutschland) -- Microsoft and Trabant have unveiled a complete new software system for car drivers. The "Sink" platform, introduced at the Mustelasburg auto show, will be available in over 12 Trabant vehicles this year.
The agreement is part of a constant quest by Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, for fresh vistas beyond the office supply market it dominates. Trabant, meanwhile, hopes that new technology will help it solve the problem of dwindling market share even in its home German market. "The market potential is absolutely enormous," said Markus Fields, Trabant's president for the DDR. The Trabant Langeshorn promises to be "an experience like no other."
Microsoft is bringing its expertise to bear on all aspects of the new Trabant Langeshorn:
* Improved compatibility with the original motor-tricycle version of the Trabant, while maintaining at least its level of crash safety. Not that the Trabant Langeshorn crashes.
* The two cylinders of the two-stroke engine will be doubled in size, shortening the 0 to 100 km/h time to three hours and forty minutes, half what it was in previous models.
* A colouring agent ("Aero") will be added to the exhaust, to accurately recreate the vapour trail of the twenty-first century flying car those people in the West are supposed to have by now.
* The phenolic reinforced plastic body will be doubled in thickness for added crash protection. Not that the Trabant Langeshorn crashes.
* Other "Aero" enhancements in the Trabant Langeshorn include pink alloy wheels, a musical horn playing "Die Internationale" and a metre-high spoiler.
"The thrust of our new model of car is to make it more attractive to Trabant owners," said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. "Any Trabant driver knows Ferrari owners are just losers with penis-size issues and that their market share is insignificant. Ferrari just keeps proving over and over that it can't come out with a popularly priced Trabant-like model."
Microsoft expected its marketing muscle to go far in this new market battle. "Just imagine the joy a Ferrari mechanic will feel when they finally get to work on a market leader with industry muscle behind it like the Trabant."
THE BUNKER, Redmond, Monday (UnSlash) -- Microsoft is expanding its fight against software piracy with a new educational effort that includes comics. The online campaign, set to start on Monday, is meant to tell people the benefits of using properly licensed software.
Dubbed "Genuine Fact Files," Microsoft plans to draw attention to it through banner ads on its Web sites and promotional material that it will hand out through partners.
The campaign is designed to degrade the comic if viewed by unlicensed readers. Legitimate verified licensed users of Vista with Aero will see it in three-dimensional High Definition at 1080×600 at 80 frames per second. Legitimate verified users of Windows XP will see it in two-dimensional 640×480 at 30 frames per second. People attempting to read it on a Macintosh will see 160×120 double-sized "chunky" black and white pixel art at ten frames per second, and users trying to view it on Linux will automatically be reported to local law enforcement.
Microsoft has escalated its effort to combat piracy since mid-2005. Windows XP now checks your license key against Microsoft's database each login. Windows Vista requires a retina scan before enabling high-end features, and the forthcoming Windows Blackcomb will require a blood sample each time you log on.
Microsoft tried to enlist Disney to its anti-piracy efforts, but this was vetoed for some reason by Disney board member and single largest shareholder Steve Jobs. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA," Jobs was reported to have reacted to the suggestion. "Bill, you kill me," he said, looking forward to the next time he visited the Gates for dinner.
While some of the measures have irked some users, Microsoft says such steps are justified because piracy is rampant and hurting its sales. Linux users fired up their copies of AIGLX and Looking Glass, with fast 3-D rotating graphics, running two to six times as fast as similar effects on Vista on one-third the CPU, and laughed and laughed and laughed, looking forward to the next few years.
The most important thing IMO is that more good open content is good for everyone.
What Jimbo did was remove his previous objection to nofollow, rather than dictate its presence. Slight distinction.
No, I said his role as president of Wikia and founder of Wikipedia are separate.