I don't see why this would be the case. As there is no harm from the project, and a great deal of good will come from it. We aren't trying to destroy or compete with Wikipedia. What harm is there in creating an offsite "stable revisions" version of Wikipedia that gives proper attribution and encourages people to fix articles?
Kind of like how Wikipedia isn't competing with EB.:-)
Yeah, that's right. What part of "Rather than ask for donations from our primary target audience of teachers and students, we believe that unobtrusive advertising is preferred.. the money earned will be used to keep this site alive and vibrant, to sponsor contests to improve content, and to support other efforts to bring high quality free content to people everywhere" don't you understand? Perhaps you missed the prominent link urging people to donate to the WMF on the main page of the site?
And who says that it's "someone else's work"? Almost all the articles I uploaded were fixed by myself, and almost all of them got FA status.
Obviously you didn't read the FAQ. The site is excellent because to upload to Veropedia, you need to have quality work. If you can't find a quality revision, then you must work on the article, then upload it.
They are copyrighting someone else's code. See http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/user-agreement - the source has the following:// OpenPopUpLite 2.0.1 action by Nate Baldwin, www.mindpalette.com, copyright 2004
SCRIPT TERMS & CONDITIONS: By downloading and using our scripts and plug-ins, you assume all responsibility for their use or misuse and agree that we are not responsible or liable for any damages they may cause, directly or indirectly. MindPalette is under no obligation to provide product support or installation help. All scripts and plug-ins are offered as-is and at your own risk.
---
Seems to me that the one's infringing copyright might be the lawyers.
I disagree. The issue here is that many people signed up for only one reason: to push through a dodgy standard. You can't compare this to the U.S. voting to kick everyone out, then making a claim that they have unanimous support for their War on Terror (tm).
The difference? If the U.S. did this with the U.N. then countries would respond - volubly. With this standards process, the committee can state that those who don't participate in the discussions have a limited time frame with which to participate. If they don't, then they cancel their membership.
This is actually the only solution that I can think of that would solve this impasse. It also has the happy side-effect of actually strengthening the standards process, as the more people who respond the better the standard becomes.
Actually, I found it pretty amusing and I'm an Aussie. Pretty much as amusing as a former New Zealand Prime Minister (I forget which one) who said that every time a New Zealander leaves NZ to soak up the sun on Bondi beach and collect the dole the average IQ of both countries rises.
But those Customs guys don't have much of a sense of humour. Suggest that no American or Brit tries the joke out to see what happens.
I don't disagree. See my [[Exploding whale]] article. I don't believe that what you refer to is trivia though, that is useful information about a cultural phenomenon.
But that is precisely what I've been trying to do! However, I keep getting messages from bots that images that things are being deleted, or a GA sweep team goes through and marks an article I wrote as not good, even though they are applying too high a standard to the article. Or I come back after a few months and find that [[Architecture of Windows NT]] has been crapped over so badly that it's no longer FA worthy. Basically, any contributions I've made seem to be starting to degrade, and I have to constantly watch articles I've got to FA status to make sure some idiot doesn't come along and destroy it.
I'm in totally agreement that Wikipedia requires a ground up revamp of the Wikipedia political system to avoid rewarding those with time on their hands and an ability to game the system and to reward those with knowledge they wish to share.
Yeah, I have felt this way before, but never to this extend. My problem is that the project is trying to do something awesome, yet those who only care about things other than articles are the ones who gain the most respect. That's pretty disheartening. And it really isn't that much fun anymore - I certainly don't get paid for editing.
I appreciate that you aren't talking about me... it's quite painful to say what I'm saying right now. For those who don't know me, I'm one of the more active contributors to Wikipedia. I've been with the project for a long time, I have at least 4 articles that have hit the main page, I started the admin noticeboard and helped form important policy (I made fair use stricter). I've also dealt with numerous trolls, protected many articles, rollback numerous vandalism and done a fair amount of article deletions.
There has lately been a concerted push to make trivia acceptable. This would have been unthinkable a year ago. Then there is the service awards, with an award for 5 years contributions and 40,000 edits. That's the direction that Wikipedia is taking, and it isn't pretty.
I'm afraid, however, that those who deal with background politics will remain, and good contributors will leave. Thus Wikipedia will die a slow and painful death, and leave the world poorer for it.
I'm definitely in total agreement. There are just too many processes. It's not fun to work on Wikipedia any more. Newer and less clueful editors are signing up, but I don't see articles getting improved.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see why this would be the case. As there is no harm from the project, and a great deal of good will come from it. We aren't trying to destroy or compete with Wikipedia. What harm is there in creating an offsite "stable revisions" version of Wikipedia that gives proper attribution and encourages people to fix articles?
:-)
Kind of like how Wikipedia isn't competing with EB.
Yeah, that's right. What part of "Rather than ask for donations from our primary target audience of teachers and students, we believe that unobtrusive advertising is preferred.. the money earned will be used to keep this site alive and vibrant, to sponsor contests to improve content, and to support other efforts to bring high quality free content to people everywhere" don't you understand? Perhaps you missed the prominent link urging people to donate to the WMF on the main page of the site?
And who says that it's "someone else's work"? Almost all the articles I uploaded were fixed by myself, and almost all of them got FA status.
Obviously you didn't read the FAQ. The site is excellent because to upload to Veropedia, you need to have quality work. If you can't find a quality revision, then you must work on the article, then upload it.
Exploiting Wikipedia? I think not.
How does one donate to Project Gutenberg?
Did that take some time for you to post?
Those who laugh last, didn't get the joke.
"Buncha good people to eat"???
Whoa. Not my idea of fun...
They are copyrighting someone else's code. See http://www.cybertriallawyer.com/user-agreement - the source has the following: // OpenPopUpLite 2.0.1 action by Nate Baldwin, www.mindpalette.com, copyright 2004
Yet from MindPalette's website, it says:
SCRIPT TERMS & CONDITIONS: By downloading and using our scripts and plug-ins, you assume all responsibility for their use or misuse and agree that we are not responsible or liable for any damages they may cause, directly or indirectly. MindPalette is under no obligation to provide product support or installation help. All scripts and plug-ins are offered as-is and at your own risk.
---
Seems to me that the one's infringing copyright might be the lawyers.
Yes, like all climate change discussions, it's indeed undular boring.
I disagree. The issue here is that many people signed up for only one reason: to push through a dodgy standard. You can't compare this to the U.S. voting to kick everyone out, then making a claim that they have unanimous support for their War on Terror (tm).
The difference? If the U.S. did this with the U.N. then countries would respond - volubly. With this standards process, the committee can state that those who don't participate in the discussions have a limited time frame with which to participate. If they don't, then they cancel their membership.
This is actually the only solution that I can think of that would solve this impasse. It also has the happy side-effect of actually strengthening the standards process, as the more people who respond the better the standard becomes.
Hmmm... ignore previous comment. I misread the parent poster.
You know, I don't really find it very hard to install Ubuntu packages. Synaptic isn't that nice, but apt-get install is really pretty simple.
Actually, I found it pretty amusing and I'm an Aussie. Pretty much as amusing as a former New Zealand Prime Minister (I forget which one) who said that every time a New Zealander leaves NZ to soak up the sun on Bondi beach and collect the dole the average IQ of both countries rises.
But those Customs guys don't have much of a sense of humour. Suggest that no American or Brit tries the joke out to see what happens.
Awesome.
I don't disagree. See my [[Exploding whale]] article. I don't believe that what you refer to is trivia though, that is useful information about a cultural phenomenon.
But that is precisely what I've been trying to do! However, I keep getting messages from bots that images that things are being deleted, or a GA sweep team goes through and marks an article I wrote as not good, even though they are applying too high a standard to the article. Or I come back after a few months and find that [[Architecture of Windows NT]] has been crapped over so badly that it's no longer FA worthy. Basically, any contributions I've made seem to be starting to degrade, and I have to constantly watch articles I've got to FA status to make sure some idiot doesn't come along and destroy it.
It's getting so it's hardly worth my time.
I'm in totally agreement that Wikipedia requires a ground up revamp of the Wikipedia political system to avoid rewarding those with time on their hands and an ability to game the system and to reward those with knowledge they wish to share.
Yeah, I have felt this way before, but never to this extend. My problem is that the project is trying to do something awesome, yet those who only care about things other than articles are the ones who gain the most respect. That's pretty disheartening. And it really isn't that much fun anymore - I certainly don't get paid for editing.
That would mean that it wasn't trivia then.
We don't need quantity. We need quality.
Garbage. Many people use it for a first point of research. Trivia should be discouraged, not encouraged.
Spot on.
I appreciate that you aren't talking about me... it's quite painful to say what I'm saying right now. For those who don't know me, I'm one of the more active contributors to Wikipedia. I've been with the project for a long time, I have at least 4 articles that have hit the main page, I started the admin noticeboard and helped form important policy (I made fair use stricter). I've also dealt with numerous trolls, protected many articles, rollback numerous vandalism and done a fair amount of article deletions.
There has lately been a concerted push to make trivia acceptable. This would have been unthinkable a year ago. Then there is the service awards, with an award for 5 years contributions and 40,000 edits. That's the direction that Wikipedia is taking, and it isn't pretty.
I'm afraid, however, that those who deal with background politics will remain, and good contributors will leave. Thus Wikipedia will die a slow and painful death, and leave the world poorer for it.
I'm definitely in total agreement. There are just too many processes. It's not fun to work on Wikipedia any more. Newer and less clueful editors are signing up, but I don't see articles getting improved.
Nothing to be sorry for, it was entirely my mistake :-)
Yeah, that's true.
I feel, however, that Wikipedia might be about to hit a decline. The Golden Era is over, I'm afraid.
Hmmm... must be a might tired. Obviously I meant "leapt", instead of "left". Oops.