Heh. It's a pipe dream anyway that "everyone on the internet" would be even remotely interested enough to read the page, much less add to it--at last glance, the current text is entirely by the authors of the video and/or people at least tangentially associated with xiph.org...
Wikimedia no longer receives any donations of office space from Wikia. And that's now two former members and one current member -- Michael Davis is no longer on the WMF board, leaving only Jimmy with current ties to both.
Thanks for this. As a board member of Wikimedia I'll say again that Wikimedia hasn't had anything to do with this, financially or otherwise; we haven't even heard any more about it than the general public. (Please stop writing to Wikimedia and asking about it when you want Wikia; we don't know and you're flooding our mailbox.) Yep, right now Wikia search mostly sucks. I suppose it will eventually not suck. But I'm happy to be just a spectator.
Normally I don't bother to reply to any post that contains the word "wikinazis" because it reveals a certain mindset in its author that means there is little hope of having a reasonable discussion with him. But since I can't edit his post to provide the below links, I thought I might at least make a comment for the benefit of readers, since it is modded high enough that people may see it.
Unless he's thinking of some other Wikipedia which doesn't "encourag[e] users to question the data" (a page which is in rotation with about 10 other informative pages at the top of the site except during the fundraiser), or which does not provide "disclaimers and warnings". In which case, carry on.
No, Wikipedia didn't "turn off" editing of contentious political topics. Some get temporarily locked if they're caught in the middle of edit wars, but this *is* temporary -- rarely more than a few days at a time.
Actually, the Campaign Wikia *doesn't* have to be from a neutral point of view (that's what Wikipedia is for) -- a good many of the edit wars on Wikipedia are over just what is really neutral. Right now it seems to be shaping up to be more of an open forum for ideas, majority and minority (still more raw material than organization, but what you do you want from a newly-launched wiki?), rather than being restricted as Wikipedia is to giving only accepted and well-published views their space.
> Pretty soon everything is going to be mastered as a modulated square wave.
Soon? I guess you never heard of SACD and DSD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Stream_Digita l).
You shouldn't cite Wikipedia as the source of the images anyhow. The images should be credited to the copyright holder, which you'll find by clicking on the image to get to the description page.
Why were you laughing -- did I say anything about the comparative quality of the content? I was referring to the level of exposure in publishing there, not the text itself.
I agree entirely with most of your post. Wikipedia is, for research, no more than a starting point. But it's an *accessible* starting point, for anyone with an internet connection. It's not an authoritative source. But somehow it manages to be rather handy anyhow, because most of the time you don't really need anything authoritative--just a general guide that will mostly point you in the right direction.
Even diehard Wikipedia-lovers don't recommend citing it as authoritative. But using it as a starting point to work from is often helpful. A few users have written a guide to using Wikipedia as a research tool here; you may have additions or suggestions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching _with_Wikipedia
-Kat (User:Mindspillage)
Why is this relevant to this thread? I'll happily answer, and even post it publicly to avoid accusations that I'm hiding anything, somewhere else. Try the talk page of the arbcom page or the clerks page
So, I'm a Wikipedia admin, and a volunteer for the mail room, and here's a semi-rant. It is neither Jimbo Wales's interest, nor the Foundation's interest, nor any other decent editor's, to damage an article or to abandon the openness of Wikipedia. And I can speak with complete confidence that for every WP:OFFICE protection, there are loads upon loads of "sorry you're unhappy with this article, can you tell us what's incorrect to help us fix it?" mails that no one gets much bothered about and most of the community never hears about. Sometimes they are very angry, sometimes they are from wealthy and powerful people, and we don't get too fussed about them until there is a serious concern that we may be doing wrong, and something needs to change, and that something hasn't happened via the usual community processes. That's what office actions are for.
Wikipedia is huge; one of the top 20 websites, and publishing there is like publishing in the '''New York Times''. Except that we're on the web and searchable without registration. There is actually serious damage to be done by having false information and rumors up on articles, and if our community processes have failed to get that right then it's clear some intervention is needed. It's done to save the project, not to destroy it, and I imagine that Jimbo would rather chew his own toenails off than face the resulting shitstorm without good cause.
When it happens, everyone who ''does'' have good, verifiable, neutral, cited information to add, should be writing temp versions. And they are replaced, though without the blog rumors or anything we can't verify. (Except for Brian Peppers, which, face it, was more trouble than it was worth. The year holding off on that? Big deal. It's one year, in a project that will be around... well, as long as anyone wants to keep it around, Wikimedia Foundation or no, thank you copyleft licensing.) Complaining on the talk page doesn't help do that. Bitching and moaning on other sites doesn't help do that. Researching does. Without whitewashing, contrary to some opinions, without censoring, ''with'' the neutral and verifiable truth, but nothing that isn't, no matter how much you may be dying to share the nasty email you got from Jack Thompson. Sorry.
We like criticism. We invite criticism. And when we see *good* criticism we take it to heart and respond to it (see our responses to The Guardian's analysis of a few articles, or to the errors the Nature study found). But there's nothing to respond to here. If "wikitruth" wants to take the liability of having libel up on the site, well, that's their problem, though it's IMO not a bright move. (Especially if they're trying to draw publicity to themselves.) Wikipedia will continue to attempt to be neutral and accurate... and, you know, maybe try to be decent and work with people, too, who have every right to be upset about false information published about them.
Way past my two cents now, Kat (User:Mindspillage)
So if this hasn't been linked 50 times already, the office protection policy is ehre:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OFFICE
So, I'm a Wikipedia admin, and a volunteer for the mail room, and here's a semi-rant.
It is neither Jimbo Wales's interest, nor the Foundation's interest, nor any other decent editor's, to damage an article or to abandon the openness of Wikipedia. And I can speak with complete confidence that for every WP:OFFICE protection, there are loads upon loads of "sorry you're unhappy with this article, can you tell us what's incorrect to help us fix it?" mails that no one gets much bothered about and most of the community never hears about. Sometimes they are very angry, sometimes they are from wealthy and powerful people, and we don't get too fussed about them until there is a serious concern that we may be doing wrong, and something needs to change, and that something hasn't happened via the usual community processes. That's what office actions are for.
Wikipedia is huge; one of the top 20 websites, and publishing there is like publishing in the '''New York Times''. Except that we're on the web and searchable without registration. There is actually serious damage to be done by having false information and rumors up on articles, and if our community processes have failed to get that right then it's clear some intervention is needed. It's done to save the project, not to destroy it, and I imagine that Jimbo would rather chew his own toenails off than face the resulting shitstorm without good cause.
When it happens, everyone who ''does'' have good, verifiable, neutral, cited information to add, should be writing temp versions. And they are replaced, though without the blog rumors or anything we can't verify. (Except for Brian Peppers, which, face it, was more trouble than it was worth. The year holding off on that? Big deal. It's one year, in a project that will be around... well, as long as anyone wants to keep it around, Wikimedia Foundation or no, thank you copyleft licensing.) Complaining on the talk page doesn't help do that. Bitching and moaning on other sites doesn't help do that. Researching does. Without whitewashing, contrary to some opinions, without censoring, ''with'' the neutral and verifiable truth, but nothing that isn't, no matter how much you may be dying to share the nasty email you got from Jack Thompson.
Sorry. We like criticism. We invite criticism. And when we see *good* criticism we take it to heart and respond to it (see our responses to The Guardian's analysis of a few articles, or to the errors the Nature study found). But there's nothing to respond to here. If "wikitruth" wants to take the liability of having libel up on the site, well, that's their problem, though it's IMO not a bright move. (Especially if they're trying to draw publicity to themselves.) Wikipedia will continue to attempt to be neutral and accurate... and, you know, maybe try to be decent and work with people, too, who have every right to be upset about false information published about them.
Way past my two cents now,
Kat (User:Mindspillage)
Well, I answer some of the mail that Wikimedia gets, and I can assure you that most complaints are simply dealt with in a normal fashion and you never see them. It's only the ones where there is genuine reason to think we may be in the wrong and where normal editing processes have not done their job that the office steps in. (But thanks for playing, do troll again.)
Charles Manson is an Eagle Scout? Can you back that up? Charles Whitman, another notorious murderer, is (and he *is* on the list), but a quick Google seems to suggest that Manson is not, though he's been rumored to be:
There is huge outcry whenever anyone tries to make an article "kid-safe", and for good reason.
But no, don't trust Wikipedia alone -- same as you don't trust *any other single source* without double-checking. I find it to be less biased than conventional print media myself.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh. It's a pipe dream anyway that "everyone on the internet" would be even remotely interested enough to read the page, much less add to it--at last glance, the current text is entirely by the authors of the video and/or people at least tangentially associated with xiph.org...
Better than an ebook--there's a wiki page with a full transcript and helpful screenshots: http://wiki.xiph.org/A_Digital_Media_Primer_For_Geeks_(episode_1)
Wikimedia no longer receives any donations of office space from Wikia. And that's now two former members and one current member -- Michael Davis is no longer on the WMF board, leaving only Jimmy with current ties to both.
Thanks for this. As a board member of Wikimedia I'll say again that Wikimedia hasn't had anything to do with this, financially or otherwise; we haven't even heard any more about it than the general public. (Please stop writing to Wikimedia and asking about it when you want Wikia; we don't know and you're flooding our mailbox.) Yep, right now Wikia search mostly sucks. I suppose it will eventually not suck. But I'm happy to be just a spectator.
How dare you try to spoil a good Slashdot argument with facts!
Normally I don't bother to reply to any post that contains the word "wikinazis" because it reveals a certain mindset in its author that means there is little hope of having a reasonable discussion with him. But since I can't edit his post to provide the below links, I thought I might at least make a comment for the benefit of readers, since it is modded high enough that people may see it. Unless he's thinking of some other Wikipedia which doesn't "encourag[e] users to question the data" (a page which is in rotation with about 10 other informative pages at the top of the site except during the fundraiser), or which does not provide "disclaimers and warnings". In which case, carry on.
Ask and ye shall receive: homemade video on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_water_bridge for your viewing pleasure.
Damn, someone's leaked the sooper sekrit info on the decision process. I hate it when that happens.
No, Wikipedia didn't "turn off" editing of contentious political topics. Some get temporarily locked if they're caught in the middle of edit wars, but this *is* temporary -- rarely more than a few days at a time.
Actually, the Campaign Wikia *doesn't* have to be from a neutral point of view (that's what Wikipedia is for) -- a good many of the edit wars on Wikipedia are over just what is really neutral. Right now it seems to be shaping up to be more of an open forum for ideas, majority and minority (still more raw material than organization, but what you do you want from a newly-launched wiki?), rather than being restricted as Wikipedia is to giving only accepted and well-published views their space.
> Pretty soon everything is going to be mastered as a modulated square wave. Soon? I guess you never heard of SACD and DSD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Stream_Digita l).
You shouldn't cite Wikipedia as the source of the images anyhow. The images should be credited to the copyright holder, which you'll find by clicking on the image to get to the description page.
Why were you laughing -- did I say anything about the comparative quality of the content? I was referring to the level of exposure in publishing there, not the text itself.
I agree entirely with most of your post. Wikipedia is, for research, no more than a starting point. But it's an *accessible* starting point, for anyone with an internet connection. It's not an authoritative source. But somehow it manages to be rather handy anyhow, because most of the time you don't really need anything authoritative--just a general guide that will mostly point you in the right direction.
http://slashdot.org/~mindspillage/journal/133684
/., actually. And no, I'm not replying further about arbcruft in this thread.
There, happy? Oh, and WP is much more public than
-Kat
Even diehard Wikipedia-lovers don't recommend citing it as authoritative. But using it as a starting point to work from is often helpful. A few users have written a guide to using Wikipedia as a research tool here; you may have additions or suggestions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching _with_Wikipedia
-Kat (User:Mindspillage)
Why is this relevant to this thread? I'll happily answer, and even post it publicly to avoid accusations that I'm hiding anything, somewhere else. Try the talk page of the arbcom page or the clerks page
So, I'm a Wikipedia admin, and a volunteer for the mail room, and here's a semi-rant. It is neither Jimbo Wales's interest, nor the Foundation's interest, nor any other decent editor's, to damage an article or to abandon the openness of Wikipedia. And I can speak with complete confidence that for every WP:OFFICE protection, there are loads upon loads of "sorry you're unhappy with this article, can you tell us what's incorrect to help us fix it?" mails that no one gets much bothered about and most of the community never hears about. Sometimes they are very angry, sometimes they are from wealthy and powerful people, and we don't get too fussed about them until there is a serious concern that we may be doing wrong, and something needs to change, and that something hasn't happened via the usual community processes. That's what office actions are for.
Wikipedia is huge; one of the top 20 websites, and publishing there is like publishing in the '''New York Times''. Except that we're on the web and searchable without registration. There is actually serious damage to be done by having false information and rumors up on articles, and if our community processes have failed to get that right then it's clear some intervention is needed. It's done to save the project, not to destroy it, and I imagine that Jimbo would rather chew his own toenails off than face the resulting shitstorm without good cause.
When it happens, everyone who ''does'' have good, verifiable, neutral, cited information to add, should be writing temp versions. And they are replaced, though without the blog rumors or anything we can't verify. (Except for Brian Peppers, which, face it, was more trouble than it was worth. The year holding off on that? Big deal. It's one year, in a project that will be around... well, as long as anyone wants to keep it around, Wikimedia Foundation or no, thank you copyleft licensing.) Complaining on the talk page doesn't help do that. Bitching and moaning on other sites doesn't help do that. Researching does. Without whitewashing, contrary to some opinions, without censoring, ''with'' the neutral and verifiable truth, but nothing that isn't, no matter how much you may be dying to share the nasty email you got from Jack Thompson. Sorry.
We like criticism. We invite criticism. And when we see *good* criticism we take it to heart and respond to it (see our responses to The Guardian's analysis of a few articles, or to the errors the Nature study found). But there's nothing to respond to here. If "wikitruth" wants to take the liability of having libel up on the site, well, that's their problem, though it's IMO not a bright move. (Especially if they're trying to draw publicity to themselves.) Wikipedia will continue to attempt to be neutral and accurate... and, you know, maybe try to be decent and work with people, too, who have every right to be upset about false information published about them.
Way past my two cents now, Kat (User:Mindspillage)
So if this hasn't been linked 50 times already, the office protection policy is ehre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OFFICE So, I'm a Wikipedia admin, and a volunteer for the mail room, and here's a semi-rant. It is neither Jimbo Wales's interest, nor the Foundation's interest, nor any other decent editor's, to damage an article or to abandon the openness of Wikipedia. And I can speak with complete confidence that for every WP:OFFICE protection, there are loads upon loads of "sorry you're unhappy with this article, can you tell us what's incorrect to help us fix it?" mails that no one gets much bothered about and most of the community never hears about. Sometimes they are very angry, sometimes they are from wealthy and powerful people, and we don't get too fussed about them until there is a serious concern that we may be doing wrong, and something needs to change, and that something hasn't happened via the usual community processes. That's what office actions are for. Wikipedia is huge; one of the top 20 websites, and publishing there is like publishing in the '''New York Times''. Except that we're on the web and searchable without registration. There is actually serious damage to be done by having false information and rumors up on articles, and if our community processes have failed to get that right then it's clear some intervention is needed. It's done to save the project, not to destroy it, and I imagine that Jimbo would rather chew his own toenails off than face the resulting shitstorm without good cause. When it happens, everyone who ''does'' have good, verifiable, neutral, cited information to add, should be writing temp versions. And they are replaced, though without the blog rumors or anything we can't verify. (Except for Brian Peppers, which, face it, was more trouble than it was worth. The year holding off on that? Big deal. It's one year, in a project that will be around... well, as long as anyone wants to keep it around, Wikimedia Foundation or no, thank you copyleft licensing.) Complaining on the talk page doesn't help do that. Bitching and moaning on other sites doesn't help do that. Researching does. Without whitewashing, contrary to some opinions, without censoring, ''with'' the neutral and verifiable truth, but nothing that isn't, no matter how much you may be dying to share the nasty email you got from Jack Thompson. Sorry. We like criticism. We invite criticism. And when we see *good* criticism we take it to heart and respond to it (see our responses to The Guardian's analysis of a few articles, or to the errors the Nature study found). But there's nothing to respond to here. If "wikitruth" wants to take the liability of having libel up on the site, well, that's their problem, though it's IMO not a bright move. (Especially if they're trying to draw publicity to themselves.) Wikipedia will continue to attempt to be neutral and accurate... and, you know, maybe try to be decent and work with people, too, who have every right to be upset about false information published about them. Way past my two cents now, Kat (User:Mindspillage)
Well, I answer some of the mail that Wikimedia gets, and I can assure you that most complaints are simply dealt with in a normal fashion and you never see them. It's only the ones where there is genuine reason to think we may be in the wrong and where normal editing processes have not done their job that the office steps in. (But thanks for playing, do troll again.)
http://www.rotten.com/library/culture/eagle-scouts /
There is huge outcry whenever anyone tries to make an article "kid-safe", and for good reason. But no, don't trust Wikipedia alone -- same as you don't trust *any other single source* without double-checking. I find it to be less biased than conventional print media myself.