Wikipedia: Justfred/Visitors

Hello, and welcome to wikipedia! Personal pages are fine, but generally people try to avoid using names that we would need an article on, and I imagine that if say Bill Clinton were to take an interest in the project and decide to start contributing, we'd have to ask him to come up with a username and put his personal page there. Generally we try to keep articles separate from personal stuff, though I know that's not obvious the way things are now since it's all in the same namespace. Anyway, so far as personal pages go, some are very modest, others not so modest; some tell where people work or study, and list email addresses and homepages; others don't even give real names ... ;-) They're personal homepages, and people just generally do whatever they want to on them (I suppose there should be some obvious exceptions, such as libel). Does anyone know if we have proposed any rules for homepages? I can't remember any, but I've only been around since March. --KQ

: I've started the wikipedian pages article in the hopes that we can hash out a general consensus there. Feel free to remove the comments above, if you'd like. :-)

("I" in the above sentance not being me but being someone unknown, perhaps KQ - justfred)

: I think KQ already stated the general consensus. --LMS

Larry Sanger replies to Justfred's observations:

In general, may I gently point out that we've been at this hard and fast since January, so a lot of the things you're thinking about are old hat. Might be better just to ask us. :-)

-I like the idea of a single page (wiki) rather than multiple pages that might have to stand on their own (E2).

: I hope you realize that there are many other differences between Wikipedia and E2. :-)

: That's what I'm trying to define/understand/grok - should have phrased this as "why is Wiki better than E2, if they can even be compared?"

-There needs to be some better method of organizing multiple pages, like Hughes, Howard vs Howard Hughes. Like a redirect page. This page could flash-redirect queries to the appropriate page. But what if someone later decides there IS a disticntion.

: There is a redirect function. See how does one edit a page. Or go to LarrySanger and click on the LarrySanger link you'll see at the top of the page. We do sometimes decide that there is a distinction, and then the redirect page is appropriately edited.

: I know this now.

-There needs to be a "manual of style", and relatively close attention should be paid to it.

: In general, I disagree. Yes, we have some style standards and you can find them by looking around at Wikipedia policy and elsewhere. But I think it's much more important that people feel free to input information into Wikipedia. That's why Wikipedia is here and why it's gotten so big so fast. They can (and do) learn what basic style standards we have on the fly. See Wikipedia policy.

: I've put a lot of thought into it tho no doubt significantly less than you. Seems like there's lots and lots of pages with this info; would be nice to put them together somehow...I don't know.

-How do you enforce a level system without all the problems associated with it?

: We don't have a level system, and I think you'll find considerable resistence to the suggestion that we make one. Wikipedia isn't E2.

: Actually I HATED the level system there; I was just pondering how one might work better...

-Articles should include a standard provision for referencing websites, as well as referencing Yahoo, E2, Wiki, or other -pedias.

: Why?

: I just like the idea of standard syntax so I don't have to learn a new one for every -pedia.

-When websites or xrefs are made, they should be checked when the page is posted.

: Checked by the person who adds the links? -- Sure!

: Actually I was thinking as an author I could automatically get a warning list of missing or broken links. And visualizing how that sorta thing might be done in Perl.

-There should be a provision or a standard style for see also links.

: I don't think so. :-) We will render everything to a consistent style standard later. This sort of thing just doesn't matter right now. Live with it!

: I've seen references to, basically, put them at the bottom. Which is fine with me.

-It should be possible to check every word/phrase of an article (recursively?) for other encyclopedia links, and add those - as hard links, see also links, or soft links (E2). This might create massively unreadable/uneditable text.

: I agree with the latter...humans are much better at adding appropriate links than computer programs.

: Again I was fantasizing about perl!

-How do you cull the encyclopedia? Create lists of blind or empty links and either add them or unlink them?

: Don't know!

: This is what I do with "my" db daily, just wondering how it would be done with one of these.

: Magnus is working on this in the new software.

-Personal, ramblings, and diary pages. These seem to be a horse of a different color; but how do you reconcile them with standard entries. Maybe entries could be promoted/demoted/nulled?

: Please stop thinking of Wikipedia on analogy with E2. Wikipedia isn't E2, and personally, I find the comparison deeply insulting. :-) Anyway, personal stuff is fine as subpages of personal pages. (Like this very page.) It's also fine as a subpage of Wikipedia commentary. Other than that, you must carefully bear in mind that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and that has important implications for what Wikipedia is not.

: Sorry; personal diaries masquerading as entries was one of the things that bothered me about E2.

-Wiki and E2 should wherever possible and especially in frequently-used functions, (links for example) use the SAME syntax. I think it's "too late now" but maybe in preferences it could set syntax, then translate? Might be too difficult to do on the fly (in Perl? Everything is possible.

: NO, NO, NO!!! :-) It should be as hard as possible for Everything2 noders to contribute to Wikipedia. :-) We don't want them to think that Wikipedia articles are Everything2 nodes. They most decidedly are not. Probably the biggest difference is that Wikipedia pages should be written from a neutral point of view. Another huge difference is that Wikipedia aspires to be a serious reference that will one day replace Britannica. Everything2 has no hope whatsoever of becoming that.

: I understand this clearly!

-Ah, and I just discovered another problem with Wiki - the subconscious need to edit random pages you're surfing!!!

: Ah, but that is not a problem. :-) --Larry Sanger

: It is if they're standard web pages that you're not _allowed_ to edit!

: Larry - all these are just my brainstorming; I know there's lots and lots of differences and I'm referring to E2 and Wiki as well as my general idea of what such a creature should or might be like. I do appreciate all your thoughts, too.

: Very good, makes sense to me. --LMS

Magnus Manske is working on the new Wikipedia PHP script on MySQL at [wikipedia.sourceforge.net]. Please look at what he has there, as a lot of the problems not yet answered here are being addressed on that piece of software. Please look at it (as you have a database background) and make some suggestions or even contribute some code. --mike dill

Hi Justfred,

While I was editing the Cooking/Steaming page, I noticed that you have joined all my sentences into one big paragraph. Though you have your right to copyedit anyone's writing, I would like to let you know that those sentences were entered on separate lines so that Wikipedia's diff function would show any changes in the sentence level instead of paragraph level. It is often easier to locate a change in a sentence than in a 20 sentence paragraph. Since any web browser automatically merges all sentences into a paragraph, your effort provide no advantage in term of paragraph formatting, however, you removed the ability to diff the revisions in sentences. I did my part to make diff'ing better on the article, if you believe it is worth your time to remove such feature, I would not waste my time to put it back in. It's your loss.

See my discussion in the middle of the Wikipedia policy/General discussion page. Though there is no policy set yet, but it makes tracking the revisions easier if everyone follows the same convention.

: 47.83.107.xxx - I didn't know that, have not seen it here before. I actually corrected a couple of grammatical errors, and while I was at it rejustified the paragraph; I now understand why you did it. Seems to me like a problem with the Diff software tho.

Justfred and mr./ms. anonymous, I've made the same, uh, anti-correction in a number of articles ported over from the 1911 encyclopedia. I did not know it had any use. I'd say it is a problem with the Diff function, but I have to admit that even knowing its use, seeing a page formatted in that way, especially with any sort of character that comes over as a ? instead of what it should, still serves as a red flag for me in terms of copyright issues. --KQ

Deletion of Pages

I don't understand the deletion of pages - I seem to be able to find them - but is is remotely possible that this is a database/server error?

Some pages, like [Reasons for deleting page titles]? and Vandalism/Talk, have new content, but their original versions were totally deleted. It wasn't a database/server error. --TheCunctator