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Revision as of 03:40, 14 April 2011 editThe Blade of the Northern Lights (talk | contribs)Edit filter managers, Autopatrolled, Oversighters, Administrators55,835 edits →Of priests and nuns in our sights: Whoa, just realized that could be badly misinterpreted← Previous edit Revision as of 17:18, 14 April 2011 edit undoYogesh Khandke (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users14,597 edits To set the record straight about the participants in the Ganga x Ganges debateNext edit →
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I somehow get the sense that you don't think very highly of the job we do on NPP. I get that we're ] (actually, I like that essay a lot), but speculating about whether we "dehumanize people as a coping mechanism" is degrading. My experience has been that people trying to push their garage band into Misplaced Pages aren't misguided souls; they're usually here to promote their wares, and have no intention of actually becoming the type of constructive editors we need. By way of example, take ], who did nothing but waste our time and effort creating and recreating an article about a U-12 soccer team after ''repeated'' warnings when not making misguided edits to a few soccer-related articles. Or ], who felt the need to spam his resume 9 times. That's far more typical than the genuine "I was really trying to help Misplaced Pages" type; we get those, too, but if you do NPP for long enough you'll find that's the exception. The misguided impression that the reverse is true is because the 2nd type get more attention; the typical ones either go away after 1 or 2 tries or get blocked. Furthermore, I'm sure you know about some of the garbage that gets on here; I've seen things on NPP that, had I or someone else not caught them, would expose the WMF to libel suits. An unreferenced article about a priest supposedly molesting 10 kids, an article accusing a man of child rape, and an article consisting of "Let's uncover all burakus (]) for what they are!!" with a link to a website with a list of them (which apart from being illegal in Japan is also a good way to ruin thousands of people's lives) for a few great examples. Wade through that for 9 months, then tell me that we're "playing it like it's an RPG". I enjoy NPP a lot, I have no intention of stopping, but I'll put it this way; I don't think you or your friends on the WMF staff would refer to vandal fighters the way you do us. I don't think you're being malicious (that would be ridiculous), but I think you should hear it from the perspective of someone who's ''actually been out there doing it''. ] (]) 00:40, 14 April 2011 (UTC) <small>Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to make sure I covered everything. Also, I should say that overall, I think you do an excellent job; don't think I hate you or anything like that.</small> I somehow get the sense that you don't think very highly of the job we do on NPP. I get that we're ] (actually, I like that essay a lot), but speculating about whether we "dehumanize people as a coping mechanism" is degrading. My experience has been that people trying to push their garage band into Misplaced Pages aren't misguided souls; they're usually here to promote their wares, and have no intention of actually becoming the type of constructive editors we need. By way of example, take ], who did nothing but waste our time and effort creating and recreating an article about a U-12 soccer team after ''repeated'' warnings when not making misguided edits to a few soccer-related articles. Or ], who felt the need to spam his resume 9 times. That's far more typical than the genuine "I was really trying to help Misplaced Pages" type; we get those, too, but if you do NPP for long enough you'll find that's the exception. The misguided impression that the reverse is true is because the 2nd type get more attention; the typical ones either go away after 1 or 2 tries or get blocked. Furthermore, I'm sure you know about some of the garbage that gets on here; I've seen things on NPP that, had I or someone else not caught them, would expose the WMF to libel suits. An unreferenced article about a priest supposedly molesting 10 kids, an article accusing a man of child rape, and an article consisting of "Let's uncover all burakus (]) for what they are!!" with a link to a website with a list of them (which apart from being illegal in Japan is also a good way to ruin thousands of people's lives) for a few great examples. Wade through that for 9 months, then tell me that we're "playing it like it's an RPG". I enjoy NPP a lot, I have no intention of stopping, but I'll put it this way; I don't think you or your friends on the WMF staff would refer to vandal fighters the way you do us. I don't think you're being malicious (that would be ridiculous), but I think you should hear it from the perspective of someone who's ''actually been out there doing it''. ] (]) 00:40, 14 April 2011 (UTC) <small>Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to make sure I covered everything. Also, I should say that overall, I think you do an excellent job; don't think I hate you or anything like that.</small>
==To set the record straight==
This refers to the Ganges x Ganga debated you refered to in the article , perhaps ] am one of the Indian editors you refered to, I assume this as I have the largest edits at Ganga, 241,, however the next most numerous is ], who has 168, and is a European. This is to set the record straight, unless there is more than I can read on the matter. Regards. ] (]) 17:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Revision as of 17:18, 14 April 2011

Archives: 1 Looks like you've never been welcomed! :-(

Welcome!

Hello, Sue Gardner, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! Cbrown1023 talk 15:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Retention of newbies

Regarding the dramatic decrease in the rate of Newbie retention from 2005 to 2007: That is the period when Misplaced Pages moved from requiring sources merely to be listed at the bottom of articles, to the far more burdensome current system of in-line citations. When I joined in early 2006, I could write an article and just list the urls at the bottom under "References" - easy! Now you have to figure out how to format a footnote. That, I think, is tremendously daunting to most newbies. Plus, the edit screen is now crowded with all this code relating to footnotes, infoboxes, etc., so it is much harder to just jump in and edit. This is just an observation - obviously, in-line references are very helpful in verifying information.

I think that hooking newbies up with mentors right away is a great idea. I mentored some college students last term as an "Online Ambassador", and I was able to help/encourage 3 out of 5 students that I mentored to make very significant contributions to the encyclopedia, and to help them navigate their way through our editing/social challenges. I would be happy to serve as a mentor to a newbie or two at all times - it would be nice if there were a more formal program to encourage newbies to select experienced editors from a list. Of course, the students were "assigned" the task of working with a mentor, whereas for newbies in general it would be voluntary - but I hope we can come up with a way to pair enthusiastic new editors with mentors. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:56, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Adding: There is a growing tendency of dismissing unlikeable or keeping likeable articles, by the colleges who check the new articles and decide what can be kept and what not. For example: The Dutch Misplaced Pages is very strict. Pounding the newbies with abbreviations and all to often not open for discussion. This has resulted in many vandals on Misplaced Pages resulting in overstressed moderators, and many cases that have to be addressed by the bureaucrats. This leads to more irritation. The English Misplaced Pages is presented like a weak project with hardly any control, and we do not want that on the Dutch Misplaced Pages. In the same breath they talk also down to the Spanish, Portuguese and polish Misplaced Pages, saying, that almost everything is allowed. Obviously, I can not speak for all the colleges, but what I see is that many are getting frustrated. Newbies and experienced colleges.
As every one can say: Hey guys/girls, I want to be a moderator, helping out on Misplaced Pages. That's fine, but those that determine whether someone can be moderator, is the same old club. So I wonder what would be necessary to make a kind of educational course for new moderators. I say this, as I have learned that some are very experienced in what they do, but lack the ability to communicate properly, friendly which leads to words back and forth. The need for some to act like a drill sergeant is unbecoming. Ofcourse there is a lot of things that go very well. We have a high quality on the articles. But I do not believe that it is necessary that we get less happy writers and more unhappy ones that leave through the back door.
I really believe that a better guideline for moderators, and a handbook for what is appreciated and what is not would be a great help for turning this negative tendency to a positive one.
Thanks for reading this, and I hope it's usable. --Rodejong (talk) 23:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

a graphic for women editors

Bonjour Sue Gardner, I hope that your health is very good and that everything is well for you. I read your last communication. It is very relevant ( i don't know the name in english, pertinent in french language). I have you send a question but I had no answer of your part (Sorry for my poor english language): please read A request of precision on the women - une demande de précision sur les femmes . Sue do you have a graphic Retention vs Active Female Editors ? Thanks, pass a nice week-end , merci beaucoup de votre attention et passez un beau week-end avec votre famille, --Geneviève (talk) 15:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

A vague idea

Hello Sue, I read your editor trends post and I tought it would be great that I give you my impression on what's happening. I don't say it's the only cause of the trend but we can see a real trend by reading talk pages from years to years. In the beginning of the project, the motto was close to "we can believe in what anonymous have to say on it". That was about pure WP:faith and, indeed, we saw how far that unreasonable idea lead Misplaced Pages. But as the time passed we saw new policies (WP:TRUTH,WP:CITE) which at that time was only a pinch of wisdom in an ocean of boldness. Sadly I'm afraid that as generations of wikipedians passes, they forgot about the real reasons behind those policies (I read for myself the initial talk pages, the motivation behind those was different at that time). Those policies became fundamentals and the real fundamentals (WP:BOLD,WP:FAITH) are treated as policies. We are becoming suspicious. More and more people challenge quotations only because they have no visible sources, and thus more and more content become "likely to be challenged" (see WP:V). Now, policies are more like throwing a pebble of boldness in a desert of wisdom and as far as I can judge it, it look far less efficient then before.

I believe that as core contributors, we need to rewrite WP:FAITH and WP:BOLD and insist on those for now . I think your vision rejoin mine in that post. Iluvalar (talk) 15:54, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Sue, great to hear from you, and thanks!

Sue, I've wondered if anyone would ever even notice my user page. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Someone has to know that I did a little something more than leave a bag of donation checks by my desk :) To quote the Grateful Dead, what a long strange trip it's been. I hope all is well with you - I hope we talk/meet again sometime. All best, Terry Foote (talk) 20:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 March 2011

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 01:53, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


The next chapter of Wikimedia history

Hello,

  • First: apologies for what there is to come. Although none is needed really given that all I have to say is absolutely factual.
  • The event: I saw a banner invitation to: "write the next chapter of Wikimedia history" and I must say just I chuckled. It seemed so PR-like and distant from reality. So I thought you should get the view from one of the unpaid workers here, rather than the view from the paid consultants who showed you the Powerpoint charts.
  • The issue: I am very, very unhappy about quality in Misplaced Pages and I see a decline in quality on the horizon. I was hence unhappy about the stated goal of "making Misplaced Pages fun" again. I see the future problem not as a lack of fun, but as a lack of quality - as some of the charts in some threads below indicate. The fact is that everyone is having fun here, to the exclusion of those who can enhance content quality.
  • A thread: I tried to discuss the lack of quality in this policy thread. There was hardly any momentum to improve quality. Please see the "Quality policy & cross-article quality" I tried to start.
  • Quality policy?: Misplaced Pages, the 💕, had no page on Quality policy until I built a stub for it a few weeks ago as a result of that thread. If the encyclopedia has no page on "quality policy" that says a lot. It is one thing not to have a quality policy, it is another not to even have a "definition" for a quality policy.
  • Experts? Which experts?: As I have stated before on the policy page one can bet good money that Misplaced Pages has absolutely, I mean absolutely accurate information about the number of times Charlie Sheen has been to rehab. But the overall quality of a topic such as digital signal processing is rock bottom. The quality of the page search engine technology is rock bottom as of this writing and the page has zero references as of this writing. Really. On 9 January 2007 someone complained that the page has zero references and it still has zero references. Please see this discussion where I suggested that more experts are needed and I was asked "why would an expert want to edit Misplaced Pages?". I had to say: "Because some experts such as myself are misguided, they think they will get wire transfers". Misplaced Pages is sadly short of experts and current policies are hopeless, just hopeless in terms of encouraging new experts.
  • My challenge to you: As the executive director, when and how can you put together policies which will produce a set of high quality articles around digital signal processing without asking me to write them? This is an important topic which has been ignored. I will probably get to rewrite the whole series of articles on digital signal processing by 2017, but can you produce policies which will get others to do it before then, so I will not have to do it?

Cheers. History2007 (talk) 13:47, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

NullBook Custom Skin

I think all of my changes that I've made to my custom skin have been merged back into the original NullBook page. You can grab it there! Later! —mako๛ 21:46, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 March 2011


Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 01:40, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Does ">=" = "≥" or ">"?="_=_"≥"_or_">"?-2011-03-22T06:57:00.000Z">

Hi, Sue. Request for clarification on a small point: in the caption of the graph here, does ">=5 edits/month" mean ≥5 (i.e., greater than or equal to 5) or just >5 (greater than 5)? I'd be bold and change it to the former, but I'm only 98% sure and I can't find documentation on what constitutes an "active editor". Rivertorch (talk) 06:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)="_=_"≥"_or_">"?"> ="_=_"≥"_or_">"?">

Active editors are editors that have made 5 or more edits per month, so >=5 or ≥5. I've changed to the page to reflect the better notation. Thanks for bringing this up! Howief (talk) 22:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 March 2011

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 01:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 April 2011

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 01:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

thanks for the cupcake

Thank you! That's very special, and I'm touched and proud to be in the company of Michael, Ral and HaeB in getting these treats from you. That gadget is great, huh?--ragesoss (talk) 02:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Original Barnstar
Sue, you deserve many more of these than you've gotten. I increasingly think of you not just as the leader of WMF, but of the Wikimedia movement. ragesoss (talk) 02:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
I was pleased to see that everyone in the organization treated my complaint with the seriousness and professionalism it merited. :) --ragesoss (talk) 03:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 April 2011

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 10:29, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Of priests and nuns in our sights

I somehow get the sense that you don't think very highly of the job we do on NPP. I get that we're the most hated people around (actually, I like that essay a lot), but speculating about whether we "dehumanize people as a coping mechanism" is degrading. My experience has been that people trying to push their garage band into Misplaced Pages aren't misguided souls; they're usually here to promote their wares, and have no intention of actually becoming the type of constructive editors we need. By way of example, take this editor, who did nothing but waste our time and effort creating and recreating an article about a U-12 soccer team after repeated warnings when not making misguided edits to a few soccer-related articles. Or this editor, who felt the need to spam his resume 9 times. That's far more typical than the genuine "I was really trying to help Misplaced Pages" type; we get those, too, but if you do NPP for long enough you'll find that's the exception. The misguided impression that the reverse is true is because the 2nd type get more attention; the typical ones either go away after 1 or 2 tries or get blocked. Furthermore, I'm sure you know about some of the garbage that gets on here; I've seen things on NPP that, had I or someone else not caught them, would expose the WMF to libel suits. An unreferenced article about a priest supposedly molesting 10 kids, an article accusing a man of child rape, and an article consisting of "Let's uncover all burakus (burakumin) for what they are!!" with a link to a website with a list of them (which apart from being illegal in Japan is also a good way to ruin thousands of people's lives) for a few great examples. Wade through that for 9 months, then tell me that we're "playing it like it's an RPG". I enjoy NPP a lot, I have no intention of stopping, but I'll put it this way; I don't think you or your friends on the WMF staff would refer to vandal fighters the way you do us. I don't think you're being malicious (that would be ridiculous), but I think you should hear it from the perspective of someone who's actually been out there doing it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:40, 14 April 2011 (UTC) Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to make sure I covered everything. Also, I should say that overall, I think you do an excellent job; don't think I hate you or anything like that.

To set the record straight

This refers to the Ganges x Ganga debated you refered to in the article Misplaced Pages's Librarian to the World, in which you mentioned two Indian guys arguing one side, perhaps I am one of the Indian editors you refered to, I assume this as I have the largest edits at Ganga, 241,, however the next most numerous is user:Jayen466, who has 168, and is a European. This is to set the record straight, unless there is more than I can read on the matter. Regards. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

User talk:Sue Gardner: Difference between revisions Add topic