Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:37, 29 July 2007

Misplaced Pages B‑class High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Misplaced Pages, a collaborative effort to improve Misplaced Pages's encyclopedic coverage of itself. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page. Please remember to avoid self-references and maintain a neutral point of view, even on topics relating to Misplaced Pages.WikipediaWikipedia:WikiProject WikipediaTemplate:WikiProject WikipediaWikipedia B This article has been rated as B-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Software: Computing Unassessed

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Software, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of software on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SoftwareWikipedia:WikiProject SoftwareTemplate:WikiProject Softwaresoftware ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Computing.

Semi-protection

I request semi-protection for this article. Too many people visit it and vandalism occurs often and this page shouldn't be vandalised more so than other pages. Zuracech lordum 09:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Duplication

Unfortunately, there is an existing timeline already in Meta . There, I've been focusing on improving the pre-2002 items, trying to make sure there is a consistent formatting, and every entry has a specific date and reference. It appears that the time line on this page has had more care since 2002. I think would make a lot of sense to somehow consolidate these two pages so that one as a prose history, as well as a specific timeline. Actually, I am not that fond of the timeline being in Meta since many of the links that need to be 'en:' qualified. - Reagle 15:04, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Note also Misplaced Pages:History of Wikipedian processes and people and Misplaced Pages:Historic debates for substantial overlap. - BanyanTree 18:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Misc

I actually don't see the need for the paragraph that begins "In March 2002" if for no other reason than it seems out of place with the rest of the material. - Hephaestos 19:20 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

well that simplifies things. Martin 20:17 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Wikiquote and wikibooks are not, to date, important enough for a wikipedia article, in my opinion. Martin 21:56, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

• alexa.com for wikiquote - rank 4,806,184. August 2005: rank is now in the 9,000s.
• alexa.com for wikibooks - not rated. August 2005: rank is now in the 8,000s.

This is a great article; does anyone think it should be linked up to the Main Page?? --Merovingian 09:15, Dec 6, 2003 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier if we added a timeline to this article, or even made the article consist of but a timeline, and there are links for the different stages if more information is required. Ludraman 20:50, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's inappropriate to say little about the history in the main article. The article lengths are such that chunks of this article would fit in the main wikipedia article. How about just leaving a timeline here and moving the rest back?

Slashdot

The project received large numbers of participants after being mentioned three times on the tech website Slashdot — two minor mentions on March 5 and March 30, 2001, and then a prominent pointer to a story on the community-edited technology and culture website Kuro5hin on July 26.

It would be very informative if those mentions on slashdot were to be linked to directly after they are referred to, which will of coures involve digging them up... -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 01:04, 2004 Dec 27 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Day

Would we really need an article about Misplaced Pages Day? Is it encyclopedic? Fredrik | talk 05:45, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

history of the "Current Events" page

I am trying to trace the history of the "Current Events" page for Misplaced Pages. I am able to trace the "Current Events" page back to the archive of January of 2002. Did the "Current Events" page exist in 2001? Was it archived? Can anyone confirm if this was originally on the "Current Events" page? --Memenen 2 July 2005 23:24 (UTC)

Prior to that, the history was lost. I can find http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/Current_events. Notice, however, that nostalgia is a snapshot of how things were in the older software, and it lost history every few weeks. --cesarb 2 July 2005 23:37 (UTC)

Other resources

Misplaced Pages:Wikipedians_in_order_of_arrival - gives you a clue who to ask

Blank Google search for current events inurl:2001 site:mail.wikipedia.org shows that no-one talked about it much :)

This URL shows with a high degree of confidence that Topics removed from current events began in November 2001. If I was a gambling man, I would say that current events started in September 2001. Maybe The Cunctator would be a good person to ask. Pcb21| Pete 3 July 2005 00:25 (UTC)

I just explored the Internet Archives, my results suggest that the events of September 11 may have been what lead to the start of the Misplaced Pages Current Events page. --Memenen 3 July 2005 01:15 (UTC)

Censorship?

Why does the "F*lun Gong" article title have to be censored? Will spelling it out cause mainland China to block Misplaced Pages? Would pipelinking it help? — JIP | Talk 5 July 2005 06:22 (UTC)

I don't know. I'm not really sure how their Internet censorship system works. I pipelinked to the article, but left the title censored just in case. Ikusawa 01:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I've made it plaintext. WP:NOT censored for Chinese users. Revert if you have a good reason to do so, but please state it on this page. ral315 00:18, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Most recent block from mainland China

I don't know whether this is accurate, but Reporters without Borders indicates access has been blocked since October 18th in some areas (it names Shanghai). Also, is information on the status of Misplaced Pages access in the PRC really best placed in this History overview article? Should it be spun off into a separate article? It seems a little strange to see it tacked on at the end of the timeline there, is all. — MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip — 14:42, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I got it from the Chinese Misplaced Pages... it says "October 19, 5pm (UTC+8)". It might have been earlier, though.

I suppose we can also make the section its own article. The Chinese Misplaced Pages has a separate article already, which is also very detailed. I might translate it later tonight. -- ran (talk) 17:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Article to update!!! Misplaced Pages is partially unblock (except the chinese version and some english article...) please see Blocking of Misplaced Pages in mainland China Froggy helps ;-) 08:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

LL B,B,

Article count milestones

Do we really have to list every article count milestone ever made in the english wikipedia? It's just banal trivia for anyone but the most wiki-obsessed. I can understand maybe leaving the 100,000 and 500,000 milestones, but let's get rid of the rest of them. Kaldari 22:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I like the article count data because I'm going to use this data for some work I'm doing. The charts on this page only go up to 2002. BTW, I would like to have a page filled with stats: history of # users, articles by language, # words, #edits, etc.

Image selection vote

Around October 15, 2003, the current Misplaced Pages logo was installed. The logo concept was selected by a voting process, which was followed by a revision process to select the best variant. The final selection was created by David Friedland based on a logo design and concept created by Paul Stansifer.

Could we have a wikilink to that historical vote? - RoyBoy 17:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages calendar

Please take a look at Misplaced Pages:2003, Misplaced Pages:2004 from Category: Misplaced Pages years. Misplaced Pages as community deserves to keep track of its own history, of events which may be not very encyclopedic in the world scale, but of interest to wikipedians.

This may help declutter this, History of Misplaced Pages, article, in particular, to address the concern posted above, in #Article count milestones, while retaining the info.

I understand that today, of only 5 years of history, the "calendar" may seem redundant, but I seriously hope for wikipedia to live and grow.

Potential additions:

• start dates of non-english wikis,
• new policies introduced,
• dates of board of directors elections,

etc. mikka (t) 20:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

2005 section

I added the Nature comparative experience because I think it is an interesting point, the first true comparative experience. In that, I think this is really more usefull than the Seigenthaler controversy which was the history of the sentence "... may be involve in ..." Revert is need in some extrem cases, other way, we have to Improve article. So I will restaure this, free to every body to improve "my" sentence and to neutralise them if need. 82.244.80.175 = french User:Yug, french active editor.

Some omitted history

This article seems remarkably light on the part of Misplaced Pages's history in which its fundamental principles and habits were established--its first year. Why is that? --Larry Sanger 00:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Just like you, I'm not going to touch this article. I "left" Misplaced Pages before you did, and my editing could be construed as controversial. However, I think the current article's main problem is that it is a "chronicle" (as poets would write for their kings) and not history writing. This is a list of events tracked by the people who experienced them, it would be "original research" (not allowed here!) if only it were "research". Any proper "history of X" article should probably start with a section on historiography (who has written history about this? which conflicting theories are there about this history? Marx vs Adam Smith? Larry Sanger vs Jimbo vs that public toilet guy?). This criticism can be made of many "History of X" articles in Misplaced Pages, and the "History of Misplaced Pages" will probably be researched a lot later than the "History of the Internet" or the "History of computers", all of which are quite poor. I think you (and others) should go and do the history research, and publish somewhere where it matters. Then others might be able to reference your work in a future version of this Misplaced Pages article. --LA2 00:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Class action

Should this class-action suit be mentioned in the article? It's linked at the bottom of Jimmy Wales. --zenohockey 07:55, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this : It appear than Britanica stay of a better quality than its concurrent, but not so much, which can confirm the " de facto " concurrence between Britannica and the new alternative Misplaced Pages. have to be in the 2005 Nature' article analyse. Yug (talk) 16:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

With user:Dmytro :

have you a source to write "However, some of the Misplaced Pages articles were found poorly organized and confusing." All what I have read was something such as "both have mistakes and organized confusions" (about the 50 articles look by Nature). If you talk about "some of the Misplaced Pages articles" out of this 50, please correct your sentence. Yug (talk) 16:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

One millionth English article

When is this projected and how will it be marked? It is a very notable achievement in the development of the web. Perhaps a 'plaque' on the 1000000th article?]

I like the idea that when 1,000,000 is reached, creation of new articles be blocked for a month while Misplaced Pages does nothing but work on improvement of existing articles. --JWSchmidt 02:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

This never happened, it looks like. --WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 17:48, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Monobook.css and MediaWiki namespace editing

Dates on which administrators could edit these from Misplaced Pages:Administrators. --JWSchmidt 02:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Link please

I dare not edit this page ;-) so could someone please put up a link to User:Larry Sanger/Origins of Misplaced Pages? TIA. --Larry Sanger 02:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Larry. We usually do not link to anything outside the main namespace from articles. --Phroziac _. o º 01:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey Larry, careful now, Jimbo could just erase u from wikipedia, he calls the shots here, ultimately. The article already says you are cofounder, and most reasonable people dont think Jimbo was sole founder. Jörg Vogt 10:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

#s

Hundreds of thousands of contributors. Over 100k logged in with at least 10 edits. +sj + 23:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The name "Misplaced Pages"

It'd be interesting to find the first instance of the name "Misplaced Pages". I found this response from Larry Sanger to his own thread on nupedia-l (!) called "Let's make a wiki". Could anyone confirm whether this is it? Cormaggio 18:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, that link should be - the previous link is to the beginning of the thread. Cormaggio 20:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The removal of self-references (wikilinking to non-main namespace pages)

When the self-references were removed, some links with nicer look-like names were changed to a not-as-good naming style -- the page you end up on. Shouldn't the better names return? I ask since I don't feel like it right now. --WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 17:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

"The 💕" - trivia question

Does anyone know when and how the slogan "The 💕" began to be used? Who suggested it? Was there ever a discussion or a vote? Or was it just self-evident?

I looked at the "nostagia Wikipedias" listed at the bottom of the article, and they don't have the slogan. On the other hand, look here to see "The 💕 Project" used quite early by Richard Stallman.

My own hunch: This was just so self-evident that it began to be used at some point early on, and then when it was coded to appear at the top of each page it began universally recognized and accepted.

Does anyone else have additional ideas or information? Dovi 17:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Sources!

This page has been frustrating me for a long time. A key principle of the Misplaced Pages is verifiability. Sadly, on a page where we should be employing our own principles, we ignore them completely. Who says that "On January 4, the English language version of Misplaced Pages arrived at the 900,000 article mark." What is the source? How I know this was a legitimate contribution? For this page to be credible, all of these statements need to be sourced. This should not be hard as these announcements are typically made in an e-mail list, the Wiki zine, the signpost, etc. as I mentioned before, I tried to do this with the meta timeline, to go back and find sources, but it was a very difficult and time-consuming process. So please, do this when you add something. I almost think we should start reverting any edit that doesn't have a source.

® type things

show me 10 articles with ® used to designate trademarks and you'll have a better case, reverting... JoeSmack 17:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Second language?

In Misplaced Pages:Multilingual coordination and Catalan Misplaced Pages put that the second language was Catalan, created in March of 2001. Is it false? Llull 10:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

In the Creation history there is Catalan as the second to be created. Llull 17:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed it seems a "Spanish" and a French Misplaced Pages were set up together with the German one in March, 2001 . But were any articles written there? What proofs are there? You should expand the article Catalan Misplaced Pages to the same level of detail as the article about the German Misplaced Pages. --LA2 22:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Cronological facts:

• Fri Mar 16 01:24:53 UTC 2001 Jimmy Wales says here that he wants to set up some alternative language wikipedias.
• Fri Mar 16 01:38:55 UTC 2001 Jimmy Wales says he has created deutsche.wikipedia.com wich has only a few words in english.
• 01:41, 17 març 2001 (Sat Mar 17 01:41 UCT 2001) an anonymous makes the first contribution in catalan to the catalan wikipedia.
• 13:37, 30. Mai 2001 (May 30 2001) first contribution in german in the german wikipedia.

Therefore: I would write in the article that the first domain reserved for a non english wikipedia was deutsche.wikipedia.com followed in the same day by the catalan and probably also the french and the spanish (how could the anonymous contribute some hours after in the catalan wikipedia if it was still not created?), and the first colaboration in a non-English wikipedia was an article in catalan.

In any case, catalan wikipedia can not be created in may as it says in the article, because in march it already had some editions.

To sum up, I would rewrite the paragraph as follows:

Early in Misplaced Pages's development, it began to expand internationally. The first domain reserved for a non-English Misplaced Pages was deutsche.wikipedia.com (on 16 March 2001), followed in the same day by the Catalan and probably also the French and the Spanish. The first contribution in a non-English article, however, is in the Catalan Misplaced Pages . The first reference of the French Misplaced Pages is from 23 March and then in May 2001 it followed a wave of new language versions in Chinese, Dutch, Esperanto, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. They were soon joined by Arabic and Hungarian In September, a further commitment to the multilingual provision of Misplaced Pages was made. At the end of the year, when international statistics first began to be logged, Afrikaans, Norwegian, and Serbian versions were announced.

Please, make any suggestion/correction if you find any mistake or you can improve the style. If you feel it's ok, please, change the article with this more accurate description of the events. Thanks.--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 23:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

review all external links

I have upgraded all external links to <ref> tags so that we can see all of these external links together and ask ourselves if they are appropriate and scholarly. -- 75.24.111.205 11:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Current censorship of Misplaced Pages in the world

I'd like to ask a (perhaps) simple question: is Misplaced Pages (and Wikimedia) only censored (blocked) in PRC? --Fitzwilliam 04:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

15th January

This diff is curious (and, while true, I've reverted it for the moment). The 15th of January is commonly known as "Misplaced Pages day" - this is when (as the article said) Misplaced Pages was formally founded. Further information and context can be added, but this date needs to be recognised. Just a thought, but if a mini-timeline could be created on the first days of Misplaced Pages, that would be a better substitute for removing the date entirely. Cormaggio 13:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

First inkling of a WikiPedia ?

wiki:WikiPedia here?

My question, to this esteemed Wiki community, is this: Do you think that a Wiki could successfully generate a useful encyclopedia? -- JimboWales

Yes, but in the end it wouldn't be an encyclopedia. It would be a wiki. -- WardCunningham

(see also: WikiWikiWeb, Wiki, Ward Cunningham, Jimbo Wales

-- Kim Bruning 21:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Edits by possible banned editor and other vandalisers

I reverted a set of edits made on August 3 by someone editing from IP 75.26.2.210. This address is similar to others that have been used by a banned editor who has been very active on Misplaced Pages lately. We need a mini-project to find reliable sources for the history of Misplaced Pages and then this article needs to cite those sources. Since Misplaced Pages should always "look outward", it might be best to move this article to a different wiki. --JWSchmidt 05:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

      I reverted a couple of edits too regarding name-changes. Can this page be protected so that access to new users like me and others are restricted? -- Zurcech Lordum 09:30, 23 November 2006

1,500,000th article

The one-millionth article is linked from the article. What's article #1,500,000? --zenohockey 22:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Kanab Ambersnail. Pepsidrinka 13:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The facts according to Misplaced Pages press releases and page histories

I'd like to point out, for the benefit of those working on this article and related articles, that according to Misplaced Pages's own first three press releases, until 2004--including two press releases that I didn't have anything at all to do with--I was billed as a founder of Misplaced Pages. See:

• Misplaced Pages:Press releases/January 2002
• Misplaced Pages:Press releases/January 2003
• Misplaced Pages:Press releases/February 2004

Also, until 2004 or 2005, all of the articles about me, Misplaced Pages, History of Misplaced Pages, and even Jimmy gave me billing as co-founder of Misplaced Pages. Just thought it might be useful to point this out for those who weren't aware of it. --Larry Sanger 20:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Links of interest

To the best of my knowledge, I was first described as co-founder of Misplaced Pages back in September 2001 by The New York Times. That was also my description in Misplaced Pages's own press releases from 2002 until 2004. With my increasing distance from the project, and as it grew in the public eye, however, some of those associated with the project have found it convenient to downplay and even deny my crucial, formative involvement. In fact, in the early years of the project, my role was not in dispute at all.

The following links have come to light, and they should dispel much of the confusion:

http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html

--Larry Sanger 22:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Those of us who were there...

I was a member of the core group of editors back in 2001 - there were only about 30 of us. I arrived in early Sept.

Frankly - to assert that Larry was not a co-founder of the Pedia is patently absurd. Jimbo was the driving force behind the Internet-based encyclopedia concept, which became Nupedia. Larry proposed and convinced Jimbo that a wiki-based concept was worthwhile.

Larry remains (in my opinion) the single most important individual in the history of the actual Misplaced Pages, and his structural and philosophical influence remains apparent to this day. (FWIW, IMHO the second most important individual is Daniel Meyer whose name is completely absent from this history.) Jimbo is certainly up there, but from personal experience of what actually transpired in the micro and macro evolution of the site, this is how I see it.

Myabe one day I'll write my own verion of events. Manning 02:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. That's how I see it too. -- Derek Ross | Talk 00:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Were you really there? What you are saying contradicts what Jimbo Wales, founder of Misplaced Pages said on the bomis talk page Jörg Vogt 23:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

oh actually you might be right, according to wikipedia's 2001 website . Jörg Vogt 00:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Was I really there? That's easily verified by examining the archived version. I even created the Wikiproject concept Manning 01:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

This is pretty bad...

This article is not too good a resource, it's missing some vital facts. When did Misplaced Pages switch from usemod to phase 2 to phase 3? What else happened in 2006?(come on, I know at least a few thigs did, with the election and all) -- Chris is me _(u/c/t) 16:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. A lot of things are missing from the 2006 section, and I'm not sure the sections are arranged as nicely as they could be anyway. I've stuck a to-do list at the top of the page, and I'll work on the things in it at some point – Qxz 09:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I've added brief details of the Phase I/II/III transitions, based on information in Misplaced Pages – Qxz 10:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

German Version

Was looking at the german version of this article and it seemed that the way it started out is a lot better than ours, or at least contains more info. See here. Unfortunately I'm next to useless at reading german (even though my family comes from germany... drat!), so can't see exactly how much better it is or easily add parts in from there. But am posting here in the hopes a german reader could? Mathmo 13:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes the german version of most things is better. Normally I would volunteer, but I am having computer problems at the momentJörg Vogt 03:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Xrefer

is claimed (in it's article) to have been one of Misplaced Pages's main competitors as an open access encyclopedia between 2000 and 2003. Is That true? Would it fit in the article? -- 172.158.230.125 01:41, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

2006 fundraiser

Hi. There was a fundraiser in late 2006 or early 2007, I'm not sure when exactly. it raised over a million dolars US for the foundation. Other fundraisers are mentioned, why not this one? Should it be added? Please respond. Thanks. AstroHurricane001 17:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Daniel Meyer

I've raised this before, but it's worth raising again. As I've said, I would rate Larry Sanger as the single most important person in the history of the 'pedia.

However, the second most important person is (in my opinion) Daniel Meyer, also known as Maveric149. Why his name is missing from this article eludes me completely. Daniel was the leader of the "second wave" of editors who arrived early in 2002, and his handiwork is evident in almost every aspect of the current 'pedia's architecture. Daniel effectively ran the entire site for nearly a year after Larry's exit. Those of us who were here then can vouch for that. Manning 04:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Please do not defy Jimbo. Nothing good will come of it. Its surprising how many people try and pull down the great man, he deserves the credit, Plus he could delete any one of us out of existence you know.Jörg Vogt 10:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to "pull Jimbo" down. Jimbo was certainly crucial to Misplaced Pages - he provided the money and the hardware. But he was really not involved in the 'pedia's day-to-day development for the first two years. My own involvement diminished in mid 2002 and has remained 'infrequent' since that time, but I know what went on before that, as I was heavily involved (a fact easily verified by checking the archived versions). Larry was the chief driving figure prior to February 2002. After that, Daniel Meyer became the chief driving force (without ever being formally appointed to the role I might add). Manning 01:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

His name is spelled Mayer. Note the Dec 2006 entry "In late February 2004 a coordinated new look for the Main Page appeared. On February 25, the listing of important overview articles, was replaced by a single link to Template:WikipediaTOC. Hand-chosen entries for the Daily Featured Article, Anniversaries, In the News, and Did You Know rounded out the new look. On February 26, 2004, User:maveric149 (Daniel Mayer) implemented the first entries of an automated archive for the Selected anniversaries which appear on the Main Page. This feature updates daily on the Main Page of the English Misplaced Pages." I happen to know this because I assisted mav on an anonymous basis in the early days of Selected Anniversaries; mav is the one who encouraged me to get a username. --Ancheta Wis 23:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Nature study

hey all, i was doing a project on wikipedia recently and in the process i came across somethin i thought i should bring to your attention

unless nature.com messed up it's page i think our page is wrong

i added the totals up in excel and the totals are different instead of 123/162 for brittanica/wiki respectively i came to the totals of 121/157 for britt/wiki respectively along with the average per page, wiht the posted being 2.92/3.86 per page (brit/wiki) compaired to the calculated 2.95/3.82(brit/wiki) per article that i calculated

let me kno if this is all confusin or what not and i'll try 2 better explain it... peace:)Ancientanubis, talk 04:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Naming conv.

Shouldn't the name be history of wikipedia, because ther is just the one and only. Peacekeeper II 08:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Refactor of page

I've restructured the article and transferred existing information. Hopefully people'll like it.

The article as it existed was mostly a few sections on specific themes, pluus a list of "things that happened". As a pure list, there was little cohesion, it was hard to get a sense of development in any given area, and left another few years it would just be a stack of unconnected miscellany bordering on breaching WP:NOT.

What I've done is this:

1. Founding of Misplaced Pages is in one section. Before it was in two sections, the concept origins being at the bottom of the article, the rest at the top.
2. Added "organization" as a section in the overview.
3. Summaries of main changes in each year in one short section
4. Detailed changes grouped by theme, so that activity and growth in any given area (size, foundation activities etc) can be easily followed.
5. 3 significant missing items added -- the policy creations of late 2005 were all in the wake of Brandt and Seigenthaler, so this is noted; the creation of WP:BLP was also in response but omitted; and the use of Misplaced Pages as a source for the F1 trademark case was overlooked.
6. Specific incidents are given a section to themselves
7. Images are given a gallery "Misplaced Pages history in images", which adds impact and a resource, whilst ensuring they don't cause the rest of the page to comprise long thin columns.

I haven't actually changed the bulleted points from the original, except when information was missing (above), and so there is still some stuff to do:

1. Add "notable people" - left as placeholder as I don't know enough to add this.
2. Probably heavily brevify the incidents sections, to a short paragraph each, since each of these are well documented in their own articles.
3. Add missing info re 2000 and 2001
4. Trim down long lists and summarize in prose form. Much of this doesn't need precise dates, or bullet format. Normal textual format as per most articles might be better for some parts. But I haven't touched this so far, just left it "as it was".
5. Assorted other cleanup

Hope it gets a thumbs up!

FT2 18:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Conrad Burns

It seems clear to me that the Conrad Burns incident was in early 2006, not January 1, 2007, so I am taking out the line about the "two similar incidents" in the 2007 section of "Historical overview by year" — the other being the Rick Jelliffe incident — because the juxtaposition is not appropriate. They are both listed in the "Controversies" section.--76.220.203.140 08:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

"Misplaced Pages:" namespace links

I am pretty sure that we are not supposed to be pointing to "Misplaced Pages:" namespace pages such as WP:BLP as a WikiLink because "Misplaced Pages:" stuff does not get copied when the encyclopedia is exported. We are supposed to, if needed, make them a URL.--76.220.203.140 08:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense. The link to BLP is valid (verification of claim) but you're right, I missed that it needs to be a perm URL, not a wikilink. Thanks for catching that one! FT2 10:59, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Edit questions

The following have been added, I've moved them here to discuss:

• "On the flip side of the coin, the number of notable people who edit Misplaced Pages continues to grow, albeit that many such persons are at the fringe of notability. Jimmy Wales continues to intervene in biographies as he sees fit with courtesy blankings or editing on behalf of celebrities who contact him nicely such as he did for Bianca Jagger about her past dating of Billy Joel. See also the removal of the Brian Peppers article. This list of administrators who continue to revert, block and ignore anyone that they do not like continues to grow and the list of banned users continues to grow."

• "November 2005: The Bogdanov Affair demonstrates how Misplaced Pages suffers from many of the same problems as Usenet."

My concerns here are as to whether these are handled appropriately. If they are, then I'd put them back in, but I want to discuss and check first. FT2 18:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

As promised I have checked these again:

1. The Bogdanov Affair seems not to have been a major issue for Misplaced Pages. It was a major POV war, but POV wars are ten a penny. Misplaced Pages itself was not in the media over it, nor did the Affair center around Misplaced Pages. It doesnt look like it "demonstrated" anything except that POV warriors come here, too. I can't find sources saying it was memorable in Misplaced Pages's history.

2. Much of the former is non-neutral. Page blanking and courtesy blanking is not, as implied, a wrongdoing in most cases. banned users will naturally continue to grow as Misplaced Pages expands and more people use it, this doesn't show anything unusual. The comment on BRD is an assertation, alleging admin bias and misuse of powers, but it needs citing, or citing that there is a notable controversy or minority view sufficiently relevant for a history of Misplaced Pages. And so on. As it stands this seems to contradict WP:NPOV.

Comments? FT2 18:11, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm also a bit concerned at some of the recent trimming. Articles have to stand on their own merits, to an extent. They need citing, not just reference to other articles presumed to have the cites (removal of cites from Taner Akçam, Microsoft, Essjay and Benoit) and they need some actual description (more than just "The congressional staffer edits to Misplaced Pages biographies of politicians comes to light"). Also, Nature is not notable. Its one of many studies into Misplaced Pages accuracy, so what? It only deserves a mention because it followed on from the Seigenthaler incident, and is an epilogue to that story. I'd likle to revert several of these edits. FT2 19:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, try that. I've renamed the scandal to "political aides" and made clear it's 2 events ("In a separate but similar incident...") . That way it covers both cases in one item. FT2 19:42, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the "flip side of the coin" paragraph is a bunch of kibbles and bits. But I still think that a coherent paragraph can be written using at least some of these items to show the official deletionist half of the dynamic equilibrium that is the actual Misplaced Pages process.--76.203.48.177 20:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess that what this line of thought might lead to is a slightly deeper look at semi-protection and its actual usage as well. The initial concept was that it would be used on 30 articles but now it is more than 1000 and it seems like that number can only grow.--76.203.48.177 20:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that the huge footnote for the congressional staffer thing is ugly, but in time I will simply acclimate to it.--76.203.48.177 20:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

If you're trying to describe changes to the balance and attitudes of Misplaced Pages culture, then thats tricky. With so many active editors, a lot of it will either be statistics, or OR... and it's hard to tell whether (for example) deletions and protections are because of growth, because of attitude change, because of whatever reason. if you can think of a way to document how Wiki culture's changed with evidence, I'd say fine, but I don't know what you're trying to show, or where we might get information that isn't just personal guesswork what various stats might mean. And yeah - I agree on the footnote. A better layout wouldnt hurt, but at least its in a note where it belongs, not the text. Should we use a footnote table, maybe?? FT2 21:10, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay - take a look at the footnote now! Better? FT2 21:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

When I talk about the process and, for instance, the proliferation of semi-protected pages, the Katefan0/Gator1 outings and list of banned users, I suppose I am really talking about the Misplaced Pages community and the process. Like it or not, that is what many lighter news articles about Misplaced Pages seem to focus on. Even though Jimbo still calls the shots, is there anything that can be said about the community while being NPOV, NOR and all that? You can talk about isolated incidents where Misplaced Pages played a role and you can talk about the technology, but I have to wonder if anything else has spontaneously qualitatively changed about the community since, say, 2004. By "spontaneously", I guess I mean without necessarily being embodied in policy. Perhaps each person's experience is unique, but I question things like:

• What drives deletion? Is is different now than in 2004?
• Is there anything different about anonymity now? Certainly the community seems more methodical about dealing with potential libel and defamation.
• Has anyone had, perhaps, a hospitalization, divorce or death because of their wikiholism? I ask that because of the similarities between the Scientology, Objectivism, hippie communes and the Misplaced Pages community in that the real power is concentrated in one or few central figures and their entourage and such environments often breed such outcomes.
• Is the current publicity changing the kind of new Wikipedian that becomes active? Some who have left claim that the vast majority of Wikipedians have a variety of strange hidden agendas of one sort or another that drive their participation beyond just building the encyclopedia..

So I guess I am looking for trends in the community, if they can be discerned. I noticed that WP:100K has at the end of it a hard-hitting reality check. It will be interesting to see which there are more of a year from now: Featured Articles or semi-protected articles. The current trends seem to favor the latter.--76.203.48.177 23:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Some interesting questions there. A lot of them are the kind we can think about, if we put them in a different context.

Suppose we were writing "History of Denmark", and we wanted for completeness to comment on the state of the community. We ask if the culture of modern day Denmark was changing or different. We would be reluctant to guess, and we'd probably not make it a central part of the national history, but it's relevant. We would not put in cites from one or two polls or individual emigrants views. But if there were reliable surveys and stufdies on social metrics, we might summarize some facts from those. We wouldn't try to sensationalize or editorialize though, by filling it out with partial information.

Thats kind of where I'd be at here, too. Any use? FT2 02:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Claims reworded

We don't know enough to cast an impression on semi-protection, so I've reworded it with the facts - it has proven more successful or popular than anticipated originally.

In the same vein I've removed the unsourced and probably non-notable assertion that "Misplaced Pages's name becomes associated with the word truthiness".

Last, I've reworded the clumsy wording about use of redirects instead of bio articles. FT2 09:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

More specific please

Quote from article: 'On March 19, following a vote, the Main Page of the English language Misplaced Pages featured its first redesign in nearly two years.'

March 19 of what year? It needs filling in. Lradrama 19:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The monster footnote is growing... GROWING....

This is the "History of Misplaced Pages" article! The Congressional staffer edits to Misplaced Pages has its own article. We now have an entire infobox embedded within the footnotes about the Congressmen whose Misplaced Pages biographies where edited. This is painful. I feel that the incident deserves little more than a wikilink and a timeframe (early to mid 2006) in this History article.--75.37.12.168 19:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Can't completely disagree there. If you want, might be best to suggest a wording for the bullet and footnote here, and discuss it briefly, makes it easier to discuss? FT2 21:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Userboxes?

Would the massive growth in userboxes and the so-called "Great 2006 New Year's Day Userbox Purge" and the subsequent deletion of a lot of userboxes be worth mentioning in the 2006 and 2007 sections of the article? - • The Giant Puffin • 22:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I object. The userboxes conflicts never managed to get back out to the Real World and has little or nothing to do with encyclopedic content creation. That makes the userbox thing a self-reference best avoided in this article.--75.37.12.168 22:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

With respect, disagree. The subject is "History of Misplaced Pages". Since Misplaced Pages is a community and an encyclopedia, that means that the history of wikipedia as a community is an intrinsic and integral aspect of the article. The things which were notable as a community are part of Misplaced Pages's history, since almost every reliable source on Misplaced Pages structure emphasizes the integral nature of the community, its structure, consensus, and culture. Those are notable aspects too.

It isn't all about article count and functionality enhancements, so to speak. Much of what is notable in the History of Misplaced Pages in the community aspect, isn't about "encyclopedic article creation". Documenting the cultural aspects of Misplaced Pages's history where it can be reliably documented, is relevant too - trends, notable major policy changes, notable internal regulatory or sentiment changes, notable internal communal matters, new project areas, and so on are all potentially notable aspects too, if they can be reliably evidenced and are verifiable. FT2 01:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

A mild concern

To the IP user on this article...

I have some mild concerns about the edits you're adding in some places. A lot of the edits are good, but some give quite a non-neutral effect and give rise to concern. Some examples:

1. Addition of "In a small internal controversy, the maturity of Wikipedian volunteers is challenged" History of Misplaced Pages

   WP:OR, this is a personal view.

2. Addition of The Misplaced Pages Story "whether or not Misplaced Pages is a valuable source of knowledge, or if it is a symptom of mediocrity and the devaluation of expertise and research ... Wales suggests that he has no more authority within his organization than the Queen of England does within hers — an asssertion that some might take exception with"

   WP:OR, WP:WEASEL - opinion.

3. Addition of "The worldwide project, with over one million registered user accounts, continues to produce about one English "featured article" per day." to Essjay controversy where its relevance and effect is rather questionable at best

   WP:NPOV WP:POINT - Low relevance, undue weight and non-neutral impression in the context, and pointy.

   I guess I was trying to put the importance of the whole incident into perspective with something Important enough to give a sense of finality and discourage trivial media references to the Essjay controversy from the continuing debate over the credibility of Misplaced Pages from creeping back into the timeline. I suppose I am being a bit of a realist or perhaps a pessimist, but it seems to me that the rate of 1 FA per day is going to hold for the next several years and that WP:100K is a long way off.--76.203.126.39 01:13, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

4. Addition of "Jimmy Wales continues to intervene in biographies as he sees fit with "courtesy blankings" or editing on behalf of celebrities who contact him nicely such as he did for Bianca Jagger about her past dating of Billy Joel. This list of administrators who continue to revert, block and ignore anyone that they do not like continues to grow and the list of banned users continues to grow." to History of Misplaced Pages

   WP:NPOV, some of these are factually correct but leave a non-neutral impression, for example the ban list might grow simply as the community grows, as Misplaced Pages becomes more popular, or even as a quality control measure (less tolerance for gamesters). But as stated, it implies a quite different meaning.

5. Addition of "The Bogdanov Affair demonstrates how Misplaced Pages suffers from many of the same problems as Usenet" to History of Misplaced Pages.

   WP:OR WP:NPOV - Affair doesn't appear to show anything of the kind, when examined.

6. And others I haven't got to yet, probably...

The number of good quality edits added far outweighs these, though :) However, I'm thinking it might be worth taking extra care to keep "personal interpretation" and making points, out of such edits, when it's unsure if those are neutrally presented and relevant.

Anyhow, Hopefully drawing it to attention is enough, in which case, let me know, and thanks! :)

FT2 10:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The Tim Pierce incident was covered in Incident archives 184 and 187. Pierce was an instructor with an MBA at NIU. Zoe draws out some of the instructors reasonsing in the earlier archive. Jimbo had already handled it over the phone and nobody blogged about it. Zoe left the project on the notion that "vandalism is evil" has no exceptions. I assume that User:Georgewilliamherbert/PierceLetter was actually sent. I guess the point is that when it comes to a conflict between "building the encyclopedia" and education, education sometimes wins. I tend to view it as the need to preserve the Foundation's 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity status as sometimes resulting in a non-intuitive outcome. Maybe there is some other large point is demonstrates or maybe it is just a tempest in a teapot. Any ideas?--76.203.126.39 01:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's notable, honestly. The only really solid sources for it are basically, that people on Misplaced Pages (Wales, Zoe etc) say it happened and they have spoken to him, and documenting his agreement it happened, so I guess that can be considered verifiable. But a teacher asks his students to modify articles to show them it can be changed, and the impact is Wales speaks to him, an administrator writes to him, and there is some discussion of editors who think he was out of line? Not really the big picture. This (as noted on ANI 184/197) is not completely uncommon, and it just doesn't seem a big part of Wiki history even for that one year. No long term effects, nobody left Misplaced Pages, no scandals, no media reports.....

Regarding FA's, the stats aren't really anything to do with Essjay or the controversy. Trying to make a point with FA stats as "heres something really important so don't put as much focus on this controversy" isn't really workable. There's a different mindset for encyclopedias as for media reporting. In the latter one documents anything interesting and relevant, and tries to direct attention more. In the former one focusses on encyclopedic approaches, "is this important/notable/verifiable to put in". Essjay had zero to do with FA statistics nor do the stats shed any light on the Essjay controversy. Just report Essjay's controversy, keep to whats notable and important for an encyclopedia article on it, and let it go :) FT2 08:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Time of creation

In the user preferences, under the "Date and time" tab, I notice the example date is the same day Misplaced Pages is said to have gone online (January 15, 2001). Can anyone verify if the example time (16:12 UTC) is indeed the time at which the site was created? Samuel Grant 16:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Merging

I added content from the now redirected here The Misplaced Pages Story based on this closure, SqueakBox 21:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I've removed this section.

The article itself was AFD'ed and made into a redirect (note: not redirect and merge).

This was a 1/2 hour TV documentary on WIkipedia. There have been lietrally hundreds of analyses of Misplaced Pages in the media. No notability for this specific one is claimed, and certainly doesn't seem to justify the extensive recap ana analysis of it.

Whatever 3rd parties have to say on Misplaced Pages's history, can be added to the article and sourced. We might need a section "Third party analyses of Misplaced Pages's history" too, perhaps. But we almost certainly don't need plot and content recaps on individual documentaries. FT2 22:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

1. Alternative language wikipedias
2. First article in the catalan wikipedia
3. find rederence
4. Misplaced Pages:AnnouncementsMay 2001
5. International_Wikipedia
6. Misplaced Pages AnnouncementsSeptember 2001
7. International wikipedias statistics

• B-Class Misplaced Pages articles
• High-importance Misplaced Pages articles
• WikiProject Misplaced Pages articles
• Unassessed software articles
• Unknown-importance software articles
• Unassessed software articles of Unknown-importance
• Unassessed Computing articles
• Unknown-importance Computing articles
• All Computing articles
• All Software articles
• Misplaced Pages pages with to-do lists