User talk:DRolfe
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Bluepedia
patrioticliberal 23:48, 7 Aug 2005 (PDT) From "The Centerfielder" via email: bluepedia was for testing the software upgrade. dkosopedia.com is the place to be. i'll clarify on Meta_Main and in a dKos diary entry soon. thanks for all the work...
Daniel 03:49, 7 Aug 2005 (PDT) I just saw that Recent Changes page on Bluepedia and saw all the changes you've been making there. The main page, though, says "modifications will not be preserved." I'm confused: should we be editing articles here or in the new wiki? Will they be merged or will changes past a certain date be lost from one of them?
patrioticliberal 03:58, 7 Aug 2005 (PDT) I'd like to know this too, are we making updates at Dkosopedia.com for nothing or will they be moved to Bluepedia or whatever? Or should we be updating there? Thanks.
- DRolfe 04:52, 7 Aug 2005 (PDT) To both of you: :-) I would also like to know the answer to this and have asked in Meta Main about it. I haven't impatient enough to start emailing User:Centerfielder about it. ;) As I understand it all work here will stay here and that this site will get the same software as Bluepedia (which is just a test site, I don't think/know-if it will be the eventual home of the site), at which point I (we) will all have to do the kind of stuff that I was demonstrating over there... specifically the daunting task of categorizing the umpteen already written articles. Templates, variables, and categories are all features of the newer wiki version that we could really leverage here -- they would obsolete the painful way we are doing Biographies, Quotes, As-of, Current listings of Congress, in fact all articles that merely contain lists would be on the chopping block, maybe even the Kossary (it could just be a category).
- Daniel 05:16, 7 Aug 2005 (PDT) Oh, I see. I didn't notice that those edits weren't for content. Hmm, templates would sure be nice. Thanks.
On Attribution
wegerje 04:08, 5 Aug 2005 (PDT)
Reply you your Jul 22 note to me: I would suggest these courses of action. 1) add your disclaimer boiler-plate to the policies page dKosopedia:Policies and Guidelines which has a main page link. 2) Write up something very short that can be placed on the Main-page near the top. 3) Contact User_talk:Centerfielder about placing the short notice on the main page. 4) Suggest that you would write a featured article for the Main page and a dailykos diary on the subject of attribution if he would place it on the front page.
Outdated information
Here is an example of an outdated diary. HOW do we get things updated? http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/2004_Ohio_Irregularities There's no mention, for example, of John Conyer's book about Ohio irregularities; and some of the information is stated as "current" when it is no longer current information.
- DRolfe 16:43, 4 Aug 2005 (PDT) - Alas, public wikis rely on the public to keep them up-to-date. :-) They don't update themselves, you know. The point of [As of] links and what-not is direct contributors/researchers that aren't just drive-by editors to weed out bad info, and update out-dated facts. If you know anyone who's read Conyer's book, have them drop by. If you know anyone that lives in Ohio, have them drop by.
Spellchecking
Hey there. You seem to add lots of content here, and I've only recently started helping out by doing cleanup work. Minor corrections are probably all that I have time for, but anyway, you may be interested to know that I'm using a Firefox extension that lets me spellcheck the text in the edit boxes. All I do is bring up a random page, right click, select all, right click, check spelling, fix what's wrong, and save the page. It takes only a few seconds, but if more people used something like that when adding new content then there would be less to fix later. So if you use Firefox or Mozilla, go check out http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/
- DRolfe 00:40, 27 Jul 2005 (PDT) Hi, I use Safari (the OS X web browser). On a Mac, every text box is spell-checkable (just press -; [cmd-semicolon]). Thanks for the tip, though. :-)
Users Guild
Bink 14:27, 6 Aug 2005 (PDT) Is the Meta place the place to go for community building on dKosopedia? If so, I'll take my business there ...
Wikipedia Copying
patrioticliberal 23:51, 7 Aug 2005 (PDT) My thoughts on Wikipedia/SourceWatch copying is if it contains a great deal of good information that is very relevant to what you are discussing here, I say try to glean what you can (and cite it!!!) but don't right out copy it; also try to do your own investigations to see if you can be even more thorough or find something someone else hasn't. It's a fine line to walk but I do think those tools can be valuable if used properly.
(Copied over from Talk:Joseph Stalin)
- Bink 10:38, 7 Aug 2005 (PDT) One question that might be worth asking when adding things to the dKosopedia is, "Is this topical?" For example, when I looked on the "Most Wanted" list of articles, I saw "Norway."
However, when I look at what people are Googling for when they arrive at dKosopedia, I see that the top phrase is "John Roberts Supreme Court" and its variations. Clearly, there is a disconnect here and I think it has to do with "scope," or more specifically, "topicality."
"John Roberts" is a popular topic. "Norway" is "most wanted," in terms of a missing article that is linked to the highest number of times, but even were it written -- or copied from Wikipedia -- it is highly unlikely to become a popular topic hereabouts.
I think that this is one gap that contributors are trying to resolve in copying over whole Wikipedia articles.
It would be very good for the folks who currently constitute the ad hoc "dKosopedia Users Guild" to recognize some sort of a convention here in terms of culture: Do we copy over from Wikipedia for non-topical articles like "Norway?" Do we simply de-link "Norway" from articles as being non-topical? Do we just make the Norway article a stub with a link to Wikipedia? Do we attempt to write our own comprehensive articles about Norway?
My preference -- subject to advisement -- is simply to delink "Norway" in articles as non-topical ... and to focus on creating topical content, rather than duplicating other web encyclopedia efforts.
- Bink 10:38, 7 Aug 2005 (PDT) One question that might be worth asking when adding things to the dKosopedia is, "Is this topical?" For example, when I looked on the "Most Wanted" list of articles, I saw "Norway."
Instead of trying to "glean" from a Wikipedia article, I think it's preferable to copy the whole thing, with a link back to the original and to the page history of the original. Then, if you choose to glean, do so by editing the article's version here. That way, other contributors can see what you decided to omit. They may think that some of it should be restored. Of course, doing your own investigation to add material is a great idea. There's no "fine line" to walk here, because both projects use the GFDL, so material can be copied wholesale from one to the other provided that the requirements of the GFDL are met. (Incidentally, I appreciate the patrolling of dKosopedia for Wikipedia articles copied without attribution, but this edit wasn't necessary. As I noted in my ES when creating the Maurice Hinchey article here, I was the author -- I was just repeating what I'd written on Wikipedia. There's no harm in leaving the link in, though.) Jim Lane 04:51, 17 June 2006 (PDT)
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