I'm probably going to get shouted down & banned for posting this, but hopefully the people who should will see it.

I have launched a new forum for discussion & help using Wikipedia. The aim is be more friendly to actual Wikipedia editors & users. It will barely be moderated, so criticism is fine-it's what makes Wikipedia better, but the aim isn't to become a forum for haters.

If you are interested, please give it a visit at www.thewikipediaforum.com

Thanks!

Can you say "Wikback"?

Been there, done that....

If you have a question or suggestion about Wikipedia, why not just go there?

If you want to criticise specific aspects of Wikipedia, why not just post here?

Don't see the point.

Discussion on Wikipedia & help when needed is so spread out around Wikipedia it is very difficult. I'm sure people will say that this just adds another place to the confusion, & to start with that's true. But hopefully, over time this can grow to be a useful community. Wikipedia can be very confusing, especially for new users wanting help & this should help them.

Re. Wikback-Moderation there was over the top & excessive-on this there will be little moderation, only to stop personal insults.

Why not come here?

Many Wikipedia users feel very unwelcome here & don't want to post here, because of its reputation for being what it is-very critical & many times, very rude about specific editors.

Hope this answers the questions, please feel free to ask any more.!

I assume since you're using the Wikipedia logo that this is a WMF-sanctioned project?

At the time of posting, the newest member of this new site is; SlimVirgin. For that reason alone I shall not be joining (not that I had any intention of doing so, but this was the very cherry on the topping).

I have no trouble with HFO posting here - she knows it is adversarial, and particularly so where she is concerned. This is a site of adults - generally - where having a contrary viewpoint is permitted, and you simply have to agree to deal with the consequences of participating. I have no problem with her continuing editing of Wikipedia, since her content is usually well written and researched - and if she only allowed differing opinions their due weight (consensus rather than cabal determined) then she would be a model contributor - since her modus operandi is understood.

However, I would not be keen on joining a site where she has established herself within the first few. I do not see that this would last too long as a venue for far ranging and non partisan discussion. Of course, it may not be the SlimVirgin - but that would make the place an even worse place,

Good Idea.

Maybe this will take some of the Proselyte & Psychophant load off the Review, and we can get back to our proper and needful task — exposing the dangers of Wikipedia's Anti-Social Software (WP:ASS).

Jon

Only question I care about: who are you?

We have a history of tolerance for people people who want create new forums about Wikipedia. We give them an opportunity to post a thread about it without raising the usual concerns about spam, even if it probably will be feeble in the criticism department, as is the case Wikback. Other times our members actively use this forum for ungong discussion and promotion as was the case with Wikiabuse. If they prove to be a good and valuable site we link to them as in the case with Akahele.

So as good as it might be for your promotion I doubt if anyone will accommodate you with a ban. But wouldn't you know all this if you spent enough time to form your opinion of us as "unfriendly?"

Wikipedia Review now is not the same Wikipedia Review it was two years ago. It's got a bad rep, but I think many who come to post here, regardless of their reasons, find that it's not how people on Wikipedia claim it to be. Having been heavily involved in both at one point or another, I'd have to say, in my opinion, there are just as many oddballs, coots and assholes on Wikipedia, proportionally, as there are here. That's the world.

The major difference, as I see it, is in the real world, we're surrounded by stupid people. Wikipedia often seems like a sea of stupid. Here, many, although not all, of the complete morons seem to get badgered away. I see that as a Good Thing.

That said, a mostly unmoderated forum with an aim to replace [[WP:HELPDESK]], although a good concept in theory, has too high of a potential to become overrun with children wanting to seem knowledgeable in all things Wiki and degenerate into a big ball of fail. Not to mention the possibility for legendary POV pushers with underhanded tactics, and their cronies joining, using it as another platform to control content on-wiki.

If it works out, that's great. I hope it does, so that your time and money will not have been wasted. I just don't foresee it.

Gonged means gonged.


See, back in the good old days, on The Gong Show, once you were gonged, there was no appeal and no chance of being ungonged.

How long before this new forum gets a Nasty Lawyergram from Wikimedia's outsourced intellectual property enforcement office? Anyone want to start a pool?

As mentioned earlier in the thread, no it is not a WMF project & the logo is going to be changed over the next few days to show this.

Not joining because a user called SlimVirgin has joined just seems silly frankly. If you weren't going to join anyway, that's fine, but just because she is there, I can't see why that should stop you really.

Some good points raised, thank you, I obviously hope it becomes a useful resource for people so we'll see.

All of your input is very much appreciated, here & on the forum itself.

Thanks

Indeedy. The site looks like it has everything a drama-loving wikikid needs - including what looks like a WP admin-only forum. Hours of fun playing "who leaked my post". Whee.

I think everyone here should immediately register using the name of their least-favorite Wikipedia administrator. That should keep things lively!

...Now with less balls than those artists.

What is that in the top banner, the Walt Disney font? I don't think you're going to want to wait "a few days" to change that...


For your sake, I hope you're a quick learner.


IMO, if the folks who started WR could have seen into the future, I suspect they would have organized the forums/subforums quite differently. We've kept things fairly stable, because changing everything now would be too messy and confusing. If we were doing it now, they'd be organized more by specific issues - not by general/generic areas of concern, some of which aren't really as concerning as others. I would also be fairly aggressive about creating new issue-based forums and subforums - they seem to help keep people more focused, and of course, some folks are single-issue types to begin with. In fact, a lot of folks are, and you should cater to them - they're good at driving discussions.

More importantly: If you try to muzzle people by applying WP-like civility rules across the board, disallowing insults and name-calling completely, your site will become a ghost town within 3 months, assuming it gets off the ground at all. Many people go offsite from Wikipedia for precisely that reason, and as annoying as they can often be, they sort of help keep everyone else interested. We have the tar-pit for when things get too heated, and you should have one too (the Wikback did that as well). It's a fairly standard thing in non-fansite boards - don't avoid it just because we do it.

Finally, it's a lot of work to keep the spambots out, but you have to do it, or you're DoA, basically. They will destroy you if you let them in. Your CAPTCHA looks OK, but since it looks like you take Gmail addresses during registration, try as best you can to be careful about sock puppet accounts - there are people on both the pro- and anti-Wikipedia side who will swarm you with those if you're not careful.

Thank you for your advice, very helpful. RE. The civility rules-they will be very relaxed-solely stopping personal insults with no evidence to back them up. Criticism is fine!
Will try & watch out for sock puppets-thanks!

If you have a genuine reason to have such a forum AND are afraid you'll get "banned" for it, why the HELL can't you figure out that there's a genuine reason for Wikipedia-haters to exist?

And when I say Wikipedia-haters I mean "haters" in the nicest possible way, akin to reasonable people who hate WINDOWS, not (say) people who hate Armenians.

I once knew a professor of technical writing who claimed there was no excuse at all for any large corporation not to have the best manual about their own product, that was available on the market. After all, who else should be writing the best manual-- somebody who didn't invent the thing? At worst Corporation X should be hiring a bunch of ignorant tech writers and using them as beta-testers to write the ultimate-help manual, using the actual developers as ultimate Subject Matter Experts. Any time that doesn't happen, the original corporation has not been doing its job. And has no excuse even from a self-interest standpoint: for, of course, the process of writing such a manual, if you pay attention, will help you design a better and more intuitive software product, on the NEXT iteration.

He said if he was running a large corporation that made some bit of software, he'd tell his IT documentation team: "The moment somebody comes out with Whizbang for Dummies, and it's better than the documentation we ship with the Whizbang product ourselves, YOU'RE ALL FIRED."

I hope I don't have to explain to you you how this applies to Wikipedia?

Thanks GlassBeadGame, that might be the new banner! In all seriousness, a new one is imminentish.

That's it! Motto: It's the happiest place on Earth, until Security tosses you out.

Okay, six weeks, then...

I'm actually talking more about stuff like "you're a moron/idiot/troll/spammer/vandal/nutcase/jerk/stalker/wanker/poopyhead," not "You vandalized my user page! Look at this diff!" ...or things of that nature. You'll probably get plenty of both, unless you ban anyone who does it (in which case you'll last more like three weeks).

Distinguishing between the two kinds of "insults" isn't hard, but the important thing is that they will insist there's no difference, and you'll have to spend some time either convincing them otherwise, or censoring/sanctioning them - and neither option is especially attractive, especially during the adoption phase. WR has an advantage in that respect, because we have a lot of members who understand that Wikipedia phrase-redefinition, "NPA" nitpicking, and general rulemongering are just more tools in the gameplayer's vast arsenal of deception and chicanery - so, people who depend on such tools usually don't last here. (Though admittedly, there are exceptions.)

Essentially, it boils down to this: If you don't discuss controversial issues, nobody will bother with it. So, given that you have to discuss controversial issues, you have to let people fight for what they believe in, even if it means the occasional nasty exchange. Over time, you'll see that some of the people who start out fighting dirty begin to come around to a more reasonable way of doing things, or else they get frustrated and leave - but if you do what Wikipedia generally does (or used to do, anyway) and just ban them straightaway, you'll be doing yourself a disservice more than them.

Tris, I too would like the answer to this question before I further research your product. I have learned (with Encyclopedia Dramatica, and frankly, with Wikipedia Review) that my time and effort is more likely to be wasted on a site where the owner/manager doesn't post a name and mailing address.

Signed,

Gregory Kohs

Well the Disney header has now gone & been replaced with a much nicer one(in my opinion).

My name is Tristan Thomas, you can contact me directly using a variety of email addresses-admin@thewikipediaforum.com is probably the easiest WRT the forum. Out of interest Gregory, why do you feel you waste your time more on sites with no details of the owner?

Were you the body double for Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair?

Mr. Thomas,

Just out of curiosity, have you received permission from the WMF to use the trademarked name "Wikipedia"? I'm just asking because of the recent incident surrounding the use of the name "Wikipedia" on the Wikipedia Art site , which was asked by the WMF to turn their domain ownership over to them.

Also, could you give us the identities or at least the WP usernames of your moderators and other "staff" members?

Hi Tris, I'll join if you answer One's question. A forum owner can usually see everyone's IP address so we'd like to know who we're entrusting it to- or something like that. Not that mine reveals much about me, but I'm curious as to who you are, anyway. What's your current username on WP? There's a User:Tris, but he only made a few edits, in 2005.


I like small talk or general chat or whatever (it's perhaps a lost art) so a forum might be interesting to me, and I like to chat about wiki. Most of my internets activity (which should be much reduced, anyway) will hopefully eventually be centred on Facebook.

Be sure to have a Tar Pit/Cage Match/Dan T's Inferno/Tartarus forum for flame wars. It works for us!

Well...

Because if I take serious time to write serious things, I have found (with the exception of The Wikback, where the identified owner sabotaged my work) that sites where the owner is anonymous/pseudonymous, my content is more likely to be deleted/altered/sabotaged, and that makes me angry. And you won't like me when I'm very, very angry.

[[User:Dotydotdot]]

Of course, that's just a guess.

Also, since I'm already guessing, I'd say Tris is 17, from Waterhay (in Wiltshire), and doesn't really think that deeply about Wikipedia, but who am I to judge?

There's a Upper Waterhay Meadow (T-H-L-K-D) in Wiltshire, but I don't believe there's a town or village by that name, is there? More likely Tris is from Swindon or Salisbury, which would put him/her near Stonehenge, where the demons dwell, where the banshees live and they do live well, and where a man's a man and the children dance to the Pipes of Pan.

...but also the home of Salisbury Steak.

Incorrect, I'm afraid!

Woah, now I'm impressed

Next you'll be tellin' me that French Fries don't come from France?

----------------
Now playing: Kelly Clarkson - Long Shot
via FoxyTunes

Oooooh keyyyy; a user with 101 edits on WP starts a forum about WP...just after "someone" stated that they would " love to to see someone start a new forum"?

Hmmm.

I've always been of the opinion that French Fries do come from France, and in fact I hadn't heard anything to the contrary until just now, when I checked the WP article. I guess you learn something needlessly controversial every day!

Getting back to Wiltshire, though, I think we can rest assured that Wilt Chamberlain (T-H-L-K-D) wasn't born there. Not sure about Talia Shire (T-H-L-K-D)...

Anyway... I have no reason to believe that someone who hasn't quite turned 20 yet couldn't run a web board focused on Wikipedia - after all, I'm only 7 years old myself. However, Mr. Tris already appears to be too identifiable, which could lead to some personal-liability problems... and of course, I would never want to be doing something like that if I were actively looking for a job or trying to get into university. Too many irrational revenge-obsessives out there, I'm sorry to say.

Still, time will tell, I guess!

Look, I want to join your forum; I'm not even slightly insincere about this. But first, you need to explain who you are and what your relationship to Wikipedia is.

I've just thought of the best way to shut down the forum: make SV a moderator or admin.

I'm at least somewhat interested as well, but I share the Squirrelly One's concerns here.

And Paul Sinclair, 41, Corsham, England.

Could you beat the Incredible Hulk, though? That's the question everyone wants to know.

Folks should get a kick out of this, assuming it isn't deleted immediately:

http://www.thewikipediaforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=28

He's such a wag that Gr^Huy.

Well, people on here seem to have found out a fair bit about me so congratulations there, I'm actually very impressed.
In reply to some questions, my relationship with Wikipedia is solely that of an editor. There are no other moderators on the forum at the moment other than me & they will be very carefully vetted-ideally people who are neutral & don't have too strong views on this, but that is a problem for the future & not now.
Gregory, your posts are very unlikely to be tampered with, there is not very much moderation & so should be fine, I would appreciate your input there.
And in reply to the post, he only has 100 edits etc. In my view, that seems an advantage. I've not been here long enough to get caught in arguments etc. & am pretty neutral!

PS. I would appreciate conversation here to relate to the forum rather than my personal information.

Thank you!

I did note that I would not be joining anyway. I believe it is unlikely that it will further inform my editing of Wikipedia, but my comments regarding SlimVirgin was more of a warning to you. There are people with very invested participation in Wikipedia, who are capable of utilising outside forums to influence their standing on the encyclopedia. SlimVirgin is one of those, and there are more. If you know who these people are, then you will be able to moderate your site more effectively - if not then the fine intentions of the forum will be usurped by people with agendas they wish to push.

I respect SlimVirgin, while both disagreeing with some of her opinions and very much with much of the methods she utilises/d. I will work with her on WP and argue with her here, when I feel the need, because I am very aware of what she brings to the project.



Has anyone extended the hand of friendship to Sophia here? (Or is she already here..? I know, I should really care more about peoples identities... Nah, too much like hard work...)

Sorry I misunderstood you.

Thank you for the advice.