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==Short bio==
I've created this page to catalog some of my ideas for our push towards 1.0. But rather than it being an essay or bullet points written just by me, I'd like for people to treat it as a place where we can come to some community consensus about what to do.
Mexican mathematics grad school student.
I'm also a major contributor of [http://planetmath.org Planetmath], the free mathematics encyclopedia.
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<tr><td><center>'''[[Wikipedia:Babel]]'''</center></td></tr>
<tr><td>{{User es}}</td></tr>
<tr><td>{{User en-3}}</td></tr>
<tr><td>{{User piano-2}}</td></tr>
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==Images uploaded to wikipedia==
Some questions, though, are outside the scope of this particular page. Should we drive to 1.0? Should we strive to create a [[m:Paper Wikipedia|paper]]-friendly version? These are interesting questions, I suppose, but outside the scope of what I want to do here, which is to assume that the answers to those are affirmative.
* [[Image:Drini-nonuniformconvergence.png|thumb|300px|left|Used on [[Uniform convergence]]]]
* [[Image:Drini-conjugatehyperbolas.png|thumb|300px|left|Used on [[Hyperbola]]]]
==Personal reminder==
Please note: I plan to refactor this page heavily as we go along! I intend for this to be somewhere between an 'unowned' wiki page and a 'personal' page of mine. Please don't be offended, and if you have a personal rant you'd like to include (and please do!), possibly it will be best to put it in your own userspace and just link it from here.
{{Opentask}}
I may also sometimes post versions of this to the mailing list.
== Basic ideas ==
Some of the basic ideas that I've had so far:
* Wikipedia 1.0 should be about as good as Britannica -- better in some ways, worse in some ways, but a valid alternative
** Should it also be comparable? IE, similar size/range/number of articles, similar focus?
** Not ideologically. Britannica exists to support a particular canon, that being, the British and now American concept of "what history is". It is for instance light on history of India, China, Africa, Latin America and figures of those cultures - one way Wikipedia can differentiate itself is to say that it is less Anglo-centric than Brittanica. Build up an audience in developing nations who can really benefit from having a neutral encyclopedia - like in China where Wikipedia.org is banned, but they won't be able to keep all the CD-ROMs out. It may thus make sense to *focus on Chinese figures and history* deliberately. How can they keep out the only encyclopedia that does their history justice?
* The push for Wikipedia 1.0 should interfere as minimally as possible with the ongoing work on the website
** This calls for a sifter project. Try [http://test.wikipedia.org/w/magnus/wiki.phtml my attempt] - [[User:Magnus Manske|Magnus Manske]]
** It should interfere as much as it likes - as long as it does so in a positive way!
** There are, realistically, two web interfaces: one for authors and casual editors, and one for formal editors doing Wikipedia 1.0 stuff. These are probably choosing particular versions of articles, although work improving them will continue in parallel, an editor has to say "yes this one is better than the one in 1.0". Making it clear in the Wikipedia.org interface what version will go to 1.0, if any, is just putting a "Wikipedia 1.0 approved version" link on the page that goes back in the log to whatever. But no one should feel they can't change an approved version - it just means there's now a difference and the "This is the" before "Wikipedia 1.0 approved version" disappears, the latter becoming a link. That's "as minimally as possible".
* Wikipedia 1.0 is just Wikipedia 1.0 -- by this I mean that we don't need to come up with a perfect system for all time, and that we should be prepared to learn from our mistakes on 1.0 as we, in the future, drive towards 1.1, 1.2, or 2.0
** Whatever editorial process is arrived at, will eventually stick for good. It is worth working out in depth.
* Wikipedia 1.0 should be primarily about producing a single end product that is suitable for printers to print, cheaply. This will mean that we'll want to work for a state such that a printer could receive a CD-ROM from me in the mail and start producing books as easily as possible. I have no idea right now what this would involve, frankly.
** Similarly, anyone should be able to start producing CD-ROMs to mail to others. All open - no single point of failure.
** There should be a CD-ROM target, including everything in [http://simple.wikipedia.com Simple English], specifically for poor countries with little net access where people are learning English or using it only for technical and business purposes, another CD-ROM for English speakers with more emphasis on Western European derived history and culture perhaps, and a DVD-ROM containing the full encyclopedia with audio, pictures, and all the rest. Maybe all the non-English Wikipedias will themselves fit on a single CD, then one DVD?
* Wikipedia the website should remain just as it is, but it is likely that Wikipedia 1.0 is going to require some degree of more formality and controls. These should be kept to a minimal level! We want to preserve the maximum possible openness while at the same time doing what needs doing to ensure that approved versions of articles are actually quite good.
:: Be as formal or informal as is needed - 1.0 need not compete with the website for openness - it'd lose!
::An Editor's Guild that disapproves the approvers of articles may be effective. That way everyone's an approver and their "vote counts" until the cabal of those most trusted editors agrees to discount their vote. That need not be visible! But for instance [[User:JoeM]]'s approval is at best irrelevant to Wikipedia 1.0.
* As a working hypothesis, let's talk about this project as though we intend to finish by December 31st, 2004, just over a year from now. This should not be considered an announcement of a goal date, just yet! As we put together a more formal idea of what needs doing, we can refine the date. But my own estimate, based on the need to approve around 75,000 articles, is that we can do it by then. Comments?
:: 75,000 articles of what size?
:: I favour starting very small - about the size of the xtian bible, for example. That lets us be utterly ruthless in selecting the most encyclopedic and expertly written (most of my stuff will never make it). It also means we can have lots of pictures on the CD version. :)
:: I think someone has to start calculating file sizes to see what will fit. Remember there will also be an offline reader/cache and maybe low end web browser like Opera. Never ship a CD or DVD that cannot read itself, even if in practice you expect someone's real daily broswer to take up the slack.
::: I wrote a script to do exactly this task: read the wikipedia database and build a static version in html, suitable to be put on CD or DVD. The current english Wikipedia is just about filling a 700MB CD, without including images. At present, stubs and very small articles take a huge amount of the used space, so if the biggest 75,000 articles are selected there would be enough space to include a good fraction of the images (the media directory on wikipedia is about 400 MB). Articles can be compressed, but then you need a reader program and it would much less portable (need different executables for win, mac, linux, etc.) [[User:At18|At18]] 16:39, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::::Surprised it's that small, but, fine, seems like it can fit on one CD then with the pictures. Compression should be avoided until the browsers can all handle a standard compressed-html-file format. Something like .sit would be nice, easy to uncompress on the fly, already ubiquitous on Mac, easy to implement on Win or Linux, and if it was built into the browser, it could be just like a .txt or .htm file. There's time to put this in open source browsers before Dec '04. That would save probably 50% of the text space. In the long run of course, browsers should also be able to directly interpret [[m:Wikitax|Wikitax]]. ;-)
* 1.0 should be completely compliant with the GFDL. Currently Wikipedia has some rough edges (eg printable version) where this probably isn't the case.
** I think that's a given. Actually Secondary Section, Front-Cover Text, Back-Cover Text, and maybe even Invariant Section on the final distributed version ("this is part of Wikipedia 1.0") will probably play a role to make this work.
==Things We Need To Do==
* Clarify our goals with a set of specifications for the end product
** Settle CD-ROM vs. DVD-ROM capacity, number of versions/languages, first
***Judging by the above, it seems one CD-ROM for the Main English version is fine. Plan on another CD-ROM for [http://simple.wikipedia.com Simple English] and all other languages - to encourage the use of Wikipedia even in village schools in the developing world, for learning English, for kids learning other languages, and all that. Figure that's a good project for 2005, and could be released say by Dec.31 of 2005, using all the tools and procedures worked out for the Main English project. The multi-lingual stuff is enough work for one year! After that imagine releasing a new Main English version at the end of every even numbered year, and an other-languages-and-Simple-English version at the end of every odd numbered year. Unless we want to release them in time for September start of school year? That might be better.
* Create a procedure and some minimal policies (which will surely change with experience)
* Come up with a (likely bogus, but still inspiring) timeline for tasks to be completed
** The above is certainly bogus, and hopefully also inspring! I'd say aim for a release on September 1, 2004, to start the school year. If we miss, fine, fall back to December 31, 2004.
* Specify some default [[public ___domain]] sources, like 1911 British Encyclopedia, that could automatically added for empty articles, to be later edited by wikipedians, to improve it.
:Not sure what you mean by this? What does this have to do with 1.0 in particular? It sounds like a good idea generally, though. [[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] 18:03, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::When the user is writting an article and includes a link to an empty page, s/he could click in an option " Fill up with 1911 B.E.". The user could wikify the text in a second step (and another ones improve the article too).
:::(You mean Encyclopedia Britannica, not British Encyclopedia, right?) We can just ignore non-existent links in a print version, that is, don't do the notation that indicates we have an article. (I think a close-[[kerning|kerned]] <nowiki>[[bracket pair]]</nowiki> would look cool.) But CD-ROM versions should preferably have a stub and an ad: "You can write this article at wikipedia.org! Click [here] to connect to the Internet and start editing." [[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey]] 01:10, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
* Define a wikipedia website quick and stable base.
* What else? Add things here...
* Will we need some sort of dispute resolution or arbitration system for the more controversal articles? [[User:Jfeckstein|Jfeckstein]] 17:20, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:Probably. For most articles, just having 2 trusted people say 'yeah, this is good' seems good enough for me, but we have to be careful about people gaming the system to get their own POV through. [[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] 18:03, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::How about at least some number of 'points' needed at the date of finalization, and more on controversial articles? Each user can give +1 or -1 per revision of article (or zero of course), each sysop +1.25 or -1.25, each developer +1.5 and -1.5, Jimbo +2 and -2. Suspected vandals +.5 or -.5, soft-banned vandals -1 and +1 (yes, they're flipped). Or something... [[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey]] 01:10, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::: It's absurd to confuse the social harmony of Wikipedia with editorial quality. Consider any factor other than someone's completeness, veracity and good-faith effort to get facts right, and the project falls apart. Giving sysops or the developers more points serves what purpose? These are people distracted by the admin process, who are clearly concentrating on something other than article quality. They are devoted but this is the wrong way to reward them. Since this is "culling", it makes more sense to "disapprove" than "approve" articles anyway.
: Two trusted people say yes, and no trusted people say no. Vetos would work well, and be appropriately conservative. Any article with an NPOV or accuracy dispute should be automatically off-limits.
:: Yes, although there is not really a [[Wikipedia:trust model]] yet. Those interested in this should maybe start there.
* Software to convert [[Wiki-markup]], including [[HTML]], into a printer-friendly format (e.g. [[PS]]/[[Portable Document Format|PDF]]) automatically. This would be a great boon to us before and after "1.0".
: Is PDF [[propietary]] ??-.
::PS and PDF are well-documented, and there are many free software tools for generating and viewing them. [[User:DanKeshet|DanKeshet]]
:::Yes, PDF is proprietary, but it's impossible for [[Adobe]] to exert its 'proprietation' over PDF because the documentation and free use of PDF is so extensive. Even [[Apple]] fundamentally uses a form of PDF to display its entire screen. We can technically get sued I believe, but it'll likely be thrown out because there has been so much use elsewhere of PDF that they should have sued those uses first. [[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey]] 01:10, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:: Anyone is allowed to create PDF documents; Adobe has given explicit (limited) permission. From the PDF Technical Spec, Adobe reserves the copyright, and intends to enforce it, particularly to prevent people from making their own versions of PDF (as happened with HTML in the browser wars). However, basically Adobe explicitly gives permission to prepare files as long as they conform to the PDF spec, create drivers/programs that prepare PDF to spec, and to create PDF readers. Thus, for example pdflatex is totally legal (and actually not a bad path to get from wiki markup to PDF). BTW, I'm paraphrasing the ''Portable Document Format Reference Manual version 1.3'' by Adobe Systems Inc., March 11, 1999.
:: [[Wiki-Markup]] is also proprietary. Converting it into anything else remains a problem as long as there is no "Wiki-markup" defined and standarised in [[EBNF]]. Up to now there are only suggestions and a bunch of Regular Expressions. --[[User:Nichtich|Nichtich]]
:::Wiki-markup is not proprietary. There is nothing stopping anybody else from adopting wiki-markup; indeed, our wiki-markup is a fork from [[Usemod]]'s. It is not very well documented, though. [[User:DanKeshet|DanKeshet]]
:::Wiki markup is not [[proprietary]] because anyone who wants can implement something in Wiki markup. [[Microsoft Word]] .DOC is proprietary because it's extremely hard for just anyone to create a Word file. Most Wiki markup is documented in [[Wikipedia:How to edit a page]]. Also, Wiki markup is [[GPL]]'d (it's part of the software) - .DOC format is [[Microsoft]]'s copyrighted [[intellectual property]]. [[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey]] 01:10, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:: You're right - Wiki-Markup is not [[proprietary]]. But it is also no [[Open standard]] since there is no specification. Somebody should urgend start an [[RFC]] or something like this. And the Wikipedia-Software should conform to the standard not pretend to be one. --[[User:Nichtich|Nichtich]] 23:18, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:::Yes. Read [[m:simple ideology of Wikitax]], it is a start towards an RFC. So is [[m:Wikitax]] but it's really not focused on making participation easier as the "simple ideology" is. And there are issues in geographic representation, names, etc., that are dealt within the "simple ideology".
:Software to convert Wiki-markup: wget? :-) Make a stylesheet that doesn't put sidebars, topbars, etc. - just shows the marked up text. Like nostalgia but ten levels simpler. Then wget the site recursively - preferably from a personal computer running MediaWiki and wgetting localhost, not off the real Wiki. [[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey]] 01:10, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::Would cut the load a *lot*. This is a local client solution, and a good one.
* I think you should be able to browse from the main page to any article. [[User:Jfeckstein|Jfeckstein]] 17:42, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:Not sure what this one means. [[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] 18:03, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::Sorry. I meant that for each article, there should be a chain of intermediate articles which lead to the main page. Ie Main->science->physics->particle physics->Fermilab. [[User:Jfeckstein|Jfeckstein]] 22:23, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:A "main page" makes no sense on paper. On CD, the requirements are different - a CD main page would have *no* dynamic content - except possibly an auto-generated "on this day" section.
:::There's no reason it can't be done as a dynamic main page simulator on a CD-ROM. It's just a cgi instead of a page.
::Better short urls (i.e. www.wikipedia.org/cocoa to go to www.wikipedia.org/wiki/cocoa
:::That was discussed at some point, but disregarded because they'd have to support the URLs in the root. I think we should "200 Moved"-ly phase out the /wiki/ URLs, use the current interpretation of 'subpages' of lowercase "/wiki/","/upload/","/w/", and make the canonical form of these "/", "/_upload","/" (the only real thing in w is wiki.phtml, right? and that doesn't deserve an article...) If this is not possible, can we rewrite "/x.html" and "/x/" (x being an article, not a folder or file) as "/wiki/x"? [[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey]] 01:10, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
==Articles we should write==
*A [[stub]] about every current [[head]] of states. (should do --[[User:Youssefsan|Youssefsan]])
*A stub about each winner of a [[Nobel Prize]] (not very urgent--[[User:Youssefsan|Youssefsan]])
* Basic article of the main knowledge branches.
* Finish [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ecoregions]] with detailed boundary data.
* Finish [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cities]] with detailed boundary data.
* Extend [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countries]] with detailed boundary data.
(With those last three done, if we don't have a real map, we can generate one. There are examples of this on meta somewhere).
==Articles we should expand/improve==
*Implement the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries/Status|template for every country]] (should do --[[User:Youssefsan|Youssefsan]])
==Comments==
They seems to be a lot of ''holes'' in the topics about [[medicine]] -- [[User:Youssefsan|Youssefsan]] 17:29, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:Can you give examples? I don't disagree, I'd just like to get a handle on the shapes of our holes! [[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] 18:03, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::Just go to [[Medicine]] and check any of the links there. There are ''gaping'' holes in the whole field. [[User:Kosebamse|Kosebamse]] 21:32, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::It's not limited to medicine. Look at [[monkey]]. Compare with the ''huge'' britannica article on the subject! Maybe there should be an organized effort to track holes? -- [[User:Arvindn|Arvindn]] 04:57, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::Yeah, look at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ecoregions]] for a truly big hole. Not sure every Phylum even has an entry yet.
What's this about "approving" articles? How is this supposed to work? --[[User:Wik|Wik]] 17:46, Aug 20, 2003 (UTC)
:I don´t like too much this idea. I think the another wikimedia encyclopedia is for this goal.
:Well, that's what we're here to decide. My current vision is vague, but would involve having at least 2 people 'flag' an article as 'good enough' -- not 'perfect' but 'good enough'. It should be possible to replace those with later versions before the final release date, of course. And nothing will change about the existing Wikipedia website. We want to come up with a system which permits us to seamlessly and magically produce a final product, without interrupting ongoing work. [[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] 18:03, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::So as well as [[Wikipedia:Brilliant prose]], there'd be [[Wikipedia:Adequate prose]]? -- [[User:Jimregan|Jim Regan]] 08:35, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)
::: Yes, that's a good place to start. Having people flag articles that *can* be brilliant prose focuses energy on going from "adequate" to "good", and some of those will end up "brilliant".
::: Imagine that what is now [[Wikipedia:Brilliant prose]] would get a note on it saying "Wikipedia 0.9 includes this version of this article" which goes away if the article is changed. The "adequate" articles say "Wikipedia 0.9 will be including a polished version of this article" to inspire people to work on it. That doesn't go away if people edit. So far, no promises about 1.0. Snapshot of all articles not presently in [[NPOV dispute]] or marked as [[stub article]] constitutes Wikipedia 0.8. The bar for getting from 0.8 to 0.9 is set high, at present Brilliant Prose level. If this doesn't work out, well, fine, we can always fall back, approve Brilliant Prose for 1.0, and adequate stuff for 0.9, while letting fertilizer flow from 0.8, asking only for it to become adequate.
I still think a CD 1.0 and a paper 1.0 would be very different beasts. On a CD, it woulnd't matter too much if we had as much material on The Simpsons as we had on medicine (say). On paper, it would be more noticeable. I personally would like to involved in a the work on a paper edition -- a one-volume edition, which would require a fair amount of trimming in some areas, and some late-night cramming in others -- [[User:Tarquin|Tarquin]] 19:16, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
: Gotta agree that CD and paper are different. However, I see the paper version as building on top of the CD version, i.e, we get to the CD version first and from there to the paper version. And I think the CD version is a worthy subgoal in itself; it could bring in a lot more new hands than we think -- [[User:Arvindn|Arvindn]] 05:21, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:Ditch all the Anglo-American pop-culture from every CD version. It's just free advertising, and is confusing to the people who need it most, in poor countries.
:This is also an argument to ensure that [[idiom dictionary]] functions stay on Wikipedia consistently, even if an article in some cases is short enough to move to Wiktionary. This will be a huge strategic edge for Wikipedia over such guides as Longman's American Idioms, if they get that as part of the package. No idiom can really be explained properly in a dictionary given it needs history and culture to be referenced. So there are both integrity and marketing reasons to keep idioms here. Also how nice if Wiktionary could just fit on a floppy!
One subject that needs a thorough think-thru is the links to nonexistent articles. There are several points that we should consider:
...which seem all to belong in [[Wikipedia:link editing]]
* On one or more sites that have "borrowed" Wikipedia content, links to nonexistent articles are quietly removed. While this is a defensible solution, I would also caution that these are votes for articles we need to write.
* One could make a decision that any unwritten article with (say) five or more links needs to be written, & the rest will be removed. However, there are several groups of links to nonexistent articles which should be combined. An example I can immediately would be the articles pointing to the [[Controversy of the Three Chapters]] or the [[Schism of the Three Chapters]] - which deals with an important disagreement with political overtones of the 6th & 7th centuries.
** Many articles deal with several aspects of a subject, and very often a link only tends to invoke one of them. So we should really be liberal with redirects, which are at least standard ways to simplify invoking one article. The practice of putting a link to an article with different anchor text is very hard to translate to a paper version. If CD is like paper, one thing that we may have to do is rephrase sentences that don't use the proper article title or a reasonable redirect as their anchor text.
**: Simple solution to anchor text not equal to article name: footnote or parentheses saying "see X", e.g. "one of the best things about great apes (see Primates) is that they're great." Not amazingly elegant, but seems okay, and wouldn't require much work.
* And lastly, the eternal problem of links that fail to lead to existing articles due to spelling, capitalization, or failure to follow Wikipedia standards.
I guess you could consider me obsessed about links. -- [[User:Llywrch|llywrch]] 21:39, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
One thing to consider about a print version is the order of the articles. Obviously we can't just alphabetize the titles as they are, and thereby list people under their first name. --[[User:Wik|Wik]] 22:09, Aug 20, 2003 (UTC)
:Maybe [[List of people by name]] could be used to generate the Lastname, Firstname listing? -- [[User:Jimregan|Jim Regan]] 08:35, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:Disambig/redirects in printed form. If "[[Wales, Jimbo]]" redirects to "[[Jimbo Wales]]" (does it?) either say "'''Wales, Jimbo.''' See '''Jimbo Wales'''," or "'''Wales.''' 1. Founder of '''Wikipedia''', see '''Jimbo Wales'''. 2. Inventer of the wheel, see '''Wales, Frumpysnarf.''' 3. '''Wales''' (rest of [[Wales]] here)." [[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey]] 03:09, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
* According the history of GPL-Software I strongly prefere a version number less than 1.0 for the first offline-release.
** Presumably, to be "pushing to 1.0" means having a "0.8" soon, and a "0.9" between now and then. So let's just say everything in Brilliant Prose is at 0.9 and everything adequate is at 0.8, and let's then argue about what "adequate" is, very inclusive requiring disapproval to exclude, or exclusive requiring approval to include.
* Are you talking about a standalone Wikipedia on CD/DVD or a printed extract of Wikipedia?
--[[User:Nichtich|Nichtich]]
[[User:Gutza/Wikipedia 1.0 rant|Gutza's rant]] --[[User:Gutza|Gutza]] 22:33, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I think one of our prime foci for this should be organization... the sheer volume of data kets bulky. Let's not forget many versions of EB have Index to the Index as a separate (multi-hundred-page) volume. I'd like to see a few categorical sub-pedias, for example, off the top of my head:
*The Chronicle: a general history, in order by historical periods, within those periods (which would probably be centuries for most things pre-Industrial Revolution) group by region or topic.
*The Gazetteer: All our geographic/regional data. Would require more fleshing out of the automated entries, and a lot more maps, etc...
*The Taxonomy: Organisms. We've got a good template for the sidebar, work from that.
There's a lot more of these I can think of... I'll write it up in full as a personal subpage and link here soonish. -- [[User:Jakenelson|Jake]] 04:06, 2003 Aug 21 (UTC)
I'm majorly in favor of making a paper version of "Wikipedia: World History" or "Wikipedia: Quantum mechanics" or something like that before going ahead with the full effort because it will help us decide whether we want to do it at all and if so, what is required to do, without sidetracking too much effort from the main project. -- [[User:Arvindn|Arvindn]] 05:12, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)
: Yes, a good test of capability and process. I'd suggest doing [[Ecology]] first, though, since ecological borders and processes don't really change fast, then [[History]] (political borders and movements of peoples and changes in languages), then [[Geography]] (since place names and borders are totally dependent on history). That gives us a good look at the [[Earth]]. Then all Plants, all Animals and [[Biology]]. Another group can do [[mathematics]], [[quantum mechanics]] and [[particle physics]], things that are globally standard with only one set of names, and a small cult of high priests each that actually thinks they are real. That group should then be forced to do all of [[Religion]] next.
----
Jimbo, I love the idea of a 1.0 release. It gives us a real focus and impetus. However, I'm not sure about the priority you place on a print release.
Firstly, printing a complete set would surely have a very high cost per copy. One would almost wonder whether it would be cheaper to give worthy recipients a second-hand computer to run a "Wikipedia-disc" on than print the complete volumes!
Secondly, to get an encyclopedia edited down to manageable size with some semblance of balanced coverage will be a very considerable task, requiring many longer articles to be truncated. This will require skilful editors. If the same long-time respected contributors to the Wikipedia spend their time working on the 1.0 release, the state of the live Wikipedia will inevitably suffer.
Thirdly, some of our articles use complex HTML layouts, and many have images of variable sizes and quality. Converting these into a form suitable for printing may be difficult, or in many cases impossible, and will require some expertise in print graphics which is of course available but possibly not amongst Wikipedia's current contributor base.
So, all in all, I wonder whether the very considerable extra effort required to produce a 1.0 print edition is worth it. At the very least, I would argue we should aim for a "0.9 CD-only" edition first.
::Or even just a CD-size archive that can be downloaded and widely tested on all kinds of machines, including low-end ones like are still used in many schools.
Another issue is whether we can find funding to pay people to do some of the grunt work of putting 1.0 together. --[[User:Robert Merkel|Robert Merkel]] 06:00, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:Full agreement with Merkel. I don't think enough of us have fully considered how much time this would take away from working on the actual Wikipedia; and the cost of this in print form would likely be prohibitive. I would have thought that Wikipedia 1.0 would be on CD-ROM only. In a year or two, we could produce Wikipedia paperbacks on specific topics, such as Science, History, etc, each of which would be a lot more manageable to edit, cheaper to produce, and easier to make some sort of profit from. (I assume profit would go to the Wikipdia foundation?) [[User:RK|RK]] 16:04, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:Paperbacks for profit to fund things is a good idea. But you must have a [[Wikipedia:trust model]] before you can have a [[Wikipedia:revenue model]]. Else you go the way of [[Enron]].
:I too like the idea of pushing toward a 1.0 just so we have a target, but I am unsure about a printed edition. How about a print-able edition (on CD-ROM), some more modest effort to see if all 75,000 of our articles print out in a reasonable form. (I will do articles 67,003-67,217). [[User:Jfeckstein|Jfeckstein]] 03:52, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)~
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I doubt if all the stuff on the cities belongs in a paper 1.0 (or even a CD, takes up space). If [[Special:Randompage|Random page]] hits a city page that often (try it, betcha it'll reach a city page) flipping through the paper version should also bring up these [[User:Rambot|Rambot]] entries, and that's not a good thing. Also redirects and stubs...hey, can a bot be written to turn redirects into pipe links, except for those specially marked not to be changed? [[User:Geoffrey|Geoffrey]] 01:10, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
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I think something to consider is some automated assistance with fact checking.
In a pinch we could simply use a standard name off the talk page to record our observations. More ideally we could have a standard format wiki page to record work on. It would have data entry fields for facts/statements, assessment, source, etc. This would quickly improve our overall quality by allowing large teams of people (including neophytes) dissect an existing article and document the correct facts and sources of verification while removing detected errors. This would be useful to both the online Wikipedia development process as well as the push for 1.0 release. [[user:mirwin]]
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I support what you call 1.0 because it provides some focus, an endpoint, and an opportunity for proper editing that presently does not exist. Leaving aside markup, format conversion, and other strictly mechanical issues, there is a need for:
# Review, and a means to document what has been reviewed, how, and by whom;
# Categorization of content as to suitability for a print version;
# A means for setting a version marker for each article to show which revision is intended for print publication.
These are valuable mechanisms independent of 1.0 and independent of whether 1.0 is primarily geared towards a print or CD-rom distribution.
I offer the observation that a points-based review system such as that used at slashdot is both weak and a poor fit for the Wiki workflow model. There is too much potential to "game" the system where points are involved and it does nothing to satisfy a skeptical reader about an articles quality. I suggest a more freeform approach, where reviewers can approve content in one of several categories, to wit:
# Fact checking
# Spelling and grammar
# POV
# Suitability of title
# Completeness
# Organization
# Overall subjective quality
Ideally there would be software support for this, with boxes for ''yes, no, no opinion,'' along with user names such that we might see an article with a list of reviewers, dates, and revisions reviewed; should we see that prominent Wikipedians have covered all areas we would conclude an article leaves little room for improvement. Then we might have a search feature where we can look for articles that are unreviewed, and ideally we could each choose which reviewers we wish to consider when so doing. I would think that the reviews would be tied to a particular revision. Perhaps also follow-on reviewers could assert that changes made since a certain revision are minor and appropriate.
There must be some means of categorization, so that we can mark those articles that will never be suitable for a print edition, and perhaps also so we can mark those articles that are by consensus considered complete for 1.0.
:Anything in [[Wikipedia:brilliant prose]] is aleady complete for 0.9 except perhaps for link trimming we may choose to do. But I think redirecting any missing articles to more general ones is better than changing anything in a brilliant article.
There will also be a need to mark which revision is considered most suitable for print publication. Exactly how this is done is likely to prove contentious, but the fact remains that we will need to freeze some articles when they are good enough and sufficiently reviewed, while still working on others. We may be best served by making these markers relatively easy to move at first, with increasing difficulty of movement as we reach closure.
[[User:Kat|Kat]] 21:14, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)
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I advocate strongly for a version on cd-rom even if require 2 or 3 cd-roms and must be installed on a HD to be usable (this doens't exclude a DVD version). DVD burners are not very common and even DVD readers are not very common in third world countries where many people would be interrested by a free encyclopedia.
[[User:Ericd|Ericd]] 20:12, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
:Yes true. Save DVD for Wikipedia 3.1 ;-) The fully UN-funded version.
As some articles use complex HTML layout a distribution in HTML seems obvious to me but how to implement a search feature ?
[[User:Ericd|Ericd]] 23:15, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
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