Differences for "Users/JasonAller"

Differences:

version 747 (2009-02-25 22:06:29 by IDoNotExist)

version 749 (2009-02-26 22:08:19 by EdWins)

Summer 2008 Self portrait taken reflected off of ceiling. Trundling across the wiki, if you listen late at night you can hear the whistle of the Aller Express sounding in the distance, slowly fulfilling all the sleeping wikizen's dreams of photo requests.

Davis is a good place to live if you don't take it too seriously.

While talking with a colleague recently I noticed that the feel of the conversation was more small town than any I've had in a long time. I thought about it for a while and most of what made the discussion feel that way was a result of daviswiki.org. It is the sharing of collective experience that humanizes not only our relationships with each other, but with our community as well. If no one else has started a wiki for your community or common interest group, you can go to wikispot and start one for free.

I've been using the search function here more and more often because I know that I'll find what I'm looking for... or a reason to add a page.

Among the pages that I like are:

Yes, I'm fairly Gnomish. I also maintain a graph and dataset tracking the growth of Davis wiki.

I'm looking for a Life Size Statue of Bob Marley Healing a Blind Woman.

Comments:

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Old comments are here

2008-07-24 12:51:34 Thanks for the encouragement! You and Jabber have successfully talked me off the ledge. —Sankofa416

2008-07-25 12:45:08 Thank you very much for keeping on top of comment abuse. I really appreciate you stopping lisagoetz from editing/deleting my comments. Thanks for your hard work. —DaveCar

2008-07-26 21:19:28 Don't worry about need-for-content on BroodingHippie's profile. The original user died three years ago—I'm not certain whether BH's family uses the account to browse the wiki. It's a tribute more than anything. —JudithTruman

2008-07-27 13:09:32 Thank you for the greeting :) —Anja

2008-08-16 18:57:10 Probably a bit late now (eep!), but next time we could probably just run a script on the server to do the link -> user page link conversion. We've done it before with a few things when formatting changes. —PhilipNeustrom

I've been doing other cleanup along the way, so the effort isn't a wasted one. Plus churning up some stagnant pages has prompted some other people to update them. —JasonAller

2008-08-17 21:49:44 I've been seeing you fixing many broken links. Did something change that broke all of the links on the wiki? —IDoNotExist

JabberWokky already explained this, but I'll add a bit to what he said. Yes, I'm trying to clean up some namespace issues that are the result of the evolution that Davis Wiki went through when Wiki Spot was born. The issue doesn't exist on other Wiki Spot wikis because they were created after Wiki Spot and didn't need the name hack. The other thing that correcting the links does is make it easier to get information on a user and see all the pages that link to their user page. Right now some of the editors that were around before the switch have half of their signed comments linked to the redirect and half to their page. I'm consolidating those onto their page and taking the opportunity to make other minor fixes as I go through the pages. It also will allow us in the long term to delete those redirect that are no longer linked both internally and externally. That step will probably need to involve running the referring link from the server logs through a script to sort them out. —JasonAller

2008-08-19 01:59:31 I have heard of spammers using tactics like this to get people's email addresses. I may have been a bit overzealous, but the all-caps, poorly-written, asking-for-emails set off my suspicions. Feel free to return the comments, I just felt that they didn't add to the page or the reviews in question. —JoePomidor

2008-08-24 12:39:50 what exactly do I do? change it from /stevendaubert to users/stevendaubert ? —StevenDaubert

2008-08-24 12:48:01 I will gnome it up here pretty soon, I just have to irl —StevenDaubert

2008-08-24 13:16:36 Thanks for taking time out for me. I have a particularly short fuse when it comes to this so I'll try not to let that get the better of me. How do I change my name anyway? —gager

Click on your userpage (see how gager has an underline) and look to the bottom —StevenDaubert

2008-08-24 13:49:43 negative, I did read the lyrics though —StevenDaubert

2008-08-24 19:40:18 Jason, thanks a lot for the welcome and for salvaging my 1st try to create a representative page about my business ... I appreciate any hint that makes this platform even more useful and valuable to the people in Davis. Best regards, Hogan. —Hogan

2008-08-25 17:19:43 Thank you for all of your help. It means a great deal to me. Mike —gager

2008-08-25 17:35:39 just took a look at your graph of daviswiki pages. cool! whats up with that massive singularity where the graph jumps about a thousand pages in 1 day? (around 4/2007) —watson

A software upgrade that resulted in the automatic creation of extra pages for each person who had a page. I've been slowly working to correct that issue over time. Obviously I haven't been updating the graph recently. —JasonAller

2008-08-26 20:49:47 hey Jasaon, I seem to have mistakenly deleted the entire page when I was trying to delete a term in one of my edits long ago on the page (Tom Waltz) I don't know how to restore it. It was a mistake, honestly. I need help. —gager

2008-08-26 20:58:27 I was trying to erase a term that kept coming up in a search. sorry to be a pest and all but how would I do that?

—gager

If it is the term you were concerned about before I think it was left in a hidden comment on the page. Anything on a line starting with two #'s is a hidden comment that is useful for leaving notes for other editors. Let me go look at the page. —JasonAller

2008-08-26 21:07:27 it is hidden. As I just responded to Daubert, I was kinda thinking that we could remove the term altogether? —gager

So remove it. However as this is a wiki, and this is Davis... it would not surprise me that some incoming student unaware of the history of that term on the wiki will create it again. Leaving that hidden comment is a way to lessen the likelihood of that happening. —JasonAller

2008-08-26 21:14:35 I was trying to do that in the first place. Hopefully someone (me if it must be) would correct or educated the IFM that derrogatory terms are not tolerated in wikiland. I will try my inept editing skills once more. who knows, maybe I will one day be a wiki gnome. god forbid. —gager

2008-08-26 21:34:09 so far, this is the only site I've found that had a direct reference to my brother as such. I know that I must seem a bit of a pain in the ass to some people here. But I've found most to be understanding and compassionate. Simply, some people don't understand. Just as I might not understand the philosophies of some on this site. All I want is for my brother not to be referenced in a derogatory way. At All. I am way out of my leauge here in terms of editing and being savy to the wiki. I hope that the community sees this as the greater good. I appreciate the support. —gager

This is the only site that specifically references that?! I was on google two days ago and found an aboutdavis that was nasty, a myspace of some 17 year old at DHS who fears your brother, and 3-4 various articles that bring it up passing in neutral sort of way.

—StevenDaubert
P.S. if you want to brush up on your editing skills, just tool around help on editing and focus a little bit on each subject per day (15 minutes, don't overload yourself) etc

2008-08-30 20:53:37 Dude, you're a link-fixing machine! —jefftolentino

Yeah, this makes me kinda sad. We should automate this. How many more links are there to fix?

There are 585 redirects that need to be cleared at this point. I haven't calculated how many pages need to be changed to clear them. I am using the opportunity to make other edits beyond just the mechanical fixes, so it isn't a totally lost effort. —JasonAller

How many pages with user links that need fixing are left, though? If it's a lot then we should just use a script and spare your sanity!

2008-09-04 05:08:43 could it have been two people at the scene not able to use same account? -AsianguY + roommate (Joon) we call people who comment on others while not actually understanding the full situation "not knowing" as in "not" and "know(-ing)" form the dictionary. —Joon

2008-09-07 12:23:48 How many links are left to fix? —PhilipNeustrom

somewhere between 470 and 1500? —JasonAller
I would like to get this done before school starts up again, so Recent Changes becomes a list of currently relevant pages again. It does give a good chance to spellcheck, though. —BrentLaabs

yeah, this is what's ticking me a bit. this is a really easy script to write - i just have no time this week. just iterate through all pages, get the page text, look for links, see if they're users and don't start with users/ and then rename them...
What I'd like your help with is figuring out the best way given the log rotation to identify username redirects that are safe to delete from an outside link perpective. I agree that Recent Changes should go back to useful in time for the new crop of students. I just wanted to clean this out this summer, so I started in on it and think I've gotten pretty far. The scripted solution has issues because there are some name collisions that look like username redirects, but aren't. There are also some links to ["UserName"] that should be public figure pages that were created by friends of the non-user. —JasonAller

I wouldn't bother deleting these. What's the point?
The "new style" link fixes make sense in a "learn by example" sense. Deleting the redirects seems to just be cleaning up for the sake of editors and not really for the wiki itself. While I'm not opposed to it if there's some way to figure out what doesn't have an outside link, I don't see a strong reason to delete them while there's a decent reason not to (outside links). Unless it's a orphaned pages cleanup, which makes vague sense (since having them all there reduces the ability to find legitimately orphaned entries). —jw

I kind of don't think we should have tribute pages at all. Its bad like Visor Lady. If they and their position isn't already well known then they should be explained in the context of some group, like "officers of LUGOD" or "executive director of steac". Even then they don't need their own page, it should be on the page that provides their context to people who don't otherwise know of them. I think by the time somebody runs for office though they should have their own page if they don't make it themself for their own self-promotion, which I think is fine. —NickSchmalenberger

2008-09-07 13:42:05 Not that much better, really. I'm actually happier because I thought it was a funny joke. —BrentLaabs

2008-09-08 07:08:44 You had asked... It's a pain to find, and I'm about to run out of my preferred brand. Sarah and I are trying our hand at making some in the next couple days, but I figured when I found the supplier in Sacramento, I'd add it to the wiki for others who might be searching for it. —JabberWokky

2008-09-11 22:44:33 damn, I snooze I loose on the gnomage ='( —StevenDaubert

2008-09-11 22:49:02 I wonder if an entry has been made for the new dim sum ish place in the East Davis Mall / Dollar tree lot... —StevenDaubert

2008-09-17 20:07:10 I have a question for you (you commented after my link from Heron to Help Computer Services was removed). Would it be tact-less to comment on Heron, simply reminding people that there are other computer repair shops in town? —MasonMurray

2008-09-28 20:58:01 You are aware there exist redirect pages for all the old user links, you know this right, now why do you go through, spending all your time, updating all the links, or is this a way to make sure you read every comment/page on the wiki. Could you update some of the other incorrect info while you are there? I don't have the free time these days :) —DavidPoole

See Link Fixes —JasonAller

2008-09-29 19:55:34 no

he does business in Davis, and I see him in Davis all the time

—StevenDaubert

2008-09-29 20:06:33 What do you propose? Interwiki link or something? How can I appease you on this matter? —StevenDaubert

Actually now that I put the link to it from your page it isn't an orphan and I'm totally ok with it. —JasonAller

2008-10-01 09:12:50 The Utilities page is a fabulous idea. —ElleWeber

And I assume it was prompted by the photo I mentioned? If not, it's a perfect place to start that set of entries from. —jw

2008-10-04 13:25:16 Please — no more username cleanup edits! Someone can write a script to delete all of the unused redirects (and we can run it on the server). —PhilipNeustrom

2008-10-04 15:37:46 I see you just created a redirect page for STS. STS also stands for Science and Technology Studies, although it looks as though that page could use some updating. —CovertProfessor

2008-10-12 23:25:43 nope, but im going to delete it tomorow —ChrisWaterstraat

2008-10-12 23:49:39 deleted, just for you —ChrisWaterstraat

2008-11-01 17:57:57 Hard to judge by a single photo, but I think the lizard you posted might actually be a Sagebrush. They're related, and males also have a bit of blue on the underside. This guess is based on the coloring/pattern from the topview. —EdWins

2008-11-07 11:23:57 I think the community needs a discussion on the relevance of including campaign contributions on a subject's page. If I weren't so busy, I would have started one already. In general, though, I think that the political views of the owner are irrelevant to their business unless the owner is more famous for their politics than their business. In that case, it would be better to have a public figure page and link to it from their business' page. —WilliamLewis

2008-11-07 11:48:55 Because (as I understand it) it was a personal contribution from an employee (albeit a part owner), it was not the business as an entity that made a statement. I agree with William, that personal matters aren't relevant to the business unless the business owner makes a point of it - not the case here. It is irrational and unreasonable to only support businesses where every single employee agrees with your beliefs on a personal level. —PeterAnselmo

2008-11-08 08:21:58 As of yesterday evening, there was a house on Villanueva, a bit west of Anderson, that had a Yes on 8 sign in one window and a No on 8 sign in another. —JessicaLuedtke

2008-11-15 10:49:25 Links can be forced? I thought users had 100% control over private pages lol. —EliYani

You do have control, the "force" was that it wasn't a natural link, but one that had to be artificially created. Linkless pages are dead ends. —JasonAller
and technically people don't have 100% control over their login name page, but a much higher degree of autonomy. Content there is still under the Creative Commons License, terms and conditions still apply, etc. —JasonAller

2008-11-16 19:17:18 Yeah, duh, I probably should have checked the original source. I'm not thrilled about this outing of employees, but Shawn is undoubtedly the owner. —DonShor

2008-11-17 22:09:33 What do you mean? —JoseBleckman

Your relationship with Steve, his apparent editing from your IP address, etc. —JasonAller

I've been friends with him for years, just as one of the recent no voters has been enemies with him for years. I think by this point everyone knows who is who, just as I am sure everyone has noticed that since he was been banned there has been much less balance on the ASUCD pages. The wiki community can, of course, vote to keep the quieter less informative statis quo. It is just not a vote that I support, seeing as I prefer seeing both sides presented in arguments. —JoseBleckman

That was much more clearly stated than the comment on the ban page. Thank you. My concern was that many people don't know all of the players, and there has been time for many new people to join the wiki while he has been gone. —JasonAller

2008-11-19 15:47:57 I agree that my comment on the Sophia's page, as it relates to the function of a Wiki, may be considered inappropriate, however, I do feel it is appropriate as it relates to those who own, either in entirety or a large share, a business. Thanks, Jason, for deleting my comment from the Sophia's page. As for Mr. Lewis, I would appreciate it if you were respectful in your comments. I'm not looking to attack anyone personally. —condemned2bfree

2008-11-22 20:39:03 Thanks for the info! I'll definitely check both sources out. —CurlyGirl26

2008-11-23 20:05:39 They were pages I made before I knew the differences between public page and a personal page. They're just friends, you can delete them. —JamesSchwab

2008-11-29 11:52:39 What are you trying to say? Don't talk to new folks on the wiki? Don't make confusing statements or JasonAller will obfuscate at you? I wasn't trying to be funny...

I figured he was Petrovich, and then I confirmed so I added more. What do you want from me? I thought it could have been a sibling or a relative instead of the man the myth. —StevenDaubert

All I'm asking is that some sensitivity be used when dealing with new users. If we want to be inclusive and make it possible to grow it pays to step back once in a while and welcome the new users and consider what kind of welcome we are giving them. It really sets the tone of the entire wiki. Check out what Paul's introduction to the wiki has been like so far. He signed up under his real name (assumption, but lets go with it), removed some content. The content was reverted and a message was left for him. Then I added a Welcome and a pointer to help explain further how to work with the wiki. Maybe I should have left a comment for William instead of you... I don't know. Ask yourself if the wiki would be better with more participants that have had a welcome and some initial guidance, or as just a cyber-hangout for those who attend the Wiki Gatherings? —JasonAller

2008-11-30 12:39:26 I'm not sure. Is there a page on distributed computing? On donating things? On volunteering? On medicine or the environment? —IDoNotExist

2008-12-05 22:05:08 You were saying that I shouldn't have removed the link to the Paragon. But the Paragon is a dead link and the establishment itself is also gone.

—GregKuperberg

2008-12-07 15:42:32 Is the Montgomery Ave picture of a bridge? Or just some sort of side-barrier? If a bridge, does it have a keystone like the "Old Bridge" in the Arboretum? —TheAmazingLarry

It is a bridge. The bridge has two bike bridges on either side. I'm not sure about the keystone... I'll have to look the next time I get out that way. —JasonAller

2008-12-14 10:36:41 Is there an easy way to add a non-visible keyword to text that will still show up on a search? For example, the proper ID code for Yolo County Airport is KDWA as shown. However, a search of DWA should also turn up the same thing. The "K" on the code indicates USA and is often omitted. —JimStewart

2008-12-14 20:36:31 I'm undecided. My opinion is that any unsubstantiated accusation of illegal activities should just be removed immediately, especially the ones that are one-time postings. Accusing a business owner of hiring illegal aliens is probably libel, or something like it, and it isn't the first time it's happened on the Wiki. But I'd be curious what others think. I would take the whole comment off of the Natural Food Works page, but I don't know if removing a post is considered worse than editing it. —DonShor

2008-12-21 14:24:52 your on a roll right now! keep up the good work —StevenDaubert

Dang, I got distracted by someone leaving a comment on my page... —JasonAller

2008-12-31 08:39:04 I've long thought it would be a cool addition to the wiki to have a sort of "history of infrastructural development" of the city; like a description of the physical growth of the city over time. It could be structured around a time line of major developments like bridges and major roads, neighborhood additions, and water management systems, etc. Do you think this would be useful or interesting? And if so, any suggestions on how to get it started? —TheAmazingLarry

Either adding to the timeline pages, creating a separate timeline, putting together an animated .gif file? I know that at one point I put together a page on the Annexation History from some City GIS information. I think it is all interesting information to capture. —JasonAller

2008-12-31 14:38:07 How come you reverted Downtown Chiropractic back to version 15? The picture is of Ray's old location and is no longer accurate. Also, he no longer offers massage services... I guess he could refer a patient though. And he is no longer in the old location of Mothersource (Massage By Caren is). I'm new to this so I may have goofed by editing. if so, a gentle correction and a pointer in the right direction would be great. thanks —SteveW

2008-12-31 14:40:29 How come you reverted Downtown Chiropractic back to version 15? The picture is of Ray's old location and is no longer accurate. Also, he no longer offers massage services... I guess he could refer a patient though. And he is no longer in the old location of Mothersource (Massage By Caren is). I'm new to this so I may have goofed by editing. if so, a gentle correction and a pointer in the right direction would be great. thanks —SteveW

2008-12-31 14:57:14 no problem moving the mothersource reference, but the pic is not accurate and could (or maybe has) directed Ray's patients into Caren's business/home. Not a big deal, but it is an interruption to Caren to have to redirect Ray's patients... part of the reason she wanted to update the Downtown Chiro page and create one for her business. I'm not gonna complain either way. thanks —SteveW

2009-01-01 12:38:09 your on a tear again! —StevenDaubert

2009-01-07 12:32:17 Ya i made it for her —MattCorey

2009-01-08 03:27:01 Oh thanks for working on my profile as a wiki gnome. I didn't provide links to the wikipages through my profile because I'm still kind of new to the whole editing thing. —WengFF

2009-01-09 00:34:54 Gah you are very /talk -y these days. —DavidPoole

Ok, I fixed the unlinked talk pages. Now you can get together with IDoNotExist and write a patch for Wiki Spot so that it doesn't have to be done manually in the future. —JasonAller

2009-01-09 15:58:47 Thanks bud. —EdWins

You are welcome. Thanks for cleaning up some of those pages that I stirred up from the depths of the vast pool of stagnant pages. —JasonAller

2009-01-17 10:59:33 :D I like pruning old, dead branches and tidying up loose ends. I'm glad that encourages you to plant and help grow new seeds :P —EdWins

2009-01-18 18:54:21 Links for wanted pages are automatically generated. additionally it is such that, one cannot create a page for [..] nor [.] due to their function in file system structure. —DavidPoole

Yup, all true. What I'm asking is, that if the pages are showing up on Wanted Pages and if they can't be created, that you remove the links so that they stop showing up as wanted pages. —JasonAller

An alternate solution is obvious. Of course, it's David's entry, but that solution would probably satisfy both of you... I use it on the hub wiki for subtle administrative links all the time. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards

2009-01-21 19:54:46 I am not too sure what you are talking about, but I may have deleted someone's comments by mistake because we were editing the same page in the same time. This was not my intention. —Michael777

2009-01-21 20:15:43 Again I am not too sure what you are talking about. Clearness would be appreciated, but if people don't want their comments deleted, why should I have mine deleted? —Michael777

2009-01-21 20:35:20 I did also write the comments in the What Alcohol Does To One's Health page but someone deleted them. —Michael777

2009-01-21 20:45:28 I suppose people just spend all their time removing other people's comments that are against their petty personal ideas and saying it was off subject... And then they say that we should not remove their comments. Easy. And they call this "respect" or "consideration"? —Michael777

2009-01-24 20:27:53 Thanks for the gnoming, I'm a little inexperienced, and wasn't sure how to switch Clifford's page from public to private. I'm still learning —EliYani

2009-01-28 19:24:58 What request for input? —IDoNotExist

This one. —JasonAller

2009-01-31 08:49:30 am I crazy or can I just not find the page that shows notable references to the Daviswiki in print... —StevenDaubert

2009-01-31 12:27:15 can you please help us to put the comment archive in the right place. thanks —DarkSide

2009-01-31 14:24:12 i dont really understand the different pages you are talking about, but i would greatly appreciate your help in doing what you are saying! and if you could help link the pages to the elections website, that would be fantastic too! —willklein

2009-01-31 18:32:16 hey, thanks for the help! I would like to save the Bike Church as well, both incorporating the Bike Church into the bike barn and the AAA program are currently in the works, so I would like to ensure they both get to fruition —willklein

2009-02-01 11:00:02 I'd imagine most people typically introduce themselves with their first name (Edwin) or a nickname (Ed, Eddie, etc). Usually though, you also meet who you're introducing yourself to. When buying groceries and meeting a pal's friend, you're not standing in front of a potential crowd blindly addressing god knows who. People from afar can't research, stalk, and look you up if you introduce yourself at a farmers market. (Unless they're the government, I suppose <.<) —EdWins

2009-02-02 20:39:04 No I didn't. I'm an employee though. I'll just take it down for now and if my boss wants it, he can put it up. —mperkel

2009-02-02 22:41:35 Thank you —katieLytle

2009-02-05 13:22:32 This edit (after your edit comment) made me giggle. —EdWins

2009-02-05 15:39:31 should include about review get scattered on all the restaurants? —StevenDaubert

2009-02-07 20:09:19 Removed the image of the shop itself because it doesn't yet have our new store logo on it.. After seeing it constantly being placed back on the screen I moved it to where the logo is now and made it smaller trying to emphasize the logo and not the image of the door, but that also keeps getting changed back. —WesOne

How about taking a new photo? The other thing to keep in mind is that by having the logo on the page directly it is released under the Creative Commons-By license. —JasonAller

2009-02-10 20:09:33 Generally the biggest issue with working with The California Aggie right now is that they're really distracted by financial woes (in addition to just getting a paper published). So, the process is moving slowly, but moving forward. —BrentLaabs

2009-02-19 23:42:48 thank you I was wondering how to fix that. I didn't mean to delete the page just the comment :) Thanks again! —srtuck

2009-02-24 03:17:55 Thanks. Usually I'll make a page when I'm looking for information, and it's a nice way to organize the information I gather. Plus, doing it this way makes it so everyone else can benefit from it, too. —MaryLieth

2009-02-25 21:24:14 You might want to define "sockpuppet" or link to a definition of it when using the term with non-gnomish people. I'm not sure that many non-wikifolk would know what the term means... —IDoNotExist

2009-02-25 21:50:10 See the sockpuppet page. —IDoNotExist

2009-02-25 22:06:29 Errr..wow. :-)

Well, you did ask for a sockpuppet page! —IDoNotExist

2009-02-26 22:05:38 I've thought about it quite a lot over the last few years. I always enjoyed it overall, particularly when I actually had things of potential use to add. Many of my friends didn't really want to become involved. I think it comes down to an identity issue. (In short - I could talk about this a lot, I have with many people). Some view the wiki as a positive open community (in an idealistic way), some see it as a useful resource, and the bulk of student visitors see it as more of a community website: a more interactive, more personal version of Yelp for example. IMO, people have entrenched. I think often regular editors quickly form up in a "us vs them" nature that is off putting to newbies. The nature however can't easily be changed - most visitors visit with a destination in mind, or to learn about Davis randomly by browsing, but I imagine few follow Recent Changes and edit histories. While many, (particularly you and JW) are kind and patient, there are times it's easy to feel like a newbie is a second class editor. And telling people that using a Yelp/forum/internet style name is not sufficient, and a few single edits won't be taken seriously, adds to that. They fiddle around, see the "big" guys, and feel intimidated. If you want to put it in terms of a social gathering like at a Farmers Market, it's hard to walk into and break into the established crowd. Especially if you're used to other websites and forums, or other venues where most people have just met or don't regularly interact. People are being given a choice: either they can invest seriously in what they felt was just a comment/review type site to have themselves feel validated, or they are discouraged and either lurk or end up posting in other avenues. Casual editing often seems to be discouraged (and specifically on restaurant pages discounted), while casual editing is what, in my opinion, increases peoples confidence and enjoyment and is what draws them into eventually becoming regular wiki contributors. Specifically on the restaurant pages, as restaurants/shopping is the original major draw of many visitors to this resource. I can't imagine how to try to alter any perceived problems with this - especially as everyone would feel differently and I'm sure many might disagree with my assessment. But as I mentioned above, I've spoken with many, many people who've felt that way about the Wiki. Not quite since launch, but in the following years, the sentiment grew. —EdWins

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	------ ''2009-02-26 22:05:38'' [[nbsp]] I've thought about it quite a lot over the last few years. I always enjoyed it overall, particularly when I actually had things of potential use to add. Many of my friends didn't really want to become involved. I think it comes down to an identity issue. (In short - I could talk about this a lot, I have with many people). Some view the wiki as a positive open community (in an idealistic way), some see it as a useful resource, and the bulk of student visitors see it as more of a community website: a more interactive, more personal version of Yelp for example. IMO, people have entrenched. I think often regular editors quickly form up in a "us vs them" nature that is off putting to newbies. The nature however can't easily be changed - most visitors visit with a destination in mind, or to learn about Davis randomly by browsing, but I imagine few follow Recent Changes and edit histories. While many, (particularly you and JW) are kind and patient, there are times it's easy to feel like a newbie is a second class editor. And telling people that using a Yelp/forum/internet style name is not sufficient, and a few single edits won't be taken seriously, adds to that. They fiddle around, see the "big" guys, and feel intimidated. If you want to put it in terms of a social gathering like at a Farmers Market, it's hard to walk into and break into the established crowd. Especially if you're used to other websites and forums, or other venues where most people have just met or don't regularly interact. People are being given a choice: either they can invest seriously in what they felt was just a comment/review type site to have themselves feel validated, or they are discouraged and either lurk or end up posting in other avenues. Casual editing often seems to be discouraged (and specifically on restaurant pages discounted), while casual editing is what, in my opinion, increases peoples confidence and enjoyment and is what draws them into eventually becoming regular wiki contributors. Specifically on the restaurant pages, as restaurants/shopping is the original major draw of many visitors to this resource. I can't imagine how to try to alter any perceived problems with this - especially as everyone would feel differently and I'm sure many might disagree with my assessment. But as I mentioned above, I've spoken with many, many people who've felt that way about the Wiki. Not quite since launch, but in the following years, the sentiment grew. --["Users/EdWins"]