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2005-03-30 17:21:09 What is the difference between a page ABOUT a business and a page BY a business and obviously geared towards advertising? How do we (or should we) deal with the later type of page? I had this question in response to some recent postings, but I just want to see what people have to say about it. I imagine this will be a more frequent concern as the wiki becomes more well known. (please forgive if this has been discussed before) —CarlMcCabe

Is this with reference to Chabad? (no -cm) From my POV (as the guy who's maintaining the Chabad page) Chabad would have a low-traffic, single-page presence just about anywhere it set up. As such it makes almost no sense to create a Chabad site anywhere else. I understand the rule that pages aren't going to be mouthpieces for a single organization, but it's kind of unlikely that Chabad will do anything controversial, so this is almost entirely a moot point. If it does get controversial, and we decide we want a mouthpiece, then I'll figure out about moving the site somewhere where that's not collaboratively edited. — KenBloom
There is no difference. A business owner has equal right to edit their entry as you do. That goes both ways - you can add your views, and they can add theirs. A couple businesses have been listing specials and deals (one of the cell phone stores updates their deals fairly often). That's a good thing - it's more information on the Wiki, and constant updating keeps the information current and useful. If they started deleting bad reviews, they would be behaving as a poor editor (it doesn't require a business owner to do this - Saul deleted a few when he first arrived)... and poor editing often is best combated through education rather than a kneejerk reaction. — JabberWokky
You make a good point. I hadn't thought of it like that. —cm

2005-03-30 17:32:03 I'm not entirely sure what to do myself. I myself have used the wiki to advertise different things on campus. No one owns a page in the wiki, so it can be edited to represent multiple viewpoints. And most of us Wikivangelists will be able to keep this place from turning into Davis411, so I wouldn't worry. Just edit what you think is excessively one-sided, and hopefully people who have had dealings with the business will come by and add their points of view.

Of course, another option is to let businesses have home pages, much like the CamelCase pages that pretty much belong to individual users. That resolved a lot of the issues during the Winter 2005 ASUCD Election. —BrentLaabs

They're probably just not aware of the daviswiki, but it amazes me how tolerant businesses have been of negative comments. I've only been on the Wiki since January, but I've never seen an instance of a business owner trying to remove something bad. hmmm... maybe I should test the waters by listing where I found a band-aid in a tuna-fish sandwich? Anyway, due to their controversial and transient nature, dual-page-representation made perfect sense for the elections. However, for more stable businesses, I fear that dual-representation would clutter and confuse things greatly. Naive searches might lead people only to the biased business owner's page rather than the objective community based one. —CraigBrozinsky

2005-03-30 17:43:08 Businesses can advertise all they want on the page for their business, but content about the business is more important and should be placed higher on the page than the advertisements. —MikeIvanov

Also, like anything, it's important to know who is saying what. Italics, bullets, and sections (= like this =) can help.

2005-04-06 14:52:29 what if some pictures on pages are shitty, whats the policy on changing them to something better? i dont want to get anyone's panties in a twist if i replace pictures —MattJojola

the wiki is all about panty twisting —ArlenAbraham
If I took the shitty pictures, feel free to replace them! Trying to make a page better is almost always a good thing
feel free to replace my shitty pictures too. i think a lot of photos were put up just to fill a void. there's a lot that should be replaced. and i wear boxers, but you're not allowed to twist them. —cm

2005-04-24 23:31:55 Davis Wiki is officially a success! Why, you ask? Because someone bought up http://www.daviswiki.com/. —BrentLaabs

2005-04-26 22:47:09 Very cool new map detail! The only thing that troubles me is that Visor Lady is mapped outside of Griffin Lounge and is clearly infringing on the turf of the Old Guys at the MU. Someone should fix that before a fight breaks out. —JackHaskel

That's because of increased detail. Anyone can fix it. :)

I know, I know. Just thought it was funny in a really nerdy and lame sort of way.

2005-05-14 19:55:45 Any chance we could get the weather forecast some nice icons and put it somewhere important? It's not like the black bar at the top does very much. But really just a display on the front page would be nice. —BrentLaabs

We were considering adding some weather icons, but if we do that we would rather use a live xml weather feed. —MikeIvanov

2005-06-21 20:39:10 I've got an etiquette question. When is it ok to create a user page for a user who doesn't have one? How much information is it ok to put on there about them? Is anything already available on the internet fair game to put on pages about people (both user pages and people pages)? —JasonAller

Here's my personal opinion. I avoid putting anything not accessible from a google search, would jeopardize someone's job, or isn't observable by any passerby. Also, for people who's usernames are aliases, consider that they might be using aliases to protect their anonymity. You might want to ask those folks if its okay first. Using these rules, I've avoided putting anything about BarnabasTruman or anything that would embarrass any of my colleagues in the Psychology. I've also refrained from putting the last name of Visor Lady. Well, actually I don't know her full name, but if I did, I wouldn't write it.

2005-07-06 23:23:29 Um, just curious what people think. SchminkerTons has "Do not edit this page" on his user page. That seems sorta bizarre and counter to the purpose of wikiwiki. Candidate for speedy deletion? —BrentLaabs

2005-07-07 01:30:32 It's a personal page, so I don't see a point in deleting it. Probably just a joke, anyway. Who cares? —MikeIvanov

2005-07-08 18:54:26 Someone wrote a Firefox search extension a while back (I can't seem to find it anymore.) If that person is still around, could they perhaps write a similar extension to search ucdavis.edu? —MarkWetter

2005-07-14 13:45:19 So, "sub-pages" can be denoted by the name "Original Page/Sub page name". Then, you can write ["/Sub page name"] as a short-cut to the longer page name of "Original page/Sub page name" I've noticed that we're sort of using this as the naming convention for sub pages, and we used to use a colon (stuff: other stuff). For "talk" pages, which we seem to be moving to in some cases, should they be named Talk/Original page name or Original page name/Talk? —PhilipNeustrom

2005-07-24 21:17:16 While it is great that people are putting so much work into cleaning up Wanted Pages, is it really a good idea to put up a page with very little or no useful information simply for the sake of getting it off Wanted Pages? The problem with this is that it's a lot less likely that someone who actually has knowledge of or interest in researching the subject will notice that the information is needed. If we do continue eliminating wanted pages in this manner, perhaps adding a statement including the word "stub" would be useful so that people can easily search for pages that need to be filled out. —JessicaLuedtke

2005-07-24 21:20:12 From what I've seen people are quick to start adding new stuff or shooting down my pages. From there you can tell what pages really are wanted or not. —JimSchwab

2005-07-24 22:49:43 At Jim: Those of us who have been around the wiki long enough know if a page already exists or not, which is why we're pretty quick on editing/killing new entries. You'll be that way soon enough, I'm sure — especially because you have an excellent knowledge of Davis history growing up here and all.

At Phil: I'd like to see ["../Subpage"] implemented so it's easy to link between subpages on the same level. This was sort of an issue with all of the ASUCD Elections pages. —BrentLaabs

2005-07-27 22:05:46 There's an increasing trend to use the events board for repeating events. This has the plus of showing up in my xml feed when sometimes i wish i knew what there was to do tonight in terms of both repeating and non-repeating events in one list. however, obviously that is the exception rather than rule. However, the rule doesn't seem to be enforced. Any thoughts? —JaimeRaba

2006-10-5 Okay, this is a *very* late addition to this discussion, but I noticed the same thing today, especially the addition of several very large images. For example, the Grad has posted the same large image on a weekly basis. How about a pixel size limit to events postings, e.g. please thumbnail images or something? It makes it very difficult to scroll through the events listing as a user when KDVS [for which I have the utmost respect] posts half a dozen large band images. —Alphadog

On 8.24.05 I cleaned out some Talk pages for entries that had become stable. Since the format for Talk pages has changed, here are the "missing entries" should they be needed in the future:

Talk:Traditions, Talk:Ben & Jerry's, Talk:Ari Kalfayan, Talk:Gender and Sexuality Commission, Talk:Davis Players Society

— jw

2005-08-26 14:25:12 Does anyone object to changing the purpose of the mystery page to include the question of "what." It seems there are plenty of things people see around town that are really anomalous (flowers, people, etc.). This could also encourage wiki contributions that would otherwise have been avoided due to lack of namage. —CraigBrozinsky

Is this covered by "or identify its contents?" —ArlenAbraham

2005-08-26 (discussion moved here from Davis Farmers Market)

I do not want to delete them, because I am not 100% certain, but I do not think you can post pictures of children on the internet without their parents permission. Anyone know? JimSchwab

I would say maybe the one with three little boys would be questioning, if that were true. The other one you can't see their faces. —MichelleAccurso

I occasionally work as an escort for the Planned Parenthood clinic, walking clients and staff in and out of the building. The protesters use to take pictures of the children, until the police came and told them not too. I have no idea what they would do with the pics, but the pics they took of me, well they put those on the internet. Maybe one of our expert lawyers will know. JimSchwab

it is completely legal to take pictures of people in PUBLIC places and post them without their permission. And anyway, think of it from a practical viewpoint...what's the worry? That some child molester knows that boys, without any identifying information, sometimes congregate at the Farmer's Market? Is that something he/she needed DavisWiki to find out? - ApolloStumpy

I think the law is different for children, I believe you need there parent's permission. I just don't want Phillip or Mike to get in trouble. Jimschwab

Think of the absurdity of such a law. Everytime you take a picture at a public place, you'd have to make sure that no children unrelated to you were in the frame, or else you could never distribute that picture over the internet. Think about newspaper coverage of events...do you honestly think that the photographer went out and got every single parent's permission for every child who appeared in a parade photograph? There is no such law. If people don't want it to be known that their kids go to public events, then don't take them there. - AS

I may be talking about an old topic, but I'll add some information on this. I'm a professional photographer, and the laws in the USA are something I know a bit about. As long as you are standing on publicly accessible ground, you can photograph whatever or whoever you like, and you do not need permission from parents, children, etc. There are two exceptions to this. First, you cannot take a photograph of someone, if that person has what is called "reasonable expectation of privacy." This means it is not acceptable to use a telephoto lens to photograph someone through their bedroom window. Similarly, if a child were having its diapers changed, and the parents were attempting, reasonably, to shield the child from view, it would be considered a private moment and is therefore protected. On the other hand, a naked child running around in a fountain would be fair game for the photographer. The second exception to public photography is that, in some cases, it is illegal to photograph nuclear power facilities or military installations. Odd, but true. Anyway, I provide this information for you because, in this era of heightened concerns about "security", photographers are being told more and more that they are not allowed to do what they are indeed allowed to do. For more information on this, you can refer to the Photographer's Bill of Rights; I keep a copy of this in each one of my camera bags.—BarryRice

2005-09-14 12:53:23 I think that it is sad how brainwashed we have become in our worship of copyright law. Must we all cow down whenever congress decides to change it because it helps some corporation? With the current climate, the public (or even private) library never could come into existance! —SteveDavison

We chose the most liberal creative commons license to put all of Davis Wiki under. We say, on the bottom of every page, "Everything you see (unless noted otherwise) is under this liberal license, and this means you can do anything with it as long as you credit the source to davis wiki/specific author." Many other places restrict their content in such a way that it cannot be placed on Davis Wiki unless we note that it falls under a different, more restrictive license (such as "use this for whatever as long as you don't make money off of it"). Otherwise we'd be telling people "Hey, this image from the california aggie can be used for whatever purpose and in any way," because we say "it's under the super-liberal license" unless we state otherwise. Stating otherwise can be annoying, but it's necessary othewise the integrity of our resource — as a free resource for all to use in any way — becomes suspect.

As for contributing outright copyrighted material with no usage license at all and without permission: that can only be here as long as it's considered "fair use" of the material under US law.

By putting everything on Davis Wiki under such a liberal license we allow an amazing amount of usage. Talk about usage of material on Davis Wiki is a part of keeping the resource free. -PhilipNeustrom

That was my frustration with the current state of copyright law and how things that were historically in the public commons have been co-opted by corporate interests, not a suggestion that we not follow the law. I have no complaint with the Creative Commons license, or with Davis Wiki. This is a topic that could be discussed for some time. -SteveDavison

2005-09-18 23:35:28 as long as i've been on the wiki, people have been responsible in what they post and have reverted stuff they deemed inappropriate. what were to happen if someone were to post a really inappropriate thing to the wiki. something that would be harmful to find even in the page's history. for instance, some celebrity's phone number, the answers to an exam, libelous info intended to inflict harm on an individual, outing someone, etc? has that ever happened on here or on other wikis, and what is the policy should it happen? —CraigBrozinsky

What do you think it should be? Most of the time courts rule that those who provide services are not necessarily responsible for those who use them. So, this would be a case in which it was clear that there is a misuse and the non-removal of something is deemed a violation of some law or another? PhilipNeustrom

I was thinking in terms of moral obligation rather than legal obligation. In either case, I don't have a clear answer. On the one hand, its easy to intellectualize the Wiki as a no-holds-barred free-speech tool. On the other hand, when things become personal, I think a lot of people would want material permanently removed. cb

I probably shouldn't note this, but if you edit a page >100 times (see this one, some of the history appears to be lost. This may not actually be the case. You can also do fun stuff with combinations of moves, deletes and reverts that I haven't been able to recover info from, but those might have been fixed. -BrentLaabs

The history isn't lost, it's just not displayed (yet). As for any combination of deleting and renaming, let me know if there are any problems in this respect from now on (because there shouldn't be). —PhilipNeustrom

The >100 edit "bug" has been fixed. There will be a memory hole feature in the next software update. —ArlenAbraham

2005-09-25 12:13:38 Was just looking at some of the recent Hoa Viet 'revision wars'. I feel that we should have factual content, positive and negative, on the top part of the page and then in the Comments section, opinions (positive and negative) should follow. I propose these as guidelines about what content goes where. The great thing about the Wiki is that we can see the good, bad, and ugly. I do want to see the GOOD as well as the BAD. —SteveDavison

You should fix it, then! I think it was reverted because something was deleted that someone thought valuable without being integrated elsewhere in the page? —PhilipNeustrom

The Hoa Viet page got me thinking about what the proper thing to do would be; it was just an example. I felt there was no need for me to jump into the fray. My point above was to recommend facts-above-Comments/Opinion-below-Comments as a basic style goal.

2005-10-15 00:59:43 *shrug*... I don't think the Bistro 33 page would seem so bad if it was just reorganized and cleaned up a bit. There is just a lot of crap on the page currently... for example the multiple comments all dealing with the candlestick incident that take up almost 20 lines could be greatly pared down or possibly even removed completely. The off-topic comments could be removed and the informational ones could be worked into the page's body text. That'd do a lot to help right there, though it'd still leave a bunch of reviews/user experiences. But I don't think it's that bad for a page to have lots of review like comments, as long as they're in the proper place (ie: after all the factual informational stuff). I don't think length alone should determine the necessity of a talk page. —JevanGray

2005-10-20 06:24:17 Just a general musing: I've observed several times how 1) Someone sees a need and adds to a page or creates a new page), 2) Others see it in Recent Changes, then jump on it and edit it, 3) the original intent is lost and the content veers off into something unrecognizable, 4) the page is deleted as having no merit -taking the meritorious original seed with it. The subject is much larger than Wiki, it is one of group dynamics, and a worthy subject of study. —SteveDavison

2005-10-29 16:23:25 I can imagine the day, not far off, when every business in Davis has a page here. —SteveDavison

2005-10-29 16:26:24 Something I've been thinking about: Would it make sense to have "task groups" which might meet, plan a page (perhaps one requiring in-depth research) and create it? In other words, folks that might get together for a project vs. everyone just doing their own? —SteveDavison

2005-10-30 20:40:51 What ever happened to the Disclaimer? —ArlenAbraham

2005-10-31 22:29:37 To whomever did the Halloween logo, pumpkin & bones: That's really slick! —SteveDavison

2005-11-01 02:48:34 Thanks, check out our other holiday logos —MikeIvanov

2005-11-14 02:48:34 Question: What do you guys think about Craig's idea to create pages, "CraigBrozinsky:RestaurantReviews-style pages that mirror the content of Restaurants but with personal opinions. Is this something the community wants more of? I.E Arlen:RestaurantReview, Neustrom:Reviews, etc?

Michael, you bring up a good point, and I should clarify that I was somewhat conflicted in making that page. On the one hand, my review page isn't something thats set up to be edited by others, comments section aside. Thats makes it admittedly un-wikilike, and i'm 100% open to comments for the page's continuation or removal. On the one hand, I felt it useful because I make enough restaurant comments to warrant some kind of a calibration and summary page. I'm harsh (but fair) on lots of reviews, and I find it useful for people to understand thats a general bias on my part. Also, I'm hesitant to leave a vague comment such as "i liked it" or "eh, okay" or an overly smarmy comment on a page if I don't have more evidence to back it up. Finally, with regards to one of my particularly nasty reviews, I felt that putting the info on the individual page was largely a historical point, and would do more damage to the business than was really fair. CraigBrozinsky

2005-11-25 Just noticed the Wiki is listed on an official UC Davis web site. In fact, it's the only non-ucdavis resource listed, I take that as an acknowledgment of accomplishment. —SteveDavison

2005-12-14 11:01:13 recently, there seems to be a lot of strange editing behavior on the wiki. where would be a good place to discourage sock puppets? —CraigBrozinsky

2005-12-23 11:22:50 The Davis Wiki needs to have a vision statement; a sense of what it should become. Perhaps a steering committee which would meet regularly and evaluate the current state and future goals. (I'm just floating ideas for thoughts & feedback.) —SteveDavison

Other than for code development or socializing, what would be the purpose? i may be misinterpreting your suggestions, but i kind of like the way things are— no bureaucracy, no explicit group of people making decisions for the rest, and a generally laid back attitude. — CraigBrozinsky

I think you are misinterpreting me slightly. All I am suggesting is that we discuss the future rather than just blindly waiting. As far as no "explicit group of people making decisions", that's already not the case: there is an explicit group who know the root password. Making it 100% democratic is probably undesirable. —SteveDavison

Philip and I have discussed this, and neither of us think it's a good idea to put the wiki into the hands of any sort of committee. We have discussed our vision and goals, but it's probably not such a good idea to try to steer something like the wiki, but we tried to point it in a positive direction to start with. —MikeIvanov

It doesn't have to be a private matter. For instance, if Philip -or others- created a page "Wiki/Future" and started a discussion of what the Wiki could be, I think that would be a good thing. Should the Wiki be mostly for UCD students or should effort be made to broaden it's community outreach? Should every Davis business be listed here? Is the intention to have it grow several fold or stay sort of as-is? Or is the plan just to be totally hands-off and see what happens? In any case, I think some clear thinking is always a good thing. —SteveDavison

Clear thinking is definitely a good thing. I would suggest that you create the page you mentioned, put down your ideas, and see what happens. I think it might be useful to talk about where we are and where we are headed, but I would caution that perhaps we don't want to have too many guidelines and intentions. Still, if you have ideas, by all means put them down and let's have a discussion. To sum it up:

I'm open to anything. In the code/server sense, I think having some sort of small yet established group that is responsible for maintence of the site (at a high-level), is probably a good idea for long-term growth of the site. ArlenAbraham's been looking into non-profit status. By simply declaring non-profit we have to create an entity, so this will probably have to happen. —PhilipNeustrom

2006-01-26 21:28:06 The HUB (the Davis High School newspaper) has recently had an article about Daviswiki. Though this may sound like a good way to promote the wiki, there is a good chance that there will be an uprise in the next month of useless edits and teenage userpages which will probably link to MySpace, Livejournal, Xanga and others of the like. Brace yourself. I heard something funny recently as well. Some high schools students refer to the wiki as the "new MySpace". I don't see the resemblance, but some people really do think that's what it is. haha. —JohnDudek

Shit. —GrahamFreeman

If people treat the wiki soley to host myspace type pages on, we can always just edit their pages to be more relevant, right? —JosephBleckman

Agreed... relevant userpages are one thing, blatant "ooh lookitme I'm so popular" so-called profiles are icky-ew. —CindySperry

The non comment part of Mr. Keys' profile seems quite exceptionally good, although his Daily Random Fact thing's way too myspace/blog like for my likings. —JosephBleckman

The problem with editing MySpace-type pages is that MySpace-type users tend to spend inordinate amounts of time on the internet. —RoyWright

I think user pages are user pages. So what if they want fluff on their page? I think it only makes that user look bad or useless or whatever. All we can really do it maybe add some links and hope they don't get deleted. I say the more people using the wiki the better. I've heard from so many people who used the wiki to find an apartment or look up some late night food, even if they don't sign up and edit. And I think that means we've "done our job." So who cares if someone's on it and not doing anything? There's not a whole lot of... censorship? authority? there's really no rules that says you need to do X amount of edits for every X amount of days/weeks/months you're on the wiki, there's no rules saying how many links you have to have on your personal page, so let people do what they want. It's their page that will suck and not yours. -michelleaccurso

2006-01-31 17:04:04 We had 21 minutes of downtime due to another user on our system un-gracefully restarting our webserver. Everything should be fine now. —PhilipNeustrom

2006-02-18 03:50:39 I feel that people should not be included on the Wiki map. If you were to look for someone, wouldn't you just go to their personal page and find out where they lived? The extra dots also contribute to clutter on the map. While this isn't a problem now, it could get worse as more users join or forget to update their Map locations since most students move every year. People who leave the wiki (or Davis) might forget to delete their location as well, contributing to more clutter. —DussonYeung

Good point. People dots would be cool if they were live, but at this point, they just add clutter. I'll go delete myself now. — ArlenAbraham

There's a People category on the map, so filtering them out shouldn't be difficult.

2006-06-18 09:58:09 I think the number of fake accounts used to trash/promote businesses, especially restaurants, is getting out of hand. The new user info feature is handy, should we just delete suspicious activity? If people only make one edit to one page, and then never edit again, it could be legitimate, but it's likely fake. How do we tell the real people apart from the people who work for mountain mikes? —ArlenAbraham

2006-07-20 13:04:50 should Today's Events be admin only? i can't see why someone would need to edit that. —ArlenAbraham

I am terribly concerned about the open ended debate pages. These are increasing in number and are open ended. Unlike Talk pages such as Cults/Talk which debate over specific points and then are deleted, these are debates over eternal issues. As I wrote in an entry that indexed and proposed several new ongoing debates:

Debating on a Wiki is only a little less stupid than using a wrench to pound a nail. The Wiki is designed to coallate information and to that end hosts closed target debates that are deleted when over. Opened ended debates can't be deleted and combed over for information to place in an entry. When are you going to delete these to produce third person entries that have specific relevance to Davis and are useful to visitors? This entry is quite possibly one of the most deadly to the Wiki, producing volumes of material ill-suited to the Wiki itself. Much better that this go to one of the sites intended for debate. — JabberWokky

These started with the Abortion Debate monstrosity. Are we seriously expecting to come to a conclusion on that issue and produce some sort of breakthough entry that satisfies all? Does it seem likely that the ongoing debate on Abortion will be resolved on this Wiki? They have long since passed debating wording and points of the Abortion entry... it's now a free for all discussion that seems to have no end. And unlike discussion threads on UCDavis LiveJournal, they will never have any end. Six months, six years from now, they will still be growing (and splitting and mutating). When do you call the discussion "done" and delete it? Unlike forums designed for debate, these always grow and will devour the actual entries that the Wiki is here for.

I would delete these, but I think that's a big enough discussion to have the community weigh in. To contrast with the debates I'm worried about, this isn't an open debate: it's a specific issue, and I'd like to have a community decision... and then action, at which point this is deleted.

I also think those pages are dumb, but a lot of people like standing on top of soap boxes. One thing that I don't know is how visible those pages are to JoeUser who doesn't obsessively watch Recent Changes. While I think the pages are dumb, I'm not sure deleting them is the best idea. People use the wiki as a fourm because it's easy to use, lots of people use it, and people like to argue. We could go around wantonly deleting pointless debate, but more pointless debate would just grow back. I think what we need to is attack this beast slowly. I don't have a plan of action here, but perhaps we can start by making a page on why people shouldn't have open ended debates, then deleting or sumarizing existing pages. For example on the abortion page, we can have a link to something like discussion and then the discussion page can talk about why discussing abortion on the wiki is pointless. I think a lot of people are going to object to this plan. The wiki has the potential to be an instrument for social change, and some people feel that abortion should be illegal in davis and will try their damnedest to make this happen. I want to see choice voting happen, and I would probably participate in a discussion on choice voting. Is a discussion about choice voting ok on the wiki? How do we decide what discussion is relevant and what is not? The Measure X page was huge and didn't really accomplish anything. Pages like Measure X and abortion become so large that they only serve the people actively involved in discussion. Ugh, now i'm rambling... —ArlenAbraham

I may be best to discuss removing specific things rather than to say that any debate or discussion on the wiki is pointless. Let's try and avoid making Davis Wiki boring. While I generally agree that debate about certain things, such as vegetarianism, aren't really locally relevant, there are a number of global issues that folks may feel are relevant to Davis itself or would like to maybe discuss with Davis itself. But it's probably best to have these dealt with on a case-by-case basis? —PhilipNeustrom

Oh, I agree totally. Debate on the Wiki is very important, and I'm not looking to just stomp on everything calling itself a Debate. That's why I referred to a "good" debate (Cult/Talk)... there are several more, some of which have lasted for a long long time and are chaotic — Measure X is a good example of using the Wiki as a Forum for a Davis issue. I'm referring to "open debates" about non-Wiki, non-Davis issues. Yes, they need to be approached on a case by case basis. I'm bringing it up because the rapid appearance of several that are, in my mind, starting to cross out of the domain of the Wiki. As I say, that line is one that the community should draw together, and (somewhat ironically), I'm trying to start debate on the issue to feel out the opinions of others. Fundamentally, I'm worrying about the long view — what the shape of the Wiki will look like in, say, 2010. Rather than thinking about an edit of a specific entry, I'm thinking what series of edits can be done to "prune and shape" a growing, organic whole into a better end result. Talk pages or long blocks of comments are fantastic because people know they will dwindle and disappear, enriching the entry. Reviews (a specific form of comment) stand alone as a sampling of individual opinions without compromise. Debates on Davis issues function as minutes of a town hall open forum, a record of the zeitgeist of the community on certain issues. But even the real world town forums should not lapse into tangents too far astray. Mosquito spraying or Measure X, yes. Even "Too damn Hot..." makes perfect sense (my earlier comment regarding it was in the heat of passion on the issue). The Wiki should have character. But I've always been leery of Abortion Debate as a topic too far astray from that "town hall meeting" qualification. Having a "General Debate" on the topic of Food or an unprompted debate on "Vegetarianism vs. Omnivorism" worries me that the scope of debate has exited the boundaries of what is appropriate — what is prompted for by the needs of the Wiki. DavisWiki is not Google Groups or Blogger. Unless the community just likes debating on the Wiki and feel that's a path the site should take... in which case I'll be perfectly happy with it. But I worry that debate has become the purpose, rather than debate having a purpose... which is a very subtle and very fundamental shift which I feel will have profound effects on the shape of the Wiki as a whole. —jw

I think that even global issues can be made relevant to Davis. Such as the juvenile justice page. It started out to be just a general page about juvenile justice (prompted by the Halema Buzayan stuff), but then someone made the comment that it should have local things added to it. This prompted me to search for and find all the local (Yolo County) information on how juvenile justice works. I had to call and ask people for some information and other information came from minutes of meetings, websites of various government offices, etc. Some of it still needs work, such as the Juvenile Justice Commission - there is nothing on any website. I think that I'm going to end up having to go over to the Probation Department to get information on what they actually do. —SharlaDaly

Sharla — you posted this while I was writing the above. Seed topics have always been something I've seen as important and defended; Juvenile Justice is certainly a example of a excellent topic. I even think colors can be turned into the basis for good Davis relevant entries. I'm talking about chatter between a few people that just goes back and forth about topics unrelated to Davis, the Wiki, and have no general intent other than as a place to chat. Hopefully my above comment clarifies what I was referring to. —jw

2006-07-30 18:47:51 Are there any guidelines for citing/acknowledging sources? No one seems to do it and we don't have the same verifiability policy as Wikipedia, but it feels wrong to use info from, say, the Enterprise and not acknowledge it. —AndrewChen

It probably should be done. There's a footnote macro just perfect for that... before the macro accepted links (the Dark Days), I used to use the following format: During the 19th annual Dixon Lambtown USA mutton bustin' competition, the winner stayed on a bucking lamb for 5.35 seconds. ( Source ). You can see that format here and there... either that or the footnote macro should be decided on for the Wiki Style Guide. —jw

2006-10-18 16:40:36 Currently I find the default commenting method rather difficult to parse when scanning a page. I was thinking perhaps altering how comments worked to split them into logical sections. Something as simple as a positive comment area and a negative comment area with separate buttons for both would make it a lot easier to read. Granted I have yet to look into the backend of a Wiki so the ease of such a change I am not currently sure of. —KevinRobinson

Should included notices (Photo Request, Stub, etc) go at the top or bottom of the entry? Wikipedia uses the top, presumably so they stand out more. Since some of ours (like Photo Request) sit on entries for quite awhile, and a placement at the top detracts from the entry. I'd say they should go at the bottom in general, as they stand out quite nicely on their own, and thus don't get "in the way" when a visitor (especially a non-wiki savvy one) reads the entry. STOP and Copy/Paste would probably be exceptions, as they indicate far more serious notifications that affect the entry and should be known before the entry is read (that there's a dispute, or that the content may not be legal to use elsewhere). Thoughts? —JabberWokky

2007-01-30 15:09:01 I'm having trouble with posting times on the event board. My event shows at the correct time on my computer and an hour later on my assistant's computer. The time of the event that she posted shows correctly on her computer and wrong on mine. —ErieVitiello

2007-01-30 15:08:14 Perhaps, check and see if you are in the same timezone. Go to settings and make sure you both are UTC -8.00 hrs —MaxMikalonis

The wiki adjusts for users who live in different time zones. Check your . Pacific Standard Time is -8 hours from UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) —ArlenAbraham

2007-02-23 13:12:19 Anybody have ANY idea where to link Maguid Security from? —JabberWokky

I'm sure there are other security firms that provide service in Davis. It's just an issue of finding them, making pages of them, making a Security Services page, and going out and photographing a security guard (the fun part). —ArlenAbraham

2007-03-18 12:39:17 Do we want to list departed businesses from outside Davis? Keeping a historical record for Davis makes sense. I'm divided myself on the issue, just tossing it out to see what other feel. —JabberWokky

I think it should depend on how relevant the business is to the Davis community. If its a business that has plenty of others of its type in the Davis Area, it might not be that notable, but if it was very distinctive and played a key nitch in the Davis community (like a sole BBQ place in the area, or something like that) than it is worth remembering. If we start keeping tabs on all departed businesses in the region it would, I think, be equivient to expanding the scope of this wiki. Which isn't something I'd nessecarily disagree with, but I feel we'd need to be concious of that choice. —JosephBleckman

2007-08-17 21:34:49 As of late, quite a few people have created pages on the wikispot hub that were intended for DavisWiki. What is probably happening is that they follow help links (which are interwiki links) and then they get to work on the hub w/o realizing that they have gone to another wiki. It's good to put the basic help docs on the hub for new wikis to use. However, I believe that this whole interwiki confusion would be resolved by keeping copies of all the help docs on dwiki. —WilliamLewis

Is it just new accounts, though? If so, it is probably the case that they create the account (on the hub) and then don't go back to Davis Wiki — they just create the page on the hub. We should change it so people get redirected to the wiki they clicked from. A bit about this is on the Feature Requests page. —PhilipNeustrom

2007-12-11 14:34:34 It might be a good idea to take some newer photos of some locations, or get some photos that represent the actual place rather than the opening days. For instance, Pita Pit and Burgers and Brew both reflect the opening (or in the latter case, before the opening). —JabberWokky

2007-12-11 14:37:34 Anybody know about/want to writeup the proposal for the bike and electric vehicle only road to Woodland? I've just heard about it on the radio; they are reporting it uses the right of way of the railroad? I figure somebody must know the details, probably more in depth than media reports. —JabberWokky

2007-12-18 12:34:20 How should we deal with the advertisements the apartment complexes put on their pages? —JamesSchwab

I think there is a problem here with people making comments about businesses (correct or not) where the businesses do not know how to respond. One business owner complained to me for half an hour on the phone that the comments on the wiki had been destroying their business, as they were a franchise and the company that they franchised from was threatening to take away part of their franchise. (Note: I never mentioned the wiki, and in fact I found them because they were listed on the wiki!) I also don't think that the comments on the wiki were likely to be inaccurate, as they reflected my experience when I used that business many years ago. But the point is that they didn't understand how to address the issues raised on the wiki - either by changing how their business operates to address those issues, or by explaining what was happening on the wiki. Even after I explained to them how they could respond on the wiki itself, they didn't post anything. They may not understand how to, or may not even be comfortable with using computers. In any case, things do get a bit one sided - people post often when they have complaints, but not so often when they are satisfied. And most businesses don't know how to respond, even though they could. It seems important to change the situation so that businesses that need to improve can do so, and so that those that don't can address negative comments. Perhaps a suggestions section for each business would allow people to recommend improvements to how they operate or in their customer service? Perhaps something else? I'm really not sure what the best solution is here... —IDoNotExist

2008-04-04 09:25:42 There has been a good deal of work put into business outreach, although it will perpetually be an ongoing effort. The problem is that the badmouthing is associated with the wiki because it is visible here, as opposed to sidewalk conversations. See Welcome to the Wiki for some effort that has gone into outreach, and the business owner's section for specifically business oriented outreach. Jason has also put together some print materials and presentations for business groups. Empowering the businesses makes more sense than quieting the consumers¹. Why should a comment or review on the wiki be treated any differently than a person's comment or review elsewhere... on a blog, a newspaper or an email? Better Business Bureau works in the same way as the wiki — collect complaints and allow businesses a chance to answer to them. Yes, wiki reviews tend to be more critical (so do the BBB reports), but then the wiki isn't depending on the local businesses for advertising... check out the reviews in the Enterprise or Aggie of local restaurants (which are their paying clients) versus their reviews of movies. There seems to be a feeling of "you can't say bad things about me in print, no matter if it is true or not" among quite a few businesses.

The wiki is also not a business/consumer binary system... it is merely an subject/individual system, and that is important to remember lest we fall into a "group vs. group" view. The wiki reveals the opinions of the people in the community. That opinion is almost never going to be purely positive, and there are going to be people dead set against the practices or aesthetics of the business. Should the community not be given a voice? If so, who should be allowed to review (or even write)? Of course there are obnoxious edge examples involving people with a personal stake, and winnowing those out is part of how the wiki works. Outreach to businesses is a key factor as well... feel free to help! —JabberWokky

2008-04-04 10:03:47 I definitely don't think that anyone should be silenced! The wiki is a very good thing, and most of the comments are probably fair. I'd really like to see businesses improve based on feedback in the wiki. The goal is to improve things for everyone, right? I do feel bad though reading things like the attacks on the owner of the Village Bakery. Maybe they are valid. Maybe they aren't. I really don't know, as I have no involvement with that business. But how am I to tell? There's apparently one or more angry workers and an angry owner, and no evidence supporting either side. Who do I believe? (And not just in this particular case.)

In most cases though, I don't see the businesses responding. Are they aware of the wiki? Do they know how to respond? —IDoNotExist

There probably isn't a simple answer. The edge cases have to be taken one by one, and if editors disagree, then it gets discussed. It is hard to delete a comment, and it should be. The only real place where there could be more activity is outreach, and even then some people don't use computers at all, while some simply won't want to participate in a group they can't control. There will be some nasty cases of people butting heads... just like off the wiki. If there weren't, the wiki probably wouldn't be a good reflection of Davis. There are some very nasty things on the wiki that do jibe with my personal experience. If I hadn't seen actions by a business owner, I would have thought it was an outlandish accusation. In other cases, a very serious claim was made, questioned, and then followed up with several people saying that the same thing happened to them. Just like in real life, figuring out whose reviews to trust, and who to trust on serious claims is a social thing, not a technical issue (other than outing chicanery like sockpuppets — which can occur in real life "And all my friends agree!"). —jw

2008-09-03 14:38:52 I am creating a wiki to help people in land conservation add their "best management practices." I'm doing this because the nonprofit I work for (The Nature Conservancy) has a big library of documents on management practices, but these need to be updated by experts in the field. I'm thinking a wiki would be a great way to proceed. How did a successful wiki like Daviswiki (stroke, stroke) get off the ground? —BarryRice

Well, after Davis Wiki became successful, Wiki Spot was created to foster exactly that — other wikis. You can create a wiki there, and flesh it out enough so that contributors have an idea of the vision. Usually that's a fairly serious amount of work (twenty good entries seems to attract contributors much more than 200 bare bones seed entries). —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards

2008-10-29 09:28:21 This Monday I am giving a presentation to the other scientists, faculty, staff in my UC group, and am describing various wikis. I'll mention DavisWiki, but I was wondering if the uber-editors here might be able to provide me with (A)inception date for the wiki, (B)number of articles in the wiki. THANKS —BarryRice

You can grab a date from Wiki history. The site went public on October 27, 2004. As for the number of pages on this wiki, look at the bottom of recent changes. We're currently at 12,582 pages. This number includes pages that some might not consider content, like redirects, talk pages, and user pages, so take that number with a grain of salt. Good luck with your presentation! —WilliamLewis

Perfect. Thanks!—BarryRice

2008-12-16 15:16:55 Ok, I have a question for you all. I recently discovered what I think is unethical activity. One business listing contained very positive reviews by 2 separate people. Those SAME people made negative reviews on a competitors listing within days of the positive listing. Upon further investigation, those people have only made comments about these two listings (+ for one and - for the other). Also, the negative comments appear to be completely unfounded as a later independent comment confirms an opposite experience.

This to me screams unethical activity as it appears that somebody is manipulating the wiki for business gain (I'm sure not for the first time). I've made this clear by commenting on the original listing but another user removes my comments and claims that I should keep discussions limited to the business not to the users (but this is clearly about the business!).

What to do? —DrWang

I agree with you — tagging information about a review that is not obvious is important. Not everybody agrees. I saw the back and forth edit and let it go. If you want to raise it as an issue for group discussion, there is a "Talk" icon on every page. Go to the page that has the edit you are disputing, and click the Talk icon. You'll start a new entry with the suffix "Talk" to discuss the content of the main entry. You are basically opening a something for discussion. If it's just one editor, you could also just talk to that editor directly by adding a comment on their profile (click their signature). Sometimes it's just a nuance that they took issue with... or they misread what you were saying. —Evan 'JabberWokky' Edwards

2009-01-07 16:40:46 Thoughts on archiving versus deleting old comments? I randomly go through sometimes and move older comments to a new page, typically "Restaurant/200X Reviews." Personally, I think a lot of older comments should be junked. Many are side comments or questions, and I think that they're the kind of thing that can be removed with time. Oftentimes they just are overlooked, which is why they hang around so long. Whereas actual reviews of the place should stay on the archived page, as people can see a progression or what have you. For example, this page. I think several of these can be deleted. But others might think it's nifty to see later on. So again, anyone have opinions on archiving versus deleting (some) old comments? —EdWins

Years ago, a goal was to try to integrate everything. People would delete 10 to 15 older reviews and add a paragraph to the entry trying to sum up some viewpoints. It seems over the years wiki usage changed, and the resulting buildup of comments is what's leading me to archive things (else a page is too darn long). I still think a lot of things can be deleted though without really losing any value. (Again, there's a lot of small stuff that's just overlooked). -ES

2009-06-22 14:34:16 Is there any chance of redemption on the wiki when a business has garnered mixed reviews? The naysayers will likely never change their opinions and the supporters watch miserably as business dwindles (in spite of their numbers and the fact that the original problem maybe no longer exists...) Is there any way to deal with this, for exampke in the way that 3 years after a car accident, you get your record cleaned up and can start afresh? Or do businesses just have to drag dead baggage around with them until the end of time? —WendySmyerYu

Generally (after ~1-2 years) the old comments get archived. This puts them on a separate page, and the pages are generally organized by year. Thus, if I see a bad review on a page from 2007, but I also see that all of the reviews in the past six months are good, then I will assume that the business has improved in the interim. However, the wiki is a changing entity, as viewed in the discussion directly above this one, and it may become practice to delete very old reviews, as opposed to archiving them. One of the really big moves that can set a business apart, at least in my eyes, is for a representative of the business to respond to the negative comments. Even if the original commenter is being unreasonable, this shows that the business is working toward an understanding. Also, in those situations where the commenter is being unreasonable, it is usually pretty obvious to third parties how much of the problem is on the business' end, and how much is from the customer. But the main point is that the wiki is not incredibly old, and is just now entering the point where we will have to figure out what to do with comments from 3-5 years in the past. Whether they are deleted, archived, or integrated into the main body of the entry, it is pretty clear if a business has changed their tune over time.
Let us know which business you feel has unreasonably been criticized... I've provided feedback that at times was probably both unwarranted praise and at others unwarranted criticism. I'll give any business a second try, although it takes a sincere attempt by the owner or employees to reach out to customers for me to come back for a second try. I much prefer posting praise to criticism! —ScottLay
I'm referring to the Davis Aikikai - not a typical product-oriented "business" - classes are offered through the EC. If you refer to the wiki page, there are two instances of 'negative feedback' which we've been wondering how to deal with. In the first case, the reviewer remained anonymous and in the second case the reviewer only sat in once on part of a class. In the meantime we currently have a dozen very happy students (not counting the ones who have recently left only because circumstances took them out of Davis). Of course we're all aware of everyone's right to have an opinion and express it, but at the same time, there's the sense that further responses will come across as merely defensiveness since the criticism is pointed at the instructor's teaching style. Accusations of abusiveness are pretty severe and serve, intentionally, only to turn people away. We can argue pedagogy with critics until we're blue, I guess, but if it's any indication of a difference in perspective, my daughter (who is 12) takes the class (and is completely happy) and I have no second thoughts about her being in that environment at all. As a dojo we are a great community - it extends out of the class, and is balanced with humor and serious attention and kindness on everyone's parts, including the instructor.

2009-07-16 16:21:04 Dear DavisWiki, my name is Nic and I live in the UK. I came across your site while searching for a photograph of a globe artichoke plant and stayed browsing when I saw how beautiful your flowers were and the amazing story of trees being planted in parking lots to feed the homeless. I've just started writing a blog about my allotment in Gloucester and have used your photo as a comparison with my neighbour's cardoon plant - www.nipitinthebud.co.uk (I trust this is OK according to the Creative Commons License you have for this site? - please let me know what credit you'd like me to add if you know who's photograph it is). After browsing your site I kind of lost track of my initial research thread and feel pleased to have connected with such a fabulous community on-line. cheerio, Nic —NicM

If this is the photo, then AlphaDog is the photographer. The same software that made Davis Wiki possible is free to use and hosting is free for community wikis, you could start one for Glouchester if there isn't already one started for it. Just go to WikiSpot. —JasonAller

* thanks Jason, and for the suggestion about a community Wiki - I'll look at Wikispot another day though as blogging has already kept me up way too late (it's 1am here). cheerio, Nic

2009-07-16 21:27:29 I strongly feel that the Davis Wiki should support ssl, in lay terms, let users use https (i.e. https://daviswiki.org) in addition to plain old http. Many websites support both (even gmail, for instance). I've set up sites to do this, it doesn't cost any more and only takes an hour or so to do. It does stop people from 'sniffing' your account password either from a network or a wireless connection. It's transparent to most users; only if people type 'https' do they get a secure connection. —SteveDavison

Just so you know, the Wiki does use SSL, but only when logging in or at other such secure points in the session. —jw
We use SSL on login so your password isn't sent in plaintext over the wire. The cookie is sent over standard HTTP after, though. I believe there's no way around this other than keeping (or allowing) people to stay in https constantly. Most every other website works this same way. Gmail, for instance, logs you in via https but you can steal someone's session by stealing all their non-https cookies (though I suspect gmail checks the end user IP and requires a peak at the SSL cookies thereafter). —PhilipNeustrom

1Except in one very specific case which has been batted around in email and really should be brought up on the wiki, which I'll do in the next day or two