Wiki Community/Proposals/Archive - Davis

This is an archive of past discussions for Wiki Community/Proposals. For more current reviews, visit the main entry.

2005-01-30 14:20:10 what about having our own little class rating section? but unlike other websites that do it by teachers, we can do it by classes. —Adam Gerber

I like this; our wiki can be greatly expanded by adding more school content. —quadshock

2005-02-01 12:34:55 Following up on the commentary about Davis community versus a broader regional community, it sounds like postings about events and opportunities in the surrounding area is discouraged. Am I mistaken? My 2¢: As a member of the Davis community, I don't really feel like my life is defined by the geographic boundaries of this city and actually appreciate notice of opportunities within driving distance or even further. —AlphaDog

You are certainly not discouraged from posting about events in the surrounding area. The discussion above has to do with the overall focus of this wiki. Events that are interesting to Davisites are most welcome. —MikeIvanov

Regarding the Sacramento events you posted in Regular Events — I would say just make an Outskirts events section and put them there — then when there's a lot just move it to a new page and link it from there. I think for the Events Board any event in an Outskirts town is probably fair game ;) The reason it's important to distinguish is that many undergraduates do not have access to a car or good transportation to other cities to attend events, so think keeping Davis events as the most visible is good. —PhilipNeustrom

Wow! I didn't even know there were separate sections for different cities. Thanks for the clarification and good idea about the Outskirts Event section. I understand what you're saying about undergrads, but what about older students and undergrads with cars? Would it be appropriate to create a link at the bottom of something like the Events page to let people know that there are more events in the Outskirts section? —AlphaDog

Wikipedia has a "Three Reverts Rule" in which any user is slapped with a 24 hour ban if they revert the same page more than than three times in a 24 hour period for reasons other than fixing simple vandalism or self edits. The intention is that 1) Other people are involved 2) Discussion must take place.

An "edit storm" can certainly take place, but it's less common. Locking a page is a somewhat lesser exertion becaue it doesn't affect any individual directly, and instead affects everyone's ability to edit the page for a period of time.

How about > X reverts causes a page to be locked, with access only throught the comments box? Or, locking results in a new discussion page to be automatically created. CraigBrozinsky

These things should be done manually as there are too many possible ways to 'revert' changes. In all situations, a discussion should take place.

Could this be coded up and loaded into the wiki quickly? This would be a good auto check on edit / revert wars... It certainly would have stopped the recent changes from looking like it does now. —StevenDaubert

yes, but many people who engage in edit wars have several sock puppet accounts. In any case that is a rather complicated coding effort at the moment and there are a few more important bits to do. Bug Philip later. ~Dave

2005-11-28 17:03:03 Thinking of the current Visor Lady revert war: tech solutions (revert 'lockout', revert limit/person, etc.) won't work well since this is a human problem, not a tech problem. Ways things like this are handled in the 'real' world: Having a charter/constitution/rules/regulations/laws/code of conduct/terms of service/principles so that everyone can at least know what is considered correct/right/acceptable. This way when push comes to shove, people point to this constitution to show how it should be decided. When that doesn't answer it, then a higher individual (precident/supreme court/mom/dad) decides (or if a democracy: a vote takes place). I'm not even sure where to look for the official Davis Wiki rules/regulations/code of conduct/etc -if it even deals with this matter. It would be a good idea to have one, probably. After that, there's King Philip who can lay down the law if he chooses to rule on this. Another way would be to code a democratic voting process in. In this way many people could choose one of several options (such as which version of page to keep, etc.) The problem is, the page could be changed later anyway unless it was "locked". This might be an interesting meta-Wiki: Have two classes of pages: beta pages and permanent pages. A few priv. users would be allowed to assign beta pages "permanent" status. Anyone could edit beta level pages, but only priv. members could edit perm pages. To a programmer, all the world looks like code. —SteveDavison

We don't need an "official" set of rules — again, King Philip. There is always someone with binding, arbitrary authority who can solve these sort of problems. If they get out of hand, we go elsewhere. Checks and balances.

A temporary, enforceable lock, on the other hand, sounds like a great idea. How about if locks can be voted on — one member can set one five-minute lock every half-hour, and each person can apply either a positive or negative 5-minute-modifier. —ct

The "Three Reverts Rule," as mentioned before, would also provide a way to force discussion rather than reverts. However, there has been little discussion or consensus on the matter thus far.

Proposal: Have a page, Wiki Community/Page Locks, in which temporary locks for pages can be voted on and subsequently enforced by an administrator. A user would propose a lock, a temporary time interval, and state his/her reasons for wanting the page locked. Then a small vote/discussion would take place. 2/3 of the responding yes/no voters decide the temporary status of the page. The page would be locked at some reasonable point before the conflict began.

The reasons for such a page would be to acknowledge that there are some cases in which a page is better suited to being locked, either due to vandalism, edit wars, or something else. The page would also serve the purpose of allowing the community to be the deciding factor on the locking of pages, rather than administrators. —PhilipNeustrom

CT proposed "one member can set one five-minute lock every half-hour, and each person can apply either a positive or negative 5-minute-modifier." This is interesting, but would be more complicated to implement and enforce. It would also encourage people to engage in the activity of maintaining the page lock rather than discussing the problem with the page.

My thought was that, fairly quickly, a consensus would come in — you can only apply one modifier every half-hour, so once the lock hits a couple hours in length, there's really not much need to maintain it. I'm not sure if that would actually happen in practice.

Scenario: Alice and Bob get in a fight over a page. Bob locks it, Alice unlocks it, war continues. Chuck comes along, sees that this is going on, and locks it. His friends, Diane and Edna, also lock it. Almost no one is willing to help Alice unlock the page because Chuck's promoting the message of 'let's talk this over', and heaven forbid we should be against talk.

This creates a role (NOT PERSON. Role.) of 'police' rather than 'vigilantes.' A user can perform an explicit 'peacekeeping' act, which will have more weight of authority than the curent revert war situation. To enforce the idea of neutrality, perhaps 'lock' should select randomly among users who have edited the page in the last 24 hours, and then fix on the most recent version by the selected user.

As to the other issue, that's a small problem of programming. *shrug* nothing new or difficult. Kind of tedious. —ct

The problem is: In which state does it get locked? The moment it gets "locked", one side wins -for the time being. Majority rule doesn't even determine the "right" version -and that's assuming you have an "unbiased" set of jurors deciding the locking (vs. all friends on one side, say a church group). In the end, human problems cannot be solved by technological means. By the way, what really is so bad about a page being fliped back and forth all day. So it uses a few megabytes of server space, and it keeps a few people glued to their computers all day. This may be the best solution there is. There really is value in letting people have their say (and their anti-say) instead of trying to shut them up, even distasteful as it may seem. —SteveDavison

Two reasonable solutions have come up — one, picking a version that predates the controversy, and two, picking a random side.

The predating idea sounds best. The logic here being that it stood the test of time the longest, so is most likely the most acceptable to the greatest number of people. —SteveDavison

Agreed. I considered that as well in my ramble. To make sure no one 'wins' with the lock system, have it freeze it at a previous version prior to either party editing it, let's say one at least 24 hours old

That sounds reasonable. What about new pages that were created less than 24 hours ago?

The biggest problem with the wars is that the conflict leads to a climate of dissent and irritation. Furthermore, it damages the page in question — invariably, one person's view is going to be less useful than the other's. Even if they're equally useful, other people are going to be discouraged from editing. If people are forced to communicate and resolve their differences, the eventual solution is likely to be better than otherwise.—ct

How about only allowing a person who has NOT recently edited a page to lock it? This increases the likelihood the person doing the locking is neutral. —AlexanderWoo
Also, how about an automatic system where if the sum total of differences over 24 hours exceeds, say, 150% of the page content, the page gets automatically locked? —AlexanderWoo

2006-01-25 10:11:19 The Events_Board really needs to be replaced by a plain ol' Wiki page. Call it "Events". The only are few advantages to having the special-case/exception for the Events system (even those are questionable), and many disadvantages.

Pros

Having events automatically deleted after they expire.

Whether this is a plus or a minus is debateable. Several times I have wanted to check on events just past for various reasons.

A form-type entry box.

A sample template would encourage uniformity, plus the form box is too limiting, and encourages duplication of details in the description. Call this a minus.

Cons

Takes extra code for this exception
Errors and typos not correctable by others, only by authors
System errors (such as spelling of Feburary) not correctable by users

I fixed this. Delete when read. —pn

Un-Wiki does not fit the philosophy of the rest of the Wiki
No revert
No history to see events past

I say dump this wart and simply use an Events page. Everything can look identical to how it is now. The only difference is that people would use "edit" to post items instead of the forms box. People will periodically remove past events, but it is not necessary (or even desirable) that this be done on a daily basis. —SteveDavison

I guess I wasn't clear on this in other edits, but this is planned (somewhat). The challenge is coming up with a templating system or tag mechanism (generic in nature) to allow the events to be sorted and displayed based upon the date and time (or possibly other things). A literal wiki page with no extra features (such as searchable templates or tags) would be undesirable because 1) No RSS 2) No searching or automatic display based on date.

As it stands I'm busy with a ton of other stuff I'm working on, but check out this for some ideas. Maybe we can move further implementation discussion over there, if you want to take a stab at it. —PhilipNeustrom

I hate the Events Board page! What's the deal that we can't edit? Is this the Wiki or what? Maybe I should should just make an events board or EventsBoardor Events? or events? page. Oh, I guess I can't use either of those, they've both been redirect-jacked - let's see: Event Board? - or maybe Event(s) Board? or Events.Board? or Upcoming Events? Ah, got it: Events Bored!

The biggest Pro to the events board was hardly even covered by Steve... basically it's allowing the wiki application to be aware of each specific event including its date/time. This enables all kinds of cool things, including the following that are currently implemented: the RSS feed, the [[Events(mini)]] macro, automatically keeping events in chronological order, and even automatically removing past events (and while currently past events can no longer be viewed, there is no reason they couldn't instead still be accessed via "Past Events Board" page). When some templating/tag system is implemented that allows such metainfo to be expressed in a more generic fashion we can have a much fancier events board (and do all kinds of neat stuff not related to events as well), but until then, despite its drawbacks, the current events board that is easy to post to and automatically sorted/kept up-to-date seems sufficient. —JevanGray

2006-02-09 08:54:48 On the Front Page: Move Today's Events up, so one doesn't have to scroll down to see it. Either above Explore or above Featured Page. —SteveDavison

2006-02-27 16:54:06 KDVS' News Department has rescently opened a myspace page (myspace.com/kdvsnewsdepartment) that allows users to listen to their last 4 newsbriefs, view them as text, acess their podcast, view images and leave news tips. I would really like to see a "News" link on the wiki front page under the "Explore" heading that links to that page. It's locally produced news from volunteer staff, and would be a nice addition to the Wiki's functionality. myspace is not ideal, but in the near future when the KDVS news website is up the link could be reconnected there for the same functionality. — DrakeMartinet

2006-11-09 09:43:32 What does the community think about implementing a macro similar to Wikipedia's "contribs" that appends to user comments? I find it nice to know if somebody is only on the Wiki to comment on a single topic and it may help flag users who are out to advertise for or slam a particular business. The Wikipedia macro appears like this to the user and the word "contribs" links to a history: (contribs) has made little or no other contributions outside this topic. —AlphaDog

Are you looking for something similar to AlphaDog, contribs? — JasonAller

Proposal: Public figures cannot edit their own pages except to revert blatant acts of vandalism. If a public figure is not happy with his/her page, (s)he can voice his/her objections on the talk page and have someone else make the edit. This rule would lower the frequency of edit wars like those seen on the Kurt Cowgill and Shelly Bailes pages. —WilliamLewis

2006-12-10 15:40:53 How "public" should they have to be to be deemed "public figures," though? There's clearly a difference between say, a Spencer Higgins and a Lamar Heystek. —JosephBleckman
Take a look at the edits on David Rosenberg by David Rosenberg as an example of a public figure contributing to the wiki by editing their own public figure page. I doubt that if he hadn't added all of that information that anyone else would have done as comprehensive a job of cataloging his list of accomplishments. A little would have trickled in here and there, but not that much. As such I'm not sure that it should be a hard and fast rule. On the other hand we have seen public figures removing content from their public pages... and that poses a problem. — JasonAller
I'll second against any such rule. By convention, yes: some people like Rob Roy are generally hesitant to edit their public entries. But there are plenty of legitimate reasons for a public figure to add to their entry. Not only to add information, but also to correct things that are genuinely incorrect. There is already a healthy suspicion about such edits that subject them to increased scrutiny. I think that the natural suspicion and scrutiny provides everything that's really necessary. The same applies to people editing their own business entries and so on... to deny them the ability to edit the entries about them as a hard rule is to silence one of the best sources of information about that subject. Sure, they can be very biased... they can also contribute a great deal. — JabberWokky

2007-02-21 01:35:54 There should be a way to track reverts in the user stats. I mean, Ostrowski just passed me in edits but he hasn't contributed anything worthwhile to this community. People like (Mathew Keys or SS) use how much they edit as an argument for how they are part of the community, but when it is practically completely masturbatory, what is the point? —RobRoy

That sounds like a good proposal. Or we remove reverts from the User Statistics completely. —BrentLaabs

I'm more of a quick fix kinda guy. Long term, who cares? —MaxMikalonis

Revert wars are hardly ever started by me, but thanks for that. Mostly I add comments these days, and yes, I consider those helpful. - SBS

MKeys definitely has the worst reverting behavior. He clicked revert on 12% of his edits, and 8% of his total edits were reverts of his own userpage. Out of the 57 people with more than 400 edits, WilliamLewis and PaulThober are the top "reverters," each reverting about 17% of their edits. To vindicate him, Saul is at the 80th percentile with 5.4%. AdamFlowers, JoAnnaRich, and MattHh have never reverted, and MichaelGiardina and MiriamKaufman have only reverted once. Go M&M! —CraigBrozinsky

I suspect that most of those reverts were me removing Steve's vandalism. But yeah... top reverter? Go me!—WilliamLewis

Proposal: Ban DoucheySteve for public posting of password.

JasonAller commented on it in the history, I'm going to go ahead and do it. It appears to be a strictly vindictive account intended for harassment. — JabberWokky

2007-02-23 12:19:18 I propose to change townies to davisites (which is now a redirect). This is Daviswiki, not UCDavis wiki. Townies has a UCD slant to it. Anyone who has been around here for any long period of time knows that Davisites is what we "townies" go by. Don't believe me, ask Bob Dunning, or the current mayor —StevenDaubert

Just go ahead and do it. If anyone disagrees, then you can work it out. I really don't think anyone will object, though.
I was gonna do that but I figured I would float it by here once. I will make the change after a 24 hr period.
Make sure you keep the references to the word Townie, as the term itself is what UCD students use. Maybe you self-identify as Davisites, but I've never heard somebody like Ben Duax called a Davisite. Even if the term "townie" dropped off the face of the earth, I think it'd be important to keep it around with a note that the terminology had since changed (I don't believe this to be the case ,though)
I'd create a new entry and change the references when Davisite is appropriate, leaving townie when it is appropriate (usually when the entry itself has a UCD slant, for instance, townies at fraternity parties. —jw
They could almost be two separate pages that reference each other. One for Davisites and the other for Townies. Davisites would include the wider world view of residents and Townies would be a more UCD Student centered view of the same topic.

* all excellent points to keep in mind. I've heard Duax himself reference Davisites. —StevenDaubert Can people please sign there comments so I know who says what without having to consult the edits?

2007-02-26 10:35:36 this whole steve controversy is bring many wikignomes into the mix that would otherwise not be reading the pages steve is editing. to mediate fairly, its also requiring wikignomes to have to read a bunch of background they no doubt don't care about. if there's a movement to ban a user, i propose that the "ban username" page begin with a list of five linked pieces of wiki violations, preferably for five violations that are different from each other as possible. these links should be links to specific versions of a page (time, date, etc.), and a concise description of the "offense" should be listed next to the link. this could save everyone a lot of time and discussion. —CraigBrozinsky

2007-02-28 11:42:16 As discussed on the Bistro 33 page, I think we should create /FirstYear comment pages to reflect the fact that new businesses may have a rough time getting out the kinks. I don't like the idea of deleting these comments because they may still be relevant, which is why I feel it best to preserve them in an easily accessible state. Also, I think 18 months would be sufficient time to creat such a page (12 months of sucking, 6 months of recovery from sucking). Ideas? —CraigBrozinsky

Fantastic, although I'd go with the calendar year. First Year might make more sense, but I think "/2005 Reviews", "/2006 Reviews", "/2007 Reviews", etc. is both easier to comprehend and (more importantly) applicable for all businesses that grow and change over time. I'd say two years or roughly fifteen comments is a good rule of thumb to split. I.e., at least the current year plus last year (2007 and 2006 right now), and no archiving if there are less than fifteen comments (since that number is easy to read through and doesn't make the added complexity of archived reviews worth it). Rule of thumb, not hard and fast law, of course. A couple management changes have turned around a apartment complex or two; those might make more sense to archive at the point it is clear a major change (good or bad) has occurred. —JabberWokky
Calendar years work perfectly— this would especially benefit businesses whose opening coincides with the Academic Calendar. Any stylistic suggestions for the old comment pages? Should I just link them, or can someone create a macro/cool graphic to point users to them? —CraigBrozinsky

2007-03-02 18:41:47 there seem to be edit wars on pages that will never be read a month from now. why not just put some kind of a note on the top stating, "this page is currently in dispute between SteveOstrowski and the rest of the free world. the detractors believe it to contain misinformation, but it is being left in steve's preferred state to tame an edit war." is editing the Christian Democratic Party's page really worth all your time? —CraigBrozinsky

2007-03-04 22:28:00 I'd like to make a "Mystery Pictures/Unsolved" page where the harder pictures could be put till they were solved, which would let new ones rotate in (and of course, if eventually solved, they'd rotate to the history page as well.) Any objections? If not, I'll rotate the current one out (mine) in the near future creating the page at the same time. —WesHardaker

Seconded —StevenDaubert Do we have quorum?
Sounds good to me... —DavidGrundler
Implemented... However, I couldn't decide if the bottom historical picture should be the unsolved one, or the last solved one... Left it as the last solved one because I'm on the fence. Thoughts? —WesHardaker

2007-03-05 14:55:15 How about something akin to Wikibooks' "Collaboration of the Month"? Folks could nominate and discuss topics for focused collaboration, just as the Featured Page topics are developed. Topics could include just about anything that would improve the quality of wiki content. Then, a month of multi-person focus would aim to improve th equality of content on the subject. Any thoughts? Suggestions? —CarlMcCabe

That's a great idea. —CraigBrozinsky

2007-03-12 14:39:04 Whadayaguys think about a cleanup include. Something along the lines of wikipedia's "this page is in need of cleanup to meet davis wiki's nebulous standards." For example, I don't have time to clean up Passport Photos, but I could tag (oh gosh, did i just say tag?) and bookmark it and come back to it later. Do you think the cleanup idea is too much shirking of responsibility? —ArlenAbraham

I think it is a good idea. I'm all for the different includes. Many times when I am killing time, I just visit a random page and see if any cleanup could be done. I know I would visit these pages when I was looking for something to do. —DavidGrundler
Isn't that what bookmarks are for? Or, as a more community based solution, this list? If the Lame pages were getting cleaned up aggressively, I'd say it would be a good idea. As it is, I think they would just sit there with a "Kick Me" sign. There isn't really a lack of tools, just a matter of editors actually doing the work. —jw

http://www.cheshirehall.net/link/a/07.03.12.18.04.36.gif

Reply or discussion coming soon, and under construction, this will be updatedA reply is intended to go in this place, but has not yet been written. It'll be done asap.

2007-03-17 8:55:15 Multiple front pages, each topically oriented towards a different category of DW user interest. A user could select which topical front page they want to see, the decision could be stored in a persistent cookie, and it would then be displayed whenever they view the site. A different front page could be made, for example, for graduate students, for those interested in city politics, for musicians, or for outdoorsies. Users could be encouraged to create new front pages, just as they can now create new templates. All of this would obviously require a bit of programming on the back-end. The payoff would be that it might encourage different sub-communities within Davis to feel a stronger personalized connection to the wiki and to contribute more. —CM

Great idea, but we have trouble keeping even the one front page up to date. The Featured Page can go for weeks past the event it is highlighting. I'm not knocking the idea, I just don't think the biggest problem is technical, but rather amount of editor time involved, especially with a divided focus. As it is, there are entries that are appropriate for people with specific interests to bookmark as their starting point within the wiki. —JabberWokky, who has been considering something vaguely related but different for awhile.
Of course, it's possible you'd get more people editing the front page if it was targeted to a group. The real question is, what would the alien page look like and who would edit it? —WesHardaker

2007-03-28 19:28:55 the events page is kind of a mess. is there a way to limit the content of a post, either in terms of number of images or number of characters? alternatively, a table of contents might help things out. —CraigBrozinsky

Proposal: The Bistro 33 invitation should be the featured page. I know it sounds a bit commercial — something the wiki community rightfully shies away from a bit — but it also is an invitation extended to the wiki community. They are offering a venue with amenities provided for a much needed wiki get-together. The last was at the home of a Davis resident, this is an offer from a Davis business and should be treated fairly equally: somebody extending themselves to the wiki community. Since it is a business, and people are always wary of the border of spam versus legit offerings, I'm posting the proposal here first. A park, a private home, a business — they are all parts of Davis, and I don't think that any should be "disqualified" as a venue for an "official" wiki community get-together, especially when it's propositioned with respect to the interactive and community nature of the wiki. Obviously the owner would like to reach out to the wiki community, and he's done so in the manner he can as a member of the Davis business community. I think it should be treated as any other wiki get-together and placed on the Featured Page. —JabberWokky

Wiki gatherings in the past have had a location proposed ahead of time, and this was asserted by the business. I think it would be better to suggest their proposed location for a get-together, and see what people think about that, rather than taking the next step (posting it) first. It's definitely high-time for another get-together, so it may work well — I'm simply saying that there ought to be discussion — post it here?

2007-04-08 09:59:38 I propose this page show up when one searches "suggestion." —JessicaRockwell

Then put the word "suggestion" on to the page. Which you did by leaving the comment. Actually, the phrase "and suggestions" is already in the top, so it does show up in searches for the word "suggestion". —JabberWokky

2007-04-08 I propose people cut back on using "quick edit" as an explanation for every type of edit. try to put in the time to explain what you are editting.

That is due to the use of the new Quick Edit feature, Phillip is actually working on a way to incorporate a better notation system so it can also be specified what is going on, I would honestly like that myself because it is rather annoying to not know what was edited or why. ~DavePoole

That is the comment added when you do a "quick edit" by double clicking on a paragraph and using the quickedit feature. You don't have to hit edit to change the entry if you're only editing a single paragraph. I agree, however, I don't like the lack of being able to explain the edit. Personally, I'll sometimes use the edit feature just do I can leave a description. —JabberWokky

oh, now i understand. i was unaware of this. thank you for explaining it. the issue is that when people delete posts, they should comment on the change. otherwise it's hard to follow what people are doing. and it excludes community members from participating because they then have to see every version of edit. so again, i propose people decrease the amount of quick edits. —JessicaRockwell

I don't think that could be binding, fortunately quick edits are actually quite slow when you need to do multiple things to a page, so it is generally good for short and singular tasks. ~Dave

2007-04-08 I propose we make the LSC page in Spanish too! especially since they reach out to the ESL community. —JessicaRockwell

actually, we should make it in as many languages as possible! ESL is used by many different groups. shame on me for not recognizing that! i am editting my proposal to include this point. make LSC page in as many languages as possible to reach out to the multifaceted individuals on campus—JessicaRockwell

Sorry, we are working on internationalization as well to make things work for different languages, however, we have one programmer who is quite busy with major bugs at the moment, but it would be good to offer the wiki in multiple languages in the future. ~DavePoole

Yes, even better. don't just limit it to one page. make the entire thing in as many languages as possible! yay! shame on me again for not expanding it. and yes, i understand people are very busy. being an activist, i find it challenging to keep up with things on the daviswiki and still have time to organize. in the meantime, let's try to make the LSC page in another language! —JessicaRockwell

ESL people who aren't somewhat fluent in English aren't going to be using an English web resource like DavisWiki. It's kinda pointless. If you want to translate the page, however, be my guest. You don't have to ask permission to do this stuff. —WilliamLewis

2007-04-16 I just got off the phone with a guy who just demoed one of our (OnePaper/ClickWiki) brand new wikis to the local Chamber of Commerce. They were very enthusiastic and really liked the idea, especially being able to respond to feedback. Somebody (Jason?) had been talking about putting together demo material and doing a nice demo to various groups. I'd recommend the Rotary Club, the Davis Downtown Business Association and Davis Chamber of Commerce, and even possibly the city or the same groups in the big neighbors to the east and all others points. While the actual demo would have to be done by a particular person, the general talking points could be edited by the community and kicked over to wikispot for use in other regions. (By the way, when they're a bit more mature, all the OnePaper sites are CC-By, so feel free to cross-pollenate text). —JabberWokky, who is feeling psyched about the future of communities having a truly authentic presence online. I have ins to high level members of rotary... —StevenDaubert

2007-04-26 02:52:14 HERE IS THE MEAT AND POTATOES OF MY IDEA We like local business, local business probably like having free advertising / etc (ie the wiki page) Why not ask them if they would place a DW sticker in the storefront.

I would be willing to pay for the stickers myself, and do the social engineering required to get store owners to allow them to be prominently placed. Downtown would be an ideal place to start as thats where I invision most of this happening. This is stage one of my Davisite wiki awareness project (more on that later when I'm not tired)

Anyways if *you* know where crackpot ideas like this go, feel free to cut and paste and delete.

I bid you good day

—StevenDaubert

2007-04-29 11:40:39 Another idea I had that the raw verbage page made me realize could work. Point out the DW to the various departments and have someone in it write a blurb about the dept, many don't have pages. Part of Davis wiki awareness amoungst Davistes that was mention in sticker in business idea —StevenDaubert Post Script: Once again I would be down for the vast majority of social engineering this would require

I propose to delete everyone's comments that are unsigned. even tho we can see who commented by looking at the info page and could easily add their name to the end of their comment. —JessicaRockwell

I think that it is a better idea to take the time to go through the history of the page and add attributions to unsigned comments that need signing. —JasonAller

really? apparantly there are those who disagree, as shown by the last comment on my page (version 25). —JessicaRockwell

Why should we do this? —wl

i got the idea from davidgrundler when he left a comment on my page. i mean, come on. it makes perfect sense to delete comments that are unsigned even when we know who left it and could easily edit the page to include their name at the end of their response. —JessicaRockwell

I deleted your comment because it was at the same level as my comment in the thread and was unsigned, and I was afraid someone who brought up the page without looking at the history might attribute your comment to me. Sure, I could have added your name, but you didn't bother to sign it, and I assume if you wanted it there, you would just put it back, which you did. I still am a little put off by your demeanor and the sarcasm towards me, even in this page. —DavidGrundler

There are 3 solutions to that problem. You could have deleted hers, deleted yours or fixed the issue surrounding the potential misunderstanding. Fixing the misunderstanding could have been done by signing it with her name, rearranging the text ordering, or adding text saying that the text was not yours and you wanted to make that clear. Of all of the potential options, you choose the one that was the most destructive: removing information from the wiki. Sometimes it's appropriate to remove information, and to be honest I don't know which text in question it was. But the reasoning for deleting the text should be related to the text itself (duplicate, obsolete, no longer correct, ...). Doing otherwise makes editing look like a personal attack and I certainly don't blame Jessica for being upset. If we accept the "easy route" as the way to fix a page, then I hope you don't mind when someone deletes your page if there is a misspelling on it because "if you wanted it there, you would just put it back" —SockPuppet

Well, anyone who watches my edits knows I am not a fan of deleting stuff. However, the comment in question was a one line snide remark directed towards me that completely misrepresents my opinion. If it was destructive to the wiki to remove that, so be it. If someone wants to delete my page, so be it. It doesn't belong to me, but rather, it belongs to the community. —DavidGrundler

in light of how ridiculous my proposal is, i drop it. i see that it's better to add people's names to their comments as opposed to deleting them. —JessicaRockwell

When I don't sign my comments, that's intentional and I don't want people to sign them for me. I don't sign my comments when it doesn't matter who it is who is speaking and I set myself off from the other comments by using italics. —wl

cool. but the main point was that we shouldn't delete unsigned comments. especially if when you look at the info page the person who forgot to sign their comment said they were responding to another person's comment. —JessicaRockwell

I agree with WilliamLewis. There are some good reasons for not signing a comment. Namely, the wiki is a good aggregate form, and so when we don't sign things that don't need to be signed we can promote people merging thoughts together. It's much harder, and much more touchy, when someone has their name attached to things. When it doesn't matter who you are, or you're not relying on something like strict opinion, I think it makes sense to not sign things. Jessica, you bring up a good question with this, though, so I'm glad we're discussing it. —PhilipNeustrom

I, too, agree. People should feel free to sign or not sign their comments. My proposal, however, discussed the legitimacy of deleting someone's comment just because it was unsigned. —JessicaRockwell

i propose ppl try to limit the amount of quick edits and instead comment on their edits. it makes it easier for people to follow. this proposal has been mentioned before. —JessicaRockwell

it is unfortunately much faster, thusly quick, to use this to reply to comments, though I sometimes use it badly when reformatting. ~DavePoole

I disagree. It's the lazy way to do it, and I think because it's so easy to double click, it's spammy and extra annoying. There end up being way too many quick edits, when the whole thing could have just been edited, previewed a couple times, than saved (and at least a log to make it easy to follow). That page is a mess because half the changes are quick edits, and it's really hard to follow what happened when. I think the volume of quick edits we see also shows it's notall that quick :P I don't think it should be limited, but I do agree it should be used for minor (actually quick) edits, instead of a way to avoid scrolling -ES
proposal still stand. we should take the time to comment on our edits so that others can see what is happening to the page. quick edits should be made the least amount of times as possible. many of the quick edits come from people who are editing for extended periods of time, so they definitely have the time to include descriptions of their edits. and again, it makes the wiki community stronger when people can follow along. —JessicaRockwell
I wouldn't necessarily fault Dave for using the tools provided. I agree that more should be done thru preview, and I am guilty of using quick edits myself. However, maybe this should be a proposal to remove the QE tool. —DavidGrundler
Philip and the rest of the dev team worked hard to implement quick edits. Yes, they should have some means by which to indicate the nature of the edit. I personally prefer using them. Anyway, it is a question of UI mainly, what will look good and be usable, in addition Philip, who is the sole programmer working on the project, has quite a few updates to make to deal with recently developed issues, this is all in order to allow the wikispot project to finally hit the big time and gather more media attention. The feature is on the queue of things to work on, however unfortunately people have much to do these days. I agree whole heartedly with the comments being so incredibly good thing, perhaps we should make them automatically generated, I dunno, it will be worked on when people have time. ~DavePoole

Edit comments for quick edits are coming soonish, or so I've been told. —wl

That would be nice. I don't think QEs are a problem for fixing things that don't change the "content" of the page, such as spelling and grammar fixes. It would be nice to have a "minor change" checkbox for these types of edits (a l a wikipedia) —DG

eew wikimedia is a horrible software. anyway, that is actually one of the ideas, a radio button actually, including comment/reply , quick edit, typo, etc. which would further inform people about how they should be using quick edits. Also to note, many people don't comment on the changes either. ~Davep

I don't think "automatically threaded" should be needed. I think it takes all of 5 extra seconds to self-thread it, especially when you are an experienced wiki editor with no excuse, other than (again) simple laziness. Forum type debates never function or read well in wikis anyway. I do agree it'd be nice obviously. DavidGrundler - I'm not faulting him for using the tools provided - the fault is at how it's used. Far too frequently over a very short period of time. 10 quick edits in a row, in a page where there are a heck of a lot of ungoing, adds a bit to the chaos. It's really difficult to follow what's happening, it's a lot of unneccessary uncommented edits. It's like using a hammer (quick edits) instead of a screw driver (normal edits/previews). Hammering a screw can work, but why? Sorry, I'm really not trying to come down on you personally, but it just seems like you use it the most by far (esp on such contested pages). -ES

2007-05-06 17:04:03 Seriously, pick a different color for the "settings, watch this wiki, logout" and the user name of course. That blue is so hard to see on the black background. FAIL —StevenDaubert

2007-07-08 01:36:06 ok, so while at the Wiki BBQ Summer 2007, some people made some suggestions/proposals. they include:

Publicity - get the word out about the daviwiki! especially with google barring us, we need it! shirts, stickers, word of mouth, chalking, fliers, etc.
Maps - to those less familiar with the wiki, the location of the maps is in a somewhat obscure location. perhaps it could be moved to where the location is written.
Redirects - when creating a new page, consider the multiple searches that may be used and make redirects to your page.
Stop ganging up on people!!
Events Board - needs improvement.
A semantic wiki - search terms.
Userpage - make the userpage more known to people when registering. This will allow for better communication between new users and any edits that take place related to the pages they edit. if they know about their userpage then they can check it for comments ppl make that explain what they've been up to. —JessicaRockwell

2007-09-23 13:12:36 This is probably going to generate a shitstorm, but I think that most ASUCD relevant information should be moved to a separate wiki. Some reasons for this:

ASUCD related issues have been the source of many an edit war, especially around elections
ASUCD related drama reduces the credibility of the entire Davis Wiki
Most of the ASUCD related information is simply not that useful
Most of the ASUCD related information is a giant Walled Garden, propaganda machine, and free advertising for a big social club —ArlenAbraham

I like your proposal because we do get tons of propaganda that is irrelevant to anyone outside ASUCD. The problem is determining what information is relevant to the undergraduate student body as a whole and what information is pointless stuff dealing with internal politics and stuff that is just plain tl;dr. If it were up to me, all the commission pages would be paired down and merged into a single ASUCD Commissions page. Existing ASUCD candidate pages would be paired down and merged into a single page for each election. Commissioners and presidents wouldn't get their own pages unless they were particularly notable (e.g. the Tiqula Bledsoe scandal). Otherwise, a list of presidents and commissioners with a brief summary of their term of office would be appropriate. I'm sure this would be excessive in the opinion of some, while others would think that we should retain more information. -wl

Now that the primary Opposition editor has been banned, there is seemingly little that can be done to fight against propaganda, since those with ASUCD-experience either tend not to edit, or are Establishment in their alignment. So, I completely agree with you. Paring down would get rid of the b.s., while retaining the most important aspects of the information. —JoseBleckman

I think creating an ASUCD wiki is actually a really good solution, if I am correct in seeing where you are going with this. JamesSchwab

Although I think its funny that what drew people to the Davis wiki when it first came out, was Rob Roy and FUCK. I think this is going to be a part of a healthy growing process...taking away the student government drama. -JamesSchwab

Perhaps that's what drew the ASUCD set into the wiki. The truth is, few undergraduates care about ASUCD. There was a healthy community here before that election. -wl

We made the SOSSS page in November 2004 — one month after the wiki went public. It's the primary reason that I, RevChad, and MarieHuynh started editing. —bl

I completely disagree. The ASUCD material is in the scope of the mission of the Davis Wiki, and I see no credible reason why it should go other than the fact you're personally not interested in it. I don't think that it is a "walled garden" but rather a large set of pages on a common topic — though I will admit I don't understand what the term "walled garden" really means, or if it can be meaningfully defined. What would you consider a "walled garden" and what would you consider a "set of pages on a common topic?" Wouldn't you agree that there are many subjects which the Davis Wiki should contain material from, and that material should exist across many interlinked pages, and that group of pages should draw contributors who are interested in that material (and perhaps that material alone?) I feel that removing the information would serve only to reduce the usefulness of the Davis Wiki, and would provide no positives other than to make Recent Changes less active — but you can't control what people choose to edit. —PhilipNeustrom

While not removing any information from the Daviswiki, might an ASUCD wiki at least remove some of the revert wars? Or is that an acceptable phenomenon for the Daviswiki?-JamesSchwab

If people would like to reduce the number of revert wars there are many other solutions. One solution is formulating liberal policy to help clamp down on "bad behavior." Over two years ago I suggested, on this page, a "three reverts rule" as a possible solution, but there's been no comments on it since. This is just an example and not a concrete suggestion.

I definitely missed the 3 reverts suggestion, but I had a similar thought of limiting reverts and still support limiting reverts. I think 3 reverts is reasonable.-JamesSchawb

It's a walled garden in the sense that most of the ASUCD pages link to other ASUCD pages and not much else. There's plenty of valuable information about ASUCD, and it's something that undergrads should pay attention to, I just feel that it's a little excessive, difficult to control, and incestuous. It's the same group of <20 people reading and editing the pages and starting fights. I haven' convinced myself this is a fantastic idea, but I thought I'd bring it up to see what people thought. —ArlenAbraham

The FUCK campaign drew a lot of people to the wiki and many were the initial wikievangelists. FUCK and all the asucd drama of Fall 2004 began only a few months after the wiki was launched. Rob and FUCKs campaign was based on getting information from the wiki so a lot of random students who didn;t necessarily care about ASUCD but liked Rob started coming. City officials began to take notice when students began criticizing them here which, if I remember, began around the Choice Voting and police department issues....and those students were drawn in from the asucd drama. Either way a lot of good contributors to the wiki first heard about it thru FUCK. JimSchwab

Davis Wiki is a resource for the community of Davis, and ASUCD is within the community of Davis. Plenty of people have no use for Davis High School or DRAGON related entries, but they are part of Davis. I very much disagree with this proposal. (As a side note, since the preceding is the core issue regarding the proposal: Any corner of the world that involves politics can be difficult to deal with, but there are plenty of other political issues (that last one dates back to WWII!) that have caused much editor controversy. They also result in some of the most complete and exhaustive entries on the wiki. Seriously — look at the end result of the most controversial subjects. Omitting that which is difficult is a poor plan). —JabberWokky

OK I think you've changed my mind. -JamesSchwab

2007-09-23 15:54:24 re: the ASUCD influence. I agree with Arlen that it has had a disproportionate and overall negative (hopefully that's a fair characterization) influence on the Davis Wiki, but Jabber/etc. are right that it is nonetheless part of the Davis community and therefore appropriate for the Davis Wiki.

I suggest consolidating ASUCD pages as William described, marking them clearly as ASUCD (long-standing pet peeve of mine) in the process, and *also* creating a separate ASUCD wiki on which the ASUCD-heads can go into greater detail and debate to their heart's content. It wouldn't make sense to remove ASUCD content from the Davis Wiki altogether, but neither does it make sense for it to continue to be so disruptive to our community. —Graham.Freeman

This is probably going to generate a shitstorm, but I think that most Davis restaurant relevant information should be moved to a separate wiki. Some reasons for this:

Restaurant related issues have been the source of many an edit war, especially around malicious anonymous reviewers
Restaurant related drama reduces the credibility of the entire Davis Wiki
Most of the restaurant related information is simply not that useful
Most of the restaurant related information is a giant Walled Garden, propaganda machine, and free advertising for big business —BrentLaabs

Arlen, Jose, and Graham: I'm having difficulty finding words to express my hatred for you all right now.

Arlen, remember when Davis Wiki used to be this wide open place, where you could just make a page because it was fun to do? And really, how can you tell me that ASUCD is off-topic for Davis when you wouldn't let me delete Zachary's Pizza, which isn't even near Davis? The wiki has always been about taking a little bit of your life that you think is important to the community, and sharing it with others.
Graham, we've never agreed much on anything. Most of it is your attitude about what "belongs" on the Davis Wiki. UCD stuff, and especially ASUCD stuff, doesn't apply to you as a DHS grad. But when it comes down to it, UC Davis is easily a major part of life a supermajority of Davis residents. And ASUCD represents roughly one-third of Davis residents, whether they like it or not. They're trying to do what few politicians do — actually communicate and have a discussion with their constituents on a regular basis. Please don't try to crush that idealism before they have to go to the real world.
Jose, glad to still see that you want to have control of information. Unfortunately for you, Davis Wiki is still (for the time being) about free information, free debate, and equivalence amongst editors. Just because you don't like the information there doesn't mean it shouldn't be there. Just add your own opinion in an insightful way, and people will be able to see the truth through their own ideological filter. That's actually the best anyone can do.

Essentially, anything can be interpreted as a walled garden. I mean seriously, Town Flora? People are naturally going to be separated into their own little communities and interests. The remarkable thing about Davis Wiki is the ability to combine all of those interests together into a coherent community, where one can learn from other groups. Presumably, that's why we were honored with a Thong Hy Huynh Award.

By proposing another wiki for a separate issue (in this case ASUCD), you're just perpetutaing the separation of people from the community (in this case, undergraduate students). Davis Wiki, however, is about promoting all aspects of life in Davis, not just those which are uncontroversial or "belong" here. It's about providing a record of the whole spectrum of many people and groups, so that people can actually learn something from someone they didn't already know.

I'm just concerned that we've lost the original Davis Wiki "pioneer" spirit, where forging new pages and adding more information was just a lot of fun. I've heard a lot that just reminds me of the Bureaucratic fucks over at Wikipedia — where magically a page on every single episode of Inuyasha is relevant (no, seriously) but organizations of trolls get deleted only after 17 official votes for deletion, because they don't like trolls. Up until right now, we've avoided this kind of behavior, just by assuming that information should be free as in beer and as in speech.

I'm really just angry that it looks like that era is coming to an end. Frequent disruption to a community is good, and suggests a dynamic society. If we can no longer tolerate a community other than ourselves, than tyranny truly has come to Davis Wiki. —BrentLaabs

2007-09-24 01:41:10 Brent, I don't see how any of what you wrote conflicts with William's idea (that I thirded) of consolidating (not removing) ASUCD info on the Davis Wiki and letting the ASUCD folks be as verbose and involved as they want on a separate wiki. This other wiki would be linked from the Davis Wiki just like all the others, and would be readily accessible to anyone who types a URL or clicks a link.

Nobody would be prevented from viewing, editing, or participating - it'd simply be a little less likely that the inevitable ASUCD drama would spill over into the broader Davis Wiki community. —Graham.Freeman

Just to add my two (poorly worded) cents (pardon the split infinitive). I just don't see how this drama really effects my use of the Daviswiki. I personally am far more concerned with bicycling, food, and living in Davis, occasionally things about campus or random history, rather than the ASUCD events that come up. Occasionally I will want to look something up, for an election or when I want something from the student government (I don't like their site much), and the wiki is well to provide me with such information. Now if it were that this information were overladen with Jargon, it is still better than a lack of information. Any argument that it isn't relevant to Davis, well hell, if there exists some members of the Davis community that are concerned with it as part of their experience of living in Davis and being apart of this truly great community, then I see no harm in posting an entry about it, are we somehow short resources? do we need less information on the wiki? maybe I just don't get this entry (I am a bit stupid). I just think that most of these proposals sound like a good deal of work that nobody would do for no real benefit. ~DavePoole ^{I require all responses in a holier than thou attitude,}

PS: There is no split infinitive in that sentence, and that rule is BS. -KellyCorcoran

From a functional standpoint, this proposal is dead. Enough people are defending the ASUCD pages as being relevant to Davis that they will protect them. I make no claim that is some kind of enforced law, but it appears to be a natural law of the wiki's function as a social organism: in the absence of general agreement, a major deletion (entry or set of entries) won't work. Perhaps a bit of refocus might work for those who want action. What are your complaints and how can they be addressed without chucking the whole subject off the wiki. This is just like any other conflict between editors — when you realize you're not going to agree, try to find something that satisfies your goal and is acceptable to all. I doubt that the supporters of the ASUCD pages like the edit wars or walled garden aspects either. Those might be your common enemy that everybody can find a solution that they agree to. —JabberWokky

I agree with you — refocus seems to be a good goal. When talking with WillLewis IRL, he brought up a valid complaint: ASUCD pages are too oriented to people inside the organization. Davis Wiki and the ASUCD Website shouldn't be copy/pastes of each other (thanks KristenBirdsall). To that end, could someone please unlock Internal Affairs Commission? I'm thinking MiniLuv finds untruthful terrorist agitprop, revise fullwise. —BrentLaabs

2007-09-25 00:12:42 "Essentially, anything can be interpreted as a walled garden. I mean seriously, Town Flora?" And what, may I ask, is wrong with Town Flora?! Maybe I should make a page about real walled gardens. In this newcomer's opinion, there is wa-a-ay more debate about ASUCD issues than I think most people are interested in. But the real issue is the tone of those arguments. —DonShor

Town Flora is a walled garden in a couple ways, really. Methinks you need to see the definition of WalledGarden though. Calling something a walled garden doesn't mean it's bad content. —BrentLaabs
It's a technical term. Town Flora was being used as an example of a good section of the wiki that does not have many clickable links to other entries on the wiki. "Links" in this case, are web links, not subjects that are related, and "walled garden" simply means a set of entries that link to each other but seldom or never link out or are linked to from outside the area. It means a set of nice content hidden away because people can seldom find it unless they already know to look for it... like a garden hidden away behind a wall. As for the tone of the banter, there are a bunch of people here who are beating each other over the head in a horrific manner because they know each other well and that familiarity has bred a comfortable knowledge in how far they can push. Some of them forget that it is all public. Think of it as a town hall meeting where some otherwise pleasant people are shouting over the table at their political opponents, but some of them will happily share a newspaper at Posh Bagel the next day. Some also just genuinely dislike each other, but have to work with each other to get things done. In short, they are real human beings espousing and defending their views, some having forgotten (or not caring) that they are shouting in public. It's actually kind of like watching CSPAN2. Regardless, I think you misunderstand the points being raised: Town Flora was being upheld as a example with high merit, and there are no actual ASUCD issues being discussed (some people here have no connection to UC Davis at all), it is purely an issue of where to file the information, just like trying to shelve a book about gemstones ("art section or geology section?") is not really a discussion about the subject, but rather how to handle the subject. The subject gets batted about, but purely as a method to determine how to handle it, not as a direct conversation about the actual subject itself. —JabberWokky

2007-09-26 02:25:32 Can we please have just one day where no one asks if a page "belongs" on the wiki? Suggestions: (1) Let pages have a chance to grow before you determine that they don't "belong". (2) Consider that others may have different interests than you do. Thanks. —BrentLaabs

2007-12-11 09:19:56 Proposal: Remove the (no comment) text string that is appended to the left of a commenter's name on the Recent Changes page. (no comment) is missleading because there usually is a comment, just not a comment describing the comment. I still find this "feature" disconcerting after using Daviswiki for a couple of years. —JimStewart

The string is there for aesthetics. It's more clear with an example, I think:

Are the two possibilities for layout without the comment. The user's name could be aligned to the other names, but then we're forced into a complete box layout for recent changes, which would also have weird design implications. —PhilipNeustrom

I like it the way it is, but with a mild preference at best. —JabberWokky

I love it! Thank you very much. —GrumpyoldGeek

2007-12-11 16:39:31 Has there been consideration of requiring registration to leave a comment? Or continue discussion of implementing something like this prior proposal?

(2006-11-09 09:43:32 What does the community think about implementing a macro similar to Wikipedia's "contribs" that appends to user comments? I find it nice to know if somebody is only on the Wiki to comment on a single topic and it may help flag users who are out to advertise for or slam a particular business. The Wikipedia macro appears like this to the user and the word "contribs" links to a history: (contribs) has made little or no other contributions outside this topic. —AlphaDog

Are you looking for something similar to AlphaDog, contribs? — JasonAller) —DonShor

2007-12-11 16:53:26 Davis Wiki already requires registration to leave a comment. Other wikispot wikis vary, but all Davis Wiki edits require an account, including adding a comment. As of right now, most "one shot accounts" are caught by the Welcome Brigade, the handful of editors who welcome new editors to the wiki by posting to their personal entry. If there's only one wholly negative comment from that account, a note is usually appended pointing that out. There has been substantial discussion on this issue (and the related issue of "one editor overwhelms by repeatedly reviewing or by a single huge rant"). See also Wiki Community/Reputation. (And of course you should feel free to open up the topic again... I'm only pointing to the prior discussions for reference sake, not saying that everything has been discussed about the topic and it isn't worth talking about. Please don't hesitate to add your thoughts!) —JabberWokky

As a followup note, the userinfo link was broken. Jason fixed it... the userinfo feature is available for all accounts. Is that along the lines of what you are looking for, Don? —jw

Also, when you visit the page of someone who hasn't actually created a user page yet you'll see a link directly to their user info. Check MadelineTNguyen for an example.

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