[18:23:54] <JamesF> OK, well, the current agenda is: (prepare for a bit of a flood)
[18:24:13] <JamesF> # Single login
[18:24:13] <JamesF> * Review Brion's collision estimates
[18:24:13] <JamesF> * Review specification status
[18:24:13] <JamesF> * Set timetable
[18:24:13] <JamesF> # Wikidata
[18:24:13] <JamesF> * Status
[18:24:13] <JamesF> * Taking things forward
[18:24:28] <JamesF> # Metadata
[18:24:28] <JamesF> * Use IEEE LOM?
[18:24:28] <JamesF> * Based off Wikidata?
[18:24:28] <JamesF> # Watchlist analysis
[18:24:28] <JamesF> * How to do this within privacy policy?
[18:24:28] <JamesF> # Shared watchlist feature
[18:24:40] <JamesF> Is there anything else people think we should add?
[18:24:45] <JamesF> Or remove, of course.
[18:24:52] <JamesF> We don't want the meeting to drag on for too long.
[18:24:57] <Eskimo> no problem for me
[18:25:35] * Solensean (n=solensea@wikipedia/Solensean) has joined #wikimedia-research
[18:25:44] <Creidieki> I've wanted to suggest a more robust development bounty system for a while.
Is this a good forum for making that sort of initial suggestion?
[18:25:58] <JamesF> Possibly.
[18:26:05] <JamesF> Hello Solensean.
[18:26:10] <Solensean> Hello, JamesF.
[18:26:12] <Solensean> Hello, all.
[18:27:24] * brian0918 (i=brian091@69-168-139-28.clvdoh.adelphia.net) has joined #wikimedia-
research
[18:27:29] <Creidieki> Well, if we don't have time that would be fine, I can always write a post
to wikidev seeing what people think.
[18:28:16] <nichtich> I just added "* Possible [[Wikimedia budget|Budget]] needs" to the agenda
[18:28:44] <JamesF> Oh, good idea.
[18:28:53] <JamesF> I've got to come up with some budget ideas.
[18:29:07] <nichtich> Mav wrote: "I would really like to encourage the research department to
develop ideas for special projects that aim to improve our software and content. Think
big while keeping our mission in mind. Any ideas we can't fund with regular donation
income could be used in the future to entice big donors or used in a grant application."
[18:29:29] * mindspillage is now known as brain|food
[18:29:42] <JamesF> Yeah.
[18:30:22] * karynn (n=kmartin@pdpc/supporter/monthlybronze/karynn) has joined #wikimedia-research
[18:31:11] <nichtich> JamesF: Where should I add ideas?
[18:31:44] <JamesF> nichtich> To the agenda?
[18:31:50] <JamesF> (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network/Meetings/2005-12-03)
[18:32:07] <JamesF> ... which you moved there, so know where it is.
[18:32:09] <JamesF> :-)
[18:32:24] <nichtich> I meant ideas for budget needs
[18:32:44] <JamesF> Those can go under the umbrella item, I suppose.
[18:32:55] * CXI (i=Sanity@dialup-164.89.221.203.acc50-kent-syd.comindico.com.au) has joined
#wikimedia-research
[18:36:03] <Eskimo> also, some people wanted to have a MediaWiki integrated forum, is it something
wikimedia-research can discuss about ?
[18:36:06] <Eskimo> or is it a mediawiki developpers problem ?
[18:36:45] * delphine (n=Delphine@wikipedia/notafish) has joined #wikimedia-research
[18:37:57] <JamesF> We can talk about it.
[18:38:07] <nichtich> hi delphine!
[18:38:08] <JamesF> There have been lots of discussion about it by the developers, though.
[18:38:12] <JamesF> So they might be interested.
[18:38:16] <JamesF> Hello Delphine.
[18:38:50] <delphine> salut Jakob :)
[18:38:53] <delphine> hiho JamesF :)
[18:38:58] <nichtich> Eskimo: I'd prefer not to talk about it ;-)
[18:39:12] <delphine> salut illustrious unknown ;)
[18:39:23] * avar (n=Huld@adsl6-56.simnet.is) has joined #wikimedia-research
[18:39:25] <Eskimo> ok
[18:40:07] <Eskimo> hi delphine :d
[18:41:08] <JamesF> Hello avar.
[18:41:54] <avar> foo
[18:42:11] * CXI waves
[18:42:14] <Eskimo> ...bar
[18:42:19] <karynn> Eskimo: a mediawiki integrated forum?
[18:42:29] <Eskimo> yes :p
[18:42:59] <JamesF> karynn> I assume Eskimo means something like LiquidThreads?
[18:43:24] <Eskimo> yes
[18:43:34] <Eskimo> ok, I didn't know this was planed :p
[18:43:43] <Eskimo> (just googled it)
[18:44:25] <JamesF> Well, discussed, certainly.
[18:45:22] <Eskimo> yes, MediaWiki 2.0 is not for tomorrow :d
[18:45:36] <CXI> hmm, interesting
[18:45:59] <ambi2> interesting, but kind of goes against the whole "wiki" idea
[18:46:04] <CXI> I'm all for in-band ways of wikipedians connecting, which I kinda feel we're
missing at this point
[18:46:26] <JamesF> ambi> It'd be interesting to see it in action.
[18:47:31] <Creidieki> Wow, LiquidThreads looks sexy, but I don't know how I feel about disabling
the ability to edit peoples' comments. Sometimes people make formatting errors, etc.
[18:48:44] <sannse> It's become quite a social no-no to edit almost anything in other's comments now
[18:48:54] <JamesF> Well.
[18:48:59] <JamesF> I do it every now and then.
[18:49:04] <JamesF> Mainly for formatting, though.
[18:49:13] <JamesF> And these would be properly formatted automagically, so...
[18:49:19] <sannse> *nod* but it's much less accepted now than it used to be
[18:49:22] <CXI> just a brief question... is it more likely that people will use this than VP?
[18:49:31] <JamesF> But you'd be able to "refactor" a set of comments into a summary, of course.
[18:49:36] <JamesF> VP?
[18:49:54] <Creidieki> Yeah, but formatting and links and stuff still get edited these days...
[18:50:17] <Eskimo> Village pump ?
[18:50:20] <JamesF> Indeed - correcting links in people's comments happens quite often.
[18:50:31] <CXI> village pump (generalise that to other non-software-supported discussion areas)
[18:50:41] <JamesF> The Village Pump is a place where we'd use LT, I imagine.
[18:50:50] <JamesF> (Hmm, we seem to have started the meeting early. :-))
[18:50:52] <Creidieki> I mean, aside from maybe Lysdexia, have there been many problems with comment
editing?
[18:51:21] <Creidieki> (JamesF, would you prefer us to delay?)
[18:51:49] <JamesF> Creidieki> Well, it would allow people who aren't here early to have input...
[18:51:55] * leoadec (i=leoadec@201-1-135-198.dsl.telesp.net.br) has joined #wikimedia-research
[18:52:13] <Eskimo> actually, I don't think LiquidThreads should be discussed today :)
[18:52:36] <Creidieki> JamesF, that's true, but I think we're mostly going through background
material at this point. But I'll defer to your judgment.
[18:52:36] <JamesF> Eskimo> Premature?
[18:52:49] <Eskimo> since it's won't be added until 2.0
[18:53:08] <JamesF> Eskimo> Well, the Research Network can work on long-gestation projects too.
[18:53:09] <Creidieki> Eskimo, that's the case with Wikidata too, right?
[18:53:19] <JamesF> Single User Login seems to be one of them, for instance.
[18:53:26] <Eskimo> ok
[18:53:30] <JamesF> (Sadly.)
[18:53:43] <Eskimo> yes...
[18:53:44] <JamesF> I think we'll have it as a later part of the agenda.
[18:53:50] <JamesF> So we can drop it if pushed for time.
[18:54:15] <Eskimo> single login or LT ?
[18:54:24] <JamesF> LiquidThreads.
[18:54:24] <nichtich> I'd like to strictly follow the agenda for not to talk endlessly about
everything and nothing
[18:54:38] <Eskimo> ok, great, single login is very important :)
[18:54:45] <JamesF> Brion said he'd try to get some statistucs for us to work with for SUL.
[18:54:59] <JamesF> ... but he's not yet online, so perhaps he's had something come up.
[18:55:10] * ambi2 is not necessarily convinced that either of them are of tremendous importance
[18:56:08] <JamesF> The budget ideas blue-skying is the most time-pressured item.
[18:56:48] <CXI> the which?
[18:57:29] <JamesF> We (I?) would like ideas for budget items for the Research division.
[18:57:38] <JamesF> Last year's spending was a princely US$0.
[18:57:44] * porao (n=noname@166.Red-83-32-95.dynamicIP.rima-tde.net) has joined #wikimedia-research
[18:57:47] <JamesF> So we can only spend more. :-)
[18:57:48] <porao> hi
[18:57:52] <JamesF> Hello porao.
[18:58:16] <CXI> well, more than or equal to anyway... heck, I'm sure we could achieve less if we
started doing some kind of fundraiser :oP
[18:58:22] <CXI> research division brownies, anyone?
[18:58:59] * JamesF grins.
[18:59:32] <Eskimo> it's 7 PM, I guess we can start the discussions on the agenda ?
[18:59:47] * WiseWoman (n=weberwu@p54BD000A.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has joined #wikimedia-research
[18:59:53] <WiseWoman> Hello!
[18:59:59] <JamesF> Wait a few minutes just in case some others arrive.
[19:00:01] <JamesF> Hello WiseWoman.
[19:00:10] <Eskimo> ok
[19:00:13] <CXI> *shakes head* ouch, it's 7pm there?
[19:00:31] <WiseWoman> I'm still in the middle of baking a cake, in case I don't answer the next 15
minutes :-)
[19:00:41] <JamesF> CXI> It is, yes.
[19:00:57] <Eskimo> 7 PM in the UK
[19:01:09] <Eskimo> 8 PM for me :p
[19:01:11] <CXI> 6am, hooray for au
[19:01:11] <JamesF> OK, well, people who said they'd turn up were WiseWoman, here, OdileB, Eskimo,
and Kevin.
[19:01:31] <JamesF> CXI> Yes, but's it's 06:00 tomorrow. Or something.
[19:01:34] <brian0918> 2pm
[19:01:45] <there> 2 hours still yeah?
[19:01:52] <CXI> well, what day it is isn't so bad - it's more the fact that it's 6am :P
[19:02:02] <JamesF> there> No, now.
[19:02:07] <there> oops.
[19:02:10] * there is now known as here
[19:02:16] <JamesF> Got your time conversion wrong? :-)
[19:02:17] <here> hey all ;)
[19:02:36] <JamesF> OK, so we're still missing OdileB and Kevin...?
[19:02:55] <odile> hello :)
[19:03:02] <here> cake!, alright..
[19:03:02] * Angela (n=beesley@wikipedia/Angela) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:03:06] <JamesF> Ah, whoops. Didn't see you there.
[19:03:09] <JamesF> And Angela.
[19:03:10] <WiseWoman> Worldwide meetings are so difficult to arrange!
[19:03:13] <CXI> yeah, how good is cake?
[19:03:14] <Angela> Hi.
[19:03:17] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Indeed.
[19:03:20] <JamesF> Hello Angela.
[19:03:22] <CXI> actually, that's making me feel like breakfast
[19:03:39] <WiseWoman> The cake won't be out for another 6 minutes.
[19:03:49] <JamesF> OK, I think we should start.
[19:03:53] <WiseWoman> But it tends to be very good, what a shame we are't in the same room :)
[19:03:57] <WiseWoman> Okay!
[19:04:04] <CXI> bah, cornflakes, my old standby
[19:04:18] <JamesF> OK, well, given that Brion isn't here, I'm going to skip the first agendum.
[19:04:28] <brian0918> what was that
[19:04:33] <JamesF> Single login.
[19:04:36] <brian0918> oh
[19:04:41] <WiseWoman> We can just delay it in case he does show up.
[19:04:48] <JamesF> Brion was going to do an analysis of collisions.
[19:04:50] <JamesF> Yes, exactly.
[19:05:04] * Pathoschild (n=Pathosch@207.162.58.44) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:05:10] <JamesF> And Erik's not here for Wikidata.
[19:05:16] <JamesF> Bad start, 'eh?
[19:05:22] <brian0918> brion hasn't been on IRC for 9+ hours
[19:05:23] <WiseWoman> Oh dear, short meeting?
[19:05:29] <JamesF> brian> Yes, I know.
[19:05:31] <WiseWoman> Did they miss that we are now on wintertime?
[19:05:35] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Hopefully not too much.
[19:05:36] <CXI> haha
[19:05:37] * Datrio (i=dariosik@wikipedia/Datrio) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:05:52] <JamesF> Hello Pathoschild, Datrio.
[19:05:58] <Pathoschild> Hello.
[19:06:06] <Datrio> hey
[19:06:08] <JamesF> So, shall we talk about metadata?
[19:06:18] <here> how does wikidata relate to semanticmediawiki ?
[19:06:19] <WiseWoman> Sure!
[19:06:44] <JamesF> here> Semantic context could be given using Wikidata, as I understand it. But
more on that later (perhaps another meeting).
[19:06:56] <here> ok, onward
[19:06:58] * matusz (n=matusz@cko253.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:07:01] * presroi (n=neubau@p5484CACE.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:07:02] <presroi> hi
[19:07:09] <JamesF> Hello matusz, presroi.
[19:07:51] <JamesF> The concept of meta-data is quite simple, really - being able to tag articles or
other content with (potentially machine-readable) information.
[19:07:59] <WiseWoman> Why do people feel that we need metadata and why has LOM been proposed?
[19:08:13] * here is unfamiliar with LOM details.
[19:08:16] <brian0918> Metadata lets things be more easily found on wikipedia.
[19:08:22] <WiseWoman> Don't we have categories for that? How rich is the meta data supposed to be.
[19:08:26] <odile> WiseWoman: good question
[19:08:38] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Categories are a first-stab at metadata, but are not great.
[19:08:39] <brian0918> Brion explained it all to me and it sounds very promising.
[19:08:40] <WiseWoman> LOM = "Learning Objects MEtadata", and I don't see Wiki articles as being
learning objects.
[19:08:45] <WiseWoman> But I am rather a bitch about that.
[19:08:56] <brian0918> It's not like you would be required to use it either, or like you would have
to do anything differently.
[19:08:57] <JamesF> WiseWoman> There's no concept of anything other than boolean state.
[19:09:01] * Xirzon (n=anon@wikipedia/Eloquence) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:09:03] <nichtich> but wikibooks can use LOM
[19:09:05] <WiseWoman> http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/
[19:09:05] <JamesF> Aha, Erik.
[19:09:06] <Xirzon> hi
[19:09:08] <JamesF> Hello Erik.
[19:09:15] <Xirzon> are you guys logging this live?
[19:09:17] <brian0918> WiseWoman: Metadata doesn't mean you have to change how you do anything.
[19:09:17] <JamesF> We had just started to talk about meta-data.
[19:09:27] <JamesF> Xirzon> No, sorry. I'll post a log later.
[19:09:44] <JamesF> WiseWoman> LOM is an IEEE standard, though.
[19:09:57] <odile> brian0918: *which* metadata? what knid?
[19:09:59] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Educational meta-data.
[19:10:04] <odile> (kind)
[19:10:06] <brian0918> The kind that is extracted from templates used on pages
[19:10:07] <CXI> hmm
[19:10:09] * Angela (n=beesley@wikipedia/Angela) Quit (Excess Flood?)
[19:10:26] <brian0918> For example, any country or city pages with the proper template can have all
of that metadata extracted
[19:10:29] <brian0918> So, you could query for:
[19:10:31] <JamesF> odile> Everything from "this is a person" to "the following King of Prussia was
[[Wilhelm II]]".
[19:10:31] <CXI> so the idea is something like categories except you can tag an article with a key/
value pair or similar instead?
[19:10:32] <karynn> i am logging this.
[19:10:32] <Creidieki> JamesF, is there a page on meta or something that covers this?
[19:10:36] <brian0918> "Give me all cities with over 10,000 people."
[19:10:38] <brian0918> and it will work
[19:10:42] <nichtich> a method to better transform templates to metadata would be nice
[19:10:56] <Creidieki> brian0918, how is that template information different from wikidata?
[19:11:03] * research_log (n=nobody@p15122355.pureserver.info) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:11:03] * ang2 (n=beesley@pD9535F73.dip.t-dialin.net) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:11:12] <here> reading ( http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/ ) I agree that perhaps Learning Objects are
not what we are working with here
[19:11:15] <JamesF> Creidieki> [[IEEE LOM]].
[19:11:15] <here> , what would other options be?
[19:11:17] * ang2 is now known as Angela
[19:11:26] <Xirzon> ok, live log now at http://scireview.de/wiki/research/channel.log
[19:11:27] <WiseWoman> I don't care if it is a "Standard".
[19:11:30] <WiseWoman> There are so many of them!
[19:11:41] <brian0918> ...
[19:11:42] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Yes, that's true.
[19:11:49] <JamesF> Xirzon> Ah, right, thanks. :-)
[19:11:50] <odile> brian0918, JamesF: metadata can be very diverse,
[19:11:58] <WiseWoman> brian0918, that's what people believe.
[19:12:01] <odile> you have to limit yourself
[19:12:08] <JamesF> odile> Exactly. But our categories system can't be.
[19:12:15] <WiseWoman> This is part of the basis of Semantic Web, but much of this is just a pipe
dream IMHO.
[19:12:22] <Xirzon> ping me when wikidata comes up, otherwise I'll be busy
[19:12:38] <JamesF> Xirzon> Sure. It'll be in a few minutes, maybe 10.
[19:12:51] <WiseWoman> I spent many years of my life teaching a machine to do math proofs. Trying to
satify complex predicates is undecidable, and no amount of computing power will change
that.
[19:12:52] <nichtich> Xirzon: we're just talking about metadata aren't we?
[19:12:59] <JamesF> Another point of using IEEE LOM is that it's currently being used or considered
for use by educational institutions.
[19:13:10] <Xirzon> nichtich: wd is on the agenda for today
[19:13:15] <CXI> yeah, LOM looks like we're trying to cram the wrong sort of data into a space
[19:13:20] <Creidieki> JamesF, so you're suggesting that we add the ability for users to declare
named data fields on pages, and any two data fields with the same name on different
pages would be considered semantically identical?
[19:13:24] <CXI> an encyclopedia doesn't really strike me as a learning object as such
[19:13:30] <WiseWoman> CXI, exactly.
[19:13:50] <CXI> I mean, fair enough, multimedia content, instructional content - but learning
objectives? we're not supposed to have those...
[19:13:52] <nichtich> Who proposed to implement LOM?
[19:13:55] <JamesF> Creidieki> I'm merely discussing what has been suggested.
[19:14:14] <JamesF> nichtich> I think Gerard in particular was interested in our using LOM.
[19:14:15] <Creidieki> JamesF, all right, fair. Was my understanding correct?
[19:14:20] <WiseWoman> JamesF, hogwash. "Educational Institutions" have no idea what LOM is, but if
a learning management system say that it has LOM, then they nod their heads.
[19:14:38] <JamesF> Creidieki> I think it was meant to be more structured and less free-form than
that.
[19:14:47] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, not quite.
[19:15:19] <JamesF> Creidieki> As in, a fixed (centrally-managed) set of definable attributes (with
semantic and dependency relations) that can be attached to articles/multimedia objects
generally.
[19:15:33] <nichtich> Without an example of how to map a wiki article to LOM it looks like nothing
we can decide about at the moment
[19:15:52] <CXI> what kind of things would we be looking at in those attributes?
[19:15:56] <Creidieki> JamesF, so there'd be, like, a "Metadata" namespace somewhere, and it would
define that "Population" is an integer number associated with "Countries"?
[19:16:01] <WiseWoman> Here's an example of LOM: http://www.downes.ca/xml/RSS_LOM.htm
[19:16:03] <JamesF> nichtich> Well, the specifics of how it would work would entirely depend on
wikidata, I suppose.
[19:16:15] <JamesF> Creidieki> That sort of thing, yes.
[19:16:22] * hashar (n=hashar@wikipedia/Hashar) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:16:24] <Xirzon> JamesF: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IEEE_LOM in case it hasn't come up yet -
Gerard thinks there could be funding for this
[19:16:30] <JamesF> Xirzon> Yeah.
[19:16:36] <WiseWoman> This would be identifying a string that is an ISBN number: <dc:identifier>
[19:16:36] <WiseWoman> <myVoc:ISBN>
[19:16:36] <WiseWoman> <rdf:value>0-226-10389-7</rdf:value>
[19:16:36] <WiseWoman> </myVoc:ISBN>
[19:16:36] <WiseWoman> </dc:identifier>
[19:16:39] <JamesF> The Dutch educational authorities are pushing hard on it.
[19:16:41] <Creidieki> JamesF, so it's like a cross between templates and categories.
[19:16:44] <nichtich> JamesF: i don't think so. First you have to think about what you want and then
how (Wikidata=how)
[19:17:00] <Creidieki> WiseWoman, I desperately hope that wouldn't be what the users see.
[19:17:11] <WiseWoman> Oh, yes, governments throw money at LOM research projects.
[19:17:12] <JamesF> nichtich> Yes, but the "example of it being applied" would be post-how.
[19:17:18] <nichtich> You can implement LOM-support in many ways but what is *meant* my "supporting
LOM"?
[19:17:19] <CXI> I'm all for integrating wikidata with wikimedia pages
[19:17:20] <brian0918> Creidieki, no, it would be much simpler, and if it was Template-side, then
they wouldn't have to touch it
[19:17:20] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, that is what you have to type in.
[19:17:26] <CXI> but that seems like a separate issue
[19:17:31] <WiseWoman> You can set up visual editors, but it is a pain in the backend.
[19:17:32] <Xirzon> Wikidata is a very specific project that is only marginally related to other
semantic web efforts.
[19:17:36] <JamesF> CXI> Yes, later.
[19:17:38] <brian0918> WiseWoman, in that example, yes, but we can reduce what needs to be typed
[19:17:43] <Xirzon> I hope "Wikidata" is not used as a general term for structured data in wiki :)
[19:17:46] <WiseWoman> And many LOM projects suffer from malformed input...
[19:18:13] <brian0918> brion gave the example of [[publisher::Joe Publisher]] as a much shorter
version
[19:18:17] <CXI> should we be trying to separate data (Fooland has a population of 3000) and
metadata (Fooland can be classified as a Country)?
[19:18:23] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, I thought it was - shall we maybe merge these two topics, metadata
and LOM?
[19:18:26] <Creidieki> So would categories be implemented as a type of LOM metadata?
[19:19:02] * Eskimo (n=Eskimo@wikipedia/Eskimo) Quit (Nick collision from services.?)
[19:19:05] <WiseWoman> brian0918, sorry to be such a pain, but there can be more than one publisher
(original book and paperback book), so how do you differentiate them in your method?
[19:19:12] * Eskimo (n=Eskimo@wikipedia/Eskimo) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:19:29] <here> add another publisher.
[19:19:36] <brian0918> WiseWoman, that would require more thinking, but trashing the idea at the
first sign of difficulty is never the proper course.
[19:19:46] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: well, LOM is a specific instance of metadata, so yes. But Wikidata is
not for "metadata" per se. Much more simply put, it is a wiki engine layered on top of
arbitrary tables in a relational database
[19:19:47] <WiseWoman> You need more data to signify which one has what role.
[19:20:03] <JamesF> WiseWoman> The meta-data item would have an attached data fragment, too.
[19:20:04] <WiseWoman> The simple examples are always simple, but the real world tends to be
extremely complicated.
[19:20:09] <here> [[publisher::Joe One]] [[publisher::Joe Two]] is not enough?, hmm.
[19:20:23] <brian0918> WiseWoman: then [[pub1::Joe One]] [[pub2::Joe Two]]
[19:20:28] <JamesF> WiseWoman> So "Paperback publisher" as text, or perhaps a proper metadata tag
for that.
[19:20:29] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, can you say than in plain English for the rest of the world?
[19:20:38] <Xirzon> hmm
[19:20:43] <nichtich> I propose to wait with LOM until Wikidata and typed links are implemented -
than you can play around and try to do some LOM stuff
[19:20:48] <WiseWoman> brian0918, now I want the paperback publisher - which one is that, pub1 or
pub2?
[19:20:59] <WiseWoman> I need a proper definition, and that is where it gets hairy.
[19:21:02] <CXI> I got it - it's just wikimedia + arbitrary data instead of wikipedia + encyclopedia
articles
[19:21:02] <Xirzon> OK, I think the main distinction that people here have to understand is between
a project like Semantic MediaWiki
[19:21:04] <Xirzon> and Wikidata.
[19:21:16] <brian0918> well there will be limits to what can be determined, of course
[19:21:17] <CXI> er, s/wikipedia/wikimedia/
[19:21:17] <Creidieki> So these would still be part of the main article text? It seems like it
would work better to have metadata, categories, interwiki links, etc., in a separate
edit window.
[19:21:18] <Xirzon> Semantic MediaWiki utilizes the existing links system in MediaWiki to provide
information *about* links and resources.
[19:21:26] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, can you give us a synopsis?
[19:21:26] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Yes, which is why we definitely would not use things like
"[[publisher::Joe]]".
[19:21:30] <Xirzon> This is a real project with real code, and it is quite cool.
[19:21:30] <brian0918> You can't ask "which publisher has brown eyes and lives in Maine"
[19:21:44] <Xirzon> Is anyone working on the Semantic MediaWiki project present?
[19:21:56] <JamesF> Creidieki> Spinning off meta-data is a part of Wikidata. Possibly.
[19:22:00] <nichtich> I'm only following it
[19:22:03] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, definately! I was planning something like that for the Wikiversity
, I would have one extra tab for each of the many Metadata standards.
[19:22:05] <JamesF> Xirzon> Not as far as I am aware.
[19:22:07] <Xirzon> The demo site is at http://wiki.ontoworld.org/index.php/Main_Page
[19:22:30] <Xirzon> It has some Java dependencies and that was an issue due to Java's non-freeness
[19:22:31] <here> xirzon, i've visited and lookd around.
[19:22:55] <Xirzon> Some aspects of Semantic MediaWiki are painfully slow, I don't know if that is
just because a VM has to be loaded every time you do certain operations, or because the
implementation sucks
[19:23:17] <CXI> ah, interesting
[19:23:23] <Xirzon> In any case, Semantic MediaWiki is different from Wikidata in that its primary
intended use is the fluid addition of arbitrary metadata *inside the article text*.
[19:23:36] <Xirzon> But the software remains largely as it is, and you still basically just have a
text window to deal with.
[19:23:56] <Xirzon> It is not capable of modelling relations of a certain complexity, such as the
ones we need for the main Wikidata application, Ultimate Wiktionary.
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[19:24:18] <JamesF> Hello soufron.
[19:24:22] <JamesF> OK.
[19:24:26] <Xirzon> Where you have words, and the user can add an arbitrary number of meanings to
these words, synonyms, translations, and so on. It's a form- and database-driven
application which is much more like traditional web-based database apps.
[19:24:30] <Xirzon> It's not very "semantic webbish".
[19:24:34] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, this is extremely important - will metadata be part of the text
window (like the categories and Persondata in the German Wikipedia), or in a separate
window?
[19:24:48] <JamesF> WiseWoman> No. And categories wouldn't, either.
[19:24:48] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: That depends on what you do with Wikidata - you can do it either way.
[19:24:53] <Xirzon> In Ultimate Wiktionary, for example
[19:24:57] <CXI> referring to http://wiki.ontoworld.org/index.php/San_Diego - that seems almost like
what we're dealing with here in terms of metadata
[19:24:58] <Xirzon> We have relations between words.
[19:25:06] <Xirzon> We have a table where you have the word IDs, and the relation types.
[19:25:17] <JamesF> CXI> Yes, exactly.
[19:25:21] <Xirzon> And in the UI, you will be able to link words together by selecting them and
selecting a relation type.
[19:25:35] <odile> sorry I have to leave, :-( bye
[19:25:38] <Xirzon> But, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to just throw category links
into a text field, and have them parsed as in the past.
[19:25:48] <JamesF> odile> Bye.
[19:25:48] <Xirzon> in fact, that's relatively trivial.
[19:26:13] <Xirzon> Redesigning the tagging/category system is, to me, completely separate from
Wikidata.
[19:26:17] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, you have things here being relations that are not absolute, but only
relations over time.
[19:26:22] <Xirzon> It has design and user interface challenges of its own.
[19:26:30] <Creidieki> Xirzon, so categories wouldn't be a type of metadata?
[19:26:49] <JamesF> Xirzon> But it could certainly be moved into Wikidata and restructured there,
yes?
[19:26:52] <WiseWoman> For example, what exactly is a city? Is that defined by the number of people
living there? When does SD become a metropolis?
[19:26:54] <Xirzon> Creidieki: If you wanted, you could basically implement a category system on top
of Wikidata. We'll have to see if that is a practical/desirable approach.
[19:26:59] <Xirzon> One thing to keep in mind is that
[19:27:09] <Xirzon> when you move categories out of the text field, you will still want to version
them
[19:27:11] <JamesF> WiseWoman> That depends, of course, on locality.
[19:27:14] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, categories ARE metadata, they are just very unstructured metadata.
[19:27:17] <Xirzon> be able to revert to earlier revisions of category-page relations, and so on -
[19:27:32] <Xirzon> and as such, Wikidata (which provides this versioning of relations) may be a
desirable engine to run this kind of system.
[19:27:35] <JamesF> WiseWoman> In some countries, the UK for one, "city" is a legal term, and only a
few settlements get it.
[19:27:39] <Xirzon> But the main challenges for categories to me are
[19:27:40] <soufron> hello
[19:27:41] <Xirzon> a) localization
[19:27:45] <Xirzon> b) user interface.
[19:27:46] <soufron> hello JamesF
[19:27:57] <JamesF> soufron> It's a bit hectic right now in here.
[19:28:07] <Xirzon> Because auf a), we are focusing on Ultimate Wiktionary as a Wikidata application
, which can be used as a localization engine for categories.
[19:28:13] <Xirzon> Some of you may already have seen my demo for this.
[19:28:14] <WiseWoman> JamesF, exactly. I hadn't thought about the localization problem with a
global implementation yet, that is an added problem. Sigh.
[19:28:15] <soufron> JamesF, I can see that
[19:28:18] <soufron> :)
[19:28:28] <Xirzon> http://epov.org/uwd/index.php/Main_Page
[19:28:32] <WiseWoman> Just to ask a stupid question: what is the point of the semantic relations?
Just a game?
[19:28:46] <CXI> an important thing to remember here is that this still has to be something that
will be useful to users
[19:28:55] <brian0918> WiseWoman, there can be some ambiguity about everything. Again, this alone is
not a reason to dump the whole idea
[19:28:56] <nichtich> WiseWoman: what is the point of Wikipedia at all?
[19:28:57] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: In UW it is very much the opposite. For example, for a thesaurus you
need relations like "is broader term of" or "is narrower term"
[19:28:57] <CXI> I mean, as simple as our current system is, it's easy for people to model
internally
[19:29:03] <JamesF> WiseWoman> So the metadata tag "city", in this example, would actually have
different versions for different places. "City of the United Kingdom" might be one (and
would combine multiple facets). Etc.
[19:29:12] * leoadec (i=leoadec@201-1-135-198.dsl.telesp.net.br) Quit ("leaving"?)
[19:29:22] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: The first milestone in the Ultimate Wiktionary development is a
running version of GEMET, a European Union environmental thesaurus.
[19:29:24] <Creidieki> JamesF, wouldn't "City of the United Kingdom" want to be a type of city?
[19:29:32] <WiseWoman> brian0918, I want to make some points clear before everyone invests an
enourmous amount of effort into something which is intractable.
[19:29:47] <JamesF> Creidieki> Not really.
[19:30:02] <brian0918> WiseWoman: but you haven't suggested any alternatives. You have simply
identified all the problems.
[19:30:04] <WiseWoman> The Ultimate Wiktionary is a nice, small, focused area I can imagine would be
a nice test bed.
[19:30:14] <JamesF> Creidieki> It's a type of settlement, and it's a geographically-bound identifier
. But this is off-topic.
[19:30:19] <Xirzon> Small? You haven't seen Gerard's ERDs :-)
[19:30:21] <Creidieki> JamesF, well, fine, but we could use the metadata system to say that "City of
the United Kingdom" metadata is a "specific-localized-version" of "City" metadata,
right?
[19:30:28] <WiseWoman> brian0918, actually, there are more problems. And I don't know what the
problem is that we are trying to solve :-)
[19:30:39] <Xirzon> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Wiktionary_data_design
[19:30:42] <WiseWoman> Small as compared with the Wikipedia
[19:30:47] <nichtich> WiseWoman: Semantic relations *are* very complex and maybe overestimated but
they will be useful
[19:30:48] <JamesF> Creidieki> Oh, yes, exactly. So that would be a (quite standard) relationship
definition.
[19:31:02] <Creidieki> JamesF, So we could organize types of metadata with metadata.
[19:31:10] <JamesF> Creidieki> Definitely.
[19:31:13] <Xirzon> Actually, UW will be at least as large as Wikipedia if it is successful. We
already have sources containing hundreds of thousands of words which we will be able to
tap.
[19:31:20] <Creidieki> JamesF, sweet. It's all pretty like Category Theory.
[19:31:28] <Creidieki> JamesF, I am now in favor.
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[19:32:06] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, but it is not as clean as Category Theory! Again: what is the
point of the metadata for the Wikitionary - I have not understood this yet, pardon my
ignorance.
[19:32:07] <JamesF> Creidieki> Good. That's one. :-)
[19:32:13] <JamesF> k1v1n> Hello.
[19:32:23] <Xirzon> Semantic relations are useful. I want to make clear that these types of
relations are only a sub-element of Wikidata.
[19:32:29] <JamesF> Xirzon> Absolutely.
[19:32:29] <k1v1n> hello, sorry i'm late. fell asleep watching a game.
[19:32:41] <Xirzon> The primary use of Wikidata is to break up the wiki page itself into application
-specific forms.
[19:33:08] <Xirzon> In the simplest case, say Wikinews, you just add a date field to the article
text, for example.
[19:33:11] <Creidieki> WiseWoman, you could probably use it for relations like "[Foo] is derived
from [Bar]", and then it would be easy to make word derivation graphs.
[19:33:20] <Xirzon> That already makes the wiki more useful for that specific application, namely
news.
[19:33:30] <Creidieki> WiseWoman, or "This word is the plural of that other word"
[19:33:44] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, but the fun thing of the Wikipedia is that it is Application
INDEPENDANT! You can use it as the basis for many things!
[19:34:01] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: Yes, but none of them properly ;-)
[19:34:30] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, do the right things, don't worry about doing things right!
[19:34:30] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: Seriously, "the wiki" as such sucks for a dictionary or a news site
or a quote collection. You need specialized technology for these specific apps.
[19:34:44] <Creidieki> WiseWoman, or "This word is defined from that language" -- it would give us a
way of organizing words by language in the actual information, rather than just having a
heading that says "==Spanish==".
[19:34:50] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: do the right things right sounds about right to me :)
[19:35:02] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, having just eyeballed the data structure for the dictionary you are
quite right.
[19:35:06] <CXI> wikidata makes a lot of sense to me from a wiktionary perspective
[19:35:08] <soufron> pfiou
[19:35:28] <Xirzon> Creidieki: exactly, but the power of UW is far bigger than that.
[19:35:34] <Xirzon> The power of UW is in automatic localization.
[19:35:43] <Xirzon> The way it works is by following from a meaning to the translations and
synonyms.
[19:35:50] <Creidieki> Xirzon, right, after you have the language information you can use it in
display preferences.
[19:36:04] <Xirzon> For example, when you have an infobox
[19:36:18] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, I don't believe that will ever be fully automatic.
[19:36:23] <Xirzon> you have something like "Country name: Germany". There's no reason this name
should not be localized automaticaly into Swahili.
[19:36:41] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: It can pretty much be for "label" type words and short phrases as
long as you specify which meaning you're referring to.
[19:37:02] <Creidieki> WiseWoman, the Category system shows the the power of bored people to
semantically organize information is immense.
[19:37:05] <Xirzon> But even for translators working with tools like Omega-T, Ultimate Wiktionary
can be an incredibly useful source of translation memories.
[19:37:23] <Xirzon> s/be/become :)
[19:37:33] <Xirzon> So, yes, this is the vision we're working towards, and it's a pretty big vision.
[19:37:42] <Xirzon> The good news is that we now have an additional developer, avar, doing things on
Wikidata.
[19:37:44] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, this is people who believe there is a mathematical basis of
everything, for example language :)
[19:37:56] * avar waves
[19:37:59] <CXI> I'm worried about wikipedia in terms of datacruft though... are we likely to have
stuff like [[Population:=6,000]] in articles?
[19:38:11] <CXI> talking metadata here, not wikidata
[19:38:12] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, as a tool - great. But not as an automatic translator.
[19:38:18] <Xirzon> The WIKIDATA branch in CVS is now installable thanks to avar, so you can take a
look at the way the new namespace manager works.
[19:38:19] <JamesF> CXI> It wouldn't probably be shown in article-editing view.
[19:38:25] <Creidieki> CXI, I don't understand your concern. Is having that a bad thing?
[19:38:44] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: You have to distinguish translating texts and translating labels.
When you add labels, and also add the meaning of the labels, you can then truly
automatically localize them.
[19:38:47] <WiseWoman> CXI - that's what I meant with dynamic data. Things change, someone will have
to clean up the cruft periodically.
[19:38:59] <Creidieki> CXI, are you asking about the "crap at the bottom of the article" syndrome?
[19:38:59] <CXI> Creidieki: well, it doesn't really strike me as useful as metadata
[19:39:06] <CXI> and yes, basically
[19:39:27] <Xirzon> The crap at the bottom of the article syndrome is worst with interlanguage
links.
[19:39:34] <Xirzon> And the interlanguage links system is bad, just plain bad.
[19:39:42] <Xirzon> It needs to be redesigned from scratch.
[19:39:50] <JamesF> Xirzon> Yes. Rationalisation of that is part of the intended fixes long-term.
[19:39:59] <Creidieki> I think they were talking about having a separate window for
articlebottomcrap, right? And that window could eventually absorb the interwiki links
and categories.
[19:40:11] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, but even labels can "self-destruct", for example the lable "Country
Name: Yugoslavia" needing to be broken up every now and then.....
[19:40:17] <CXI> the thing is, though, stuff like "foo has a population of x" strikes me as data
rather than metadata
[19:40:22] <Xirzon> JamesF: Absolutely, absolutely focus on single login now. It makes a million of
these centralization tasks easier.
[19:40:30] <JamesF> Yes.
[19:40:30] <k1v1n> agreed. that's not metadata.
[19:40:33] <JamesF> But brion isn't here.
[19:40:36] <JamesF> So, not today.
[19:40:41] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: That's what you have the Wiktionary for - if you change things, the
changes are reflected in the places where the labels are used.
[19:40:55] <Creidieki> No, but it's metadata because it's data *about the article*, rather than the
article itself.
[19:40:58] <CXI> so while I think it'd be nice to maintain stuff like that for wikidata purposes,
I'm not sure how useful it would be cramming it into our metadata system
[19:41:11] <CXI> it's not data about the article, though, it's data about the country
[19:41:24] <Xirzon> CXI: I'd love to have a "country factbook" application built with Wikidata.
[19:41:39] <Xirzon> The thing is - stuff like "Semantic MediaWiki" allows you to get reasonable
amount of structure quickly.
[19:41:39] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, but I won't want everything changed automatically! An article on the
history of Yugoslavia should not change name suddenly.
[19:42:09] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: Right. If you are changing the meaning, you have to create a new word
anyway :)
[19:42:21] <WiseWoman> Ted Nelson has written about this problem - sometimes you want the current
value, sometimes a previous value. I don't see that the work involved to get clean
metadata will pay for anything useful. Enlighten me!
[19:42:25] <Creidieki> Well, but all of the examples I gave ("[Foo] is a word in the language
[Spanish]") weren't metadata either, by that definition. What's the difference between
wikidata and the Metadata they're suggesting?
[19:42:34] * Eskimo (n=Eskimo@wikipedia/Eskimo) Quit (Read error: 54 (Connection reset by peer)?)
[19:43:02] <Creidieki> Strictly speaking, metadata should be things like "how often has this article
been viewed" and the ratings system and such.
[19:43:04] <Xirzon> The problem is that metadata is just too damn catchy a word and everyone likes
to use it when they really just mean "data" :)
[19:43:07] <CXI> because "is a word in the language" provides a mapping between two points of data
[19:43:12] <CXI> which makes it metadata
[19:43:29] <Creidieki> CXI, article != data. It provides a mapping between two articles.
[19:43:38] <Creidieki> CXI, it's still a piece of data about the word [Foo].
[19:43:43] <here> creidieki, i think metadata here is about making information already in the
article machine readable.
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[19:43:57] <JamesF> Creidieki> No, that's metadata about the server's copy of the article.
[19:44:01] <CXI> well, if we're talking about metadata in articles then we have to be talking about
articles as data
[19:44:09] <JamesF> Creidieki> No, about the article and it's content
[19:44:13] <CXI> otherwise what's it metadata of?
[19:44:17] <Xirzon> heh :)
[19:44:29] * Xirzon loves semantic discussions about semantic web
[19:44:33] <k1v1n> the categories are a form of metadata. We just need more robust info.
[19:45:12] <here> i'm not convinced this is all useless, so where to go from here?
[19:45:24] <Xirzon> I don't really care what you call it, I care what you can do with it. Does it
give you scalable access to certain repeating information patterns or not?
[19:45:46] <Creidieki> So, do I have this correct? Some people are talking about just using Wikidata
for the metadata, and others are suggesting a separate standard (LOM)?
[19:45:53] <WiseWoman> here, one thing that I would love to see would be an extra tab for metadata.
[19:46:06] <Xirzon> I think the "typed links" approach is likely to be very good at revealing
structures, I'm not sure it's so good at accessing and creating them.
[19:46:11] * Xirzon sighs
[19:46:14] <WiseWoman> As said above - getting the junk from the bottom of the page factored out.
[19:46:15] <here> absolutely, even fork the article structure elsewhere and try overlaying.
[19:46:15] <nichtich> WiseWoman: yes
[19:46:26] <k1v1n> we're currently building a DC metadata extension for an enterprise wiki. We have
to have it.
[19:46:45] <nichtich> We should get all the interlaguage, categories and upcoming metadata stuff
into a seperate tab
[19:46:52] <Xirzon> k1v1n: is it going to be open source?
[19:47:02] <here> DC?
[19:47:08] <WiseWoman> Here, if there ever is embedded metadata I would insist on an overlay so that
newbies can still edit!
[19:47:16] <k1v1n> for example, just because you've done an edit doesn't make you an "author". The
current way author is determined doesn't cut it.
[19:47:20] <here> wisewoman: i agree, could even be a pref.
[19:47:23] <k1v1n> Absolutely open.
[19:47:29] <Xirzon> nichtich: more important is to share the metadata across language editions
[19:47:41] <JamesF> Yes.
[19:47:44] <JamesF> Absolutely.
[19:47:45] <CXI> actually, that's a really good point
[19:47:47] <CXI> wikidata-wise
[19:47:49] <k1v1n> Dublic Core
[19:47:57] <JamesF> Sharing of metadata between languages is vital.
[19:47:57] <k1v1n> s/dublic/dublin
[19:48:14] <WiseWoman> http://dublincore.org/
[19:48:15] <CXI> metadata or data? or are we not having a distinction? :D
[19:48:16] * notafish (n=Delphine@wikipedia/notafish) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:48:19] <Xirzon> For interlanguage links, it's a no-brainer. For categories, it's more tricky,
of course.
[19:48:25] <Xirzon> Hello Delphine.
[19:48:26] <JamesF> Hello Delphine.
[19:48:28] * brain|food is now known as mind|concert
[19:48:29] <JamesF> Again.
[19:48:45] <Xirzon> JamesF: stop being my exact clone :-)
[19:48:57] <JamesF> Xirzon> Sorry. :-)
[19:49:23] <Xirzon> OK, so I can only invite you to look at the Wikidata branch and also wait for
the paper which I'm working on atm -
[19:49:39] * delphine (n=Delphine@wikipedia/notafish) Quit (Nick collision from services.?)
[19:49:44] <Xirzon> it should be finished by next week and will pretty much finalize the design of
the Wikidata engine.
[19:49:50] <CXI> the only reason I keep bringing this up is because I think it's important we be
careful about what we're trying to do - provide a mapping between articles or duplicate
the data in an article in a pure data form
[19:49:57] * notafish is now known as delphine
[19:49:59] <delphine> thank you and hmpf
[19:50:03] <WiseWoman> Here's a nice paper on Dublin Core for beginners:
http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/
[19:50:12] <here> cxi, are those mutually exclusive goals?
[19:50:18] <here> ww: thanks.
[19:50:26] <Xirzon> CXI: Semantic MediaWiki does both, for example.
[19:50:52] <Xirzon> http://wiki.ontoworld.org/index.php/San_Diego
[19:51:05] <CXI> I linked that a little while ago :P
[19:51:15] <CXI> I'm just trying to make sure I understand whether we're trying to do one, the other
or both
[19:51:20] <CXI> because only one of those two things is metadata
[19:51:34] <Creidieki> CXI, articles are types of data, right? There isn't any difference. It's
just like higher-level functions or whatever in PL.
[19:51:59] <Creidieki> Associating a number with an article, or a pair of articles, shouldn't be any
different than associating an article with that article.
[19:52:06] <JamesF> OK, are we making progress here or going around in circles?
[19:52:18] <Xirzon> CXI: We're definitely doing both, using a few different approaches.
[19:52:28] <Xirzon> JamesF: A bit of a semantic circle really.
[19:52:37] <JamesF> Xirzon> Yes, that's what I feel too.
[19:52:39] <nichtich> maybe we better move on to the next topic
[19:52:39] <Creidieki> JamesF, I think we all understand Metadata and Wikidata a lot better than we
did. Is there a specific issue you'd like us to try to address?
[19:52:41] <CXI> mm, sorry, I might be contributing somewhat to the circlyness
[19:52:59] <JamesF> Creidieki> I'm here to help you understand things better, and hopefully help
work towards them. :-)
[19:53:21] * here has pages of new reading material ;)... good for now.
[19:53:27] <JamesF> I've written a sort-of summary as we've been going along
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network/Meetings/2005-12-03#Summary
[19:53:28] <CXI> so what we're thinking of trying to create then (with metadata, and not wikidata)
is the ability to associate arbitrary data with an article?
[19:53:37] <JamesF> Is it missing anything specifically?
[19:53:37] <k1v1n> we might have our metadata extension ready to demo by the next meeting. happy to
send some links before then.
[19:53:40] <Creidieki> JamesF, okay. So when do we get to the part where we spend Wikimedia's
money?
[19:53:48] <nichtich> JamesF: thanks
[19:53:54] <JamesF> Creidieki> That's what I was going to move us on to.
[19:54:00] <Xirzon> k1v1n: If you could post to wikitech-l about it, that would be cool.
[19:54:02] <JamesF> Xirzon> You might want to stay for this, perhaps. :-)
[19:54:08] <Creidieki> CXI, I'm mostly talking out of my very newly-gained understanding, please
don't believe anything I've said.
[19:54:14] * matusz (n=matusz@cko253.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl) Quit ("Koniec"?)
[19:54:16] <JamesF> k1v1n> That would be brilliant if possible.
[19:54:27] <CXI> :o) I'm basically doing the same, don't worry
[19:54:28] * k1v1n (n=k1v1n@cpe-066-057-113-059.nc.res.rr.com) Quit (Remote closed the connection?)
[19:54:37] <JamesF> OK, next topic.
[19:54:38] <JamesF> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[19:54:45] <Xirzon> Wikimedia has money to spend?
[19:54:54] <JamesF> I've been asked if I want to put forward a budget for next year.
[19:55:10] <JamesF> Xirzon> Not yet. But charities' budgets are aspirational.
[19:55:15] <WiseWoman> For the WRN?
[19:55:30] <JamesF> So, do any of you have any ideas for what the Research division could spend
money on?
[19:55:35] <Creidieki> I think that all of the Board Members and high-level research people should
have subscriptions to EB and Encarta, so we're familiar with how our competitors do
things.
[19:55:42] <Xirzon> JamesF: A decent peer review design paper.
[19:55:54] <Creidieki> Some of them may already have subscriptions from universities or whatever.
[19:55:57] <JamesF> One example was funding a dedicated server for analysing data.
[19:56:05] <Xirzon> That deals particularly with issues such as quickly changing articles.
[19:56:10] <here> like toolserver?
[19:56:19] <WiseWoman> JamesF, that is an excellent idea.
[19:56:22] <JamesF> here> Yes, but tasked to us exclusively.
[19:56:23] * k1v1n (n=k1v1n@cpe-066-057-113-059.nc.res.rr.com) has joined #wikimedia-research
[19:56:25] <Angela> Creidieki: a subscription tells you nothing about how they do things - only what
their output is.
[19:56:28] <here> sounds great.
[19:56:43] <CXI> indeed, a data analysis server sounds nice
[19:56:56] <JamesF> It would get copies of all the logs, etc., for crunching.
[19:56:58] <nichtich> But we can already use the toolserver for many tasks (not all)
[19:57:14] <JamesF> nichtich> We can, yes.
[19:57:20] <Creidieki> Angela, I meant more like "what decisions they've made about site design",
etc., than their editorial process.
[19:57:20] <Xirzon> I'd love to see money spent on people's brains rather than on CPUs for a change
[19:57:31] <JamesF> nichtich> But our needs would likely outgrow a single server.
[19:57:35] <WiseWoman> That would offer a data basis that could be used for teaching or research,
that would be lovely.
[19:57:43] <CXI> would it also be useful to use such a server for testing out proposed extensions to
wikipedia functionality?
[19:57:43] <nichtich> JamesF: yes
[19:57:47] <JamesF> nichtich> It could also be used for test sites, like the toolserver, too.
[19:57:56] <JamesF> Xirzon> That's possible, certainly, though harder.
[19:57:56] <Creidieki> Angela, or "what kind of coverage they've made of certain topics".
[19:57:56] <nichtich> Once there was a testserver
[19:58:13] <WiseWoman> Would spending money make single login happen faster /at all?
[19:58:14] <JamesF> Xirzon> When you said "peer review design paper", what did you mean?
[19:58:31] <Xirzon> JamesF: There's been lots of talk about "stable versions" and how much we need
them, but
[19:58:36] <JamesF> WiseWoman> We could certainly try for that.
[19:58:38] <Angela> Creidieki: there are enough Wikipedians interested in that who already have
access. I don't think there's a need to pay for this.
[19:58:44] <Xirzon> almost none of these discussions actually ever gets into the part of *how the
articles are meant to be reviewed*.
[19:58:50] <here> i second any support toward single login. not sure how to throw $ at it.
[19:58:55] <nichtich> ...nobody implemented it in a useful way
[19:59:01] <Xirzon> How is consensus reached, what specialized tools are needed, when and how and by
whom is the article flagged, etc.
[19:59:09] <Creidieki> Can we just stick bounties on all of the single login-related bugzilla bugs
and pay people if they fix them?
[19:59:09] <Xirzon> s/article/revision/
[19:59:14] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Essentially, fund Brion to an extent, then require him to spend some
time on it. But, he's not exactly slacking, so...
[19:59:18] <Xirzon> Brion is meant to be doing single login.
[19:59:22] <Xirzon> He gets paid by Wikimedia.
[19:59:27] <Xirzon> So he really just needs to be prodded a bit.
[19:59:31] <CXI> heh
[19:59:32] <Xirzon> OK, a lot.
[19:59:35] <CXI> pray a special prodding squad
[19:59:42] <CXI> s/pray/pay/
[19:59:44] <JamesF> Xirzon> He's very busy. All the time. :-(
[19:59:55] <Xirzon> JamesF: yes, but he's closest to the specs as they stand.
[20:00:04] <nichtich> I don't like the idea to pay someone to write a research paper on review
systems in Wikipedia
[20:00:08] <JamesF> CXI> Problem is, only Brion and Tim, really, would know enough and have
sufficient access and sway to actually make it happen.
[20:00:16] <JamesF> Xirzon> Yes, I know.
[20:00:27] <JamesF> Xirzon> Last I heard, he's essentially waiting for a green light and some time.
[20:00:35] <JamesF> Xirzon> And he's been given neither.
[20:00:44] <Xirzon> JamesF: green light from whom?
[20:00:48] <JamesF> nichtich> I'm not sure about it, either.
[20:00:49] <WiseWoman> nichtich, yes. Research papers should never be done for money.
[20:00:51] <Creidieki> Single login would be more the part of a development budget than a research
budget, though, right?
[20:00:55] <CXI> mm... how's wikipedia doing in terms of devs anyway?
[20:01:15] <JamesF> Xirzon> For robbing everyone of their logins and changing them all around? The
Board, I'd hope. I'm not wanting to take the flak for it personally, certainly. ;-)
[20:01:16] <WiseWoman> JamesF, does the WRN need to kick someone to turn on the green light?
[20:01:28] <here> what about outreach to the research community, any goals there?
[20:01:40] <Angela> I'm not aware of any opposition from the Board to single login.
[20:01:43] <here> (external research community)
[20:01:46] <JamesF> WiseWoman> We'd need to come to a conclusion on the exact best way to deal with
collisions.
[20:01:46] <Angela> It's really just up to Brion.
[20:01:47] <Xirzon> JamesF: you could just submit the specs for approval if you think it's needed
[20:01:53] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, it seems to be moving from research into development - that's why
both are often in the same department in companies.
[20:01:58] <nichtich> here: what kind of outreach?
[20:02:04] <Xirzon> nichtich / WiseWoman : Find someone who does his PhD on Wikipedia review
processes then. We need a good design for this or it is not going to happen.
[20:02:10] <JamesF> Xirzon> There are still different possible ideas and ways of doing it.
[20:02:41] <here> nichtich: unsure, but a primary goal of WRN.
[20:02:41] <Xirzon> JamesF: I thought the specs were fairly unambiguous at this point?
[20:02:42] <nichtich> I'm going to do my PhD on other aspects of Wikipedia - will you pay me?
[20:02:56] <WiseWoman> Xirson, or her..... actually, there are so many thesis topics up and running
at the moment about the Wikipedia, I am not sure that this is not being addressed.
[20:03:07] <Xirzon> nichtich: I wouldn't pay you even if you did naughty things with me :)
[20:03:21] <JamesF> Xirzon> Automatic collision reversal via what method? Number of edits? Primacy
of project? None at all? Etc.
[20:03:36] <Xirzon> JamesF: Collision reversal? What does tha tmean?
[20:03:51] <Eskimo> if 2 ppl have the same user name on different projects
[20:03:51] <Xirzon> JamesF: Primary of project - why would there be?
[20:04:08] <JamesF> Xirzon> User James on the English Wikipedia and user James on the Anglo-Saxon
Wiktionary, for example.
[20:04:09] <Creidieki> Could we make it clear that there would be support for students doing
research projects on Wikipedia? Would board members/developers/etc. be willing to pledge
some time to talk with people doing undergrad. or grad. research on aspects of
Wikipedia?
[20:04:13] <Xirzon> JamesF: Oh, that - we have a fairly well specified process for that.
[20:04:14] <JamesF> Off the top of my head, those are different people.
[20:04:28] <JamesF> Yes, but not agreement that that's the best way
[20:04:29] <Xirzon> JamesF: At some point you take the specs that are there and submit them for
approval.
[20:04:39] <Xirzon> If you think they need further discussion, put them up for a consensus
discussion or a vote.
[20:04:40] <JamesF> Xirzon> I will, I suppose.
[20:04:49] * JamesF nods.
[20:04:52] <JamesF> OK, enough of this.
[20:04:53] <Xirzon> But consensus is going to be almost impossible on this.
[20:05:06] * Pathoschild (n=Pathosch@207.162.58.44) Quit
[20:05:06] <Xirzon> There are religious discussions about whether decentralized or centralized
authentication is preferable.
[20:05:10] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, that could end up being a full time job.
[20:05:11] <Xirzon> You're not going to get people to agree.
[20:05:18] <Xirzon> I did a basic vote template for that a while ago.
[20:05:36] <Xirzon> But it seems fairly clear to me that most *users* would prefer to have *one*
Wikimedia identity.
[20:05:40] <JamesF> Xirzon> Yes, well, voting is evil. :-)
[20:05:41] <Xirzon> And not a confusing system with multiple identities.
[20:05:42] <Creidieki> So it seems like most of what we need in terms of a research budget is
developer time.
[20:05:59] <Creidieki> And a stats/testing server(s).
[20:06:06] <Xirzon> JamesF: See, that's what you get for having these crazy religious ideas about
voting - you don't get things done anymore ;->
[20:06:07] <nichtich> I think so
[20:06:11] <WiseWoman> Just to kick another idea around (if we are looking for ways to spend money):
how about if Wikipedians want to have a stand at a research conference?
[20:06:22] <CXI> has anyone proposed separating out wikimedia-wide logons and individual project
ones?
[20:06:23] <nichtich> or traveling costs
[20:06:28] <JamesF> Xirzon> Or I just declare it so. :-)
[20:06:36] <WiseWoman> They would need to pay a stand fee and printing of material, trying to
attract "real" reasearchs to the Wikipedia.
[20:06:47] <JamesF> CXI> That would be complicated and not achieve the intended goal.
[20:06:51] <WiseWoman> Might be too vague how to specify how you get money for this, though.
[20:06:52] <Xirzon> CXI: Well, to some extent they would be
[20:07:04] <Xirzon> CXI: The current single login specs are built around the existing MediaWiki
authentication plugin.
[20:07:10] <Creidieki> I thought that "interfacing with academia" wasn't one of the areas of the
Research committee, and that we were supposed to be researching about ways to improve
Wikimedia?
[20:07:18] <Xirzon> Which means that you have a centralized database of account names and passwords
[20:07:20] <JamesF> CXI> Because people would want "James" to be *that James* everywhere. Not *that
James* except where it's another, local, James.
[20:07:27] <Xirzon> and local databases of preferences and other user-related stuff.
[20:07:39] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, I meant speaking to potential researchers about improving the
Wikimedia.
[20:07:40] <CXI> which is why you wouldn't be able to create "James" as a single user logon
[20:07:40] <Xirzon> So that which should be global, would be global, and that which should be local
wouldn't.
[20:07:49] <Eskimo> JamesF> yes, there has to be a transition at some point
[20:07:55] <WiseWoman> But then I realized that it would be too difficult to target conferences,
that is better 1-1
[20:07:58] <JamesF> Creidieki> It's more my personal area as CRO than the Network's area, yes.
[20:08:13] <nichtich> WiseWoman: Yes, we have to specifiy that "improving Wikipedia" must be a focus
to get support
[20:08:13] <here> 'and to collaborate with researchers who are not part of the Wikimedia community.'
[20:08:26] <Creidieki> Okay.
[20:08:33] <Xirzon> JamesF: I think peer review specs could be the next focus after single login,
with payment or without.
[20:08:38] <JamesF> CXI> So, because of some stick-in-the-mud editor who won't change - or has left
- James, the founder of the ang. WKT, can't have a global account? That's a tad unfair.
[20:08:50] <JamesF> Xirzon> It's certainly on my list.
[20:09:02] <Xirzon> JamesF: This is *the* thing Wikipedia needs to get into academia.
[20:09:10] <CXI> James: well, which james should have priority, then?
[20:09:18] <Creidieki> Xirzon, what do you mean by peer review "specs"?
[20:09:19] <JamesF> What about LDC's ideas on developing and properly making Wikitax LR0-parsable?
[20:09:25] <CXI> it strikes me that any option in that regard is somewhat unfair wrt "sorry, there's
another, more important james"
[20:09:27] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, I think that is a realistic focus point.
[20:09:38] <JamesF> CXI> Yes, that's the rub of it exactly.
[20:09:46] <WiseWoman> There are actually researchers wo do work on peer review, for example
Wolfgang Coy at the Humboldt University.
[20:09:54] <JamesF> CXI> But, in essence, we have to make that decision.
[20:09:58] <JamesF> CXI> But more on this later.
[20:10:05] <CXI> sure, sorry for derailing :P
[20:10:06] <Xirzon> Creidieki: As I said before, the basic goal is simple: to have "stable, reviewed
revisions". But how do you achieve that consensus, who can implement it, how do you deal
with minor vs. major changes, rapid vs. slow ones, do you want specific functionality
for sources, etc.
[20:10:24] <nichtich> WiseWoman: peer review in sciene is a whole research area - but Wikipedia is
not science
[20:10:38] <Xirzon> There's also algorithmic information that can be collected to aid in finding
potentially unreliable articles. That should fall within the peer review specs.
[20:10:48] <Creidieki> Xirzon, Okay, so you're talking about peer-reviewing articles, and that's
separate from the simultaneous discussion about having someone write a peer-reviewed
article about Wikipedia?
[20:10:49] <Xirzon> Jamseday is a person to talk to here, he's got some excellent ideas.
[20:10:57] <Xirzon> Creidieki: ooooh, absolutely.
[20:11:12] <Eskimo> Single login has to be unfair at some point
[20:11:12] <Eskimo> one of the james has to be renamed as James@en.wikipedia, for instance
[20:11:13] <k1v1n> there was a pretty good paper at wikimania on factors determing quality. Seems to
me our goal should not to be to replicate the old peer-review, but develop algorythms
that are just as predictive.
[20:11:30] <Xirzon> k1v1n: I think we need both, but I'd be happy to see progress in either
direction.
[20:11:39] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, I have suggested a simple version: I digitally sign a version of an
article and this is shown in the history - I, WiseWoman, put my hand in the fire that
this article is correct.
[20:11:43] <k1v1n> xirzon: agreed.
[20:11:48] <JamesF> Eskimo> Yes. Or, all Jameses get renamed like that, and then there's a massive
scramble to get the global one of your choice. :-)
[20:12:03] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: I believe in a "wiki"-like process where there's true collaboration
rather just competing individuals.
[20:12:15] <JamesF> WiseWoman> But how many of our articles can that apply to?
[20:12:17] <nichtich> WiseWoman: that method was also suggested by others - we only need it
implemented
[20:12:21] <CXI> which, I think, is the reason why you have to just say that some logins can't be
single-user
[20:12:25] <here> currently [[Stable versions]] on en:
[20:12:27] <WiseWoman> Xirzon, but the point of a review is that an "expert" says that this or that
is true.
[20:12:35] <Xirzon> WiseWoman: In the traditional sense, yes.
[20:12:45] <Eskimo> JamesF> maybe one of the james can choose a new nickname :)
[20:12:50] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Or, at least, that a panel of experts fail to notice the falsehoods.
[20:13:03] <WiseWoman> JamesF, actually, there are quite a lot of good articles on wikipedia (in
both English and German).
[20:13:03] <Xirzon> In the collaborative sense, it would be that a community of people who claim to
be knowledgeable about a subject area have taken a look and reached a consensus.
[20:13:10] <Eskimo> (sorry, I feel off topic, we're supposed to be talking about peer review ?)
[20:13:23] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Yes, but the average proper article will have several hundred,
possibly a thousand facts.
[20:13:26] <Creidieki> So is the idea of this peer-review system tied in to some verification of
credentials? That sounds...interesting.
[20:13:38] * mav (n=chatzill@c-71-56-70-11.hsd1.ga.comcast.net) has joined #wikimedia-research
[20:13:41] <WiseWoman> JamesF, oh, the article can still be false, or wrong! That is often the case.
[20:13:43] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Can you /really/ say, truthfully, that you are entirely convinced of
the veracity of every single one.
[20:13:47] <JamesF> mav! Heya
[20:13:50] <Xirzon> JamesF: the notion of highlighting these facts individually is quite interesting
. would be a nice UI challenge as well.
[20:13:55] <Xirzon> hey mav
[20:14:01] <WiseWoman> Creidieki, I have to be non-anonymous and my reputation is my credentials.
[20:14:03] <JamesF> We're discussing possible budget ideas. Except we keep getting distracted. :-)
[20:14:13] <mav> hi
[20:14:15] <Xirzon> oh yeah, I think I stole the topic ;-)
[20:14:17] <Xirzon> sorry about that.
[20:14:21] <JamesF> Xirzon> And then providing proper citations for every single one, five times
over? :-)
[20:14:41] <Creidieki> Well, does anyone on the research board need any books? We could buy them
books.
[20:14:46] <Xirzon> JamesF: Exactly. I think getting everything "maximally cited" is worthwhile.
[20:14:48] <WiseWoman> JamesF, I don't believe anything - I am a scientist. But I get a lot of good
information as a basis, and then verify from there. I would never believe a single
source for anything.
[20:15:06] <here> remind me how we are spending money on this?
[20:15:12] <JamesF> WiseWoman> I did specifically say "convinced of the veracity" rather than
"believe to be true". ;-)
[20:15:20] <CXI> I don't think we really need to try to spend money on things
[20:15:26] <Xirzon> here: at some point you'll need an implementation, obviously.
[20:15:27] <JamesF> WiseWoman> But I fully agree about multiple-sourcing.
[20:15:35] <CXI> the fact of the matter is that research doesn't actually cost that much
[20:15:41] <Xirzon> so even if you don't want to spend money on the design, you can at least spend
money on the code.
[20:15:44] <CXI> for us, anyway
[20:15:50] <WiseWoman> JamesF, can one ever be convinced of the veracity? We could go on about that
all night :-)
[20:15:54] <JamesF> CXI> You mean, volunteers' research costs nothing. :-)
[20:16:00] <Creidieki> I mean, if someone on the research board or development team decides they
need an O'Reilly book about something or "Inside Encyclopedia Britannica" or something,
they shouldn't have to pay for it themselves. I think we should have a modest book
budget (maybe $500 or $1000 per annum).
[20:16:20] <JamesF> WiseWoman> Eurgh, don't get me started. My uncle's a professor of the History
and Philosophy of Science. :-)
[20:16:20] <CXI> I mean that research when the researchers are unpaid and we're working with free
resources like wikimedia projects
[20:16:36] <Xirzon> I think the way the WRN can be primarily useful is in collaboratively
recommending a certain focus of development, and working on rough specifications.
[20:16:43] <JamesF> Creidieki> Possibly, but most of that kind of information is freely-available.
[20:16:46] * mav_______ (n=chatzill@c-71-56-70-11.hsd1.ga.comcast.net) has joined
#wikimedia-research
[20:16:51] <JamesF> Hello mav.
[20:16:55] <JamesF> Again.
[20:16:56] <Xirzon> I don't know to what extent money should go into the design and specification
process; I would certainly be in favor of it, but there are obviously problems.
[20:17:03] <mav_______> argh
[20:17:05] <Creidieki> JamesF, okay, maybe I'm the only one who like paper books anymore.
[20:17:07] <k1v1n> A good budget idea is one that Jakob raised. Maybe we should ask for funds to
subsidize graduate student travel to wikimania (and other meetings) to present results/
participate.
[20:17:12] <JamesF> Creidieki> No no, I love them. :-)
[20:17:18] <Eskimo> bounties could be a great way of making people work on these projects
[20:17:25] <JamesF> mav> Any ideas, before you crash again? :-)
[20:17:33] <Xirzon> Eskimo: not in the sense of "multiple people have to submit code and the first
one to do so gets the bounty"
[20:17:35] <Creidieki> JamesF, I agree that the information is freely available, but I think that
developers work more efficiently with the right reference books.
[20:17:44] <Xirzon> Eskimo: that's n ot a good model - a task has to be "locked" when someone is
working on it.
[20:18:00] * mav_______ is now known as maveric149
[20:18:02] <Eskimo> Xirzon> yes
[20:18:05] <Creidieki> Xirzon, why not? I've been trying to say that we should add a "Bounty" field
to every bug on Bugzilla.
[20:18:38] <Xirzon> Creidieki: because it is demotivating to start with - you don't know if someone
else will claim the money before you, and your work time therefore has been for nothing -
and if you lose, you might never do another task again.
[20:18:46] <Xirzon> Cooperation over competition.
[20:18:49] <Creidieki> People can't donate *towards a specific bug* right now. There are a lot of
bugs I care about, and would be willing to donate effort towards, but don't want to fix
myself.
[20:19:07] <JamesF> Creidieki> Bug 550, you mean? :-)
[20:19:07] <Xirzon> Contractual development like we do it for Wikidata now works.
[20:19:13] <Xirzon> Competitive bounties, I'm very skeptical of.
[20:19:30] <maveric149> can bugs be voted no?
[20:19:32] <maveric149> on
[20:19:41] <Xirzon> there's a voting system in bugzilla, yes
[20:19:41] <Eskimo> Creidieki> you can add a comment "I give $20 to the dev who fixes it" :)
[20:20:00] <Creidieki> Eskimo, I've tried that once or twice, but I really wish there were support
for it.
[20:20:02] <here> *earlier note about peer review versions on en:, actually [[Wikipedia:Stable
versions]]
[20:20:08] <maveric149> mini contracts would be better
[20:20:19] <Xirzon> here: there are tons of pages about peer review
[20:20:20] <Creidieki> I mean look at bug 550! 53 people have bothered to vote for it! Those
people *care* that it gets fixed.
[20:20:34] <maveric149> give somebody a task and tell them how much they will get paid beforehand
[20:20:46] <Xirzon> maveric149: exactly
[20:21:01] <maveric149> I'm all for that
[20:21:03] <Creidieki> I'd be okay with minicontracts as long as we have some way of harnessing
people's collective care.
[20:21:14] <Xirzon> Jimbo is not a big fan of mini-contracts.
[20:21:26] <Xirzon> That's why they've been mostly happening outside Wikimedia's care so far.
[20:21:36] <Xirzon> He believes in long-term employment as in Brion's case to reduce friction among
volunteers.
[20:21:57] <Xirzon> Of course, the problem with long-term eployment is how you decide the
priorities.
[20:22:08] <Xirzon> When does anyone tell Brion "implement bug 550"?
[20:22:08] <Eskimo> I guess Wikimedia can't hire an other dev ? :)
[20:22:28] <maveric149> looking at top-vote getters in bugzilla is one place to look
[20:22:54] <Xirzon> There is currently effectively no process for "telling Brion what to do".
[20:23:01] <maveric149> can't hire? No reason why not
[20:23:17] <maveric149> only Jimmy has that authority
[20:23:17] <Creidieki> We told him "keep the servers from catching on fire", right? Isn't that
what he's doing fulltime?
[20:23:29] <Xirzon> he's doing loads of different things.
[20:23:31] <maveric149> and working on MediaWiki
[20:23:50] <JamesF> Hmm.
[20:23:54] <Xirzon> bugfixing is a huge part of his mediawiki work.
[20:23:57] <JamesF> Yes.
[20:23:59] <Xirzon> and integration of incoming code.
[20:24:03] <JamesF> And security management, especially.
[20:24:05] <JamesF> Yes, that too.
[20:24:13] <JamesF> Integration alone is almost a full-time job.
[20:24:15] <Eskimo> so, we have to ask Santa Jimbo for a new dev
[20:24:23] <Xirzon> it's true that it would be good to have an additional developer who could focus
on new feature deveopment, yes.
[20:24:40] <JamesF> Xirzon> But they'd have to work very closely with Brion, so...
[20:24:50] <Xirzon> ask Tim
[20:24:55] <nichtich> we should ask brion for his opinion too
[20:25:05] <maveric149> Erik ; I've been pushing for just that
[20:25:43] <maveric149> I've already done a bit of ground work in that area
[20:26:03] <maveric149> it is up to the devs I asked and the board
[20:26:12] <nichtich> I bet we'll talk about a third or fourth developer next year in the same
way ;-)
[20:26:13] <maveric149> I can't say anything else
[20:26:14] <Xirzon> there still needs to be a process by which it is quickly decided what tasks
should be worked on.
[20:26:20] <Xirzon> with a new developer or without.
[20:26:25] <Creidieki> donations! Donations to a task!
[20:26:32] <JamesF> Xirzon> Only the Board can order Officers about.
[20:26:41] <Eskimo> this way, 2 problem are solved
[20:26:45] <Xirzon> JamesF: not scalable
[20:26:50] <here> xirzon: that would be extremely nice.
[20:26:52] <Eskimo> more donations, more features :d
[20:26:55] <maveric149> money should not direct developement; need and community want should
[20:27:03] * k1v1n (n=k1v1n@cpe-066-057-113-059.nc.res.rr.com) Quit (Remote closed the connection?)
[20:27:05] <JamesF> Xirzon> Then Chief Officers need to have sub-ordinates. That's how all
organisations work and scale.
[20:27:18] <JamesF> Dan> Absolutely.
[20:27:32] <Xirzon> JamesF: what the board could scale to do is approve recommendations by the WRN
[20:27:35] <brian0918> What are we talking about now?
[20:27:49] * k1v1n (n=k1v1n@cpe-066-057-113-059.nc.res.rr.com) has joined #wikimedia-research
[20:27:52] <Xirzon> perhaps together with the CTO
[20:27:52] <JamesF> Xirzon> We can always petition the Board to direct others, yes.
[20:28:13] <JamesF> But it's the Board's perrogative. It certainly isn't mine or the Network's. :-)
[20:28:20] <Creidieki> maveric149, I agree that a bug shouldn't be confirmed/accepted because of
money. But after it's been accepted as something that should be fixed, "community
willingness to donate money" starts to look a lot like "community need and want".
[20:28:21] <Xirzon> JamesF: not so much direct them in any specific way other than saying "do what
the WRN suggests"
[20:28:29] <JamesF> brian> How to focus developer activity.
[20:28:50] <JamesF> Xirzon> I think that that would be a mistake.
[20:28:56] <JamesF> We're here to advise and help develop.
[20:28:59] <Xirzon> I think a WRN consensus approach might be cooler than just using votes to figure
out what should be done.
[20:29:07] <JamesF> Not decide exactly what should be done and how.
[20:29:11] <Xirzon> The WRN can look at votes, but it can also look at feasibiity.
[20:29:11] <maveric149> I just don't want to see rich individuals try to push through features that
are not popular or needed
[20:29:16] <Xirzon> It can look at overall importance etc.
[20:29:39] <Xirzon> JamesF: who decides then?
[20:29:46] <JamesF> It's very much not our place to want to ask the dev.s to do feature development
when the wiki is falling down.
[20:30:02] <Creidieki> maveric149, at the moment, individuals who are good programmers can already
use their resources to "push through" features, by donating patches. How would that be
different?
[20:30:03] <Xirzon> that's why the CTO would have to approve all recommendations
[20:30:06] <JamesF> Xirzon> Brion is his own master except where directed by the Board, just as I
am.
[20:30:16] <Xirzon> (the CTO is Brion, for the record)
[20:30:17] <JamesF> Xirzon> And just as all the other Officers are. :-)
[20:30:24] <JamesF> No.
[20:30:27] <JamesF> Brion is the CDO.
[20:30:33] <Xirzon> the what now?
[20:30:34] <JamesF> Domas is the CHO.
[20:30:40] <JamesF> Chief Development Officer.
[20:30:44] <Xirzon> silly title
[20:30:49] <JamesF> No, specific title.
[20:31:02] <Xirzon> in any case, he could look at WRN recommendations and decide whether he agrees
or not.
[20:31:14] <maveric149> Creidieki ; I trust the devs to do what is right ; the way things are right
now works fine; add money to the mix and things could go very very wrong
[20:31:15] <JamesF> "Technology" includes Hardware (Domas), Development (Brion), even Research (me).
[20:31:17] <Xirzon> if he agrees, the board might or might not have to give its stamp of approval.
[20:31:18] <WiseWoman> So what are we recommending?
[20:31:21] <JamesF> mav> Exactly.
[20:31:45] <JamesF> Xirzon> Brion's a member of the Network too, and I talk with him about
developments all the time.
[20:31:56] <JamesF> Xirzon> But I don't want us to think that we can order other people about. :-)
[20:32:04] <Xirzon> JamesF: that's good. now how do you get a specific thing like single login
*done*?
[20:32:05] <Creidieki> maveric149, I don't agree that things are fine now. I care a lot about
wikimedia, there are bugs and missing features that plague me constantly, and in order
to help out with that I would have to delve into the Wikimedia source and spend 1-2
weeks getting up to speed.
[20:32:33] <JamesF> Xirzon> By asking Brion to do it, and him managing somehow to find the time
despite all the other pressures.
[20:32:38] <maveric149> we just have to be careful, that is all
[20:32:40] <Xirzon> it's not about ordering people around, it's about having a consensus process
for deciding wha tto do.
[20:32:56] <Creidieki> maveric149, maybe we could have the chief developers "open a bug for
donations" or something.
[20:32:57] <JamesF> Xirzon> It's not about consensus, it's about what the Board wants.
[20:33:02] <maveric149> I'm leaning toward Erik's view
[20:33:19] <Xirzon> JamesF: slow down, you can't have it both ways. either you have to talk to the
board or you don't. which is it?
[20:33:27] <maveric149> Creid; that could work
[20:33:28] <JamesF> Xirzon> What?
[20:33:34] <Creidieki> Um, sorry for the newbie question, but is Erik one of the people currently
here?
[20:33:43] * mav (n=chatzill@c-71-56-70-11.hsd1.ga.comcast.net) Quit (Connection timed out?)
[20:33:45] <Xirzon> Creidieki: that would be me
[20:33:56] <Creidieki> Xirzon, okay, I was wondering. Thanks.
[20:33:56] <JamesF> Creidieki> Possible, but still has the Iwant-noIwant-noIwant issue.
[20:34:00] <Xirzon> in the case of single login, I'd say you have to get both the board's approval
and brion's consensus
[20:34:10] <Xirzon> in the case of a minor but important feature, it might be enough to just get
brion's consensus
[20:34:18] <WiseWoman> Why don't we invent "Wikimoney"?
[20:34:20] <Creidieki> JamesF, in terms of multiple developers trying to solve the problem at once?
[20:34:26] <JamesF> Creidieki> Yeah.
[20:34:36] <maveric149> we could just add it to the budget
[20:34:37] <WiseWoman> People get paid "Wikidollars" for working on something, or Wikicents for
trivial little things.
[20:35:01] <Xirzon> we had that :)
[20:35:04] <WiseWoman> People can put some of their Wikimoney towards getting bugs fixed or for
getting an article on a topic written.
[20:35:09] <JamesF> Xirzon> What I mean is, the Research Network cannot demand something to be done
- it can ask the CDO, or ask the Board to demand of the CDO. I'm sure we're in agreement
here.
[20:35:11] <Xirzon> WikiMoney. It was a spectacular failure
[20:35:18] <JamesF> WiseWoman> We tried that 3 years ago or so.
[20:35:22] <JamesF> It failed horribly.
[20:35:25] <here> wow, any pointers?
[20:35:26] <JamesF> No-one cared.
[20:35:27] <Xirzon> JamesF: I used the term "recommendations"
[20:35:27] <maveric149> CDO?
[20:35:31] <here> called wikimoney?
[20:35:33] <JamesF> mav> Brion. ;-)
[20:35:36] <JamesF> here> Yes.
[20:35:47] <JamesF> here> Designated by a phi symbol, IIRC.
[20:35:55] <Creidieki> WiseWoman, the normal users need a lot of features added. Developers don't
necessarily need as many articles edited.
[20:35:57] <WiseWoman> Then there is a defined method for getting WIkimoney payed out in cash :-)
[20:35:59] <JamesF> Xirzon> That's why were' in agreement.
[20:36:14] <JamesF> Umm.
[20:36:14] <WiseWoman> JamesF, maybe it would work better now? Why did it fail?
[20:36:17] <JamesF> s/were'/we're/
[20:36:18] * maveric149 is now known as mav
[20:36:43] <JamesF> WiseWoman> No-one cared about earning wikimoney, really. It's somewhat counter-
cultural to the volunteer mentality.
[20:36:43] <Xirzon> ok. So it's basically clear what needs to be done -
[20:36:50] <Creidieki> JamesF, that's a difficult problem.
[20:37:04] <JamesF> Creidieki> Yes.
[20:37:08] <Xirzon> a) as soon as the budget is there, hire another full-time developer who can
focus more on feature development
[20:37:28] <Creidieki> JamesF, I'll spend some time thinking about that and get back to you.
[20:37:32] <Xirzon> b) the wrn together with the devs tries to hack out specs for things that are
worth implementing and submits them either to the paid devs, the board, or both.
[20:37:36] <JamesF> Creidieki> Cool. :-)
[20:38:46] <Xirzon> as for what specs, I suggest that the single login stuff is pushed forward, and
after that, focus could shift towards crucial issues like peer review.
[20:39:33] <mav> how about a list of development priorities?
[20:39:56] <Xirzon> There is [[m:Development tasks]].
[20:40:26] <mav> I'm moreso interested in seeing something come from this dept
[20:40:42] <mav> a needs/wants/wish list
[20:40:50] <Xirzon> yep
[20:41:37] <k1v1n> it would be nice to see some of the reporting tools that Erik and Jakob have done
built into mediawiki. Where people could manipulate variables and get different views,
etc.
[20:41:39] <mav> we could then ask the devs to look at that and tell us just how hard it will be to
do each item
[20:41:55] <mav> then we can plan
[20:42:12] <WiseWoman> I have to go, have a nice rest-of-chat!
[20:42:17] <Xirzon> bye WiseWoman !
[20:42:22] <mav> bye :)
[20:42:23] <here> bye wisewoman
[20:42:26] * WiseWoman (n=weberwu@p54BD000A.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) has left #wikimedia-research
[20:42:27] <Creidieki> Have fun, WiseWoman.
[20:42:29] <Creidieki> drat.
[20:42:30] <JamesF> mav> "The Network should in future discuss and come to agreement on priorities
in the non-critical task list (that is, other than bugs, security holes, etc.), possibly
stratified (needs/wants/wouldbenice/wishes) and with dependency links ("centralised
inter-wikis depends on Wikidata and Single User Login")."
[20:42:48] <JamesF> mav> Just written to
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network/Meetings/2005-12-03#Summary
[20:42:57] <mav> cool :)
[20:43:12] <Xirzon> mav: by when do you think a new developer position is realistic?
[20:43:13] <JamesF> This writing-the-minutes-as-you-go works quite well with IRC meetings, actually.
[20:43:23] <mav> next quarter
[20:43:32] <nichtich> k1v1n: I better prefer to keep tools seperate and plug them to MediaWiki using
interfaces . The XML dump is such an "interface"
[20:43:46] <Creidieki> I imagine we'll have a good idea after this fundraiser?
[20:43:47] <mav> but that depends on if Jimmy wants to hire other people as well
[20:44:12] <Creidieki> (Does anyone know where the fundraiser details are, btw? I haven't been able
to find anything except the #Wikipedia title message.)
[20:44:37] <JamesF> Creidieki> Mav knows, but it's Secret. Or something. :-)
[20:44:42] <mav> :)
[20:44:51] * JamesF looks all conspiratorial.
[20:44:54] <mav> the fund drive starts on Friday 9 December
[20:45:04] <JamesF> Ah, it's public knowledge now?
[20:45:09] <mav> there is a page for it on meta
[20:45:15] <JamesF> (Well, it definitely is /now/, but...)
[20:45:16] <JamesF> Ah.
[20:45:25] <delphine> it's always been
[20:45:27] <delphine> ;)
[20:45:29] <mav> I'm going to announce that after this meeting
[20:45:35] <delphine> JamesF you're to much in the secret stuff
[20:45:35] * JamesF nods.
[20:45:39] <delphine> *too
[20:45:47] <JamesF> delphine> Yes, but I forget everything. So... :-D
[20:45:49] * cimon (n=cimon@wikipedia/Cimon-avaro) has joined #wikimedia-research
[20:45:58] <JamesF> Hello cimon.
[20:46:06] <mav> actually, it was already annoced after the last board meeting, but we pushed the
date back a week since then
[20:46:07] <JamesF> I think we're sort-of finishing up right now, actually. :-)
[20:46:12] <cimon> hello, my crappy ISP is crap
[20:46:23] <here> would anyone like to comment on the share watchlists idea
[20:46:24] <here> ?
[20:46:24] <JamesF> cimon> Ah.
[20:46:32] <mav> my IRC connection is crap
[20:46:49] <JamesF> here> Isn't that mostly a thing Cormac is interested in? He sent his
apologies...
[20:46:58] <mav> oh god ; shared watchlists? that would kill the servers
[20:47:00] <here> actually i rewrote the whole page
[20:47:04] <here> mostly my deal
[20:47:08] <JamesF> Ah, OK.
[20:47:14] <here> [[m:Share watchlists]]
[20:47:16] <Xirzon> mav: not necessarily
[20:47:30] <JamesF> mav> You want a budget? We could just demand more servers! ;-)
[20:47:36] <here> i think rather than code changes, a script workaround to easily copy users
watchlists to a subpage would be best
[20:47:41] <here> (not a priority)
[20:47:47] <cimon> are you going to post th log?
[20:47:58] <JamesF> cimon> Yes, of course.
[20:48:04] <cimon> nice
[20:48:13] <JamesF> cimon> In-promptu minutes are already up at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network/Meetings/2005-12-03
[20:48:26] <JamesF> Lagging behind the discussion by about 10 minutes or so, as I get around to it.
[20:48:55] <JamesF> here> Would shared watchlists be part of a multiple-watchlist system?
[20:49:05] <here> not necessarily.
[20:49:10] <JamesF> here> So you'd have a few private and maybe a few public watchlists.
[20:49:15] <JamesF> "High vandalism targets".
[20:49:21] <JamesF> "Policies"
[20:49:26] <here> actually i'd like to see users actual watchlists shared.
[20:49:30] <JamesF> Might be general public lists.
[20:49:34] <here> not necessarily thematically
[20:50:00] <here> see on [[en:User:Here/watchlist]]
[20:50:02] <JamesF> Whereas "stuff I've been editing and/or have randomly watch-listed" would be a
private list (and what we all currently have).
[20:50:11] <Angela> a form of shared watchlists exists at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Watch
[20:50:17] <Angela> I don't know if they're widely used though.
[20:50:26] <Xirzon> here: so why have you been watching [[gay midget photography]] exactly?
[20:50:27] <k1v1n> i like the idea of people sharing their watchlist. That would be like
del.icio.us bookmark sharing. That could be interesting. Who else is interested in what
you're interested in.
[20:50:31] <here> "stuff I've been editing and/or have randomly watch-listed" is exactly what I want
to see
[20:50:32] <here> and share
[20:50:34] <nichtich> How about letting each user define the status of his watchlist?
[20:50:40] <JamesF> Xirzon> Certainly, yes, there are privacy issues.
[20:50:46] <here> k1v1n exactly, i think we are missing a huge community builder here
[20:50:49] <k1v1n> who else watches this page...
[20:50:56] <Angela> Sorry, that might be the wrong link. It seems mostly about schools. There was
another one by topic.
[20:50:57] * mav_ (n=chatzill@c-71-56-70-11.hsd1.ga.comcast.net) has joined #wikimedia-research
[20:50:58] <here> it is absolutely opt-in first and foremost
[20:51:14] * Solensean is now known as Solaway
[20:51:21] <cimon> xirzon: and why do you care? :P
[20:51:39] <here> xirzon: because i'm interested, or editted it.
[20:51:42] * mav_ is now known as maveric149
[20:51:56] <Xirzon> cimon: people who are nosy about the interests of others rarely have a
justification
[20:51:58] <here> i think that the privacy issue is way overblown here, and that enough folks would
actually be into this.
[20:52:15] <Xirzon> those who want to share their watchlist can put it on their user page already.
[20:52:19] <Xirzon> and use related changes.
[20:52:19] <here> the results would be a user-user network of watched pages (both friends, enemies,
leaders, etc)
[20:52:28] <here> xirzon, no one does this as it takes too much effort.
[20:52:39] <here> all of these concerns are addressed at [[m:Share watchlists]]
[20:52:46] <here> including summary of an extensive discussion from 2003
[20:53:03] <here> what is needed is an easy script workaround and uses for the resulting data
[20:53:06] <JamesF> here> Multiple lists could allow "non-privacy-invading" sub-lists, perhaps.
[20:53:17] <maveric149> shared whitelists would be a better idea
[20:53:18] <nichtich> It should be able to 1) opt-in to publish your watchlist 2) add/remove single
articles to you public watchlist
[20:53:19] <Angela> I'm not sure that sort of network would be useful. If you look at social
networking sites, a lot of people have the sole aim of getting 1000 people on their
friends list. With shared watchlists, the aim might turn from watching for vandalism to
trying to show who your "friends" are in the hope they watch your page too.
[20:53:31] <here> hmm.. perhaps i really am overestimating individuals willingness to share
everything on their list
[20:53:41] <JamesF> Angela> Yeah, there is that.
[20:53:53] <here> nichtich: that would be nice, but not necessary
[20:54:09] <here> angela: i think that noise would be minimal and/or interesting
[20:54:32] <maveric149> my watchlist is already too big ; why would I want to add somebody else's
watchlist to that?
[20:54:35] <nichtich> Maybe you want to publish your watchlist but not [[gay midget photography]]
[20:54:42] <brian0918> It seems like shared watchlists could end up being used to push agendas in
the same was as AIW or ADW
[20:54:55] <nichtich> what is AIW / ADW?
[20:54:58] <here> there is also the ability to see what others are watching, ideally through an xm
l output, and even see their related changes.
[20:55:09] <Angela> It could also lead to accusations of stalking if you're watching a lot of stuff
that another user edits a lot.
[20:55:09] <brian0918> Association of Inclusionist/Deletionist Wikipedians
[20:55:09] <k1v1n> the reason people opt in on del.icio.us is not to connect with other individuals,
it is to find what other people with similar interests also find interesting. It's a
mechanism to "discover" new and interesting things.
[20:55:31] <brian0918> They point like-minded people's attention to votes on AFD in the hopes to
corral votes in their favor
[20:55:31] * Eskimo (n=Eskimo@wikipedia/Eskimo) Quit (Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer)?)
[20:55:40] <brian0918> Shared watchlists would probably do the same thing.
[20:55:40] <here> k1v1n: exactly.
[20:55:44] <Angela> we have WikiProjects to discover those things and for people working on similar
topics to "meet"
[20:56:10] <Xirzon> Angela: the thing about WikiProjects is that they exist in the wiki namespace
and are reviewed to be in line with our policy goals
[20:56:13] <here> would anyone present be interested in sharing their entire watchlist (other than
myself?)
[20:56:30] <Xirzon> I'm not sure that would be the case with the way any shared watchlist system is
used that is layered on top of everything else
[20:56:39] <k1v1n> sure.
[20:56:44] <nichtich> Do we speak about sharing or just making it accesible like user contributions?
[20:56:52] <Xirzon> if it's just a software feature rather than integrated into the site properly,
there is the serious risk of it being used to coordinate sock puppetry, GNAA and other
nonsense
[20:56:56] <here> accesible, in that meaning.
[20:57:06] <here> xirzon: how?
[20:57:26] <Xirzon> here: groups forming and using their shared watchlists to coordinate votes,
reverts, etc.
[20:57:38] <nichtich> I'm waiting for a method to get my watchlist as RSS for years - so you can
combine watchlists from several wikis
[20:57:49] <Xirzon> here: don't get me wrong - I think *grouping* is essential, and better tools for
grouping are a good thing to work towards.
[20:57:49] <here> xir: seems like that would be equally possible on the positive side?
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[20:58:00] <here> nicht: this is highly related to watchlist RSS feeds.
[20:58:17] <Xirzon> here: I'm not necessarily opposed to shared watchlists on principle. I just
think what goes on should be transparent - the groups that form should be public, just as
the watchlists themselves.
[20:58:37] * k1v1n (n=k1v1n@cpe-066-057-113-059.nc.res.rr.com) has joined #wikimedia-research
[20:58:41] <Xirzon> and then I'm not sure if what we have with wikiprojects is not already very
close to those goals.
[20:59:08] * soufron5 (n=soufron@vol75-8-82-233-239-57.fbx.proxad.net) has joined
#wikimedia-research
[20:59:31] <here> I'm just extremely curious what watchlist networks actually look like
[20:59:35] <nichtich> Xirzon: do you think of groups as watchlists that are owned by multiple
people?
[20:59:43] <Xirzon> nichtich: yes
[21:00:03] <Xirzon> that's one example of what could constitute a group
[21:00:05] <here> i think it could provide insight into community, how people use watchlists, and
sharing difficult to find pages -- without much negative
[21:00:11] <Xirzon> but wikiprojects already do this to some extent using topic lists
[21:00:18] <Xirzon> which are then checked using Related changes.
[21:00:36] <Xirzon> you can do this for categories, too.
[21:00:45] <nichtich> Categories are also a way to group articles and make them watchable
[21:00:47] <JamesF> Yes.
[21:00:54] * sannse (i=sannse@wikipedia/Sannse) Quit (Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer)?)
[21:01:24] <Xirzon> group-forming will be very relevant when it comes to peer review, because then
you have to notify people that an article in an area they're an expert in is under
review.
[21:01:25] <nichtich> but it's much more easier to add/remove an article to a watchlist than to
add/remove a category
[21:01:37] <here> nichtich: precisely.
[21:01:52] <Xirzon> nichtich: maybe it should be made easier to add categories then ;-)
[21:02:02] <nichtich> Xirzon: I agree to yoir sentence before "because"
[21:02:02] <here> again "those random pages on your watchlist" is exactly why this is significantly
different than groups and/or related changes vaults.
[21:02:17] <JamesF> Hmm.
[21:02:26] <here> and why manually copying this info is not enough, b/c no one will do it.
[21:02:44] <nichtich> Xirzon: that also
[21:03:09] <Xirzon> here: I'm sure plenty of the researchers here will be interested to look at
the patterns in watchlist data, yes.
[21:03:30] <Xirzon> that's more of an academic project without an immediate practical benefit we
can predict, I think.
[21:03:50] <here> xirzon: yes, i would agree
[21:04:07] <JamesF> That's another thing, BTW.
[21:04:11] <JamesF> On the agenda.
[21:04:20] <nichtich> Xirzon: but we don't want vandals to know wich pages are not watched
[21:04:33] <JamesF> How to reconcile analysis of watchlist data with our privacy policy.
[21:04:41] <JamesF> But we can skip that for now.
[21:04:43] <Xirzon> nichtich: not sure - if we are faster than the vandals (and we are more) we
can make sure that they are.
[21:04:45] <JamesF> It's quite late.
[21:04:49] <Xirzon> but a thing which could be done fairly quickly
[21:04:52] <JamesF> This meeting is starting to drag a little.
[21:04:59] * mav (n=chatzill@wikipedia/maveric194) Quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)?)
[21:05:06] <Xirzon> is to basically implement an opt-in for sharing watch lists, and then export
all those which are shared, and let them be analyzed by researchers.
[21:05:07] <JamesF> ... as Mav crashes.
[21:05:27] <here> ok, well thanks for the feedback.... i'll try to garner more support and work on
a script workaround.
[21:05:35] <here> any tips or resources for such a script would be appreciated.
[21:05:43] <JamesF> Xirzon> Previous meetings have seem to come the the consensus that opt-in
watchlists are by their very nature inappropriately skewed.
[21:05:55] <here> jamesF: i don't see any other way of doing it.
[21:05:56] <nichtich> Do we agree that some method to opt-in to publish your watchlist is wished
(and maybe more functionality)?
[21:06:10] <here> necessary evil of self selection, same as many systematic bias issues here
[21:06:29] <k1v1n> it probably should be an opt-in for each item on your watchlist that you would
be willing to share.
[21:06:44] <JamesF> here> Just take the data and have the data analysed by a trusted party (one of
the developers, perhaps) running provided scripts and returning only the results?
[21:06:45] <Xirzon> JamesF: Yes, it's probably uselessly skewed if you wanted to do a study on, say,
relations between articles on sexual topics
[21:06:52] <here> k1v1n, perhaps -- but honestly i'd reather encourage full disclosure.
[21:06:54] <Xirzon> JamesF: but that doesn't mean any analysis of it would be worthless.
[21:06:57] <JamesF> Xirzon> And thus high-view topics.
[21:07:03] <nichtich> JamesF: you can better anonymize the data
[21:07:08] <here> if that had been the case upon arrival, it would be the norm, and the network
would be heavily used!
[21:07:09] <k1v1n> you might want to share some (say a research watch page, but not a political
watch page), but not all.
[21:07:11] <JamesF> Xirzon> 'Cos our sex-related topics are well-read.
[21:07:14] <here> (full watchlist sharing)
[21:07:27] <JamesF> nichtich> Not really. Almost users will watchlist their own page.
[21:07:35] <Xirzon> JamesF: and well-illustrated.
[21:07:36] <k1v1n> there are sex pages on Wikipedia? I had no idea.
[21:07:41] <nichtich> damn
[21:07:53] <here> heck, even anonymous sharing would be fine!
[21:07:53] <cimon> just have a statistical breakdown; page watched by x byroucrats, Y admins, and
z logged in users.
[21:07:58] <JamesF> nichtich> Certainly, there will be a very strong correlation between the edits
they make (public information, don't forget), and the pages they watch.
[21:07:59] * soufron (n=soufron@vol75-8-82-233-239-57.fbx.proxad.net) Quit (No route to host?)
[21:08:14] <nichtich> The number of watchers of each page is already very interesting for reasearch
and us
[21:08:19] <JamesF> nichtich> I think that it is /very/ unlikely that you couldn't guess who my
watch list is of, for instance.
[21:08:28] <JamesF> Yes, exactly.
[21:08:36] <nichtich> JamesF: you're right
[21:08:38] <JamesF> But we seemingly can't release the watchlist data publically.
[21:08:45] <k1v1n> true, anonymous would work although a person could probably put two-and-two
together by looking at the edits.
[21:08:54] <JamesF> So we'd have to have a developer (or me, or someone) do that part of it.
[21:08:57] <here> k1v1n: true.
[21:09:04] <JamesF> k1v1n> Exactly.
[21:09:09] <nichtich> But opt-in data with gaps is better than no data
[21:09:11] <Xirzon> oh, one big skewing factor would be people who have the [ ] Watch all my edits
option turned on.
[21:09:17] <JamesF> nichtich> Yes.
[21:09:20] <Xirzon> You'd probably want to filter based on that.
[21:09:23] <JamesF> Xirzon> Yes, like me.
[21:09:35] <here> Xirzon: that data is important.
[21:09:36] <JamesF> Xirzon> Except I switch it off as appropriate.
[21:09:49] <Xirzon> here: yeah, but you want to be able to analyze it separately
[21:09:50] <here> again, how people use them, and "all that random junk"
[21:09:51] <cimon> JamesF: it would be useful to have even the watchlist data of a sampling of pages
,, not all of them...
[21:09:55] <k1v1n> good research there on what people are willing and not willing to share.
[21:09:57] <JamesF> Xirzon> Pages I edit but /don't/ watch is probably quite interesting, actually.
[21:10:07] <JamesF> cimon> Interesting idea.
[21:10:36] <here> Bug 727: Number of watching users per page to be shown on recent changes
[21:10:42] <here> (fixed using Enotif)
[21:11:14] <cimon> maybe not identifying even the article in question but for the category it
belongs to, and/or the length of it and/or the number of incoming and exiting links...
[21:12:00] <cimon> if you obscure the title of the article, and the identity of the persons watching
it, there is no privacy issue
[21:12:22] <here> what data is left?
[21:12:29] <cimon> quite a bit.
[21:12:45] <here> #watchers alongside other individual article metrics?
[21:13:02] <cimon> right, sort of..
[21:13:17] <JamesF> cimon> And it also becomes almost useless.
[21:13:30] <JamesF> Well.
[21:13:36] <cimon> I don't necessarily agree. :)
[21:13:44] <JamesF> Unless you also record number of bytes and number of categories, or whatever.
[21:13:52] <JamesF> At which point the original problem strikes again.
[21:14:05] <JamesF> Because you can work out backwards from that point which article you've got data
for.
[21:14:51] <JamesF> And with a dozen articles it wouldn't be a problem, but with a random 10% of the
database, say, you could see what the anonymous "editor #34576" watches, and guess who
they were.
[21:14:56] <JamesF> Again breaking privacy.
[21:15:00] <JamesF> It's a bugger of a problem.
[21:15:41] <JamesF> OK, well.
[21:15:45] <JamesF> We seem to have stopped.
[21:15:49] <JamesF> Yes?
[21:15:52] <nichtich> yes
[21:15:52] <here> thanks for sticking around for that ;)
[21:15:56] * Solaway is now known as Solensean
[21:16:10] <JamesF> OK, if there's nothing else, I will declare this meeting closed.
[21:16:17] <JamesF> Yes?
[21:16:22] * here nods
[21:16:24] <Xirzon> aye
[21:16:24] <k1v1n> soundg good.
[21:16:27] <JamesF> OK, closed.
