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    • CommentRowNumber1.
    • CommentAuthorMichael Hardy
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2010
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLab

    At the URL above I created a Wikipedia article about nLab yesterday. It would be a longer article if I knew anything. Those reading this can doubtless contribute a lot more to it than I can.

    One thing you don't see by looking at the article becomes visible by clicking on "what links here". You see a list of Wikipedia pages that includes (1) Wikipedia articles (currently 13 of them); (2) redirect pages (currently three of them); (3) Wikipedia user pages (currently three of them: mine, that of David M. Roberts, and that of a bot that keeps track of changes in Wikipedia math articles; (4) the Mathematics WikiProject's discussion page. Formerly there was also (5) a list of articles for which "speedy deletion" was proposed; the article survived that challenge. If you go to "namespace" and choose "Article" you see see the 13 items in (1) and the three times in (2). I created 12 of the 13 links from articles by doing a search and finding articles that already mentioned nLab. None of them actually linked to it already. (It is neither necessary nor desirable to restrict links to articles that already exist.) I also created the redirects and that is a prudent step often neglected by people who create new Wikipedia articles.

    Besides contributing to the article itself, finding other articles that should link to it and putting the links there would also make Wikipedia more informative about nLab.
    • CommentRowNumber2.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2010

    Dear Michael H,

    thanks a lot for all this work!

    I could certainly add something to the wiki page you created. But now I am getting curious about how other people will describe what we have here.

    I find it already very interesting that the first name publically associated with the nLab is apparently “John Baez”.

    • CommentRowNumber3.
    • CommentAuthorAndrew Stacey
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2010

    I could certainly add something to the wiki page you created.

    I guess we all could, but isn’t that somewhat against the wikipedia ethos? I thought one wasn’t supposed to write about something one actually knew something about! (sorry)

    More seriously, I know that I wouldn’t really know what someone from outside the nLab would expect to learn from the wikipedia page. As you know more about wikipedia than at least I do, maybe you could help us on that. Or if you’re planning on working on it a bit more (I don’t wish to presume), you could ask us questions here and then decide how to interpret what we say into something useful over there.

    • CommentRowNumber4.
    • CommentAuthorTobyBartels
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010
    • (edited May 6th 2010)

    You’re not supposed to write things in Wikipedia that are promotional, and you’re supposed to back them up from secondary sources. See Wikipedia:Verifiability.

    There are some other rules besides verifiability and neutrality, but they’re silly ones.

    PS: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/nLab.

    • CommentRowNumber5.
    • CommentAuthorMichael Hardy
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010
    Not all of the rules are silly. For example, it's considered a bad thing to leave the reader wondering what the article is about after reading the first several sentences (not so unusual with articles written by newbies). There are also rules against copyright violations, which cease to be silly if lawsuits are filed.
    • CommentRowNumber6.
    • CommentAuthorEric
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010

    A page about the nLab without mentioning Urs is not a page about the nLab.

    • CommentRowNumber7.
    • CommentAuthorMichael Hardy
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010
    Feel free to add something about him to the article. As I said, I'd have written more if I had known more.
    • CommentRowNumber8.
    • CommentAuthorEric
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010

    Sorry if that was curt. I was running out the door. I have never had a good experience with editing wikipedia, i.e. no matter how sensible whatever I wrote was immediately deleted. I’ll pass :)

    • CommentRowNumber9.
    • CommentAuthorMichael Hardy
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010
    Eric, can you be specific? What did you add to Wikipedia that got deleted?
    • CommentRowNumber10.
    • CommentAuthorEric
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010

    It was many years ago. It was a pretty innocuous addition, but was almost immediately removed. It turned me off so badly, I never returned :)

    • CommentRowNumber11.
    • CommentAuthorMichael Hardy
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010
    In February and March 2007, there was a period lasting about six weeks during which various idiots who felt they were protecting Wikipedia from vandals and idiots instantly deleted new mathematics articles on the grounds that they were gibberish. Could that be when that happened?
    • CommentRowNumber12.
    • CommentAuthorMichael Hardy
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010
    .....or maybe it was 2008?
    • CommentRowNumber13.
    • CommentAuthorEric
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010

    Could be :)

    By the way, welcome to the n-Neighborhood :)

    I’ve been SOOOOOO busy lately, my comments have been in 15 second spurts between tasks, but wanted to say I’m always happy to see someone new around here. Especially someone so experienced with wikis. The only thing I’d note (as if it wasn’t obvious) is that we intentionally/explicitly try NOT to be like wikipedia, e.g. see nPOV :)

    • CommentRowNumber14.
    • CommentAuthorMichael Hardy
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010
    The other really conspicuous difference between this place and Wikipedia is that Wikipedia forbids original research (construed as things that are first published in Wikipedia).
    • CommentRowNumber15.
    • CommentAuthorMichael Hardy
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2010
    What user name did you use on Wikipedia?
    • CommentRowNumber16.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010

    5 said:

    There are also rules against copyright violations, which cease to be silly if lawsuits are filed.

    They are still silly as they are so extremely cautious that they will never move the boundary. Most of the changes in the basic US legislative system, e.g. the cease of segregation has occured within the lgeal system after there was pressure and activism on the street. If one does not touch boundaries boundaries will never be moved and the present copyright system is obsolete to absurdity, especially in science. For example, people who own LP records (plastic sheets) with certain music song, when the technology changes and CDs come has to rebuy the same song again, and is not entitled to move the technological medium. Sometimes one owns 3-4 technologies with bought rights for the same thing. Next we pay certain tax on all media which goes to record companies on the basis that some people pirate music, even if we use the media to record our own data. So people who makes their own pictures and store them to CDs pay royalties just because the democracy in congresses is compromised by the legalized corruption system which is called lobying. Loby groups are just a way to do legal corruption and they are used extensively by royalty owners.

    • CommentRowNumber17.
    • CommentAuthorHarry Gindi
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010

    Amen, brother.

    • CommentRowNumber18.
    • CommentAuthorFinnLawler
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010

    @Zoran #16

    +1

    • CommentRowNumber19.
    • CommentAuthorIan_Durham
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2010

    For example, people who own LP records (plastic sheets) with certain music song, when the technology changes and CDs come has to rebuy the same song again, and is not entitled to move the technological medium.



    Yeah, but everyone does that. They even sell USB-compatible phonographs for copying your LPs now. When Apple first came out with the iPod they even marketed it as a place to copy your CDs to. What gets me is that, back in the '80s, at least in the States and in Canada, the "mix tape" was all the rage and the recording industry didn't lift a finger. But now that it's easier to keep track of people, they're essentially complaining about the same thing. What gets me even more is that, by ignoring what happened in the '80s, they should have legally given up their rights to complain now (the "precedent" argument, or whatever lawyers call it) but no one ever argues that point.

    Sorry for the rant.