Wikipedia talk:History of Wikipedian processes and people

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Contents 1 Initial credits 2 Contents 3 should this page exist? 4 A super-trivial bit of trivia 5 Stub History 6 Vandals

[edit] Initial credits

This article was started in response to suggestions made on Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost between April 19 and April 21, 2005 by llywrch, cesarb, Sam Spade, and ALoan. --Theo (Talk) 11:09, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Contents

Maybe meta:History of Wikipedia should have more of this sort of information?

Btw, the ==notable contributors== section will be a nightmare to get right. Pcb21| Pete 11:46, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I imagine that this article will go into greater detail than is appropriate to meta:History of Wikipedia. Getting ==notable contributors== right seems like a challenge to which the wiki process is ideally suited; it does need to say why each entry is notable, however. --Theo (Talk) 13:42, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The article on meta is well, just an article on meta, so there is no reason why this sort of detail is inappropriate. Maybe this page should mention that this sort of page used to go meta, but now tends to end up on en: :-). Pcb21| Pete 14:37, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I see this article being specific to EN-WP, whereas Meta is about the broader picture and just happens to be wriiten in English. I would welcome opinions from other editors more experienced than I. --Theo (Talk) 14:56, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Re notable contributors, how do you envisage the list comparing (in size and overlap) to the list of wikipedians by number of edits (~1100 names)?. Pcb21| Pete 14:37, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I see this section being mainly about editors who are notable for something other than making many edits or being around a long time. The section title is probably too broad. "Notable gnomes" is an appealling oxymoron—and also too narrow. I imagine it to contain 50-100 names and I expect it to spin off into its own article. --Theo (Talk) 14:56, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've commented out the list until someone can go in and give descriptions about why those users are especially notable in a way not reflected by Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. - BanyanTree 14:59, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] should this page exist?

Ok can anyone tell me how this page fits within policy?Geni 15:08, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you can tell us what policy you think prevents it? Pcb21| Pete 15:21, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Project namespace defines the wikipedia namespace as "a namespace that provides information about Wikipedia." wikipedia is defined as "a Web-based, free-content encyclopedia". Other than that I think in time there are pretty good odds the desruption rule may become an issue Geni 21:12, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Interesting that meta was invented for pages like this. Pcb21| Pete 21:17, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

ones that are praticaly garentted to cause trouble and disstact from the aim of creating an enclyopedia?Geni 21:52, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wow that's a lot of typos :) And yes lots of pages on meta have caused controversy, and if you knew more of the history of Wikipedia, you'd know that :). Pcb21| Pete 22:05, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

err no I need to know about the last 3 weeks on wikipedia to know thatGeni 22:24, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that this article is tantamount to a history of the culture of Wikipedia. Such a history is "information about Wikipedia" just as an article about Henry Ford and the production line is information about the motor car.

[edit] A super-trivial bit of trivia

Ordinarily I would be far too modest (yeah right :-) to mention this, but the parallels with the mailing list debate "who thought of Wikipedia", make me think I can get away with it. Tu ba su is currently listed as the creator of the exploding whales theme... the original content was actually in Sperm Whale and written by me way back in the day. Tu ba of course had the creative brilliance to expand that little nugget into a comprehensive survey of whale explosions. Pcb21| Pete 20:48, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

{{sofixit}}! Create a new section about the history of that famous article and tell the whole history of how it was created. It is probably one of the most influential articles on Wikipedia, and deserves its own section. --cesarb 21:17, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stub History

The term "stub" in the Wikipedia context was created by Larry Sanger, and existed since day one of the 'pedia. When I arrived in Sept 2001 I began to collect stubs in my private notes. Bear in mind that we had no categories, namespaces, or any other useful organisational tools, so in November 2001 I began a period of major organisational development.

During this time (Nov 2001) I transferred my collection of stubs to Find or Fix a Stub. I also created Wikipedia Utilities which was the first collection of a number of editor resources (mainly created by Larry Sanger).

FWIW, my two other major contributions were Page Titles to be Deleted (prior to that, getting a page deleted involved emailing Tim Shell or Jimbo himself, as the concept of administrator didn't exist) and the Wikiproject.

A sidenote - the page history logs at Nostalgia are not entirely reliable - Ive just noticed that I am not recorded as the creator of Page Titles to be deleted (and conversely I am given credit for the creation of other pages where I certainly don't deserve it). See my userpage for a discussion of this if you're interested. Manning 01:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandals

Radiant, WP:DENY is not policy, and some of these vandals did have an impact on Wikipedia's history and culture. To make them a "secret" history that only the "in crowd" is allowed to know about is assigning them importance they don't deserve. Treat them with contempt, not reverence. --Random832(tc) 16:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)