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Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:55 pm   

Help save the TeSSH Wikipedia article!
 
OK folks, I need your help. Some idiot over on Wikipedia is disputing the notability of the article I added on TeSSH.

See the TeSSH article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeSSH
It was added to help supplement the "Comparison of SSH clients" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_SSH_clients
Deletion discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/TeSSH

I maintain that the TeSSH page is no different in notability than any other client page linked from the comparison chart. If you have any history editing the Wiki and can help me with this dispute, I'd appreciate it.

Seems that this particular guy is just known for liking to delete articles (like he has nothing else to do with his time). Since I am a "biased" posted, I'm not sure there is much I can do. But as 3rd parties, maybe some of you know how to help fix this situation.

Thanks.
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Rorso
Wizard


Joined: 14 Oct 2000
Posts: 1368

PostPosted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 9:33 am   
 
There was a similar issue with a MUD earlier. Was quite a lot of discussions about it over at TopMUD sites. Unfortunately I cant access TMS at the moment but take a look at this and this.

You probably need to find some 3rd party references. For example some magazine/newspaper/book that cover TeSSH.
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Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:34 pm   
 
Well, it's apparently a lost cause. Seems that it depends upon who is monitoring the Wiki on any given day. They are holding the TeSSH page to a higher standard of notability than most of the other pages I have seen in this field.

It's a complete mess of a Wiki these days. And there is a big "Catch 22" with Wiki. I cannot post about my own products without being seen as biased. I also cannot edit other pages without being accused of competitor vandalism. So even though I am a 15-yr "subject matter expert" on Telnet and SSH clients for Windows, I basically cannot contribute to the Wiki on those topics.

All I can say is that I was simply trying to improve the SSH Comparison Chart page and thought it might be fun to register with Wiki and actually help improve the content. Instead I get immediately slapped down within just minutes of posting. Yeah, "Welcome to Wikipedia". I doubt I'll ever post anything there ever again.

Rorso, your links above were *very* interesting. The first link is a blog from Richard Bartle himself! Does Wikipedia know who Richard Bartle is? If he is not considered an "expert source" for MUDs, then I don't know who would be. Some interesting quotes from the second link that I can really relate to:
Quote:
if a hard core Wikipedian shows up at an article you care about, drop to your knees and start kissing butt. Otherwise, they’ll ban you and delete it.

Quote:
It’s a dirty little secret of Wikipedia that a small clique of powerusers do a vast portion of the editing and contributing and have power far beyond what the supposed spirit of Wikipedia should allow.

and many more. In fact, the comments posted at the end of your second link were really eye-opening for me. If I had seen that discussion before then I would have never wasted my time with Wikipedia in the first place.
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mr_kent
Enchanter


Joined: 10 Oct 2000
Posts: 698

PostPosted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 5:41 pm   
 
Zugg wrote:
It's a complete mess of a Wiki these days. And there is a big "Catch 22" with Wiki. I cannot post about my own products without being seen as biased. I also cannot edit other pages without being accused of competitor vandalism. So even though I am a 15-yr "subject matter expert" on Telnet and SSH clients for Windows, I basically cannot contribute to the Wiki on those topics.


Just some random thinking in text and not a request (because I know how many projects are already in the cooker) Cool

I have no clue as to what is involved in setting up a wiki. Many MUDs and other online games have set up their own wikis and may have done so because of the ridiculous politics involved with wikipaedia.org.

Three wikis that I've personally referenced while wasting time on the net are:

A wiki for gameforge's Ogame. VERY nice layout and format. Information is easy to find and on point.

A wiki for the online game eRepublik. Decent information source - material isn't always easy to find.

A wiki for the MUD Legends of the Jedi. A work constantly under revision and additions but much better than a year ago.

It may be worth considering setting up a wiki on the TeSSH site with a link(s) to the comparison chart on the wikipedia site. (I'd then msg the dbag that decided to nix the article. Laughing ) I'd imagine that if a wiki were easily set up/edit/maintain and the current help files were migrated, it wouldn't be too long before the users of both TeSSH and CMUD would provide rich, enhanced code examples.
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Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 5:59 pm   
 
The new web site ([url=tessh.com]tessh.com[/url]) is already using a Wiki-based system for the help files (http://www.tessh.com/kb/tessh). I won't be giving edit access to everybody because I don't have time to police it, but users who have been around for a while and have shown they know what they are doing will be able to edit it eventually. And anybody will be able to add comments, just like the current help system. The big difference between the new knowledge base system on the tessh.com site and existing knowledge base on this current site is that the new system has a full revision system that will allow us to track changes, rollback topics, etc.

Keep in mind that the work being done on the tessh.com site will eventually replace the current zuggsoft.com site. So CMUD will have all of this too.

But as far as Wikipedia is concerned, they do not consider links from other Wikis to be valid sources of references. And nothing on this site or the tessh.com site can be used as a reference link because these sites are not "neutral 3rd party sites".
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Rorso
Wizard


Joined: 14 Oct 2000
Posts: 1368

PostPosted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:19 pm   
 
Zugg wrote:

All I can say is that I was simply trying to improve the SSH Comparison Chart page and thought it might be fun to register with Wiki and actually help improve the content. Instead I get immediately slapped down within just minutes of posting. Yeah, "Welcome to Wikipedia". I doubt I'll ever post anything there ever again.

To a certain degree I can understand some of the guidelines that Wikipedia appears to have. Without any rules then anyone could create pages about anything. The question is if the rules are too harsh. As Richard Bartle writes in that blog I posted above, MUDs were an Internet phenomenon so a lot of references would be online.

Looking at Wikipedia now I see other MUD related entries that surprisingly could be removed because they do not have proper references.
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mr_kent
Enchanter


Joined: 10 Oct 2000
Posts: 698

PostPosted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:39 pm   
 
Zugg wrote:
But as far as Wikipedia is concerned, they do not consider links from other Wikis to be valid sources of references. And nothing on this site or the tessh.com site can be used as a reference link because these sites are not "neutral 3rd party sites".


Yeah, I got that part but there is nothing preventing an independent wiki from making corrections/additions to a copy of the original information on its own site and then providing a link to the "approved" incomplete/inaccurate article as a poke in the eye. Twisted Evil

Creating a comparison chart that 1) isn't complete and 2) is on a site where readers mostly "learn about" rather than "select which" is pointless in my opinion. Those in need of an SSH / scripting client probably won't be using wikipedia and I can't imagine that reading a wikipedia article about SSH clients would generate a sale, at least not without a pre-existing need.

Maybe call it "Teh SSH and Telnet Clients Wiki" and then be fair to the other client applications and/or open areas for each client's dev team to populate and edit.
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Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:59 pm   
 
Quote:
Those in need of an SSH / scripting client probably won't be using wikipedia

Yep, I agree. Not sure what I was thinking. I think it was just another way for me to procrastinate and avoid working on the TeSSH help files (which is *such* a tedious process). But you are correct that their SSH Comparison chart is pretty much a joke. I mean, who actually needs "ZModem transfers" anymore? That's completely left over from the old serial-port BBS days. It would be much more relevant to have a column about FTP/SFTP support (especially since SFTP is actually build on SSH and we are talking about SSH clients here and not serial-port terminal emulators).

But it's that kind of old and irrelevant information that Wikipedia is full of. And too many of the people in charge are just going around flagging articles and too few people actually editing the articles with good information. Since somebody is bound to jump into your face when you try to contribute, there just isn't any good incentive for anybody with real knowledge to waste their time with it.

As somebody said, the best thing to come out of Wikipedia was the original concept of a Wiki. As Mr_Kent mentioned, I also get a lot of gaming-related info from specialized Wikis around the Internet and not from Wikipedia itself.

Anyway, back to working on stuff that really matters. Sorry for the distraction.
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