I’ve noticed that edited pages don’t always show up on RecentChanges. In some cases, the changes seem to simply be editorial - but is it really appropriate to ‘hide’ the fact that these editorial changes are taking place? I understand that the concept may be to remove ‘trivial’ changes from the ‘what’s interesting’ list, but ‘trivial’ and ‘interesting’ are subjective terms: what is trivial to one may be interesting to another.
Personally, I think it’s extremely bad netiquette to edit the RecentChanges page. Just say NO! –OwenAnderson
Actually, if you’re just editing your page to update information or correct misspellings that is non-important at the time, at least to everyone at large, then why should anyone care if we take the initiative to clean up after ourselves? I don’t think anyone minds. Everyone seems to be doing a decent job of keeping things together and knowing the difference between “trivial” and “interesting.” After all, I’m fairly certain we’ve passed the stage of uncivilized mishandling of data…I hope anyway. –TriLateral
So what would you think of someone who edits someone else’s personal page - and then removes that entry from RecentChanges?
I said “I’m fairly certain we’ve passed the stage of uncivilized mishandling of data…I hope anyway.” That obviously means I sincerely hope the users/frequenters of this wiki are not doing as you suggest. My concomitant thought should be, and is, to consider such as uncivilized. Unless such individuals are simply retarding the expression of onerous thoughts (being nasty to Josha comes to mind). In that case, I would consider as such highly civilized. These are my personal thoughts of course and in no way impede anything you may think. – TriLateral
P.S. It was I in fact that reverted the mess that Pixikon’s page had become (rife with antics about deletions, etc.), back to the Pixikon information page it used to be. You see, some of us take the opportunity and the initiative to simply correct problems without fanfare or further disruption of the clearly thought-out conceptualizations of cocoa discussion that actually benefit this wiki.
I wasn’t saying I didn’t support the refactoring and proper editing of the wiki. I just said that I think editing the RecentChanges page is in extremely bad taste. The fact that you define some spelling changes you made as ‘trivial’ doesn’t mean that someone out there isn’t interested in knowing about them. And it certainly does no harm to leave them on RecentChanges. As to the whole Pixikon affair, I don’t see what the big problem is. So they showed up on RecentChanges a lot. Woohoo! I think most of us are able to look at the RecentChanges list and filter out topics we’re not interested in. Now, let’s all try to act like the mature individuals that I’d like to imagine we are, and let the wiki work the way it’s supposed to work. –OwenAnderson
As someone who told Josha to edit the RecentChanges page, well, Owen you made me eat my words. :P –MatPeterson
This page obviously needs a bump, since it seems that some amongst us have forgotten it. DO NOT EDIT RecentChanges!!! –OwenAnderson
I don’t agree with this view when it’s an offensive entry. Nobody has a problem removing offensive material in a topic or discussion, so why should it be bad netiquette to edit out offensive entries in RecentChanges?
Well, unless the entries have been deleted, you’re just masking them from people’s view, rather than letting them be addressed immediately. In a more general case, RecentChanges isn’t the same as a normal topic or discussion, it’s at the meta level, and such things are generally considered to be more reliable.
Duh!!! Letting them be addressed is exactly what the original poster wants. I don’t care to see that happen. If this is truely a “meta level” than don’t allow edits PERIOD. Otherwise you have no basis to stand on.
Until Steven Frank removes this feature, I’m going to exercise my right to edit RecentChanges.
Here’s another reason: it’s a pain in the ass for people to flip through the history to see what someone, in their infinite wisdom, decided they didn’t need to see. Posting a DeleteMe on a page doesn’t remove the view of the page from people who might be interested, but editing RecentChanges does (or comes close to doing) just that. So, since hyperbolic language seems to be how you’ve chosen to phrase the problem, explain to me how you came by the “right” to attempt to censor what I read?
Totally moot. This argument can be thrown at all edits.
Incorrect. Not all edits are equivalent. Most of them simply add information, like this one, which don’t remove information at all. Some other edits do obscure and remove information, like if you click back a couple in the history from now and watch the above comment. The difference in editing the RecentChanges page is that it’s necessarily obscuring information whenever it’s done. It’s about the only editing that is catagorically deletrious. For example, thanks to some clever editing of that page, the change time of this one wasn’t updated with that post. Now, I can invent all sorts of reasons why I might do this (such as not wasting people’s time, not wanting to give someone attention, something offends me, etc.) but in the end, that’s only a rationalisation.
deletrious - Ha! aside from your misspelling (mine is as bad), I have to add that those who use big words must have extra room in their melons to store these clever tidbits.
I think this is called “making a trophy of your ignorance.”
Ignorance to made up words?
**He didn’t make it up. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=deleterious&r=67 **
I was talking about the spelling, but for some reason I’m making a trophy of my ignorance because I wasn’t aware of either an alternate spelling or the possibility that deletrious is something else. Actually, I really don’t care. I don’t mind being ignorant to things. There is plenty I don’t know. The more I learn the better.
The point is really quite simple. You don’t cover anything up by editing RecentChanges. The instant I see that RecentChanges has been edited, I immediately check its history to see what was removed, so you’ve completely failed to hide anything. If you’re really that offended, mark the page as DeleteMe and ask StevenFrank to remove it. As to netiquette, the entire way a WikiWikiWeb functions is on the principle that everyone can see every change and react to it. Trying to hide things is a slap in the face to the entire concept of a WikiWikiWeb. So, feel free to use your “right” to edit RecentChanges, and I shall continue to revert your edits. –OwenAnderson
I call a truce and only because I happen to have a fare amount of respect for Owen�s presence here.
Hi. Could whoever is editing RecentChanges and repeatedly vandalizing people’s home pages please contact me by email? I have some questions for you. Thanks. – StevenFrank (stevenf / panic.com)
BUMP To all those editing RecentChanges, please reread this. I don’t care how stupid the KillBill entry is, there is absolutely no excuse to mess with RecentChanges. –OwenAnderson
I had an excellent commentary for you Anderson. Unfortunately, providence seems to have stepped in and resulted in my deleting before I got a chance to post it. Nevertheless, and in an abridged form, I will say this. The real problem is not with ludicrous pages being posted. Fully understand me when I say I can comprehend your problem is not the occassional ludicrous page, but rather the act of editing the Recent Changes page. Either way, such pages can be removed. It is a privilege of control for Frank taking the time and money to host this service in the first place. Of primary concern perhaps are those who cannot restrain their self-indulgence long enough to cease commenting and vandalising to the extent that every single time a user happens onto the site that same ludicrous page has been BUMPED to the top yet again. Agreed…Vandalism of pages needs to end. So, the comments, the mini-diatribes, and other superfluous muck that ends up on pages, which then have to be edited to remove the smudge marks of indecency, increasing their temporal rank yet again on the Recent Changes page, must come to an end. Self-control, decency, self-governance in civility. Simply put, there appears to be a three-tiered personality conflict. One: those who love to comment and vandalise and then complain that the Recent Changes shouldn’t be edited so people can see their comments. Two: those who after having seen the page continually moved to the top because the First Category of people can’t control themselves revert the page to a previous state in hopes of returning the community to some form of civility. Finally, the third group. Those who, after having seen the actions of groups one and two simply remove mention of the page by editing Recent Changes. As you can infer, Group Two has the right idea. The decision for all and not just the majority. Aiding those who are being vandalised while at the same time removing evidence of the vandalism. –TriLateral
I propose letting only a few people edit the RecentChanges page, that being DustinVoss, OwenAnderson, MikeTrent and StevenFrank. We know then who is changing the page, and I am pretty sure that no one will object to changes that they make. Self rule can be done but it looks like in this instance its a failure, although many other Wiki’s manage it quite fine.
Banning someone from the site is definitely not the right idea, this site is designed to be an open information source for everyone. If people respect that, and don’t create silly pages, then fantastic. If people don’t respect it, and no pointing fingers, its still a valuable resource but with the disadvantage that regular users might be slightly inconvenienced or annoyed. Search works fine with KillBill hanging around, so does clicking through the ‘directory structure’ of the site. It’s just the recent changes page that is being vandalized.
Of course, we wouldn’t need to slap people on the wrist if they behaved themselves or if they had the guts to post their name when adjusting the site (although newbies are not expected to do it from the beginning).
Anyways, I think we have had enough discussion about this issue. Lets just call a truce and act like sensible human beings who value this resource. Have a good week everyone. – MatPeterson
I understand everyone’s frustration with certain individuals’ need to edit and vandalize pages. However, the goal of a WikiWikiWeb is to be a freely evolving network of information that is not censored. And this lack of censorship, I feel, is extremely important. The vandal has the right to modify a page, and you have the right to modify it back. However, by editing RecentChanges you are attempting not to evolve the information on the WikiWikiWeb but to hide the evidence of your modifications. This, I feel, is equivalent to an individual taking it upon themselves to censor the WikiWikiWeb, which, even if they feel it is for the benefit of the community, is nonetheless a form of censorship.
I cannot and do not advocate any form of censorship, whether it be individuals covering up vandalism or a committee regulating the WikiWikiWeb. Ideally, RecentChanges would not be editable at all and would auto-trim itself. However, as this is not the case, we all have to live together as it stands. And for that to work, we CANNOT try to hide our activities from each other.
MatPeterson, I agree that this has been beaten to death. Let’s get over it and move on. JoshaChapmanDodson, please cease vandalizing the WikiWikiWeb. Those involved in a flame war against him, please cease it as well. You only give all of us (Cocoa programmers / Teen programmers (Yes, I am one too)) a bad name. –OwenAnderson
I’m very much of two minds about this. On the one hand, editing RecentChanges to hide things recently changed is just… I dunno, it just feels awkward at best to me. At worst, it feels kinda lousy.
On the other hand, I totally don’t care, because I feel that RecentChanges is not– or at least ought not to be– the best way to navigate the wiki. It tells you (imperfectly when edited) where conversations have been taking place lately, but ideally the content of the site would remain interesting despite having been unchanged since the last time you read it. And perhaps you’d have new insight and could add to it– overall, you might have slow growth, but I think interesting conversations would survive.
But then again, that implies a base organization that this site just never got. Instead we grew up around RecentChanges, which we rely upon to indicate the direction of the wind, but why ought it not be edited like literally all other content on the site?
– RobRix
I’m going to personally apologize to every one that I’ve offended, but sometimes this wiki gets a little boring, and there should be some kind of fun. I’m sorry!
~~JoshaChapmanDodson
Please leave it a little boring. Some folks actually use it as a work-related resource rather than as entertainment. For your entertainment needs, there are many other venues.
As I see it, the majority of this site is a huge cross-linked reference page. Which is great and a wonderful resource, but it also means that the majority of it one does not need to view except when searching for a specific piece of information. This means that the active community of the site has grown up around two index pages: CocoaDiscussions and RecentChanges.
While I agree that growing up around the use of RecentChanges as a metapage is perhaps ill-advised, it has happened. And as the primary method that many use to check the status of the site (myself included), I think it is grossly unfair to other users to take it upon oneself to try to censor what changes they see.
A WikiWikiWeb is one of the ultimate forms of community free expression. It’s a slap in the face to try to censor the community members’ access to it. –OwenAnderson
I hate to have to bump this page, but the recent arguments over the TeeVeeOperatingSystem page seem to have sparked another surge of people trying to censor RecentChanges to hide their antics. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS. It is at best disrespectful to others and at worst an affront to the whole concept of a WikiWikiWeb. –OwenAnderson
Another bump, because someone is editing RecentChanges again. Apparently someone had a question about MultiTabbingWindow. Please - read the above discussion and leave RecentChanges alone.
How about a warning at the top of RecentChanges? Or better yet, disable Edit there in the Wiki code; I can’t think of any good reason to allow editing on that particular page by anyone except the site admin.