Difference between revisions of "DailyBuzz"

Sunday 30 Sept 2007

• Sept 16-30 was a great time for Community at AboutUs. Some areas where we're proud of our work are: recent changes peer review, nurture nominees, process featured nominations, write featured blurbs and write weblog posts, DesignDomainPage, AddThis (SocialBookmarking) and MainPage redesign, WhoWeAre:Stage1, CaricatureRequests, ReorganizeWeblog / Featured, Election Portal, Possible Spam Sites and Dashboard -- AboutUs Community (we are always developing, please add yourself!)

Saturday 29 Sept 2007

• Wikipedia image license expert needed to fix the AboutUs.org Wikipedia article. See [1]. TedErnst | talk 22:43, 29 September 2007 (PDT)
  • Microsoft's Logo on Wikipedia seems to indicate a fair use usage of the logo, wouldn't that apply to any logo used in that manner? - Ray | talk
    • From what I understand, logos are fair use. Nathan ^(talk) 11:22, 30 September 2007 (PDT)
    • The problem is not that it can't be used under fair use, the problem was this wasn't properly stated on the image page and was deleted for no fair use statement. --Simon | talk 22:30, 30 September 2007 (PDT)
      • Yes, I agree with Simon. Nathan ^(talk) 22:39, 30 September 2007 (PDT)

Q: How do you get your blog traffic to jump eightfold?
A: Be quoted in an article by a major print media about Wikipedia social dynamics. -- Llywrch 16:24, 29 September 2007 (PDT)

Friday 28 Sept 2007

• Steve Habib Rose, initiator of the NetworkWeaversNetwork has died. People are sharing about him in Habib's Garden at WiserEarth.org. TedErnst | talk 21:32, 27 September 2007 (PDT)

Wednesday 26 Sept 2007

• PeterThoeny asks a great question at UWEB - Are we ready to decide ... for version 0.1? ~~ MarkDilley
• Kasey started the community task of HelpfulEditSummaries. ~~ MarkDilley
• New Zealand has put the future of its Policing Act in the hands of a (ki)wiki ([2]) via BBC news) --Vinh Nguyen
• Comment Spam 2.0, maybe a problem AboutUs will be having soon? --Simon | talk 10:34, 26 September 2007 (PDT)

Very interesting article Simon.. --DaughertyBw 10:37, 26 September 2007 (PDT)

Tuesday 25 Sept 2007

• We've revitalized the AboutUsWeblog.org page from what it was before into a much better resource. Originally, the page was just a "holding area" for thoughts on the Weblog project, the new page is almost quasi-portal like in it's way, and features the full text of the last couple of weblog posts, links to other recent posts, and information on the weblog as well as how to contribute. This is a step towards a future goal, a more complete fusion of weblog and wiki, ideally which includes having weblog functionality (including RSS feeds and comments) as part of the wiki, with editing of and response/comments to posts being able to happen in one place. For now though, we still also offer the http://www.aboutusweblog.org (for comments) and the Feedburner.com RSS feed. -- TakKendrick
• From BizJournals.com comes this piece:

Forty-two percent of all consumers view information about brands and products on sites like Wikipedia to be extremely or very influential to their online purchase decisions. ~~ MarkDilley (via Ward)

• One way to describe what we're doing at AboutUs from Antoine de Saint-Exupery via GiftHub.org How to Build a Ship. TedErnst | talk

Very insightful! thanks for the link Ted! Bryan Daugherty

Nice! Obed Suhail

• WhoWeAre Stage 1 consensus poll has met all of it's go thresholds, and the done timer is now running. There is still time to participate. The earliest the time can expire is on the 28th 29th 30th. TedErnst | talk

Sunday 23, Sept 2007

• Now here is an excellent introductory video [3] from GiveMeaning.com. ~~ MarkDilley
• Good TechDirt.com article: Does Peer Production Turn Capitalists Against Entrepreneurs?from the not-really dept ~~ MarkDilley
• Wikipedia 2.0, with trust added good article discussing Wikipedia's continued fight against vandalism, this time using trust metrics. Some of the technology discussed is from Luca de Alfaro who gave a presentation at Wikimania in Taiwan this past August. - Ray | talk (via TmcNet.com)

Friday 21-Sep-2007

• Dev announces that the CAPTCHA for Add Spam, CAPTCHA For LinkSpam, and AdSense for Search have all been deployed. There are a couple tweaks for each that are needed to get to DoneDone, but we're getting close! Thanks to Simon for helping us catch that the implementation of CAPTCHA For LinkSpam wasn't following the specs :-) Please add bugs and feature tweaks to the ErrorLog. We'd love your help testing!!!
  • I added this to error log over the weekend, but don't know how soon it'll be seen. The captcha for link spam doesn't seem to be working at all. We had a major spam storm on Saturday and Sunday and on-going today as well. And the captcha doesn't seem to be stopping it. TedErnst | talk 07:02, 24 September 2007 (PDT)
• From GreenWhite.org: an interesting blog post on AboutUs.org from Pakistan. Athar Hameed

  It's unfortunate they can't get Ray's name right. Nathan ^(talk) 08:56, 21 September 2007 (PDT)

Thursday 20-Sep-2007

• Dev announces that the CAPTCHA For LinkSpam and AdSense for Search extensions will be deployed later today (around 3pm PST) We're excited about the captcha because it ensures that a human is adding value to a wiki page, not a bot adding spam links. Please add bugs and feature tweaks to the ErrorLog.

The CAPTCHA For LinkSpam was initially deployed at about 3:45 PDT today, but was turned back off not long after so that it could be adjusted to not affect logged-in users. It should be re-deployed in the next couple of days with this adjustment.

• Brandon wonders what sorts of community products would have the characteristics of a ViralSpiral?
• Kaliya passes along this note:
  • She's Geeky (http://www.shesgeeky.org)
  • A Women's Tech (un)conference
  • October 22-23 in Mountain View, CA.
    • This event is designed to bring together women from a range of technology-focused disciplines who self identify as geeky. Our goal is to support skill exchange and learning between women working in diverse fields and to create a space for networking and to talk about issues faced by women in technology.
      • I posted about the event and gone into some more detail about my motivations and hopes.
• A better late than never link: Andrew Lih's thoughts on Wikipedia's Two-millionth article. -- Llywrch 09:15, 20 September 2007 (PDT)

Wednesday 19-Sep-2007

• Just added another batch of back-logged Feature nominations to the FeatureMePotentials list. Thanks to all the community members and staff who have been working diligently over the last week to clean up the list. Everyone is invited to take a look at potential Featured WikiPages and add comments and suggestions to improve the individual WikiPages and their nominations. NOTE:If you recently nominated a page (in the last month or so) and aren't on the FeatureMePotentials list, be patient, we're trying to get caught up this next week on all outstanding nominations. -- TakKendrick

Tuesday 18-Sep-2007

• A few changes to the way we're doing Features that I'm excited about (and hoping everyone else will be as well). If you see on the home page we've trying to go back to a singular featured WikiPage instead of the "three at a time" we've been doing for the last few months. The hope is that we'll continue to feature roughly as many WikiPages, just increase the frequency and allow them to stand on their own. (This also has an element that will tie into the new home page design Vinh is trying to cook up this week).

Of course, a side effect is that features would be leaving the home page with more frequency as well, therefore we've redesigned the FeatureMe Portal a bit, this page will maintain the full text of the past week's features, along with links to recent features, information on how to become featured, testimonials and more. There's a few other changes to features being discussed (to come in the next couple of weeks), so if you've got suggestions for more improvements, now is a great time to let me know. -- TakKendrick

• If anyone in the Portland Office needs any supply items, add them to the ToBuy page. Tuesday is shopping day! John
• I have somehow messed up the FeaturedNomination at ScaleModel.NET - could someone help me out? ~~ MarkDilley

• Looks like the page template is a bit messed up. Nathan ^(talk) 11:36, 18 September 2007 (PDT)
• I fixed it -- Tak

• The latest version of the AboutUs goals are ready for your input, check them out! John

Monday, 17-Sep-2007

Help pick the next wave of Featured wiki Pages here at AboutUs. Community members are encouraged to participate in the discussion which helps to define which pages become featured! All you have to do is leave your notes and constructive criticisms on the worthiness of the nomination. Here is the current list of potentially featured sites! --DaughertyBw 06:36, 17 September 2007 (PDT)

Sunday, 16-Sep-2007

Meg Whitman and Ann Romney addressing folks interested in Mitt Romney's campaign at my place last week. More on the race, including Internet penetration stats and a great news summary by candidate at the 2008 Presidential Election Portal. - Ray | talk

A view from the podium as I get ready to address the PLUG group at the PSU campus. This is a very open and great group of technology folks who get together once per month to discuss OpenSource, Linux and other topics of interest. We had dinner afterwards at The Lucky Labrador, a local favorite and also the place where the Portland Go Club meets on Saturday afternoons! - Ray | talk

• Brian Kerr provides this great intro to ARBCAMP ~~ MarkDilley
  • See also the delightful ArbCamp.org [4] for planning and other relevant crapola!

Friday, 14-Sep-2007

• A fun image from the 3rd Quarter AboutUs Stakeholder Meeting we just didn't have room for in the official blog post today. As part of the preparation for the event, which included two projectors -- one to show the slide show presentation in Apple's Keynote, another to show the running IRC conversation with community members around the globe -- Ray and Brandon end up zip-tying a projector vertically to a post to garner the desired effect. -- TakKendrick
• A veteran Wikipedia Admin reveals a secret: how to create viral links on Wikipedia without raising objections from the site's volunteers. One of the many cases where building the public commons can benefit the contributor. -- Llywrch 08:56, 14 September 2007 (PDT)
• Developing discussion on the topic of Translation of AboutUs Domain and Content pages. Please add any relevant comments, concerns or ideas that you may have. -- Bryan

Thursday, 13-Sep-2007

• As said on the front page - join us on our live video feed Stakeholder meeting. The password is "wiki" ~~ MarkDilley

Wednesday, 12-Sept-2007

• MarkDilley & Julia made a tweak to the watched page email notification. Please leave your notes on the talk page or here.

Thanks! Julia

• For Vinh Nyguen and BrandonSanders - returning and new visitors idea. I also left some comments at NewSkin about locked page issues and a note on ErrorLog about OpenID. ~~ MarkDilley
• I finally put together a presentable version of the Portal:PortlandTech, something I promised Ray I'd have completed about a week ago. Comments, feedback & edits requested. -- Llywrch 16:19, 12 September 2007 (PDT)

Monday, 10-Sept-2007

• Blog entry The end of Wikipedia as we know it Nathan ^(talk) 18:49, 10 September 2007 (PDT)
• Ever experience a painful Headache or Migraine? Take a look at this video of a Cluster Headache sufferer and then check out My Cluster Page to read more about experiences with dealing with this painful condition! Bryan

Thursday, 6-Sept-2007

• A brief account of yesterday's WikiWednesday get-together at AboutUs.org's new offices has been posted at Portland WikiWednesday 05-Sep-2007. Corrections encouraged. -- Llywrch 09:49, 6 September 2007 (PDT)

Wednesday, 5-Sept-2007

• 
  Seeking some small business development or business plan help? check out the new Entrepreneur Education Portal! Start learning how to take your idea's and make them into a business with the AboutUs Small Business Planner! - Bryan W. Daugherty
• Mohtashim, a prominent blogger who blogs about technology in Pakistan, has blogged AboutUs. - Athar Hameed

Sunday, 2-Sept-2007

• Logged in and Sharing Gossip, er, Intelligence...Spies and Social Networking Kasey

Saturday, 1-Sept-2007

• Are the long weekends making you miss the new office? Well have no fear, head over to KATU.com and view their webcam at the top of the OMCC.

Uh, the link takes me to a page at KGW.com, not at KATU.com. I know commercial television news can be hard to tell apart, but I don't think they're the same in this case. -- Llywrch 10:45, 4 September 2007 (PDT)

Friday, 31-Aug-2007

• Please join the DevelopmentTeam in celebrating the things that got to DoneDone during the last iteration: Ooops ... unfortunately we didn't get anything all the way to DoneDone. We got many things Done, but going those last few inches to DoneDone where we never have to touch it again is still eluding us. In response to our lack of success last Iteration, we're scaling back our ambitions for the next Iteration so that we can focus on moving a smaller number of Tasks all the way to the end. Bowed but not beaten ... the DevelopmentTeam.

• Ray's interview with Pakistan & Gulf Economist. This would certainly give a boost to AboutUs in terms of visibility in the local community. Mohsen Gilani

Thursday, 30-Aug-2007

• Using images on AboutUs I'm guessing most of the Portland staff know this but for some of the Lahore staff and new AboutUs users. Still working on it; but, got the basics. --Simon | talk 23:32, 29 August 2007 (PDT)

Excellent summary, thanks - Ray | talk

Wednesday, 29-Aug-2007

Tuesday, 28-Aug-2007

• I found this lovely edit whilst doing RC . Tracking the IP shows that it's from the Indiana Department of Education Exceptional Learners room. Pretty hilarious. :) Isabel 15:12, 28 August 2007 (PDT)
• Hey folks, I took a stab at writing the history of High Tech in Portland. Please don't laugh too hard at what I wrote, but I'd like some constructive criticism. -- Llywrch 13:21, 28 August 2007 (PDT)
• Milos Rancic announced the creation of another resource to discuss Wikis, the Wiki World. This wiki site is itself intended to support a mailing list, still in the planning stages. -- Llywrch 09:07, 28 August 2007 (PDT)

Saturday, 25-Aug-2007

• Hackszine.com: Wikipedia offline reader: put all of Wikipedia on your laptop Nathan ^(talk) / 21:25, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Friday, 24-Aug-2007

• Built out a single page for the AboutUs Current Plan of Record that brings together all the separate lists that are floating about and added an overview to the ConsensusPoll:Distributed Planning Game so that we might kick start the new Distributed Planning Game process. Planning should begin on the AboutUs Upcoming Plan of Record for the period 1-15 September next week. John

• WikiScanner Traces Bizarre Edits to Australian PM Office Aug. 24 Kasey 11:37, 24 August 2007 (PDT)

Thursday, 23-Aug-2007

• Service Worthy of Payment
• Good interview with WetPaint CEO
  • Some thoughts about Wetpaint, AboutUs and users after reading the above interview MartinPfahler

Wednesday, 22-Aug-2007

• Kasey is doing a really cool PlasticProject. Check it out! Ted Ernst | talk
• The AnnualCommunityReview kicked off yesterday to a great start. If you haven't yet, please sign up in one of the slots left! ~~ MarkDilley

Tuesday, 21-Aug-2007

• Wikis seem to be catching on in some major places. Just this week IMDB released their collaborative editing tool called FAQ for each movie they list. Also, HBO's Weeds now has a wiki, appropriately named WeedsWiki. Isabel 17:57, 21 August 2007 (PDT)
• Please check out the Consensus Poll on Distributed Planning Game. Obed Suhail
• List anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting organizations: This fun tool has a list of IPs for "interesting organizations" and can then scan a Wikipedia article for those organizations. Watch as Walmart spins its low wages or Exxon rewrites the aftermath of its oil spill. Score one for the good guys. Blake Hinckley

  This is all over the news and blogosphere.

  • See Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign
  • Wikipedia is only as anonymous as your IP
  • Wisdom? More like dumbness of the crowds | Oliver Kamm - Times Online
  • Wikipedia and the art of censorship - Independent Online Edition > Sci_Tech

  - Nathan

Also posted to the DailyBuzz on Thursday, 16-Aug-2007. :-) ~~ MarkDilley

Monday, 20-Aug-2007

• Left, Ray and Ward in the new digs; middle, Vinh at his post; right, Mark laying down on the job. John
• Defending Wikipedia’s Impolite Side - New York Times Kasey 18:23, 20 August 2007 (PDT)

  That's a great article; good find! - Ray | talk

• Just had a brainstorm! AboutUsCalendar If you like the idea, please start using it. If you can make it better, please do so. Ted Ernst | talk
• Please join us in welcoming Ali Aslam, Hassan Javeed, Mohammad Ghufran and Umar Sheikh who have joined AboutUs developers team today. Arif Iqbal

Friday, 17-Aug-2007

• Many of us use Skype in our work, and have been having problems with it. Hopefully resolved soon. TedErnst

• Hey guys, sorry i have been out of commish for the last 2 mos.. transition to EU was more complicated than expected! Back in action now. The new logo and site details look GREAT! Gregory

  Greg thanks; There's more of the new design and look coming shortly! - Ray | talk

Thursday, 16-Aug-2007

• List anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting organizations via Virgil.gr ~~ MarkDilley
• Please join the Content Team and Community Team in celebrating DoneDone for the following Tasks:
  • ConsensusPollTour
  • AboutUsLogo

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Salihawaqar (talk • contribs) .

Wednesday, 15-Aug-2007

Moving day for AboutUs Portland, Tak and Mark on the loading dock. We got it done! John Distributed Planning Game is a new process for AboutUs. We'd love your comments on this!

Tuesday, 14-Aug-2007

• EmailtoRegister - a page to discuss the feature being implemented.
• Check out a demo of the excellent Deki Wiki created by the folks at OpenGarden.org

Sunday, 12-Aug-2007

• Human powered search engine Mahalo.com has introduced their newest feature, Follow.
• Ray's Semi Monthly Distributed Planning Game has been merged into AboutUs Planning Game - John Stanton
  • See also DistributedPlanningGame TedErnst

Saturday, 11-Aug-2007

• The new "Flag" to set pages to "PossibleAdultContent" is really great; as a note, in the next week or two we are planning to run a process to automatically flag many such pages and really bring the feature into full effect. - Ray | talk

• Some people may think that the red flag means that the page is already flagged in some way (because it is red). We might want to change the color so that "Flag" is green and "PossibleAdultContent" is red, thoughts? - Ray | talk

• Totally agree. --Simon | talk 13:39, 12 August 2007 (PDT)

I feel the same way as well. - Scott Keeler

Friday, 10-Aug-2007

• Mohsen and Ray are in Karachi today for the PSEB (Pakistani Software Export Board) conference. The first picture is yours truly giving a passionate speech on wikis and the second is what many of the streets look like today after some light rain :-)
• Pakistan Software Export Industry (PSEB) Conference from PakTribune.com
• Pakistan Software Exports aath so million dollar tuk pohanch gayeen, Owais Lughari Ka conference se khitaab from Express.com.pk

Thursday, 09-Aug-2007

• Wikinvest Is a Wikipedia for Stock Junkies Nathan ^(talk) / 17:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Wednesday, 08-Aug-2007

• Semi Monthly Distributed Planning Game is being worked on by Ray
• Laptop Consensus Poll is being worked on by Arif and Asad

Tuesday, 07-Aug-2007

• Obviously, we've turned on the new logo today. We're also about to implement the beginning of the AdultContentPolicy within the next hour or so. We're preparing a more thorough post on these for both the home page and the weblog [5] with more details, but I just wanted to put something up here in the meantime. BTW: If you're having problems with the new logo "cutting off" on some browsers, just refresh the browser's cache. That should clear it up. -- TakKendrick

Sunday, 05-Aug-2007

• Great news, TedErnst has decided to join AboutUs. He has extensive wiki experience and will be putting that to good use in the AboutUs community. Welcome! - Ray | talk

Thanks for the welcome. I'm Really happy to be joining the team fully! TedErnst

It's great to have you (more) on the team Ted! - Vinh Nguyen

Saturday, 04-Aug-2007

Notes from Joi Ito's session on the Sharing economy. Photo shows Joi Ito on left and Ray on the right. Notes from Brian Behlendorf's discussion on OpenSouce compared with more traditional corporate development projects Notes from Brion Vibber's discussion about Single Unified Login for WikiMedia projects The AboutUsLogo is done! TedErnst Great that it's done, and even better that the process included so much great discussion which will help us continue to shape thinking about our brand and identity. A hearty thanks to everyone who participated. - Ray | talk

Friday, 03-Aug-2007

Thursday, 02-Aug-2007

Jimmy Wales and Gil Penchina on Wikia and SearchWikia - lots of interesting stuff! - Ray | talk A great talk by Erik Moeller discussing ways of sharing information between wikis - Ray | talk Sitting on Seth Anthony's session now with a good Analysis of Wikipedia content creators. - Ray | talk Wikimania 2007 Schedule Mark, Brandon & Ray at Wikimania 2007

Wednesday, 01-Aug-2007

• WikiWear.org now has a few pictures! ~~ MarkDilley
• Chuck Smith (the WikiCreole guy), has put together a neat page with various web based wiki film clips. Some trivia: Chuck is also the founder of the Esperanto Wikipedia. He has just explained to me that Esperanto is a "planned international" language created in 1887 with the goal of worldwide understanding and peace. It is not based in any particular geographic location, but currently has about a million speakers in over 100 countries! - Ray | talk

for previous content, see July 2007