Thaddeus Olczyk
Thaddeus Olczykolczyk@interaccess.com - this is the guy who clicked wordssmashed...me! We told him not to click it, and he did anyway! Send him email to let him know not to click the question mark again! Like anyone would be dumb enough to click the click it mark a second time!
See Also: WordsSmashedTogetherLikeThisButPleaseDontClickMe?
Hey! I thought Wiki was supposed to be a friendly place! -- ThaddeusOlczyk
It is, Thaddeus. I meant to pull your leg. Apologies if I alarmed you. I thought it quite funny that we have a page whose title suggests it ought not to exist, or which traps new users who are only trying things out. Welcome to wiki. -- PeterMerel
Of course I'm the one who clicked the button! I wasn't the first. I won't be the last. That's why I added AddYourName.
AddingNewPages is flawed, because it allows you to click the question mark. And invariably some people will. Even if you ask them not to, they get so involved in the process that they miss the request.
In AddYourName it is impossible to click the question mark, because there is no question mark to click!
Which demonstrates a principle: ProcessesShouldNotForcePeople
I found your page WhenTheFormulaChangesFromMakingMoneyToLosingMoney thought-provoking. Any comments as to what prompted it?
[Just to give you this content back... Delete or refactor it if you wish. -- JeffGrigg]
An attempt to create a new Wiki convention.
For brief comments that I wish to sign, my full name seems to large. So I use my initials. Unfortunately, TlO does not "Wikiize". Instead, I use TlOi? (i for initial), which is an abbreviation for ThaddeusOlczyk.
Typically, when people don't wish to use their full name to sign a contribution, they simply use their initials, whether they form a WikiName or not (c.f. recent contributions by RichardDrake, PhilGoodwin and others). Ordinarily, your full name will already have appeared on the page somewhere. Also, given Ward's preference that people use their real names, I wonder whether you would reconsider this decision?
I'd have to hear from Ward on that one. I presume his reasoning for wanting real names is to avoid contributions from some of the anonymous types out there who are from left field. Like, say, bikermomma or numberonehacker. Real names might keep the noise level down. Many people often use initials as a substitute for their names. Hell, it's even legal at times. When you make changes to a contract, you initial and date it.
The whole point is this: not to use your initials to sign something, but that when you do sign something with just initials, use a Wiki-ized form so that people can go and see your full name. ("That comment was by TlOi?, who is TlOi?? Click. Oh yeah, that's ThaddeusOlczyk".) -- TlOi? ;)
Oh for goodness sake, just sign as Thaddeus if that's quicker than the whole name. Or if Thaddeus usually gets shortened to a recognizable form, use that shortened form. If the full name appears higher up on the page or is well known, that's good enough for me.
On a more personal note, I think we've got far too many new conventions being suggested at the moment. -- RogerLipscombe
Also, the use of initials (whether wiki-ized or not), makes refactoring a page harder. If the part with the full WikiName gets refactored out, then the initials make no sense. And some people are using initials on pages where their WikiName never appeared. It makes it hard to remember who's who sometimes. -- WayneConrad
This is true if the initials are not Wiki-ized. If they are, it doesn't matter if the full name is no longer there; people who want to know who it is can just go to the "initials web page" and find out (assuming some malicious person hasn't modified it). So with Wiki-ized initials, you don't have to work to make sure the initials are still there. -- ThaddeusOlczyk
Oh, right. Ok. I have to use my fallback arguments, then: Wikized initials are ugly, hard to read, and would produce a whole of pages that said "These are the initials of ThatGuy". -- WayneConrad
In any case, we shouldn't have to click on every link on a page to see what the page is saying. Links should be self-explanatory. Obscure initials are a barrier to comprehension, in my view. -- DaveHarris
I think they are ugly and hard to read, but so small that it isn't much of a problem (looking at mine you pick out the T & O rather quickly, so many common ones would be easily read). The amount of pages - I can't speak to that. Certainly it doubles the number of pages for users (if all do it), but how much does that affect the software? If there is a large minimal record size in the db then each page has a big hit, and lightweight pages may be not worth what they cost. Also, the number of indices increases. In the end, I think the major factor is the percentage of web pages which are names is the most significant factor.
I do have a reason for wanting people to pick up on this. Sometimes a brief comment is not signed, and for one reason or another I wish it were. Two examples: refactoring, and I would like to know if two comments are by the same person. Sometimes I hesitate to sign my full name to a one-line comment, and I think others do to. They might be more willing to sign if they only used their initials.
I don't see the benefit of this proposed convention. From an author's perspective: surely we all type our names so many times that it's an automatic response requiring next to no time or thought to perform. From the reader's perspective: speaking for myself, names flow easily on the page. Atypical abbreviations like TlOi? distract from the content.
On my screen, I don't pick out the T and O easily. The O looks a bit like a zero and the L a bit like a one, and my instinct is to try to pronounce it.
More generally, being a link makes it seem more significant than it is. I tend to follow the link to see what it is about. At least non-link initials are easier to ignore.
I suspect that unsigned paragraphs happen because someone inserted a comment into the middle of two signed paragraphs. When you do that, copy the signature from the second paragraph to the first so it is signed too. Then the signatures serve to break up the text and indicate the change of voice. -- DaveHarris
Using full names seems simple and unambiguous. I've often seen a "KB" signature and assumed it meant KentBeck, some months later realizing that it's KeithBraithwaite. -- ad
Huh? You read something I wrote and you thought that Kent wrote it? I'm astonished. Either I'm doing better that I thought, or Kent needs help. Anyway, it might have been KyleBrown. Or KathyBracy. -- KeithBraithwaite
EditText of this page
(last edited September 30, 2009)
or FindPage with title or text search