Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 6 February 2013 08:20, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Pownce is clearly a footnote by now. One of WP's purposes is to host such footnotes. So the writing issue boils down to reducing froth to footnote coverage. I went on a massive cleanup of [[OpenOffice]] recently. It had a lot of stuff that was EXCITING AND CURRENT NEWS!! ... in 2005, when it was an exciting project. Perhaps it will become exciting again when 4.0 comes out, and the press coverage will be more than reprints of the press release ... - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On Wednesday, 6 February 2013 at 08:20, Charles Matthews wrote: Notability is *supposed* to be timeless, not perishable, let's recall. DG raises an interesting writing issue, nevertheless. Remember Pownce? This is the startup over which Andrew Lih went ballistic - with risk of distortion in my hindsight, the point at the time was that Lih thought a press release about a Silicon Valley startup was quite enough for an encyclopedia article, while other disagreed. As things now stand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pownce tells us it went down one of the startup routes, for a lifespan of around 18 months. That article seems fine, except that The developers have also created should now read The developers also created. Pownce is clearly a footnote by now. One of WP's purposes is to host such footnotes. So the writing issue boils down to reducing froth to footnote coverage. Pownce is an interesting example of why we need to keep these kinds of articles around: every time a new social network comes along, people jump on to it like it's the best thing since sliced bread. Showing them the many failures and closed services may prompt them into reconsidering their actions. Not that Wikipedia ought to moralise or preach, but the lesson of reading articles like Pownce is that Silicon Valley venture capitalists don't value things for longevity. And a lot of people seem to forget that. Those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it applies to technology and business too. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 6 February 2013 09:07, Tom Morris t...@tommorris.org wrote: Pownce is an interesting example of why we need to keep these kinds of articles around: every time a new social network comes along, people jump on to it like it's the best thing since sliced bread. Showing them the many failures and closed services may prompt them into reconsidering their actions. Not only an interesting case study for technology, but also a case study for Wikipedia, especially as we now know that mid-2007 was mid-mayhem as far as our editor numbers were concerned. I want to get some decent case studies written as material for the Wikimedia UK VLE, by hook or by crook. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 2/6/13, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Notability is *supposed* to be timeless, not perishable, let's recall. Yeah. But that is a bit of a canard in some cases. It is a question of whether coverage endures and continues or peters out. i.e. Whether people/sources (the right sort) write about something over time, and in what manner. Coverage of something when it starts is very different to coverage after it is gone. The former is news, the latter starts to become history (whether a footnote or not). Pownce is clearly a footnote by now. One of WP's purposes is to host such footnotes. So the writing issue boils down to reducing froth to footnote coverage. Ultimately everything becomes a footnote if you take the long view. With some things being more a footnote than others. Getting the balance right as something goes from having lots of coverage at inception, to either increasing or decreasing coverage thereafter is tricky, but an important consideration. It is something that I don't think those engaged in debates about notability consider enough, especially when considering that living people get coverage because they are living. Whether they get coverage when or after they are dead (which we won't know until that happens) *should* be a consideration, but often isn't. Sometimes when something comes to en end, new coverage will prompt updates here, but sometimes even that doesn't happen. It all results in a large mass of articles that are poorly maintained and look increasingly out of date as time goes by. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 5:57 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Citizendium#So_what_and_how_do_we_write_about_this_sort_of_thing.3F How to write about things like [[Citizendium]], [[Conservapedia]], [[Veropedia]] - things that were notable at the time and got lots of press coverage and hence articles, and which readers may well want to read about into the future - but which have fallen out of notice and so their decline (and, in the case of Veropedia, death) got no coverage and hence we can't answer the reader question so, whatever did happen to X? If readers continue to want to read about it, then it continues to be notable, no? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 6 February 2013 13:06, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On 2/6/13, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Notability is *supposed* to be timeless, not perishable, let's recall. Yeah. But that is a bit of a canard in some cases. It is a question of whether coverage endures and continues or peters out. i.e. Whether people/sources (the right sort) write about something over time, and in what manner. Coverage of something when it starts is very different to coverage after it is gone. The former is news, the latter starts to become history (whether a footnote or not). Yes, the point about reducing notability to reliable sources is that making GNG depend on RS assumes we know what we are talking about in RS. Which is questionable. So I cordially hate GNG. Precisely because it takes more to write history of lasting value,, than journalism that informs and sells, reducing things to RS is basically a bust. But, absent a catchy replacement, it is what we are stuck with. Which is exactly the status of notability, anyway. Pownce is clearly a footnote by now. One of WP's purposes is to host such footnotes. So the writing issue boils down to reducing froth to footnote coverage. Ultimately everything becomes a footnote if you take the long view. With some things being more a footnote than others. Getting the balance right as something goes from having lots of coverage at inception, to either increasing or decreasing coverage thereafter is tricky, but an important consideration. It is something that I don't think those engaged in debates about notability consider enough, especially when considering that living people get coverage because they are living. Whether they get coverage when or after they are dead (which we won't know until that happens) *should* be a consideration, but often isn't. Sometimes when something comes to en end, new coverage will prompt updates here, but sometimes even that doesn't happen. It all results in a large mass of articles that are poorly maintained and look increasingly out of date as time goes by. Nothing at all wrong with footnotes, though. I once had a project to go through the footnotes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall. I had an interesting hour with the first, on Jordanes, but got no further, though it produced an article. Articles from 6 or 7 years ago are often essentially unimproved from their early days. Now with much better online resources I often find I'm improving a very stubby one from 2007. There isn't an actual problem, though. in that I feel motivated now to do that improvement. I think the right attitude is that it has taken longer than we thought to start eating our tail and upgrade old stubs. To get back on topic, if a stub really is on a notable topic, then there isn't much of a problem. I'll agree that a certain kind of transience isn't well expressed in basic policy. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
I think you are all dancing around the real subject. Is wikipedia meant to help people have access to knowledge, to apportion access to knowledge, or to be a gate-keeper on which knowledge and at which rates do people have access to it? On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 3:46 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: On 6 February 2013 13:06, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On 2/6/13, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Notability is *supposed* to be timeless, not perishable, let's recall. Yeah. But that is a bit of a canard in some cases. It is a question of whether coverage endures and continues or peters out. i.e. Whether people/sources (the right sort) write about something over time, and in what manner. Coverage of something when it starts is very different to coverage after it is gone. The former is news, the latter starts to become history (whether a footnote or not). Yes, the point about reducing notability to reliable sources is that making GNG depend on RS assumes we know what we are talking about in RS. Which is questionable. So I cordially hate GNG. Precisely because it takes more to write history of lasting value,, than journalism that informs and sells, reducing things to RS is basically a bust. But, absent a catchy replacement, it is what we are stuck with. Which is exactly the status of notability, anyway. Pownce is clearly a footnote by now. One of WP's purposes is to host such footnotes. So the writing issue boils down to reducing froth to footnote coverage. Ultimately everything becomes a footnote if you take the long view. With some things being more a footnote than others. Getting the balance right as something goes from having lots of coverage at inception, to either increasing or decreasing coverage thereafter is tricky, but an important consideration. It is something that I don't think those engaged in debates about notability consider enough, especially when considering that living people get coverage because they are living. Whether they get coverage when or after they are dead (which we won't know until that happens) *should* be a consideration, but often isn't. Sometimes when something comes to en end, new coverage will prompt updates here, but sometimes even that doesn't happen. It all results in a large mass of articles that are poorly maintained and look increasingly out of date as time goes by. Nothing at all wrong with footnotes, though. I once had a project to go through the footnotes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall. I had an interesting hour with the first, on Jordanes, but got no further, though it produced an article. Articles from 6 or 7 years ago are often essentially unimproved from their early days. Now with much better online resources I often find I'm improving a very stubby one from 2007. There isn't an actual problem, though. in that I feel motivated now to do that improvement. I think the right attitude is that it has taken longer than we thought to start eating our tail and upgrade old stubs. To get back on topic, if a stub really is on a notable topic, then there isn't much of a problem. I'll agree that a certain kind of transience isn't well expressed in basic policy. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 6 February 2013 14:04, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: I think you are all dancing around the real subject. Is wikipedia meant to help people have access to knowledge, to apportion access to knowledge, or to be a gate-keeper on which knowledge and at which rates do people have access to it? Gate-keeping is one of a trio of concepts that are still interesting to discuss, along with conflict of interest, and bias (as in systemic bias). Still interesting as neither purely involving content policy, nor purely about community interactions, but having both snarled up together. Anyway Wikipedia is meant to help people have access to knowledge, per the mission, and to do gatekeeping per WP:NOT. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
I think you are all dancing around the real subject. Is wikipedia meant to help people have access to knowledge, to apportion access to knowledge, or to be a gate-keeper on which knowledge and at which rates do people have access to it? Wikipedia is a summary of generally accepted knowledge. We aspire to make that summary conveniently available on a global basis. The gatekeepers are those who edit media considered reliable. In these cases, at one time, information was published but is no longer considered of interest, although books may yet be written which explore issues such as Wikipedia forks. Access to knowledge, in itself, is not something within our mission. Not that a project well founded on appropriate philosophical and scientific principles would not be worthwhile. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 5:57 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Citizendium#So_what_and_how_do_we_write_about_this_sort_of_thing.3F How to write about things like [[Citizendium]], [[Conservapedia]], [[Veropedia]] - things that were notable at the time and got lots of press coverage and hence articles, and which readers may well want to read about into the future - but which have fallen out of notice and so their decline (and, in the case of Veropedia, death) got no coverage and hence we can't answer the reader question so, whatever did happen to X? If readers continue to want to read about it, then it continues to be notable, no? No, notablity was established by the amount of information published in significant reliable sources. Reader, and editor, interest is irrelevant. However, we do need a mechanism for weeding out information which is no longer of interest to readers or editors. Perhaps this could be one criteria justifying deletion, or perhaps some other form of archiving. We could maintain an archive of deprecated subjects separate from the main body of articles. Libraries do this, and call it weeding. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
If readers continue to want to read about it, then it continues to be notable, no? No, notablity was established by the amount of information published in significant reliable sources. Reader, and editor, interest is irrelevant. My bad. My comment was based on the apparently mistaken premise that we were speaking English when using words such as notable. However, we do need a mechanism for weeding out information which is no longer of interest to readers or editors. Why? Is it irrelevant, or is it relevant? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 6 February 2013 15:14, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: However, we do need a mechanism for weeding out information which is no longer of interest to readers or editors. Perhaps this could be one criteria justifying deletion, or perhaps some other form of archiving. We could maintain an archive of deprecated subjects separate from the main body of articles. Libraries do this, and call it weeding. There's a reasonable point in here. We have a quite weak grasp of the (absolute) concept of salience of information relative to a topic, probably because a relative form - disproportionate coverage of an aspect - is more eye-catching. We only really want salient information in an article. and the thesis that salience or its perception begins to look tenable. At the gossip-column extreme the salience of information can look very perishable (cf. Pippa Middleton). We don't really have a concept of salience to match the historians, not that (I imagine) they have a consensus view, thus making history more interesting than reference material. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
Oops - the thesis that salience or its perception changes over time begins to look tenable is the point I was hoping to make. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
If readers continue to want to read about it, then it continues to be notable, no? No, notablity was established by the amount of information published in significant reliable sources. Reader, and editor, interest is irrelevant. My bad. My comment was based on the apparently mistaken premise that we were speaking English when using words such as notable. Notable is a term of art on Wikipedia defined by policy. As an English word it has a broader meaning. However, we do need a mechanism for weeding out information which is no longer of interest to readers or editors. Why? Is it irrelevant, or is it relevant? It was relevant, or seemed to be, when published. It's kind of like the best selling fiction of 1924, of note, but probably not suitable for bedside reading in 2013. Time passes, priorities change; we could take the view that the article namespace should contain only material regarding which there is some minimum contemporary interest, as evidenced by at least occasional publishing of information about in in contemporary reliable sources. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 10:39 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: If readers continue to want to read about it, then it continues to be notable, no? No, notablity was established by the amount of information published in significant reliable sources. Reader, and editor, interest is irrelevant. My bad. My comment was based on the apparently mistaken premise that we were speaking English when using words such as notable. Notable is a term of art on Wikipedia defined by policy. As an English word it has a broader meaning. Call me the Clarence Thomas of Wikipedia jurisprudence, I guess. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 2/6/13, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: by at least occasional publishing of information about in in contemporary reliable sources. That's not strictly tenable, as the range of history is so vast that contemporary historians only ever write about a small portion of it, and even then sometimes only briefly. Some stuff is just waiting for historians to write about it, or not as the case may be. Some stuff from 150 years ago has been written about 20 years ago, but may not be returned to by future historians for another 100 years, if at all. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 2/6/13, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: by at least occasional publishing of information about in in contemporary reliable sources. That's not strictly tenable, as the range of history is so vast that contemporary historians only ever write about a small portion of it, and even then sometimes only briefly. Some stuff is just waiting for historians to write about it, or not as the case may be. Some stuff from 150 years ago has been written about 20 years ago, but may not be returned to by future historians for another 100 years, if at all. Carcharoth Nevertheless something that is never mentioned in a nonfiction book or journal article over 250 years could be said to have dropped from the canon of knowledge and could then be archived. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 2/6/13, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Nevertheless something that is never mentioned in a nonfiction book or journal article over 250 years could be said to have dropped from the canon of knowledge and could then be archived. Maybe, but I don't think you can generalise. You have to inspect each individual case. It *is* important that contemporary coverage exists as a check and balance to past coverage, but past coverage can provide historical context in other articles, even if it ultimately is insufficient to support a stand-alone article. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On 6 February 2013 18:46, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On 2/6/13, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Nevertheless something that is never mentioned in a nonfiction book or journal article over 250 years could be said to have dropped from the canon of knowledge and could then be archived. Maybe, but I don't think you can generalise. You have to inspect each individual case. It *is* important that contemporary coverage exists as a check and balance to past coverage, but past coverage can provide historical context in other articles, even if it ultimately is insufficient to support a stand-alone article. The real problem is that Wikipedia's sourcing rules *mostly* work *most* of the time - they are not philosophically watertight, and trying to treat them as if they were leads to silliness and frustration. So I'm just expressing my frustration. And probably being silly. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How to write about things that were once notable?
On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 9:33 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 6 February 2013 18:46, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On 2/6/13, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Nevertheless something that is never mentioned in a nonfiction book or journal article over 250 years could be said to have dropped from the canon of knowledge and could then be archived. Maybe, but I don't think you can generalise. You have to inspect each individual case. It *is* important that contemporary coverage exists as a check and balance to past coverage, but past coverage can provide historical context in other articles, even if it ultimately is insufficient to support a stand-alone article. The real problem is that Wikipedia's sourcing rules *mostly* work *most* of the time - they are not philosophically watertight, and trying to treat them as if they were leads to silliness and frustration. So I'm just expressing my frustration. And probably being silly. - d. It is actually worse than that. Wikipedias rules taken as a whole used to be about enabling editors to work, even in areas of dispute. I seriously doubt that is a tenable defense of the rules as enforced these days. -- -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
