[WikiEN-l] Citing open reference works, was article about open access encyclopedias
phoebe ayers wrote:
interesting quick article about the trials and tribulations of other
open access encyclopedia projects:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/12/14/encyclopedias
In another direction, I'm interested in the issues we have in citing
online reference works.
(a) We do want permalinks if possible and don't want link rot. It seems
that such works generally do not provide permalinks.
(b) There is the general {{cite web}} template, but it is cumbersome.
There is an access date field but that can only be a compromise
solution, if there is no permalink.
(c) For older works that are now in the public domain, the correct
solution is to place the material in Wikisource, support it with proof
reading and bibliographic details (including author information) over
there, and link to it via interwiki rather than URL. That is, Wikisource
should be the repository used by default for older material such as
Britannica 1911. We are, though, a long way from even linking to
existing articles there in preference to external links.
(d) Generally, instead of {{cite web}}, each commonly-used external
reference cited should have a dedicated template for linking. Unlike
some other areas, the drive for common standards seems not to have taken
off here.
Charles
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Re: [WikiEN-l] article about open access encyclopedias
phoebe ayers wrote: interesting quick article about the trials and tribulations of other open access encyclopedia projects: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/12/14/encyclopedias Quite a lot there about plato.stanford.edu (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), which certainly seems highly reputable and a reliable source, though I'm not in a position to judge it as a professional. Not mentioned is eom.springer.de (Encyclopaedia of Mathematics from Springer), which is very useful for referencing things. But has some typical problems related to the article's concerns, and to our own views on experts. There is the matter of updating: if you look at http://eom.springer.de/F/f038390.htm and http://eom.springer.de/F/f110070.htm you can see that they haven't bothered to merge to update on Fermat's Last Theorem; just added http://eom.springer.de/F/f110060.htm. http://eom.springer.de/S/s120140.htm on the Shimura-Taniyama Conjecture manages not to mention FLT as corollary. Having one author per article seems clumsy in these circumstances. The basic encyclopedia is translated from a Soviet-era publication. While overall the coverage is still more respectable than ours, in some ways, there are some issues one can see with POV in the additional articles they have commissioned. I can see us overtaking it eventually in quality. 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] Climate change on Wikipedia
Ken Arromdee wrote: Now has a Slashdot story: http://slashdot.org/submission/1137140/Climategate-spreads-to-Wikipedia Which links to two articles: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=62e1c98e-01ed-4c55-bf3d-5078af9cb409 http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/05/03/who-is-william-connolley-solomon.aspx At a minimum this sounds like conflict of interest, and worse if any of these accusations are true (although the article counts are probably misreporting, and I bet they include all articles he deleted and all banned users regardless of associations with climate change). Erm, you wouldn't be jumping to any conclusions here? And misinterpreting what we mean by conflict of interest? Which does not equate to academic involvement in a topic (no longer William's situation, by the way?) Or neglecting quite a substantial history of dispute resolution down the years, which at minimum involves people who actually understand policy looking at actual edits? 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
[WikiEN-l] Teach Yourself Wikipedia in 10 Minutes
Threat not a promise: newish book, anyone read? I see the Signpost are [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Review desk|looking for a reviewer]]. I did try to get a publisher interested in Teach Yourself Wikipedia in early 2006. Do we know Michael Miller, the author? I must say Participate in the Wikipedia community sounds great as a bullet point, if all you need is the right 60 seconds of instruction. 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] Do we try to watch(list) the encyclopedia too much?
Mike Pruden wrote: It isn't uncommon for the normally active user to have hundreds, if not thousands, of pages on their watchlist. Then, when somebody makes an edit that a certain user doesn't agree with, it gets changed or outright reverted. It's like, at the least, a form of a bunch of Big Brothers looking over an article and, at the worst, an outright form of page ownership. I have around 8000 pages watchlisted at present. Having a long watchlist is actually an antidote to thinking you have to curate each change. I've been on the low end on watchlisting pages myself, but a couple of months ago I decided to unload my watchlist, removing most articles that I have extensively worked on since I came onboard -- going from about 50 pages watched to about fewer than 10 pages watched, only keeping those I'm monitoring in the short-term. Personally, I found unloading my watchlist liberating, and I would hope that more would do the same. There's always that steady stream of vandal-fighters to stomp out any clear vandalism that pops up. It's hard to explain, but I think it's a good exercise in assuming good faith that others will make constructive edits in efforts to improve pages. The logic is wrong, in that the pile-up factor is not the main issue: coverage on someone's watchlist at all is the issue. Divide the number of articles by the number of active Wikipedians and you find that unless many people have four-figure watchlist lengths there will be plenty not watched at all. Vandal-fighting via Recent Changes doesn't do badly, but it's not an exact science (reverting the last edit doesn't get to clusters of bad edits, and can cover up more serious issues), and I doubt it is equally effective at all times of day. I reset my watchlist when it hit 30,000 pages (that really was too much), but the problems of ownership and excess reversion are not actually problems about how much you watch. 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] Do we try to watch(list) the encyclopedia too much?
Steve Bennett wrote: Strangely enough, the flaggedrevisions feature seems to provide a lot of what we need: 1) People don't have to watch changes as they happen, they can stumble on them when they go to save a new change 2) Changes are marked as patrolled, so far more efficient than 10 people all noticing the same change on their watchlist and deciding no action needs to be taken. This upgrade was due ... about now? 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] Do we try to watch(list) the encyclopedia too much?
David Gerard wrote: 2009/12/10 Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com: The logic is wrong, in that the pile-up factor is not the main issue: coverage on someone's watchlist at all is the issue. Divide the number of articles by the number of active Wikipedians and you find that unless many people have four-figure watchlist lengths there will be plenty not watched at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UnwatchedPages (visible to admins only, for obvious reasons) has nothing in the list at all, so someone bothers putting stuff on at least one watchlist. How well it's *actually* watched is, of course, another matter ... Perhaps one of our wizards could check how many pages are not watched by anybody who has edited in 2009. 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] 250th Signpost
phoebe ayers wrote: A note that this week marks the 250th issue of the English Wikipedia Signpost: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost I rely on WP:POST to stay in some sort of clued-up zone. I imagine hundreds of others would say the same. 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] Newbie recruitment idea: missing article lists
Carcharoth wrote: On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Soxred93 wrote: I feel inadequate. 32. :'( Well, I have less than 1% of the total. But apparently more than 0.5% That would be around 20,000 redirects! boggle What percentage of your (very high) overall edit count is that? :-) It is around 14.5%, and, yes, I should get out more. 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] Newbie recruitment idea: missing article lists
Steve Bennett wrote: On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 8:23 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Most of the typos for MySpace.com and google.com had been created and deleted by db-R3 (typo unlikely to happen in real life). I recreated them with an edit summary pointing to that page, as evidence that people's typing really is consistently much worse than we'd like to think ... There is an argument that MediaWiki should really just have a very good natural language search engine that can guess what users are looking for, despite any typos. There's an even better argument that a hand-built search engine built by thousands of monkeys addressing every query individually will outperform it every time. And there is a further argument that [[Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Redirects]] should reflect this by stronger wording. As in if any doubt, don't nominate or delete, since the resource implications of retaining a redirect for a typo are tiny. I.e. much less than arguing about it. 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] Newbie recruitment idea: missing article lists
Steve Bennett wrote: Here's another: when someone searches for an article (let's say norwegian antarctic expedition) that doesn't exist, let's encourage them to add it - we have successfully located someone interested in a topic that we don't have an article about. This is a good start. The use case would go: 1) User searches, no match found 2) Wikipedia warmly encourages user to make the article, guiding them through the steps 3) Wikipedians nurture the newbie, remaining in contact with them as they make their inevitable fumbling mistakes 4) Newbie sticks around and makes other articles What actually happens 1) User searches, no match found 2) Wikipedia yells: Before creating an article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article. To experiment, please use the sandbox. To use a wizard to create an article, see the Article wizard. When creating an article, provide references to reliable published sources. An article without references may quickly be deleted. You can also start your new article at Special:MyPage/Norwegian Antarctic Expedition. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion; ask other editors to help work on it; and move it into article space when it is ready. If you wish to ask an informational question, please visit one of our help desks. translation: - Don't create an article (without reading piles of tedious documentation first) - Don't create an article (because we know you just want to muck around) - Don't create an article (without applying a higher standard of referencing than we do) - Don't create an article (because we will delete it mercilessly. write a draft and beg for approval first) - Don't create an article (because you don't actually know anything) Yes, but ... Those prompts are not actually so useless. Perhaps the presentation could be improved. Given the huge preponderance of readers over editors, the last point really should be first (visit help desks). Then I would go to drafting: If you are able to draft an article on this topic, you can start it at Special:MyPage/Norwegian Antarctic. And make sure that the Special page has a clear way of templating the page so that it goes into a help requested category, and generates a human welcome. Then give the three options (read Your first article, Sandbox, Article wizard) as exactly that: If you'd like to Basically that message seems to have the order stood on its head. Something that could be addressed easily, though. 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] Fwd: [Wikimediauk-l] Anyone visiting VA with a camera soon?
Steve Bennett wrote: On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 10:26 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Thomas Dalton just volunteered for something. Anyone got favoured VA exhibits we don't have a pic of? Get back to him with room, collection, cabinet, etc :-) VA = Victoria and Albert, a London museum, to save you all the trouble. I still wish we had better processes for matching photo requests with potential contributors. Something for Commons, though? 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] Newbie recruitment idea: missing article lists
Soxred93 wrote: I feel inadequate. 32. :'( Well, I have less than 1% of the total. But apparently more than 0.5% 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] New articles from the third world
Sam Blacketer wrote: On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:48 PM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: Do we need affirmative action in favour of articles about Africa? No because we already have this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias Which would be fine if the concept of systemic bias was understood by the very people who exhibit it. (Perhaps that's not quite the right way to put it: individuals do though put forward views and opinions that are representative of our various kinds of systemic bias, and this tends to be unconsciously done on their part.) If we want a good strategy direction, we could ask the WMF to do more to place systemic front and centre in descriptions of the mission, as an unacceptable clamp on WP's ability to reflect the total of global knowledge. See for example [[Quinary]], which carries a notability query template. The body of the article starts Many languages^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinary#cite_note-0 use quinary number systems. The systemic bias of denary (base-10) people is fairly clear here. The [[tyranny of the majority]] indeed. See [[Category talk:Positional numeral systems]] for me getting annoyed. 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] Newbie recruitment idea: missing article lists
David Gerard wrote: I'd like to work out some way of advocating the missing article lists to potential new contributors. On en:wp: http://enwp.org/WP:WANTED http://enwp.org/WP:MISSING I've been writing new stub articles just from those in the past couple of days. It reminds me of how and why I got hooked on writing an encyclopedia. Good idea. Lists of redlinks are an important and somewhat neglected part of the infrastructure. I feel we haven't worked out exactly how to present them (decentralisation is quite important, but there is an obvious tension with the idea that newbies can find them quickly). Really [[Category:Wikipedia missing topics]] should be the master category. It turns out to be a subcategory of [[Category:Wikipedia requested articles] ] - which I find to be less than logical. Equally [[WP:MISSING]] should be the master page in project space. There is nothing wrong with having Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles there, but that wikiproject has its Procrustean bed tendencies (equating encyclopedic articles with articles in existing encyclopedias isn't what should happen). 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] Newbie recruitment idea: missing article lists
Carl (CBM) wrote: On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: (I happen to think that starting by improving existing articles is probably a better training, and certainly an easier one. The question is how to motivate newcomers, to do that or anything else.) The difficulty I see for newcomers improving existing articles is that, as newcomers, they don't know which things they can change and which things they should leave alone. For example, imagine a well-meaning newbie who sees that our article Logic starts with Logic is the study of reasoning. This newbie might change that to Logic is the art and science of correct deduction, which is a priori reasonable. They would not know that people have argued over the first sentence in detail and that the present wording is a compromise between the many definitions of logic available in reliable sources. And Logic is not at all a controversial topic, nor rated as a featured article. If a new user were to wade into a featured article on a religious or political topic, they would have even less freedom to edit. Right. Reading down an article and changing the first thing you happen to disagree with is not an ideal way to work; it happens to suggest itself to many newcomers, though. I suppose the three pillars of improving an article are: fact-checking and referencing anything that appears dubious to you; expanding in areas where coverage seems obviously lacking; and restructuring. All these really matter more than wording tweaks, or at least should be given priority. But they require specific skills (in our terms). 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] Newbie recruitment idea: missing article lists
Emily Monroe wrote: I think some mottos of the day would also be a good idea. There is [[Wikipedia:Tip of the day]], which I had rather lost sight of. The sequence of new tips seems to have been revamped at the end of 2008. Could be combined with mottoes of the day, no? 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
[WikiEN-l] Technology Guardian article on global article distribution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/02/wikipedia-known-unknowns-geotagging-knowledge Mark Graham writes. Map of density by geo-tagging round the world, and a sensible comment that broadband is only just coming to parts of Africa, meaning we can expect more editing from there in future. Actually South Asia needs a mention in that connection also. 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] strategy QOTW
Philippe Beaudette wrote: On Dec 3, 2009, at 4:00 AM, wikien-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote: Apparently people should use edit summaries and only use American English. Agree with the first, disagree with the second (Americans asserting ownership on spelling is a negative rather than a positive factor); but both these matters were settled five years ago. I do think it's a mistake to be so reactive in terms of what is in the newspapers, for a strategy discussion; that's a PR matter. Charles, You think that issues of Community Health weren't on our radar screen long before the Wall Street Journal wrote about them? :) No, but I can think much better ways of framing the question than following up WSJ article would lead to. Studies and articles written by people not really aware of how our communities function are not really good places to start, if the issue is how to improve that functioning. It seems pretty clear that if you frame the question too loosely, you get a recital of some beefs that are brought up whatever the occasion. 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
[WikiEN-l] Court ruling and privacy policy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6710237/Wikipedia- ordered-by-judge-to-break-confidentiality-of-contributor.html is a news story about the British High Court ordering the WMF to disclose an IP number of an editor. This is in line with the statement of the Privacy Policy, as I read it. What other instances do we know of? 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] Question of the week on strategy-wiki
Philippe Beaudette wrote: Given all of the above, how could the community better reward contributions and nurture new editors? How can the Wikimedia projects become a friendlier and more welcoming place to share knowledge? We'd love to have your input on the talk page of that question! Apparently people should use edit summaries and only use American English. Agree with the first, disagree with the second (Americans asserting ownership on spelling is a negative rather than a positive factor); but both these matters were settled five years ago. I do think it's a mistake to be so reactive in terms of what is in the newspapers, for a strategy discussion; that's a PR matter. 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] BBC blog on WSJ study
Carcharoth wrote: On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/11/wikipedia_on_the_wane.html Some interesting comments have been posted to that blog. And of course some off-topic ranting. The original WSJ article shows how easy it is to put together a newspaper article of people's gripes. Which is not that surprising after eight and a half years of Wikipedia. But no way does it do a good job of identifying what is going on, in terms that stand up to analysis. And I mean something intermediate between sweeping generalisations and anecdotal evidence. Anyone else feel that Mr. Murdoch's little list beginning 1. Trash Google rather than actually noindex News Corp's pages has Wikipedia as alternate new source somewhere on it? 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] BBC blog on WSJ study
David Gerard wrote: We do this stuff so people can use it, but it's a bit off to turn around and claim we should be paying them for the privilege. Reading the blog comments and thinking about it, I decided ingrates: hope the people you're planning to give Christmas presents all say they had hoped for something more expensive in a colour they actually liked. 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] BBC blog on WSJ study
Durova wrote: Mr. Murdoch wants to shift to a paid access model for online the online versions of his news holdings. He's negotiating a deal with Microsoft's search engine toward that purpose. It's hard to understand the conjecture that Wikipedia ties in with those plans. If anything, Wikipedia's habit of referencing historic news articles would help Mr. Murdoch's bottom line because it sends traffic to old articles, which can generate advertising revenue from old news that would otherwise be valueless. Well, that's a sophisticated view of how rivalry is seen in the media world. If the big picture is the Web eating the lunch of the newspaper industry, because the papers have been undercutting each other for the last decade by giving free content away, then the business solution is to get out of free online access, but also to ask who has had the benefit besides online readers, and do something about it. 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] Cory Doctorow: Wikipedia is facts-about-facts
David Gerard wrote: http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol20/?pg=16 Argument intelligent enough, use of notable is off-base though since for us notability is an attribute of topics. 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] BBC blog on WSJ study
Carcharoth wrote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/11/wikipedia_on_the_wane.html Might be of interest to some here. Up to three BBC TV interviews will be occurring today. They are scheduled on the BBC News Channel for 5.50 pm, 7.50 pm (that should be me), and we think Newsnight. 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] New site for meta-discussion
Jake Wartenberg wrote: On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 7:31 AM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: There have been a few of these. IMHO, the best website to discuss similar issues is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Village_Pump Steve There is something to be said for off wiki discussion. Why do you think these mailing lists get so much traffic? People can start discussions in a less formal setting before they take them to the pump. It should also be a place where members of the community can discuss things that are not Wikipedia related. On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 6:55 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Could you describe briefly what the editorial policy of this forum will be? Charles I can. I want to promote a relaxed atmosphere without allowing outing or trolling. It should be a place where editors can chatter idly and brainstorm new ideas. I hope that gives you an idea of what I am going for here. Sort of. It is quite important to realise, though, that the community has no definite boundaries. An unofficial forum is typically seen as a place where Wikipedians and their critics meet on something like equal terms. You are obviously aware of some of the issues that arise, or have arisen in the past, with criticism that goes way past anything that could be reckoned constructive. 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] New site for meta-discussion
Jake Wartenberg wrote: I've created website to complement these mailing lists a venue for discussion. It's at wikien.net http://www.wikien.net/. Please let me know if you have any feedback or questions. Could you describe briefly what the editorial policy of this forum will be? 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] Featured churn
Bod Notbod wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 12:19 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: As long as history doesn't come to an end, and new people keep getting born and (annoyingly) becoming notable enough for a Wikipedia article, there will always be a need for new articles. Not to mention people's irritating and continuing habit of publishing successful books, making notable films (running the risk of creating notable actors and other staff), creating successful companies with successful products, progressing with scientific enquiry, advancing technology, releasing new software... Yes. To be tedious and pedantic about it all, once we have finished Phase 1 of enWP, where we were playing catch-up with the obviously encyclopedic topics like chemical elements and US Presidents (etc.), we get to Phase 2, where the new articles fall into several distinct classes: (1) articles about newly notable topics; (2) articles about fairly obviously encyclopedic topics, for which sources were available without too much trouble and which fit into existing coverage, but had been missed for whatever reason; (3) articles which are much like those in (2) to create, but only came to light after someone expanded existing coverage somewhere (new redlinks); (4) articles for redlinks where the supporting sources took a bit of quarrying out. So we are really saying that (1) is generally speaking the 'reactive' class. To some extent the rate of creation is not under our control (these articles will be started in some form anyway). The others are the 'proactive' classes: (2) really just requires people to read the site and notice places where redlinks are or should be, and create good stubs that are not a huge effort (the traditional form of growth). (3) requires upgrading stubs to generate fuller coverage, and then we are back to (2). While (4) takes us back to the librarian discussion: deeper-cutting research skills required. (There is really also (5), completism for lists, which gets through to me, but perhaps is a minority interest.) So what we get is a rate of growth by the article-number metric (not the only interesting measure) where one component is mostly to do with outside 'push', while the others are 'pull', and depend on how Wikipedians self-assign to tasks. 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] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning
Carcharoth wrote: On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 3:07 PM, Aryeh Gregor simetrical+wikil...@gmail.com wrote: snip As you can see, this doesn't really contain any info useful to anyone but server admins. Which is why it was originally posted to wikitech-l, not wikien-l. True, but thanks for explaining anyway. Much appreciated, and I do find it interesting, even if my original post in this thread and some of the responses to it said or implied I didn't. The most important thing is to decide what we are going to cross-post to wikitech-l to induce equal bafflement. Something involving 57 different flavours of idiosyncratic interpretation of IAR, and who thinks that they could be safely ignored, might do. 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] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER
Brian J Mingus wrote: I believe the banner will be judged, not based on the almost universally bad impressions of it that I have seen from Wikipedians, but based on how much money it makes. I don't think it's surprising that the banner rubs many Wikipedians the wrong way. It was created by a PR agency with the express purpose of raking in as much cash as possible. It's supposed to hit all the right chords of the hundreds of millions of visitors that will see it, of whom we long time Wikipedians are a miniscule fraction. It takes a bit of mental effort to see the difference of the demographic of Wikipedians and Wikipedia readers as a big plus, but there it is. Wikipedia went mainstream a couple of years ago, and it was part of the mission that this should happen. Clearly a competent PR person tasked with this job is going to take the line you suggest. I'm not aware of fundraising and its methods being a big issue in board elections, but I'm no expert. 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] Wikipedia Lesson Plan
Fred Bauder wrote: Fred Bauder wrote: http://weblogg-ed.com/2005/wikipedia-lesson-plan/ Indeed, must have worked very well, since as of 2009 [[horse]] has 211 references, an advance on 0 when that was written. I encountered a group of college students editing a somewhat neglected article I had started, encouraged by a professor who had set groups the task of improving historical pages. The article was better than before, but there were some basic issues with what they did that required a little more than the addition of house style by me. Charles No surprise there; you're an experienced Wikipedia editor, and with lots of additional material to work with, can do much better than a bunch of newbies, however scholarly. No, I meant something a bit different. The article you posted seemed to take the epistemology as the basic lesson: if you tell me we know that, what do you mean by know? It's a reasonable assumption that being analytical about how something in an encyclopedia article can be described as known would prove educational, say in the early teenage years. The article was on the first poetry anthology published in English, and the question I would have is more about general relevance of content. Just one statement: the first edition had many poems containing religious commentary that were taken out in later editions. OK, fine, if you know the publication date was 1557, the year before Mary Tudor died, you are going to ask more and different questions, not just how do we know that? which can probably be established by putting two books side by side. (This is about [[Tottel's Miscellany]], by the way.) 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] Wikipedia Lesson Plan
Ray Saintonge wrote: Charles Matthews wrote: The article you posted seemed to take the epistemology as the basic lesson: if you tell me we know that, what do you mean by know? It's a reasonable assumption that being analytical about how something in an encyclopedia article can be described as known would prove educational, say in the early teenage years. The article was on the first poetry anthology published in English, and the question I would have is more about general relevance of content. Just one statement: the first edition had many poems containing religious commentary that were taken out in later editions. OK, fine, if you know the publication date was 1557, the year before Mary Tudor died, you are going to ask more and different questions, not just how do we know that? which can probably be established by putting two books side by side. (This is about [[Tottel's Miscellany]], by the way.) There is an unfortunate tendency for current day editors to view the history of past centuries in a more compressed manner than warranted. The article in question includes the sentence: It is generally included with Elizabethan era literature even if it was, in fact, published in 1557, a year before Elizabeth I took the throne. That doesn't mention Mary at all. It ignores the effect of the less than Catholic Elizabeth's rule in comparison to that of her sister. Well, quite, except for ... everything. I'm certainly going to be sorry I brought this all up. Tottel apparently marketed his book on the strength of contributions by [[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]], executed in 1547 by Henry VIII about two weeks before he died. Our article about Surrey manages to mention that he was a poet and to say nothing at all about his poetry. Now - apparently - Surrey was a worse poet than Wyatt, but more of a draw so got star billing in the Miscellany (publishers haven't changed a bit in 450 years). Mary Tudor thought what about the allegation that Surrey was going to usurp the throne from Edward VI, the reason he was beheaded? Edward was the one who was really less-than-Catholic. Was Surrey rehabilitated under Mary? Seems quite possible given the Howards' place generally on the religious question.. Yes, I suppose I'd prefer to be worrying about points I made myself, rather than brought up by pesky college kids. 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] Wikipedia Lesson Plan
Fred Bauder wrote: http://weblogg-ed.com/2005/wikipedia-lesson-plan/ Indeed, must have worked very well, since as of 2009 [[horse]] has 211 references, an advance on 0 when that was written. I encountered a group of college students editing a somewhat neglected article I had started, encouraged by a professor who had set groups the task of improving historical pages. The article was better than before, but there were some basic issues with what they did that required a little more than the addition of house style by me. 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] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER
Soxred93 wrote: Maybe the Foundation is trying to teach us a lesson. Maybe they want us to stop complaining about ads, so they intentionally run a bad one. In the next few years, we'll have this to look back on and say, it could always be worse. It is pretty much traditional for the fundraiser to cause controversy, in fact. I know how Oleg feels. These days I ignore the ads, since I don't see why I should give money well as time: and they are obviously aimed at Wikipedia's readers, who outnumber the people seriously involved with the site by a factor of 10,000 or more by now. I don't see the banner any more: I don't remember dismissing it. 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] deletionism in popular culture
Ryan Delaney wrote: I'm still not seeing the connection, but I'll try one last time. It sounds like you're saying that discussion of deletion process distracts us from working on building new, better articles on topics that we already have, and that we shouldn't worry too much about deleted content because it probably wasn't any good anyway. I think there's some logic in this, but it's still the case that (a) sometimes we ought to take a step back and consider process from a birds-eye view, or else it will develop chaotically as a massive cancerous collection of short-term responses to short-term problems and (b) there is no drawback to pure wiki deletion that we don't already suffer from the existing system, and it has several considerable advantages over the status quo. I wasn't saying we shouldn't discuss deletion process: I think in fact we should probably look at why PROD is underused. I think that having the deleted articles off the site (unless you're an admin) does make people not spend time looking at deleted material that has an intriguing title but isn't worth reading, an activity that would probably involve a great deal of duplicated effort. I simply disagree with (b) - it seems like a proponent's view, and the history of the relevant project page seems to indicate that most people lost interest in 2006 (when BLP began to loom). If you agree with B (and you ought to), then you ought to think that pure wiki deletion is a good idea. Maybe you don't think it's a good enough idea to invest the time and energy into getting it implemented (A), but B is what's really important here-- if enough people subscribe to B, it will find a way to get done. Like I say, you seem to be arguing from a rather lonely perspective here. Cha ___ 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] deletionism in popular culture
Ryan Delaney wrote: On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 10:44 PM, Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com wrote: Now that's a lovely perennial idea. There's no point in hard deleting any article save to protect private information in the history. You can pure wiki delete; or even pure wiki delete and protect the blank page; but removing the work done from view of interested passers-by is wholly unnecessary. I haven't found any persuasive argument against it. Usually the objection is but then there would be edit wars over deletion! The main argument is rationalisation: if you ever thought that it was a valid idea to rationalise the scope of the project at any point, you'd probably start with the thought that with hundreds of thousands of articles deleted every year and most of that material being at best thoroughly marginal to what we are trying to do, then (you might argue that) having it all around is on balance not really helpful. So against that you can argue that WP doesn't need rationalisation of any kind: it can just go on growing how it likes given the resources. People seem to draw their own conclusions on this debate. Mine are based largely on the kind of focus or lack of it you see in people who want to search through those millions of deleted words, rather than anything else they could be trawling through. 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] deletionism in popular culture
Ryan Delaney wrote: I'm having trouble following your meaning, I think because I'm not familiar with how you are using rationalisation. Can you explain a bit more please? Wiktionary meaning (3) for rationalization is A reorganization of a company or organization in order to improve its efficiency. Which of course is sometimes euphemistic. More detail in [[rationalization (economics)]], which seems to me also to be more tendentious in what it is saying. I was mainly thinking of the kind of discussion where you try to draw the line between bells and whistles and core activities. 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 friendly are we to Newbies? Update on the create an article as a newbie challenge
David Goodman wrote: snip That this leads to non-notification is only part of the problem. It also leads to a failure to correct errors. When I see a bad speedy, unless I think it's really important, I leave it alone, and do not revert it, although I know it will result in people coming to that admin's talk page thinking there have been no problems. To a certain degree, that we get along is more important as a practical matter than that we get it right. I'd like to find a way to deal with this. I think this set of comments provides a possible type of explanation of social phenomena on the site that is at least worth isolating. Rather than the place being too scratchy (as is sometimes argued) it may be that socially we prefer a comfort zone in which lesser forms of conflict (over things like this) are avoided. So those may be complementary issues, naturally, if people are too broad-brush in attaching the label drama to all types of discussion of misuse of admin powers. That certainly accords with my experience. It is sad to think that the culture we have may simply not be compatible with telling the truth about errors made in the application of admin powers. 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 friendly are we to Newbies? Update on the create an article as a newbie challenge
Carcharoth wrote: On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: snip I created a journal article in the end. Not part of this experiment, but my point below (which may have got lost), is valid, I think: To try and bring this post back on-topic, I suppose my point is that stub articles on obscure topics would probably fare even worse if a new editor submitted them. Is that a valid point? That obscure topics need experienced Wikipedians to start the articles going, as opposed to new editors trying to do the same? Anyone agree that the high-hanging fruit are more likely to get new editors bitten? If that's a way of saying that experience is helpful in knowing what makes for a good stub, I think that's uncontestable. If it's a way of saying that the patrolling that goes on is basically a filter by notability of topic first, and excuse for deletion afterwards, then that might be factually accurate, if something that also has its darker side (judging the notability of a topic by what is written in a stub, or even on the basis of quick googling, is obviously flawed). If it's an encouragement to post more stubs that are clearly needed to develop the site, then I'm in complete agreement, and would add that we need more infrastructure directed towards missing articles and at least turning the redlinks blue with adequate stubs. (To answer part of what David Goodman has been arguing consistently, adding new articles prompted by the needs of the site, rather than spending a corresponding amount of time on salvage work, seems to me a defensible priority on content grounds. Which is not the whole point, though.) 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] Fwd: Sue Gardner nominated for HuffPost media game-changer of the year
Samuel Klein wrote: Forwarding from foundation-l. This is lovely - bold of HuffPost to include Wikimedia in its wide-angle view of today's media, and appropriate considering the way WP helps make sense of the chaos of breaking news. Right. I wonder whether the ambiguous use of access in the write-up (access to read or to write?) was deliberate. I also love Tina Brown's quote - I used to be the impatient type. Now I'm the serene type. Because how can you be impatient when everything happens right now, instantly? - she sounds like a natural Wikipedian... Certainly. And she could put Roseanne Barr in charge of one of our issues. No, wait, I seem to have gone too wide-angle in my view here ... confused now. 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 friendly are we to Newbies? Update on the create an article as a newbie challenge
David Gerard wrote: Discussion on the funcs list indicates there's a real problem. That way, the admin population can't dismiss it as just you whining - but something the arbs are seeing as well, and consider below the ideal of admin behaviour. We're after a cultural change, after all. So where do we stand now on your comment (of not too long ago) that the preferred mode for reversing a bum speedy deletion is not to notify the deleting admin? 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 friendly are we to Newbies? Update on the create an article as a newbie challenge
Ryan Delaney wrote: On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 12:59 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com mailto:charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: David Gerard wrote: Discussion on the funcs list indicates there's a real problem. That way, the admin population can't dismiss it as just you whining - but something the arbs are seeing as well, and consider below the ideal of admin behaviour. We're after a cultural change, after all. So where do we stand now on your comment (of not too long ago) that the preferred mode for reversing a bum speedy deletion is not to notify the deleting admin? Charles Maybe I'm late to the party here, but isn't it uncontroversial that contacting the deleting admin is Step 1 whenever we want to peer review an admin's use of sysop tools? Which was how the point arose. I'm quite a hardliner in general on the collegiate approach and requirement on admins to do exactly that; as some people know. The question is what nuances there are. In arguing that undoing a clearly erroneous speedy, post-notification of the action is probably adequate, I came across this idea that one should just do it rather than make an issue; and that this was accepted practice as of 2009. (I then went and spent quite a bit of time on speedy patrol to assess how things were over there.) This fits into the current debate in the form not of whether reversing a bad speedy is some sort of wheel-warring (which is a kind of reductio ad absurdum); but that not reporting that it has been reversed is actually or potentially causing a lack of feedback to admins with systematic errors of approach. (We're all fallible, but this study raises the question whether there are enough misconceptions out there in the group of admins to make this a serious matter.) 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] New way to discourage newcomers invented
Ryan Delaney wrote: That's the point made in the OP. Apoc2400 thinks that, since the reality is that Wikipedia has become greatly bureaucratized (he and I think that's a bad thing, you think it's a good thing, but that's beside the point) then we should stop kidding ourselves and get rid of WP:BURO. No, I do not think it is a good thing - where did I say that? I think it is important not to be confused between discussions of what is really going on, within Wikipedia as it actually operates, and discussions at an idealised level (normally only backed up with some anecdotal if slight evidence). The other point I would like to make is that the problem really comes with people who think you make a bureaucracy work by being bureaucratic, when the opposite is true. WP:BURO is basically prescriptive, not descriptive (I'm against people who weasel by saying policy is basically descriptive not prescriptive whenever that suits them), and it tells us not to do that bureaucratic thing of using sensible procedural features in an obstructive fashion. 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
[WikiEN-l] Sidewiki
Sidewiki is from Google, is a toolbar feature they have come up with for commenting web pages, and is apparently launched tomorrow: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/help-and-learn-from-others-as-you.html So now the entire Web gets talkpages. Sadly this doesn't actually make the entire Web a wiki. 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] Sidewiki
Bod Notbod wrote: I heard a radio show discussing side-wiki and one issue they raised was that it gave web owners no control over what people said about their site in the wiki (as opposed, say, to on-site comments). Hmmm, and it would be a way of commenting on any site while keeping your IP number between yourself and Google, too. Not that I would expect a radio discussion to be as interested in privacy issues as we sometimes are. If this ever turned out to be popular, there would be a spam issue. Is Google's idea that if you spam on Sidewiki they nuke your pagerank on their search engine? It's a big shame they have attached wiki to something that isn't (is more in the blogging family of user-generated opinion content, if you ask me). I thought these guys were supposed not to be evil. 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] Can sweet reason still work on en:wp? Occasionally.
Surreptitiousness wrote: stevertigo wrote: So the question is, how do we aggregate and sort arguments such that we can apply a meta process for quickly discerning good, valid, arguments, from those that aren't? Other than IAR that is? Didn't we used to reformat discussions? Maybe we need to re-integrate that into our tool-box. Refactoring talk pages being one of those things that work in theory but not in practice, I can see why it became less popular (perhaps is extinct). These days some pages with many talk archives could probably do with their own FAQ. 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] New way to discourage newcomers invented
Ryan Delaney wrote: On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 3:15 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com mailto:charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Apoc 2400 wrote: Isn't it time to be honest with ourselves and nominate Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy for deletion? Bureaucracy is a fairly helpful description of how Wikipedia actually functions, as far as management style is concerned. Decisions are taken according to practice that has been codified to some extent (in some areas, to a large extent). If you want to get something done, knowing where to go and how to apply is at least half the battle. But my reading of WP:BURO would make the comment A procedural error made in posting anything, such as a proposal or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating that post central to its intention. I say we don't delete that. Charles Wikipedia has no management style because there are no managers. We should not be a bureaucracy in any sense of the word. That is the point of WP:BURO. It's not that We are a bureaucracy, but if you cut some corners we'll look the other way. That's not what it says at all. It says We are NOT a bureaucracy and so Knowing where to go should be much, MUCH less than half the battle of contributing to Wikipedia. - causa sui I'm sure that styles without central managers feature in management books, though. In fact I know they do. The question is whether it is more helpful to insist that the reality is a purist wiki/collaborative style of work with everything freeform, or to look the actuality in the face every now and again. The way we operate is a hybrid of pure wiki editing with other stuff. And being in denial about the scale issue seems head-in-the-sand to me. A wiki with 10,000 pages is a big wiki. And we have 1000 times that, one way and another. 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] Can sweet reason still work on en:wp? Occasionally.
Thomas Dalton wrote: 2009/10/20 Ryan Delaney ryan.dela...@gmail.com: I like this. Ideally IAR should never be invoked, as its not a rule; IAR should be assumed. That said, I agree with the call and want to give props for the detailed explanation, which should help smooth things over. I disagree. Following rules should be the default. We should only ignore them if we have a good reason to do so. Otherwise, there is no point having rules at all. I'm happy with that. As long as we agree that all rules should have a point, also. If a rule is arbitrary, it needs a specially good point (example, which side of the road to drive on). 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] Fwd: [openmoko-announce] WikiReader
Or perhaps [[WikiReader]], if you'd prefer facts. 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] WP and Deep Web, was Re: Age fabrication and original research
Carcharoth wrote: On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 5:37 AM, stevertigo stv...@gmail.com wrote: snip Well the WP:SOHE idea to me seems a reasonable compromise -- one that makes small parts of copyright texts open to our research needs, while still respecting the needs of authors to keep whole works marketable. WP:SOHE being the page that you wrote recently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sourcehelpers A nearly identical concept at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange (consisting of shared resources and resource requests) while expansive, is fairly inactive. Did you not think of trying to make Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange more active, rather than starting a new page and a new proposal? I don't care that much where WP:DREDGE ends up redirecting. I rhink we may still be at an early stage of conceptualising the useful dredging that needs to go on. For free texts, this currently looks like an internal Wikisource debate, which is why I was a bit guarded in discussing it. For fair use texts thre is sn obvious issue whcich is that fair use is determined to an extent by issues of context (or in other words it isn't a matter of delegating collection to a Wikiquote or clone). For database querying, unless the database is free/open, there are obvious issues about how useful it would be for verification. You'd have thought it would anyway be part of fact-checking in some cases, but the age fabrication thread would not have arisen if it was really straightforward as an issue. I wonder what a survey across WikiProjects would reveal, about the most standard or routine ways people do research in areas they know well.. I'm certainly interested in the general issues of lists of redlinks and how they get matched to combiuations of resources for articles. 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
[WikiEN-l] WP and Deep Web, was Re: Age fabrication and original research
David Goodman wrote: Quite apart from the incredible range available from a research library, the great majority of Wikipedians, even experienced ones, do not use even those sources which are made available free from local public libraries to residents. Many seem not to even think about using anything free on the internet except that reachable through the Googles. if Google News reports a newspaper or magazine behind a pay wall, they do not even think of looking for it in other databases or web sites that they may have available. David's issue here is something he describes as familiar generally to librarians. It does seem to me to be a hybrid of that one (leading the horse to the reference library water is not the same as having the horse drink), with another one. Tim Berners-Lee is apparently interested in the [[Deep Web]], which is to a first approximation what you can't Google for, but is out there. One clear cause is online databases, where if the webcrawler can't think up a good query, the potential web page answer won't get reported. I was thinking about this more obliquely, because of my current interests: another couple of causes occur to me. There are texts online which are reference material, but need proof-reading (tell me about it) before the text is accurate enough for the search term to be there in clear. And (as I found out just now) there are texts online that are downloads that are huge files. I've just looked at a PDF that is over 500 Mb. Both these issues are obvious to me as user of archive.org. There is a route for information to migrate onto the Web as book - scan - post to archive.org. Which is fruitful and gets it out there. It happens that for reference information our model is more useful by a factor of at least 1000 (you can check the figures for archive.org downloads). So, the deeper Web needs dredging work before such things turn up on most people's first page of search engine hits. I'd quite agree with David that simply using the shallow Web and moving information from one part of it to another is not the only thing research for WP should be about. It seems to me that during Wikipedia's second decade we'll need to become more thoughtful about what is involved. (In Wikisource terms, for example, it would be great to see development of that project as the reference Commons, matching the function the Commons serves for media files. But that's a potentially divisive idea, since it is already a free library with its own mission.) 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] I wonder if the FTC decision on blogs covers Wikipedia edits
Thomas Dalton wrote: 2009/10/8 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: If you are in the US and you blog and are paid or receive oher commercial benefits for it, the FTC requires you to reveal the relationship: http://blogs.consumerreports.org/money/2009/10/new-ftc-federal-trade-commission-guidelines-disclose-product-review-blogola-payola-favorable-blog-comments-more-transparency.html?EXTKEY=KEYCODE=OTC-ConsumeristRSS Now, would this cover Wikipedia edits? Make sure you read this sentence: The guides, last updated in 1980, are administrative interpretations of the law aimed at helping advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act, and they’re not binding law themselves. If you want to try and interpret the guides, make sure you do so with that fact in mind. Hmmm, I doubt Wikipedia takes people who spam it to court anyway. But this idea may may some mileage in it. We not like backed up with FTC not like sounds like a more powerful argument. Something the paymasters might understand, not reading further than Federal. 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] deletionism in popular culture
David Goodman wrote: The deletion of improvable articles because the small number of participants at AfD who are interested and willing to rescue them is one of the reasons for people losing the interest in Wikipedia. Counterfactually, suppose you had a team of universal researchers you could assign to work on articles. What relative weight would you give to various types of work? Out of these, (a) filling in popular redlinks, (b) working over topic lists from other reference works, (c) fact-checking and referencing long-standing articles on the site that really are not shaping up, (d) researching for articles where the initial submission was clearly under-researched, which seem to you most important factors in developing the site as a whole? Which, for example, are going to do most to cure systemic bias? Which are going to help our reputation in the academic world? Which are going to do most for general reliability? And which (your point) could have the most impact on the community? I kind of feel most thoughtful people long-term on the site have voted with their feet on these issues. It would be surprising, of course, if self-assignment of tasks also corresponded to any particular person's view of the correct allocation of priorities. (Only one of the 20 items culled from AfD has any historical content, the foolish [[shield-mate]], only one takes us outside the Anglosphere to the 90% of the world's population who don't think in English, and so on. You may well be right that something could be salvaged in some cases by good research. Which is why I'd like to see the cost of diverting people onto such work as part of the assessment.) 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] Age fabrication and original research
Gregory Maxwell wrote: An example of the kinds of problems you bump into when depending on primary sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Swampyankdiff=prevoldid=312682486 But there should be no problem under policy for pointing out BOTH what a respectable primary source says along with disagreeing secondary sources. If any policy says otherwise it should be fixed. Is there a _primary_ source for a date of birth beyond a birth certificate or other official registration? Seems to me that dragging thou shalt not quote primary sources into arguments is more likely a source of confusion than of clarification. Just because we don't want people doing original research of a tendentious sort from primary sources that need interpretative care and publishing it on Wikipedia, it doesn't mean that we have always to wait for a secondary source to copy across straight data. 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] So what does Flagged Revs feel like?
David Goodman wrote: If enWikipedia has only 4,000 active editors, and we don't do better at this than, we are going to keep up with only a very few articles. The plan will work , though, for the most watched articles, fortunately where they are needed, because that's the ones where people people catch errors now. In other words, as a substitute for semi-protection for most semi'd pages, not flagging a significant number of pages addition to them. It won't do a thing to reduce the gross vandalism that now gets uncaught for hours. It might provide a clearer focus on the ones that get caught in a few minutes, and keep the vandalism off them for those few minutes. But that's all that can be expected of it Of course, if we are talking about the work that will get done, it is most important to answer the question should this work be getting done? And that seems a clear Yes. We don't ever get the magic bullet technical solution that ensures that everything gets done that should be. That is not how the system works, it's the asymptote. 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
[WikiEN-l] Loose ends (was other stuff)
stevertigo wrote: Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: I believe you are misreading what is said here. It is not being stated that Arbcom has no time to do the job. Rather, it is being stated that if it wants to do the job, it doesn't also have the time to deal with all the heckling and rewriting of history that can go on after a case is closed. I appreciate the correction. My point simply was that there is a place for heckling, even after the close of the case. The issue then is how to focus that signal - irritating as worn-out-brakes it may be - into something coherent. The distinction here is that its a fatal error to characterize what people say as just wiki-lawyering, when the issue is solveable through broader signal enhancing techniques, that if Arbcom wants to, we can start exploring. There is _more_ of an argument for this approach now, than there was when Arbcom was closing 100 cases a year. Then the be gruesome (sei grausam) approach of saying get over it was fairly clearly applicable: appeal in 3 months or 6 months if you must, but don't assume everything on the site revolves round you. Now the acceptance filter means it is mainly big, complicated cases that go to arbitration, and perhaps a paragraph afterwards in the Signpost is a little scanty. But this is what blogs are for, surely. And blogging onsite is basically a bad idea. If there is an argument to put, why not write it up coherently offisite and send the Arbcom a link? Carcharoth wrote Actually, having seen this (and contrary to my previous e-mail): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development#Still_viable.3F I think all it needs is someone to drag things forward a bit. That might still happen. It does seem that the ACPD is currently more active than the other proposals. Loose ends means an endemic lack of closure to onsite discussions. Quite unlike the pre-filtering of arbitration cases, there is no forum onsite, I believe (who knows the whole site these days?), in which general policy matters pass through a preliminary interesting/rehashed and dull gate, after which they could have some fuller status of live topics. Should there be? And are these two halves of something? 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
[WikiEN-l] Loose ends (was other stuff)
Ray Saintonge wrote: stevertigo wrote: More thing on my to-do list: Get Arbcom to actually deal with adjudicating policy and sections therein. That can't work without opening up the broader question of how policies are formulated and later amended. Any kind of policy review process needs to operate separately from Arbcom, and be able to rule whether policies were properly adopted. Until such a process is fully operational nothing useful would be accomplished by having Arbcom rule on those policies. OK, here's an old-style formulation: X is to current policy and policy-review discussions as RfAr is to the Workshop. What would X be? It would be some sort of policy review that operated to a schematic, with things like in fewer than 500 words for submissions, and so on. And it would not be a free-for-all or brainstorming session. 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] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE
George Herbert wrote: snip It's not so much that it's impossible to do and make stick, as doing it and making it stick requires the right people, timing, attention, and focus, and those are all in perpetual short supply. Well, of course I respect your hands-on experience. I was coming at the civility issue from the direction it arose (Arbcom) in what is now a rambling, vertiginous thread. I just want to add my theoretical analysis: a recent academic study has spoken in terms of our arbitration process as conditioned by an idea of weeding in (rather than weeding out of troublesome individuals). This says something about the traditional approach of drawing boundaries and making it clear what crosses them. My view is that this concept has been tried on civility and (despite what is a goodish record with other issues) has not shown itself as well adapted as for other vexing matters. 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] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE (was: Notability and ski resorts)
Marc Riddell wrote: on 9/25/09 5:36 PM, Fred Bauder at fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: It is more a matter of editors taking back the wiki from the tiny minority that is abusing others. You can't vote for people who openly advocate not enforcing civility rules and expect the arbitration committee to do much. Look back in the history of the arbitration committee and you will find that its original purpose was to deal with gross violations of Wikiquette, see Erik Moeller wrote: RK was tolerated because he contributed good material. But how much good material has not been contributed because of his well documented behavioral problems? In my opinion, we need to set clearer rules on Wikiquette and be serious about enforcing them, with a well-defined protocol of warning, temporary banning, permanent banning etc. Maybe there could be a 5-10 member Wikiquette committee where violations could be reported and decisions would be made by voting. Fred These comments are refreshing, and the suggested actions would have an enormous impact on the quality of collaboration in the Project. All healthy, constructive collaboration must include healthy, constructive dialogue. Traditionally, though, the problem has been underestimated. One need not adopt the language of regulatory capture, as David Gerard does, to look the issues in the eye: (1) There is actually no substantive consensus position that uncivil editors are a net negative to the site; (2) Practical implementation of measures has proved completely divisive; (3) The waters are fairly comprehensively muddied by those who take up tactical positions amounting to the assertion that any arbitrator who attempts to enforce the civility policy is part of the problem, not part of the solution. In terms of crafted remedies, we see this clearly enough in that civility paroles have proved hard to enforce, and those who do try to enforce them are (fairly systematically) embroiled by insult. This rather suggests we have gone past the point where ad hoc solutions might have worked. 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] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE (was: Notability and ski resorts)
stevertigo wrote: George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.com wrote: Arbcom's job description and writ of authority don't include adjudicating policy. Suggestions that they might expand to do that, generally made by community members, have been shot down by the community writ large and by arbcom. Hm. This came up recently at WP:Arbitration/Requests/Caseoldid=312162973 Wikidemon wrote: In short form, Arbcom is not the place to propose changes to policies and guidelines. It is not empowered to do so, so there is nothing actionable for Arbcom to decide based on this request. Me: 'A court that cannot legislate from the bench - strike down law, uphold current law, (or portions thereof) - is not called a court, it's called a police station. [Which] makes the concept plain that an unempowered court cannot even uphold law, as it has no power to do otherwise. It can however, parrot law. Which, sort of sums up Wikipedia's dispute resolution affairs quite nicely.' The strangeness mentioned in your initial query should certainly not be laid at the door of Arbcom, as has already been pointed out. Calling Arbcom a court and then arguing against that, or whatever this straw man is supposed to be doing, seems rather pointless to me. If you want to get into all that constitutionalism, there is a quite strict separation of powers operating, and Arbcom's part is (a) to show what happens when a few dozen supposedly self-consistent policies have to be applied together, given that they are separate pieces of legislation, and (b) to take a view on the implementation of policy so that people can have some idea of the tariff for infringement (and, in extreme cases therefore, to show up any policies which are in effect unenforceable or dead letters as they stand). Arbcom principles certainly don't parrot policy. You wrote: Strange, isn't it Charles, that the deprecation of criticism sections/articles would be the convention for quite a few years nowand yet no attempt at its formalization has made it past being an essay into a guideline let alone policy? That rather assumes we do need a policy for everything, that is explicit. I have said before that requiring everything in black-and-white tends to benefit wikilawyers who like to exploit drafting weaknesses. 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] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE (was: Notability and ski resorts)
Surreptitiousness wrote: I've always lamented the fact that people have no idea what arbitration means on Wikipedia. That's one of the biggest reasons why arb-com is such a failure, no-one ever treats its decisions as final. Arb-com doesn't have to legislate, that's not its purpose. Its purpose is to hear complaints and arbitrate them. It started going wrong when people started expecting it to behave like a court or a policeman. Arbcom has been around for about five years, with dozens of people involved, and much change of personnel. Two basic types of criticism are: (a) (Demagogue) Arbcom has changed too much from its intended role, pushing for power to order people around as Jimbo pulled back from day-to-day management; or (b) (Armchair General) If I were on Arbcom, I'd see that some fundamental issues about behaviour on the site were tackled in a purposeful way. As it is, Arbcom just tinkers with a few of the worst disputes, and can't make major change in what is basically a holding operations. Since enWP has changed almost beyond recognition since 2004, what is more remarkable to me is that Arbcom is roughly what it always was, even with a completely different bunch of people running it. The limitations appear to be that what is distinctive about Arbitation (evidence-led decision-making rather than threaded discussion) scales only as far as supporting offsite discussions do (i.e. Arbcom has no physical meetings, so its committee work is by threaded discussion which is a lousy way to get quick decisions made sensibly). What was good about the earlier years of Arbcom was that innovation in remedies and clarification of policies in terms of the decisions that would be taken to enforce them cleared up quite a number of issues that now rarely need to get into RfAr. That kind of innovation as crafting decisions to the needs of the site ceased to have so much (new) traction a couple of years ago. 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] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE (was: Notability and ski resorts)
Ken Arromdee wrote: However much anyone says that Arbcom doesn't make policy, given that the rules are complicated and often ambiguous, deciding whether something fits existing policy is often the same as making policy. So you just end up with Arbcom making policy and pretending not to. I think you need to recognise that the community can then clarify in whatever direction it likes: removing the ambiguity in the same way as the Arbcom went, or not, as the mood takes it. Since the drafting cannot be expected to be watertight, adjustments may be needed. But we know who has the last say. And a given case is not a precedent (such examples as there are for people using Arbitration cases as direct precedents are rather discouraging). And then you get Wikipedians who need a policy decision and recognize on some level that Arbcom makes policy, but need to go through hoops phrasing their complaint so that Arbcom can answer it without making policy. That is a somewhat periphrastic way of saying that people nonetheless do take notice of the decisions. As we know, people tend to think they need some policy to win an argument they currently are in engaged in, without great regard to the overall needs of the project. So no doubt cases are brought for those kinds of reason, and if the case has to be accepted for the common good, the Arbcom has to make some sort of sense of it all, by writing down principles that give some proper context to what is decided. If it is all as fraught as you imply, I wonder why no one has brought out a codified form of Arbitration principles, so we can see the policy made by Arbcom in the round. (I have certainly pondered this in the past, but really there is perhaps less in this than meets the eye. Only if you assume that the community's norms are limited to what is written down on official policy pages - which is undoubtedly an incorrect view - does the production of Arbcom's principles seem like major innovation.) 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] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE (was: Notability and ski resorts)
Surreptitiousness wrote: George Herbert wrote: On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Surreptitiousness surreptitious.wikiped...@googlemail.com wrote: Hmmm. To do that I suppose you would have to create some rules on who can run. Maybe bar admins from running for starters, that might reduce the risk of arbcom siding with admins. I don't think the community would allow Jimmy to appoint as he sees fit anymore, but if the board mandated a couple of seats had to be reserved fro picks, that might shake things up. That would involve the board getting down in the mud though, which they try not to do. You can't just throw out a possible new arbcom membership requirement without considering the effects. You can't? Is this why nothing ever changes? People are too scared too propose anything radical? We're not short of proposals, usually. Progress could be made with further functions being split off, in the way that ban appeals are now a subcommittee function. There is no particular reason why socking or civility cases shouldn't be handled in this fashion, where the evidence is clear-cut enough (the usual case). The kind of radical change people don't want to see is from something monolithic that works (despite grumbling) to something else equally monolithic that is a complete step in the dark and unknown quantity. And don't forget that proposals have been howled down, in living memory - at least if you take a pile-on of a dozen people to be an expression of public opinion. 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] Notability and ski resorts
Surreptitiousness wrote I don't really know what you do with early life articles. I'm still working out how you define early life. Case-by-case, I should think. There is one on John Milton, going up to 1640 or so, which makes a lot of sense. Some lives are heavily segmented (e.g. Winston Churchill). If we say that the use of periods should conform to some natural bookends, I don't think we'll go too far wrong. I have quite a few biographies that follow such a pattern. 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] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Steve Bennett wrote: But you question whether it's even encyclopedic. Apply the specialist encyclopaedia test: would a specialist encyclopaedia about skiing in North America list this ski area? It ought to. So the answer is yes. Hmm, could be wrong, here's a webpage says Kettlebowl: World’s Greatest Family Ski Hill. Oh, no, look who wrote that though ... I don't ski. You are partly arguing that there should not be a notability guideline for skiing sites. And partly that a specialist skiing encyclopedia should be a directory of just about all skiing sites. I'm not really in a position to argue, since I'm not familiar with that sector of reference literature. The usual test is that there is such a book and it does include Kettlebowl. I would certainly argue that - Kettlebowl the hill as geographic feature is probably a topic to include, just that it should be treated as such without the promotional overlay this guy wants about it; - If the material on Kettlebowl had been placed in [[Bryant, Wisconsin]], we would have had one better article, not two scrappy ones. I think skiing fans should not be allowed to chip away at minimum standards for inclusion just because they are, well, fans of skiing. WP:NOT says WP is not a directory, after all. Charles http://www.uptake.com/blog/family_vacations/kettlebowl-worlds-greatest-family-ski-hill_1930.html ___ 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] Notability and ski resorts (was: Newbie and not-so-newbie biting)
Steve Bennett wrote: On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: I don't ski. You are partly arguing that there should not be a notability guideline for skiing sites. And partly that a specialist skiing encyclopedia should be a directory of just about all skiing sites. I'm not really in a position to argue, since I'm not familiar with that sector of reference literature. The usual test is that there is such a book and it does include Kettlebowl. I seem to recall that in the notability policy there is also scope for comprehensiveness. That is, if a certain number of a given category of entities is denoted notable, then we include articles about *all* of them, for comprehensiveness. I really wish I'd fought harder years ago against framing the scope of Wikipedia in terms of notability. Notability is only part of the picture: there are other reasons for including articles. There are questions about how much should be written about a topic. There are questions about whether all notable subjects should have entries. Etc. Notability is undoubtedly broken. No one has come up with a replacement, though. I think skiing fans should not be allowed to chip away at minimum standards for inclusion just because they are, well, fans of skiing. Of course. But all rules are subject to change, and we certainly shouldn't be in a you can't have that article about that ski area because I didn't get this article baout my pokemon character position. OK, but take the argument that there aren't so many ski runs in Australia, and transfer it to some micro-sub-genre of heavy metal: There just aren't so many perishthrashglam bands here, so we think it's just fine to have articles on all of them. Doesn't look so good. The connection of ski runs with the naming of geographical features probably saves them (the cavalry coming) in numerous cases. It would be perverse to say an article about the feature couldn't mention the ski area appropriately, and include a relevant category. But it is our habit either to get at these things from a general principle, or have a notability guideline split off in an attempt to get consensus. WP:NOT says WP is not a directory, after all. I think Wikipedia has progressed far enough and become unique enough that WP:NOT is really not relevant anymore. Strongly disagree. Wikipedia is not *anything* else. It's not an encyclopaedia, it's not a directory, it's not a website, it's not a project...it's just totally sui generis. Yes it is sui generis, but WP:NOT is part of that, not an add-on. I'm somewhat concerned that a reliance on reader survey will indeed tend to blur all tried-and-tested criteria for inclusion, for the sake of other stuff that is not too useful (e.g. I wish you'd include more movie rumors because I really like to read about them). Downmarket beckons. 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] Jimmy Wales post on Huffington Post
Steve Bennett wrote: Hmm, I feel that Wales' post is kind of at cross-purposes to the meme he's trying to defeat: 1) Meme: Newbie editors who make edits to random articles will require those edits to be approved before going live. 2) Rebuttal: Newbie editors will now be able to make edits to currently protected articles, albeit with those edits requiring approval. It's somewhat oblique, but shrewd enough. Given that WP does operate trade-offs of openness versus editorial control, with scary quotes, it is to some extent negotiable how these are presented in a PR sense. The mainstreamers have spectacularly misinterpreted what is planned (briefly, they might as well have said kids, in future your edits will all be routed into this big newsroom of disapproving killjoys). While what is actually going to happen is that the editorial filo pastry will get another layer (which we _hope_ will prove light, tasty and digestible). And some page protection will be removed. 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] Notability and ski resorts (was: Newbie and not-so-newbie biting)
Surreptitiousness wrote: Andrew Gray wrote: I think we can easily distinguish, though; the notability-by-association thing really needs most of the set to be desirable topics for articles (*most* ski runs are interesting, or at least let us assume they are for this discussion!) and for that set to be well-defined (you can always tell if a ski run is in Australia or not). Yes, this is exactly the sort of gradation we should have and should be able to implement, but is also the sort of gradation that the NOTINHERITED group of editors seek to stamp out. The notability guidance has also become a spanner in the works of Summary Style. You can't now split an article up if it is too long unless you split it in a way such that each separate article is notable by itself. And even if you manage to do that, there are editors who will accuse you of forking. Rightly, in my view. I come down on the (conservative) side of this discussion, and agree with the now-ancient decision that article space should not admit subpages (which is what subarticles without credible free-standing topics amount to). 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] Notability and ski resorts (was: Newbie and not-so-newbie biting)
Surreptitiousness wrote: Charles Matthews wrote: Yes it is sui generis, but WP:NOT is part of that, not an add-on. I'm somewhat concerned that a reliance on reader survey will indeed tend to blur all tried-and-tested criteria for inclusion, for the sake of other stuff that is not too useful (e.g. I wish you'd include more movie rumors because I really like to read about them). Downmarket beckons. Not sure why down-market has to beckon. We're committed to sourcing to the point I can't see a reader survey overturning that, in fact I would expect a reader survey to call for even better sourcing. Therefore, I can't really see how we could include unsourced movie rumors. Of course, I should imagine we'd all also agree that facts about upcoming movies are an area open to debate, but I'm not sure we should prejudge that debate by casting anything as a down-market move. To the point that I'd like a cite on why that would be a down-market move. I'm not suggesting Wikipedia be all things to all people, although I'd like us to make a better stab than we currently are, but I've always thought Wikipedia was a broad church, and I've always thought it was widely assumed on Wikipedia that we look to the middle-ground. Now I suppose if you see us on a high-ground, then yes, we would be shifting down-market, but realistically any encyclopedia is going to be aimed lower than the high ground, because an encyclopedia is a tertiary source, rather than a secondary source. I typically think of this in terms of a pedia-media axis. We are not going to be at either extreme (Britannica-style pedia, or reader-maximising media). We are definitely now judged as media, and if you look at what the most popular pages are that is a reasonable fit, I suppose - we just have a bit more of a medium-term memory than print and broadcast media. But most pages are _not_ popular. They are reference material, in other words. Downmarket, in my terms, is slanting content policy to favour in any way pages because they would be read often, rather than serve the purpose of being a reference site. The high ground is held by academia, something we aren't looking to replicate because of the policy on original research. I think utility is also in the eye of the beholder. Depending on which industry you work in, the utility of articles on entertainment and those on higher maths are subjective qualities. We are committed to the idea that the same sort of survey writing should be applied to say, Star Wars and astronomy, though. In the sense of being a good place to look up either. That is the utility of reference material. This is the same axis in another guise, I feel. The goal of a generalist encyclopedia is surely to become a reputed source largely independent of topic. (And we can perfectly well aim to assimilate the results of academic research; in fact over a wide range of topics this is exactly what we should do.) And surely blurring our still in beta stage inclusion guidance is a good idea, because life does not tend to happen in an absolute manner. The lack of adaptability in the minds of some of our contributors can sometimes harm us. I've never worked out a way of promoting the idea of an open mind and a case by case approach. I can't help but feel an encyclopedia built by the masses through consensus editing might help rather than hinder that goal. If that means moving to meet the audience, so be it. I believe it worked for Mohammed. The site is dynamic, and should remain so. Plenty of codification has gone on, and I agree that it shouldn't be regarded as an absolute just because it has happened that way. I find the generally tendency to have rules predominate a bit depressing, if said rules don't arise from a simple point which ought to command general assent. A recent grief of mine at CfD, though, might be good for a role play session. I found an advocate for pre-emptive disambiguation for category titles; I argued against this. For article titles, as we know, you don't pre-empt: [[Arthur Atkinson (architect)]] gets moved to [[Arthur Atkinson]] if there are no other articles of that personal name, even though there might be in the future. But the discussion was whether a category name that _might_ be construed as ambiguous should be made into a more verbose form that is less likely to be ambiguous. Is this some rule that someone has come up with and wants to impose, against common sense? Or was I just defending the status quo against an idea that should be adopted to improve the 'pedia? Not so clear on the ground. 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] Notability and ski resorts (was: Newbie and not-so-newbie biting)
David Goodman wrote: So put them in another space: call it directory space. The problem is that having a distinct article is treated as a question of merit--we word things this way ourselves: deserves an article. Thus there is a continual pressure from spammers and hobbyists to include a separate article for every company, lawyer, band, author, athlete, railway station, street, toy, song, football match, and fictional character. (note that 1/ for some of these we do include articles on all, some not 2/that it's easier to decide on people, than objects 3/that the list does not reflect my own views about what is more or less suitable) But the question should be content. We could very well say we should have content on every one of the above, although not articles. We might even find it easier to write such content if we didn't have the overhead metadata necessarily associated with separate articles. Well, it's a theory. Books are traditionally organised in chapters, supposed to address one topic. Lecture courses, too, are typically divided into lectures each of which addresses one issue (though not perhaps with such a clear focus). Our idea of an article is that it starts with a topic sentence, within a lead that describes the rough scope of the article. At present we are still holding to some version of the old idea that less is more: we don't allow articles that scroll on for ever, and we try to have people adopt a concise style with good focus. There will always be the argument that this is faintly ridiculous, and more is more. But there are huge advantages to the way we now operate: we can for example think in terms of off-topic pieces of information as weeds, i.e. plants in the wrong place. It is certainly true that there is maintenance to be done when topics are not allowed to ramble. But I think a Wikipedia in which info was just appended somewhere, rather than quite carefully placed by definite topic, would be harder to use. (Rather than the usual suspects like manga, try thinking about a topic such as social history. It benefits hugely when efforts are made to bring it into focus by choosing a particular topic for discussion, rather than just adding what amounts to historical local colour to a scene.) 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] Notability and ski resorts (was: Newbie and not-so-newbie biting)
Surreptitiousness wrote: And I don't find anything in this to disagree with, and yet we disagree, so obviously one of us or both of us are making assumptions. I don't see reader input into what we do as a bad thing, for starters. In fact, I thought the very ethos of Wikipedia was that reader input was welcome. It is welcome in the form of participation, certainly. The question is more whether lurkers should be stakeholders. Traditionally what is respected is showing the better way, rather than compiling a wishlist. I'm only here because the article I wanted to look up didn't exist, so I created it. I sourced it, I followed all the style guidance I could find, still made mistakes, but I added information to Wikipedia, moving from a reader to an editor. So there's reader input. If I wanted to do that now, I couldn't. Why? You would be better advised to draft in userspace rather than just type straight into the box, but I don't understand why you think it doesn't still work in principle. So we've lost that reader input, and so we've lost a vital check on ensuring we are a reputed source largely independent of topic. I don't see a reader survey suddenly causing us to stop writing in an encyclopedic manner, by which I mean citing sources and the like, because I don't think there will ever be a strong enough consensus to overturn the notion that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. If there is, it will be an interesting moment that might encourage a fork or two. I also agree that we can assimilate the results of academic research. Fortunately, that wasn't the point I was arguing against. The point I was making was that we were not the high-ground; we don't exist to publish academic research. No, we exist to regurgitate it. Kind of like the distinction between Science and New Scientist, we're closer to the latter than the former, and the latter is a mid-market publication while the former is aimed at the high-end. I'm glad we haven't gone the way of New Scientist, then (yet). A recent grief of mine at CfD, though, might be good for a role play session. I found an advocate for pre-emptive disambiguation for category titles; I argued against this. For article titles, as we know, you don't pre-empt: [[Arthur Atkinson (architect)]] gets moved to [[Arthur Atkinson]] if there are no other articles of that personal name, even though there might be in the future. But the discussion was whether a category name that _might_ be construed as ambiguous should be made into a more verbose form that is less likely to be ambiguous. Is this some rule that someone has come up with and wants to impose, against common sense? Or was I just defending the status quo against an idea that should be adopted to improve the 'pedia? Not so clear on the ground. I think you just had a difference of opinion based on your respective viewpoints. Did the debate generate a consensus? The closure was a compromise, rather than a consensus emerging. ([[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 September 11#Deans of Lincoln]], for mavens.) While Dean and Lincoln were both deemed individually ambiguous, one side only was disambiguated. But not for a specific clash. So in a sense I lost the argument, it seems. But it could have been worse. 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] Notability and ski resorts (was: Newbie and not-so-newbie biting)
Surreptitiousness wrote: Why? You would be better advised to draft in userspace rather than just type straight into the box, but I don't understand why you think it doesn't still work in principle. I can't do now what I did then. IP's cannot create new articles, and you have to wait four days after creating an account to create a new article. In fact A user who edits through an account they have registered, may immediately create pages in any namespace (except the MediaWiki namespace, and limited to 8 per minute) while Autoconfirmed status is required to move pages, edit semi-protected pages, and upload files or upload a new version of an existing file. Seems there are misconceptions. (From [[Wikipedia:User access levels]]). You just lost me. It doesn't still work either in principle or in practise. The point I was making was that we were not the high-ground; we don't exist to publish academic research. No, we exist to regurgitate it. Hmm. Not sure I agree, but I think we'd head into a primary versus secondary sourcing argument. I'd certainly argue our mission would be to contextualise and explain the research through recourse to secondary sources, rather than to simply regurgitate it. I think there's a viable argument that regurgitating it would fall foul of NOT NEWS. The closure was a compromise, rather than a consensus emerging. ([[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 September 11#Deans of Lincoln]], for mavens.) While Dean and Lincoln were both deemed individually ambiguous, one side only was disambiguated. But not for a specific clash. So in a sense I lost the argument, it seems. But it could have been worse. Hmm. Yes, interesting debate. That's one of the reasons I avoid CFD these days. I think a major point that got missed is that no-one asked the question of at what point would context not do the disambiguating. Only then would there be a need for disambiguating. And only if the category page wasn't there to help out with an explanation. I really don't see that you can make as full an explanation of the category in the title as you could with a couple of paragraphs on the category page. It seems to me that the editable part of the page is provided for that. 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] Notability and ski resorts (was: Newbie and not-so-newbie biting)
Surreptitiousness wrote: And let's not forget that if we're looking at books, we have to take into account appendixes, something you have to fight to justify on Wikipedia. That list you want to split from your large FA? Hmm, is it a notable list? That list you want to include in your paper based subject specific encyclopedia? Certainly, Appendix A. I don't pretend to have any answers, all I'm asking for is thought and an attempt to address the actuality in front of editors rather than underhand attempts to protect an entire empire of rules. But I think on that at least we agree. We both appear to want fewer rules. Sadly, there are also rules about what is and isn't an appropriate use of an appendix, in the Chicago Manual of Style and elsewhere ... 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] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Surreptitiousness wrote: We've lost the idea that our readers can let us know what is missing by starting new articles, because we enforce standards that don't reflect that given reader's concerns. Yes, there's the obvious argument that if we adopted the standards of the most edits, we'd allow vandalism, but that's not the real debate, it's just a snappy sound bite. The real issue is what sort of resource we really are. I think the writer of the essay has a real point when they say Wikipedia is dead – the Britannica staff has taken over. I think that goes too far. I would argue that, yes, we have had to find a replacement for the editorial processes applied by EB and (for example) Nupedia. What we have not done is to prescribe these in advance of launching the project: we have allowed matters to develop their own way (for example, three flavours of deletion, rather than someone just nixing a topic). These days there tend to be around 100 articles waiting at CSD, a few of which shouldn't be there. AfD can give the wrong result. Systemic bias is by no means vanquished. But the complaint that there is some sort of editorial process, and that submissions should still be on a no one needs to read the instructions basis (no drafting, in particular), is a basic misunderstanding. 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] BLP, medical information, and media controversy
Thomas Dalton wrote: 2009/9/21 Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net: The distinction to be made is between information about a person, and popularly reported claims about the person. It needs to be made clear that reporting about a controversy is not identical to reporting about the person. It's disingenuous to pretend that a very public controversy doesn't exist. Rather than suppressing anything about the controversy we would do better to find the appropriate language for discussing it neutrally. It's much easier to permeate a community with a series of doctrinaire rules than with a grasp of the underlying principles. The key point with that, in general, is undue weight - it is easy to give too much weight to a controversy. In this case, though, the controversy is so high profile and it is pretty much the only thing the public know about this person that the due weight is very high. But if the only substance to the controversy is rumour, and speculative discussion of rumours, we don't need either BLP or NPOV to work to exclude it or cut it back to a bare statement. So I agree with geni. I have never heard of this idea of giving weight to public conceptions or misconceptions. (Time to check up on how many urban myths we have. I'm glad to see that [[tulip mania]], a topic constantly referenced in the newspapers at the present, does sound the cautious note: Many modern scholars believe that the mania was not as extraordinary as Mackay described, with some arguing that the price changes may not have constituted a bubble. That one has been running since the 1840s. Pretty much the only thing the public know about tulips in the 17th century is that it was a bubble.) Charles Charles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#cite_note-5 ___ 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] German Wikipedia and Sei grausam
Carcharoth wrote: Is there anything like this page on the English Wikipedia? Apparently WP:SO TOUGH has yet to be created. 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] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Ray Saintonge wrote: Matt Jacobs wrote: Having been bitten multiple times, I can definitely say the unfriendly atmosphere has been a problem for a while now. Editors/admins who are regularly rude to others are not only tolerated by most of the community, they often have a group of supporters around them always ready to praise everything they do, manipulating RfCs and other voting (sorry, !voting) situations. This is not unlike schoolyard bullies who are usually accompanied by a swarm of sycophants. It is certainly true that our systems are at their worst when confronted with cynicism within the community. Not surprising, since the essential and founding assumptions of Wikipedia were that people are not like that. And most really aren't. But this remains an unsolved problem. To connect it directly with newbie-biting is a stretch, if not an impossible one: there is something in the idea that people on the site are assertive beyond the needs of the job because a confident manner is self-preservation. 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] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Emily Monroe wrote: Yeah, it does seem to me that the more spammy the article, the more likely the person simply doesn't know of Wikipedia's COI, spam, and notability requirements. It's not that they are writing in bad faith, they really don't know that, for example, just because their competitor has written an article doesn't mean that they should write an article about their own company. Sad, really. Getting back to the initial complainant: http://howwikipediaworks.com/ch10.html covers all sorts of things that are also not well known generally, but probably cannot so easily be found on the site. For example, bot edits were (a more ranty) part of the complaint, and they are dealt with in that discussion. That book chapter has no official status at all, of course: but in comparison the suite of policy pages and help pages is unambitious in actually explaining how the system functions, in the round. There is a proper distinction to be made between user-friendliness and simple friendliness, of course, but it doesn't seem entirely helpful to have two separate discussions going on, one on usability at Foundation level, and another on the community as self-criticism on the enWP level, without some sort of model of this life cycle kind in the background. 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] Newyorkbrad's speech at Wikiconference New York
stevertigo wrote: Note also that I find your comment don't feed to be a bit.. vexing. I insist that you refrain from making such accusations to me or anyone else for that matter - particularly when you've demonstrated your substantial capacity to intimately misconstrue both the subject and the object of my earlier comment. This is not to single you out: I know that privatizing forces have to some degree institutionalized a policy of disrespect, and that you are in very good company. -Stevertigo Excuse the off-topic remarks. OK, here's what I think. You have shown you are prepared to troll on this list and others. You can no doubt refrain from that if you so choose. Dragging the thread away from a specific presentation on BLP to an area adjacent to a subject you have discussed to death is troll-like. If you wish to post a thread about the history of BLP as policy, go ahead. You will be less at risk of misconstruction if you start from your own baseline and statement of your intent. 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] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Article metadata separation from main wikitext
Steve Bennett wrote:
Learnt about this the standard way knowledge about wiki syntax
proliferates: diffs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gippsland_Lakes_Discovery_Traildiff=314633894oldid=314622174
Yes, good, but {{reflist}} is also progress and needs to be made compatible.
Charles
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[WikiEN-l] Foundational rumblings
Over in the recondite if productive arena of WikiProject Mathematics, fresh eyeballs have been looking over articles in areas that retain a structure imposed up to five years ago, and not much liking what they see. Basically there were POV forks introduced in areas, to calm down edit wars, at a time when the POV fork concept was not so well understood. I remember well the relief with which User:Kevin Baas was given a sandbox for his treatment of tensors. So now it doesn't all look so good any more. This cuts to fundamentals, because mathematicians feel that the topic sentence in an article should serve as a definition. For comparison, I looked at [[quantum field theory]] for a comparison: reads Quantum field theory (QFT) provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanical models of systems classically described by fields or of many-body systems. So it tells you what QFT does, not what it is (unsurprising, with the jury still out). The mathematicians' take is clearly limited to areas where you can say definitely what something is (i.e. the domain of axiomatic definitions). That being said, there seems to be the scope for clarifying how an area that is axiomatic should be organised according to our revered principles of summary style (WP:SS). There are numerous instances, it seems, where we have menu style in place of summary style, i.e. different treatments according to taste. The foundational issue does seem to need addressing, and could cause quite some upheavals (such as we have got out of the habit of living with). It could be that we now accept articles with titles like [[introduction to string theory]], as pedagogic stepping stones. But neutrality means, surely, that treatments that are really introduction to X from the POV of Y are out of place, or at least to be seriously deprecated. 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] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Amory Meltzer wrote: I wouldn't exactly call that post nice. It reads to me like just another person complaining. Actually this is not so much an example on bullying, but on _precisely_ why we have WP:COI. The hill has five rope tows and seven ski runs. Is this an encyclopedic topic? Not really. If someone has no personal stake in [[Kettlebowl]], they will no doubt take the line that it hardly matters whether it is in Wikipedia or not. If they do, they will take every attempt to delete in line with guidelines as a personal affront. 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] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
David Goodman wrote: the overwhelming majority of speedily deleted articles deserve to be so. -- yes, so they do. But of the people who contribute them, many can be encouraged to learn how to write adequate articles and perhaps become regular contributors. People who write inadequate unsourced promotional articles can be simply rejected, or alternatively helped to write good ones or at least realize and understand why their topic is unsuitable and respect us for our standards. If one out of ten respond favorably to our endeavors, we'll gain 100 good contributors a day. What is required is the patience to deal properly with all of them, although only a minority will respond as we would like them to. OK, I have been doing a lot of speedy patrol since the topic last came up on the list. Initially I was interested to see if one became punch-drunk by intensive sessions (not too bad, in fact). I now have some feeling for statistics. The one that matters most to me is that something of the order of 2% of speedy nominations are just cleanup cases (sometimes extreme, but not nonsense as often tagged). Very largely these are of Asian origin. I think we might all agree that the market for Wikipedians in (anglophone) Asia is nothing like saturated. The next number that occurs to me is that perhaps 5% of speedy deletion generate queries. You can see them on my usertalk, where most are better than the Thanks alot jerkoff! section. They all need an accurate answer that is also reasonably helpful. Note that the more polite queries tend to be from spam-type deletion taggings. The assumption is that helping people who really are trying to get their company or product a Wikipedia page is part of the job if you patrol CSD. Well, I agree with that but it consumes time. My own feelings are that the presentist bias of submissions is a terrible skewing of the encyclopedia idea, but I quite see that this should never enter my admin work. David's argument seems to need shading: an editor who is only really interested in creating a company or product article may not become a general-purpose Wikipedian. But of course he or she may, and we just don't know. (It's the old argument about advertising being mostly wasted money, and the argument is valid here.) 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] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Apoc 2400 wrote: Over the past years the number of vandals and other simple troublemakers has dropped and our technical means of dealing with them have improved. We still have the army of hobby-cops and they aren't going to sit around idle. So we get the situation that writer above faces. Having looked deeper into what [[User:Mckennagene ]] has been talking about, I don't think that's correct on either count. The vandal problem hasn't gone away: admins deal with those vandals we have more harshly in the past (and no one cares). And the cited complaint piece is pretty misleading in its way. The [[Kettlebowl]] article would have been a useful addition to [[Bryant, Wisconsin]] (which isn't much to look at); the comment on creation one of the most significant activities in the Antigo, WI area is pretty odd when a link was created in [[Antigo, Wisconsin]] and not in [[Bryant, Wisconsin]]. With directions for how to get there from Antigo by bus. Whatever User:Mckennagene has said, this is promotional (aimed at people in the county town). Further, [[Talk:Kettlebowl]] shows no signs at all of bullying: discussion of notability, of the geographic feature of the hill being encyclopedic while a small skiing area may not be. It is certainly a weakness of our discussions that a single instance is so often taken as indicative of something people want to believe. 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] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting
Emily Monroe wrote: The vandal problem hasn't gone away: admins deal with those vandals we have more harshly in the past (and no one cares). Is that, or is that not a good thing? I honestly, sincerely ask this question not out of spite, but of curiosity. It is composed of two things. Firstly, that powers to ban indefinitely have been devolved (sort of) from ArbCom to the admins as a group (the qualification being that ArbCom cannot ban anyone indefinitely). This is fundamentally good. It means that there is no need to review formally and at length the evidence on a particular case of vandalism, because by now there is no real doubt about the standards to apply. And then there is the part that some admins (probably not particularly representative) are happy enough to run someone off the site either with little chance to show they can reform, or by using more weaselly versions of disruptive behavior on the same level as vandalism (which is basically malicious damage to the site). This is not good, but it is hard to get anyone not directly concerned to care about abuse within that part of the system. In short, the checks and balances can fail where people are unscrupulous and/or are too vested in getting rid of a particular editor who is not a classic vandal but something else. 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] Newyorkbrad's speech at Wikiconference New York
Steve Bennett wrote: On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 7:51 AM, stevertigo stv...@gmail.com wrote: Also, let's not forget, the point of BLP was to give the OFFICE a reason to continue existing. Wtf? This sounds like a bold, nasty claim, but perhaps I'm not understanding what you're implying. What are you trying to say, exactly? This would be another swipe at Cary - don't feed. 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] Newyorkbrad's speech at Wikiconference New York
Actually a point I felt was missing from NYB's talk, which took privacy as general theme, was this: as we know from WP:NOT, Wikipedia is not concerned with indiscriminate information. This ought to provide some clear blue water between us and popular journalism, which actually uses indiscimination quite often as a technique (e.g. twenty things you didn't know about some reality TV star, or lists of peoplr whose birthday is today). The argument put forth under the where are they now? discussion should be considered under this heading, I believe. Someone who won an Olympic medal 30 years ago is now pumping gas? If we exclude that from the athlete's WP article, is it (a) censorship, (b) respect for privacy, or (c) application of WP:NOT under the general heading of including the salient facts on someone, not everything that has ever been printed? Anyway, while the basic points that privacy in the old sense of protection from intrusive publication may not exist in the Internet age and attack pages with high search engine prominence do work may be valid, I had this comment to make about the concluding section of the talk, namely that we have our mission and it is not identical to tabloid journalism. 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 Last.fm inspired a scientific breakthrough | Victor Keegan | Technology | The Guardian
Surreptitiousness wrote: Don't fully pretend to understand this, but given there was stuff about a WikiJournal on the list recently, I thought this article might be of use to some of the participants: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/sep/16/last-fm-mendeley-victor-keegan Concerns [[Mendeley]], and our article is a little clearer, but not much. This service aggregates academic papers in some cloudy sense: but in what sense, exactly? 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] Newyorkbrad's speech at Wikiconference New York
stevertigo wrote: Saw it. Liked most of it. Diffuse, weaker on facts than theory? So Wikipedia Review gets credited with the idea of attack page, or something. Oddly, I think we knew all that anyway, or at least the rudiments of the debate, pre-BLP qua policy. But that could be one for the historians to sort out. 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] Well-known
Steve Bennett wrote: I don't think I'd write most known, but I wouldn't be rushing to correct it either. I guess I'd see it as an example of poor quality writing rather than an error as such. Time to bid this thread goodbye. But even best known is scarcely verifiable, so all this can be weak writing. 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] Well-known
Steve Bennett wrote: No, readability has much more to do with appropriate use of vocabulary, sentence length and phrase construction. Correct grammar that is unfamiliar to the audience decreases readability. Just like referring to the spit and image of someone would be less readable than the spitting image. Clearly, though, this is a cultural matter. Readability in this sort of sense is conditioned by the expectation that the written language is very close to the spoken language, for example, which is something for which you can find widely varying types of cases if you go to different languages. (It is hard to imagine this thread going the same way with French speakers, in particular.) Judging by airport novels, short words sell more books than literary language, and stylistic considerations are roughly nowhere. But I don't see that encyclopedias need to be written as page-turners. On the topic, most known occurs frequently in enWP, rather than best known. I would change that. And, sadly, more known also is common, rather than better known. I think for the latter one can speak frankly of a grammatical error: known is a participle rather than an adjective, while well-known is certainly an adjective, with comparative and superlative forms. 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] Wikipedia: the Journal
FT2 wrote: If we did try, then a WikiJournal would be a classic case where we could do the job right using present tools, and achieve something that most similar sites won't do. Try this: - Anyone can post up a paper, in usual academic form (ie authors info would be required, formal citations, and so on). - The draft is held back using Flagged Revisions, similar to Wikinews' configuration, at the point of writing. - Other users then discuss and critique and identify as a peer review process, issues to be addressed (NPOV would probably fail as a criteria since many good papers are written from the view of one specific author or team; we'd need some more suitable criterion here). Considering that competent refereeing is the practical bottleneck for a peer-review-led system: perhaps the point can be sharpened. If wiki-style collaborative refereeing is something that will work, then this concept is plausible and the WMF should at least take an interest. If not - if backlogs and pickiness will predominate over sensible closures of a revision - then the idea is worth relatively less. 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] Well-known
Ray Saintonge wrote: Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 12:25:28 +1000 From: Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com Disagree. High quality, comprehensive, readable information is far more important than English grammar pedantry. Most well known or best known? Whichever one is currently in the article. Focus your efforts elsewhere. One can hardly call a respect for good grammar pedantry. The quality of information is diminished when it is expressed by imprecise language. Good grammar and usage is exactly what makes it readable. (Bias: Background in linguistics and technical writing.) So what? IMX, copyeditors do have a bias towards laxer, even technically ungrammatical constructions, if they feel they communicate well with average readers. What Steve is saying is something I recognise as a coherent POV found in real life, therefore. I would accept the label pedantic for the point or points I have raised, but I think in certain examples the wrong construction also sounds wrong. It's an odd one: I think it is careless prose writing to put more well known, but it doesn't stand out as an obvious colloquialism. I agree with Ec to the extent of saying my POV is different and certainly valid: smaller stylistic points do add up. 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] Wikipedia: the Journal
This alienates a large number of academics who are already very interested in learning about and contributing to Wikipedia but have difficulty justifying it as legitimate work. [[Academia]] claims ...Academia has come to connote the cultural accumulation of knowledge, its development and transmission across generations and its practitioners and transmitters. So, if that definition is OK, I don't see the issue with the fundamental point: WP's aims are compatible, though restricted to the transmission. Cue the discussion of the relative values of teaching and research in universities, going back to the nineteenth century and resolved, largely, in the second half of the twentieth century in favour of publish or perish. Having been an academic, I actually think we should take a stronger line on WP's behalf. The transmission of knowledge gets reduced to a trickle when the only people who read learned journals are academics, and only in their subfield (which may have a scale as small as 100 workers worldwide). We should be saying quite clearly something like: *Academics who feel their work has value can expect to spend some proportion of their time on survey writing, making it clear to outsiders (fellow academics, amongst others) what is happening in their subfield; *Such work itself ought to be valued properly by those who support research, because if it doesn't happen by some or other means, the long-term outlook for a research area is affected; *Wikipedia has come up with an excellent model for the distribution, refereeing, indexing and updating of such survey work. Editable hypertext is a real advance on the traditional survey paper. 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] Deletion of unreferenced living person biographies
Tony Sidaway wrote: On 9/12/09, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Of course there's a process for speedy deletion. Not at all. An admin simply deletes an article. That's a speedy deletion. You're both correct, said he soothingly. An admin deletes after going through some mental evolutions and checks (of the article's history, notably). This is invisible on the site until the deletion, often (I have a habit of moving an article to a corrected title, because you are supposed to check the backlinks ... won't be any to an incorrect spelling). The process itself is properly chartered: it is a Wikipedia process in that sense. 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] Is Wikipedia the first draft of history - New York Times take on Joe Wilson article
Keith Old wrote: Folks, The New York Times reports: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/the-wikipedia-battle-over-joe-wilsons-obama-heckling/ If journalism is the first draft of history, what is a Wikipedia entry when it is updated within minutes of an event to reflect changes in a person’s biography? The zeroth draft of bad history ... usually heavily influenced by partisans, with the instantly available sources rather than reliable ones. Situation normal, all fouled up. We do have an interesting and novel position for WP vis-a-vis historiography, namely that WP coverage is a movie where journalism is more like a series of stills. If you look at historiography of something like the English Civil War, you can see quite a number of parallels, such as stridency, emphasis on personalities, pamphleteering/blogging as a source of opinions, and so on. The whole business of the Internet taking us back to the 17th century and a reactive, emotional style of politics seems to me very suggestive. 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] assessing
Surreptitiousness wrote: Realistically, I think we're really only approaching the end of the middle of the initial stage. By which I mean the initial stage is to get as much written about as much as we can as possible. I'd put it this way: the business of flagged revisions indicates a feeling that (for a physical book) would be that we have a first draft, and should proceed editorially rather than magpie-fashion. At the end of the day we're a work in progress, and while it is great that the world wants to take us seriously, and it is important that we take ourselves seriously, we have to keep getting across the message that we are a work in progress, and our articles should never be used as a definitive source, but rather a pointer to a better understanding. Or something. That's OK as a caveat, but I think Carcharoth's point is also valid: that the working over of parts of the encyclopedia doesn't happen for top-down reason, necessarily. While it is essential for adding value that it should happen, even if only patchily. This has always implied people with a serious interest in the actual content ... doesn't imply that the formal review mechanisms should dominate. 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] assessing
Surreptitiousness wrote: Charles Matthews wrote: Surreptitiousness wrote: I'd put it this way: the business of flagged revisions indicates a feeling that (for a physical book) would be that we have a first draft, and should proceed editorially rather than magpie-fashion. Yeah, that's kind of where I was driving. I think Carcharoth's point is also valid: that the working over of parts of the encyclopedia doesn't happen for top-down reason, necessarily. While it is essential for adding value that it should happen, even if only patchily. This has always implied people with a serious interest in the actual content ... doesn't imply that the formal review mechanisms should dominate. Not quite sure I understand you here. You're talking about stuff getting reworked, and there is a top down reason that this doesn't happen? I think I've lost what the top down reason was. No, I was trying to say it doesn't happen for any top-down reason ... And I'm not sure how or why we're separating out the formal review mechanisms from people with a serious interest in the actual content. Where we're discussing assessments, it has been my experience that the people assessing are the people with a serious interest in the content. Not really happy with that equation. But then I have a long-running argument with the per-article way of looking at our content, anyway. I would even argue that it is serious to worry about WP primarily as a piece of hypertext. Which cuts right across the talk about definitive treatments of certain topics (which in my blacker moments seem to me to be pretty much anglospheric and middlebrow in their interest). But no doubt I go too far. 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] Deletion of unreferenced living person biographies
David Goodman wrote: I would support making it a requirement before taking any article to AfD on the basis of lack of references to first make a bona fide appropriate search for them, and to say so--this is already recommended at [[WP:BEFORE]] [[WP:BEFORE]] seems to need some work, at least from the angle you are arguing. As well as admonitions, perhaps a dedicated page could contain things like: a basic checklist before taking an article to AfD; topic-based sketches of minimal search-engine checks to find some references; and perhaps a flow diagram breaking down the major decisions before putting anything up for deletion. 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
