Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
I came here in 2006, and one of the things i wanted to do was to write about things I considered important. I very quickly found that these topics were considered less than notable by those people active in deciding whether to keep articles. I soon realized I would not get far arguing for my specific topics to be better covered, as there were too few people interested in doing the work for them,. I deliberately adopted a general position of strong inclusionism in the hope that those interested in other topics often considered non-notable would also work for a general relaxation of standards, and thus include my topics also. My catchphrase was that we needed to have tolerance for each others' interests. And so it proved: the very restrictive arguments common then are rarely heard at present. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 6:42 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Don't get your panties in a bunch, David. Quote-mining? What is this, Usenet? He was probably there... He's an old coon dog and won't chase a rabbit. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- David Goodman DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
Don't get your panties in a bunch, David. Quote-mining? What is this, Usenet? He was probably there... He's an old coon dog and won't chase a rabbit. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 14:29, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Pretty much everything that's fucked up about Wikipedia is emergent behaviour of people being a problem I think you mean failure of management. ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 14:29, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Pretty much everything that's fucked up about Wikipedia is emergent behaviour of people being a problem I think you mean failure of management. ___ When we had a manager, Larry Sanger, he was both unconscious of and unable to deal with the natural dynamics of people as they grappled with an evolving situation. A system of self-management continues to evolve. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
Don't get your panties in a bunch, David. Quote-mining? What is this, Usenet? ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 15 April 2013 16:49, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: When we had a manager, Larry Sanger, he was both unconscious of and unable to deal with the natural dynamics of people as they grappled with an evolving situation. A system of self-management continues to evolve. Ergo, better management was required. Describing the current mess that is the English Wikipedia as having a system of self-management is generous. ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 15 April 2013 16:43, Hex . h...@downlode.org wrote: On 14 April 2013 14:29, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Pretty much everything that's fucked up about Wikipedia is emergent behaviour of people being a problem I think you mean failure of management. Well, it is an unsolved problem how to assign anyone to do anything in a system where everyone self-assigns their tasks. If there were any management, it would be unfair to label this failure, I think. It is a bit like dividing 0 by 0 and announcing the answer: not easy to argue with, but the problem is rather with the question. Actually a more accurate answer might be that WP clearly needs a measure of contrarianism in its workforce, because otherwise everyone would be working on the same, overmanned tasks. It would be remarkably good luck if we just happened to have exactly the right amount of contrariness. To get back on topic, maybe, if one has a single-person writing project, the psychological correlate of inclusionism is a complete lack of self-criticism, and of deletionism is a kind of writer's block. Which is sort of why the question is a crock. Any competent writer avoids both: bins some stuff and gets on with something else if a particular bit is being awkward. 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 13 April 2013 22:12, Gwern Branwen gw...@gwern.net wrote: My basic observation here is that inclusionism/deletionism debates seem intractable [...] Indeed. As is characteristic of false dichotomies. I was once asked by a prominent journalist where I stood on this. I replied that it was a boring question. And that once I had defined myself as deletionist on science topics, where we don't want cruft and pseudo, and inclusionist on humanities topics, where we really cannot always know what the academics will turn to next. 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 8:39 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Once the herd got going, no one had much affect. Managing the herd is what leaders were for. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net In hierarchical organizations; Wikipedia is, more or less, horizontally organized. But, as Christ said, Feed my sheep. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 11:44, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Indeed. As is characteristic of false dichotomies. I was once asked by a prominent journalist where I stood on this. I replied that it was a boring question. And that once I had defined myself as deletionist on science topics, where we don't want cruft and pseudo, and inclusionist on humanities topics, where we really cannot always know what the academics will turn to next. When people from TV come asking for a (quote) passionate deletionist - http://www.mail-archive.com/wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg01448.html - we're well past the time of being able to talk sensibly in such polar terms. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 11:59, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 April 2013 11:44, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Indeed. As is characteristic of false dichotomies. I was once asked by a prominent journalist where I stood on this. I replied that it was a boring question. And that once I had defined myself as deletionist on science topics, where we don't want cruft and pseudo, and inclusionist on humanities topics, where we really cannot always know what the academics will turn to next. When people from TV come asking for a (quote) passionate deletionist - http://www.mail-archive.com/wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg01448.html - we're well past the time of being able to talk sensibly in such polar terms. Mmm, I remember that mail and whom I suggested ... I'm still quite deletionist on BLPs because of examples where our rules are too easy to game. I'm certainly not an anti-stub deletionist because that I see as destructive of future growth, and I improve many stubs these days. If passionate means nuance-free, which is a fair cop much of the time, then I agree with you. 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 12:24, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Mmm, I remember that mail and whom I suggested ... I didn't see you in that thread ... who were you thinking of? I'm still quite deletionist on BLPs because of examples where our rules are too easy to game. I'm certainly not an anti-stub deletionist because that I see as destructive of future growth, and I improve many stubs these days. If passionate means nuance-free, which is a fair cop much of the time, then I agree with you. I favour James Forrester and Thomas Dalton's arguments here: http://www.mail-archive.com/wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg01454.html - that Wikipedia started as anything-goes, this was severely cut back and we're now closer to a nuanced equilibrium. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 8:34 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 April 2013 01:29, Gwern Branwen gw...@gwern.net wrote: On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 7:54 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Jimbo and Angela did not play a significant role in debates over inclusion and deletion Indeed, that was my point. I don't think they did anything, or intended anything of the kind, but they chose not to intervene back when the gradual slide could have been stopped and so the ultimate effect was much the same. (Amusingly eventually leading to a nasty surprise for Jimbo with Mzoli's.) You're assuming they could have He certainly could have intervened in the arb com cases where I was vilified for my VfD comments, which I guess would be characterized as inclusionist. ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 7:35 PM, Gwern Branwen gw...@gwern.net wrote: My own impression was that the debates were never resolved so much as the inclusionists driven out. Just look at the editor population numbers from the last 9 years, since 2006, or look at the article growth rates. Has the Foundation succeeded in keeping the editor population from dropping (never mind growing, or growing as fast as the Internet)? I've tracked some of the public goals and they've failed entirely. IIRC, some key inflection points on the oh shit graph match up fairly closely with the elimination of article creation by anonymous users. ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 13:41, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: He certainly could have intervened in the arb com cases where I was vilified for my VfD comments, which I guess would be characterized as inclusionist. I think the overarching problem was that you spent several years being an unproductive pain in the backside. This tends to leave people less inspired to generosity. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 8:59 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 April 2013 13:41, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: He certainly could have intervened in the arb com cases where I was vilified for my VfD comments, which I guess would be characterized as inclusionist. I think the overarching problem was that you spent several years being an unproductive pain in the backside. This tends to leave people less inspired to generosity. Granted. If I knew now what I knew then... Well, I probably just would have left sooner. But the overarching focus of both arb com cases was surrounding VfD. As for the correlation of the oh shit graph to inclusionism/deletionism: A restriction of new article creation to registered users only was put in place in December 2005. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia ) In December 2005, there is a sharp spike in active editors, and a sharp decline in 1-year retention. I would say that is at least partially a direct result. ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 14:04, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: As for the correlation of the oh shit graph to inclusionism/deletionism: A restriction of new article creation to registered users only was put in place in December 2005. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia ) In December 2005, there is a sharp spike in active editors, and a sharp decline in 1-year retention. I would say that is at least partially a direct result. This is an interesting observation I haven't seen before. How's our new pages handling these days? How are the patrollers coping with the firehose of shit? - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
Looking more at this, it seems that Wales has been given credit for exactly this intervention: Wales has, in the past, instructed Wikimedia's system administrators to implement software changes that constitute de facto Wikipedia policy changes. For instance, in December 2005, in response to the Seigenthaler incident, Wales removed the ability of unregistered users to create new pages on the English-language Wikipedia. This change was proposed as an experiment, but has been in place ever since. We have Wales to thank for the absurd Articles for Creation process (Is that still around? I haven't checked in a long time.). Seems to me that constitutes a significant role in debates over inclusion deletion. ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 13:28, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 April 2013 12:24, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Mmm, I remember that mail and whom I suggested ... I didn't see you in that thread ... who were you thinking of? It was a private reply and explanation about a well-known critic of our BLPs. Water under the bridge. I'm still quite deletionist on BLPs because of examples where our rules are too easy to game. I'm certainly not an anti-stub deletionist because that I see as destructive of future growth, and I improve many stubs these days. If passionate means nuance-free, which is a fair cop much of the time, then I agree with you. I favour James Forrester and Thomas Dalton's arguments here: http://www.mail-archive.com/wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg01454.html - that Wikipedia started as anything-goes, this was severely cut back and we're now closer to a nuanced equilibrium. Almost all attempts at writing enWP's history are good (I except the one at Wikimania in DC which was a multi-dimensional trainwreck). I had my pet theory for a few years, that there was too little disruption - which I kept quiet about for several reasons, not the least of which was that I'm unsure of the spelling of Nietzsche at the best of times, but am sure I don't want to be associated with him. Also from a wonkish point of view saying that makes for no useful policy point arising. It mostly harks back to good old days that are really very fictional. We're not yet at a healthy equilibrium. I've used the history in a workshop once, and the editor retention graph shows the need to be thoughtful. It is clear that we moved away from the old-style What I Know Is criterion for inclusion quite sharply in 2007. What needs to be explained more clearly is what took its place. I remember saying to Brianna Laugher at the time - she raised the point in Taipei, so was ahead of many of us - that people who like rules were displacing the old-school guys. Five years on I'm still hoping for the one-liner that says it better. I produced one for JISC when I was talking to them with Martin Poulter. Either it wasn't really memorable, or I'm having a senior moment and it'll come back to 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 14:24, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: What needs to be explained more clearly is what took its place. I remember saying to Brianna Laugher at the time - she raised the point in Taipei, so was ahead of many of us - that people who like rules were displacing the old-school guys. There's something about the whole process that's catnip for people who desperately want nothing more from life than a real-world game of Nomic. This was obvious by 2004, when we were still in many ways working out from first principles how to write an encyclopedia. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 14:21, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: We have Wales to thank for the absurd Articles for Creation process (Is that still around? I haven't checked in a long time.). Seems to me that constitutes a significant role in debates over inclusion deletion. Only by a stretch. I'd call it an argument against top-down intervention. There is no such thing as rescue by magic, and berating someone for failing to do the impossible strikes me as pointless. Pretty much everything that's fucked up about Wikipedia is emergent behaviour of people being a problem, and top-down magic can't possibly scale to fix that. It can cripple it, though. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 14:29, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 April 2013 14:21, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: We have Wales to thank for the absurd Articles for Creation process (Is that still around? I haven't checked in a long time.). Seems to me that constitutes a significant role in debates over inclusion deletion. Only by a stretch. I'd call it an argument against top-down intervention. There is no such thing as rescue by magic, and berating someone for failing to do the impossible strikes me as pointless. Pretty much everything that's fucked up about Wikipedia is emergent behaviour of people being a problem, and top-down magic can't possibly scale to fix that. It can cripple it, though. I'll also note that I suspect opening up article creation to anons again will be impossible within the community - because they actually wanted to lock it down even further, and the Foundation stepped in and said no, keep it open. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 9:31 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 April 2013 14:29, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 April 2013 14:21, Anthony wikim...@inbox.org wrote: We have Wales to thank for the absurd Articles for Creation process (Is that still around? I haven't checked in a long time.). Seems to me that constitutes a significant role in debates over inclusion deletion. Only by a stretch. I'd call it an argument against top-down intervention. There is no such thing as rescue by magic, and berating someone for failing to do the impossible strikes me as pointless. Pretty much everything that's fucked up about Wikipedia is emergent behaviour of people being a problem, and top-down magic can't possibly scale to fix that. It can cripple it, though. I'll also note that I suspect opening up article creation to anons again will be impossible within the community - because they actually wanted to lock it down even further, and the Foundation stepped in and said no, keep it open. I don't see what the stretch is. Wales made it much more difficult for Wikipedia neophytes to create new articles. That's pretty clearly relevant to the inclusion/deletion debate. As far as what is possible/impossible, I think you're largely correct. As was suggested by Gwern, the inclusionists were largely driven out, and the 2005/2006 time frame was probably the peak of that. I'm certainly not suggesting that article creation be reopened to anons and that this is going to solve anything. Actually I'm not suggesting anything at all as far as what should be done. I make an occasional edit, usually with a throwaway account or under an IP address, but I don't follow this stuff that much any more. I'm not even saying very much about whether or not the right choices were made back in the 2003/2004/2005/2006 time-frame that I'm familiar with. I do think Articles for Creation is absurd, though even that is more a comment on the technology/interface than on the idea (if you want to make new articles go through a review process, there are much better ways to design the interface). But for the most part what caused me to comment was to point out facts in the history which are relevant to others who wish to make those evaluations. ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
Looking more at this, it seems that Wales has been given credit for exactly this intervention: Wales has, in the past, instructed Wikimedia's system administrators to implement software changes that constitute de facto Wikipedia policy changes. For instance, in December 2005, in response to the Seigenthaler incident, Wales removed the ability of unregistered users to create new pages on the English-language Wikipedia. This change was proposed as an experiment, but has been in place ever since. We have Wales to thank for the absurd Articles for Creation process (Is that still around? I haven't checked in a long time.). Seems to me that constitutes a significant role in debates over inclusion deletion. Together with the Arbitration Committee Jimbo initiated the Biographies of living persons policy. His involvement in deletion was with respect to pseudo-scientific physics theories. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Saturday, 13 April 2013 at 05:10, Gwern Branwen wrote: Some recent musings reminded me that I never did find a good answer for an old question of mine: does anything predict whether an editor will lean towards deletionism? I'm waiting for extreme inclusionists or deletionists to produce some high-quality, not-at-all bullshit research that shows that failure to adhere to their preferred philosophy is something that shows a deep psychological tendency to rape kittens. That'll elevate the debate, I'm sure. -- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
Obviously toilet training is involved. That is the source of the anal personality. Need a study of toilet training of future editors... Fred Some recent musings reminded me that I never did find a good answer for an old question of mine: does anything predict whether an editor will lean towards deletionism? More specifically, it seems to me that attitudes towards articles take on almost emotional or moral dimensions, perhaps related to various psychological factors. Does anyone remember ever seeing any research touching on this? For example, perhaps someone surveyed editors, asking for self-identified preference and doing an inventory measuring personality factors like the OCEAN/Big Five? Of course I checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia and Google but nothing particularly germane appears to have popped up besides random speculation and analogies to Adorno's famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ 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 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 2:36 AM, Tom Morris t...@tommorris.org wrote: I'm waiting for extreme inclusionists or deletionists to produce some high-quality, not-at-all bullshit research that shows that failure to adhere to their preferred philosophy is something that shows a deep psychological tendency to rape kittens. That'll elevate the debate, I'm sure. On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 8:06 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Obviously toilet training is involved. That is the source of the anal personality. Need a study of toilet training of future editors... Thanks for your contributions, guys, they were really helpful and not at all completely useless and off-topic and exactly what I was hoping not to see. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
If you want anecdotal evidence, I would say that someone's first encounter with AfD can set them firmly in one place on the spectrum, but that most people who stick around see their views evolve as they come to understand sources and the range of articles topics and various problems better. Whether there is an underlying predisposition, I don't know. I hope this was more helpful than the other replies you received! :-) On 4/13/13, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote: Some recent musings reminded me that I never did find a good answer for an old question of mine: does anything predict whether an editor will lean towards deletionism? More specifically, it seems to me that attitudes towards articles take on almost emotional or moral dimensions, perhaps related to various psychological factors. Does anyone remember ever seeing any research touching on this? For example, perhaps someone surveyed editors, asking for self-identified preference and doing an inventory measuring personality factors like the OCEAN/Big Five? Of course I checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia and Google but nothing particularly germane appears to have popped up besides random speculation and analogies to Adorno's famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ 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 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
What were you hoping to see? Obviously, either some sound peer-reviewed research displaying that deletionists suffer from deep-seated psychological problems that make them clinically unfit to work on a collaborative project; or some sound peer-reviewed research displaying that inclusionists suffer from some other, similarly severe, deep-seated psychological problems. I'm not sure which of the two you're fishing for, though. Cheers, David... On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 1:53 AM, Gwern Branwen gw...@gwern.net wrote: On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 2:36 AM, Tom Morris t...@tommorris.org wrote: I'm waiting for extreme inclusionists or deletionists to produce some high-quality, not-at-all bullshit research that shows that failure to adhere to their preferred philosophy is something that shows a deep psychological tendency to rape kittens. That'll elevate the debate, I'm sure. On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 8:06 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Obviously toilet training is involved. That is the source of the anal personality. Need a study of toilet training of future editors... Thanks for your contributions, guys, they were really helpful and not at all completely useless and off-topic and exactly what I was hoping not to see. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ 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 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 4:22 PM, David Carson carson63...@gmail.com wrote: Obviously, either some sound peer-reviewed research displaying that deletionists suffer from deep-seated psychological problems that make them clinically unfit to work on a collaborative project; or some sound peer-reviewed research displaying that inclusionists suffer from some other, similarly severe, deep-seated psychological problems. I'm not 'hoping' to see anything. The absence of any correlations would be just as interesting because a lot of people seem to think the opposite. My basic observation here is that inclusionism/deletionism debates seem intractable, like religion and politics, which have long been correlated with a variety of mental and neurological observations and this deep-seated roots of those beliefs seems to explain why politics is so wasteful and damaging; hence the obvious question becomes, is inclusionism/deletionism another such case? But such findings would not tell us which side (or both) is the intractable party. Merely from a correlation you can't infer which side is right, since there's always two sides to a coin and you don't know whose beliefs are correct. (Suppose a survey found Republicans are more fearful of foreigners and foreign countries than Democrats; well, this is interesting but what does it actually show? Where can we get the ground truth on this question, what fact would we point to to prove that Republicans are wrong to fear foreigners/foreign-countries and allow us to draw a conclusion like 'Republican politics are driven by excessive fear'? If they were actually right to fear foreigners, then this finding would be better interpreted as 'Democrats pathologically optimistic / naive', and of course, both sides could be wrong on how dangerous foreigners were, in which case we might conclude both that Republicans are driven by excessive fear while those suffering from mindless optimism and naivete align with the Democrats. Just because two groups are arguing doesn't mean either one is right.) -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 4/13/13, Gwern Branwen gw...@gwern.net wrote: My basic observation here is that inclusionism/deletionism debates seem intractable, like religion and politics, which have long been correlated with a variety of mental and neurological observations and this deep-seated roots of those beliefs seems to explain why politics is so wasteful and damaging; hence the obvious question becomes, is inclusionism/deletionism another such case? I think there is actually a sensible middle ground, which gets lost because those with more extreme views are more vocal. That is similar to politics in a way. And why would you think that inclusionism/deletionism debates are intractable? I thought the idea that such terms should be avoided (as they are divisive) was taking hold and gaining ground? Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 13 April 2013 23:42, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On 4/13/13, Gwern Branwen gw...@gwern.net wrote: My basic observation here is that inclusionism/deletionism debates seem intractable, like religion and politics, which have long been correlated with a variety of mental and neurological observations and this deep-seated roots of those beliefs seems to explain why politics is so wasteful and damaging; hence the obvious question becomes, is inclusionism/deletionism another such case? I think there is actually a sensible middle ground, which gets lost because those with more extreme views are more vocal. That is similar to politics in a way. And why would you think that inclusionism/deletionism debates are intractable? I thought the idea that such terms should be avoided (as they are divisive) was taking hold and gaining ground? I'm broadly an inclusionist, but by crikey there's a lot of utter, utter shit on the wiki. I've been nominating hopeless shite lately, for AFD or even just PROD. Not much, you understand. I can give it up any time. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 6:42 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: And why would you think that inclusionism/deletionism debates are intractable? I thought the idea that such terms should be avoided (as they are divisive) was taking hold and gaining ground? We're getting a bit far afield (I was just hoping for some citations to academic research I could look up), but since you asked... My own impression was that the debates were never resolved so much as the inclusionists driven out. Just look at the editor population numbers from the last 9 years, since 2006, or look at the article growth rates. Has the Foundation succeeded in keeping the editor population from dropping (never mind growing, or growing as fast as the Internet)? I've tracked some of the public goals and they've failed entirely. If you hear silence, it may be the silence of the content, happily cooperating as they beaver away at their particular articles - or it may be the silence of the grave. Why do you never hear complaints from inclusionists about Star Wars articles being deleted? Because so many were deleted that the involved editors finally bit the bullet and escaped to Wikia, and the only ones that are left are either ones onboard with rigid constrictive policies or have seen their efforts fail and learned to comply with the current regime. What happened with Star Wars could be said of many of the Wikias. (One of the more amusing Wikipedia conspiracy theories I've seen is that Wales Angela deliberately encouraged or let En slide towards deletionism because it provided a demand for his Wikia startup. I doubt they intended any such thing, but the effect was the same.) And after a while, people have enough run-ins with Wikipedians or hear about such run-ins that they learn Wikipedia is no longer friendly to a wide variety of topics and to not even try, so one then cannot even point to content-generating communities migrating off Wikipedia because the communities have learned to not use Wikipedia in the first place but use Wikia or any of the many other options available. Hence, an 'evaporative cooling' of participants (http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beliefs/) as editors leave. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
Why do you never hear complaints from inclusionists about Star Wars articles being deleted? Because so many were deleted that the involved editors finally bit the bullet and escaped to Wikia, and the only ones that are left are either ones onboard with rigid constrictive policies or have seen their efforts fail and learned to comply with the current regime. What happened with Star Wars could be said of many of the Wikias. (One of the more amusing Wikipedia conspiracy theories I've seen is that Wales Angela deliberately encouraged or let En slide towards deletionism because it provided a demand for his Wikia startup. I doubt they intended any such thing, but the effect was the same.) . -- gwern http://www.gwern.net Jimbo and Angela did not play a significant role in debates over inclusion and deletion; it just happens that people with a passion for a subject treasure every detail which makes for a good wikia wiki. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 7:54 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Jimbo and Angela did not play a significant role in debates over inclusion and deletion Indeed, that was my point. I don't think they did anything, or intended anything of the kind, but they chose not to intervene back when the gradual slide could have been stopped and so the ultimate effect was much the same. (Amusingly eventually leading to a nasty surprise for Jimbo with Mzoli's.) -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On 14 April 2013 01:29, Gwern Branwen gw...@gwern.net wrote: On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 7:54 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Jimbo and Angela did not play a significant role in debates over inclusion and deletion Indeed, that was my point. I don't think they did anything, or intended anything of the kind, but they chose not to intervene back when the gradual slide could have been stopped and so the ultimate effect was much the same. (Amusingly eventually leading to a nasty surprise for Jimbo with Mzoli's.) You're assuming they could have, and that this would have been worth doing. I don't think there's any reasonable basis for such an assumption, as it carries the implicit assumption that we understood Wikipedia well enough to make that sort of intervention, and that's definitely false. I still don't think we really know quite how this damn thing works, for all the millions of words wasted on the effort, and I don't consider the many incompatible hypotheses of how it does cohere to form evidence otherwise. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 7:54 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Jimbo and Angela did not play a significant role in debates over inclusion and deletion Indeed, that was my point. I don't think they did anything, or intended anything of the kind, but they chose not to intervene back when the gradual slide could have been stopped and so the ultimate effect was much the same. (Amusingly eventually leading to a nasty surprise for Jimbo with Mzoli's.) -- gwern http://www.gwern.net Once the herd got going, no one had much affect. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 7:54 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Jimbo and Angela did not play a significant role in debates over inclusion and deletion Indeed, that was my point. I don't think they did anything, or intended anything of the kind, but they chose not to intervene back when the gradual slide could have been stopped and so the ultimate effect was much the same. (Amusingly eventually leading to a nasty surprise for Jimbo with Mzoli's.) -- gwern http://www.gwern.net Once the herd got going, no one had much effect. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 8:34 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: You're assuming they could have, and that this would have been worth doing. I don't think there's any reasonable basis for such an assumption, as it carries the implicit assumption that we understood Wikipedia well enough to make that sort of intervention, and that's definitely false. Of course they *could* have tried. What we'll never know is if they would have succeeded, because they didn't try. Gardner and the Foundation seemed to eventually realize the problem, but eh, barn doors and horses. On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 8:39 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: Once the herd got going, no one had much affect. Managing the herd is what leaders were for. -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ 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] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?
Some recent musings reminded me that I never did find a good answer for an old question of mine: does anything predict whether an editor will lean towards deletionism? More specifically, it seems to me that attitudes towards articles take on almost emotional or moral dimensions, perhaps related to various psychological factors. Does anyone remember ever seeing any research touching on this? For example, perhaps someone surveyed editors, asking for self-identified preference and doing an inventory measuring personality factors like the OCEAN/Big Five? Of course I checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia and Google but nothing particularly germane appears to have popped up besides random speculation and analogies to Adorno's famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality -- gwern http://www.gwern.net ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
