Re: [WikiEN-l] So what does Flagged Revs feel like?
On 1 Oct 2009, at 03:33, Steve Bennett wrote: The thing that puts me off most, personally, is that the IP is recorded and published. I wouldn't really care if there was some other way to identify anonymous users, but raw IPs? Ick. Is there much difference between the way a new (redlink) account is treated, and an IP account is treated? Perhaps using the former would give an indication to how the latter is treated? I tend to treat both as equally suspicious when I spot an edit by them - but I don't tend to bite. Mike ___ 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
Ken Arromdee wrote: On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, FT2 wrote: So the resolution of your question above is, if anyone could in principle check it without analysis, just by witnessing the object or document and attesting it says what it says (or is what it is, or has certain obvious qualities), then that's verifiable. If it would need analysis, interpretation or deduction to form the view, so that some views might be credible/expert and some might not, then we don't try to play the expert here, we look at what credible sources/experts say instead. 1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy. Sure it is. Have a look at the section on dealing with primary sources. That's almost a perfect summary of it. ___ 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
On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 3:04 AM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: It's precisely the people that *think* they understand the wikipedia that usually become deletionists or inclusionists. Read carefully: ...WP:CLUE in some ways more speak[s] to the spirit of things... Same point. And agreed that it is infuriatingly vague in a way, to some people, because something not written can matter more than the words on the page. FT2 ___ 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
On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Surreptitiousness surreptitious.wikiped...@googlemail.com wrote: Ken Arromdee wrote: On Wed, 30 Sep 2009, FT2 wrote: So the resolution of your question above is, if anyone could in principle check it without analysis, just by witnessing the object or document and attesting it says what it says (or is what it is, or has certain obvious qualities), then that's verifiable. If it would need analysis, interpretation or deduction to form the view, so that some views might be credible/expert and some might not, then we don't try to play the expert here, we look at what credible sources/experts say instead. 1) That doesn't seem to be actual Wikipedia policy. Sure it is. Have a look at the section on dealing with primary sources. That's almost a perfect summary of it. To add to this, note that primary sources are stated to include ...archeological artifacts; photographs.. NOR, a core policy in this area, doesn't say that the writings about an artifact are the source. It says clearly that artifacts themselves are categorized as primary sources. The only way an artifact or photograph could ever be a source is that by its very existence, it has a number of obvious descriptive qualities and the like that any reasonable person witnessing it would agree upon, and that anyone with access to the artifact could verify. FT2 ___ 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
On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 10:47 AM, Surreptitiousness surreptitious.wikiped...@googlemail.com wrote: And of course, it is this portion of policy that causes us issues with regards fiction. Since the work itself is a primary source. We haven't yet worked out to what extent a article on a fictional subject should rely on secondary sources. Or at least reached a consensus. It's easier to tackle fiction articles by removing speculation and interpretation. Generally, I think that should be the better approach, and I'd like to see a similar policy, in terms of scope rather than content, created for articles on fictional subjects. I think Phul Sandifer had a draft somewhere, but it's real hard to organise a consensus in this area, there's real division running deep. The issue for fiction can be summed up within with one question, almost. Here is a nice simple book. Obviously any /analysis/ will be from good quality sources. But what kind of sourcing is appropriate to its plot summary? Many well-read books don't have plot summaries in reliable sources, and yet anyone reading the book can see what its basic plot is, and we have hundreds of editors to reach consensus on what it says. (Key issue: any book is a primary source on its own contents.) FT2 ___ 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
FT2 wrote: The issue for fiction can be summed up within with one question, almost. Here is a nice simple book. Obviously any /analysis/ will be from good quality sources. But what kind of sourcing is appropriate to its plot summary? Many well-read books don't have plot summaries in reliable sources, and yet anyone reading the book can see what its basic plot is, and we have hundreds of editors to reach consensus on what it says. (Key issue: any book is a primary source on its own contents.) You've misread me. The key question is, why should we summarise this plot. That's what's causing the problems with fiction on Wikipedia at the minute. Although having said that, the drama does seem to have died off a bit lately. Which kind of suggests a consensus of sorts exists. ___ 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
2009/10/1 Surreptitiousness surreptitious.wikiped...@googlemail.com: You've misread me. The key question is, why should we summarise this plot. That's what's causing the problems with fiction on Wikipedia at the minute. Although having said that, the drama does seem to have died off a bit lately. Which kind of suggests a consensus of sorts exists. Yeah. Don't prod it with sticks too hard for the moment ;-p Though grossly excessive plot summaries are getting tagged as such, and many are being greatly improved as individuals get around to them. - 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] Age fabrication and original research
On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Surreptitiousness surreptitious.wikiped...@googlemail.com wrote: FT2 wrote: The issue for fiction can be summed up within with one question, almost. Here is a nice simple book. Obviously any /analysis/ will be from good quality sources. But what kind of sourcing is appropriate to its plot summary? Many well-read books don't have plot summaries in reliable sources, and yet anyone reading the book can see what its basic plot is, and we have hundreds of editors to reach consensus on what it says. (Key issue: any book is a primary source on its own contents.) You've misread me. The key question is, why should we summarise this plot. That's what's causing the problems with fiction on Wikipedia at the minute. Although having said that, the drama does seem to have died off a bit lately. Which kind of suggests a consensus of sorts exists. I think plot summaries are OK, as long as there is some real-world context and analysis. Just a description of what the book is about is not enough. Links to reviews and criticism is a must, in my view. Some examples would help here, from stubs, to only plot summary (more like a directory of books), to mixtures to featured articles about books (we have a few of those). 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] Age fabrication and original research
On Thu, 1 Oct 2009, FT2 wrote: To add to this, note that primary sources are stated to include ...archeological artifacts; photographs.. NOR, a core policy in this area, doesn't say that the writings about an artifact are the source. It says clearly that artifacts themselves are categorized as primary sources. The only way an artifact or photograph could ever be a source is that by its very existence, it has a number of obvious descriptive qualities and the like that any reasonable person witnessing it would agree upon, and that anyone with access to the artifact could verify. This is logical, but only proves that our rules contradict ourselves every which way. If you read NOR and RS, the general impression is that a source is written or otherwise published material about something. Those words you quoted are pretty much the only references to a source being an object, rather than what someone writes about the object. It's a matter of emphasis--everything else pretty much implies (regardless of whether it says so outright) that this kind of source isn't good. This is, in fact, one of the problems with a lot of Wikipedia rules: we so strongly emphasize a rule that nobody will believe in any exceptions, even if we didn't literally say the rule needed to be followed 100% of the time. Also, there are phrases which seem to directly contradict it. For instance, NOR contains this: Unsourced material obtained from a Wikipedian's personal experience, such as an unpublished eyewitness account, should not be added to articles. It would violate both this policy and Verifiability, and would cause Wikipedia to become a primary source for that material. This implies that you *can't* use an object as a source, since it would be your personal eyewitness account of the bridge or whatever. ___ 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?
Steve Bennett wrote: On 10/1/09, Michael Peel wrote: Is there much difference between the way a new (redlink) account is treated, and an IP account is treated? Perhaps using the former would give an indication to how the latter is treated? I tend to treat both as equally suspicious when I spot an edit by them - but I don't tend to bite. Yeah. I just do the don't bite bit. Example, I came across this edit recently: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Randalldiff=316461923oldid=310597871 Ok, now that text doesn't really belong. It's trivia. It's not notable. It's even poorly written. But I left it. I couldn't see much benefit in hurting some primary school kid's feelings over it. It's only *slightly* too trivial, and definitely not in a harmful way. Maybe if I come across it in a month or two I'll kill it then...but no reason to tread on this kid's toes so quickly. Good point. A bit of friendly paternal guidance without a lot of boilerplate is a good first step. That might encourage them to do more in more constructive ways once they understand the underlying concepts. Some others, whose contributions a harmlessly bad, will tend to get bored of editing after being here only a shirt while; having the patience to wait until they have gone away before cleaning up will avoid a lot of drama. Ec ___ 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
On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: This is logical, but only proves that our rules contradict ourselves every which way. Indeed. And we are broadly fine with that, to an extent. A number of policy and project pages explicitly point out that not everything will be 100% consistent. This implies that you *can't* use an object as a source, since it would be your personal eyewitness account of the bridge or whatever. But that affects all sources. How do we know that report X in peer-reviewed journal Y is fairly summed up as described? All we have is one or more editors who read it, and wrote about what they think it says. To be unsubtle, take the most highly regarded authoritative book on a topic, and cite it in a topic as a source for some point or other. What enters Wikipedia will be your personal eyewitness account of what ultra-widely-acknowledged expert X wrote or ultra-authoritatively-regarded journal Y says. A bridge is presented to the senses of eyewitness no more nor less than a paper, a rock, or any artifact. It's editor interpretation, opinion and judgment that we avoid, not reporting faithfully what any reasonable witness exposed to that same item would agree is obvious to the five senses. FT2 ___ 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
Carcharoth wrote: On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Surreptitiousness wrote: FT2 wrote: The issue for fiction can be summed up within with one question, almost. Here is a nice simple book. Obviously any /analysis/ will be from good quality sources. But what kind of sourcing is appropriate to its plot summary? Many well-read books don't have plot summaries in reliable sources, and yet anyone reading the book can see what its basic plot is, and we have hundreds of editors to reach consensus on what it says. (Key issue: any book is a primary source on its own contents.) You've misread me. The key question is, why should we summarise this plot. That's what's causing the problems with fiction on Wikipedia at the minute. Although having said that, the drama does seem to have died off a bit lately. Which kind of suggests a consensus of sorts exists. I think plot summaries are OK, as long as there is some real-world context and analysis. Just a description of what the book is about is not enough. Links to reviews and criticism is a must, in my view. Some examples would help here, from stubs, to only plot summary (more like a directory of books), to mixtures to featured articles about books (we have a few of those). Why shouldn't a plot summary or book description be enough? It's a fundamental building block for any article. While it would be nice to have reviews and criticisms a simple tag that we would like these added should suffice to alert someone else to add them. The people who write a good summary are often not the same people who condense reviews and criticisms well. Ec ___ 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
2009/10/1 Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net: This is logical, but only proves that our rules contradict ourselves every which way. Yes. The rules are not a consistent legal framework, they're a series of quick hacks. If you regard them as an immaculate stainless steel construction of flawless design every component of which is intended to mesh perfectly with every other component ... then you have badly misunderstood how Wikipedia works and will be continually frustrated (much as you are now). That a lot of people seem to assume this doesn't make it any truer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Practical_process - does this help explain how we got here? I'm not saying it's desirable, I'm saying this is how it is. - 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] Age fabrication and original research
On Thu, 1 Oct 2009, David Gerard wrote: This is logical, but only proves that our rules contradict ourselves every which way. Yes. The rules are not a consistent legal framework, they're a series of quick hacks. The literal words aren't the only problem, though. Usually our rules are written so as to emphasize that the user should or should not do some specific thing. But if you emphasize something strongly in the rules, that *affects how the spirit of the rules is interpreted*. It's not just that people are too literal about primary sources--it's that even if they go by the spirit of the rules, the lopsided emphasis makes it seem like the spirit of the rules is as restrictive as the literal rules. And back to literal words... I'm really tired of the attitude since the rules aren't meant to be taken literally, we won't fix them so that they make more sense if someone does try to read them literally. ___ 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
2009/10/1 FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com: The problem is there comes a point where you can't improve them in terms of definitiveness without them being so long as to defeat easy readability (tl;dr). At that point we rely on the reader to figure it out. if you can spot improvements that others haven't, and they reflect the spirit better than the present wording, then Be Bold and see if others agree they are an improvement, and fix them! Yes. The key problem is that no rules can stop stupidity or bad faith. Particularly not stupidity. Ken, you appear to be demanding wording that will be so good that people can't apply it stupidly. There is no such possible quality of wording where human judgement can possibly be involved; and removing human judgement makes it stupider. - 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] Age fabrication and original research
On Thu, 1 Oct 2009, FT2 wrote: The problem is there comes a point where you can't improve them in terms of definitiveness without them being so long as to defeat easy readability (tl;dr). At that point we rely on the reader to figure it out. if you can spot improvements that others haven't, and they reflect the spirit better than the present wording, then Be Bold and see if others agree they are an improvement, and fix them! Well, the last time I ran into this was the way IAR is worded. For such a short rule it has a huge flaw: it says you can only ignore rules for the purpose of improving or maintaining the encyclopedia. The result is people constantly claiming that you can't ignore rules for BLP or privacy concerns, since helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia. Obviously it would be overkill to edit IAR itself, but nobody was even interested on the talk page of WIARM, except one person who said that it's okay that's badly worded because our rules don't literally mean what they say. ___ 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
2009/10/1 Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net: Well, the last time I ran into this was the way IAR is worded. For such a short rule it has a huge flaw: it says you can only ignore rules for the purpose of improving or maintaining the encyclopedia. The result is people constantly claiming that you can't ignore rules for BLP or privacy concerns, since helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia. Obviously it would be overkill to edit IAR itself, but nobody was even interested on the talk page of WIARM, except one person who said that it's okay that's badly worded because our rules don't literally mean what they say. Handy guide to IAR: If the reactions to your actions when you try to apply IAR are you're clueless, then perhaps you don't understand IAR. But, by all means, do please keep posting to wikien-l about IAR. - 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
