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
