Re: [WikiEN-l] [tangential] Why voting is evil
On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 6:38 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: tl;dr: voting creates winners and losers, and losers are unhappy and disengage. This is exactly why Germany announced that their next presidential election is going to eliminate voting entirely, and let the voters just argue about it until they come to an agreement about the next president. If they can't agree, the current president will be kept as the status quo. But at least nobody will feel like their candidate lost. /sarcasm The voting is evil idea has a kernel of truth: when a small number of editors are working on an individual article, it is better to come to mutual agreement on article content than to have lots of tiny polls about the content. But somehow voting is evil spread to situations where consensus-based decision making is well known to fail, e.g. on community-level issues where hundreds of editors want to voice their input. Well, actually we do have a sort of vote on those, but we claim it really isn't a vote, and then we try to find someone with enough gravitas (a bureaucrat or arbitrator, in extreme cases) to judge the consensus. - Carl ___ 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] Link removal experiment; Re: How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit, _The Atlantic_
On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 2:33 PM, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote: Result: Of the 100 removals, just 3 were reverted. You removed 100 external links and only 3 of the removals were reverted. I don't find that very surprising. My experience with external links is that *on average* they are low quality, and many of them do fail WP:EL. Of course there are good external links, but they are a minority on the articles I follow. Examples include these removals: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scala_%28programming_language%29diff=prevoldid=489800521 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HUD_%28video_gaming%29diff=prevoldid=487559372 I suppose I am not a deletionist because I only remove the ones that are most blatantly spam or free of content. But there are many more that I would not worry about if someone else removed them. Separately, the median number of watchlisters for the 100 pages you edited is 5. And we have no way to get the names of the watchlisters to see whether they are active. So for many of the pages, it seems plausible nobody even noticed that the link was removed. That is a separate issue unrelated to links. - Carl ___ 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] Link removal experiment; Re: How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit, _The Atlantic_
On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote: Separately, the median number of watchlisters for the 100 pages you edited is 5. Where is this figure coming from? There is a redacted (no user info) table in the toolserver database that can be used to count the number of editors who watchlist a page. I fetched the counts for the 100 articles and found the median. - Carl ___ 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] Demi Moore BLP name
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 10:44 AM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: Except for common sense. Common sense says that if someone tells you what their birth name is, you believe them, not something that's probably misinformation but which has been multiply repeated. Well, no. Common sense here is that she changed her name and, in the interests of keeping a consistent public image, has no interest in promoting the old one. Common sense is that the fact checkers at People magazine double-checked the name they listed as her birth name. - Carl ___ 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] Demi Moore BLP name
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 10:28 PM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: Ah, but our verifiability/reliable sources policy says that we use secondary sources because they do fact checking. This is a secondary source, therefore it must do fact checking. Considering whether the secondary source *actually* does fact checking is not Wikipedians' job--the policy says it does, so we have to assume it does! Actually, I believe People magazine in particular actually does fact checking. If they aren't good enough, presumably the Independent is - it is also cited in the article. But that's neither here nor there. Common sense in this sort of case is that we should expect celebrities to be constantly managing their public brand - particularly on a medium such as Twitter which is used explicitly for that purpose. There's no reason to give much weight to tweets like the one that is now footnote 1 of the article. - Carl ___ 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 article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: I can agree with this. Most articles summarise their sources, and serve as a starting point for further reading on the topic. This article appears to be the starting and the ending point. Sometimes less is more. State what is needed, and let the reader then read more elsewhere as they see fit. Wouldn't this apply to other articles equally (e.g. our biography of Santorum or the article on cats)? If not, why not? - Carl ___ 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 article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: Part of the process of improving articles involves editing them, and that includes removing stuff as well as adding stuff. There are many cases of articles at the featured article process (and sometimes at the good article level as well) where excessive detail is removed. The specific arguments for carrying out such editing on this article belong on the article talk page. As I understand it (not having participated) the idea of reducing the article to a stub was proposed on the talk page and rejected. I'm sure that everyone accepts the general principle that some articles are too long, but this thread is about a particular article. One argument in that section of the talk page is the following: : BLP basically means cover it sanely and safely, not don't cover it at all. : The ongoing reliable source interest in the phenomenon means that the : horse has already well and truly bolted. We Wikipedians can't change the : course of history, we can only report on it. Now the implicit claim in that quote that we can act publicly without affecting society is arguably incorrect; of course we change the course of history by participating in society. But we have often been willing to be involved in the very early development of a public conception (e.g. articles on Michael Jackson's death and other events). I think that any arguments about this article are going to have to be specific for the topic at hand, rather than trying to espouse general principles. In other words they have to distinguish between this event and others. I am not sure how strong those arguments are yet, which is why I am posting in this thread. - Carl ___ 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 article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 11:43 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: None of the examples you cite are living people. This reminds me again about a somewhat common misinterpretation of BLP. BLP is not really motivated solely by the fact that a person is alive, To the extent that WP:BLP goes beyond WP:NPOV, it is motivated by the desire to help people who would otherwise be unable to mount a response to Wikipedia - people who are barely notable, or just known for one event - people who cannot call a press conference at the touch of a button. These people need us to exercise special discretion because they are at a relative disadvantage to us. It is patently unreasonable to claim that a former U.S. sentator, who is now running for U.S. president, needs us to help him disseminate or control his message beyond WP:NPOV. Santorum can have multiple major news sources report any press conference he wants to hold, just by asking an aide to make some phone calls. So Santorum is fully able to present his own message to the press and get it published in mainstream news sources that we can cite. We simply need to maintain NPOV in our articles by accurately reflecting news coverage. Santorum does not need us to exercise special discretion, because anything he wants to put in the media he can put in the media. This stands in stark contrast to the people whom things like WP:BLP1E are really intended to protect. These people cannot simply call a press conference to respond to our articles. - Carl ___ 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] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)
On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 8:38 PM, Scott MacDonald doc.wikipe...@ntlworld.com wrote: But my point is celebrity stories in newspapers, if they use unnamed or unattributable sources, are not reliable and should never amount to verification. Unfortunately, the current language of WP:V not only declares that professional newspapers are unilaterally reliable, they are even decreed to be secondary sources, which removes some slight limitations on how the material in newspaper stories could be used. It seems that some editors of WP:V actually believe this is the appropriate way to handle newspaper stories; in any case it is unlikely to change. We might as well source things from random internet blogs and claim: but this is verification (it may be true or not, but we don't care about truth). This is essentially what we already do. Moreover, many editors like the fact that we cover stories quickly using primary sources (e.g. the death of Michael Jackson) rather than waiting (for years?) for a definitive account to be published in secondary sources. Verification not truth must not be a suicide pact and certainly not an excuse for sloppy publishing of gossip on BLPS. The idea that someone cannot challenge a source fact simply because they doubt its truth is very useful, though. It reduces many arguments where editors know they are right, when they are really wrong. If we can't use sources to judge truth, and we can't use expert knowledge without sources, what third option remains? - Carl ___ 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] Accessibility of technical articles
Here is my attempt at a historical explanation for the way things are at the moment. First, mathematicians in general are often reluctant to say things that are mostly right but formally incorrect. It's part of the culture of the field, which was reinforced by a certain writing style that became popular in advanced mathematics in the later 20th century. Second, for a few years there was a lot of pressure on Wikipedia to tighten up the referencing on math articles. Writing techniques that were commonly accepted in the early days, like inventing examples or making up informal analogies, were suddenly deemed original research. Edits like this [1] are not rare today, where someone thought that a section that seemed easy and informal must actually be OR. Fortunately the examples in that section are actually covered in many textbooks, so I could just add a citation. But if the example was written just for Wikipedia, it would be very hard to maintain if someone seriously challenged its inclusion. The current state of many math articles reflects a combination of these trends. When we were asked (not always nicely) to make math articles stick to the sources, which are usually written in a dry, technical way, math editors mostly agreed. After all, we can read the sources, so we can read articles that resemble them. Recently, there has been talk of making articles more accessible. But many of the tools that we would use in other writing aren't available. * We can't just leave out the technical bits, like most popularizations do. * We can't invent examples and explain them in detail, because of the original research policy and because Wikipedia isn't a textbook. * We can't freely use analogies and informal explanations, for the same reasons (see [1] again). Many math editors care about accessibility, of course. But the confines that we are asked to write in are very tight, which makes it a particular challenge. - Carl 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kleene%27s_recursion_theoremdiff=413952471oldid=413931670 ___ 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] Why I don't contribute to Wikipedia anymore
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 04/02/2011, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: It's a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don't follow the rules as strictly as we do. To be perfectly honest, I've not really seen that happen; although people will often get their work reverted for not following rules. I cannot think of a single example of people getting banned for not following rules (other than copyvios and behavioral rules). I think the comment by Nathan would be an accurate assessment of the history of the Verifiability and No Original Research policies, whose meaning has mutated so much that their initial, perfectly reasonable origins have been lost to myth and legend. - Carl ___ 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] Webypedia - another doomed alternative to Wikipedia
On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 4:56 AM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequ...@gmail.com wrote: but as they evidently haven't sussed that Wikipedia is in truth the encyclopaedia largely written by anonymous IP editors, Perhaps that is true in some areas, but the articles I edit on wikipedia (on mathematics) are almost completely written by registered editors. If you'd like to explain what criteria you use for largely written, I would be interested in testing whether articles in various fields meet that criteria. - Carl ___ 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] Webypedia - another doomed alternative to Wikipedia
On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 9:51 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Aaron Swartz found that most of the text is written by IPs, with the regulars then formatting the heck out of it. Like I was saying, that does not match my experience with mathematics articles. I very rarely see significant amounts of content (say, a new paragraph) added by an anonymous user. I randomly picked a few mathematical logic articles and ran a script on them to see how much text had been added by anons (see below). This is obviously not intended to be scientifically rigorous. But the data does cast doubt on the claim anons add most of the content being valid over our entire set of articles. My hypothesis is that the claim is more likely to be true for broadly-known topics or current events. For example, Normal distribution has had much more anonymous editing than Cumulant. But the depth of Wikipedia comes from the latter sort of articles, and for every one of the former kind we have lots of the latter kind. Also, about half of our articles are stubs, and new articles cannot even be created by anonymous users without going through some hoops. I would assume the majority of content in stubs was added by registered users. - Carl -- Data -- I wrote a script that goes through all the revisions of a page in chronological order and tracks the absolute size of each change. So if an anonymous user adds 100 byes, then a registered user adds 100, then an anonymous user removes 5, and then a registered user adds 10, the script will say anonymous: 105 and registered: 110. I do not try to take reverts into account at all. Here is the data for a selection of mathematical logic articles. You can see that several of these have had a relatively small amount of information added by anonymous users. Article: Projection (set theory) Total edits: 17 Anon users: 102 bytes in 3 edits Registered users: 1224 bytes in 14 edits Current size: 1074 bytes Article: Borel hierarchy Total edits: 29 Anon users: 165 bytes in 2 edits Registered users: 9265 bytes in 27 edits Current size: 8850 bytes Article: Algebra of sets Total edits: 90 Anon users: 1542 bytes in 25 edits Registered users: 17181 bytes in 65 edits Current size: 11941 bytes Article: Indicator function Total edits: 149 Anon users: 1550 bytes in 22 edits Registered users: 15114 bytes in 127 edits Current size: 10922 bytes Article: Complete theory Total edits: 37 Anon users: 12 bytes in 1 edits Registered users: 2893 bytes in 36 edits Current size: 2691 bytes Article: Background and genesis of topos theory Count: 56 Anon: 133 in 9 Registered: 11662 in 47 Size: 10807 Article: Background and genesis of topos theory Total edits: 56 Anon users: 133 bytes in 9 edits Registered users: 11662 bytes in 47 edits Current size: 10807 bytes Article: Association for Logic, Language and Information Total edits: 14 Anon users: 21 bytes in 1 edits Registered users: 1982 bytes in 13 edits Current size: 1985 bytes Article: Extension by definitions Total edits: 20 Anon users: 4 bytes in 1 edits Registered users: 8123 bytes in 19 edits Current size: 7887 bytes Article: Unfoldable cardinal Total edits: 32 Anon users: 23 bytes in 2 edits Registered users: 3124 bytes in 30 edits Current size: 2933 bytes Article: Gluing axiom Total edits: 37 Anon users: 302 bytes in 4 edits Registered users: 9271 bytes in 33 edits Current size: 8843 bytes Here are some other articles I picked off the top of my head. Again, notice that anonymous edits are dwarfed by registered edits. Article: Group ring Total edits: 151 Anon users: 1761 bytes in 23 edits Registered users: 33828 bytes in 128 edits Current size: 16851 bytes Article: Product topology Total edits: 97 Anon users: 3804 bytes in 22 edits Registered users: 20526 bytes in 75 edits Current size: 8858 bytes Article: Linear multistep method Total edits: 107 Anon users: 1573 bytes in 28 edits Registered users: 18287 bytes in 79 edits Current size: 18890 bytes Article: Normal distribution Total edits: 1985 Anon users: 355031 bytes in 582 edits Registered users: 502215 bytes in 1403 edits Current size: 82984 bytes Article: Cumulant Total edits: 342 Anon users: 2528 bytes in 52 edits Registered users: 35277 bytes in 290 edits Current size: 31639 bytes ___ 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] Problem with the pending changes review screen.
On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 12:25 AM, FT2 ft2.w...@gmail.com wrote: Once a revision is no longer current, then whether it was accepted, reverted, unchecked or the like in the past is immaterial. This is not quite true. If a revision is marked as reviewed, and a reviewer later reverts the article back to that revision, the revert will automatically be marked as reviewed. For this reason, it's important not to mark any revision with vandalism as 'reviewed', even if you immediately fix the vandalism afterwards. I made an example of this at [[Wikipedia:Pending changes/Testing/CBM]]. I used an alternate account CBM2 to make bad edits, and used my admin account CBM to review them and remove the bad ones. I intentionally made a mistake at timestamp 3:06 by accepting a revision with vandalism and then undoing the vandalism separately. But later, I looked at this diff http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3APending_changes%2FTesting%2FCBMaction=historysubmitdiff=368307529oldid=368306510 and clicked undo because it looked safe. Looking at that diff, wouldn't you do the same thing? Because the vandalism was present in both of the versions being compared, the diff didn't show it. But because the original revision was marked as reviewed, the new version was also marked as reviewed. The moral is you should try not to accept edits with vandalism in them, under the assumption that any version you review might later become the live version. - Carl ___ 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] UIC Journal: Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's feature[d] articles
On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Steve Summit s...@eskimo.com wrote: All three of these criticisms, of course, are the almost inevitable result of some of our most strongly-held policies: * We have no requirement that articles be written by experts in the field; indeed we tend to discourage experts. * Even if you deny the existence of an anti-expert bias, the fact that we're the encyclopedia that anyone can edit virtually guarantees a certain mediocrity -- an article's quality does not increase monotonically until it is near-perfect, but rather, oscillates around a mean quality which is determined by all the editors who contribute to it over time (many of whom, yes, will be high school students or university undergraduates). * Our vociferous insistence on sources guarantees that some (if not many) of them will be poorly selected. These well worded, and perfectly accurate in my experience. As you say, they are the result of other goals that we have, such as anyone can edit. One thing I wish we emphasized more is: even though everyone can edit every article, this doesn't mean that everyone should edit every article. The issue of selecting sources is particularly difficult because the way that people often interpret WP:V leads to cherry picking dozens of sources for individual facts in an article, instead of finding a smaller collection of sources that cover the overall literature. The issue is further complicated because people confuse articles on current events, for which there is no established broader literature, with articles on subjects (e.g. music theory) in which there is an abundance of reliable scholarly literature. Our articles on current events are essentially forced to use newspapers (in print and online) as sources. Our articles on music theory should ideally be referenced to the best textbooks and scholarly works on the subject. - Carl ___ 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] UIC Journal: Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's feature[d] articles
On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: In terms of project management (not that we do any such thing) what conclusions to draw? We certainly have seen little cost-benefit analysis on the FA system as a whole. Of course individual editors do their own cost/benefit analysis for whether to participate in FA. In my experience, FA is useful for: * Improving compliance with the manual of style, and improving prose structure in general * Helping editors with less research and writing experience improve their skills, much like the feedback on graded student essays helps students write better essays in the future. Positive feedback from FA reviews can also give editors with little research and writing experience some encouragement that they are doing a good job. * Giving editors a goal to work towards, thus encouraging them to do their best work. Editors find that getting an article promoted to FA gives them a feeling of accomplishment, a line they can add to their wikipedia vita, and in the best case some publicity for their topic if it appears on the main page. To the extent that this encourages editors to contribute to Wikipedia, it's a good thing. For editors who are not concerned with the finer points of the MOS, who have confidence in their own research and writing abilities, and are who motivated to edit WP without a need for external rewards, it isn't clear at all that the effort of going through the FA process is worthwhile. Speaking for myself, I have always thought that there isn't enough of a benefit to the FA system to participate in it, and therefore I don't, although I have nothing against other editors who find it worthwhile. I would be much more interested in a system for expert refereeing than the present FA system. To some extent, the current peer review process can already be used for this, but I don't expect to see a real change in this direction until the successor to Wikipedia. - Carl ___ 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?
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Mike Pruden mikepru...@yahoo.com wrote: 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. What about edits that are not clear vandalism, but are simply erroneous, or demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of the topic? Or edits that are generally correct, but require significant copyediting? I don't believe the vandal-fighters are going to handle those things. I feel much better knowing that many articles have people watching them who are familiar with the subject area. - Carl ___ 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?
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 7:52 AM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com 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. I do not think we are planning to implement that sort of flagged revisions on enwiki any time soon. The plan is just to enable flagged revisions on problematic articles, as a sort of semiprotection-light. I agree that it would be helpful to know which edits have already been reviewed, to save myself the effort of reviewing them again. But this leads to all sorts of problems, such as whether I really trust the other reviewers enough not to look at the diffs myself. - Carl ___ 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
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. One rewarding task for new users is expanding stubs. With that sort of editing, they have much more discretion in how to organize and phrase the content, and they are more likely to feel empowered to edit. - Carl ___ 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
On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 9:32 AM, Bod Notbod bodnot...@gmail.com wrote: Follow-up story from Auntie Beeb: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8382477.stm That BBC story says, By contrast, the Wikimedia Foundation counts only people who make five edits or more as an editor. This gives an editing population of about one million people across all languages. Of that total, the English edition of Wikipedia has about 40,000 editors. This is slightly misleading as it is actually referring to logged-in users only. I ran some numbers from the database dump. They say that over the last few months, we have had the following editing rates on enwiki on a per-month basis: ~600,000 distinct usernames and IP addresses recorded at least 1 edit ~100,000 distinct usernames and IP addresses recorded at least 6 edits ~150,000 distinct usernames recorded at least 1 edit ~42,000 distinct usernames recorded at least 6 edits Those are all per-month numbers. Logged-out editing is quite significant. - Carl ___ 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] Secondary sources
On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 11:44 PM, Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote: How does becoming old, and being held in only 12 libraries suddenly cause a book to revert to primary source status? I have seen the dual argument as well: that sources which would certainly be counted as primary if they were 100 years old must be counted as secondary sources if they are recent. For example, if we wrote an article about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln entirely from newspaper articles published in 1865, nobody would say we had written this from secondary sources. But some do argue that an article written entirely from newspaper articles published in 2009 is written from secondary sources. It seems that a lot of people are prone to gaming source levels to suit their own objectives. Yes, this happens quite often. It's partially a consequence of certain policies, such as WP:N, directly referring to secondary sources, even when this is not the right metric. For example, one reason that people want to count contemporary newspaper articles as secondary sources is to establish notability immediately for contemporary events, without waiting a year for better sources to develop. - Carl ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
