Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
+1 Ashwin I wikifyed 72 articles in october wikify drive, More than 60 articles are related to India. I will try to cleanup/wikify 3/4 articles every week. So join me :) On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: > True, Pranav. Vast though the information on web & limited/full preview > Google Books may be, it is a fraction of the information locked up in a > single library like Pune University. Some topics are too well referenced > while others are scarce. > > > Warm regards, > > Ashwin Baindur > -- > > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:30 PM, Achal Prabhala wrote: > >> Ahem <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Oral_Citations>. >> >> On Tuesday 29 November 2011 03:20 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: >> > There seems to be a little bit of misunderstanding. I was talking of >> > English Wikipedia and livability of English references. >> > >> > I have helped a couple of articles attain GA status. We conducted a PR >> > for FA status and realised some of the refs need to be changed. At GA >> > level they were accepted due to YES:POV, however to attain FA they >> > need to be changed to better refs. We have had to give a break and >> > wait for such refs to come up before we can proceed. >> > >> > ---- >> > Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:17:21 +0530 >> > From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com >> > To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia >> > >> > I agree partially with you, Pranav. Yes, finding reliable sources in >> > Indic languages can be quite a challenge. >> > >> > My own personal view is this - But while a source may be in a language >> > but its utility as a reference is basically language neutral. That >> > means a source in any language can be used providing you can read it >> > and cite it. I dont see so many places where sources are not available >> > in English but are available in indic languages. For vast majority of >> > article subjects, english language web can provide all the sources you >> > can possibly need. What is needed is NOT to have an attitude where >> > anything English is painted as a villain. >> > >> > Warm regards, >> > >> > Ashwin Baindur >> > -- >> > >> > >> > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM, > > <mailto:wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com>> wrote: >> > >> > Bigno, Ashwin - you hit the nail on the head. >> > >> > One other point I dont see mention is availability of reliable >> > sources. For Indian articles, that is something that can be >> > difficult to find at times. >> > >> > >> >> > Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:01:57 +0530 >> > From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com <mailto:ashwin.bain...@gmail.com> >> > To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > <mailto:wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> >> > Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English >> Wikipedia >> > >> > >> > Srikanth, I find it a bit difficult to believe that the reason you >> > said is the only reason why English editting stopped. It must be a >> > combination of many things- >> > >> > * Retirement and reduction of editting by long term editors >> > * For some reason, the same pleasure no longer felt in editting. >> > * Hostile atmosphere, lots of rules & edit-warring. >> > * Switching part of effort to Indic, Commons, GLAM, Outreach etc. >> > * Lesser recruitment of newbies. >> > etc >> > >> > Anyway, whatever be the causes, I think you and I and all of us >> > agree that we need to make WikiProject India a happening place >> again. >> > >> > Warm regards, >> > >> > Ashwin Baindur >> > -- >> > >> > >> > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan >> > mailto:parakara.gh...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> > >> > Hisham, >> > Do note, we had ALL that till two years ago. >> > Since the offline meetups have begun, a lot of English e
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
True, Pranav. Vast though the information on web & limited/full preview Google Books may be, it is a fraction of the information locked up in a single library like Pune University. Some topics are too well referenced while others are scarce. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:30 PM, Achal Prabhala wrote: > Ahem <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Oral_Citations>. > > On Tuesday 29 November 2011 03:20 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: > > There seems to be a little bit of misunderstanding. I was talking of > > English Wikipedia and livability of English references. > > > > I have helped a couple of articles attain GA status. We conducted a PR > > for FA status and realised some of the refs need to be changed. At GA > > level they were accepted due to YES:POV, however to attain FA they > > need to be changed to better refs. We have had to give a break and > > wait for such refs to come up before we can proceed. > > > > > > Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:17:21 +0530 > > From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com > > To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia > > > > I agree partially with you, Pranav. Yes, finding reliable sources in > > Indic languages can be quite a challenge. > > > > My own personal view is this - But while a source may be in a language > > but its utility as a reference is basically language neutral. That > > means a source in any language can be used providing you can read it > > and cite it. I dont see so many places where sources are not available > > in English but are available in indic languages. For vast majority of > > article subjects, english language web can provide all the sources you > > can possibly need. What is needed is NOT to have an attitude where > > anything English is painted as a villain. > > > > Warm regards, > > > > Ashwin Baindur > > -- > > > > > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM, > <mailto:wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com>> wrote: > > > > Bigno, Ashwin - you hit the nail on the head. > > > > One other point I dont see mention is availability of reliable > > sources. For Indian articles, that is something that can be > > difficult to find at times. > > > > > -------------------- > > Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:01:57 +0530 > > From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com <mailto:ashwin.bain...@gmail.com> > > To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > <mailto:wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> > > Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia > > > > > > Srikanth, I find it a bit difficult to believe that the reason you > > said is the only reason why English editting stopped. It must be a > > combination of many things- > > > > * Retirement and reduction of editting by long term editors > > * For some reason, the same pleasure no longer felt in editting. > > * Hostile atmosphere, lots of rules & edit-warring. > > * Switching part of effort to Indic, Commons, GLAM, Outreach etc. > > * Lesser recruitment of newbies. > > etc > > > > Anyway, whatever be the causes, I think you and I and all of us > > agree that we need to make WikiProject India a happening place again. > > > > Warm regards, > > > > Ashwin Baindur > > -- > > > > > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan > > mailto:parakara.gh...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > > > Hisham, > > Do note, we had ALL that till two years ago. > > Since the offline meetups have begun, a lot of English editors > > have now reduced editint to concentrate on outreach activities > > and all. > > --Re, > > > > > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Hisham > <mailto:his...@wikimedia.org>> wrote: > > > > > > On Nov 28, 2011, at 9:26 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: > > > > This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English > > Wikipedia requesting discussion, cooperation and help. > > > > Recently I was asked to give a three to four mi
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
Ahem <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Oral_Citations>. On Tuesday 29 November 2011 03:20 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: > There seems to be a little bit of misunderstanding. I was talking of > English Wikipedia and livability of English references. > > I have helped a couple of articles attain GA status. We conducted a PR > for FA status and realised some of the refs need to be changed. At GA > level they were accepted due to YES:POV, however to attain FA they > need to be changed to better refs. We have had to give a break and > wait for such refs to come up before we can proceed. > > > Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:17:21 +0530 > From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com > To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia > > I agree partially with you, Pranav. Yes, finding reliable sources in > Indic languages can be quite a challenge. > > My own personal view is this - But while a source may be in a language > but its utility as a reference is basically language neutral. That > means a source in any language can be used providing you can read it > and cite it. I dont see so many places where sources are not available > in English but are available in indic languages. For vast majority of > article subjects, english language web can provide all the sources you > can possibly need. What is needed is NOT to have an attitude where > anything English is painted as a villain. > > Warm regards, > > Ashwin Baindur > -- > > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM, <mailto:wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com>> wrote: > > Bigno, Ashwin - you hit the nail on the head. > > One other point I dont see mention is availability of reliable > sources. For Indian articles, that is something that can be > difficult to find at times. > > > Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:01:57 +0530 > From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com <mailto:ashwin.bain...@gmail.com> > To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > <mailto:wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia > > > Srikanth, I find it a bit difficult to believe that the reason you > said is the only reason why English editting stopped. It must be a > combination of many things- > > * Retirement and reduction of editting by long term editors > * For some reason, the same pleasure no longer felt in editting. > * Hostile atmosphere, lots of rules & edit-warring. > * Switching part of effort to Indic, Commons, GLAM, Outreach etc. > * Lesser recruitment of newbies. > etc > > Anyway, whatever be the causes, I think you and I and all of us > agree that we need to make WikiProject India a happening place again. > > Warm regards, > > Ashwin Baindur > -- > > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan > mailto:parakara.gh...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > Hisham, > Do note, we had ALL that till two years ago. > Since the offline meetups have begun, a lot of English editors > have now reduced editint to concentrate on outreach activities > and all. > --Re, > > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Hisham <mailto:his...@wikimedia.org>> wrote: > > > On Nov 28, 2011, at 9:26 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: > > This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English > Wikipedia requesting discussion, cooperation and help. > > Recently I was asked to give a three to four minute > presentation on the state of WikiProject India on > English Wikipedia for the session on state of Indic > Wikipedias at the recently concluded WikiConference in > Mumbai. At first I thought nothing about the matter, > but as I was compiling the report, I came across > statistics which would horrify any of us. > > To begin with, as of time of writing this post, > WikiProject India has a total of 90,021 articles. This > is a very large number and second only to Hindi > Wikipedia's 100,588 articles. Since all these English > articles cover only India or some aspect of its > geography, history,
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
There seems to be a little bit of misunderstanding. I was talking of English
Wikipedia and livability of English references.
I have helped a couple of articles attain GA status. We conducted a PR for FA
status and realised some of the refs need to be changed. At GA level they were
accepted due to YES:POV, however to attain FA they need to be changed to better
refs. We have had to give a break and wait for such refs to come up before we
can proceed.
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:17:21 +0530
From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
I agree partially with you, Pranav. Yes, finding reliable sources in Indic
languages can be quite a challenge.
My own personal view is this - But while a source may be in a language but its
utility as a reference is basically language neutral. That means a source in
any language can be used providing you can read it and cite it. I dont see so
many places where sources are not available in English but are available in
indic languages. For vast majority of article subjects, english language web
can provide all the sources you can possibly need. What is needed is NOT to
have an attitude where anything English is painted as a villain.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
--
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM, wrote:
Bigno, Ashwin - you hit the nail on the head.
One other point I dont see mention is availability of reliable sources. For
Indian articles, that is something that can be difficult to find at times.
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:01:57 +0530
From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
Srikanth, I find it a bit difficult to believe that the reason you said is the
only reason why English editting stopped. It must be a combination of many
things-
* Retirement and reduction of editting by long term editors
* For some reason, the same pleasure no longer felt in editting.
* Hostile atmosphere, lots of rules & edit-warring.
* Switching part of effort to Indic, Commons, GLAM, Outreach etc.
* Lesser recruitment of newbies.
etc
Anyway, whatever be the causes, I think you and I and all of us agree that we
need to make WikiProject India a happening place again.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
--
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan
wrote:
Hisham,
Do note, we had ALL that till two years ago.Since the offline meetups have
begun, a lot of English editors have now reduced editint to concentrate on
outreach activities and all.
--Re,
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Hisham wrote:
On Nov 28, 2011, at 9:26 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:
This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English Wikipedia requesting
discussion, cooperation and help.
Recently I was asked to give a three to four minute presentation on the state
of WikiProject India on English Wikipedia for the session on state of Indic
Wikipedias at the recently concluded WikiConference in Mumbai. At first I
thought nothing about the matter, but as I was compiling the report, I came
across statistics which would horrify any of us.
To begin with, as of time of writing this post, WikiProject India has a total
of 90,021 articles. This is a very large number and second only to Hindi
Wikipedia's 100,588 articles. Since all these English articles cover only India
or some aspect of its geography, history, culture or its people, this set of
90,000+ articles is important to all Indians, representing the largest core of
knowledge about India on any Wikipedia project.
But all of this is not high quality stuff. User:Svick on English Wikipedia
provides a useful service to WikProjects on English Wikipedia. He provides a
WikiProject-wise listing of articles which have improvement tags such as
{{unreferenced}}, {{cleanup}}, {{copyedit}} and so on. In his report for
WikiProject India, at the following url:
http://toolserver.org/~svick/CleanupListing/CleanupListingByCat.php?project=India
you will find that of the 79435 articles in this project which were assessed by
Svick, a total of 52077 articles or 65.6 % are marked for cleanup, with 86271
issues in total. These are tagged with 82 different types of tags, the most
populous being :
* Articles with unsourced statements (6815)
* Articles lacking reliable references (1989)
* Articles needing additional references (4840)
* Articles lacking sources (8970)
* BLP articles lacking sources (1297)
* Articles needing cleanup (2751)
* Articles containing potentially dated statements (9317)
* All articles needing coordinates (14571)
* Articles to be expanded (1020)
Besides this, there are 40,338 articles unassessed for importance and 20,527
for quality, making a backlog of 60,865 assessments
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
I agree partially with you, Pranav. Yes, finding reliable sources in Indic
languages can be quite a challenge.
My own personal view is this - But while a source may be in a language but
its utility as a reference is basically language neutral. That means a
source in any language can be used providing you can read it and cite it. I
dont see so many places where sources are not available in English but are
available in indic languages. For vast majority of article subjects,
english language web can provide all the sources you can possibly need.
What is needed is NOT to have an attitude where anything English is painted
as a villain.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
--
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:09 PM, wrote:
> Bigno, Ashwin - you hit the nail on the head.
>
> One other point I dont see mention is availability of reliable sources.
> For Indian articles, that is something that can be difficult to find at
> times.
>
> --
> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:01:57 +0530
> From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com
> To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
>
>
> Srikanth, I find it a bit difficult to believe that the reason you said is
> the only reason why English editting stopped. It must be a combination of
> many things-
>
> * Retirement and reduction of editting by long term editors
> * For some reason, the same pleasure no longer felt in editting.
> * Hostile atmosphere, lots of rules & edit-warring.
> * Switching part of effort to Indic, Commons, GLAM, Outreach etc.
> * Lesser recruitment of newbies.
> etc
>
> Anyway, whatever be the causes, I think you and I and all of us agree
> that we need to make WikiProject India a happening place again.
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Ashwin Baindur
> --
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <
> parakara.gh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hisham,
> Do note, we had ALL that till two years ago.
> Since the offline meetups have begun, a lot of English editors have now
> reduced editint to concentrate on outreach activities and all.
> --Re,
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Hisham wrote:
>
>
> On Nov 28, 2011, at 9:26 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:
>
> This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English Wikipedia requesting
> discussion, cooperation and help.
>
> Recently I was asked to give a three to four minute presentation on the
> state of WikiProject India on English Wikipedia for the session on state of
> Indic Wikipedias at the recently concluded WikiConference in Mumbai. At
> first I thought nothing about the matter, but as I was compiling the
> report, I came across statistics which would horrify any of us.
>
> To begin with, as of time of writing this post, WikiProject India has a
> total of 90,021 articles. This is a very large number and second only to
> Hindi Wikipedia's 100,588 articles. Since all these English articles cover
> only India or some aspect of its geography, history, culture or its people,
> this set of 90,000+ articles is important to all Indians, representing the
> largest core of knowledge about India on any Wikipedia project.
>
> But all of this is not high quality stuff. User:Svick on English Wikipedia
> provides a useful service to WikProjects on English Wikipedia. He provides
> a WikiProject-wise listing of articles which have improvement tags such as
> {{unreferenced}}, {{cleanup}}, {{copyedit}} and so on. In his report for
> WikiProject India, at the following url:
>
>
> http://toolserver.org/~svick/CleanupListing/CleanupListingByCat.php?project=India
>
> you will find that of the 79435 articles in this project which were
> assessed by Svick, a total of 52077 articles or 65.6 % are marked for
> cleanup, with 86271 issues in total. These are tagged with 82 different
> types of tags, the most populous being :
>
> * Articles with unsourced statements (6815)
> * Articles lacking reliable references (1989)
> * Articles needing additional references (4840)
> * Articles lacking sources (8970)
> * BLP articles lacking sources (1297)
> * Articles needing cleanup (2751)
> * Articles containing potentially dated statements (9317)
> * All articles needing coordinates (14571)
> * Articles to be expanded (1020)
>
> Besides this, there are 40,338 articles unassessed for importance and
> 20,527 for quality, making a backlog of 60,865 assessments.
>
> In addition, of the 90,000+ articles, there are 43,843 stubs and 10,986
> start class articles. All these need to be developed in time also.
>
> Besides these are a very large number of cryptic articles, articl
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
Bigno, Ashwin - you hit the nail on the head.
One other point I dont see mention is availability of reliable sources. For
Indian articles, that is something that can be difficult to find at times.
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:01:57 +0530
From: ashwin.bain...@gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
Srikanth, I find it a bit difficult to believe that the reason you said is the
only reason why English editting stopped. It must be a combination of many
things-
* Retirement and reduction of editting by long term editors
* For some reason, the same pleasure no longer felt in editting.
* Hostile atmosphere, lots of rules & edit-warring.
* Switching part of effort to Indic, Commons, GLAM, Outreach etc.
* Lesser recruitment of newbies.
etc
Anyway, whatever be the causes, I think you and I and all of us agree that we
need to make WikiProject India a happening place again.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
--
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan
wrote:
Hisham,
Do note, we had ALL that till two years ago.Since the offline meetups have
begun, a lot of English editors have now reduced editint to concentrate on
outreach activities and all.
--Re,
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Hisham wrote:
On Nov 28, 2011, at 9:26 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:
This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English Wikipedia requesting
discussion, cooperation and help.
Recently I was asked to give a three to four minute presentation on the state
of WikiProject India on English Wikipedia for the session on state of Indic
Wikipedias at the recently concluded WikiConference in Mumbai. At first I
thought nothing about the matter, but as I was compiling the report, I came
across statistics which would horrify any of us.
To begin with, as of time of writing this post, WikiProject India has a total
of 90,021 articles. This is a very large number and second only to Hindi
Wikipedia's 100,588 articles. Since all these English articles cover only India
or some aspect of its geography, history, culture or its people, this set of
90,000+ articles is important to all Indians, representing the largest core of
knowledge about India on any Wikipedia project.
But all of this is not high quality stuff. User:Svick on English Wikipedia
provides a useful service to WikProjects on English Wikipedia. He provides a
WikiProject-wise listing of articles which have improvement tags such as
{{unreferenced}}, {{cleanup}}, {{copyedit}} and so on. In his report for
WikiProject India, at the following url:
http://toolserver.org/~svick/CleanupListing/CleanupListingByCat.php?project=India
you will find that of the 79435 articles in this project which were assessed by
Svick, a total of 52077 articles or 65.6 % are marked for cleanup, with 86271
issues in total. These are tagged with 82 different types of tags, the most
populous being :
* Articles with unsourced statements (6815)
* Articles lacking reliable references (1989)
* Articles needing additional references (4840)
* Articles lacking sources (8970)
* BLP articles lacking sources (1297)
* Articles needing cleanup (2751)
* Articles containing potentially dated statements (9317)
* All articles needing coordinates (14571)
* Articles to be expanded (1020)
Besides this, there are 40,338 articles unassessed for importance and 20,527
for quality, making a backlog of 60,865 assessments.
In addition, of the 90,000+ articles, there are 43,843 stubs and 10,986 start
class articles. All these need to be developed in time also.
Besides these are a very large number of cryptic articles, articles pertaining
to India but not tagged on the talk page with the WikiProject banner. The
articles themselves sometimes need more cleanup tags than are marked at present.
You may have read Sven Manguard's special opinion editorial in the Signpost
some time ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-10-31/Opinion_essay
wherein he has drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of articles needing
cleanup and improvement on Wikipedia as a whole. That is exactly the issue
with WikiProject India, as of now.
To me it appears that - Something needs to be done URGENTLY.
My own suggestion is that this can easily be tackled if all of us do a little
bit every day. Many hands make light work. There are about 450 active editors
listed on the WikiProject members page. If each of us decided to do just one
cleanup task each day, then we can do away with 1,64,500 odd problems in a
year. Over time, these issues will fall to negligible levels.
Please reply to this thread with your views. Firstly, do you agree with me. Is
there a problem or am I sensationalising the case? What exactly are the issues
and how do we resolve them. Can we as Indians rise to the challenge a
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
Srikanth, I find it a bit difficult to believe that the reason you said is
the only reason why English editting stopped. It must be a combination of
many things-
* Retirement and reduction of editting by long term editors
* For some reason, the same pleasure no longer felt in editting.
* Hostile atmosphere, lots of rules & edit-warring.
* Switching part of effort to Indic, Commons, GLAM, Outreach etc.
* Lesser recruitment of newbies.
etc
Anyway, whatever be the causes, I think you and I and all of us agree that
we need to make WikiProject India a happening place again.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
--
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <
parakara.gh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hisham,
> Do note, we had ALL that till two years ago.
> Since the offline meetups have begun, a lot of English editors have now
> reduced editint to concentrate on outreach activities and all.
> --Re,
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Hisham wrote:
>
>>
>> On Nov 28, 2011, at 9:26 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:
>>
>> This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English Wikipedia
>> requesting discussion, cooperation and help.
>>
>> Recently I was asked to give a three to four minute presentation on the
>> state of WikiProject India on English Wikipedia for the session on state of
>> Indic Wikipedias at the recently concluded WikiConference in Mumbai. At
>> first I thought nothing about the matter, but as I was compiling the
>> report, I came across statistics which would horrify any of us.
>>
>> To begin with, as of time of writing this post, WikiProject India has a
>> total of 90,021 articles. This is a very large number and second only to
>> Hindi Wikipedia's 100,588 articles. Since all these English articles cover
>> only India or some aspect of its geography, history, culture or its people,
>> this set of 90,000+ articles is important to all Indians, representing the
>> largest core of knowledge about India on any Wikipedia project.
>>
>> But all of this is not high quality stuff. User:Svick on English
>> Wikipedia provides a useful service to WikProjects on English Wikipedia. He
>> provides a WikiProject-wise listing of articles which have improvement tags
>> such as {{unreferenced}}, {{cleanup}}, {{copyedit}} and so on. In his
>> report for WikiProject India, at the following url:
>>
>>
>> http://toolserver.org/~svick/CleanupListing/CleanupListingByCat.php?project=India
>>
>> you will find that of the 79435 articles in this project which were
>> assessed by Svick, a total of 52077 articles or 65.6 % are marked for
>> cleanup, with 86271 issues in total. These are tagged with 82 different
>> types of tags, the most populous being :
>>
>> * Articles with unsourced statements (6815)
>> * Articles lacking reliable references (1989)
>> * Articles needing additional references (4840)
>> * Articles lacking sources (8970)
>> * BLP articles lacking sources (1297)
>> * Articles needing cleanup (2751)
>> * Articles containing potentially dated statements (9317)
>> * All articles needing coordinates (14571)
>> * Articles to be expanded (1020)
>>
>> Besides this, there are 40,338 articles unassessed for importance and
>> 20,527 for quality, making a backlog of 60,865 assessments.
>>
>> In addition, of the 90,000+ articles, there are 43,843 stubs and 10,986
>> start class articles. All these need to be developed in time also.
>>
>> Besides these are a very large number of cryptic articles, articles
>> pertaining to India but not tagged on the talk page with the WikiProject
>> banner. The articles themselves sometimes need more cleanup tags than are
>> marked at present.
>>
>> You may have read Sven Manguard's special opinion editorial in the
>> Signpost some time ago
>>
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-10-31/Opinion_essay
>>
>> wherein he has drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of articles
>> needing cleanup and improvement on Wikipedia as a whole. That is exactly
>> the issue with WikiProject India, as of now.
>>
>> To me it appears that - Something needs to be done URGENTLY.
>>
>> My own suggestion is that this can easily be tackled if all of us do a
>> little bit every day. Many hands make light work. There are about 450
>> active editors listed on the WikiProject members page. If each of us
>> decided to do just one cleanup task each day, then we can do away with
>> 1,64,500 odd problems in a year. Over time, these issues will fall to
>> negligible levels.
>>
>> Please reply to this thread with your views. Firstly, do you agree with
>> me. Is there a problem or am I sensationalising the case? What exactly are
>> the issues and how do we resolve them. Can we as Indians rise to the
>> challenge and bring down these backlogs to manageable levels. Please give
>> us any ideas, inputs, insights or critiques that may occur to you.
>>
>> Many thanks for your note, Ashwin. I think this is a really important
>> discussion a
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
Hisham,
Do note, we had ALL that till two years ago.
Since the offline meetups have begun, a lot of English editors have now
reduced editint to concentrate on outreach activities and all.
--Re,
On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Hisham wrote:
>
> On Nov 28, 2011, at 9:26 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:
>
> This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English Wikipedia requesting
> discussion, cooperation and help.
>
> Recently I was asked to give a three to four minute presentation on the
> state of WikiProject India on English Wikipedia for the session on state of
> Indic Wikipedias at the recently concluded WikiConference in Mumbai. At
> first I thought nothing about the matter, but as I was compiling the
> report, I came across statistics which would horrify any of us.
>
> To begin with, as of time of writing this post, WikiProject India has a
> total of 90,021 articles. This is a very large number and second only to
> Hindi Wikipedia's 100,588 articles. Since all these English articles cover
> only India or some aspect of its geography, history, culture or its people,
> this set of 90,000+ articles is important to all Indians, representing the
> largest core of knowledge about India on any Wikipedia project.
>
> But all of this is not high quality stuff. User:Svick on English Wikipedia
> provides a useful service to WikProjects on English Wikipedia. He provides
> a WikiProject-wise listing of articles which have improvement tags such as
> {{unreferenced}}, {{cleanup}}, {{copyedit}} and so on. In his report for
> WikiProject India, at the following url:
>
>
> http://toolserver.org/~svick/CleanupListing/CleanupListingByCat.php?project=India
>
> you will find that of the 79435 articles in this project which were
> assessed by Svick, a total of 52077 articles or 65.6 % are marked for
> cleanup, with 86271 issues in total. These are tagged with 82 different
> types of tags, the most populous being :
>
> * Articles with unsourced statements (6815)
> * Articles lacking reliable references (1989)
> * Articles needing additional references (4840)
> * Articles lacking sources (8970)
> * BLP articles lacking sources (1297)
> * Articles needing cleanup (2751)
> * Articles containing potentially dated statements (9317)
> * All articles needing coordinates (14571)
> * Articles to be expanded (1020)
>
> Besides this, there are 40,338 articles unassessed for importance and
> 20,527 for quality, making a backlog of 60,865 assessments.
>
> In addition, of the 90,000+ articles, there are 43,843 stubs and 10,986
> start class articles. All these need to be developed in time also.
>
> Besides these are a very large number of cryptic articles, articles
> pertaining to India but not tagged on the talk page with the WikiProject
> banner. The articles themselves sometimes need more cleanup tags than are
> marked at present.
>
> You may have read Sven Manguard's special opinion editorial in the
> Signpost some time ago
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-10-31/Opinion_essay
>
> wherein he has drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of articles
> needing cleanup and improvement on Wikipedia as a whole. That is exactly
> the issue with WikiProject India, as of now.
>
> To me it appears that - Something needs to be done URGENTLY.
>
> My own suggestion is that this can easily be tackled if all of us do a
> little bit every day. Many hands make light work. There are about 450
> active editors listed on the WikiProject members page. If each of us
> decided to do just one cleanup task each day, then we can do away with
> 1,64,500 odd problems in a year. Over time, these issues will fall to
> negligible levels.
>
> Please reply to this thread with your views. Firstly, do you agree with
> me. Is there a problem or am I sensationalising the case? What exactly are
> the issues and how do we resolve them. Can we as Indians rise to the
> challenge and bring down these backlogs to manageable levels. Please give
> us any ideas, inputs, insights or critiques that may occur to you.
>
> Many thanks for your note, Ashwin. I think this is a really important
> discussion and I agree wholeheartedly with you about the need to do
> something, and the need to do it urgently!
>
> I notice your initiative to Collaboration of the Month on a select set of
> nominated articles - and that's fantastic. That's exactly the kind of
> stuff that needs to be done.
>
> Here are few thoughts that I had
>
>
>- We need to create a sense of community and collaboration. It would
>really be nice if as many interested editors as possible sing up. One
>comment I've heard from some wikimedians is that there isn't enough
>collaborative editing. Can we create some vehicle for this? For instance,
>can we take some time out in community meetups and do a little bit for one
>or more of these articles? Can we create some kind of mini-events
>equivalent to hackathons? For instance, can we create an Edit Utsav
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
On Nov 28, 2011, at 9:26 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:
> This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English Wikipedia requesting
> discussion, cooperation and help.
>
> Recently I was asked to give a three to four minute presentation on the state
> of WikiProject India on English Wikipedia for the session on state of Indic
> Wikipedias at the recently concluded WikiConference in Mumbai. At first I
> thought nothing about the matter, but as I was compiling the report, I came
> across statistics which would horrify any of us.
>
> To begin with, as of time of writing this post, WikiProject India has a total
> of 90,021 articles. This is a very large number and second only to Hindi
> Wikipedia's 100,588 articles. Since all these English articles cover only
> India or some aspect of its geography, history, culture or its people, this
> set of 90,000+ articles is important to all Indians, representing the largest
> core of knowledge about India on any Wikipedia project.
>
> But all of this is not high quality stuff. User:Svick on English Wikipedia
> provides a useful service to WikProjects on English Wikipedia. He provides a
> WikiProject-wise listing of articles which have improvement tags such as
> {{unreferenced}}, {{cleanup}}, {{copyedit}} and so on. In his report for
> WikiProject India, at the following url:
>
> http://toolserver.org/~svick/CleanupListing/CleanupListingByCat.php?project=India
>
>
> you will find that of the 79435 articles in this project which were assessed
> by Svick, a total of 52077 articles or 65.6 % are marked for cleanup, with
> 86271 issues in total. These are tagged with 82 different types of tags, the
> most populous being :
>
> * Articles with unsourced statements (6815)
> * Articles lacking reliable references (1989)
> * Articles needing additional references (4840)
> * Articles lacking sources (8970)
> * BLP articles lacking sources (1297)
> * Articles needing cleanup (2751)
> * Articles containing potentially dated statements (9317)
> * All articles needing coordinates (14571)
> * Articles to be expanded (1020)
>
> Besides this, there are 40,338 articles unassessed for importance and 20,527
> for quality, making a backlog of 60,865 assessments.
>
> In addition, of the 90,000+ articles, there are 43,843 stubs and 10,986 start
> class articles. All these need to be developed in time also.
>
> Besides these are a very large number of cryptic articles, articles
> pertaining to India but not tagged on the talk page with the WikiProject
> banner. The articles themselves sometimes need more cleanup tags than are
> marked at present.
>
> You may have read Sven Manguard's special opinion editorial in the Signpost
> some time ago
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-10-31/Opinion_essay
>
> wherein he has drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of articles
> needing cleanup and improvement on Wikipedia as a whole. That is exactly the
> issue with WikiProject India, as of now.
>
> To me it appears that - Something needs to be done URGENTLY.
>
> My own suggestion is that this can easily be tackled if all of us do a little
> bit every day. Many hands make light work. There are about 450 active editors
> listed on the WikiProject members page. If each of us decided to do just one
> cleanup task each day, then we can do away with 1,64,500 odd problems in a
> year. Over time, these issues will fall to negligible levels.
>
> Please reply to this thread with your views. Firstly, do you agree with me.
> Is there a problem or am I sensationalising the case? What exactly are the
> issues and how do we resolve them. Can we as Indians rise to the challenge
> and bring down these backlogs to manageable levels. Please give us any
> ideas, inputs, insights or critiques that may occur to you.
>
Many thanks for your note, Ashwin. I think this is a really important
discussion and I agree wholeheartedly with you about the need to do something,
and the need to do it urgently!
I notice your initiative to Collaboration of the Month on a select set of
nominated articles - and that's fantastic. That's exactly the kind of stuff
that needs to be done.
Here are few thoughts that I had
We need to create a sense of community and collaboration. It would really be
nice if as many interested editors as possible sing up. One comment I've heard
from some wikimedians is that there isn't enough collaborative editing. Can we
create some vehicle for this? For instance, can we take some time out in
community meetups and do a little bit for one or more of these articles? Can
we create some kind of mini-events equivalent to hackathons? For instance, can
we create an Edit Utsav every (just throwing this out as an example) on Sunday
afternoons every week?
We need to make a start - no matter how small Even if you choose to do 2
articles per month for Collaboration of the Month, that's great and we should
take it fr
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
Ashwin,
This is a known fact for a while.
The number of active English editors working on English articles [India
ones], improving the articles, adding citations, fixing grammar has gone
down significantly in the last two years.
Besides this, there are a lot of so called Indian editors who claim to
improve articles but only push their content across the project.
I don't want to take names, so of you want, we can discuss this off list.
Regards,
Srikanth.
On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 9:26 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote:
> This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English Wikipedia requesting
> discussion, cooperation and help.
>
> Recently I was asked to give a three to four minute presentation on the
> state of WikiProject India on English Wikipedia for the session on state of
> Indic Wikipedias at the recently concluded WikiConference in Mumbai. At
> first I thought nothing about the matter, but as I was compiling the
> report, I came across statistics which would horrify any of us.
>
> To begin with, as of time of writing this post, WikiProject India has a
> total of 90,021 articles. This is a very large number and second only to
> Hindi Wikipedia's 100,588 articles. Since all these English articles cover
> only India or some aspect of its geography, history, culture or its people,
> this set of 90,000+ articles is important to all Indians, representing the
> largest core of knowledge about India on any Wikipedia project.
>
> But all of this is not high quality stuff. User:Svick on English Wikipedia
> provides a useful service to WikProjects on English Wikipedia. He provides
> a WikiProject-wise listing of articles which have improvement tags such as
> {{unreferenced}}, {{cleanup}}, {{copyedit}} and so on. In his report for
> WikiProject India, at the following url:
>
>
> http://toolserver.org/~svick/CleanupListing/CleanupListingByCat.php?project=India
>
> you will find that of the 79435 articles in this project which were
> assessed by Svick, a total of 52077 articles or 65.6 % are marked for
> cleanup, with 86271 issues in total. These are tagged with 82 different
> types of tags, the most populous being :
>
> * Articles with unsourced statements (6815)
> * Articles lacking reliable references (1989)
> * Articles needing additional references (4840)
> * Articles lacking sources (8970)
> * BLP articles lacking sources (1297)
> * Articles needing cleanup (2751)
> * Articles containing potentially dated statements (9317)
> * All articles needing coordinates (14571)
> * Articles to be expanded (1020)
>
> Besides this, there are 40,338 articles unassessed for importance and
> 20,527 for quality, making a backlog of 60,865 assessments.
>
> In addition, of the 90,000+ articles, there are 43,843 stubs and 10,986
> start class articles. All these need to be developed in time also.
>
> Besides these are a very large number of cryptic articles, articles
> pertaining to India but not tagged on the talk page with the WikiProject
> banner. The articles themselves sometimes need more cleanup tags than are
> marked at present.
>
> You may have read Sven Manguard's special opinion editorial in the
> Signpost some time ago
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-10-31/Opinion_essay
>
> wherein he has drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of articles
> needing cleanup and improvement on Wikipedia as a whole. That is exactly
> the issue with WikiProject India, as of now.
>
> To me it appears that - Something needs to be done URGENTLY.
>
> My own suggestion is that this can easily be tackled if all of us do a
> little bit every day. Many hands make light work. There are about 450
> active editors listed on the WikiProject members page. If each of us
> decided to do just one cleanup task each day, then we can do away with
> 1,64,500 odd problems in a year. Over time, these issues will fall to
> negligible levels.
>
> Please reply to this thread with your views. Firstly, do you agree with
> me. Is there a problem or am I sensationalising the case? What exactly are
> the issues and how do we resolve them. Can we as Indians rise to the
> challenge and bring down these backlogs to manageable levels. Please give
> us any ideas, inputs, insights or critiques that may occur to you.
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Ashwin Baindur
> --
>
> ___
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> Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
>
>
--
Regards,
Srikanth Ramakrishnan.
Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
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[Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
This is a letter to all Indian editors of the English Wikipedia requesting
discussion, cooperation and help.
Recently I was asked to give a three to four minute presentation on the
state of WikiProject India on English Wikipedia for the session on state of
Indic Wikipedias at the recently concluded WikiConference in Mumbai. At
first I thought nothing about the matter, but as I was compiling the
report, I came across statistics which would horrify any of us.
To begin with, as of time of writing this post, WikiProject India has a
total of 90,021 articles. This is a very large number and second only to
Hindi Wikipedia's 100,588 articles. Since all these English articles cover
only India or some aspect of its geography, history, culture or its people,
this set of 90,000+ articles is important to all Indians, representing the
largest core of knowledge about India on any Wikipedia project.
But all of this is not high quality stuff. User:Svick on English Wikipedia
provides a useful service to WikProjects on English Wikipedia. He provides
a WikiProject-wise listing of articles which have improvement tags such as
{{unreferenced}}, {{cleanup}}, {{copyedit}} and so on. In his report for
WikiProject India, at the following url:
http://toolserver.org/~svick/CleanupListing/CleanupListingByCat.php?project=India
you will find that of the 79435 articles in this project which were
assessed by Svick, a total of 52077 articles or 65.6 % are marked for
cleanup, with 86271 issues in total. These are tagged with 82 different
types of tags, the most populous being :
* Articles with unsourced statements (6815)
* Articles lacking reliable references (1989)
* Articles needing additional references (4840)
* Articles lacking sources (8970)
* BLP articles lacking sources (1297)
* Articles needing cleanup (2751)
* Articles containing potentially dated statements (9317)
* All articles needing coordinates (14571)
* Articles to be expanded (1020)
Besides this, there are 40,338 articles unassessed for importance and
20,527 for quality, making a backlog of 60,865 assessments.
In addition, of the 90,000+ articles, there are 43,843 stubs and 10,986
start class articles. All these need to be developed in time also.
Besides these are a very large number of cryptic articles, articles
pertaining to India but not tagged on the talk page with the WikiProject
banner. The articles themselves sometimes need more cleanup tags than are
marked at present.
You may have read Sven Manguard's special opinion editorial in the Signpost
some time ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-10-31/Opinion_essay
wherein he has drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of articles
needing cleanup and improvement on Wikipedia as a whole. That is exactly
the issue with WikiProject India, as of now.
To me it appears that - Something needs to be done URGENTLY.
My own suggestion is that this can easily be tackled if all of us do a
little bit every day. Many hands make light work. There are about 450
active editors listed on the WikiProject members page. If each of us
decided to do just one cleanup task each day, then we can do away with
1,64,500 odd problems in a year. Over time, these issues will fall to
negligible levels.
Please reply to this thread with your views. Firstly, do you agree with me.
Is there a problem or am I sensationalising the case? What exactly are the
issues and how do we resolve them. Can we as Indians rise to the challenge
and bring down these backlogs to manageable levels. Please give us any
ideas, inputs, insights or critiques that may occur to you.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
--
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