Thanks, Phoebe. I finally finished my post on this, now here<http://thewikipedian.net/2010/08/12/wikipedia-infographic-lamest-edit-wars/>. Although it's a little more rant-y than I usually get, I hope McCandless finds this, takes it well and goes back to the drawing board. Getting Gizmodo to post that if it happens... well, one can dream.
As I've alluded to, I am working on a visualization project involving Wikipedia, so if there is any list or on-wiki group to know about, someone please let me know! And if there is not a more rigorous study or project about edit wars, I'd love to see that, too. Cheers On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 10:33 AM, phoebe ayers <[email protected]>wrote: > On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 4:42 PM, William Beutler > <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm working on a blog post about this, but here's an infographic from > David > > McCandless (who does some nice work, i.e. Information is > > Beautiful<http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/>) > > about Wikipedia edit wars. Full thing > > here< > http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/08/wikipedia-edit-wars.png > > > > . > > > > At least it acknowledges its source is > > WP:LAMEST<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars>, > > which is intentionally humorous, but sure wasn't made with statistical > > precision in mind. So he's done something else: it looks to the average > > reader like 11,000 edits were spent on the subject of Freddie Mercury's > > ethnic history in early 2002, but he's clearly taking the total number of > > edits and that's the oldest record of the article on Wikipedia. It also > > categorizes incidents glibly (or just inaccurately) listing Jimbo and > > Wikipedia-related subjects as "Religion" -- and the question over which > > Palin was more famous occurred in 2008 (which makes sense) not 2003 > (which > > doesn't) as it's listed in there. > > > > Maybe I'm making too much of this, but while I think it's one thing for > > Cracked or Something Awful to joke about Wikipedia, I think if you're > > offering up visual representations of information, more care should be > given > > to accuracy. Erik Zachte does some great work -- it would be nice to see > > more of that developed for visual interest of non-Wikipedians. That's > > something else I've been thinking about, but I'm curious to hear what > others > > think. > > Infographics are awesome, but many people rarely take the time to > investigate the data behind them; thanks for doing so. > > I don't know if this is something that would specifically come under > the purview of the new research committee that is being formed > (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-August/060306.html > ) > but I definitely think this is the kind of thing such a group might > facilitate -- putting out a call for designers to make infographics > out of various things that we need to be visualized, or helping > getting community review of various efforts. I'm not sure what the > best way for a researcher or designer to get quick Wikipedian peer > review of their work is now (to catch issues like you identify above); > maybe a post on the village pump? > > BTW, do we have a *non*-humorous page about edit wars with *good* > examples? I'm not sure if there's a good set of example disputes with > their resolutions somewhere -- this would be great to have since it's > invariably one of the first things non-editors ask about, in my > experience, and having examples (beyond just the vague description of > process) helps convey what happens. > > -- phoebe > > -- > * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers > <at> gmail.com * > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
