On 2007.10.29 13:25:52 -0700, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com> scribbled 0
lines:
Hi Greg,
...
I know as research officer you are well aware that the
results from such an
experiment will be of interest not just to the en: community itself, but
also to the wider wiki research community. Is there a page detailing the
metrics you have in mind, and listing possible studies that could be done to
determine "evidence of harm" from the switch? It seems like this is a good
chance for brainstorming on-wiki with both the research community and the
newpage patrol folks about possible ways to measure quality, etc., of new
articles, a discussion that seems overdue anyway given some general
unhappiness about deletion practices.
I'd just like to make the general point that the experiment here is not turning off
the disabling; the experiment was the disabling in the first place. All Greg and us
supporters are suggesting is ending the experiment.
There is no evidence of harm for a reversion to the ''status quo ante
Seigenthaler'' (if I may coin a phrase) - just like there is no evidence of
benefit for the disabling in the first place. (And there are other considerations of
benefits from this as well as more prosaic observations like us having better tools and
more editors this time around.)
Also, before taking on such an experiment, it seems
like it would be
worthwhile and sensible to run any intended metrics & studies on the current
state of affairs *first*, so there is something to accurately compare to.
AFAIK our understanding of what gets deleted, how many pages get deleted
versus kept; how many articles are speedied a day out of these, etc. is
imperfect; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'd also be interested in
seeing which studies you're referring to that inclusively suggest that "the
change has been harmful to the quality of Wikipedia"; I'm not familiar with
that work and it seems like a tough thing to measure given overall explosive
growth in this timeframe.
Yes, all these statistics would have been nice to have the first time around. Someone
should tell Jimbo that for the next time. There are some retrospective efforts, though,
like [[User:Dragons flight/Log analysis]]. You can interpret those charts basically one
way: that the disabling had minimal effect. I take this to mean that the benefits
postulated by supporters of disabling, and the things they warn of should we return to the
status quo - that is, the numerous comments along the lines of 'My god, have you seen
Special:Newpages or WP:CSD lately? We will be buried!' - never materialized, and thus
that such arguments overestimate the net effect (I'm not sure whether by exaggerating
the risks or by underplaying the benefits).
cheers,
Phoebe
--
gwern
1ee NSAS Mat'Kal investigation Shipiro sweep IWIS Shayet-13 Avi codes