Am Mittwoch, 2. Juni 2004 18:51 schrieb Fred Bauder: And actually he is perfectly right: That *is* our biggest problem. Not the copying, not errors, not the missing editors, not the enthusiasts he mentions. But the "superfluous trivia". Our problem is noise, in en: even more as in de:. The noise repells qualified authors and editors. This is the reason why the article quality does not increase the way that should be expected given the idea behind wikipedia and the popularity and it already has. As an encyclopaedia, we should reduce noise. Instead we are creating noise by accepting articles on any subject. For me - opposing that noise-accepting-policy since one and a half years now - that outsiders statement is very interesting. Uli

There is a difference between knowledge and information. Wikipedia contains too much information and too little knowledge. This results in attracting more and more people who think wikipedia is another good place to share information instead of knowledge, people who believe that their information is knowledge. In most cases it isn't. To say it bluntly, the information contained in a "List of porn actors who died wearing a hobbit costume" isn't knowledge for 99.999999999% of the Wikipedia users. I agree that it might be knowledge for 0.000000001% if they are looking for that particular kind of information. However, if Wikipedia does contain that information to fulfill the needs of that little amount of users, that specific information is noise for the vast majority. Since there are no retrieval methods to sort out relevant from irrelevant information, the noise is there. (No, google does not work.) Knowledge is information that rests if everything unneeded *is sorted out*. Forgetting information is a very important thing in creating knowledge. That's the point Wikipedia is missing today. That's why some people see a need to talk about "Wikipedia 1.0" and "peer review" and that sort of things every now and then. If we were aware during the regular article editing process that - given that our mission is to collect knowledge - our strategy should be to *sort out information*, not to *collect information*, that 1.0 stuff wouldn't have to be discussed. Uli

From: "Timwi" <timwi(a)gmx.net> out*. His definition is not that wrong. Knowledge is just a structured and ranked information. "Unneeded" is something that no one needs. Articles, that no one views and/or edits, could be considered anneeded. There are numerous proposals on article ranking system, and eventually the system of some kind will be implemented. I don't see a permanent problem there. --

Evan Prodromou wrote: Oh, OK. It's an encyclopedia -- so let's take a look at Wiktionary to find out what an encyclopedia is: A reference work (often in several volumes) containing in-depth articles on various topics (often arranged in alphabetical order) dealing with a wide range of subjects or with some particular specialty. This doesn't seem to exclude any human knowledge, neither explicitly nor implicitly. What parts of human knowledge should in your view not be covered in an encyclopedia, and why? Timwi

T> Oh, OK. It's an encyclopedia -- so let's take a look at T> Wiktionary to find out what an encyclopedia is: ^^^^^^^^^^ T> [...] T> What parts of human knowledge should in your view not be T> covered in an encyclopedia, and why? Aren't you answering your own question, there? I mean, we have Wiktionary because Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Ipso fatso, some knowledge doesn't go in an encyclopedia. There are a lot of things that don't go into Wikipedia, established by precedent over these several years of its existence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not If you're interested in my _personal_ ideas on what those restrictions should be, I'm willing to discuss that. But if you want to challenge the idea that there could possibly be any limit to what belongs in Wikipedia, I believe that horse has already left the barn. ~ESP -- Evan Prodromou <evan(a)wikitravel.org> Wikitravel - http://wikitravel.org/en/ The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide

On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 18:42:15 +0200, Arne Klempert <wikipedia(a)klempert.de> wrote: It is a vague line, drawn in shifting sands as it were. Generally, the people drawing it and redrawing it and playing a game of tug-of-war with it are doing so at Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion. Perhaps we could showcase some deletion debates somewhere, and give people a better idea of what's good and what's not, and what people have to say about various topics.

I do not see a reason to limit the articles on concepts - on generic, abstract issues like an [[encyclopaedia]], a [[globe]], a [[screw]]. We can explain the concepts of every knowledge area. The noise problem arises - in my experience - from articles on instances of these abstract classes. We can explain what a [[screw]] is, we should not explain what the [[left screw of the rear break of the bicycle of Uli Fuchs]] is, even if that would be a perfect neutral, controllable, information. Of course there is a vast range in these articles of instances. All of us would agree that a description of the [[Mona Lisa]] belongs to an encyclopaedia, all of us would also agree that [[the first picture that Uli Fuchs took of his girlfriend while being in Munich in May 2004]] and [[the second picture that Uli Fuchs took of his girlfriend while being in Munich in May 2004]] does not (I hope so). What is the difference between the Mona Lisa and those private pictures? Actually the Mona Lisa is famous, its one of the most known pictures in the world. Ulis private pictures are not. We all agree that [[Albert Einstein]] needs an article and that [[Uli Fuchs]] does not. Why? Because Einstein invented the relativity theory and Uli Fuchs didn't do anything really important at all (yet ;-)). You can play this game with any of those "instance"-articles: Can you *write down a reason*, why that particular instance of a person (a book, an album, a place, a sex toy) is important (not just:distinct). If you can't - don't take it into an encyclopaedia. I would want that every new article on those instances either contains such a note or gets deleted: "Fairfield Camp: American camp on Sicily" - delete it. "Fairfield Camp: American camp on Sicily where the armistice between Italy and the Allied Forces was signed" - keep it. Simple as that. Uli

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 21:34:20 +0200, Ulrich Fuchs <mail(a)ulrich-fuchs.de> wrote: Noise- what is noise? Perhaps you don't care for articles on the [[chicken sexer]], and you may not care about an article on [[Badger Badger Badger]], or [[AYBABTU]], but who are you to decide what is a valid topic? (Who am I?) Many seem to feel that as long as a topic can have an encyclopedic type article written about it, it should probably be there. What is the alternative to "accepting articles on any subject"? Would you have us replace Votes for Deletion with, say, Votes for Inclusion, where people have to propose a new page and get it approved before it's up? Wikipedia doesn't work that way. Wikipedia is fast. You edit it and it's there- pow. A fundamental change such as that you propose is not going to happen. Perhaps you'd like to read [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks]] and create your own site where you can decide how to deal with this issue.

This thread seems to have gotten stuck on what is appropriate and what isn't appropriate for Wikipedia content. There is _no way_ everyone will ever agree on that and it seems sort of a pointless argument. We might as well try to determine "what is art?". The argument that was initially stated was that "superfluous trivia" repels qualified people from participating in the creation of Wikipedia's content. I'd be interested in people's opinion of this statement. When you first started on Wikipedia, did content that didn't interest you, or you found to be "superfluous trivia" discourage your participation. Do you think it discourages other people's participation? In my experience, it had no effect. If there is content on wikipedia that I'm not interested in or think is superfluous, it has absolutely no effect on me. I never see it and doesn't consume any of my time. If someone else thinks it is interesting or important then they can spend their time on it. The only argument that I can come up with that a prospective contributor would be put off by superfluous trivia, is that their initial introduction portrays the project as unprofessional. This is a real possibility, and is in fact the reason I lost interest in Everything2 years ago. However, compare the front page of Everything2 with Wikipedia and you immediately get a different feeling about the two projects. The front page is the most likely first introduction users will get, and I think Wikipedia's front page comes off as very serious and professional. The best articles are featured, serious news is covered, and truly interesting anniversaries and "did you know" facts are selected. The greatest thing preventing me from contributing to Wikipedia was the fear of doing something wrong. There are so many standards to follow and a new syntax to learn. While the Community Portal certainly helps, information is still scattered everywhere. If people are worried about prospective contributors not participating I think making it clearer how to do contribute would be much more effective than telling them their expertise in some esoteric field is superfluous trivia. Thanks, -jared On Jun 2, 2004, at 3:34 PM, Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

On Jun 4, 2004, at 2:56 PM, Ulrich Fuchs wrote: I was discouraged, but I'm still here. The reason was not due to superfluous trivia, but rather an overwhelming set of blurry rules and standards that were required to get involved. Oh use your imagination. Show another human Wikipedia and ask them what they think. Ask them if they think they will contribute. If the answer is no, ask why. -jared

J> This thread seems to have gotten stuck on what is appropriate J> and what isn't appropriate for Wikipedia content. There is _no J> way_ everyone will ever agree on that and it seems sort of a J> pointless argument. It's not an equivalent question at all. "What are our goals?" "What are we making?" "What belongs?" and "What doesn't?" are pretty logical and reasonable questions to ask for the creation of any body of text. If the answers were, "We have no goals, and anything goes," we'd have a real shitty encyclopedia. We _do_ have goals, however, and some pretty consistent standards of what belongs. I know it may seem like we'll never agree, but we _have_, in a lot of cases. These things have been decided over the course of this project. We don't include original research, we don't do biographies for non-famous people. We don't have dictionary definitions or copies of public-domain text. We don't have opinion pieces or soapbox rhetoric. J> We might as well try to determine "what is art?". Not equivalent at all. It's not a semantic distinction about a single word, but a question of the content of an encyclopedic work. ~ESP -- Evan Prodromou <evan(a)wikitravel.org> Wikitravel - http://wikitravel.org/en/ The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide