[WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation

Tue Mar 1 15:23:40 UTC 2005

Email discussion between myself and Tom about the Wikipedia 1.0 idea
and [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]], forwarded with his
permission. I've removed email addresses and some names (not secret,
just that the discussion in question is at the named page, not here).

Note that I've also created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]], a project
category which is pretty much for use as a working set of 1.0
documents, rants and so forth.

- d.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Gerard
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 23:23:37 +0000
Subject: Re: Wikipedia reputation
To: Tom Haws

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:21:56 -0700, Tom Haws wrote:

> I noted with that same sinking feeling [XXX]'s response to your note
> at [[Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]].  It seems the
> conventional way of talking about 1.0 is to add an impossible burden of
> review work on top of the Wiki miracle.  But what you and I are thinking
> of is not much more than a programming effort to harness the miracle of
> the Wikipedia dilettantism mill to automatically tell us which articles
> (or article versions) are suspect/trusted, adult/family fare,
> fledgling/mature, or any of a selected group of qualifiers that could be
> used as selectors for various purposes.  As you, I am confident the wiki
> editing process would rate the entire encyclopedia on even multiple
> aspects within days or weeks.  This doesn't have to go on for months.

I've answered [XXX] trying to explain why editorial committees are
unlikely to scale. I can't see them working - I know how damned hard
it is to get *one* article past WP:FAC, in areas I'm a subject matter
expert in!

I think editorial committees are an exercise in futility, but the
people fond of such an approach can't be told otherwise. As such, I'd
probably leave them to it and see if they come up with anything
useful.

> Of course the first item of business is to discover the relevant forum
> to spread and build consensus on such a manner of thinking.  I would
> think Jimbo (having experienced it all) would be thinking in the same
> direction as us, but from all I have seen, he has been pretty
> tight-lipped.  I hopefully imagine that his silence (assuming I haven't
> simply missed the "right" places like the mailing list) is indicative of
> dismay with the conventional proposals.  I wonder if there perhaps is a
> way to get his honest ideas, which of course we would value highly
> without quoting him as an "authority".

I think Jimbo is waiting for others to get on with it ;-)

Presumably when it happens, it'll be simple and elegant and obvious in
retrospect.

Asking him really does work ;-) wikien-l is a good place to sound out ideas.

> Other than getting into Jimbo's mind, and dedicating my own front page
> to the issue (which I have done some time ago, and am willing to revise
> per your thoughts), I don't know where to go with this.  Who and what is
> relevant to this issue?

I've created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]]. Possibly others will add
stuff to it. e.g. their own userspace thoughts pages.

One thing: I really don't think our technical tools (MediaWiki
features) are up to the job.

URGENT:
- rating system. May scale, editorial committees don't.
VERY USEFUL:
- references syntax (many mooted, none implemented).

I should start a page on meta to this effect ...

> I see this issue as urgent because of the fund-raising implications it has.

I don't actually see it as urgent in that sense. I see it as something
to get *right*, because if we don't do that it's going to splutter
anyway.

> I hope we can discuss specifics in a wider forum soon.

I'll be taking it to wikien-l myself. Mind if I send this mail there?
Or you can :-)

> p.s.  Your response will be bounced by my server, but excuse and ignore
> the mistreatment.  I will let your mail through.

Ooooh, whitelists. Evil! I use Bayesian, of course, because
Thunderbird and gmail do ;-)

- d.