[WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

Sun Sep 11 15:27:31 UTC 2005

I know it is bad form to quote an entire post just to say "me too" but I
wanted to say that Daniel is right on the money here, and displays what
I think of as true Wikipedia spirit.  We have to have a passion to *get
it right* or we'll be full of rampant nonsense.

A list like this can be useful and educational but it *has* to be
approached in the way Daniel discusses: complete intolerance for
additions that do not adhere to the rudiments of scholarship.

--Jimbo

Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> OK, this fool will walk in, donning asbestos suit, etc.
> 
> There are contributors, who enjoy contributing to
> Wikipedia, who do not embrace or understand the
> rudiments of scholarship.
> 
> Here's what I mean by "rudiments.
> 
> "List of people believed to have been affected by bipolar disorder"
> which was originally just a completely unsourced
> list of raw names; confirmed, plausible, asserted,
> and unlikely, all mixed together. It was nominated for
> deletion, and consensus was that it was OK _provided
> that_ the list confined itself to names for which there
> was _a verifiable source citation._ I.e. it is OK to tell the
> reader that the source was Kay Redfield Jamison's book
> and let the reader decide how credible Jamison is.
> 
> The opening paragraph was rewritten to say "This is a list
> of people accompanied by verifiable source citations," etc.
> 
> On a fairly regular basis, people will simply add names to
> the list with no explanation or citation. OR, they will add
> names accompanied with statements like "he has been very
> open about this" or "it's been in the news" or "One of his
> songs is entitled 'Lithium.'" I've been fairly pestiferous
> about removing unsourced entries, usually moving them
> to Talk with an explanation, and trying to half-coach the
> people who added them.
> 
> And indeed some of them have been surprised that I
> mean exactly what I say, and that while "Adam Ant:
> Has spoken openly on television about his condition"
> will not do, a web reference to an arts.telegraph article,
> "Adam and his fall," is just fine.
> 
> Other have felt that the onus was somehow on _me_
> to research and provide references for the names _they_
> had added, thought I was questioning their honesty
> when they asserted the existence of references, etc.
> 
> Now, all this is fine as far as it goes. There are some
> inexperienced contributors, I try to police the article
> a bit, I try to help a bit, I try to coach a bit, some of
> the inexperienced contributors "get it," some of them
> don't. The article slowly improves over time. All
> Wiki-good.
> 
> The problem occurs when you have a topic area that
> attracts a very large volume of contributions from
> editors who do _not_ get the idea of what it means
> for an article to be well-researched, thorough, and
> accurate.
> 
> Wikipedia depends on the notion that bad articles
> will get improved. That implies a certain kind of
> balance or equilibrium.
> 
> I believe the "cruft" label, which I don't like and
> try to avoid using myself, is shorthand for
> "topic area in which low-quality articles are being
> created faster than they are being improved."
> 
> Such topic areas _are_ problems. The solution
> isn't clear.
> 
> Wikipedia works only when _most_ articles are
> in at least a quarter-decent state, and articles
> that are really just drafts or placeholders or
> article _requests_ disguised as articles are a relatively
> small proportion of the whole.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
> "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
> Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
> Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
> 
> 
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