So perhaps a debate has crept up on us. I'm still in two minds about the
Forum for Encyclopedic Standards. But there are plenty of candidates for
the ArbCom; which therefore must have something of a reputation as an
institution putting down roots. I have signed up for the Systemic Bias
project, which (non-radically) might be saying 'more of same, but spread the
butter more evenly'. And the Version 1.0 and article review strand is not
going to go dormant, I suppose.
Seems there are many voices for solidifying the Wikipedia's current
achievements. And, while a natural empire-builder rather than consolidator
myself, I'm inclined to agree with this as a main thrust. Wikimedia can
hatch other projects. Wikipedia does a lot; it's the old goose with golden
eggs, despite the voices who want platinum and less of a farmyard smell.
Does it come down to saying that choices different flavours of consolidation
are the main issues where consensus is lacking, and on which progress might
be made?
I know that I think that another 12 months in the same vein, with added
server power, would do very nicely. The other matter that seems to me
central is simply to get the coverage of the humanities up to the kind of
intensity and engagement that science and technology has. Which I don't
think is utopian.
Charles
Nicholas Knight wrote:
>Months? It takes me a few *hours* to be able to create useful code in a
>new language. A few days and I can embark on significant projects. This
>isn't about difficulty or time (though I'd not be happy about wasting
>the time), it's about not wanting to subject myself to the horror that
>is PHP just to be able to do a couple things with MediaWiki, probably
>never to touch the code again.
Well, it only took *me* a few hours to learn how to create useful
code in PHP, and my programming skills are strictly hobbyist level. I
worked through a couple of online tutorials, and that was all I
needed. PHP is actually a lot like Perl, with somewhat more
conventional syntax and a little less emphasis on text processing. I
love the way you can use it to drop code right into the middle of
HTML. With just a few lines of code you can create an interactive
form that queries a database and returns a result. To do the same
thing in Perl, you'd typically need one static HTML page and a
separate page for the CGI script that processes the form data and
returns the result. It can be done, but it's more work. Once I
discovered PHP, I stopped using Perl and haven't looked back.
--Sheldon Rampton
Sheldon writes:
> A wiki is merely a technology. It is a means to an end,
> not an end in itself. The end goal here is to create a
> free, accurate, comprehensive encyclopedia. The wiki
> aspect of Wikipedia has enabled it to move rapidly in
> what is generally the right direction, but in the
> process of doing so, the wiki notion that "anyone
> can edit any article" has been adjusted already in
> various ways: sysops, soft and hard bans, arbitration,
> and so forth. If need be, the wiki rules could be
> adjusted further. For example, there is no reason in
> theory why ...
> ...the point is that the Wikipedia doesn't have to rely
> on "some unspecified quasi-Darwinian process" ....
> ...We can specify any process we want....
Very well said!
I think that for some time Wikipedia has been effectively
ruled by a clique that has some affinity for anarchy; they
have elevated the Wiki software to the level of an
ideology. But all of the rules you mention are necessary
developments for Wikipedia to achieve its goal - being a
reliable and respected open-source encyclopedia.
Adding a level of peer-review, or having a subset of our
articles reviewed by people with academic degrees in the
field are also possibilities to add onto the system we
already have.
A note about the accuracy of our articles: Obviously, gross
errors and POV pushing usually get quickly fixed.
Wikipedia's Achilles' heel is the minor error, which can
continue uncorrected for months or years. If somone wrote
the wrong birth and death dates for various scientists, or
rabbis or singers, or if someone made a mistake in naming
the university they went to,how many people would spot the
error? With the exception of articles on famous people,
darn few.
The probable existence of thousands of minor uncorrected
errors is one of the major arguments for a new level of
review by people with some sort of academic background in
the field, or by one who can be trusted to do some serious
research. Such a level of review would not take away from
anyone's ability to contribute; it would only improve the
accuracy of articles we already have.
Robert (RK)
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free!
http://my.yahoo.com
Since we've been on the subject of validation systems, I think the way
he expresses the idea of "Olympics-type grading systems that eliminate
the highs and lows" sounds pretty good. Not that I find Olympic judging
to be the standard we should aspire to, mind you, as the South Koreans
and Canadians can tell us. But the principle of weeding out the highest
and lowest percentiles of an article's ratings would help restrict the
tactics of self-promoters and POV warriors if we do get such a system going.
--Michael Snow
I think it is not right for people to make up
information or rely on their memory, because people
look up info on this website frequently and it is
important to provide them with the most accurate
information we can get. :-)
noha
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
Zoney wrote:
>See my comments on that debate. Are people content for the Wikipedia
>namespace to have items other than the essentials needed for running
>en:? I mean, even with just that, there's a LOT of operational clutter
>(I think someone pointed this out on the village pump recently -
>suggesting a cleanup).
>
>I would suggest we try to tidy up the Wikipedia namespace, and move
>jokes and satire to people's user space. I'm even suggesting this for
>BJAODN. It would also mean that a user would have to take
>responsibility for each page.
>
>Surely the Wikipedia namespace is just there to help out with the
>running of the project?
>
>Am I completely out of touch with everyone else on this?
>
>
I definitely agree with Zoney on this, although I don't particularly
think use of the Wikipedia namespace for joke material is the real
concern. This particular frivolity should have been relatively harmless
by itself.
However, we do have a longstanding serious problem in that there are
fundamentally *way too many* pages in the Wikipedia namespace. Even
discounting the pages dedicated to things like WikiProjects, or BJAODN,
we have so many Wikipedia: pages that it is excessively difficult for
people to find information when they need it. This is especially a
problem for newcomers, and poses a significant barrier for anyone
wishing to learn how to be an effective contributor. You can't exactly
tell someone to "read the manual" when the manual's pages have been
strewn all across the playfield.
If I thought it was realistic to enforce such a thing, I would suggest a
moratorium on creating any new pages in the Wikipedia namespace. As it
is, I think we should seek out opportunities to severely condense our
statements of policy, redirect relic pages to more helpful locations,
and generally weed out material of limited usefulness. This would make
Wikipedia much more "user-friendly", something we fail abysmally at
right now.
--Michael Snow
Elian and I have also offered our services. I look forward to working with
Uninvited Company if he agrees, in the belief that more oversight will confirm
the reliability of the election
Danny
After some consideration, I would like to volunteer to provide oversight
for the upcoming AC election.
I do not intend to be a candidate for the AC, and at present do not plan
to vote in the election. However, I would be happy to help be sure that
the election is conducted fairly and impartially. I believe it would be
best if there were several people serving in such an oversight role and,
accordingly, would hope to work with others.
The Uninvited Co., Inc.
(a Delaware corporation)
I highly recommend everyone assist me with my efforts to win this
competition - delete to keep!
[[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Extreme article deletion]]
Ta bu shi da yu
I have been preoccupied with other things and have not followed the
list-serve closely, so I apologize if I am missing something (and would
love it if someone would bring me up to speed). But I recently signed onto
a "Forum for Encyclopedic Standards" project, and now see people discussing
peer-review. I'd like to point out that "peer-review" can take many
different forms, and in fact has had different effects.
The form I am most familiar with is an article is sent to two to five
reviewers who comment on and evaluate it, and the editor of a journal makes
recommendations. In some cases, the reviewers put considerable time and
effort into commenting -- the result is something far beyond the casual
hashing out of ideas at a bar or cafe. In many of these cases I know I
have benefited considerably and my article is ultimately much, much better
for it. In other cases, reviewers put little time into the job and often
grind their ax (as some have pointed out) or just insist that the article
under review cite ten more people (surely, friends of the reviewer). In
such cases the result is that those articles that are published are often
mediocre, conform to some current fad, and all sound alike.
But surely, peer review means nothing more than making our words
accountable to the judgement of our peers. Broadly put, isn't this what
Wikipedia is all about, and haven't we been doing this all along?
I agree that there is an issue of concern here. I am currently involved in
an edit war with a couple of users and at the heart of it, I think they
have done no research or very sloppy research. I have read too many
articles where it seems that the primary contributors relied on their
memories of what they learned ten years ago in a college class, or what
they have picked up on other web-sites (and frankly, I think the
information available on the web is mostly mediocre). How do we deal with
this?
Given my own commitments to Wikipedia, I am absolutely against a panel of
people who are charged with approving or vetoing articles or edits.
I have two suggestions. First, I think that we already have established
values that address some of the problems I and others are concerned
with. I am referring specifically to the prohibition on original research,
and the call for verifiability. Most of the edit wars I have been involved
with have involved either NPOV or one of these two values. Frankly, I
think that the Wikipedia community as a whole has focused too much on NPOV
at the exclusion of these two other values. I do not mean this to be a
criticism. I have seen considerable (and necessary, useful) debate over
the past few years on what, exactly, NPOV is -- debate on talk pages,
meta-Wikipedia, and on this listserve. I think the community as a whole
has developed a pretty sophisticated idea of NPOV and how it can be
achieved. I think most veterans are very sensitive about this, and do a
pretty good job of policing articles for violations of NPOV, and educating
newbies. I just think we haven't done as good a job with
"verifiability." I think the explanation we have on the verifiability page
is very good -- but I am talking about the culture of the place. I think it
is time for people actively to look for opportunities -- on article talk
pages, personal pages, and here -- to talk about "verifiability;" how do
you recognize that an article is verifiable; what are the warning signs
that it may not be; how to go about making it more encyclopedic. I think
the culture of Wikipedia is strong and when directed in a thoughtful way, a
powerful tool. I think if the majority of us just started to pay more
attention to this issue on pages, and through debate and dialogue started
evolving a more practical way to explain it to newbies and show people how
to make articles more verifiable, we will not need a panel empowered to
veto articles.
My second suggestion is to try to find a way to appropriate the one good
thing I have found in peer-review -- when a few scholars who really are
experts in a topic give considerable attention to one person's work, and
give them focused feedback. NOTE, the purpose is not to give a stamp of
approval or to veto the work, the purpose is to engage the work on a very
high level, to call attention to the elements of the work that can be
developed, and to suggest alternatives. I am trying to imagine a process
that is more intense than what usually happens on a talk page. What I
suggest is that there be a directory of editors grouped by expertise on
major topics (biology, art, US history, etc). When it is clear that one
editor is writing a new article or substantially rewriting or adding to an
existing article, members of one of these panels can review the changes as
a whole with an eye towards making constructive suggestions and educating
the new editor in Wikipedia values. There need be no threat of veto or
sanction power -- I think if three veterans reviewed an article of mine and
told me "look, deal with our criticisms now, and address these issues, or
sometime over the next year other wikipedians will spot these problems and
delete or change your work at will," it will be strong enough incentive.
These two ideas are off the top of my head and I am sure that even if you
like them they need much more refinement. I hope there are enough other
people out there who get what I am suggesting, and are willing to improve
on the ideas!
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701