The New Yorker on Wikipedia - Wikipedia-l

mboverload

24 Jul 24 Jul

7:02 a.m.

By far the best article I have ever read about Wikipedia. On 7/23/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

FYI, The latest piece about Wikipedia from The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact Generally great expository that aptly captures Wikipedia's most interesting corners. But this deserves a big whaaa? "Wales—who resembles a young Billy Crystal with the neuroses neatly tucked in—recalls the enchantment of pasting in update stickers that cross-referenced older entries to the annual supplements." -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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mboverload

9:01 a.m.

=D See, that's what we need. We need people to be surprised at how good our content is. That is a great quote, and I hope his article goes untouched by vandals (l'll be watching). This IS a great, information, long article. It would be a good article to show friends or such to explain what you do all day =D On 7/24/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Another nice quote: When I showed the Harvard philosopher Hilary Putnam his entry, he was surprised to find it as good as the one in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He was flabbergasted when he learned how Wikipedia worked. "Obviously, this was the work of experts," he said. -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) On 7/24/06, mboverload <mboverload(a)gmail.com> wrote:

By far the best article I have ever read about Wikipedia. On 7/23/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

FYI, The latest piece about Wikipedia from The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact Generally great expository that aptly captures Wikipedia's most interesting corners. But this deserves a big whaaa? "Wales—who resembles a young Billy Crystal with the neuroses neatly

tucked

in—recalls the enchantment of pasting in update stickers that cross-referenced older entries to the annual supplements." -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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henna

10:07 a.m.

dunno, but for comparison with sofware open source projects, I would like to see such figures :) henna On 7/24/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Nice. But "80 percent of users are male", where was the figure plucked from exactly? cheers, Brianna _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

-- "Maybe you knew early on that your track went from point A to B, but unlike you I wasn't given a map at birth!" Alyssa, "Chasing Amy"

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Brianna Laugher

11:40 a.m.

On 24/07/06, Dirk Riehle <dirk(a)riehle.org> wrote:

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As an anecdote, when I asked for representatives of the major Wikipedias to be interviewed for the How and Why Wikipedia Works interview ( http://www.riehle.org/computer-science/research/2006/wikisym-2006-interview… ) I only got women's names. Must have to do with the inborn shyness of males to promote themselves.

Er, what? As opposed to women's innate abillity to brag? Since when are men typically shy? Sample size of 3 doesn't tell you much except about those three people. Brianna

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maru dubshinki

1:27 p.m.

On 7/24/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

FYI, The latest piece about Wikipedia from The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact Generally great expository that aptly captures Wikipedia's most interesting corners. But this deserves a big whaaa? "Wales—who resembles a young Billy Crystal with the neuroses neatly tucked in—recalls the enchantment of pasting in update stickers that cross-referenced older entries to the annual supplements." -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

You're right in that it's pretty good- the level of quality and quiet humor one expects from the New Yorker. But there are a few oddities; like for instance, "He [Sanger] left Wikipedia in March, 2002, after Wales ran out of money to support the site during the dot-com bust. " I think this part may be wrong - I thought Wales had money for the site, but not for Sanger's salary? I mean, Wikipedia didn't go off the internet at this point. Or: ""It's a perfectly reasonable power in any other situation, but completely antithetical to this project," said Jason Scott, a longtime contributor to Wikipedia who has published several essays critical of the site." Jason Scott == longtime contributor? Sure, he has ~200 edits, but most seem to center around himself and his article, and 200 edits isn't the sort of magnitude or long-term participation I'd characterize as "a longtime contributor". Or: "According to the survey, Wikipedia had four errors for every three of Britannica's, a result that, oddly, was hailed as a triumph for the upstart." <-- Why is it so odd? I mean, almost everybody said that this was good news for Wikipedia because it showed that we weren't *that* bad. Critics were expecting it to be much much worse than it was. But despite the occasional cluelessness or error, there are some genuinely interesting bits in there, even for a hardened editor like meself: "Wattenberg and Viégas, of I.B.M., note that the vast majority of Wikipedia edits consist of deletions and additions rather than of attempts to reorder paragraphs or to shape an entry as a whole, and they believe that Wikipedia's twenty-five-line editing window deserves some of the blame." ~maru

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maru dubshinki

2:27 p.m.

On 7/24/06, Berto <albertoserra(a)ukr.net> wrote:

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But despite the occasional cluelessness or error, there are some genuinely interesting bits in there, even for a hardened editor like meself: "Wattenberg and Viégas, of I.B.M., note that the vast majority of Wikipedia edits consist of deletions and additions rather than of attempts to reorder paragraphs or to shape an entry as a whole, and they believe that Wikipedia's twenty-five-line editing window deserves some of the blame."

Yeah... structure is an issue. Section edit makes it easy to work quick, but it gives no general structure to the work.I guess we should have people specialising in structuring voices for better readability. Bèrto

I don't think specialists are the answer here; just like for verifiability, this is too big a task to be feasible for a small group of people, since just about every article could use a better "structure". What is needed is a better general awareness, and perhaps tools. For example, if the edit window is a part of the problem, then why not have the window auto-resize to fit the screen, instead of a fixed width and height? Or perhaps we could bring it to people's attention that the size of the edit box is customizable? &etc. ~maru

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Francis Tyers

2:50 p.m.

There is an ongoing request to allow the storage of references outside the body text. This would make the view considerably less cluttered, especially when using cite templates. Requests have been filed in bugzilla. Fran On Mon, 2006-07-24 at 15:49 +0100, Oldak Quill wrote:

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On 24/07/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I don't think specialists are the answer here; just like for verifiability, this is too big a task to be feasible for a small group of people, since just about every article could use a better "structure". What is needed is a better general awareness, and perhaps tools. For example, if the edit window is a part of the problem, then why not have the window auto-resize to fit the screen, instead of a fixed width and height? Or perhaps we could bring it to people's attention that the size of the edit box is customizable? &etc.

A few suggestions like these are floating around at the moment that may affect the edit screen. The whole <ref> and upcoming Semantic additions are leading to quite cluttered views. It has been suggested that we add syntax highlighting features including hiding some elements as per preferences (with options running from all WikiSyntax to just <ref>). I suggest an alternate "paragraph" view may be quite useful where the article appears as it does to the normal reader except the editor is able to drag blocks of text (paragraphs), infoboxes and images around and drop them where they are better suited. Perhaps they could then double click on one of these elements to edit it. This may lead to a rise in aesthetic and paragraphing editing which is needed. One problem is that it would probably take a lot of work.

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George Herbert

5:19 a.m.

On 7/24/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 7/24/06, Berto <albertoserra(a)ukr.net> wrote:

But despite the occasional cluelessness or error, there are some genuinely interesting bits in there, even for a hardened editor like meself: "Wattenberg and Viégas, of I.B.M., note that the vast majority of Wikipedia edits consist of deletions and additions rather than of attempts to reorder paragraphs or to shape an entry as a whole, and they believe that Wikipedia's twenty-five-line editing window deserves some of the blame."

Yeah... structure is an issue. Section edit makes it easy to work quick, but it gives no general structure to the work.I guess we should have people specialising in structuring voices for better readability.

I don't think specialists are the answer here; just like for verifiability, this is too big a task to be feasible for a small group of people, since just about every article could use a better "structure". What is needed is a better general awareness, and perhaps tools. For example, if the edit window is a part of the problem, then why not have the window auto-resize to fit the screen, instead of a fixed width and height? Or perhaps we could bring it to people's attention that the size of the edit box is customizable? &etc.

Better general awareness and a focus on rewriting to improve flow and consistent tone would be a darn good start. But I agree that the tools don't help right now. I would second the auto-resize edit window screen. I flip up and down to the preview all the time, but the end result of the current tools is that it encourages a lot of small edits rather than a good, overall review and well-visualized update throughout. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

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