My most usual routine editing a "breaking news" high profile article is to
watch the diffs and see if anything's been done I disagree with. If it
looks good then I don't have to do more than add mine, and with many other
editors involved that's often all it takes. [[Higgs boson]] around 4 July
(breaking news of major scientific discovery) is a good example of how this
works.
I resort to the talk page when there is a stance or action by another
editor that I feel needs explicit consideration, or to be explicit about my
own editing when the above probably isn't sufficient, and explicit dialog
is needed. It's useful to fill others in or check where we see a tricky of
disagreed point, but it's wasteful of time if not needed, (or inefficient
in academic terms) so it's less preferred compared to the above.
Often if I have a concern about an editor's actual way of editing, or
factual accuracy or action, I'll post a note to their talk page explaining
I have a concern and could they look at it, or I've removed a comment and
this is why. The reason for that is, if it doesn't need wide consideration,
or may reflect poorly on them, or I'm asking it as a friendly
favor/request, putting it on the talk page is like someone's mom putting
the request to tidy the kitchen on twitter or a blog - it's unnecessarily
wide broadcast. If what I'm writing is just for the user themselves, even
if article related, I might put it on their talk page first as a low key
approach to keep them apprised. If there is a problem and it persists, then
it might be handled at the talk page too.
So you see, there are many nuances to collaboration, and for experienced
editors, the talk page becomes the place where we deal with less
experienced editors, or matters needing explicit dialog - but many
collborative matters don't need those.
FT2
On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 1:52 AM, Kerry Raymond <k.raymond(a)qut.edu.au>wrote;wrote:
I think this study of the “collaborative”
dynamics is interesting, but I
have some questions.****
** **
Do we have any evidence that collaboration is actually occurring? With
breaking news like this, it may just be many individuals operating
independently? Collaboration pretty much requires a communication channel,
but internal to WP the only visible communication is the talk page (and
perhaps user talk pages). We might infer that editors participating in a
consensus-building thread in the talk page (or user talk pages) are acting
collaboratively in relation to the issue under discussion (but not
necessarily more widely. However, if editors are disagreeing in a talk page
thread, it is hard to say whether their edits in relation to that issue are
collaborative or “warring” (deliberating seeking to undo another) or simply
independent (using their best judgement at that moment). Nor can we readily
judge if editors not writing on the talk page might still be reading it and
thus informing their actions based on those discussions – that is, might be
acting in “silent collaboration”. Nor can we tell if any of the editors are
having private conversations via email or other means . As communication
takes time, in a breaking news situation editors might prefer to just “be
bold” and keep the page as up-to-date as possible, using their own “best
judgement” rather than “waste” time arguing on the talk page.****
** **
Can we consider reversions and mutual reversions in a “breaking news”
situation as revealing an “edit war”? With many editors simultaneously
active, I think you have to consider that it is just a stampede that is
taking place. It’s a bit like “walking together”. If just two people walk
down a street, we can say pretty clearly if they are walking together (they
will remain in close alignment most of the time). But if a crowd of people
are walking down the street, it’s hard to say that two people are walking
together – they might just be forced into that alignment by the crowd. I
think we have the same situation with reversions with simultaneous editors
operating in a breaking news situation; many individuals acting
independently and reversions might not be intentional. ****
** **
From a research perspective, doing a survey or interview of some of the
editors on their perspective of what was going on might be informative to
provide better interpretation of the data. Given the
protection/semi-protection of the page means it is probably possible to
contact many of them via their user talk page. It would be very interesting
to know if those who appear to be involved in an edit war saw it as an edit
war, and to what extent they thought they were acting collaboratively and
by what means was that collaboration fostered (e.g. explicit discussions
on talk page, or more implicit, e.g. adopting a consistent style
established by other editors).****
** **
Kerry****
** **
*From:* wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Taha Yasseri
*Sent:* Monday, 23 July 2012 3:20 AM
*To:* Research into Wikimedia content and communities
*Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] Wikipedia's response to 2012 Aurora
shooting****
** **
I resend my previous message that is not delivered yet. Sorry for
potential duplicate receiving .
Now, after two days, there are 30 Wikipedia language editions who have
covered the event (have an article on it).
Here:
http://wwm.phy.bme.hu/blog.html, see the dynamics, i.e. number of
covering WPs versus time, measured in minutes and counted from the event
time (t=0).
For those who are familiar with spreading phenomena, the curve comes as
no surprise. What is surprising, is the fast reaction of Latvian (3rd
place) and rather late reaction of Japanese Wikipedia (the latter is most
likely related to time zone effects).
As I did this in a very unprofessional way, errors and miscalculations
are expected, please notify if find.
bests,
.taha
****
On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Dario Taraborelli <
dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:****
Nice (and timely) work as usual, Brian. I was going to enable AFTv5 on
this article but decided to hold off for a number of reason (most
importantly the fact that we're slowly ramping up AFTv5 to enwiki and we're
mostly focused on scalability at the moment). It'd be interesting to study
how enabling reader feedback affects the collaborative dynamics of breaking
news articles, especially semi-protected ones on which anonymous
contributors don't have a voice.****
** **
Dario****
** **
** **
** **
On Jul 21, 2012, at 5:06 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote:****
****
It is currently semiprotected, there were IP edits when it was first
created. But according to the logs it was fully protected for a while due
to IP vandalism. However the edit history only shows it going to semi
protection, but there were some moves which have complicated things****
** **
WSC****
On 21 July 2012 22:46, Taha Yasseri <taha.yaseri(a)gmail.com> wrote:****
Ok! the page is protected. Sorry!****
** **
On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 11:43 PM, Taha Yasseri <taha.yaseri(a)gmail.com>
wrote:****
Thank you Brian,
Could you also plot the absolute number of edits, and editors, (instead
of the ratio)? Though, since the data is ready I could do it on my own too!
Surprisingly I see no IP contribution to the article (or may be only
few), not in accord with my expectation for such a topic.
cheers,
.Taha****
On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 9:05 PM, Brian Keegan <bkeegan(a)northwestern.edu>
wrote:****
My preliminary analysis of (English) Wikipedia's response to the 2012
Aurora shootings. Data is available at the bottom:****
** **
http://www.brianckeegan.com/2012/07/2012-aurora-shootings/
****
** **
--
Brian C. Keegan
Ph.D. Student - Media, Technology, & Society
School of Communication, Northwestern University
Science of Networks in Communities, Laboratory for Collaborative
Technology****
** **
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