Re: [WikiEN-l] Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Pakistani...

charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com

8 Nov 2007 8 Nov '07

2:49 p.m.

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote

...

Here's a problem, though: there is a tendency to assume bad faith on the part of deleting admins, and not to address bad speedy tagging by RC patrollers. I completely support any initiative to educate those who patrol recent changes, to persuade them to make better use of {{prod}} and {{afd}} rather than {{db}}.

Whoa. The admins are hand-picked. Anyone who can get online can come and start adding templates. Admins are picked just because they can be trusted with "delete" and other tools. The correct decisions for an admin with a suspect speedy range over "pass" or "not a speedy, I'll take off the tag". They do not include "if I don't delete within 30 seconds, no one ever will, so here goes". Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam

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Thomas Dalton

8 Nov 8 Nov

4:44 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

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Very true. The buck stops with the deleting admin, every time. Sure, we should try and educate non-admins on what does and does not qualify for speedy deletion, but it's an unattainable goal. If we could achieve it, we could do away with admins and give the tools to everyone. As it stands, we know we can't trust all non-admins to know what they're doing, so we only allow admins to delete.

John Lee

6:07 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Nov 8, 2007 11:44 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Whoa. The admins are hand-picked. Anyone who can get online can come and

start adding templates. Admins are picked just because they can be trusted with "delete" and other tools. The correct decisions for an admin with a suspect speedy range over "pass" or "not a speedy, I'll take off the tag". They do not include "if I don't delete within 30 seconds, no one ever will, so here goes". Very true. The buck stops with the deleting admin, every time. Sure, we should try and educate non-admins on what does and does not qualify for speedy deletion, but it's an unattainable goal. If we could achieve it, we could do away with admins and give the tools to everyone. As it stands, we know we can't trust all non-admins to know what they're doing, so we only allow admins to delete.

Absolutely. Few things piss me off more than admins who delete on sight without even Googling the article title or looking in the history. We stand to lose nothing by waiting a few minutes to delete, and who knows - we may even discover the article is worth having, or a way to improve the article as it stands. Having said that, we should also be putting effort into educating users about CSD, and perhaps consider revising them (though knowing the inertia of WP policy, this is practically impossible). The CSD as they stand are often interpreted in ways that encourage systemic bias, or otherwise encourage false positives for deletion. An obscure religious group? Why, it's an article about a "group of people" which does not assert notability, even if the article is one of the better-written and -formatted articles on [[Special:Newpages]]. But having said that, if the problem is primarily systemic bias, perhaps focusing on things like CSD avoids the larger problem of systemic bias - how do we change people's thinking? It's easy to say "The procedure for reviewing speedy tags should be X, Y and Z" but not change people's actual thinking when it comes to things they're not familiar with - and the end result is not only wrongly deleted articles, but wrongly merged articles, wrongly redirected articles, wrongly rejected FAs/GAs (the latter in particular), etc. These all harm the encyclopaedia, and they are all symptoms of the underlying problem of people's tendency to mistrust the unfamiliar. We need to think about how to change that mindset. Johnleemk

Guy Chapman aka JzG

6:21 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 13:07:39 -0500, "John Lee" <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Few things piss me off more than admins who delete on sight without even Googling the article title or looking in the history. We stand to lose nothing by waiting a few minutes to delete, and who knows - we may even discover the article is worth having, or a way to improve the article as it stands.

OK, so let's assume that you want people to spend one minute checking each article before deleting it. That's roughly 100 man-hours of work per day, 12.5 full-time equivalent posts. I don't think we have a dozen admins active on clearing the speedy deletion category on any one day. It's a great aim in principle, but I don't think it's going to work until we can get the rate of creation down to rather more manageable levels. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

John Lee

7:06 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Nov 8, 2007 1:21 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

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On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 13:07:39 -0500, "John Lee" <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Few things piss me off more than admins who delete on sight without even Googling the article title or looking in the history. We

stand

to lose nothing by waiting a few minutes to delete, and who knows - we

may

even discover the article is worth having, or a way to improve the

article

as it stands.

Well, you're assuming that the number of admins working on clearing the speedy deletion cat would stay constant. Johnleemk

Guy Chapman aka JzG

7:45 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 14:06:35 -0500, "John Lee" <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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> OK, so let's assume that you want people to spend one minute > checking each article before deleting it. > > That's roughly 100 man-hours of work per day, 12.5 full-time > equivalent posts. I don't think we have a dozen admins active on > clearing the speedy deletion category on any one day. > > It's a great aim in principle, but I don't think it's going to work > until we can get the rate of creation down to rather more manageable > levels.

...

Well, you're assuming that the number of admins working on clearing the speedy deletion cat would stay constant.

I'm just quantifying the work involved. I do think we are focusing too much on the symptom, and ignoring the cause. The problem being managed is creation of worthless articles on worthless subjects. Consider: if we were to enforce use of something like the new article wizard, currently being tested, would we actually reduce the flow of worthless articles on worthless subjects? For example, would a four-click process be more likely than a one-click process to deter a poop vandal? Would an interface that guides you through sourcing be more likely to deter a 15-year-old from writing about his garage band? I worked for a while on an online candidate screening system for retail job applicants. No applicant was rejected by the system, but feedback along the route made it pretty clear if you were not going to meet their requirements. The vast majority of obvious no-hopers, of the order of 90% if I recall, screened *themselves* out before they got to the final Submit button. I wonder if a similar system would work for Wikipedia? Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

David Gerard

9:28 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On 08/11/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

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Consider: if we were to enforce use of something like the new article wizard, currently being tested, would we actually reduce the flow of worthless articles on worthless subjects?

I like the sound of this. Where's it being worked on? (This sounds like something I've been suggesting here every several months: a pre-filled article template, which experienced users can ignore, but which would give n00bs helpful pointers on what it takes to write an article that will survive.)

...

For example, would a four-click process be more likely than a one-click process to deter a poop vandal?

Nope.

...

Would an interface that guides you through sourcing be more likely to deter a 15-year-old from writing about his garage band?

Hopefully. "Verifiable, uninvolved, third-party sources."

...

I worked for a while on an online candidate screening system for retail job applicants. No applicant was rejected by the system, but feedback along the route made it pretty clear if you were not going to meet their requirements. The vast majority of obvious no-hopers, of the order of 90% if I recall, screened *themselves* out before they got to the final Submit button. I wonder if a similar system would work for Wikipedia?

Could be good. But too many hoops will be a PITA. Must avoid avoidable PsITA. - d.

Guy Chapman aka JzG

10:46 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 21:28:02 +0000, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_wizard Not unlike the Commons upload wizard. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

David Gerard

9:21 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On 08/11/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

...

It's a great aim in principle, but I don't think it's going to work until we can get the rate of creation down to rather more manageable levels.

Getting the rate of creation down is absolutely not going to happen, and definitely not with a "Edit Wikipedia Week" with anon creation enabled. So we need to look at (a) upping the average incoming article quality (b) scaling the mechanisms for drinking the firehose. - d.

Delirium

9 Nov 9 Nov

1:43 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

David Gerard wrote:

...

On 08/11/2007, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

It's a great aim in principle, but I don't think it's going to work until we can get the rate of creation down to rather more manageable levels.

A lot of the questionable deletions also have nothing to do with creation rate, and aren't even borderline, but rather are admins unilaterally speedy-deleting articles that have existed for some time, have been worked on by multiple editors, are coherent, and clearly assert notability, but which for some reason they don't like. I run across and undelete these semi-frequently. As I recall I recently had a minor altercation with JzG himself over this, where he speedy-deleted one of Suriname's leading-circulation newspapers ([[De Ware Tijd]]), which article had existed since December 2005 until he deleted it last week. When I undeleted and contested that "one of the two leading newspapers in Suriname" could possibly be considered to not even be a *assertion* notability, he retorted that Suriname's population is only 5% of London's. -Mark

Guy Chapman aka JzG

9:14 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:43:53 -0800, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote:

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As I recall I recently had a minor altercation with JzG himself over this, where he speedy-deleted one of Suriname's leading-circulation newspapers ([[De Ware Tijd]]), which article had existed since December 2005 until he deleted it last week. When I undeleted and contested that "one of the two leading newspapers in Suriname" could possibly be considered to not even be a *assertion* notability, he retorted that Suriname's population is only 5% of London's.

Which it is. And the circulation of the paper is around 10,000, I'm told, which is tiny. And the article was unsourced and lacked a single substantive claim of significance, other than the (uncited) claim of being the biggest fish in an incredibly small pond. To contextualise, this paper has a smaller circulation than my local free sheet, and I live in a fairly ordinary sized town. The solution is to find independent sources which talk about the paper. I'm afraid I'm not very sympathetic to claims of notability in deletion debates which are not followed through with actual tangible and verifiable claims of notability in the article. We now have two independent sources, I see - one is 404 and the other looks like a passing mention in a gazetteer. Obviously since you know so much about the subject, you'll find it trivially easy to find some independent analysis of the subject and add it to the article. I look forward to seeing that. Or is it really too much to ask that the English Wikipedia actually provide some usable English sources to back up an article? Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

John Lee

9:19 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Nov 9, 2007 4:14 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

...

On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:43:53 -0800, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote:

Wait, we have a rule saying only English sources are acceptable now? Or do you just mean that an article should never rely on non-English sources alone? Johnleemk

Ray Saintonge

9:56 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

John Lee wrote:

...

On Nov 9, 2007 4:14 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

We now have two independent sources, I see - one is 404 and the other looks like a passing mention in a gazetteer. Obviously since you know so much about the subject, you'll find it trivially easy to find some independent analysis of the subject and add it to the article. I look forward to seeing that. Or is it really too much to ask that the English Wikipedia actually provide some usable English sources to back up an article?

Wait, we have a rule saying only English sources are acceptable now? Or do you just mean that an article should never rely on non-English sources alone?

Let's hope we have not become so chauvinistic. For a lot of foreign subjects the only credible and comprehensive information is in the language of that country. Disallowing that would promote systemic bias. Ec

Guy Chapman aka JzG

9:58 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 04:19:47 -0500, "John Lee" <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Wait, we have a rule saying only English sources are acceptable now? Or do you just mean that an article should never rely on non-English sources alone?

I don't think it's unreasonable that on the *English* Wikipedia, the English-speaking community should be able to verify at least the core facts. But you miss the point: the sources are not significant *even in their own language*. The entire country has a smaller population than my town. Is there a big newspaper culture there? Have the press played a significant cultural role, as they did in some periods of Apartheid South Africa? Is this paper run by the local equivalent of Donald Woods? Do the population mostly read papers from Guyana or Brazil? And can this article ever hope to e anything other than a one-line directory entry? Do sources exist to expand beyond that? I did do a Google search for English-language coverage and all I could find that was usable was this: http://www.freemedia.at/cms/ipi/freedom_detail.html?country=/KW0001/KW0002/… That says more about the publisher of De West. But perhaps there is a story to tell here? If you read Dutch I'm sure you can make something of it. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Matthew Brown

10:07 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Nov 9, 2007 1:58 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

...

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 04:19:47 -0500, "John Lee" <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Wait, we have a rule saying only English sources are acceptable now? Or do you just mean that an article should never rely on non-English sources alone?

I don't think it's unreasonable that on the *English* Wikipedia, the English-speaking community should be able to verify at least the core facts.

You are aware, I hope, that policy has never said that? While English-language sources are desirable, lack of them is not a problem. Also, lack of sources has NEVER been a speedy deletion criterion. It might be cause to list on AFD, but it has never been speediable. There are good reasons, Guy, why the speedy criteria are limited. You know better than that, and this is not even a BLP issue, where excessive zeal might be understandable. -Matt

Guy Chapman aka JzG

10:48 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 02:07:55 -0800, "Matthew Brown" <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

There are good reasons, Guy, why the speedy criteria are limited. You know better than that, and this is not even a BLP issue, where excessive zeal might be understandable.

"De Ware Tijd is one of two daily newspapers in Suriname. Like its rival De West, it is Dutch language, and privately owned. The newspaper publishes also an online edition, dwtonline, and a Netherlands editions" So: which of those two sentences contains the claim of notability? Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Matthew Brown

11:03 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Nov 9, 2007 2:48 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

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The claim that it is one of two daily newspapers in a sovereign nation, perhaps? A tiny nation, perhaps, but still ... my feeling is that speedy deletion is only for the absolutely most clear-cut cases. If there is any reasonable doubt, it should not be employed. The very fact that reasonable, experienced Wikipedians are disagreeing with the decision should indicate that it was not a speedy candidate. -Matt

Guy Chapman aka JzG

11:22 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 03:03:09 -0800, "Matthew Brown" <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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We obviously see it differently; I looked at the size of the country, saw it was a smaller population than my home town, contextualised it with the papers in my home town, and went from there. The entire circulation of that paper would not even half fill the football ground in my home town. But actually I suspect the mistake I made was perceiving that the article existed solely to support a webcomic whose claim to notability is being published in this paper. I really must leave webcomics alone. I think that 99% of them are not in the least bit notable, and others think that 99% of them are of paramount importance. This is never going to make for a relaxing life. Ah well. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Matthew Brown

11:56 a.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Nov 9, 2007 3:22 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

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True, but - I'm not sure that this is always a valid approach. Notability doesn't always scale with population like that. (Especially in a historical sense, when the entire population of nations might not have fit in a decent-sized modern football ground, way back when)

...

I really must leave webcomics alone. I think that 99% of them are not in the least bit notable, and others think that 99% of them are of paramount importance. This is never going to make for a relaxing life. Ah well.

Webcomics at least have the useful property of being largely harmless if excessively covered within Wikipedia. Really, I suspect, it's way too recent a phenomenon to be truly able to give them proper context. However, if it's an area that becomes crufty, only webcomics nuts probably will notice or care. Over-representation is one of the lesser issues in our project, I feel. -Matt

Guy Chapman aka JzG

12:17 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 03:56:39 -0800, "Matthew Brown" <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

> We obviously see it differently; I looked at the size of the > country, saw it was a smaller population than my home town, > contextualised it with the papers in my home town, and went from > there. The entire circulation of that paper would not even half > fill the football ground in my home town.

...

Well, yes, with hindsight and looking directly at it (rather than tangentially from something else). On the other hand, what we have even now is just a directory entry. But I am going to try *really hard* not to care...

...

I envy your sanguine attitude. I find it hard not to get wound up when a band that /just/ scrapes by notability by having all of two press mentions immediately gets a category, its own Wikiproject and an article on each member and every single thing it ever recorded. OK, a slight exaggeration, but only slight. We have many articles on sub-sub-subgenre bands (anything with "core" at the end and any variant of death metal, as a first approximation); being Uzbekistan's no. 1 melodic symphonic deathgrindcore band is only significant if there exist nos. 2 down to at least a couple of hundred. I wish I could be persuaded that these zealous fanboys will one day contribute to something I consider worthwhile - but I can't really complain too much as I'm too cheap to shell out for a copy of Grove to help me with the things I think are worth covering. Right now I am trying very very hard to learn to just walk away from the obsessives, but being an obsessive myself I find it very difficult. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Ray Saintonge

5:27 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

Matthew Brown wrote:

...

On Nov 9, 2007 3:22 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:

I can appreciate the insignificance of Guy's hometown. When it chooses to declare independence maybe it will be as important as Surinam.

...

I'm sure that the webcomic nuts are encouraged by the opposition. Ec

Guy Chapman aka JzG

6:44 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:27:04 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:

...

I can appreciate the insignificance of Guy's hometown. When it chooses to declare independence maybe it will be as important as Surinam.

And when Suriname increases its GDP per capita by a factor of about six maybe it will be as important as my home town :o) Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

Bryan Derksen

6:49 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

...

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 04:19:47 -0500, "John Lee" <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Wait, we have a rule saying only English sources are acceptable now? Or do you just mean that an article should never rely on non-English sources alone?

I don't think it's unreasonable that on the *English* Wikipedia, the English-speaking community should be able to verify at least the core facts.

I do. There are plenty of subject areas we cover where non-expert readers can't verify the core facts and have to rely on experts to "translate" them into plain English. I'm that way on many esoteric mathematics topics, for example; if I come to an article that describes some intricate aspect of tensor matrix whachamacallits and all of the references are to journal articles that make my head spin, I trust that out there among our thousands of editors are a couple of mathematicians who are capable of understanding that stuff and verifying the article's statements for me. Same goes for foreign languages. I'm not fluent in any but I know there are plenty of English/Foreign bilingual editors around who can do the verification for me. In many cases I can even fall back on Babelfish to give me a vague idea of what the sources are saying, something I can't do for mathematics.

...

I did do a Google search for English-language coverage and all I could find that was usable was this: http://www.freemedia.at/cms/ipi/freedom_detail.html?country=/KW0001/KW0002/…

So that means Wikipedia is the largest and most complete English-language source of information available about this newspaper? Woohoo! Why is this a bad thing? IMO, "non-notable" subjects are an area where Wikipedia can really excel. Every encyclopedia worth its salt is going to have a big, comprehensive article summarizing General Relativity or the American Civil War, but only Wikipedia has the resources to have comprehensive articles about every wee town or minor band or whatnot. As long as our policies are met - verifiability, NOR, NPOV - this is a good thing. With the ever-more-imminent introduction of version flagging it'll become even easier to maintain these small topics.

Ray Saintonge

6:55 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

Bryan Derksen wrote:

...

IMO, "non-notable" subjects are an area where Wikipedia can really excel. Every encyclopedia worth its salt is going to have a big, comprehensive article summarizing General Relativity or the American Civil War, but only Wikipedia has the resources to have comprehensive articles about every wee town or minor band or whatnot. As long as our policies are met - verifiability, NOR, NPOV - this is a good thing. With the ever-more-imminent introduction of version flagging it'll become even easier to maintain these small topics.

The notability of General Relativity is probably established by saying whether he was with the Union or Confederacy. :-) Ec

Guy Chapman aka JzG

8 Nov 8 Nov

5:36 p.m.

New subject: Pakistani politicians and systemic bias

On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 14:49:31 +0000, <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

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When did you last go to [[CAT:CSD]]? Even a 1% error rate will amount to tens of articles every day, and I don't think 1% is an unacceptably high error rate (or rather, shooting for less is probably unfeasible, given the rate of pay). We have deleted over 5,000 articles in the last 24 hours. That included an article on a "six foot tall single-celled organism, 'nuff said" and "your single source for all things mountain bike". Are you sure you are not being perhaps a little nostalgic here? The simple fact is, very large numbers of worthless articles are created and deleted daily, and slowing down the removal of those will likely have an exponential impact. When the CAT:CSD backlog is below 500, there is a realistic chance of assessing each article in more detail. But it rarely is, at least not in peak hours. I always look for the biographies first. A fair few of them are obvious autobiographies, the username is very often a dead giveaway. To userfy, remove the redirect, untag and leave a {{nn-userfy}} explanation takes just short of two minutes, including the time to verify the username and user's other contribs (generally none, of course). I don't mind doing that, but it would be better if the RC patrollers did it instead. I'm sure there are admins who don't bother, and that's a concern for me per [[WP:BITE]], but even so, the problem of vapid self-promotion is one that must be acknowledged. Is vapid self-promotion more of a problem than biting the self-promoters? Or does it depend on whether they are promoting themselves, their websites or their companies? I honestly don't know. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

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Bryan Derksen
charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com
David Gerard
Delirium
Guy Chapman aka JzG
John Lee
Matthew Brown
Ray Saintonge
Thomas Dalton