[WikiEN-l] FYI: A program for evaluating WP articles

[Nathaniel Sheetz]

This looks fantastic, but I'm concerned about the way edit value is
calculated.  Under the current proposal, as I understand it, copyeditors
will be more "valuable" than those who contribute original content.  Someone
with poor writing skills might contribute a significant body of work, but if
it is then rewritten, the original contributor's work won't appear on the
page for very long and that person won't be ranked highly.  But the
copyeditor, whose better writing skills suggest that fewer people will
modify the resulting text, will be considered more valuable because the text
will remain on the page longer without alteration.

Furthermore, if a user connects all the wikis on which s/he works, those who
work on multiple wikipedias would be at a disadvantage.  Their article
contributions in their non-native language will likely not remain unaltered
for long due to stylistic problems, and that will damage their rating on
their "home" wikipedia.

I'm not sure how to fix this without getting humans involved.  Perhaps it's
not a significant problem, since the best editors can both create content
and do it in such a way as to make it readable.  But it appears to me that
average editors will be able to attain the same rating as above-average
content creators.

All that said, though, this is a great idea.  The ability to view each
user's contributions to an article and judge their accuracy based on the
author would be key in improving the credibility of wikis in general, and
wikipedia specifically.

Nathaniel

On 3/17/06, Geoff Burling <llywrch at rdrop.com> wrote:
>
> Have a look at Ray King's essay:
>
> http://www.pint2.org/index.php/Contributor_Ranking_System
>
> Although this solution is aimed more generally at sites using Wikimedia
> software, this is something I believe Ray has been talking with Jimbo
> about. I happened to be present when Ray presented this the other night,
> & a known expert suggested an excellent way to grab some of the data
> needed without causing a strain on the servers.
>
> And Ray is *very* interested in feedback. I hope he concentrates on a
> simplified version of this proposal, rather than trying to write the
> finished, with all of the bells-&-whistles version.
>
> Geoff
>
>
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--
Nathaniel C. Sheetz
http://www.personal.psu.edu/ncs124