Thank you Dmitry! Well phrased and to the point!
As for "templating", that might be the worst of both worlds; without the
flexibility and over-time improvement of automatic descriptions, but making
it harder for people to enter (compared to "free-style" text). We have a
Visual Editor on Wikipedia for a reason :-)
On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 4:07 AM Dmitry Brant <dbrant(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
My thoughts, as ever(!), are as follows:
- The tool that generates the descriptions deserves a lot more
development. Magnus' tool is very much a prototype, and represents a tiny
glimpse of what's possible. Looking at its current output is a straw man.
- Auto-generated descriptions work for current articles, and *all
future articles*. They automatically adapt to updated data. They
automatically become more accurate as new data is added.
- When you edit the descriptions yourself, you're not really making a
meaningful contribution to the *data* that underpins the given Wikidata
entry; i.e. you're not contributing any new information. You're simply
paraphrasing the first sentence or two of the Wikipedia article. That can't
possibly be a productive use of contributors' time.
As for Brian's suggestion:
It would be a step forward; we can even invent a whole template-type
syntax for transcluding bits of actual data into the description. But IMO,
that kind of effort would still be better spent on fully-automatic
descriptions, because that's the ideal that semi-automatic descriptions can
only approach.
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:36 PM, Brian Gerstle <bgerstle(a)wikimedia.org
> wrote:
> Could there be a way to have our nicely curated description cake and
> eat it too? For example, interpolating data into the description and/or
> marking data points which are referenced in the description (so as to mark
> it as outdated when they change)?
>
> I appreciate the potential benefits of generated descriptions (and
> other things), but Monte's examples might have swayed me towards human
> curated—when available.
>
> On Tuesday, August 18, 2015, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Ok, so I just did what I proposed. I went to random enwiki articles
>> and described the first ten I found which didn't already have descriptions:
>>
>>
>> - "Courage Under Fire", *1996 film about a Gulf War friendly-fire
>> incident*
>>
>> - "Pebasiconcha immanis", *largest known species of land snail,
>> extinct*
>>
>> - "List of Kenyan writers", *notable Kenyan authors*
>>
>> - "Solar eclipse of December 14, 1917", *annular eclipse which
>> lasted 77 seconds*
>>
>> - "Natchaug Forest Lumber Shed", *historic Civilian Conservation
>> Corps post-and-beam building*
>>
>> - "Sun of Jamaica (album)", *debut 1980 studio album by Goombay
>> Dance Band*
>>
>> - "E-1027", *modernist villa in France by architect Eileen Gray*
>>
>> - "Daingerfield State Park", *park in Morris County, Texas, USA,
>> bordering Lake Daingerfield*
>>
>> - "Todo Lo Que Soy-En Vivo", *2014 Live album by Mexican pop singer
>> Fey*
>>
>> - "2009 UEFA Regions' Cup", *6th UEFA Regions' Cup, won by
Castile
>> and Leon*
>>
>>
>>
>> And here are the respective descriptions from Magnus' (quite
>> excellent) autodesc.js:
>>
>>
>>
>> - "Courage Under Fire", *1996 film by Edward Zwick, produced by John
>> Davis and David T. Friendly from United States of America*
>>
>> - "Pebasiconcha immanis", *species of Mollusca*
>>
>> - "List of Kenyan writers", *Wikimedia list article*
>>
>> - "Solar eclipse of December 14, 1917", *solar eclipse*
>>
>> - "Natchaug Forest Lumber Shed", *Construction in Connecticut,
>> United States of America*
>>
>> - "Sun of Jamaica (album)", *album*
>>
>> - "E-1027", *villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France*
>>
>> - "Daingerfield State Park", *state park and state park of a state
>> of the United States in Texas, United States of America*
>>
>> - "Todo Lo Que Soy-En Vivo", *live album by Fey*
>>
>> - "2009 UEFA Regions' Cup", *none*
>>
>>
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Just trying to make my own bold assertions falsifiable :)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 6:32 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The whole human-vs-extracted descriptions quality question could be
>>> fairly easy to test I think:
>>>
>>> - Pick, some number of articles at random.
>>> - Run them through a description extraction script.
>>> - Have a human describe the same articles with, say, the app
>>> interface I demo'ed.
>>>
>>> If nothing else this exercise could perhaps make what's thus far
>>> been a wildly abstract discussion more concrete.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 6:17 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> If having the most elegant description extraction mechanism was the
>>>> goal I would totally agree ;)
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 5:19 PM, Dmitry Brant <dbrant(a)wikimedia.org
>>>> > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> IMO, allowing the user to edit the description is a missed
>>>>> opportunity to make the user edit the actual *data*, such that the
>>>>> description is generated correctly.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 8:02 PM, Monte Hurd
<mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> IMO, if the goal is quality, then human curated descriptions are
>>>>>> superior until such time as the auto-generation script passes the
Turing
>>>>>> test ;)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I see these empty descriptions as an amazing opportunity to give
>>>>>> *everyone* an easy new way to edit. I whipped an app editing
interface up
>>>>>> at the Lyon hackathon:
>>>>>> bluetooth720
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VblyGhf_c8>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I used it to add a couple hundred descriptions in a single day
>>>>>> just by hitting "random" then adding descriptions for
articles which didn't
>>>>>> have them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'd love to try a limited test of this in production to get
a
>>>>>> sense for how effective human curation can be if the interface is
easy to
>>>>>> use...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 1:25 PM, Jan Ainali <
>>>>>> jan.ainali(a)wikimedia.se> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nice one!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Does not appear to work on svwiki though. Does it have
something
>>>>>>> to do with that the wiki in question does not display that
tagline?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *Med vänliga hälsningar,Jan Ainali*
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Verksamhetschef, Wikimedia Sverige
<http://wikimedia.se>
>>>>>>> 0729 - 67 29 48
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *Tänk dig en värld där varje människa har fri tillgång till
>>>>>>> mänsklighetens samlade kunskap. Det är det vi gör.*
>>>>>>> Bli medlem. <http://blimedlem.wikimedia.se>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2015-08-18 17:23 GMT+02:00 Magnus Manske <
>>>>>>> magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com>gt;:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Show automatic description underneath "From
Wikipedia...":
>>>>>>>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske/autodesc.js
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> To use, add:
>>>>>>>> importScript ( 'User:Magnus_Manske/autodesc.js' )
;
>>>>>>>> to your common.js
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:47 AM Jane Darnell
<jane023(a)gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It would be even better if this (short: 3 field max)
>>>>>>>>> pipe-separated list was available as a gadget to
wikidatans on Wikipedia
>>>>>>>>> (like me). I can't see if a page I am on has an
"instance of" (though it
>>>>>>>>> should) and I can see the description thanks to
another gadget (sorry no
>>>>>>>>> idea which one that is). Often I will update empty
descriptions, but if I
>>>>>>>>> was served basic fields (so for a painting, the
creator field), I would
>>>>>>>>> click through to update that too.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
<
>>>>>>>>> nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Jane Darnell, 15/08/2015 08:53:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Yes but even if the descriptions were just
the contents of
>>>>>>>>>>> fields
>>>>>>>>>>> separated by a pipe it would be better than
nothing.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> +1, item descriptions are mostly useless in my
experience.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> As for "get into production on
Wikipedia" I don't know what
>>>>>>>>>> it means, I certainly don't like 1)
mobile-specific features, 2) overriding
>>>>>>>>>> existing manually curated content; but it's
good to 3) fill gaps. Mobile
>>>>>>>>>> folks often do (1) and (2), if they *instead* did
(3) I'd be very happy. :)
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Nemo
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Dmitry Brant
>>>>> Mobile Apps Team (Android)
>>>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>>>
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
> --
> EN Wikipedia user page:
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle
> IRC: bgerstle
>
>
--
Dmitry Brant
Mobile Apps Team (Android)
Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 10:36 PM, Brian Gerstle <bgerstle(a)wikimedia.org
> wrote:
> Could there be a way to have our nicely curated description cake and
> eat it too? For example, interpolating data into the description and/or
> marking data points which are referenced in the description (so as to mark
> it as outdated when they change)?
>
> I appreciate the potential benefits of generated descriptions (and
> other things), but Monte's examples might have swayed me towards human
> curated—when available.
>
> On Tuesday, August 18, 2015, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> Ok, so I just did what I proposed. I went to random enwiki articles
>> and described the first ten I found which didn't already have descriptions:
>>
>>
>> - "Courage Under Fire", *1996 film about a Gulf War friendly-fire
>> incident*
>>
>> - "Pebasiconcha immanis", *largest known species of land snail,
>> extinct*
>>
>> - "List of Kenyan writers", *notable Kenyan authors*
>>
>> - "Solar eclipse of December 14, 1917", *annular eclipse which
>> lasted 77 seconds*
>>
>> - "Natchaug Forest Lumber Shed", *historic Civilian Conservation
>> Corps post-and-beam building*
>>
>> - "Sun of Jamaica (album)", *debut 1980 studio album by Goombay
>> Dance Band*
>>
>> - "E-1027", *modernist villa in France by architect Eileen Gray*
>>
>> - "Daingerfield State Park", *park in Morris County, Texas, USA,
>> bordering Lake Daingerfield*
>>
>> - "Todo Lo Que Soy-En Vivo", *2014 Live album by Mexican pop singer
>> Fey*
>>
>> - "2009 UEFA Regions' Cup", *6th UEFA Regions' Cup, won by
Castile
>> and Leon*
>>
>>
>>
>> And here are the respective descriptions from Magnus' (quite
>> excellent) autodesc.js:
>>
>>
>>
>> - "Courage Under Fire", *1996 film by Edward Zwick, produced by John
>> Davis and David T. Friendly from United States of America*
>>
>> - "Pebasiconcha immanis", *species of Mollusca*
>>
>> - "List of Kenyan writers", *Wikimedia list article*
>>
>> - "Solar eclipse of December 14, 1917", *solar eclipse*
>>
>> - "Natchaug Forest Lumber Shed", *Construction in Connecticut,
>> United States of America*
>>
>> - "Sun of Jamaica (album)", *album*
>>
>> - "E-1027", *villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France*
>>
>> - "Daingerfield State Park", *state park and state park of a state
>> of the United States in Texas, United States of America*
>>
>> - "Todo Lo Que Soy-En Vivo", *live album by Fey*
>>
>> - "2009 UEFA Regions' Cup", *none*
>>
>>
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Just trying to make my own bold assertions falsifiable :)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 6:32 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The whole human-vs-extracted descriptions quality question could be
>>> fairly easy to test I think:
>>>
>>> - Pick, some number of articles at random.
>>> - Run them through a description extraction script.
>>> - Have a human describe the same articles with, say, the app
>>> interface I demo'ed.
>>>
>>> If nothing else this exercise could perhaps make what's thus far
>>> been a wildly abstract discussion more concrete.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 6:17 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> If having the most elegant description extraction mechanism was the
>>>> goal I would totally agree ;)
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 5:19 PM, Dmitry Brant <dbrant(a)wikimedia.org
>>>> > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> IMO, allowing the user to edit the description is a missed
>>>>> opportunity to make the user edit the actual *data*, such that the
>>>>> description is generated correctly.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 8:02 PM, Monte Hurd
<mhurd(a)wikimedia.org>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> IMO, if the goal is quality, then human curated descriptions are
>>>>>> superior until such time as the auto-generation script passes the
Turing
>>>>>> test ;)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I see these empty descriptions as an amazing opportunity to give
>>>>>> *everyone* an easy new way to edit. I whipped an app editing
interface up
>>>>>> at the Lyon hackathon:
>>>>>> bluetooth720
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VblyGhf_c8>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I used it to add a couple hundred descriptions in a single day
>>>>>> just by hitting "random" then adding descriptions for
articles which didn't
>>>>>> have them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'd love to try a limited test of this in production to get
a
>>>>>> sense for how effective human curation can be if the interface is
easy to
>>>>>> use...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 1:25 PM, Jan Ainali <
>>>>>> jan.ainali(a)wikimedia.se> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nice one!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Does not appear to work on svwiki though. Does it have
something
>>>>>>> to do with that the wiki in question does not display that
tagline?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *Med vänliga hälsningar,Jan Ainali*
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Verksamhetschef, Wikimedia Sverige
<http://wikimedia.se>
>>>>>>> 0729 - 67 29 48
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *Tänk dig en värld där varje människa har fri tillgång till
>>>>>>> mänsklighetens samlade kunskap. Det är det vi gör.*
>>>>>>> Bli medlem. <http://blimedlem.wikimedia.se>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2015-08-18 17:23 GMT+02:00 Magnus Manske <
>>>>>>> magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com>gt;:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Show automatic description underneath "From
Wikipedia...":
>>>>>>>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske/autodesc.js
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> To use, add:
>>>>>>>> importScript ( 'User:Magnus_Manske/autodesc.js' )
;
>>>>>>>> to your common.js
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:47 AM Jane Darnell
<jane023(a)gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It would be even better if this (short: 3 field max)
>>>>>>>>> pipe-separated list was available as a gadget to
wikidatans on Wikipedia
>>>>>>>>> (like me). I can't see if a page I am on has an
"instance of" (though it
>>>>>>>>> should) and I can see the description thanks to
another gadget (sorry no
>>>>>>>>> idea which one that is). Often I will update empty
descriptions, but if I
>>>>>>>>> was served basic fields (so for a painting, the
creator field), I would
>>>>>>>>> click through to update that too.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo)
<
>>>>>>>>> nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Jane Darnell, 15/08/2015 08:53:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Yes but even if the descriptions were just
the contents of
>>>>>>>>>>> fields
>>>>>>>>>>> separated by a pipe it would be better than
nothing.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> +1, item descriptions are mostly useless in my
experience.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> As for "get into production on
Wikipedia" I don't know what
>>>>>>>>>> it means, I certainly don't like 1)
mobile-specific features, 2) overriding
>>>>>>>>>> existing manually curated content; but it's
good to 3) fill gaps. Mobile
>>>>>>>>>> folks often do (1) and (2), if they *instead* did
(3) I'd be very happy. :)
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Nemo
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>>>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Dmitry Brant
>>>>> Mobile Apps Team (Android)
>>>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>>>
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
> --
> EN Wikipedia user page:
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle
> IRC: bgerstle
>
>
--
Dmitry Brant
Mobile Apps Team (Android)
Wikimedia Foundation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_mobile_engineering
_______________________________________________
Mobile-l mailing list
Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l