I was the one who raised the 1812 example in the context of Wikipedia's coverage of military history; see Richard Jensen, "Military History on the Electronic Frontier: Wikipedia Fights the War of 1812," ''The Journal of Military History'' 76#4 (October 2012): 523-556; the page proofs (with some typos) are online at http://www.americanhistoryprojects.com/downloads/JMH1812.PDF
My argument is that Wikipedia is written by and for the benefit of a few thousand editors -- what the readers or the general public wants or thinks or uses is largely irrelevant.
The growth then depends on the need to recruit new editors -- using the details from the 1812 article I suggest that fewer and fewer new editors are actually interested. (I also looked at other major articles on WWI, WWII, the American Civil War & others and found the same pattern.)
Look at it demographically: apart from teenage boys coming of age, the population of computer-literate people who are ignorant of Wikipedia is very small indeed in 2012. That was not true in 2005 when lots of editors joined up and did a lot of work on important articles.
So I think that military history at Wikipedia is pretty well saturated. That does not mean there are not more possible topics (we have about 130,000 articles (including stubs) now and major libraries will own maybe 100,000+ full length books on military topics). I suggest that new editors need to have an attractive new niche that is not now well covered. I suggest that they will have a very hard time finding such a niche that allows for the excitement of new writing about important topics. (such as took place in back in 2005-2007). Personally I greatly enjoyed writing about George Washington and Ulysses Grant and Napoleon--that's why I'm here. I would have trouble explaining to someone why they should write up general #1001, #1002, #1103 ... let alone colonel #10,001, 10,002, 10,003 ....
Richard Jensen User:Rjensen email rjensen@uic.edu
On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 6:19 AM, Richard Jensen rjensen@uic.edu wrote:
Look at it demographically: apart from teenage boys coming of age, the population of computer-literate people who are ignorant of Wikipedia is very small indeed in 2012. That was not true in 2005 when lots of editors joined up and did a lot of work on important articles.
You seem to be disregarding the entirety of the developing world and non-English speakers in that statement.
It would be good to extend the research of War of 1812 to non-English Wikipedias.
I've had a quick look and it is surprising how many of the articles 'pretty good', but none are very good. I think that there is a depth level at which non-English writers say 'I could easily add more, but the [non-English] article is good enough; if you want more detail you'll almost certainly know English language and should go read the English article. My time is better spent expanding another [non-English] article that isnt yet good enough.'
John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Oct 29, 2012 3:28 AM, "Steven Walling" swalling@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 6:19 AM, Richard Jensen rjensen@uic.edu wrote:
Look at it demographically: apart from teenage boys coming of age, the population of computer-literate people who are ignorant of Wikipedia is very small indeed in 2012. That was not true in 2005 when lots of editors joined up and did a lot of work on important articles.
You seem to be disregarding the entirety of the developing world and non-English speakers in that statement.
-- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
That's my attitude to the letter; I may occasionally translate stuff into Polish Wikipedia, but rarely bother with more than what we would classify as a start-level entry. The only part where I'd differ is that I'd say "My time is better spent expanding another [English] article that isn't yet good enough", as I work under the assumption that many more Poles know English than English-speakers know Polish. Why bother contributing much to a project which has <1 billion speakers... :)*
*disclaimer: I don't mean to belittle efforts to save dying languages, or bringing knowledge to people who live in places where learning English is difficult; my scorn concerns only languages which don't classify under these criteria, and even there I acknowledge the existence of generational digital/language divide issues.
-- Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 10/30/2012 11:49 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
It would be good to extend the research of War of 1812 to non-English Wikipedias.
I've had a quick look and it is surprising how many of the articles 'pretty good', but none are very good. I think that there is a depth level at which non-English writers say 'I could easily add more, but the [non-English] article is good enough; if you want more detail you'll almost certainly know English language and should go read the English article. My time is better spent expanding another [non-English] article that isnt yet good enough.'
John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note
On Oct 29, 2012 3:28 AM, "Steven Walling" <swalling@wikimedia.org mailto:swalling@wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 6:19 AM, Richard Jensen <rjensen@uic.edu <mailto:rjensen@uic.edu>> wrote: Look at it demographically: apart from teenage boys coming of age, the population of computer-literate people who are ignorant of Wikipedia is very small indeed in 2012. That was not true in 2005 when lots of editors joined up and did a lot of work on important articles. You seem to be disregarding the entirety of the developing world and non-English speakers in that statement. -- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/ _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
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On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 10:49:22 +0700, John Vandenberg wrote:
It would be good to extend the research of War of 1812 to non-English Wikipedias.
Ive had a quick look and it is surprising how many of the articles pretty good, but none are very good. I think that there is a depth level at which non-English writers say I could easily add more, but the [non-English] article is good enough; if you want more detail youll almost certainly know English language and should go read the English article. My time is better spent expanding another [non-English] article that isnt yet good enough.
John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Oct 29, 2012 3:28 AM, "Steven Walling" wrote:
I have never hear of (and I doubt very much the existence of) Russian wikipedians who would translate the articles on War of 1812 from English Wikipedia rather than to write them themselves. (I am talking now about the events which happened in Europe; others may be less known, and thus more attractive for translation).
Cheers Yaroslav
Hi, Richard!
The reason I find the War of 1812 amusing as an example is simply because to me (an Australian) it's a completely unimportant subject. I am neither British nor American and it all occurred on the other side of the world to me; why should I know or care? Yet the American War of Independence (same parties a few years earlier) is important to Australian history because it caused Britain to decide to establish an Australian colony.
Importance is very much subjective. It might well be that wars in which America participated are well-covered in Wikipedia but surely there were lots of other wars that aren't well-covered but are important to their region's history? And no doubt many readers of Wikipedia have no interest in wars at all and believe Seinfeld episodes and Britney Spears are important topics. Who is to be the arbiter of what is "important"? It seems to me that so long as someone finds a topic interesting and has a few sources to draw on, they might as well write a Wikipedia article about it. If one person thinks the topic is interesting enough to invest the effort, odds on someone else will find it of interest. I write primarily local history material on WP and am often surprised at how often others join in with contributions to articles I have started. The reality is that stubs do get expanded and redlinks do lead to the creation of new articles even on topics that I would freely acknowledge are not the world's most important topics but nonetheless clearly of interest to some folk. And where there are writers for a topic, I believe there must also be readers.
So that is why I disagree with your comment about WP being for the benefit of a few thousand editors and indifferent to what the public wants/needs. I'm not one of the top 10000 editors. I'm just a reader of Wikipedia who one day started editing bits and pieces about the suburb I live in and my involvement grew very slowly from there. Isn't that the story for most WP editors? Editors are the "public"; they are not selected or certified in any way. WP makes it possible for any one to make small contributions which is far easier for the public to do than the previous model of needing to publish an entire book on the subject, which obviously requires a far greater expertise and thus far less representative of what the public wants/needs.
As far as I can see most of the top 10000 editors appear to be making a lot of of their contributions in terms of administration and quality control (eg fighting vandalism) rather than in content. I think the "long tail" of (good faith) editors are mostly contributing content on a range of topics that I believe will continue to grow. I believe that once a WYSIWYG editor for WP becomes available we will see a growth in the long tail of editors and the topics they write on because I think wiki markup is a barrier for many people currently under-represented in the demographics of WP editors.
I agree WP has moved into a new phase different from its earliest years and probably its policies and processes might need to change to reflect that. For example, it's fine to "be bold" with a stub, but woe betide the newbie editor that decides to be bold with a well-developed article whose current words may have been carefully crafted to capture the right nuances to keep all the warring factions happy. Personally I believe mature articles need more of a curated approach to incorporate new material contributed by anyone but where the edits are done by more experienced editors of that topic. Not that they should be "gatekeepers" but that the material be added in the right place and in a way that reflects prior agreements in relation to reflecting differing viewpoints. I think the WP policy on mature articles should be "be careful not to break what's already there".
Sent from my iPad
On 29/10/2012, at 12:19 AM, Richard Jensen rjensen@uic.edu wrote:
I was the one who raised the 1812 example in the context of Wikipedia's coverage of military history; see Richard Jensen, "Military History on the Electronic Frontier: Wikipedia Fights the War of 1812," ''The Journal of Military History'' 76#4 (October 2012): 523-556; the page proofs (with some typos) are online at http://www.americanhistoryprojects.com/downloads/JMH1812.PDF
My argument is that Wikipedia is written by and for the benefit of a few thousand editors -- what the readers or the general public wants or thinks or uses is largely irrelevant.
The growth then depends on the need to recruit new editors -- using the details from the 1812 article I suggest that fewer and fewer new editors are actually interested. (I also looked at other major articles on WWI, WWII, the American Civil War & others and found the same pattern.)
Look at it demographically: apart from teenage boys coming of age, the population of computer-literate people who are ignorant of Wikipedia is very small indeed in 2012. That was not true in 2005 when lots of editors joined up and did a lot of work on important articles.
So I think that military history at Wikipedia is pretty well saturated. That does not mean there are not more possible topics (we have about 130,000 articles (including stubs) now and major libraries will own maybe 100,000+ full length books on military topics). I suggest that new editors need to have an attractive new niche that is not now well covered. I suggest that they will have a very hard time finding such a niche that allows for the excitement of new writing about important topics. (such as took place in back in 2005-2007). Personally I greatly enjoyed writing about George Washington and Ulysses Grant and Napoleon--that's why I'm here. I would have trouble explaining to someone why they should write up general #1001, #1002, #1103 ... let alone colonel #10,001, 10,002, 10,003 ....
Richard Jensen User:Rjensen email rjensen@uic.edu
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 08:13:48 +1100, Kerry Raymond wrote:
As far as I can see most of the top 10000 editors appear to be making a lot of of their contributions in terms of administration and quality control (eg fighting vandalism) rather than in content. I think the "long tail" of (good faith) editors are mostly contributing content on a range of topics that I believe will continue to grow. I believe that once a WYSIWYG editor for WP becomes available we will see a growth in the long tail of editors and the topics they write on because I think wiki markup is a barrier for many people currently under-represented in the demographics of WP editors.
I actually have quite the opposite impression. I think most of the top contributors are actually creating content. I myself am somewhere in the top 3000, and 90% of my edits are in the article space. I would be interested to see a study on this if it exists.
I agree WP has moved into a new phase different from its earliest years and probably its policies and processes might need to change to reflect that. For example, it's fine to "be bold" with a stub, but woe betide the newbie editor that decides to be bold with a well-developed article whose current words may have been carefully crafted to capture the right nuances to keep all the warring factions happy. Personally I believe mature articles need more of a curated approach to incorporate new material contributed by anyone but where the edits are done by more experienced editors of that topic. Not that they should be "gatekeepers" but that the material be added in the right place and in a way that reflects prior agreements in relation to reflecting differing viewpoints. I think the WP policy on mature articles should be "be careful not to break what's already there".
With this I agree.
Cheers Yaroslav
My comments on the top editors came from what I read here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edit...
Editors who use automated tools to do various little fixes can generate large edit counts. Of course it does not follow that all large-edit-count editors are doing this.
Sent from my iPad
On 29/10/2012, at 8:47 AM, "Yaroslav M. Blanter" putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 08:13:48 +1100, Kerry Raymond wrote:
As far as I can see most of the top 10000 editors appear to be making a lot of of their contributions in terms of administration and quality control (eg fighting vandalism) rather than in content. I think the "long tail" of (good faith) editors are mostly contributing content on a range of topics that I believe will continue to grow. I believe that once a WYSIWYG editor for WP becomes available we will see a growth in the long tail of editors and the topics they write on because I think wiki markup is a barrier for many people currently under-represented in the demographics of WP editors.
I actually have quite the opposite impression. I think most of the top contributors are actually creating content. I myself am somewhere in the top 3000, and 90% of my edits are in the article space. I would be interested to see a study on this if it exists.
I agree WP has moved into a new phase different from its earliest years and probably its policies and processes might need to change to reflect that. For example, it's fine to "be bold" with a stub, but woe betide the newbie editor that decides to be bold with a well-developed article whose current words may have been carefully crafted to capture the right nuances to keep all the warring factions happy. Personally I believe mature articles need more of a curated approach to incorporate new material contributed by anyone but where the edits are done by more experienced editors of that topic. Not that they should be "gatekeepers" but that the material be added in the right place and in a way that reflects prior agreements in relation to reflecting differing viewpoints. I think the WP policy on mature articles should be "be careful not to break what's already there".
With this I agree.
Cheers Yaroslav
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
I believe we have a number of studies which have shown that majority of content was written by the small minority of most active editors. This does not invalidate the comment about automated editing; bottom line - most of anything on Wikipedia, i.e. both content and non-content support infrastructure, was and is being done by a small group of very dedicated people.
-- Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 10/28/2012 5:57 PM, Kerry Raymond wrote:
My comments on the top editors came from what I read here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edit...
Editors who use automated tools to do various little fixes can generate large edit counts. Of course it does not follow that all large-edit-count editors are doing this.
Sent from my iPad
On 29/10/2012, at 8:47 AM, "Yaroslav M. Blanter" putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 08:13:48 +1100, Kerry Raymond wrote:
As far as I can see most of the top 10000 editors appear to be making a lot of of their contributions in terms of administration and quality control (eg fighting vandalism) rather than in content. I think the "long tail" of (good faith) editors are mostly contributing content on a range of topics that I believe will continue to grow. I believe that once a WYSIWYG editor for WP becomes available we will see a growth in the long tail of editors and the topics they write on because I think wiki markup is a barrier for many people currently under-represented in the demographics of WP editors.
I actually have quite the opposite impression. I think most of the top contributors are actually creating content. I myself am somewhere in the top 3000, and 90% of my edits are in the article space. I would be interested to see a study on this if it exists.
I agree WP has moved into a new phase different from its earliest years and probably its policies and processes might need to change to reflect that. For example, it's fine to "be bold" with a stub, but woe betide the newbie editor that decides to be bold with a well-developed article whose current words may have been carefully crafted to capture the right nuances to keep all the warring factions happy. Personally I believe mature articles need more of a curated approach to incorporate new material contributed by anyone but where the edits are done by more experienced editors of that topic. Not that they should be "gatekeepers" but that the material be added in the right place and in a way that reflects prior agreements in relation to reflecting differing viewpoints. I think the WP policy on mature articles should be "be careful not to break what's already there".
With this I agree.
Cheers Yaroslav
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----- Mensaje original -----
De: Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl Para: Research into Wikimedia content and communities wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org CC: Enviado: Lunes 29 de octubre de 2012 6:41 Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] War of 1812 and all that
I believe we have a number of studies which have shown that majority of content was written by the small minority of most active editors. This does not invalidate the comment about automated editing; bottom line - most of anything on Wikipedia, i.e. both content and non-content support infrastructure, was and is being done by a small group of very dedicated people.
Well, actually there are many different cases. For example, there is a very good article on the good quality contributions from "casual" editors that is frequently overlooked:
Anthony, Denise L., Sean W. Smith, Timothy Williamson. 2009. "Reputation and Reliability in Collective Goods: The case of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia." Rationality and Society 21(3): 283-306. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~socy/pdfs/reputation_and_reliability.pdf
The previous version of this paper was published back in 2005. Then, it came a series of publications remarking the large fraction of work (usually measured in number of edits over total number of contributions per week or month) carried out by very active editors. Thus, using the same terminology as in the paper above, it is true that a lot of work comes from "zealots", but we should not forget "good samaritans". Specially now that Wikipedia is even more popular, making it more difficult to fight vandalism (as we can see from the last reports on the growing number of reverts).
Best, Felipe.
-- Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 10/28/2012 5:57 PM, Kerry Raymond wrote:
My comments on the top editors came from what I read here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edit...
Editors who use automated tools to do various little fixes can generate
large edit counts. Of course it does not follow that all large-edit-count editors are doing this.
Sent from my iPad
On 29/10/2012, at 8:47 AM, "Yaroslav M. Blanter"
putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 08:13:48 +1100, Kerry Raymond wrote:
As far as I can see most of the top 10000 editors appear to be
making
a lot of of their contributions in terms of administration and quality control (eg fighting vandalism) rather than in content. I think the "long tail" of (good faith) editors are mostly
contributing content
on a range of topics that I believe will continue to grow. I believe that once a WYSIWYG editor for WP becomes available we will see a growth in the long tail of editors and the topics they write on because I
think
wiki markup is a barrier for many people currently
under-represented
in the demographics of WP editors.
I actually have quite the opposite impression. I think most of the top contributors are actually creating content. I myself am somewhere in
the
top 3000, and 90% of my edits are in the article space. I would be interested to see a study on this if it exists.
I agree WP has moved into a new phase different from its earliest years and probably its policies and processes might need to change
to
reflect that. For example, it's fine to "be bold"
with a stub, but
woe betide the newbie editor that decides to be bold with a well-developed article whose current words may have been carefully crafted to capture the right nuances to keep all the warring factions happy.
Personally
I believe mature articles need more of a curated approach to incorporate new material contributed by anyone but where the edits are done by more experienced editors of that topic. Not that they should be "gatekeepers" but that the material be added in the right
place and
in a way that reflects prior agreements in relation to reflecting differing viewpoints. I think the WP policy on mature articles
should
be "be careful not to break what's already there".
With this I agree.
Cheers Yaroslav
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
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Anonymous or low activity editors can contribute high quality content, certainly, but quantity (and by extrapolation, most quality) comes from registered ones.
(Case in point: no GA or FA can be written by an anon, or a SPE; and most of the primary contributors to those articles likely have many high quality edits to a large number of other articles).
-- Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 10/29/2012 12:49 PM, Felipe Ortega wrote:
----- Mensaje original -----
De: Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl Para: Research into Wikimedia content and communities wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org CC: Enviado: Lunes 29 de octubre de 2012 6:41 Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] War of 1812 and all that
I believe we have a number of studies which have shown that majority of content was written by the small minority of most active editors. This does not invalidate the comment about automated editing; bottom line - most of anything on Wikipedia, i.e. both content and non-content support infrastructure, was and is being done by a small group of very dedicated people.
Well, actually there are many different cases. For example, there is a very good article on the good quality contributions from "casual" editors that is frequently overlooked:
Anthony, Denise L., Sean W. Smith, Timothy Williamson. 2009. "Reputation and Reliability in Collective Goods: The case of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia." Rationality and Society 21(3): 283-306. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~socy/pdfs/reputation_and_reliability.pdf
The previous version of this paper was published back in 2005. Then, it came a series of publications remarking the large fraction of work (usually measured in number of edits over total number of contributions per week or month) carried out by very active editors. Thus, using the same terminology as in the paper above, it is true that a lot of work comes from "zealots", but we should not forget "good samaritans". Specially now that Wikipedia is even more popular, making it more difficult to fight vandalism (as we can see from the last reports on the growing number of reverts).
Best, Felipe.
-- Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 10/28/2012 5:57 PM, Kerry Raymond wrote:
My comments on the top editors came from what I read here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edit...
Editors who use automated tools to do various little fixes can generate
large edit counts. Of course it does not follow that all large-edit-count editors are doing this.
Sent from my iPad
On 29/10/2012, at 8:47 AM, "Yaroslav M. Blanter"
putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 08:13:48 +1100, Kerry Raymond wrote:
As far as I can see most of the top 10000 editors appear to be
making
a lot of of their contributions in terms of administration and quality control (eg fighting vandalism) rather than in content. I think the "long tail" of (good faith) editors are mostly
contributing content
on a range of topics that I believe will continue to grow. I believe that once a WYSIWYG editor for WP becomes available we will see a growth in the long tail of editors and the topics they write on because I
think
wiki markup is a barrier for many people currently
under-represented
in the demographics of WP editors.
I actually have quite the opposite impression. I think most of the top contributors are actually creating content. I myself am somewhere in
the
top 3000, and 90% of my edits are in the article space. I would be interested to see a study on this if it exists.
I agree WP has moved into a new phase different from its earliest years and probably its policies and processes might need to change
to
reflect that. For example, it's fine to "be bold"
with a stub, but
woe betide the newbie editor that decides to be bold with a well-developed article whose current words may have been carefully crafted to capture the right nuances to keep all the warring factions happy.
Personally
I believe mature articles need more of a curated approach to incorporate new material contributed by anyone but where the edits are done by more experienced editors of that topic. Not that they should be "gatekeepers" but that the material be added in the right
place and
in a way that reflects prior agreements in relation to reflecting differing viewpoints. I think the WP policy on mature articles
should
be "be careful not to break what's already there".
With this I agree.
Cheers Yaroslav
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On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 7:19 AM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
Anonymous or low activity editors can contribute high quality content, certainly, but quantity (and by extrapolation, most quality) comes from registered ones.
(Case in point: no GA or FA can be written by an anon, or a SPE; and most of the primary contributors to those articles likely have many high quality edits to a large number of other articles).
What is this based on? I've seen a number of articles written by IP addresses that have been GA quality articles. Anyone can nominate a GA. (I could have nominated them for instance.) Rules may prohibit their nomination at FA, but rules at GA do not prohibit articles primarily written by IP addresses from being nominated.
Well, this is based on my experience as GA author and reviewer. I have never seen an IP successfully nominate an article (I did see nominations once or twice, they failed quickly, as the articles were not up to GA level and IP never came back). And of course, I have yet to see an IP GA reviewer (that is not a troll or a useless if good faithed newbie). If you are aware of any successful GANs were the primary author was an IP, I'd like to look at them. I'd hypothesize that: * they are a tiny percentage of the whole (if we have more than a 10 GAs written by anons in our pool of 15,000 or so, I'd be very surprised; if more than 100 I am willing to eat a hat, or more constructively, I'll write a DYK (if possible) on a subject of your choice :D); * majority of anon-written GAs are old, have been already delisted, or would not pass a modern GA review (and if nominated for a current GA review, would fail, due to not meeting criteria and the primary author being unreachable to address the issues raised).
-- Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 10/29/2012 4:30 PM, Laura Hale wrote:
On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 7:19 AM, Piotr Konieczny <piokon@post.pl mailto:piokon@post.pl> wrote:
Anonymous or low activity editors can contribute high quality content, certainly, but quantity (and by extrapolation, most quality) comes from registered ones. (Case in point: no GA or FA can be written by an anon, or a SPE; and most of the primary contributors to those articles likely have many high quality edits to a large number of other articles).What is this based on? I've seen a number of articles written by IP addresses that have been GA quality articles. Anyone can nominate a GA. (I could have nominated them for instance.) Rules may prohibit their nomination at FA, but rules at GA do not prohibit articles primarily written by IP addresses from being nominated.
-- twitter: purplepopple blog: ozziesport.com http://ozziesport.com
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GA is not necessarily like other articles. Among other things, more knowledge of process and more task-focused collaboration are probably typical (any evidence of that?).
For the German WP, there is solid research on FA, concluding that "We explore on the German Wikipedia whether only the mere number of contributors makes the difference or whether the high quality of featured articles results from having experienced authors contributing with a reputation for high quality contributions. Our results indicate that it does matter who contributes." Stein, K., & Hess, C. (2007). Does it matter who contributes: A study on featured articles in the German Wikipedia. In *HT '07: Proceedings of the eighteenth conference on hypertext and hypermedia* (pp. 171-174). ACM. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1286240.128629
On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 6:04 PM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
Well, this is based on my experience as GA author and reviewer. I have never seen an IP successfully nominate an article (I did see nominations once or twice, they failed quickly, as the articles were not up to GA level and IP never came back). And of course, I have yet to see an IP GA reviewer (that is not a troll or a useless if good faithed newbie). If you are aware of any successful GANs were the primary author was an IP, I'd like to look at them. I'd hypothesize that:
- they are a tiny percentage of the whole (if we have more than a 10 GAs
written by anons in our pool of 15,000 or so, I'd be very surprised; if more than 100 I am willing to eat a hat, or more constructively, I'll write a DYK (if possible) on a subject of your choice :D);
- majority of anon-written GAs are old, have been already delisted, or
would not pass a modern GA review (and if nominated for a current GA review, would fail, due to not meeting criteria and the primary author being unreachable to address the issues raised).
-- Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 10/29/2012 4:30 PM, Laura Hale wrote:
On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 7:19 AM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
Anonymous or low activity editors can contribute high quality content, certainly, but quantity (and by extrapolation, most quality) comes from registered ones.
(Case in point: no GA or FA can be written by an anon, or a SPE; and most of the primary contributors to those articles likely have many high quality edits to a large number of other articles).
What is this based on? I've seen a number of articles written by IP addresses that have been GA quality articles. Anyone can nominate a GA. (I could have nominated them for instance.) Rules may prohibit their nomination at FA, but rules at GA do not prohibit articles primarily written by IP addresses from being nominated.
-- twitter: purplepopple blog: ozziesport.com
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De: Jodi Schneider jschneider@pobox.com Para: Research into Wikimedia content and communities wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Enviado: Martes 30 de octubre de 2012 19:29 Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] War of 1812 and all that
GA is not necessarily like other articles. Among other things, more knowledge of process and more task-focused collaboration are probably typical (any evidence of that?).
For the German WP, there is solid research on FA, concluding that "We explore on the German Wikipedia whether only the mere number of contributors makes the difference or whether the high quality of featured articles results from having experienced authors contributing with a reputation for high quality contributions. Our results indicate that it does matter who contributes."
Stein, K., & Hess, C. (2007). Does it matter who contributes: A study on featured articles in the German Wikipedia. In HT '07: Proceedings of the eighteenth conference on hypertext and hypermedia (pp. 171-174). ACM. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1286240.128629
And using the same method from Stein & Hess, we can draw similar conclusions for all the largest Wikipedias, specially in the case of English.
http://felipeortega.net/sites/default/files/thesis-jfelipe.pdf (see section 4.5, starting on page 129).
Best, Felipe.
On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 6:04 PM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
Well, this is based on my experience as GA author and reviewer. I have never seen an IP successfully nominate an article (I did see nominations once or twice, they failed quickly, as the articles were not up to GA level and IP never came back). And of course, I have yet to see an IP GA reviewer (that is not a troll or a useless if good faithed newbie). If you are aware of any successful GANs were the primary author was an IP, I'd like to look at them. I'd hypothesize that:
- they are a tiny percentage of the whole (if we have more than a
10 GAs written by anons in our pool of 15,000 or so, I'd be very surprised; if more than 100 I am willing to eat a hat, or more constructively, I'll write a DYK (if possible) on a subject of your choice :D);
- majority of anon-written GAs are old, have been already
delisted, or would not pass a modern GA review (and if nominated for a current GA review, would fail, due to not meeting criteria and the primary author being unreachable to address the issues raised).
--
Piotr Konieczny "To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 10/29/2012 4:30 PM, Laura Hale wrote:
On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 7:19 AM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
Anonymous or low activity editors can contribute high quality content, certainly, but quantity (and by extrapolation, most quality) comes from registered ones.
(Case in point: no GA or FA can be written by an anon, or a
SPE; and most of the primary contributors to those articles likely have many high quality edits to a large number of other articles).
What is this based on? I've seen a number of articles written by
IP addresses that have been GA quality articles. Anyone can nominate a GA. (I could have nominated them for instance.) Rules may prohibit their nomination at FA, but rules at GA do not prohibit articles primarily written by IP addresses from being nominated.
-- twitter: purplepopple blog: ozziesport.com
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On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 5:04 AM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
Well, this is based on my experience as GA author and reviewer. I have never seen an IP successfully nominate an article (I did see nominations once or twice, they failed quickly, as the articles were not up to GA level and IP never came back). And of course, I have yet to see an IP GA reviewer (that is not a troll or a useless if good faithed newbie). If you are aware of any successful GANs were the primary author was an IP, I'd like to look at them. I'd hypothesize that:
But that wasn't the point raised. The point raised was not: can IP addresses successfully navigate Wikipedia process? It was: can IP addresses successfully create content? If you're focused solely on process, then yes, correct. You will not see IP addresses engaged their because the rules generally prohibit it.
On the other hand, if the issue is can ip addresses create content, then it appears to me, yes, they can create content and do so successfully without getting their content rolled back. They are an important group. in the area I write in, between 10% and 35% of all edits to articles appear to be made by IP addresses. (Most of them based on the regional interest for the topic.) They often include information that has improved articles and can learn sourcing. This is not always the case, but happens often enough that their editor value should be considered.
Well, I don't think that the real discrepancy lays between IPs and users. Registration is purely a matter of formality : as you get acquainted with Wikipedia as an IP, you are likely to contemplate the advantages of having a unique identity. It is not that IPs never write FAs, but that, most of the time, they finally go through the registration process before finishing their work.
Yet, we can perhaps draw a reliable distinction between occasional and (relatively) permanent editors. The first one are rather passing by, writing only the stuff they are interested in, going away from wiki once they feel tired of it, possibly coming back whenever they feel like it. The second one go extensively beyond their initial scope of edition and get to assume the current general affairs of the community.
Therefore, does occasional editors matter ? I should say yes. For instance, on the French wikipedia some new editor did a brilliant job on [[Napoléon III]]. Once the article became an FA, he stopped being active : to him, its main, ponctual, work was over.
Le 30 oct. 2012 à 20:59, Laura Hale laura@fanhistory.com a écrit :
On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 5:04 AM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote: Well, this is based on my experience as GA author and reviewer. I have never seen an IP successfully nominate an article (I did see nominations once or twice, they failed quickly, as the articles were not up to GA level and IP never came back). And of course, I have yet to see an IP GA reviewer (that is not a troll or a useless if good faithed newbie). If you are aware of any successful GANs were the primary author was an IP, I'd like to look at them. I'd hypothesize that:
But that wasn't the point raised. The point raised was not: can IP addresses successfully navigate Wikipedia process? It was: can IP addresses successfully create content? If you're focused solely on process, then yes, correct. You will not see IP addresses engaged their because the rules generally prohibit it.
On the other hand, if the issue is can ip addresses create content, then it appears to me, yes, they can create content and do so successfully without getting their content rolled back. They are an important group. in the area I write in, between 10% and 35% of all edits to articles appear to be made by IP addresses. (Most of them based on the regional interest for the topic.) They often include information that has improved articles and can learn sourcing. This is not always the case, but happens often enough that their editor value should be considered.
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On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 11:18 AM, Pierre-Carl Langlais < langlais.qobuz@gmail.com> wrote:
Therefore, does occasional editors matter ? I should say yes. For instance, on the French wikipedia some new editor did a brilliant job on [[Napoléon III]]. Once the article became an FA, he stopped being active : to him, its main, ponctual, work was over.
The different types of editing should be understood. I might have an interest in [[Lauren Jackson]] and actively maintain the article about her during her competitive career. That's all I might do on Wikipedia is work on that one article, where I've substantially improved that one article.
On the other hand, I might be a big fan of the [[Canberra Capitals]], [[Seattle Storm]] or [[Australia women's national basketball team]] and work on editing inside the main article and all articles that relate to it, but not to articles about the Bullen Boomers, Chicago Sky or women's basketball.
At the same time, I could be an editor that likes women's sport so I edit everything in and around that topic. This would include Lauren Jackson, women's basketball, the Chicago Sky in addition to Mia Hamm, [[Florence Griffith-Joyner]], [[Cambodia women's national football team]].
At each level, there are potential issues for how to approach it for content improvements: How much you do, when you do it, etc. It gets interesting when you start looking at editing nodes (not for the whole Wikipedia necessarily) but for specific topic areas. You can begin to see this pattern more clearly. I can tell you based on my own observations that the broad group tends to not do substantial content additions but article maintenance, category additions, etc. They appear everywhere, may even have high edit counts but if you look at the content added, it isn't much.
I agree, having a high number of edit does not signify creating high quality content - it may only attest to the high use of semi-automated tools for minor edits.
I also don't dispute that anon's can contribute high quality content, and they do a lot of edits. My point was: * anon's don't contribute significantly to most content on Wikipedia that gets peer reviewed (as Pierre noted, by that time they've probably registered anyway); * hence majority of Wikipedia's GA+ content is not written by anonymous editors (but the GA+ content is only a small percentage of Wikipedia's total content);
-- Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
On 10/30/2012 8:41 PM, Laura Hale wrote:
On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 11:18 AM, Pierre-Carl Langlais <langlais.qobuz@gmail.com mailto:langlais.qobuz@gmail.com> wrote:
Therefore, does occasional editors matter ? I should say yes. For instance, on the French wikipedia some new editor did a brilliant job on [[Napoléon III]]. Once the article became an FA, he stopped being active : to him, its main, ponctual, work was over.The different types of editing should be understood. I might have an interest in [[Lauren Jackson]] and actively maintain the article about her during her competitive career. That's all I might do on Wikipedia is work on that one article, where I've substantially improved that one article.
On the other hand, I might be a big fan of the [[Canberra Capitals]], [[Seattle Storm]] or [[Australia women's national basketball team]] and work on editing inside the main article and all articles that relate to it, but not to articles about the Bullen Boomers, Chicago Sky or women's basketball.
At the same time, I could be an editor that likes women's sport so I edit everything in and around that topic. This would include Lauren Jackson, women's basketball, the Chicago Sky in addition to Mia Hamm, [[Florence Griffith-Joyner]], [[Cambodia women's national football team]].
At each level, there are potential issues for how to approach it for content improvements: How much you do, when you do it, etc. It gets interesting when you start looking at editing nodes (not for the whole Wikipedia necessarily) but for specific topic areas. You can begin to see this pattern more clearly. I can tell you based on my own observations that the broad group tends to not do substantial content additions but article maintenance, category additions, etc. They appear everywhere, may even have high edit counts but if you look at the content added, it isn't much.
-- twitter: purplepopple blog: ozziesport.com http://ozziesport.com
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On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 9:14 AM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
I agree, having a high number of edit does not signify creating high quality content - it may only attest to the high use of semi-automated tools for minor edits.
I also don't dispute that anon's can contribute high quality content, and they do a lot of edits. My point was:
- anon's don't contribute significantly to most content on Wikipedia that
gets peer reviewed (as Pierre noted, by that time they've probably registered anyway);
- hence majority of Wikipedia's GA+ content is not written by anonymous
editors (but the GA+ content is only a small percentage of Wikipedia's total content);
Do you have any evidence for anons don't contribute significantly to content that gets peer reviewed? The reason it would appear they are not involved in processes is because more often than they expressly prohibited from doing so. The implication here could be: IP addresses are contributing GA level content but regular contributors are not monitoring articles where IP addresses are doing lots of work and regular contributors are not supporting taking of the work to the highest level.
http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wik... one of the more active articles (which is admittedly crap) with a high IP address ratio. There are several highly active Wikipedia editors contributing to it. 463 of the 749 editors are IP addresses. Still, total edits by registered editors outnumbers unregistered editors with 1,150 total edits to 1,175. Despite this, the volume of contributors are not actually resulting in edits that work towards improving assessment.
A better analysis could be something like this: IP addresses are more likely to represent a large editing population on an article that has higher visibility and more traffic. The quality of the contributions to these articles is universally poor for registered and unregistered users. At the same time, wikipedia processes favour articles that have less visibility and where there is less inherent conflict. The necessity of covering a topic comprehensively also serves as a barrier to taking these higher visibility articles to GA as this is a challenge, and serves as a discouraging factor for taking an article through processes. GA, Peer Review and FAC favour more narrow topics that are less visible and get less traffic. This type of article is likely to have a much small editing pool, and less likely to be found by IP address editors. (Example: Tennis articles have more IP address edits than articles about sport shooting.) This means IP addresses are less likely to be actively contributing to these articles. As processes implicitly lock them out, there is little reason for these users to improve per guidelines on these less visible articles.
Sincerely, Laura Hale
I think this conversation isn't going anywhere useful because everyone is using the same words but with different meanings. In particular "quality" ...
Edits can do a range of things (and often more than 1). The edits might relate to: * the information content of an article (add/edit/remove propositions -- facts if you prefer -- about the topic, e.g. Fred Smith was born in 1770) * the references (add/edit/delete the external sources that support a proposition) * the presentation of the article, e.g. Structure of the article, spelling, grammar, appropriately nuanced selection among synonyms, clear prose, conformance to the Manual of Style, wikifying, etc
Each of these can have some kind of quality metrics attached (although most will be somewhat subjective -- "an article in the New York post is a better quality source than ...").
At the moment many in this conversation are using GA as the only quality metric. But I think we should see this as a goal not a binary "quality / not quality" metric. To achieve GA, clearly you need facts, verification, and presentation all in both quantity and quality.
Next who is an IP? Well, we know that IPs don't necessarily map to individual people and individual people do not map to a single IP. An IP edit might be done by someone who is a registered user (but too lazy to login -- I'm guilty of that), who may later become a registered user, or who may never be a registered user.
I postulate that good faith IP edits are predominantly small edits of facts or localized edits of presentation (eg spelling). I postulate edits of logged-in users would be both large and small and involve facts, references and presentation, although clearly individual users may have their own particular profiles of edit behavior.
In particular to get an article to GA, you need one (or just a few people) to polish the writing (presentation). Getting a super-readable document with many voices is very difficult. Therefore I would expect that the final push to achieve GA would inevitably involved registered users and not IPs.
Also GA status is a concept and process that is very much "insider" knowledge about WP. Anonymous editors and low-activity editors are unlikely to have even heard about GA status so therefore are not going to be working toward it. Only the very active insiders would see it as their goal and therefore work towards it. So I think it is pointless to discuss contribution to quality in terms of who gets an article to GA status.
I think we do better to ask the question about the quality of an edit (or the set of edits done by a particular user) in terms of whether it adds "correct" information, references that support information, improves presentation. If someone adds a "fact" and that edit is later obliterated by a rewrite of a section but the information is retained (albeit in a different presentation), the original edit was still good quality even if it doesn't survive as a string of characters. I think the use of "edit survival" to measure the quality of an edit is failing to distinguish between information content and presentation, but I acknowledge that "edit survival" is easily measured and "information content survival" is not, but be cautious about using one as the proxy for another.
I think qualitative assessment of a set of randomly selected articles which analyses the contribution made by each individual edit in terms of: * the quality of the article as it was immediately before and after the edit (immediate contribution) * the quality of the article as it is today (overall contribution)
Is more likely to come up with better answers to the question of the contributions of anonymous edits, relative to low activity user editors, relative to high activity user editors.
For the purposes of this conversation, I am ignoring vandalism (and other bad faith behaviour) and edits to reverse them.
Sent from my iPad
On 01/11/2012, at 10:08 AM, Laura Hale laura@fanhistory.com wrote:
On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 9:14 AM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote: I agree, having a high number of edit does not signify creating high quality content - it may only attest to the high use of semi-automated tools for minor edits.
I also don't dispute that anon's can contribute high quality content, and they do a lot of edits. My point was:
- anon's don't contribute significantly to most content on Wikipedia that gets peer reviewed (as Pierre noted, by that time they've probably registered anyway);
- hence majority of Wikipedia's GA+ content is not written by anonymous editors (but the GA+ content is only a small percentage of Wikipedia's total content);
Do you have any evidence for anons don't contribute significantly to content that gets peer reviewed? The reason it would appear they are not involved in processes is because more often than they expressly prohibited from doing so. The implication here could be: IP addresses are contributing GA level content but regular contributors are not monitoring articles where IP addresses are doing lots of work and regular contributors are not supporting taking of the work to the highest level.
http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wik... is one of the more active articles (which is admittedly crap) with a high IP address ratio. There are several highly active Wikipedia editors contributing to it. 463 of the 749 editors are IP addresses. Still, total edits by registered editors outnumbers unregistered editors with 1,150 total edits to 1,175. Despite this, the volume of contributors are not actually resulting in edits that work towards improving assessment.
A better analysis could be something like this: IP addresses are more likely to represent a large editing population on an article that has higher visibility and more traffic. The quality of the contributions to these articles is universally poor for registered and unregistered users. At the same time, wikipedia processes favour articles that have less visibility and where there is less inherent conflict. The necessity of covering a topic comprehensively also serves as a barrier to taking these higher visibility articles to GA as this is a challenge, and serves as a discouraging factor for taking an article through processes. GA, Peer Review and FAC favour more narrow topics that are less visible and get less traffic. This type of article is likely to have a much small editing pool, and less likely to be found by IP address editors. (Example: Tennis articles have more IP address edits than articles about sport shooting.) This means IP addresses are less likely to be actively contributing to these articles. As processes implicitly lock them out, there is little reason for these users to improve per guidelines on these less visible articles.
Sincerely, Laura Hale
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On 10/31/2012 7:08 PM, Laura Hale wrote:
Do you have any evidence for anons don't contribute significantly to content that gets peer reviewed?
Let me reiterate: I have seen over a 100 GAs close and personal, reviewing several dozen. I have never seen an IP major contributor that did most of the work. This is not a great sample, but good enough to go on unless somebody shows better data.
The reason it would appear they are not involved in processes is because more often than they expressly prohibited from doing so. The implication here could be: IP addresses are contributing GA level content but regular contributors are not monitoring articles where IP addresses are doing lots of work and regular contributors are not supporting taking of the work to the highest level.
A valid speculation, but going against the Linus Law. If this was more than exception to the rule, the GA community would've discovered this and dealt with this a long time ago.
http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wik... http://toolserver.org/%7Edaniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped=on&page=Samantha_Stosur is one of the more active articles (which is admittedly crap) with a high IP address ratio. There are several highly active Wikipedia editors contributing to it. 463 of the 749 editors are IP addresses. Still, total edits by registered editors outnumbers unregistered editors with 1,150 total edits to 1,175. Despite this, the volume of contributors are not actually resulting in edits that work towards improving assessment.
A better analysis could be something like this: IP addresses are more likely to represent a large editing population on an article that has higher visibility and more traffic. The quality of the contributions to these articles is universally poor for registered and unregistered users. At the same time, wikipedia processes favour articles that have less visibility and where there is less inherent conflict. The necessity of covering a topic comprehensively also serves as a barrier to taking these higher visibility articles to GA as this is a challenge, and serves as a discouraging factor for taking an article through processes. GA, Peer Review and FAC favour more narrow topics that are less visible and get less traffic. This type of article is likely to have a much small editing pool, and less likely to be found by IP address editors. (Example: Tennis articles have more IP address edits than articles about sport shooting.) This means IP addresses are less likely to be actively contributing to these articles. As processes implicitly lock them out, there is little reason for these users to improve per guidelines on these less visible articles.
Agreed here. IPs represent general populace. General populace has little experience doing quality edits. Putting aside a significant proportions of edits that are not constructive (even is some are good faithed), vast majority of others add little value. It takes a registered editor (someone who took the time to familiarize themselves with MoS and other policies, gained an editor identity and thus registered) to take the haphazard mess that is your average article, copyedit/expand/reference it, give it a uniform style, and move it towards the Wikipedia peer review procedures (that most anons don't even know exists).
-- Piotr Konieczny
"To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski
<quote who="Piotr Konieczny" date="Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 04:19:03PM -0400">
Anonymous or low activity editors can contribute high quality content, certainly, but quantity (and by extrapolation, most quality) comes from registered ones.
(Case in point: no GA or FA can be written by an anon, or a SPE; and most of the primary contributors to those articles likely have many high quality edits to a large number of other articles).
I'm not sure I disagree with your point but I think your evidence is unfair.
Getting an article to a GA and FA is more a measure of how well somebody knows the Wikipedia rules and system and is able to jump through them. Only very active editors will even know that there is such a thing as a GA or a FA. That, alone, doesn't mean that most good encyclopedic content comes from people that do. Only that the cleanup necessary to satisfies Wikipedia's own internal guidelines does.
Regards, Mako
+1 -Jodi
On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 10:12 PM, Benj. Mako Hill mako@mit.edu wrote:
<snip>
Getting an article to a GA and FA is more a measure of how well somebody knows the Wikipedia rules and system and is able to jump through them. Only very active editors will even know that there is such a thing as a GA or a FA. That, alone, doesn't mean that most good encyclopedic content comes from people that do. Only that the cleanup necessary to satisfies Wikipedia's own internal guidelines does.
Regards, Mako
<trim>
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