On 10/1/06, daniwo59(a)aol.com <daniwo59(a)aol.com> wrote:
> There is a tension between accuracy and openness. Citizendium and
> Everything2 are two extreme answers to that tension. If, however, we are to maintain
> both, we must address the tension when it occurs. We must come up with creative
> solutions. And that is something that involves more than just the English
> Wikipedia.
I do agree. I think we have to come to a shared understanding (which
includes our readers) that wikis are open workspaces, and we need to
define clear processes by which content can gradually (!) reach the
state of being a verified, reliable encyclopedia article, textbook, or
whatever. Porchesia is merely a good, fairly value-neutral example of
a general problem.
If the article about Porchesia had told me, as a reader, in no
uncertain terms that the content has undergone no verification
whatsoever and could be complete bollocks, whereas the article about,
say, Albert Einstein, has undergone verification for sources,
comprehensiveness, neutrality, and so on, then I would be much more
comfortable with the current model. The fact is that, with the
exception of a very small number of articles, we put rubbish on the
same level as elaborate work that has continued for several months,
and that is a disservice both to our readers and to our community.
Whether we are talking about companies or fictitious islands, I do not
believe "block, nuke, and salt the Earth more aggressively!" is the
answer. That's partially because blocking is a very, very flawed tool
(it's very easy to circumvent), and "hard" security measures in a
fundamentally open environment tend to only inspire people to find
clever ways to circumvent them and to make themselves even more of a
PITA than they already are. Of course we should block individuals
where appropriate, but I'm not convinced that increasing the amount of
blocking and nuking is going to help us much right now.
I do believe "identify, label and improve more systematically!" is the
way to go. In this process, we need to not only have a "gold standard"
of articles which we strive for, but should also make the entire
process of article review more transparent and participatory. We may
not have a "featured revision" for each article, but at least we
should have a "best known available" one, and make it clear what
exactly has and has not been done.
As is typical in such cases, the article on Porchesia was copyedited
before it was discovered to be a hoax. That someone chose to copyedit
it should not be held against them; it's perfectly fine that people
work in the areas where they are strong. Some people love fixing typos
or adding category metadata, no matter how many quality initiatives we
launch. However, that it was _only_ copyedited and not fact-checked
could have been made clear to the reader.
For some further thoughts on this, see:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/WikiQA
I believe that the problem of developing a collaborative, scalable,
functional quality annotation model for wikis is as complex as all the
work that we've done so far. Nor is this problem limited to certain
areas, like companies or living people. It's just that inaccurate
articles, vandalism and hoaxes hurt us more in some areas than in
others.
This problem is not going to be solved by writing a couple of software
features. It needs a long term, ongoing collaboration of interested
developers and Wikimedians. And you are absolutely correct that this
is not an en.wp issue, but a Foundation issue. I will have a
discussion about this with members of the Technical Team once the very
important and pressing need of single login is finally resolved.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
I've just been pointed to this - http://futef.com/
It seems to search on keywords, and then produce a related list of
categories for browsing as well as the keyword results. I haven't had
much of a chance to play around with it, but it's certainly promising
- any thoughts?
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
If you are an admin on ENWP and are interested in copyright and
permissions issues, I would like to encourage you to become involved in
the permissions OTRS team. For an idea of what's involved, take a look
at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/permissions-en-guide.
Participants must understand copyright issues as they affect Wikipedia,
understand and support the project's position on copyright and fair
use, and have a history of keeping their cool.
If interested, email me off-list.
The Uninvited Co., Inc.
On 30 Sep 2006 at 10:12, "Jussi-Ville Heiskanen"
<cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Personally I think a little bit of ignore goes a long way here. Tell
> Seth to divest himself of the EFF pioneer award, and come back again,
> methinks.
Then he'd be notable as somebody who renounced an award, wouldn't he?
I think the handful of people who refused, renounced, returned, or
had revoked [Oscars | Pulitzer prizes | Olympic medals | Nobel prizes
| Fields Medals] tend to be very notable for this fact.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
Alexa is mainly used by those with spyware installed, though I use the
SearchStatus extension for Firefox, which provides the Alexa rank and sends
data to Alexa.
I have no objection to this, as I don't mind making my site look more
popular! On that point, Alexa can be forged by site owners asking their
members to install Alexa to raise their ranking.
On 10/1/06, Joe Anderson <computerjoe.mailinglist(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> I have Alexa installed :P
>
> On 10/1/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater(a)mac.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 1 Oct 2006, at 08:50, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> >
> > > Well, obviously it shouldn't be used as the sole way of making a
> > > decision,
> > > but if it has a high Alexa rank, it means a lot of people who use
> > > that Alexa
> > > toolbar visit the site. That should give some indication. Also, if
> > > none of
> > > them visit a certain site that says something as well.
> >
> > In my cases it indicates that the UK Broadcasters
> > don't allow installation of the Alexa toolbar,
> > and that Alexa doesn't count iframe hits. As with
> > all these things, there will always be cases where
> > the raw figures are misleading.
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Joe Anderson
>
> [[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.
--
Joe Anderson
[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.
It is clearly true, and not at all silly, that some
facts in articles do not need sources to be given.
However, the criterion "widely accepted" suggested
here is not enough. For a fact to not need a
citation it should be widely accepted, uncontroversial,
and very easy to check. The last criterion is maybe
the important one.
For example, if an article mentions Paris as the
capital of France then it does NOT need to cite a
geography book as verification that Paris is indeed
the capital of France. Similarly, an article should
be able to refer to the revolution of the Earth
around the Sun without citing an astronomy journal.
Zero.
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