On 8/22/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> The argument I think you're presenting here is counter productive:
> that we are still working on making an encyclopedia. We're not. We've
> made an encyclopedia. Now need need to move on and work on making an
> encyclopedia that doesn't suck.
I consider an encyclopedia something that contain's all the world's
knowledge -- and we're far from that. We've got a long way to go
before we've made an encyclopedia.
Your concept that we're not still working on making an encyclopedia is
pretty amazing.
> New articles are still important, as you've pointed out... But I've
> seen no evidence that new article creation belongs even on the top 100
> task list for making our encyclopedia not suck.
>
> Just because we know a lot more about new article creation than things
> like stability, verifiability, and consistency is not a reason to give
> new article creation more importance than it is due.
Comprehensiveness is as important as verifiability. Stability? Why is
that desirable?
And some degree of consistency is good but too much is the hobgoblin
of little minds.
Comprehensiveness, clarity, verifiability, and neutrality seem to be
more important than stability and consistency to me.
I'm doing an interview about this on [[Newstalk 106]] at 6pm. I've
attached the original article they're talking about (it's not on the site).
I find it hard to argue the unreliability point as stated ... I
suspect I'll be emphasising the 'perpetual working draft' angle and
[[Portal:Ireland]]. Probably http://ga.wikipedia.org as well. Any
other ideas, anyone?
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kate Garry
Date: 22-Aug-2006 14:46
Subject: Article and info for Interview on The Right Hook
Hi David,
As per earlier telelphone conversation, please find attached articlie
from todays Irish Independent - Wikipedia: Trick or Truth?
I appreciate you taking the time to talk with George this evening on
his drive-time show 'The Right Hook'. Also taking part in the
discussion will be Irish Times and Newstalks Technology Correspondent,
Karlin Lillington.
And here's a little bit about us and our presenter George Hook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newstalk_106.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hook
Look forward to talking to you
Any further questions, I can be contacted on 00353xxxxxxx
Regards
Kate Garry
Researcher
Wikipedia: trick or truth?
Tuesday August 22nd 2006
The online encyclopedia has been voted the world's second most
influential website - but with the public allowed to edit its one
million entries, this font of knowledge is a prankster's dream, writes
KIM BIELENBERG
If he happens to log on to the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia during
his summer holidays, Pat Kenny may be surprised to discover that he is
a "scientologist".
According to Wikipedia's utterly misleading entry for Pat Kenny, the
broadcaster "became a devout scientologist in the early 1970s".
The entry for the Late Late Show presenter was also claiming last week
that he presents the "acclaimed" RTE Radio 1 Show, "Granny-punching
with Pat Kenny".
Over a million articles have now appeared on Wikipedia; it has become
one of the world's greatest sources of information. Last week, it was
named by The Observer as the second-most influential website on the
internet.
But, as well as being a useful starting point for anyone looking for
information - including millions of school pupils and students - it is
also one of the world's leading repositories of comical misinformation
and nonsense.
Wikipedia's strength - the fact that it has an estimated 13,000
voluntary contributors - is also its greatest weakness. It invites
anyone - absolutely anyone - to add an entry or edit one that is
already there. This is the heart of the problem.
Wikipedia's article about Pat Kenny has been hit by pranksters before.
Previously, the world's most popular encyclopedia claimed that Pat
Kenny was suspected of being "The Midnight Commando, a Batman-style
vigilante who fought night crime in late 1970s Dublin" and "once
claimed to have travelled to space in a giant hat".
Pat Kenny is not the only famous person to have been targeted by
pranksters on Wikipedia. Until Wikipedia imposed restrictions on
changes to its article about Tony Blair, the entry was being changed
as many as 25 times a day. Pranksters have given him the middle name
'Whoop-de-Doo' and made the unfounded claim that he had posters of
Adolf Hitler on his wall as a student.
An entry for the singer Robbie Williams recently suggested that he
"makes his money by eating domestic pets in pubs in and around Stoke".
David Beckham has been described as a Chinese goalkeeper in the 18th
century, while George Bush was reported to be the frontman of 1980s
heavy metal band Poison
In the most notorious case of Wikipedia misinformation, an article on
the website falsely named a journalist John Seigenthaler as a suspect
in the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy and his brother,
Robert.
The howlers on Wikipedia would perhaps be unimportant if it was not
such a popular source of information. It is now the 17th most visited
site on the web. Experienced researchers see it as a useful starting
point, but know that they should take its information with a pinch of
salt. But as an unimpeachable source for students, it is decidedly
flawed.
Wikipedia began five years ago more or less as a lark. Jimmy Wales,
its founder, had been interested in encyclopedias ever since his
parents bought the World Book from a door-to-door salesman (and Wales
became obsessed with cross-referencing the additions that came with
each of the annual supplements).
Wales ran an earlier internet encyclopedia called Nupedia, which
relied on the old-fashioned technique of inviting experts to
contribute.
Wales's encyclopedia revolution began when he was introduced to the
wiki, a software tool that allows online collaborative writing and
editing. Wales sent out a message: "Humour me. Go there and add a
little article. It will take all of five or 10 minutes."
He expected nothing very much, but within a short time there were 600
contributions. Then word got out and in a couple of years, there were
20,000 entries. Now, with over one million entries and 14,000 hits a
second, it is a paradise for the anorak who wishes to achieve internet
immortality.
Refreshingly, perhaps, the encyclopedia that has been described as
"the world's brain" can devote as much space to characters from The
Simpsons as to a Nobel prize-winning writer.
There are substantial entries on such diverse Irish themes as Eamon De
Valera's car, the word scanger ("a derogatory term for a stereotypical
member of a youth subculture group in Dublin, Ireland") and Dustin the
Turkey.
About 80% of the contributors, who remain anonymous, are male. And the
vast majority of the pranksters who type in nonsense are believed to
be male teenagers with a lot of time on their hands (vandalism
increases at weekends and during school holidays).
In theory, its entries reflect a neutral point of view and the
material in articles must be verifiable and previously published.
Disputes inevitable arise, however. Feelings can run high and
arguments over various arcane facts can rumble on for months. For some
reason, "cheese" has been among the most contested entries, but you
can see that others might be more politically sensitive.
The entry for the Israel-Lebanon conflict was posted just six hours
after Hizbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a raid on July 12,
but it has since been edited by other contributors more than 4,000
times.
Jimmy Wales, who runs Wikipedia from Florida with a tiny permanent
staff, was initially reluctant to ban persistent vandals from the
site. But as it has grown, he has had to act more swiftly.
There are various entries that cannot be altered without special
clearance - the one on George W Bush has been vandalised so frequently
that it is often closed to editing for days. Other surprisingly
contentious pages that are protected from random abuse are those on
poodles, oranges and Chopin.
With its fast-and-loose editing system and its mass appeal, Wikipedia
has inevitably incurred the wrath of the more august encyclopedias.
An editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica acidly commented about
Wikipedia: "We can get the wrong answer to a question faster than our
fathers and mothers could find a pencil."
Although it has attracted many high-profile howlers, many of its
errors have been weeded out with time. Last year, a survey in Nature
magazine estimated that for every three errors in Encyclopaedia
Britannica, there are four on Wikipedia.
Is this good enough? The founder Jimmy Wales thinks so, given that his
site is free and much more comprehensive than Britannica, but Pat
Kenny and others might beg to differ.
Wacky Wiki
Five postings from the weird and wonderful world of Wikipedia
The moon: "The moon does not exist. It was blown up in a nuclear test
in the 1960s by a scientist named Malcolm Cohen. What you see now is a
projection so that people do not panic."
The Jules Rimet Trophy: "Named after the Fifa president Jules Rimet
who, in 1929, passed a vote to initiate the competition after a
bittersweet reunion with the gruff but lovable dwarf who took him in
as a child and raised him, despite his constant bout with rickets."
Malaga (province): "The Sun Coast (Costa del Sol) is a concrete
monster that swallows, burns, and spits back millions of happy
European tourists."
Vauxhall Corsa: "Popularly driven by retired ladies and hairdressers,
Corsas can be seen in their natural habitat on their roofs in a ditch
surrounded by livestock and insurance assessors."
Stepping: "The name for a process of locomotion - either forward or
backward movement engaged in by bipedal (i.e. humans and chickens) and
quadripedal (i.e. rats, deer) and multipedal (i.e. insects) organisms
consisting of putting the left foot forward, following with the right
foot and repeating. Monopedal organisms often experience difficulty in
stepping."
What the experts say
*Alan Byrne author of 'Thin Lizzy: Soldiers of Fortune', on
Wikipedia's Thin Lizzy entry:
"In general, it seems far better than the last time I saw it. There
isn't a huge amount that I can fault but as a resource, Wikipedia is
not a site I would usually use. More often than not, fan websites
contain far more detail."
*Justine McCarthy, journalist and author of 'Mary McAleese, The
Outsider' on the Mary McAleese entry:
"As a starting point, it's quite useful but it seems to gloss over
some of the more controversial episodes in her career. It does not
deal with the troubles she encountered in RTE, her role in the second
abortion referendum and her promise to hold a bonfire in the Aras
grounds on July 12."
*Bernard Share, author of 'Slanguage - A Dictionary of Irish Slang':
"I found it useless. It is not in any way comprehensive. When you look
up 'Irish slang', there is just a list of mostly vulgar terms. The
word 'conker' is included as Irish slang, even though it is used in
England as well."
(c) Irish Independent
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & http://www.unison.ie/
Hi,
There's a dispute going on that relates to the defamation discussion
that is ongoing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#.…
Specifically, the question is whether labeling someone a conspiracy
theorist is pejorative and a violation of policy, and if it's
sourced--if he is considered one--whether it should be in the article
lead. I agree with this: "It should not be WP editorial position to
characterize anyone in such a pejorative term (no matter how accurate),
but presenting outside characterization is OK."
But other editors are strongly disagreeing on this article and related
ones, and I would like some clarification, especially as the subjects of
these articles are known to read these articles.
--
Regards,
Joe
G'day Steve,
> In the context of WP:OFFICE, as well as more recently, Jimbo and
> others have written somethings about "hurt feelings," as if it was a
> policy ( WP:CODDLE maybe) which could circumvent even important
> policy ( WP:NPOV maybe). Could you explain this?
We take a generally lax view towards rumour-mongering on Wikipedia.
This is partly due to the CWE[0] (witness, for instance, the users
who've decided that since {{fact}}[1] exists, nothing, however idiotic,
may be removed from an article as untrue); partly due to Wikipedia's
perceived "anything goes" values (something to do, I believe, with
"anyone can edit" and anti-elitism); and partly because Wikipedia is so
damned big that a poor edit (e.g. Siegenthaler[2]) can go for some time
unnoticed, if placed in the wrong spot.
The new(ish) emphasis on the biographies of living persons is there to
acknowledge that, while we should strive for top-notch articles on any
subject, a poor article about a person who is alive today and capable of
being affected by the content of the article is particularly damaging,
and cleaning up such an article should be a higher priority.
Another problem is the famous Wikipedia "Fuck You" Response, wherein a
person with a complaint about the content of their article is told where
to go, not because their complaints are groundless, but because We Shall
Publish What We Like And To Hell With You. If certain editors need to
be reminded that such a response is immature, offensive, and potentially
dangerous, then I see no problem with doing so.
> I agree with the idea of treating bios with care, but that does not
> necessarily necessitate the use of an entirely different methodology
> than any other wiki page - including censoring talk pages. You may as
> well start a biowiki that operates under entirely different rules.
BLP at its best (I'm not saying there isn't any instruction creep and
CWE cruft appearing at the edges) is not about establishing a double
standard. It's about making damn sure the standards we should be
applying to other sections of the encyclopaedia as well are followed on
the biographies of living persons.
Untrue statements should not be published in our encyclopaedia. Since
the project is so big (and we have contributors who are misinformed,
stupid, or just plain malicious), problems are unavoidable. By being
strict about the biographies of living persons, we're trying to crack
down on problems that can actually hurt people here and now. True
statements which happen to raise the ire of an article's subject,
however, should remain, and insisting on a reliable source for such
statements simply gives us something to point to next time the article's
subject comes around to complain.
For some editors, WP:BLP is the difference between "fuck you, man, you
can't tell us what to do" and "I'm sorry you feel aggrieved. Our
article about you is well-sourced, however, and contains no errors of
fact as far as we can see. If you dispute the content of a particular
statement we've made, please point to a reliable source providing an
alternate theory and we'll be happy to update the article. Thank you
for helping us improve Wikipedia."
The talk about being sued --- which I know you didn't mention but I
thought I'd throw in here --- is really a red herring. There are people
out there who will only do the Right Thing if threatened with something
big and heavy. This saddens me, and I don't doubt it saddens you. It's
my view that we ought to do the Right Thing because, well, it's the
bloody *Right Thing*, y'know? Unfortunately, some people --- some
*Wikipedians*, believe it or not --- refuse to do so unless you write it
down in some policy, or (in extreme cases) press the Guilt Button by
telling them they're going to get Wikipedia sued. No, really!
Of course, this tends to backfire rather often. Human beings, even the
human beings who take this view of the world, have rather good brains
and are capable of assessing situations for themselves. What this means
is, some people will ignore stupid shit in an article if they decide
that it won't end in a court action, because after all, the only reason
we're trying to improve the quality of this encyclopaedia is to avoid
getting sued. Then we get to the copyright issue, where people say,
"Sure, it's stealing, but I've looked at it myself and I believe we're
going to get plenty of warning before anyone tries to sue over it, so
that makes it legal." Sometimes I suspect it would be better if the
"you'll see us in court" genie had never been let out of the bottle.
[0] Chinese Whispers Effect. No, I'm not going to shut up about it.
[1] Which creates a superscript "citation needed" marker, for those
unaware.
[2] Have I spelled it correctly yet?
--
Mark Gallagher
"I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it."
(Raymond Chandler, /The Big Sleep/)
Thanks, Erik, for giving me a heads-up that this discussion is
happening.
Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
>> I think we need to be very clear in a lot of different places that PR
>> firms editing Wikipedia is something that we frown upon very very
>> strongly. The appearance of impropriety is so great that we
>> should make
>> it very very strongly clear to these firms that we do not approve of
>> what they would like to do.
And Erik Moeller <eloquence(a)gmail.com> replied:
> My take on it is that if we push PR industries to far to the outside,
> they will just do their work clandestinely. This will damage
> Wikipedia's reputation far more if it becomes known, especially when
> an article that has 200+ revisions was started and carefully groomed
> by a paid propagandist.
I'm not sure how this discussion originated, but I think Erik has a
point. It sounds like the proposed restriction on PR firms is a
special case of Wikipedia's general rule against editing articles
about oneself or one's own organization, in which PR firms are seen
as agents editing on behalf of their clients. The issue of "editing
articles about yourself" has always been tricky, in part because it
exposes a paradox in Wikipedia's editorial policy:
(1) Editing articles about oneself is strongly discouraged, if not
outright prohibited; yet
(2) Anonymous editing is allowed, which makes it difficult if not
impossible to enforce the policy against self-editing. (In fact, the
policy against self-editing creates an INCENTIVE to edit anonymously
as a means of evading the restriction.)
I realize that Wikipedia's existing policies have a lot of history
and inertia behind them, but I have long felt that the policy against
self-editing is problematic. I think it should be revised to the
following:
Editing an article about yourself or your client is permitted, under
certain conditions:
-- CREATING articles about yourself or your client is not allowed,
only editing of existing articles.
-- Self-editing is allowed if limited to adding or correcting
noncontroversial facts. For example, if the article about me gives an
incorrect date of birth, I should be allowed to correct it.
-- People should not self-edit when dealing with controversial or
disputed facts or interpretations. Any such disputes should be
addressed on the talk page and left to others to resolve, and can be
submitted to arbitration if they are not satisfactorily resolved.
-- People who wish to edit an article about themselves or their
client are strongly encouraged to do so transparently, by disclosing
that they are editing an article about themselves on the article's
talk page.
The problem with the current policy is that is is gradually expanding
into an umbrella that excludes whole classes of people from
participating in Wikipedia. Members of the U.S. Congress and their
staffs were banned (although they could easily circumvent the ban by
simply editing from their homes rather than their offices). Now we're
talking about restricting PR firms. It's easy to come up with other
classes of people who could also be restricted from editing on
similar grounds. What about lobbyists? Employees of think tanks?
Trade associations? Labor unions? Should Christian missionaries and
clergy be told not to edit articles about Christianity?
A restriction on editing "articles about yourself or your client" is
also a poor fit with the problem that the current policy is
attempting to solve, because some PR firms do work that is not about
their client but rather aimed at attacking their client's
COMPETITORS. One example that we wrote about recently involved a PR
firm which circulated a claim that Apple's video iPods were dangerous
to children because they could be used to download and view
pornography. The client in this case was Sony, which makes a rival
MP3 player. But how would you enforce a policy that says PR firms
working for Sony can't edit Wikipedia articles about Apple products?
Another recent example: the DCI Group, a PR firm whose clients
include Exxon, recently got caught anonymously circulating a video on
YouTube that mocked Al Gore's activism on global warming. Al Gore was
not their client, and the video didn't mention Exxon at all. But does
it make sense to have a policy that says employees of PR firms can't
edit articles about politicians?
Preventing this sort of thing from happening on Wikipedia would
require a policy that forbids people who work for PR firms not only
from editing articles about their clients, but also from editing
articles about any topics of potential interest to their clients. A
policy of this nature would be so vague that it would be a nightmare
to enforce -- especially since many PR firms do not disclose their
client lists.
On the other hand, a policy that requires PR firms to be transparent
about disclosing whenever they edit an article related to a client or
a client's interests, coupled with the restrictions that I outlined
above, would be reasonably enforceable. PR firms would be discouraged
from anonymous or POV editing by the strong possibility that they
would be identified and embarrassed for doing so.
--Sheldon Rampton
On 22/08/06, Kate Garry <KGarry(a)newstalk.ie> wrote:
> I appreciate you taking the time to talk with George this evening on his
> drive-time show 'The Right Hook'. Also taking part in the discussion will be
> Irish Times and Newstalks Technology Correspondent, Karlin Lillington.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hook
That went really nicely!
I had locked [[George Hook]] myself before the interview. He noticed
and mentioned it in the chat, so I unlocked it live on air (and have
noted it was unlocked at his request).
Please don't lock it again, but do keep a close watch on it over the
next day or so to the best of living bio standards!
- d.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Kenny
There's been a pile of vandalism, a mention in the Irish Independent
this morning and a libelous email purporting to be the Wikipedia
article on him circulating, which latter I just got a call from the
Irish 'Sun' about. So please watchlist and stamp on vandalism.
- d.
On 22/08/06, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm doing an interview about this on News Talk 106 at 6pm. I've
> attached the original article they're talking about.
Now to be on at 5:30pm.
- d.
Sorry if this is all spelt out on policy pages, but I can't find
it clearly enough. I'm wondering how self-contained articles
need to be with regard to citations.
Take an example (but please answer on the principle and
not on the example). Suppose an article has this:
[[Babe Ruth]] hit 60 home runs in the 1927 season.
Now someone comes along and slaps a "citation required"
tag on it. Someone else takes off the tag on the grounds
that the WP article on Babe Ruth is linked right there and
has copious citations that covers this fact.
Who is right? We aren't supposed to use Wikipedia as a
source, but I always took that to mean that Wikipedia is
not an -ultimate- source for anything, not that a wikilink
can never be an adequate way to show where the source
for something can be found.
Zero.
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On 21 Aug 2006 at 22:39, "Alphax (Wikipedia email)"
<alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve Bennett wrote:
> > When your friend says "hey I asked around and everyone wants to go
> > bowling", do you say "what do you mean, 'everyone'? Did you get at
> > least 75%?" No, you accept that they're not out to screw you over, and
> > a good result will be achieved...
>
> ... except that sometimes, you need to put your foot down and say "There
> is no way that we're going bowling; you guys /always/ suggest we go
> bowling, and it's a dumb idea, because we always end up complaining how
> boring and stupid it is. We're going ice skating" and everyone realises
> "Oh yeah, you're right, how stupid of us" and you end up going ice
> skating, which is a far better idea than going bowling.
Relevantly, you should see the [[Abilene paradox]].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
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