WikiEN-l March 2007

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

181 participants
397 discussions

Re: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 24 Mar '07

24 Mar '07

Ray Saintonge wrote > Slim Virgin wrote: > > >On 3/23/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon(a)prwatch.org> wrote: > >>Wikipedia is a big enough topic that it attracts all kinds of > >>reporters, all kinds of criticism and all kinds of praise. Overall, I > >>think it has gotten fairly sympathetic press. > >Yes, indeed, though I sense that's coming to an end. > Yeah. The alternative would be for the reporters to learn what putting > Wikipedia in proper perspective means. They might even have to check > their facts. That would not be the easy way out for them. :-) Sheldon is talking good sense, Sarah and Ray are not. The press will print bad-news stories about WP, but that's because such stories are _news_. As David Gerard has just said, the hacks like WP and are well disposed towards us. That doesn't mean they are obliged to make propaganda for WP. If you take open-source software as a comparison, I doubt mainstream journalism has ever had the slightest interest in putting that in "proper perspective". With that as baseline, WP has already done well. A single story about citation in college work probably will have more thoughtful content than you could find about Linux distributions in a month of Sundays. Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR
by SonOfYoungwood＠aol.com 24 Mar '07

24 Mar '07

Actually, in looking at Jimbo's statement, it doesn't look like he's making an extremely generalized statement. I think he's referring to controversial claims or those that can easily suffer from POV issues. If that's the case, then this shouldn't be extended to all primary sources. ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com.

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Looking to interview Wikipedians
by Benjamin Keith Johnson 24 Mar '07

24 Mar '07

I am a researcher seeking to interview Wikipedia contributors of any and all levels of experience and involvement. In-depth, one hour interviews will be conducted over the phone or email beginning March 27. Compensation for your time will be provided: a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com. Must be 18+ and U.S. resident. Contact Benjamin Johnson, Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, Michigan State University, by email at john2429(a)msu.edu or by phone at 517.230.1272. Thanks! Benjamin

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Talk pages, what a freakin mess
by stevertigo 23 Mar '07

23 Mar '07

Wondering about making talk pages a little less cluttered, by usage of whatever conventions we can come up with. Ray made the salient point about my [[WP:TARCH]] idea that its too dependent on manual labor. Someone else pointed out the nice work done at [[Talk:Intelligent Design]] , which is probably the most extreme case AFAIK. As a simple idea, what do people think about using bold headers for talk comments instead of the typically clutted indented thread style: ;Myname Comment comment comment - mysig ;Responders name Comment comment comment - sig etc. -Stevertigo

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway?
by charles.r.matthews＠ntlworld.com 23 Mar '07

23 Mar '07

stevertigo wrote > Is the community *not to be trusted > with certain policy changes? And is Jimbo therefore expected to take a > more direct of formalized role in this area? I don't think 'formalizing' anything helps. After all we spend a high proportion of this list's bandwidth on typical 'hard cases make bad law' objections to more formal formulations of well known WP principles, and that tends to be hot air. We have had Bagehot already, the theorist of the stage machinery of the British constitution. I think another and more up-to-date analogy is the [[golden share]]. We have the "voting is evil" version of that. De facto things can happen on enWP that Jimbo really doesn't agree with; but de jure one can't call that a consensus. It is kind of indicative when a discussion about whether there is consensus on a policy page change turns into a massive debate ... Charles ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam

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Re: [WikiEN-l] purpose served by anonymity / unmoderated edits
by Sheldon Rampton 23 Mar '07

23 Mar '07

Ray Saintonge wrote: > My first impression from your response is that you would end up with > something even more complicated than what I would imagine. :- > ( While > I see the value of having this ones preferences set to have a certain > version as preferred, the drive-by viewer just looking for information > is not likely to know about this. He can, however, be guided by > whether > an article has (in big numbers) a reliability rating of 2.6 or 7.9. I think user rating of article versions ought to be as simple as possible: one-click approval. It ought to be as easy as clicking on the "watch this article" tab to add an article to your watchlist. This means that all users do is decide yes or no for approval. Anything further adds complexity to the system but offers little gain in utility. I don't think it's a good idea to try to have each user attach a numerical rating to their approval level or to break out approval into different categories. Both of those would just complicate the system. For example, if we have a numerical rating, what numerical range should we use for the scale? 1 through 3? 1 through 5? 1 through 10? If it's 1 through 10, does 1 mean "exceptional" and 10 mean "horrible" or is it vice versa? These are trivial questions, but they have to be answered, and the interface has to convey the answers to these questions so plainly that even new users don't get confused. With Wikipedia, moreover, users have the ability to edit articles themselves to come up with a version that they are willing to approve, so there's less need to rate versions according to DEGREE of approval. If someone sees an article that they would rate 7 on a scale of 1 to 10, they can just edit it themselves into a condition where they think it rates 10 and then approve that version. And if someone subsequently edits it into an even BETTER condition, they can just click to approve the new version, superseding their previous choice. I think it would be an even bigger mistake to try to set up a system that scores article versions according to multiple criteria such as "accuracy," "neutrality," "comprehensiveness," etc. Not only would this complicate the rating system and the user interface, it would inevitably be arbitrary in its choice of rating criteria, because there are any number of criteria that could be used, and the system would have to arbitrarily choose a subset: OK, we'll rate according to "accuracy" and "neutrality" but not according to "clarity" or "fairness" or "grammar" or "well-referenced" or "suitable for children" or "appropriate use of graphics." -------------------------------- | Sheldon Rampton | Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts | Weapons of Mass Deception | Banana Republicans | The Best War Ever -------------------------------- | Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting: | http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html | | Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting: | https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118 --------------------------------

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Re: [WikiEN-l] NBC's story on Wikipedia
by Sheldon Rampton 23 Mar '07

23 Mar '07

On 3/22/07, Fastfission <fastfission(a)gmail.com> wrote: > You'd think these journalists would want to present something at least > a little bit interesting, maybe unique I think it's as mistaken to lump all journalists together as it would be to lump together all Wikipedians or all bloggers. Some, probably most, journalists are indeed guilty of superficial pack journalism. (That's why they call it a pack.) However, you can also find quality reporting that avoids cliches and genuinely informs. Wikipedia is a big enough topic that it attracts all kinds of reporters, all kinds of criticism and all kinds of praise. Overall, I think it has gotten fairly sympathetic press. -------------------------------- | Sheldon Rampton | Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts | Weapons of Mass Deception | Banana Republicans | The Best War Ever -------------------------------- | Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting: | http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html | | Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting: | https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118 --------------------------------

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Reverting banned users, and users who engage
by Andries Krugers Dagneaux 23 Mar '07

23 Mar '07

>> The merits aside, again... it's specifically for if we know its them >>(they >> announce it is them) or fits the standard form for a puppet/sock, why >> shouldn't they be nuked on sight? >They should be, to discourage banned editors from violating their >bans. It takes some pretty bad behavior to warrant a banning on >Wikipedia, and a great deal of effort to get a ban. >Jay. Jay, if you mean to include topic-banned users then I disagree. I was topic-banned from [[Sathya Sai Baba]] by the arbcom though they described my editing behavior there as "generally responsible". I have repeatedly but unsuccessfully requested several members of the arbcom (Kyril, Fred, UninvitedCompany) to provide diffs that show that I engage in activism or disruptive editing on that article. Andries Krugers Dagneaux User:Andries

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Re: [WikiEN-l] U.S. Intelligence uses Wikipedia
by Daniel P. B. Smith 23 Mar '07

23 Mar '07

On the one hand, one would assume that Wikipedia is more reliable than _most_ sources U. S. Intelligence uses. On the other hand... imagine that someone from the Policy Counter- Terrorism Evaluations Group gallops into the President's office excitedly waving a computer printout and saying "We have hard, actionable intelligence that Iran's so-called 'centrifuge tubes' are actually intercontinental missiles, which they have given to Al-Qaeda to fill with radioactive anthrax..." ...and it's a Wikipedia article dated April 1st and the last diff is by someone with a funny name.

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NBC's story on Wikipedia
by SonOfYoungwood＠aol.com 23 Mar '07

23 Mar '07

I was very disappointed with the story for several reasons: 1. I understand that they only have a few minutes to cover this story, but the story was one-sided for the most part. What was the "erroneous" information? Was it a date? A whole paragraph? Some vandalism? Also, did the professor even bother fixing it? Otherwise, he has no right to complain about an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. 2. The reporter demonstrated how vandalism works without even mentioning the thousands of people who spend hours and hours each day reverting nonsense and issuing blocks. I always thought the press was supposed to be somewhat balanced. 3. I am glad they mentioned the fact that people should not be using this in a paper in most situations. They got that right, but they singled out Wikipedia without mentioning that encyclopedias AS A WHOLE are not good sources for papers. ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com.

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WikiEN-l March 2007