Mainstream scholarly books seldom make clear which items in a bibliography are particularly significant or considered authoritative. Everything is just lost in a long list.
Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Andrew Gray [mailto:shimgray@gmail.com]
>Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 01:41 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A much neglected aspect of quality - Bibliographies
>
>On 30/06/07, Gwern Branwen <gwern0(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> What bothers me is the unclearness of the idea of a
>> 'bibliography'. I've run into this in a number of my articles
>> - in an article about an author, say, does a Bibliography
>> contain a comprehensive listing of his works, ...
>
>Not to mention comprehensive bibliographies of a single work:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Battle#Publication_history
>
>(I twitch a little any time I see a single ISBN quoted for a book when
>it isn't clearly referring to a specific edition, but I guess it's
>better than nothing)
>
>--
>- Andrew Gray
> andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
>
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>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Daniel R. Tobias [mailto:dan@tobias.name]
>Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 02:13 PM
>To: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Blog finds WIkipedia makes better-informed public than BBC
>
>http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004665.html
>
>Also, the availability of responsible discussion in alternative media
>offers at least a small contrary force to the surge of misinformation
>from traditional sources. As a result, those who consult Google or
>Wikipedia -- with an open-minded and skeptical attitude, of course --
>are likely to be better informed than those who rely on sources like
>the BBC. Perhaps this is the best outcome that we will get, but it's
>not the best that we could hope for.
That's the difference all right. It is not that Wikipedia does not contain errors, but unlike the mainstream media and other authorities it is possible to correct them and, if there is doubt discuss the basis of the information.
No edit wars with Katie Couric, Lou Dobbs, or Dubya. If they get it wrong, too bad. No correction permitted and no inquiry into the validity of their pronouncement.
Fred
Like many dilemmas faced by Wikipedia, we need to do several things: cite the references actually used; cite easily accessed sources of information, especially online sources; and point the reader to the seminal articles and authorities in the field. These categories need to be set forth in clearly identifiable sections.
Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mak [mailto:makwik@gmail.com]
>Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 12:18 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] A much neglected aspect of quality - Bibliographies
>
>I see Wikipedia cited more and more as a possible first step for serious
>research. I have seen more and more people suggest that Wikipedia should
>encompass all or most of the articles included in specialist encyclopedias,
>such as the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (my personal
>favorite). I have also seen many more calls for working on quality of
>articles, rather than quantity. I see a major lack in terms of using WP for
>deeper research, rather than quick information gathering, when comparing
>Wikipedia to these specialist encyclopedias. This lack is in well developed
>and defined bibliographies.
>
>I am not talking about people citing their sources and sticking them in
>reference sections, which I also think is important. I'm talking about a
>limited review of the literature, mentioning which works are considered
>seminal, which are standard, which give the best overview for the
>uninitiated, basically a good bibliography which is not too bloated and
>which is not too biased.
>
>We frequently talk about how students should not use Wikipedia as a sole
>source, but as a starting point. I see the best way for Wikipedia to be a
>starting point is to give the basic information, and then point people to
>the very best information. The best books or journal articles will not
>necessarily be the ones which were to hand when a person was first writing
>the article, or when someone was getting rid of {{fact}} templates. In the
>best of all possible worlds they were, but it's more likely they were the
>most easily accessible, and may have been online resources which were not as
>good as what would be available in your local library or with a subscription
>to JSTOR or similar.
>
>I would like to encourage everyone to think about how to create great
>bibliographies, especially for subjects where you could easily be snowed
>under with relevant works, or where the best literature is not necessarily
>obvious.
>
>And some questions about Bibliographies - should we create them in separate
>pages or namespaces so they can be better controlled and saved from
>spammers? Is ISBN really the best way to identify and find books? Should we
>think about a partnership with OCLC/WorlCat or some other database so that
>people can easily find the books mentioned locally? Can we simplify our
>templates for citing books, or should we make them even more complex so they
>fit with the MARC standards <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARC_standards> ?
>
>Sorry for the long rant, but this is something which has been bothering me
>about Wikipedia for the last year and a half, and where I don't feel like
>much progress has been made in terms of quality.
>Makemi
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>http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
I've always believed that eventually, a sort of seismic shift would be
noticeable on Wikipedia where a certain tipping point was reached.
Eventually, the number of both active users and active admins would reach a
point where any individual voice was completely lost in the crowd, on a
consistent and constant basis. We're not there yet--not by a long shot. But
it's now, if not on the immediate horizon, only a few rotations of the
seasons away. Evidence:
1. [[WP:ANI]]. This, xfD, and AIV are arguably the busiest places on-Wiki.
ANI, for a sole centralized place, IS the most centralized. So much so,
that's spawned numerous spin-off pages to handle the load. We have ANI, AN,
BLPN, CSN, AIV, tons. Despite this, the rotation and archiving on ANI
*still* has to be already set to 24 hours now. Remember two years ago? A
year ago? Remember how much quieter that part of the pond used to be?
2. User counts. There are unquestionably many more users on Wikipedia--and
vocal editors--than when I started. The community overall has *never* been
this busy. The busier it gets, the busier it will get in turn, which will
lead to ever more admins...
3. Admin counts. Look at RFA--there are a dozen people practically up now
for nominations at any given time, and virtually all are promoted. I predict
we'll see 20 open RfAs at one time by the next midwinter, or spring 2008 at
the absolute latest.
4. Knee-jerk over-reactions. In my last email, I said (rather indelicately,
unfortunately):
On 6/5/07, Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I still assert quite well that the "old timers" going nuts of late, trying
> to forcefully close down discussion on various matters, is a *direct*
> reaction to the fact that Wikipedia has now grown beyond their perceived
> personal control, and the fact that any one individual or small clique each
> day, each week, and each passing month will grow ever more irrelevant and
> obscure. Where a lone senior editor or admin or three previously had
> tremendous power, that is no longer the case, and many people are willing to
> challenge them--and successfully. I saw that even a beaurocrat on the
> Armedblowfish RFA was reverted, and told to knock it off by a group of
> editors for overstepping the bounds of his role.
>
> This is, overall, a good thing in the long term--the more the community
> collectively drives matters, the more irrational and extremist voices on any
> and all sides will be drowned out, swept away, and largely ignored as they
> gnash their teeth and wail at the walls. Within 1-3 years, the current
> 'leaders' of the community--no offense, guys, you brought us here, after
> all--will need to adjust to the fact that they're just "another user". I
> think the hyper-aggressive tone is evidence of this--the, "Discussion is
> over" sorts of proclamations and whatnot.
>
On the one hand, any and all people "in power" will be de-valued if this
occurs. Your voice, my voice--we're just one more person in the crowd if
this comes to pass. No one person will be able to ram anything, good or bad,
theoretically down Wikipedia's throat as it happens now all too frequently.
Appealing to populism will be how things will need to get done. The mass
titanic shifts with BLP currently underway--where a very small minority of
users are very aggressively trying to change the tone of something more to
their suiting... will be impossibly harder to get to stick. On the other
hand, populist ideas--BADSITES, anyone?--will be able to gain traction
easily. It's the equivalent of screaming "9/11" during a political rally;
people will stand up and cheer simply because you said 9/11. This will open
Wikipedia to all manner of possible disruption, unless the crowd is able to
see it for what it is. On the other hand, *good* populist ideas could spread
just as quickly and correctly. But lone people or ultra-minority groups
screaming "BLP NINJA ATTACK! BADSITES! TRUTHERS CONSPIRACIES! FLAVOR OF THE
DAY CONTROVERSY!" will be relegated to the back of the room, patted on the
head, and told to stop disrupting.
If this happens, will it be a good thing? If not, why not?
Regards,
Joe
http://www.joeszilagyi.com
The afd process could not possibly be responsible for that change in
the graph. Running flat out it could only process about 200 articles
per day. More usually it runs between 100 and 150 per day. Even if
every single listed article were deleted it wouldn't dent the growth
rate. A more realistic estimation of the deletion rate at AfD would
be about 75%, or perhaps 85% if you regard a redirect, merge or
userfication as a deletion for the purpose of counting the number of
distinct articles in mainspace.
To estimate our article creation rate I used special:newpages to count
the number of articles created two weeks ago (16 June). This gave me
1866. These 1866 articles are what remains after two weeks during
which the worst are speedy deleted. So I think it's a pretty reliable
predictor for the growth of article count. The encyclopedia is
growing by approximately 1900 articles per day.
We've deleted 1726 items from article space in the past 24 hours by
speedy deletion, proposed deletion or articles for deletion.
Notice that the number of articles deleted daily and the growth rate
(after deletions) are very close. Put it another way, we're deleting
nearly half of all new article starts.
Now going back to Lih's pretty graphs, I see firstly that my figure of
1900 is congruent with his graph for "increase per day". He shows the
figure hovering between 1500 and 2000 per day during the past two
quarters. This is a pretty reasonable growth rate and very much the
kind of thing I'd expect. Li is missing the kind of detail on
deletions that I've provided here.
Notice that this growth rate of 1900 per day is still rather higher
than it was (according to Li's graph) when we turned off anonymous
article creations in late 2005. We haven't turned off the faucet,
though we may have avoided a flood.
One thing I don't really understand about Li's graph is that he chose
to scale it so that the increase per day graph is overlaid exactly on
the "Number of articles" graph. This would only make sense if he were
positing exponential growth (the first differential of an exponential
is also an exponential). But exponential growth is not possible in an
environment with limited resources. Matching the two graphs like that
misleads the viewer, who looks at the growth graph and thinks
something catastrophic must have happened because it isn't rising
exponentially.
The rest is just a curve-fitting exercise. Garbage in, garbage out.
The truth is (as always) we're getting more article starts than we
know what to do with so we're junking half of them, those that we've
decided aren't promising.
>From the b3ta.com newsletter:
: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE
Make something cool and tell us about it. If
you are in it then people will see your stuff.
Things we'd really like to see include
* COOKING WITH LIGHT BULBS - wrap bacon round a
100-watt lamp and see if it cooks.
* A LION DOING A SHIT ON A TOILET - someone
emailed in the old classic 'cat has crap on
bog' link, and we'd like to see Hollywood
special effects doing this BIGGER! BETTER! And
with zoo animals.
* WHICKYPEEDIAH.ORG - write a script that fills
Wikipedia full of amoosing typos
I understand a b3ta challenge a few months ago was responsible for a
spate of spurious pop star death notices ...
- d.
> "White Cat" wrote: It is not supposed to
> be a vote at all. Vote based decisions
> happen in democracies and we are not one.
"Vote calls" and "democracies", that's mob, er, "majority" rules, right?
And it really means: "majority of voters" rule (or more accurately:
"majority of vote COUNTERS" rule).
Actually, democracies, constitutional democracies, republics, capitalist
constitutional democracies - they all work differently, and sadly, I
find that few people who live within them really understand how they
work ... or how that don't work. We only revisit the "what are we/what
kind of governance do we have?" question when someone who thought they
were in power finds they've been ousted or bested by someone else.
Let's define our terms in a way that we all can agree on (oh, is that
"consensus"?), but that really requires that we pre-agree to
subsequently agree on something that meets a standard, and that's
usually called a "constitution" of founding documents or rules (all
subject to interpretation by anyone wielding power!). So, if I were to
suggest that our terms should be defines by a processional order of
references, perhaps like this:
Is it in Google [define:x]? Yes, no?
Then try Dictionary.com, yes, no?
... and so on.
We need more than one place for a definition, and Wikipedia.org probably
should NOT be a primary, original research, non-neutral (self concerned)
point of view resource for what's acceptable and what's not at
Wikipedia.org! Waaaa!
So, let's share the meaning of our words before we end up arguing over
different things. Then we can argue! ;-) That "should" make sure we're
talking about the same thing, and might even reduce arguments. For
instance, put 3 people in one room and ask them to define "democracy"
and I'll bet in 5 minutes you'll have 6 different answers!
Here goes:
Consensus = majority (Dictionary.com)
Constitution = fundamental set of laws (Dictionary.com)
Democracy = people-rule (versus God rules, or the Boss rules, versus
anarchy rules, er, where no one rules and there are no rules -
Dictionary.com)
... so what do you all think the way it "should" be here on
Wikipedia.org?
Democracy?
Anarchy?
Boss-based?
Constitution based?
In the US, I see a respect for (the evils of) human nature - that
everyone will want power - so, in order to prevent anyone from
(completely) taking over (forever), they split power across (at least) 3
groups:
- rule makers,
- rule executers, and
- rule assessors.
They all refer to a "constitution" which states that all powers come
from the people, and the state has no powers except what the people give
the state. All three divisions argue over that constitution. The rule
makes try to modify it. The rule assessors try to toss out the
modifications. The rule executors try to get around it or ignore it.
It's not pretty, but, given people's greed and hunger for power, this
pivots strong and highly motivated groups of people against each other
(rather than against the people and the little guy, which still happens
anyway). This all conspires somehow to (a) prevent all hell from
breaking loose and (b) maybe actually, occasionally, by accident,
perhaps, but maybe actually doing some good ... now and again. Maybe.
My point, and I do have one, is for us all to stay *on point*, to refine
our understanding of each other, and what words mean to each other, and
make sure we're talking about the exact same specific thing before we go
off half cocked. Then we can go off half cocked! ;-)
--
I thought a wiki was "come one come all". I see some people want
ownership, and not just in response to vandalism.
So, if we are not a constitutional democracy with division of powers, if
we're not a mob, er, "majority" rules organization, then what are we?
-- Peter Blaise
PS - I think there's a truism to the fact that wikis grow most when
so-called "authority" and security are invisible, where anonymity is not
an impediment to immediate contribution, and patience, tolerance,
acceptance, and equivalent consideration are a well practiced virtues
See:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Aauthorityhttp://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Apatiencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolerancehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptancehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_consideration_of_interestshttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Avirtue
+++++
That said, we can already identify Gregory Kohs, Jonathan Barber and
Jon Awbrey laying out their grudges for all the world to see yet
again.
Guy (JzG)
+++++
...and you, right in the middle of it -- yet again.
Guy, have you ever wondered what would happen if you took a break from
Wikipedia for a month? Just a month. Could you even stand it, or would
your fingers explode from Snide Typing Withdrawal Syndrome?
--
Gregory Kohs
Cell: 302.463.1354