I asked a question here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee_Elections…
and here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Arbcom_elections
basically I think it's a good idea to confirm the voting system for our
arbcom elections, including how the election winners will be ascertained, in
nice good time :-)
Interestingly (to me!) - a question concerning the role of the Foundation /
The Board / Jimbo has come up, and I realise that I don't really know how
accurate my understanding that the Foundation aren't really involved is.
Further - User:UltraExact mentioned that s/he might have seen some analysis
on past elections done somewhere (or maybe discussion of exactly this kind!)
- so I thought I'd ask if anyone else has come across it, or could even link
to it :-)
I'll just myself quote from the wiki page above; "I'd assume (and propose,
and support) the straight forward election of 7 people to the vacant seats,
with seats 6 and 7 filling the recently resigned posts, and hence being up
for re-election sooner than their peers. By 'straight forward' I mean
'highest percentage of support' - and I really hope that this is
uncontroversial enough to get broad approval well ahead of time :-) "
I'd be very interested to hear thoughts and further discussion both here,
and 'on-wiki' :-)
best,
Peter
PM.
G'day Phil,
> On Sep 24, 2008, at 1:55 PM, Oldak Quill wrote:
> > I don't think deletionists come to Wikipedia to delete. Perhaps
> they
> > have a strict idea of what should be in an encyclopedia (based on
> > print encyclopedias), and since pop culture does not fit into this
> > model, they wage war against these articles?
> I think deletionists don't come to Wikipedia at all - I've never
> encountered a non-editor who is bothered by the strange stuff on
> Wikipedia. To most people outside the bubble, it seems to be one of
>
> our most beloved features.
Deletionists are made, not born. Well, maybe ...
I used to be very hot on the idea of deleting stuff I didn't like --- whether it was because it was insufficiently notable, or not a good enough article, or I just didn't like the colour. I think part of it was I had this idea of Wikipedia being an attempt to reproduce a traditional encyclopaedia, except written by the masses (in the same way, it took me a fair while to get used to the reference fetish when it arrived). If anything as time goes by, I've become *more* eventualist, *more* happy to let sub-standard articles lie and hope that they get better over time. This was partly because I learnt more about the ideals of the project, but mostly because I became disillusioned with how poorly thought-out the rationales of deletionists tended to be, and by how little time they were willing to spend thinking about things before flipping the kill switch.
However, I *can* see how events might take one the opposite way. When you consider that over time, Wikipedians tend to develop more pride and more feelings of ownership, and get more of a sense that they are responsible for the state of the encyclopaedia, it becomes more important to them that it be perfect *now*. This means: no poorly-written articles (in other words: no works-in-progress). This means: No articles on embarrassing subjects like pop culture (in other words: none of our most popular work).
> Deletionism seems to be an internal phenomenon - a switch that gets
>
> thrown in some editors where they come to the conclusion that
> deletion
> is necessary to improve the project. But it's an internal phenomenon
> -
> something Wikipedia seems to provoke in editors who have been here
> after a while.
I've found that, since I stopped contributing to the project and started approaching it only as a reader, that I've gone a long way away from deletionism. I find, as a reader, there are very few subjects I'd be surprised or disappointed to find are included in Wikipedia (they do exist, mostly in pop culture: when I go to read about something I'm unfamiliar with, and find unhelpful, in-universe drivel instead). For the most part, I'm surprised and disappointed *not* to be able to learn about something esoteric or less notable than some what prefer.
A big, broad, wonderful WIkipedia: readers love it. As readers ourselves, we should know this by now.
Cheers,
--
Mark Gallagher
0439 704 975
http://formonelane.net/
"Even potatoes have their bad days, Igor." --- Count Duckula
What makes me uncomfortable about this is that it's such a (for the most part) insignificant article being promoted to a FA and on the main page. Not only is it eerily short, its subject is incredibly obscure. Many of the C1K are still at start-class and B-class, yet people still get this to the front page. Not saying it's bad; a meaningless featured article is better than not having one at all, but I think it would be greatly beneficial to the project and our public perception if we were to put more stress on the core articles. When people say "Wikipedia is a bad resource", they're not talking about a social hygiene movie from 1946, they're talking about the 118 chemical elements, many of whose articles are B or Start.
(I was working on Lutetium; halfway through my research and before I could reformat the article I got indefinitely banned).
I emailed Jimmy Wales about adding a "real" discussion function to
Wikipedia. He suggested that I post to this mailing list to start a
discussion. Below are the 4 emails we exchanged. What do you think?
1. My initial email:
--------------------------------
Hi,
This is Will. I am the co-founder of Nabble, a project for making
discussions better.
I have been following the discussions on the wikia mailing list
(http://n2.nabble.com/Wikia-Search-f738587.html). I like your product
design work and philosophy, for example, "avoid excessive a priori
thinking", we do the same in our work.
I write to you because you don't seem to care much about discussions.
On Wikipedia, the "discussion" tab is ubiquitous, but you don't allow
people to discuss the subject there because discussions can ONLY be
about improving the main page.
This rule sounds arbitrary. Why can't a I ask a question about the
subject there? You have many experts and fellow users visiting the
same page, wouldn't it be good if they can talk and socialize and help
each other out? Communities grow there. You can have a separate
discussion area dedicated to editors. But currently it's all editors.
What's more, the design of the discussion function is so wiki-centric,
you probably designed it on purpose in order to keep the regular guys
out. You seem to be missing a community opportunity here.
I hope to continue this conversation, if you are interested...
Regards,
Will
2. Jimmy Wales' response:
--------------------------------
I think you're just mistaken. On the main page, the discussion is
about the main page. On every other page, the discussion is about the
subject.
Or wait, maybe you aren't mistaken but just I am confused by your
terminology. When we say "main page" we are always referring to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
But maybe you are making a more subtle point about the distinction
between "article space" and "talk space"?
So, you are asking, why can't I just ask a question about Thomas
Jefferson, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Thomas_Jefferson
Is that right?
Well, because that's not what we *do*. Nor is it something we want to do.
We care about community, but the community is always subordinate to
the goals of the community. Being a general chat board is a good
thing for... general chat boards.
At Wikia, we do support those.
3. My response:
--------------------------------
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I made at least ten drafts
for this reply. I hope you see my point.
> So, you are asking, why can't I just ask a question about Thomas Jefferson, here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Thomas_Jefferson
> Is that right?
Yes. You got my point. Asking questions and debating and watching
other people ask and debate is a crucial part of learning. Have you
ever learned a subject by just reading an article? For example, you
can read an article on breast cancer, but if your wife has it, then
you WILL have tons of questions, few of which are addressed by that
article. Similarly, you can read the article on SEO, but if you are a
web start-up that needs it, then you will have questions.
Learning is called "学问" in Chinese. 学 means to "study", and 问 means
to "question". Wikipedia has 学 but not 问. I am not just being
philosophical here. I am a practical guy and I use wikipedia a lot.
Right now I do the 问 part in other places, but you could have me
easily. It will be a natural addition to Wikipedia.
> We care about community, but the community is always subordinate to
> the goals of the community.
You are saying that your goal is to create an encyclopedia and there
is nothing else to it, right? You can always reject a new idea by
stating an old goal. I say it's an old goal because it was already
achieved a few years ago. Wiki is already history as Wikipedia has
done nothing new since you started working on search engines.
Maybe we can ask what is the goal of an encyclopedia? If you see it
along the lines of learning (学问), then you will see my point as
relevant. Otherwise, nice talking to you. I appreciate you actually
get back to me.
4. Jimmy Wales' response:
--------------------------------
:-) It is very interesting, and is affecting my thinking. But of
course decisions like this are not up to me really. They are more up
to the community... you might want to start a discussion on wikien-l.
>
David Gerard wrote
>I don't see the benefit to writing an
> encyclopedia in any regard whatsoever.
Certainly, in reading the story, one is drawn into the labyrinthine world of online "drama", rather than zooming out and having an improved perspective on online content. This of course follows from "The Register" basically using Wikipedia Review's legwork - the slant carries right over. And as David says, this is no victory for us, even if it is one against the sockoholics.
Charles
-----------------------------------------
Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email
Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam
In a message dated 9/23/2008 6:30:33 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
dgerard(a)gmail.com writes:
I'm really not convinced it's a good approach at all to the question:
"what is useful to the reader?">>
------------------------------
David I agree in general.
I'll make an exception for my utterly fabulous biography of Alice Ghostley
("Esmerelda" on Bewitched, and "Berniece Clifton" on Designing Women).
In general however, many of the biographies on Knol are sub-standard,
ranking far below what Wikipedia has on that same person. But then when Wikipedia
was *new*, the vast majority of biographies were also sub-standard. Knol
hasn't yet hit a critical mass. And the critical mass for Knol, since now, on
one person you can have dozens of biographies... what is it? Does that mean
we need ten times more Knol editors, just to get one good biography of Obama
? Or will each of those new editors try to write their own crappy one?
No I'm not convinced that Knol is going to turn out any better, but it's
certainly *different* !
Will Johnson
**************Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial
challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and
calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001)
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:06:49 +0100
From: "Al Tally" <majorly.wiki(a)googlemail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Why Google's online encyclopedia will never be
as good as Wikipedia.
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<7c865bab0809222306q8402548y54a5e72f1ee06c11(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 1:37 AM, Keith Old <keithold(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> G'day Wikipedia folks,
>
> Farhad Manjoo of Slate has written a damning review of Knol.
>
> http://www.slate.com/id/2200401/
>
> "There are two articles about Sarah Palin on Google
> Knol<http://knol.google.com/k/knol>,
> the search company's abysmal new Wikipedia-like reference guide. One
> of them<
> http://knol.google.com/k/marc-samuel-delvarello/sarah-palin/34hdx7ks0jha3/9…
> >is
> a mess: Just a few hundred words long, the article is fraught with
> factual and grammatical errors." More in article
>
It looks like someone's school essay on her... I mean, come on, there's
blatant typos there...
--
Alex
(User:Majorly)
You see, this is why we have the [edit] button.
/me smirks contentedly