In a message dated 4/24/2009 1:06:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com writes:
> Yes, trivial is fine. From my understanding of this case (I haven't
> researched it in depth), the inference was not trivial.>>
------------------------
Mr "Brown" shot his wife on 13 Aug 2006 in Lincoln, Nebraska. She died on
the way to the hospital leaving him with three teen-aged boys.
John Smith shot his wife on 13 Aug 2006 in Lincoln, Nebraska. She died on
the way to the hospital leaving him with three teen-aged boys.
Trivial? I would say it's trivial.
Will Johnson
**************
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In a message dated 4/24/2009 6:30:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
nawrich(a)gmail.com writes:
>
> The OR policy includes reference to "original synthesis" - which is not
> creating a primary source, but using available sources to draw an original
> conclusion. In this case, connecting the dots is absolutely original
> analysis leading to an original conclusion. If a reliable source doesn't
> say
> "These two people are the same person" then neither should we.
-----------------
That's overreading and here is why.
Omaha is in Nebraska. Henry Fonda was born in Omaha.
Henry Fonda was born in Nebraska.
Nebraska is a state with a low population which grows mainly corn.
Henry Fonda was born in a state which grows mainly corn.
We have no source which states this. It is a trival inference from the
known statements. We are allows to make trivial inferences, observations,
conclusions.
If we were not, than you could not use primary sources for any purpose.
The policy was deliberately crafted so that simple statements could be drawn
even those the source does not exactly draw them. If anyone is reading OR
differently, than the problem is with the OR language, because that was our
intent.
Will Johnson
**************
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In a message dated 4/24/2009 8:57:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
geniice(a)gmail.com writes:
> Mixture of copyright violation and people useing such copyvios to
> improve their ranking on some scale that I don't understand.
> Interesting cultural contrast.>>
-------------------------
Part of the scale may have been my own creation.
Some months ago I started a table of "Most Viewed Authors".
That is, those authors, who in total, got the highest page views across the
project.
The table shows their pageviews today, and those pageviews say last week or
last month. This way you can see if some people are accelerating and some
are stagnating.
My idea was to use this to target those authors who are writing popular
pieces and try to see why. It never got to step 2 and 3 and 4 because I
uncovered numerous problems in the metric. The Knol programmers have been fixing
those.
My knol I believe triggered one of this studies co-authors to delve deeper
into the second ranked author (by pageviews) and uncovered the copyright
violations. That author just had really *so many* articles, that were each *so
good* that something smelled about it.
Pageviews by Author, is not the only metric in Knol. It's just one that I
happened to pick on a while ago to work up.
Will Johnson
**************
The Average US Credit Score is 692. See Yours in Just 2 Easy
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In a message dated 4/24/2009 6:49:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
dgerard(a)gmail.com writes:
> These blogs and sites are typically put up by spammers. They use
> machine-translated content so as not to trigger Google's duplicate
> content penalty.>>
>
---------------------------------------
Fascinating. The parasite stays one step ahead of the host.
Will Johnson
**************
The Average US Credit Score is 692. See Yours in Just 2 Easy
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Yeah apologies about that! Wanted to get get the forum up & running-over time, if
people find it useful etc. it will be improved & obviously the logo is likely to be
the first thing!
On Fri Apr 24 15:52 , Al Tally <majorly.wiki(a)googlemail.com> sent:
>On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Tris <tris(a)waterhay.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>The forum is at www.thewikipediaforum.com. Please visit & join in.
>
>
>I do love the Disney-like title at the top :)
>--
>Alex
>(User:Majorly)
>
In a message dated 4/22/2009 12:43:31 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
ragesoss+wikipedia(a)gmail.com writes:
> This is a wonderful idea! It could even make sense to have Metapedia
> as a Wikimedia project...an explicitly curatorial project that
> attempts to sort different kinds of content and evaluate strengths and
> weaknesses. It could also serve as a place to have general
> discussions about certain topics, without the necessity (as on
> Wikipedia talk pages, nominally) of focusing on content improvement;
> that's something that there's a need for, and something that causes
> specific projects to suffer because of the tendency of readers to try
> to start general discussions.>>
> -----------------
Chatopedia
Discussopedia
Jabberpedia
I've noticed a number of news outlets allowing posts at the bottom of
articles. You can't actually change the article itself yet, but why the heck
not? They could easily set-up moderated changes. Better than some reporter
slogging through 500 posts to find the one that complains about a spelling
error.
I noticed somewhere that Google was giving preferential treatment to Knol
articles on some content collector, but then later they stopped doing that.
So apparently they felt that was a bit unfair. There's no reason I can see
why a Wiki project couldn't be setup to display a Wikipedia article, a few
articles from Knol on the same subject, and allow a reader comments section
as well.
Will Johnson
**************
Big savings on Dell XPS Laptops and Desktops!
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In a message dated 4/23/2009 7:14:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
oldakquill(a)gmail.com writes:
At the time, the basis of identifying
him was putting known facts about the pseudonymous author (date of
imprisonment, French Foreign Legion membership), against an old
newspaper article containing similar details about a named man who had
committed a crime. Since no independent connection had been made
between the pseudonym and his legal name, it did constitute original
research. It is only now that Erwin James has identified himself in a
national newspaper that it no longer constitutes original research.>>
--------------------------
Using sources to establish things of this sort, is not the creation of a
source.
Original research involves the creation of a source, not already present.
Connecting the dots, using sources, *can be* but is not necessarily
original research.
>From the way you described this so far, I do not see how this could be
considered original research. He has already opened the door by establishing
facts about himself in a secondary source, and therefore, we can use
primary sources to back up or clarify those secondary mentions.
That is the nature of source-based research using primary sources. If we
were to establish something like this as original research, that would
essentially prevent the use of primary sources entirely. We deliberately
crafted the OR policy to allow the use of observation in primary sources.
There is no analysis being done here. Merely placing two known facts
side-by-side and stating that they are the same fact. That is not analysis.
We do not need a source to say the Sun is hot. Everybody can observe that
for themselves. Just as anyone can read an old newspaper themselves
without the need for something to explain the connection to them.
Will
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Here's why Citizendium is far better:
* It's more open... everyone's identities are known, there are no sockpuppets, there is none of the absurd overhead that anonymity entails.
* It's more serious... vital articles come first... Pokemon comes last. Only in many years from now will we begin to see trivial articles surface: obscure films, unknown actors & etc.
*This seriousness attracts Academics. Citizendium's slow growth is actually an incentive to serious-minded writers. It means the place is clear of the nutters and fans that Wikipedia has.
*The place is in the hands of "writers" and not an army of "1600 administrators". Can you imagine writing for Wikipedia as an expert and knowing that your bosses are in high school, maybe university, and only occasionally over 35 years old?
*Because real identities are used, less rules and guideline creep exists. It's more about the material.
*All the computer guys are at Wikipedia because they like the technical aspects of Wikipedia where you have to master a lingo and comply with MOS (don't ask!). These guys see everything in terms of percents anyhow, and don't have the kind of discerning mind that understands concepts and themes & etc. With them out of the way, you get a healthier bunch of writers who show up at Citizendium.
*Citizendium's difficult entrance exam is not really all that difficult. It's a sure-fire way of keeping out those who are not prepared to edit an encyclopedia and frankly, I love that!
Citizendium can just hang on, and stick around, because it's far less about its success over Wikipedia than it is about an environment in which serious-minded people with the werewithal can write about important subjects.
Chet
I don't feel comfortable with a statement like the Foundation chooses what
sort of method they want. That sounds an awful lot like structure "coming
down from on-high" instead of "up from the community".
If this is to remain a community-driven enterprise, then whatever decisions
are made, should be made with the consensus of the community and not
directed by a benevolent closed oligarchy.
I agree that some *specific* details of how a person was verified could
remain private. It is rather the method, scope, and result that should be
made public so many eyes can self-validate that it's a method that is not
trivial to fool.
Will
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Hi all!
The Wikipedia Usability Initiative conducted a user research study with
SF based Bolt Peters in late March to uncover barriers new editors face.
We are in the process of completing a full report on our methodology,
process and analysis, but wanted to share with you some of the major
themes and findings in the meantime....
Some quotes from our participants that illustrate these findings:
“Usually it’s the most information in the easiest spot to access. It
always looks very well put together….it boggles my mind how many people
can contribute and it still looks like an encyclopedia.” – ‘Galen’
“I like Wikipedia because it’s plain text and nothing flashes” – ‘Claudia’
“Rather than making a mess, I’d rather take some time to figure out how
to do it right."
(later) "There sure is a lot of stuff to read.” – ‘Dan’
“ [I felt] kind of stupid.” – ‘Galen’
“It’d be nice to have a GUI, so you could see what you’re editing.
You’ve made these changes and you’re looking at it, and you don’t know
how it’s going to look on the page. It’s a little clumsy to see how it’s
going to look.” – ‘Bryan’
“[This is] where I’d give up.” – ‘Shaun’
Check out the full post on the foundation blog:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/04/24/usability-study-results-sneak-preview/
We would love to hear any initial thoughts, opinions, and reactions. If
you have any similar or dissimilar experiences - either personally or in
your own work/research, we'd love to hear about that too!
Always on your side,
The Usability Team