Hello, everyone!
The Living people task force is churning along. The recommendations draft
is just about ready to move into finalized writing in a couple weeks <
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Living_People/Drafting_pages/…>.
We're letting that rest for a bit for greater discussion, and moving on the
the policy drafting. More information can be found here: <
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Task_force/Living_People#Moving_int…
>.
Participation is always welcome, there will be an informal discussion in the
#wikimedia-strategy room on the freenode IRC network on Monday, March 15, at
3:00 UTC. This will be publically logged and the logs will be posted onto
the strategy page.
Thanks to those who have continued to express opinions and thoughts on this
process, and I look forward to your participation!
~Keegan
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
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Forwarding interesting article:
http://sify.com/news/quality-of-wikipedia-entries-depends-on-authors-collab…
Quality of Wikipedia entries depends on authors' collaboration
2010-03-12 15:20:00
Last Updated: 2010-03-12 15:38:12
A new research by an Arizona University Professor of Indian origin has
found that the quality of entries in Wikipedia depends on how authors
collaborate.
Sudha Ram, a UA's Eller College of Management professor, co-authored
the article with Jun Liu, a graduate student in the management
information systems department (MIS). Their report bagged the "Best
Paper Award" at the Workshop on Information Technology and Systems
held in conjunction with the International Conference on Information
Systems, or ICIS.
Ram, a McClelland Professor of MIS in the Eller College, said: Most of
the existing research on Wikipedia is at the aggregate level, looking
at total number of edits for an article, for example, or how many
unique contributors participated in its creation.
"What was missing was an explanation for why some articles are of high
quality and others are not.
"We investigated the relationship between collaboration and data quality."
Wikipedia, the world's largest open-access online encyclopaedia, has
an internal quality rating system for entries, with featured articles
at the top, followed by A, B, and C-level entries. Ram and Liu
randomly compiled 400 articles at each quality level and used a data
provenance model they developed in an earlier paper.
Ram explained: "We used data mining techniques and identified various
patterns of collaboration based on the provenance or, more
specifically, who does what to Wikipedia articles.
"These collaboration patterns either help increase quality or are
detrimental to data quality."
Ram and Liu identified seven specific roles that Wikipedia
contributors play.
Starters, for instance, create sentences but seldom engage in other
actions. Content justifiers create sentences and justify them with
resources and links. Copy editors contribute primarily though
modifying existing sentences. Some users - the all-round contributors
- - perform many different functions.
Ram said: "We then clustered the articles based on these roles and
examined the collaboration patterns within each cluster to see what
kind of quality resulted.
"We found that all-round contributors dominated the best-quality
entries. In the entries with the lowest quality, starters and casual
contributors dominated."
She pointed out that to generate the best-quality entries people in
many different roles must collaborate.
Ram said: "A software tool could prompt contributors to justify their
insertions by adding links...and down the line, other software tools
could encourage specific role setting and collaboration patterns to
improve overall quality."
The impetus behind the report came from Ram's involvement in UA's 50
million dollar iPlant Collaborative, which is funded by the National
Science Foundation and aims to unite the international scientific
community around solving plant biology's "grand challenge" questions.
Ram's role is a faculty advisor and has to develop a
cyberinfrastructure to facilitate collaboration.
She said: "We initially suggested wikis for this, but we faced a lot
of resistance." Scientists raised concerns ranging from lack of
experience using the wikis to lack of incentive.
"We wondered how we could make people collaborate.
"So we looked at the English version of Wikipedia. There are more than
three million entries, and thousands of people contribute voluntarily
on a daily basis."
She added: "If we want scientists to be collaborative...we need to
assign them to specific roles and motivate them to police themselves
and justify their contributions." (ANI)
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> ---------- Forwarded message (Start) ----------
> From: Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>
> Date: Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 10:41 AM
> Subject: [Wikitech-l] Catching the death of living people
> To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
>
> Does anybody have a bot or script that aligns the
> categories for year of death across language
> interwiki links, to make sure the death of a living
> person is recorded on all languages? I think this
> is something we need to run once or twice each year.
> Maybe the interwiki bot could do it?
>
I would be very cautious about running a program to mark people as
dead on this basis. Interwiki links are wonderful things but I
wouldn't guarantee they always link the same real life person,
especially when you consider how many Italian Americans and German
Americans there are. I'm sure there will be Italians who are the main
article for their name on the Italian Wikipedia whilst we have an
Italian American of the same name as the subject of the EN Wiki
article. I appreciate that the people putting the interwiki links up
do so conscientiously, but I've also seen BLPs where subsequent
editors have changed the subject of the article. Bot assisted editing
would be good here, or perhaps a talkpage message.
But kudos for raising the issue, one thing I realised during the
recent BLP deletion spree and its aftermath is that either having a
wikipedia article dramatically increases your life expectancy, or we
are not very good at sourcing the deaths of people who retire and
don't die whilst they are in the public spotlight (I suspect a
statistical analysis of Wikipedia articles would give solid evidence
for the "and they all lived happily ever after" nursery story ending
).
--
WereSpielChequers
---------- Forwarded message (Start) ----------
From: Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>
Date: Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 10:41 AM
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Catching the death of living people
To: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Does anybody have a bot or script that aligns the
categories for year of death across language
interwiki links, to make sure the death of a living
person is recorded on all languages? I think this
is something we need to run once or twice each year.
Maybe the interwiki bot could do it?
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
---------- Forwarded message (End) ----------
Forwarding this onto Wikien-l, since they might have better ideas.
The [[dwm]] deletion discussion has caught the interest of some of the
more nerdy online communities:
- http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/b8s29/the_wikipedia_deletionis…
- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1163884
It's interesting to see the general levels of disgust and how few
current editors there are in comparison to former, and read the
dislike of WP:N.
I certainly hope the usability initiatives bear fruit and entice
regular people into becoming editors, because we're burning our
bridges among our original techy contributor base.
([[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dwm (2nd nomination)]] is trending
keep, but many FLOSS articles have been deleted lately, and many will
yet feel the axe.)
--
gwern
For anyone in the UK (or willing to visit the UK ;-) that hasn't seen
the below, please take a look. Apologies for the cross-posting. This
event is also hosting Wikimedia UK's AGM, so it is fairly
important. ;-) Please distribute it to anyone else that you think
might be interested.
Thanks,
Mike
Begin forwarded message:
> From: joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet(a)hotmail.co.uk>
> Date: 25 February 2010 12:01:55 GMT
> Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] Open Knowledge Conferece - Wikimedia Track
> (Call for Participation)
> Reply-To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> This year Wikimedia UK is partnering with the Open Knowledge
> Foundation in the organisation of the 2010 Open Knowledge
> Conference ("OKCon"), an interdisciplinary conference that brings
> together individuals from across the open knowledge spectrum for a
> day of presentations and workshops.
>
>
> At this year's conference, Wikimedia UK will be supporting and
> organising a track dedicated to the projects and communities
> central to Wikimedia.
>
>
> We need your help to create an exciting and interesting track that
> will inspire and challenge Wikimedians and others alike. Could you
> give a presentation or host a discussion on a Wikimedia theme? Any
> subject relevant to the Wikimedia communities, free content or
> Wikimedia UK are welcome.
> Timeline
> February 25 (Thursday): Submissions will open
> March 28 (Sunday) 23:59 UTC: Closure of submission dates
> April 7 (Wednesday): Notification of acceptance of submission
> April 24 (Saturday): Open Knowledge Conference 2010
>
> If you wish to participate but with good reason cannot meet one of
> the above deadlines please email conferences(a)wikimedia.org.uk
> before the deadline as it may be possible to accomodate late
> submissions Themes Submissions should address one or more of the
> following themes:
>
>
> Wikimedia Communities - Interesting projects and characteristics
> within the communities; policy creation; conflict resolution and
> community dynamics; reputation and identity; multilingualism,
> languages and cultures; the development of Wikimedia UK.
> Free Content - Open access to information; ways to gather and
> distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in
> education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality
> and usability; copyright laws and their interaction with Wikimedia
> projects.
> Culture and Heritage - Ideas for potential partnerships, building
> on previous partnerships and the legal, technical and resource
> issues that are barriers to such partnerships.
> Technical infrastructure - Issues related to MediaWiki development
> and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; the Toolserver; the
> Usability Project; new ideas for development (including Usability
> case studies from other wikis or similar projects).
> Submission Guidelines Please email submissions to
> conferences(a)wikimedia.org.uk. Please email the following details,
> all in English:
> Title:
> Theme: Closest category from above for your submission.
> Abstract: 50-100 words summarising the topic
> Summary: Detailed description of the topic - 300 words or more. May
> contain a link to a more details.
> Contact information: Email/Telephone and whether we may publish
> these details
> Additional Information:
> 1-3 sentence biography of the author(s).
> any special requirements (e.g. flipchart; OHP. A digital
> presentation will be assumed as standard)
> whether you will attend the 2010 Open Knowledge Conference (a)
> definitely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is accepted.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Hi everyone,
The next strategic planning office hours are:
Tuesday from 20:00-21:00 UTC, which is:
Tuesday, 12-1pm PST
Tuesday, 3pm-4pm EST
There has been a lot of tremendous work on the strategy wiki the past
few months, and Task Forces are finishing up their work.
Office hours will be a great opportunity to discuss the work that's
happened as well as the work to come.
As always, you can access the chat by going to
https://webchat.freenode.net and filling in a username and the channel
name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a
security warning. It's fine. More details at:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
Thanks! Hope to see many of you there.
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
This is beautiful and true, and you must watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEkF5o6KPNI
(I have been at a pub with a trivia quiz where the table of
Wikipedians didn't enter because "it wouldn't be fair.")
- d.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> At 05:25 AM 3/6/2010, Charles Matthews wrote:
>> Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>> > Wikipedia painted itself into this corner.
>> >
>> Indeed, said corner being #5 website in the world according to recent
>> Comscore figures. The onus is still on those who think the system is
>> broken.
>
> Onus? No, I'm seeing masses of highly experienced editors leaving the
> project, with those replacing them being relatively clueless, as to
> the original vision, which was itself brilliant but incomplete. The
> biggest problem with the system is massive inefficiency, with huge
> amounts of editor labor necessary to make decisions and maintain them,
> long-term. A secondary problem is that the process does not reliably
> seek consensus, which is an essential element in the estimation of the
> degree of neutrality obtained. And the massive inefficiency compounds
> this problem. You can sail on, believing that it's working just fine.
> And, I suppose, you can believe that all the admins who have left, or
> who maintain comments that it's broken, are just, what? Sour grapes?
>
> There is a lot of criticism out there that is obviously ignorant. But
> that's not all there is.
Yes, there is also stuff that is plainly directed against the project,
from some of WR to the WSJ's reiteration of the discredited Ortega
statistics (see the most recent Signpost). It doesn't take too much to
distinguish legitimate beefs from troll-talk.
Some of us who have been around for a while might think that a smaller,
better-trained workforce could possibly get on faster with constructive
work. It seems well-established that the big influx of 2006-7 has now
sorted itself out into those who have learned the system and are
supporting it substantially, and those who have moved on (fnding tweets
more to their attention span, whatever). People do come and go anyway on
a big site. But we were talking about notability.
>
>> ("Notability" has always been a broken concept, but the real
>> question is whether the system as a whole is broken, rather than whether
>> individual subjective judgements always agree with the result of
>> deletion processes.)
>
> The system is broken. It's obvious. But almost all of those who
> recognize this also believe that it's impossible to fix, and so they
> either leave in despair or they struggle on for a while. I'm unusual.
> I know it's broken, and I know why, and I know how to fix it. And what
> I'd suggest would take almost no effort. And it's been opposed at
> every turn, attempts were made to delete and salt a small piece of the
> proposal, years ago, a very modest experiment that would have changed
> no policy or guideline.
I agree with "unusual" - the jury seems still to be out on the rest.
>
> What I'd propose is very simple, but it happens that it's also very
> difficult to understand without background; I happen to have the
> background. Few Wikipedia editors do. I could be wrong, but what I've
> seen is that the *very idea* arouses very strong reactions. Based on
> ... what? I could say, but it's really not up to me. I can do nothing
> by myself except set up structures that people can use or not.
>
>> >I proposed a change to the guideline, a
>> > special provision, that *generally* a recognized national member
>> > society of a notable international society would be notable. If you
>> > know the notability debates, you can anticipate the objections.
>> > "Notability is not inherited."
>> Indeed, it isn't.
>
> Not normally. DGG has already addressed the substance. What's
> happening is that guidelines are being interpreted as fixed rules,
> instead of as ways of documenting how the community operates. If
> documentation of actual decision-making is pursued, then
> inconsistencies can be directly addressed, and can produce more
> refined -- and more accurate -- guidelines. This build-up of
> experience, documented, is what's normal with structures like that of
> Wikipedia, if they are to remain sustainable. That this is actively
> blocked, that attempts to document actual practice are strongly
> resisted, is part of the problem. "Instruction creep." But that
> assumes that the guidelines are fixed rules, not simply documentation
> that can be read to understand how the community is likely to decide
> on an issue.
>
>> Some of the more high-profile associated topics of
>> notable topic X can be mentioned in the article on X, but that doesn't
>> mean they are all worth a separate article.
>
> Where does the decision get made? There is notable topic, amateur
> radio. There is an international organization which reocognizes
> national societies, one per nation. It's the IARU, in the situation
> being discussed. It intrinsically creates 200 possible subtopics,
> organized by nation, by the nature of the situation. Each one of these
> *probably* has reliable sources that would justify a separate article,
> given a deep enough search, but suppose there were a couple of
> exceptions. If we start valuing editor time, a major oversight in the
> development of project structure, we might say that if, in almost all
> cases, with adequate work, we could find reliable sources for 190
> articles, we mighg as well treat all these subtopics identically. Is
> there any harm to the project from this?
>
> But where does the decision get made? Is it possible to make a global
> decision as I'm suggesting? I.e., in *this* situation, we will give
> each national member society an article, as a stub, based on "national
> scope" and "IARU recognition," with the IARU web site as the source.
> Is it reliable for the purpose of determining that the national member
> society is notable? What I see here is that those who argue guidelines
> as an abstraction are saying "No," and they give reasons that are
> abstract. But those who know the field, uniformly, are saying, "Yes,"
> and they seem to be bringing neutral editors along with them, and
> closing admins who have nothing to do with the topic. Does, in fact,
> actual community practice trump the guidelines? What I'm seeing from
> Mr. Matthews is an argument, that, no, the guidelines should prevail,
> and we should not change the guidelines to reflect actual practice.
I'm certainly not saying that, and it doesn't represent my view. I
didn't understand what you were saying so well, at first. Proposals to
create nearly 200 stubs in an area on the assurance that they are
probably verifiable somehow falls under a different general heading, the
creation of a "walled garden" of material where ordinary editors are
basically told to keep out. Walled gardens are no good when "editors
assumed to know" are in charge of the content. Some better approach
needs to be negotiated, allowing at least some informal guidelines to
emerge. (Example: which scholastic philosophers to include? We tend to
go by the contents of academic works of reference as at least a sensible
approach.)
Charles