On 10 May 2011 17:04, Scott MacDonald <doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I've written a little essay which I think serves to illustrate the dangers
> of Wikipedia's tendency to create articles (and particularly BLPs) from a
> pastiche of newspaper articles.
> See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Otto_Middleton_%28or_why_newspapers_a
> re_dubious_sources%29
> It may amuse (or it may not)
Yep. Anyone who calls a newspaper a "reliable source" in terms other
than comparison to even worse sources has clearly never been written
about by one.
Suggestion: move the explanatory box to the top.
- d.
Hello (and please pardon the crossposting),
I am a Ph.D. researcher at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute in Galway, Ireland. My Ph.D. topic is online discussions, specifically the reasoning and arguments people use. I am currently studying Articles for Deletion in English Wikipedia, to understand how article deletion decisions are made.
I am working on a prototype argument assistant to help newcomers understand what kinds of arguments make sense, much in the way that the Article Wizard provides guidance for creating an article. From reading discussions, I am learning what kinds of arguments people use in AfD, especially to see what comments advance the discussion. Next I need to get some perspectives from editors!
I'm looking for Wikipedians to interview about the deletion process. I envision a 30 minute skype or phone conversation. I'm interested in learning about what works well in AfD discussions, any frustrations you have with it, and why you generally do or don't !vote in AfD.
I hope to talk with Wikipedians with a wide variety of experience editing (from newcomers to EN-WP, to regular EN-WP editors, to admins, especially admins who close discussions), with people who spend little time commenting in deletion discussions, as well as those who do.
Would you be willing to talk with me? Let me know the best times for you; you can reach me at jschneider(a)pobox.com or with the info below.
-Jodi Schneider
WP:Jodi.a.schneider
skype:jodi.a.schneider
http://jodischneider.com/jodi.html
On 10 May 2011 17:04, Scott MacDonald <doc.wikipedia(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I've written a little essay which I think serves to illustrate the dangers
> of Wikipedia's tendency to create articles (and particularly BLPs) from a
> pastiche of newspaper articles.
>
> See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Otto_Middleton_%28or_why_newspapers_a
> re_dubious_sources%29
>
> It may amuse (or it may not)
>
No it just provides further evidence you haven't really thought about
the issue. Firstly lets not forget this is all in reaction to the
[[Pippa Middleton]] article which is based on a wider range of sources
over a longer period of time and who quite clearly exists. In any case
Britain has royal watchers in much the same way it has train spotters
so sourcing is not much of a concern.
Secondly if you think that this is limited to BLPs and newspapers you
are sadly mistaken.
Jasper Maskelyne was a stage magician who served as a perfectly
respectable and competent camouflage officer. After the war he had a
set of ghost written memoirs published which are a mix of wild
exaggerations and plain making stuff up. These stories have make it
into various sources beyond newspapers:
http://www.maskelynemagic.com/Resources/SEND%20IN%20THE%20CLOWNS.pdf
But hey it's not limited to people. There's [[Operation Tyr]]
originally a web hoax about a supposed plan by nazi germany to invade
Liechtenstein. It has since made it's way into Michael Sharpe's 5th
Gebirgsjäger Division: Hitler's mountain warfare specialists.
The story about an dummy airfield being bombed by dummy bombs has also
made it's way into an unreasonable number of sources.
Covered here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/WW2_sourcing_issues
The difference is I'm able to document this without a WP:POINT violation.
--
geni
Hello all,
This is a heads-up that tomorrow, we're planning to deploy the Article
Feedback Tool, which is currently on 3,000 English Wikipedia articles,
to a larger set of 100,000 articles. This initial expansion is
intended to further assess both the value and the performance
characteristics of the feature with an eye to a full deployment. As
always, we may postpone the deployment if we run into unanticipated
production issues.
Some examples of articles that currently have the tool (at the bottom
of the article):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots_lobbyinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitutionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_cuisine
The intent of the tool is two-fold:
- to gain aggregate quality assessments of Wikimedia content by
readers and editors;
- to use it as an entry vector for other forms of engagement.
To assess its value in both categories, we've undertaken a significant
amount of qualitative and quantitative research already. You can read
an extensive summary of our work so far here:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback
The headline summary is that based on the data we've seen so far, we
do believe that user ratings can be a valuable way to predict high and
low quality content in Wikimedia, and we're especially interested in
engaging raters beyond the initial act of assessing an article. We've
seen very good conversion rates on the calls-to-action that follow a
rating which we've trialed so far, suggesting that this could be a
very powerful engagement tool as well.
Beyond our own research and these engagement experiments, our goal is
to make anonymized data from the tool available regularly, and to also
give editors a dashboard tool that they can use to surface trends in
the rating data.
Please use the talk page for comments, questions and suggestions.
We'll also set up an IRC office hour soon to talk more about the tool.
All best,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hi.
Let me introduce yet another statistics tool: here is a lists of English
Wikipedia articles created last month/week/day with most users
contributing to article within the same period.
It is somewhat similar to http://www.wikirage.com , but counts only new
articles.
http://unit1.conus.info:8080/en.wikipedia.stats/
Statistics is building using Wikipedia Recentchanges feed once per hour.
In a discussion elsewhere [1], the question of how WIkipedia compares
for neutrality with other encyclopedias came up.
We've been compared with other encyclopedias for accuracy before. Has
anyone ever tried to compare us on neutrality? Or whatever
roughly-synonymous measure doesn't automatically bias the test towards
Wikipedia, which has it as a fundamental content policy.
Compare Britannica. They've never touted themselves as neutral -
they've touted themselves as *authoritative*.[2] The Wikipedia article
on EB notes that EB has been increasingly lauded as less culturally
biased with time, though it occurs to me that's just the sort of
aspect a Wikipedia writer would note.
And how good a proxy for what readers actually want is neutrality? I
think it's excellent, but I could be wrong. Do readers actually just
want to be told?
How would you compare the neutrality of Wikipedia with that of
something else, in a meaningful and useful manner, such that the
framing of the question doesn't necessarily pick the winner before
you've started?
- d.
[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/5ho/seq_rerun_politics_is_the_mindkiller/422w
[2] Modulo the EB content disclaimer, which makes ours look mild.
Hi,
I am a student of Human resources and Lifelong learning from the Czech republic. I have studied in Sweden in Linköping as an Erasmus student for one year.
I am making for one of my course a small survey about wikipedia volunteers and I have found your e-mail at the Wikipedia websites.
Can I ask you some questions? It would be great if you answer them for me and if you can write me, where you are from and what you are doing!
QUESTIONS:
1) Why did you start with editing wikipedia articles?
2) How many articles have you edited?
3) What are your expectations and motives to edit articles on wikipedia?
4) How would you define online volunteerism?
5) Do you support another platform as an online volunteer?
Thank you very much for you answers! I am appreciating it so much.
My e-mail is: Michala.beer(a)yahoo.com
I wish you a nice day!
Michala
If you want, you can fill the questionnaire here:
http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=x8qvqn1idblbpbq903396