Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement.Here's the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/crewe.group/
I see a pile of Wikimedians engaging with them, which is promising.
I visited WMUK on Tuesday and chatted with Stevie Benton (the new media person), Richard Symonds and Daria Cybulska about this topic. The approach we could think of that could *work* is pointing out "if you're caught with *what other people* think is a COI, your name and your client's name are mud." Because in all our experience, even sincere PR people seem biologically incapable of understanding COI, but will understand generating *bad* PR.
- d.
One of those would be me :)
A suggestion I picked up on was to have a joint session with Wikipedians & individuals from CREWE where we could have an actual dialogue (I sent an email to Daria about getting assistance for this last night).
If your interested in helping out with the dialogue that would rock :)
Tom
On 29 March 2012 09:52, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement.Here's the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/crewe.group/
I see a pile of Wikimedians engaging with them, which is promising.
I visited WMUK on Tuesday and chatted with Stevie Benton (the new media person), Richard Symonds and Daria Cybulska about this topic. The approach we could think of that could *work* is pointing out "if you're caught with *what other people* think is a COI, your name and your client's name are mud." Because in all our experience, even sincere PR people seem biologically incapable of understanding COI, but will understand generating *bad* PR.
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 29 March 2012 09:57, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
One of those would be me :) A suggestion I picked up on was to have a joint session with Wikipedians & individuals from CREWE where we could have an actual dialogue (I sent an email to Daria about getting assistance for this last night). If your interested in helping out with the dialogue that would rock :)
I've just blogged about this too:
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2012/03/29/the-public-relations-agency-proble...
I'm hoping that will circulate slightly in the PR sphere.
- d.
I do disagree with the idea though, FWIW. It feels much akin to a threat :)
We also (reading that blog post) disagree on a few other aspects as well. Which is why I am eager to see input from a broad swathe of Wikipedians on these issues.
Tom
On 29 March 2012 10:17, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29 March 2012 09:57, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
One of those would be me :) A suggestion I picked up on was to have a joint session with Wikipedians
&
individuals from CREWE where we could have an actual dialogue (I sent an email to Daria about getting assistance for this last night). If your interested in helping out with the dialogue that would rock :)
I've just blogged about this too:
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2012/03/29/the-public-relations-agency-proble...
I'm hoping that will circulate slightly in the PR sphere.
- d.
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On 29 March 2012 10:20, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
I do disagree with the idea though, FWIW. It feels much akin to a threat :)
It's not a threat from us, it's saying "you don't want what happened to Bell Pottinger to happen to you."
I'm surprised to see (repeatedly) that the press and public get much more upset about this stuff than Wikipedians do.
I do see your point, though. I'll amend the post a bit.
- d.
On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 10:17 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29 March 2012 09:57, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
One of those would be me :) A suggestion I picked up on was to have a joint session with Wikipedians
&
individuals from CREWE where we could have an actual dialogue (I sent an email to Daria about getting assistance for this last night). If your interested in helping out with the dialogue that would rock :)
I've just blogged about this too:
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2012/03/29/the-public-relations-agency-proble...
I'm hoping that will circulate slightly in the PR sphere.
Very good post. In particular, two observations stand out:
"sometimes our articles are in fact rubbish. How do you fix that?"
"my comments are strictly advisory and based on watching the press absolutely crucify PR people who have edited clients’ articles, which becomes bad PR for the client — even if what they did was within Wikipedia rules and they arguably didn’t deserve it. I’ve been repeatedly amazed at just how upset the press and the public (e.g., people I talk to) get about this, much more than the actual Wikipedians do."
I've been amazed at this as well. Papers will say "so-and-so deleted negative material from their own Wikipedia biography", and that's it. Crime of the century!
In these reports, there's not a peep about what kind of negative material the person deleted from their article – whether it was the sole reference to a notable criminal conviction or a ridiculous 500-word diatribe about their dispute with a neighbour in Solihull, added by a Solihull IP.
The media just seem to love the chance to take a cheap shot – one reason why I think we give the press far too much credit as encyclopedic sources. At any rate, they need educating.
Perhaps this a-priori assumption that if you "delete criticism" from a Wikipedia article you must be evil is a subconscious effect of the "encyclopedia" moniker, which makes people assume there must have been an editorial team involved, carefully vetting and balancing all this information.
A similar thing happens in deletion discussions. Some anonymous person writes a hatchet job about a borderline-notable figure. The person is horrified and complains, and an AfD or some other type of community discussion ensues.
Naturally, never having heard of the person, and in the absence of readily available alternative sources of information, everyone first of all reads the Wikipedia article that the subject says is the problem.
And without really noticing, they form a mental image of the person based on that article. The article may, as in a recent case I was involved in, contain references to statements the subject never made, be cherry-picked to make them look like a crank, assign vastly undue weight to the anonymous hatchet wielder's bugbear, and so forth. But the reader laps it all up. It's got footnotes!
And the standard Wikipedian response after perusing the article is: "Well, this guy is complaining that our article makes him look like a crank. But according to our article, he *is* a crank. He just doesn't like the truth."
And with that, truth is vanquished.
Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement.Here's the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/crewe.group/
I see a pile of Wikimedians engaging with them, which is promising.
I visited WMUK on Tuesday and chatted with Stevie Benton (the new media person), Richard Symonds and Daria Cybulska about this topic. The approach we could think of that could *work* is pointing out "if you're caught with *what other people* think is a COI, your name and your client's name are mud." Because in all our experience, even sincere PR people seem biologically incapable of understanding COI, but will understand generating *bad* PR.
- d.
Yes, good point. Newt's communications director, who edited his and Callista's article did not do much, and did try in good faith to disclose his interest and follow our guidelines once he became aware of them, but by then the damage had been done and he was "exposed".
Compared to some of the really nasty PR editing I've seen he did nothing. Big mainstream media plays a major role. If conflict of interest editing becomes a story on the evening news there is nothing we or the PR person can do. They're toast, responsible editing and disclosure or not.
Fred
On 29 March 2012 09:52, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I visited WMUK on Tuesday and chatted with Stevie Benton (the new media person), Richard Symonds and Daria Cybulska about this topic. The approach we could think of that could *work* is pointing out "if you're caught with *what other people* think is a COI, your name and your client's name are mud." Because in all our experience, even sincere PR people seem biologically incapable of understanding COI, but will understand generating *bad* PR.
It would certainly be useful to have an agreed "approach" from our side. What even might work? Our natural sort of starting point would be FAQ-like, but that probably doesn't fit the bill. Neither would a simple "set of instructions", given that COI speaks to intention first.
I noticed that in the Bell Pottinger meltdown Lord Bell switched from saying that the PR operatives had not actually broken the law (i.e. minimalist on professional ethics), to a line that WP was really just too complicated and fussy about it all. The latter is only convincing in the absence of figures on the hourly rate being charged for whitewashing. Almost by definition, service industries thrive on the principle that they can charge for doing a good job: we mostly prefer not to cut our own hair.
I would guess that there is scope for presenting case studies, abstracted from real things that have happened onsite. There must be a whole spectrum of situations and outcomes by now. Where the punchline is "and the media had a field day with the story", I think you're quite correct, it becomes quite convincing that whatever the client was charged was too much.
Charles
On 29 March 2012 09:52, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I visited WMUK on Tuesday and chatted with Stevie Benton (the new media person), Richard Symonds and Daria Cybulska about this topic. The approach we could think of that could *work* is pointing out "if you're caught with *what other people* think is a COI, your name and your client's name are mud." Because in all our experience, even sincere PR people seem biologically incapable of understanding COI, but will understand generating *bad* PR.
It would certainly be useful to have an agreed "approach" from our side. What even might work? Our natural sort of starting point would be FAQ-like, but that probably doesn't fit the bill. Neither would a simple "set of instructions", given that COI speaks to intention first.
I noticed that in the Bell Pottinger meltdown Lord Bell switched from saying that the PR operatives had not actually broken the law (i.e. minimalist on professional ethics), to a line that WP was really just too complicated and fussy about it all. The latter is only convincing in the absence of figures on the hourly rate being charged for whitewashing. Almost by definition, service industries thrive on the principle that they can charge for doing a good job: we mostly prefer not to cut our own hair.
I would guess that there is scope for presenting case studies, abstracted from real things that have happened onsite. There must be a whole spectrum of situations and outcomes by now. Where the punchline is "and the media had a field day with the story", I think you're quite correct, it becomes quite convincing that whatever the client was charged was too much.
Charles
There is an article which started out as Paid editing on Wikipedia and is now Conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia It seems to be quite a success judging from the number of links to it.
Fred
On 29 March 2012 15:38, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I noticed that in the Bell Pottinger meltdown Lord Bell switched from saying that the PR operatives had not actually broken the law (i.e. minimalist on professional ethics), to a line that WP was really just too complicated and fussy about it all. The latter is only convincing in the absence of figures on the hourly rate being charged for whitewashing. Almost by definition, service industries thrive on the principle that they can charge for doing a good job: we mostly prefer not to cut our own hair.
In the Bell Pottinger incident, Wikipedians and even Jimbo may have fussed - but it was the press who really took them to the cleaners.
- d.
On 29 March 2012 15:38, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
It would certainly be useful to have an agreed "approach" from our side. What even might work? Our natural sort of starting point would be FAQ-like, but that probably doesn't fit the bill. Neither would a simple "set of instructions", given that COI speaks to intention first.
I chatted to Steve Virgin about this today. He's been working his arse off getting PR stuff set up for Monmouthpedia, and talking to PR professionals about WIkipedia, and talking to PR professionals about Monmouthpedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/MonmouthpediA/Public_Relations
More generally, he's been talking to serious PR people who are actually sensible about how to deal with Wikipedia. It turns out the good PRs really are sick of the idiot PRs. So the liaison will involve a bit of the good people on each side apologising for the bad ones ...
Monmouthpedia has the potential to be HUGE in the news, because frankly every little town in the world will want to do something like it - WMUK is getting inquiries already. It will also be an interesting way to recruit new Wikipedians. Of course, then we have to think about what will happen when they meet the worst of the present community ... it's all fun.
- d.
I noticed a thread on Jimbo's talk page that is partly related to this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#A_radical_idea.3B_BLP_opt...
Tarc suggested:
"Any living person, subject to identity verification via OTRS, may request the deletion of their article. No discussion, no AfD, just *poof*. In its place is a simple template explaining why there is no longer an article there, and a pointer to where the reader can find information on the subject, a link similar to Template:Find sources at the top of every AfD."
What people there seem to be missing is that the template would explicitly say "article removed at subject's request". The point being that this could well result in a big PR stink for either Wikipedia ("the article was rubbish and rightly removed") or for the subject ("they are (wrongly) trying to control what is said about them").
[This is why it relates to the topic of this thread]
This is why such a proposal might actually work.
I am rather surprised at why some people miss that this is about living people though. BWilkins said:
"You can't very well tear out "Mussolini" from every copy of EB ever printed, can you?"
Obviously, for those who are dead, this proposed policy would no longer apply, and you default back to the usual arguments about notability and so on. And I still maintain that notability cannot be properly assessed until someone's life or career has finished. The whole "notability is not temporary" thing needs serious re-examination.
Carcharoth
BLP is a good idea and we got it for good reasons. These recent developments, however, forget that we are *an encyclopedia*. It's into barking mad territory.
No. We will not go to removing bios on demand on my watch.
George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 4, 2012, at 5:27, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I noticed a thread on Jimbo's talk page that is partly related to this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#A_radical_idea.3B_BLP_opt...
Tarc suggested:
"Any living person, subject to identity verification via OTRS, may request the deletion of their article. No discussion, no AfD, just *poof*. In its place is a simple template explaining why there is no longer an article there, and a pointer to where the reader can find information on the subject, a link similar to Template:Find sources at the top of every AfD."
What people there seem to be missing is that the template would explicitly say "article removed at subject's request". The point being that this could well result in a big PR stink for either Wikipedia ("the article was rubbish and rightly removed") or for the subject ("they are (wrongly) trying to control what is said about them").
[This is why it relates to the topic of this thread]
This is why such a proposal might actually work.
I am rather surprised at why some people miss that this is about living people though. BWilkins said:
"You can't very well tear out "Mussolini" from every copy of EB ever printed, can you?"
Obviously, for those who are dead, this proposed policy would no longer apply, and you default back to the usual arguments about notability and so on. And I still maintain that notability cannot be properly assessed until someone's life or career has finished. The whole "notability is not temporary" thing needs serious re-examination.
Carcharoth
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On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 1:47 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
BLP is a good idea and we got it for good reasons. These recent developments, however, forget that we are *an encyclopedia*. It's into barking mad territory.
No. We will not go to removing bios on demand on my watch.
OK, but what do you call a "bio". Compare these two articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Brain
[A random FA-level biographical article]
And any article from this category:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Finnish_winter_sports_biography_stubs
[Those are *not* encyclopedic articles, they are placeholders that might one day become encyclopedic articles - is that standard acceptable for BLPs?]
Or indeed any article from this category:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_stubs
We *should* have a category of BLP stubs, but I can't find it. Maybe someone can cross-reference the BLP category and the "people stub" category (and its sub-categories) and find out how many are BLPs.
The point being that some articles are *never* going to be more than stubs. A stub is arguably not a biographical article, but only a placeholder, waiting to see if any reliable source will ever bother writing more about that person during the rest of their life. The answer in most cases is "no" (nothing more gets written). Either that, or it is a placeholder waiting for Wikipedians to get around to expanding the article.
There is a good argument to be made that all BLPs should be kept out of mainspace and kept as drafts until formally assessed at being reasonably complete and reasonably well-written. At some point, merely being "referenced" is not enough.
And then you have people trying (and failing, though they may not realise they are failing) to write so-called biographical articles about every example within a field. Mainly caused by overly lax interpretation of the GNG (general notability guideline). To take a specific example of radio (topical at the moment), have a look at these halls of fame:
http://www.radioacademy.org/hall-of-fame/ http://www.radiohof.org/
It would be simple to incorporate something like that into a SNG (specific notability guideline), but I doubt that will be possible in the current climate.
Carcharoth
On 4 April 2012 15:10, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
We *should* have a category of BLP stubs, but I can't find it. Maybe someone can cross-reference the BLP category and the "people stub" category (and its sub-categories) and find out how many are BLPs.
In principle that shouldn't be too hard to do, with Catscan 2.0 to
intersect categories for you. In practice the toolserver can't be taken for granted. And it seems that the naive way of doing this produces a list that is just too big (I took sub-categories to depth 5 there). To get an idea, if you do 1950 births intersect people stubs you get something over 2000. Which suggests the magnitude of the problem might be around 100,000.
Charles
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 4 April 2012 15:10, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
We *should* have a category of BLP stubs, but I can't find it. Maybe someone can cross-reference the BLP category and the "people stub" category (and its sub-categories) and find out how many are BLPs.
In principle that shouldn't be too hard to do, with Catscan 2.0 to
intersect categories for you. In practice the toolserver can't be taken for granted. And it seems that the naive way of doing this produces a list that is just too big (I took sub-categories to depth 5 there). To get an idea, if you do 1950 births intersect people stubs you get something over 2000. Which suggests the magnitude of the problem might be around 100,000.
This presumes 2000 every year from 1950 to 2000? Might not be that, but something of that order of magnitude. Thanks. I wish the toolserver and tools like that wouldn't trip up or time out over large stuff like that. The inability to get a true sense of the bigger picture can lead to potential failure points.
Carcharoth
On 4 April 2012 17:28, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
In principle that shouldn't be too hard to do, with Catscan 2.0 to
intersect categories for you. In practice the toolserver can't be taken for granted. And it seems that the naive way of doing this produces a list that is just too big (I took sub-categories to depth 5 there). To get an idea, if you do 1950 births intersect people stubs you get something over 2000. Which suggests the magnitude of the problem might be around 100,000.
This presumes 2000 every year from 1950 to 2000? Might not be that, but something of that order of magnitude. Thanks. I wish the toolserver and tools like that wouldn't trip up or time out over large stuff like that. The inability to get a true sense of the bigger picture can lead to potential failure points.
Catscan has always been quite slow - it's fair enough, I suppose, when you consider it's having to match item-by-item in two very large and dynamically generated lists! I wonder if it's possible to tell it to just return a figure for matching articles, rather than a list, when you expect it to be unusually large?
That aside, approximately two thirds of rated biography articles are stubs, judging by talkpage assessments. If this generalises to BLPs, we're talking a little under 400,000. *However*, this has two major caveats.
Firstly, I suspect that our BLPs are probably less likely to be stubs than other articles; they skew strongly towards topics from the past twenty years, which tend to be better documented and so it's easier for a casual editor to bring them up to a decent size.
Secondly, talkpage ratings (and stub templates on articles, for that matter) are notoriously laggy. A sizable proportion of articles nominally rated stubs are not stubs by any reasonable definition; they were rated a long time ago, and have since expanded and improved dramatically. However, the ratings often don't get changed by the authors who work on the articles; this is the same phenomenon which leaves maintenance templates on the top of articles years after the problems are resolved, and has the same effect of making things seem worse than they are. Depending on the topic, anything from 10% to 25% of articles marked as stubs probably aren't, in the sense that they have nontrivial content and serve as more than a placeholder.
Putting these together, I would make a wild stab at saying that it is unlikely more than half our BLPs - about a quarter of a million entries - are stubs. I'm not sure I'd go as low as 100,000, but it's interesting how divergent the estimates from different sources are...
On Wednesday, 4 April 2012 at 20:16, Andrew Gray wrote:
Catscan has always been quite slow - it's fair enough, I suppose, when you consider it's having to match item-by-item in two very large and dynamically generated lists! I wonder if it's possible to tell it to just return a figure for matching articles, rather than a list, when you expect it to be unusually large?
It's still going to have to calculate the intersection of the two sets (the computationally and IO intensive task) in order to then calculate the size of said intersection.
On 4 April 2012 20:16, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
Putting these together, I would make a wild stab at saying that it is unlikely more than half our BLPs - about a quarter of a million entries - are stubs. I'm not sure I'd go as low as 100,000, but it's interesting how divergent the estimates from different sources are...
100,000 is definitely on the low side: the point is that it is six figures.
Charles
On Wed, 4 Apr 2012, George Herbert wrote:
BLP is a good idea and we got it for good reasons. These recent developments, however, forget that we are *an encyclopedia*. It's into barking mad territory.
No. We will not go to removing bios on demand on my watch.
I would suggest as a modest proposal that we do away with "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia". I've already suggested that we do away with the IAR clause "to improve the encyclopedia".
"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" constantly gets misinterpreted to mean "we may never allow other concerns to take precedence over being encyclopediac". This is wrong.
On 4 April 2012 16:24, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote: <snip>
I would suggest as a modest proposal that we do away with "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia". I've already suggested that we do away with the IAR clause "to improve the encyclopedia".
Oh, I don't know, it still has explanatory value. "Comprehensive topic-based tertiary source" has twice as many syllables.
"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" constantly gets misinterpreted to mean "we may never allow other concerns to take precedence over being encyclopediac". This is wrong.
Mmm. There is a certain rather blinkered singlemindedness that can set in with some people, so perhaps I know what you are driving at. But why do you think such people would be better at interpreting other attempts to define the scope of the mission? The problem is surely not so much in the wording, as in the approach.
In fact I'm in favour of the rearguard action that regards the pressure to define key concepts ever more precisely as the expulsion of common sense.
Charles
On Wed, 4 Apr 2012, Charles Matthews wrote:
"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" constantly gets misinterpreted to mean "we may never allow other concerns to take precedence over being encyclopediac". This is wrong.
Mmm. There is a certain rather blinkered singlemindedness that can set in with some people, so perhaps I know what you are driving at. But why do you think such people would be better at interpreting other attempts to define the scope of the mission? The problem is surely not so much in the wording, as in the approach.
In fact I'm in favour of the rearguard action that regards the pressure to define key concepts ever more precisely as the expulsion of common sense.
Common sense is long gone. All we can do is try to make sure its replacement doesn't have too many holes in it.
I didn't pull this out of thin air, after all--I was replying to someone who, with complete seriousness, said that we shouldn't delete a BLP because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
I think this is a specific case of the fact that we want the rules to be strict and not subject to dispute when going after troublemakers or settling arguments--but if you can tell a troublemaker "we don't want to hear your excuses, a rule violation is a rule violation", someone else can tell us the same thing.
George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 4, 2012, at 9:34, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
I didn't pull this out of thin air, after all--I was replying to someone who, with complete seriousness, said that we shouldn't delete a BLP because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
I did not say that, not even vaguely. Normal deletion under established criteria is fine, including attack articles and non-notability.
We should not let BLP subjects whitewash Wikipedia at will. Them not liking having an article, once legitimate BLP issues are cleaned up, is unfortunate, but does not trump that we are an encyclopedia.
We should not make a fundamental goals and values change just because a few people are offended at being biographically notable or have a bug up their butt about the project. Long term vocal unhappiness does NOT invalidate the reasonableness of the existing balance point.
Tweak maybe, throw out no, and yes, those seeking to throw out have gone off the rails.
On Wed, 4 Apr 2012, George Herbert wrote:
BLP is a good idea and we got it for good reasons. These recent developments, however, forget that we are *an encyclopedia*. It's into barking mad territory.
No. We will not go to removing bios on demand on my watch.
I would suggest as a modest proposal that we do away with "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia". I've already suggested that we do away with the IAR clause "to improve the encyclopedia".
"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" constantly gets misinterpreted to mean "we may never allow other concerns to take precedence over being encyclopediac". This is wrong.
I would prefer we limit content to encyclopedic content. Obviously aggregating news, especially about individuals, is incompatible with that purpose.
Fred
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 5:50 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
I would prefer we limit content to encyclopedic content. Obviously aggregating news, especially about individuals, is incompatible with that purpose.
Large amounts of Wikipedia articles on recent topics are nothing more than aggregating from news sources. There is a spectrum between that and summarising from secondary sources that have had time to assess, review, and come to a reasoned conclusion about a topic area. But too much is at the 'news' and 'current affairs' end of the spectrum. It *is* a problem, and it always has been.
I wonder, how much of the early editing (first 2-3 years), was on news topics? How much was on historical topics? ANd has that changed over time?
Carcharoth
On 4 April 2012 17:55, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Large amounts of Wikipedia articles on recent topics are nothing more than aggregating from news sources.
A lot of this will be the canonicalisation of any rubbish in a newspaper as a Reliable Source. If you don't want your article deleted, put as many newspaper sources in as possible!
- d.
On 4 April 2012 17:55, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I wonder, how much of the early editing (first 2-3 years), was on news topics?
Probably relatively little because there weren't many editors and those that were were concentrating on copying other encyclopedias.
How much was on historical topics?
It's likely that's nearly all of it.
ANd has that changed over time?
If you go through the articles that are being created now, a lot of them (maybe a bit under 50% or so) couldn't have been started back when Wikipedia started, because they rely on events that happened since that point.
So there's two things, there's the 'catch-up' of legacy info which peaked around 2006 and is now well into decline and then there's the ongoing maintenance of adding new stuff (this probably finished ramping up around 2006 due to the influx of new editors and should be pretty flat since the number of editors isn't decreasing very much.)
Carcharoth
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 1:47 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.comwrote:
BLP is a good idea and we got it for good reasons. These recent developments, however, forget that we are *an encyclopedia*. It's into barking mad territory.
No. We will not go to removing bios on demand on my watch.
George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone
Well, for many minor biographical articles, we are not an encyclopedia, but a collection of garbage.
When Hari defamed the people he disliked, his stuff stayed in articles for weeks on end.
Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cristina_Odone&diff=307012625&...
In this edit
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Littlejohn&diff=403251...
he manufactured a "criminal record" for "acts of violence committed in Peterborough in the 1970s" out of the fact that (according to Sam Blacketer) the guy had once, as a teenager, been fined £20 for involvement in a pub brawl.
This type of BLP abuse, where some obscure, unflattering fact is inflated to vastly undue importance, and given its own section and headline, is absolutely typical of Wikipedia.
One BLP I helped get deleted a few weeks ago had a section "X's brushes with the law" which took up 50 per cent of the entire article. The material was apparently put in by a former lodger whom she had evicted because he was allegedly doing -- and selling -- drugs in her house. Editing her biography was his revenge. Some of it was inaccurate, none of it was sourced adequately (court records rather than secondary sources), none of it was biographically relevant (traffic citations and a civil matter). Yet when the subject took the infringing material out, two experienced Wikipedians put it back in and warned her for COI editing.
Encyclopedia? Let's not flatter ourselves. For borderline notable people, it's more like a defamation engine crossed with an infomercial generator. Here is another example: Klee Irwin. This is what the article looked like today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Klee_Irwin&oldid=479539626
This what it looked like six weeks ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Klee_Irwin&oldid=478654615
In one version the guy is a crook, in the other he is a saint. Both versions are rampant coatracks. Neither article version is worthy of being called a biography in an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is nowhere near reliable if an article can flip-flop like that.
If that is the quality level we are happy to settle for with minor biographies, where we either end up with hatchet jobs or infomercials, because nobody neutral can be BOTHERED to write about these obscure people, then I think it would indeed be better not to have "biographies" like that at all.
Another example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rande_Gerber&diff=416351133&am...
This turns a sexual harassment accusation into fact. Not even the tabloid sources the edit was based on presented the alleged harassment as fact. In fact, they presented statements calling the veracity of these allegations into serious doubt – none of which were reflected in Wikipedia.
As far as I can tell, this court case has sunk without trace. But this edit stood like that for a whole year. An accusation obviously suffices for a conviction in the court of Wikipedia.
When it comes to minor biographies, the site is riddled with stuff like that, just sitting there. It's shite, however many times you call it an encyclopedia. Absolute, incompetent, malicious or self-serving, shite.
With editor numbers stagnating or declining, we need fewer biographies, not more.
We need to restrict ourselves to biographies that are encyclopedically relevant, so that articles get tended and watched by more people than just the subjects themselves, and the people who hate them.
Andreas
On Apr 4, 2012, at 5:27, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I noticed a thread on Jimbo's talk page that is partly related to this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#A_radical_idea.3B_BLP_opt...
Tarc suggested:
"Any living person, subject to identity verification via OTRS, may request the deletion of their article. No discussion, no AfD, just *poof*. In its place is a simple template explaining why there is no longer an article there, and a pointer to where the reader can find information on the subject, a link similar to Template:Find sources at the top of every AfD."
What people there seem to be missing is that the template would explicitly say "article removed at subject's request". The point being that this could well result in a big PR stink for either Wikipedia ("the article was rubbish and rightly removed") or for the subject ("they are (wrongly) trying to control what is said about them").
[This is why it relates to the topic of this thread]
This is why such a proposal might actually work.
I am rather surprised at why some people miss that this is about living people though. BWilkins said:
"You can't very well tear out "Mussolini" from every copy of EB ever printed, can you?"
Obviously, for those who are dead, this proposed policy would no longer apply, and you default back to the usual arguments about notability and so on. And I still maintain that notability cannot be properly assessed until someone's life or career has finished. The whole "notability is not temporary" thing needs serious re-examination.
Carcharoth
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If we let people delete articles on themselves, they will delete those articles not closely conforming to their own idea of themselves, and this gives them a veto power over content. No BLP will then be other than promotional. In my experience the problem with most little-watched articles, bio or otherwise, is much more likely to be promotionalism than abuse.
It would be better to have a rule to never take the views of the subject in consideration about whether we should have an article, unless an exception can be made according to other Wikipedia rules, in particular, Do No Harm. People have the right to a fair article, but not to a favorable one.
I agree that the ratio of editors to articles is much too low. What we need is not fewer bios, but more editors. Encouraging new people to work on BLPs is the solution.
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 4:52 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rande_Gerber&diff=416351133&am...
The problem arises in the cases of articles which are libelous, malicious, or manifestly unfair. Other instances, other than people who are clearly notable, are not relevant; it doesn't matter whether we have articles or not, promotional or critical, so it doesn't matter if the subject has the power to delete. I realize that sentence is hard to understand. Basically it means that except for the famous or maligned, it doesn't matter whether there is an article or not or what its content is.
Fred
If we let people delete articles on themselves, they will delete those articles not closely conforming to their own idea of themselves, and this gives them a veto power over content. No BLP will then be other than promotional. In my experience the problem with most little-watched articles, bio or otherwise, is much more likely to be promotionalism than abuse.
It would be better to have a rule to never take the views of the subject in consideration about whether we should have an article, unless an exception can be made according to other Wikipedia rules, in particular, Do No Harm. People have the right to a fair article, but not to a favorable one.
I agree that the ratio of editors to articles is much too low. What we need is not fewer bios, but more editors. Encouraging new people to work on BLPs is the solution.
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 4:52 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rande_Gerber&diff=416351133&am...
-- David Goodman
DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
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On 16 April 2012 14:12, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
The problem arises in the cases of articles which are libelous, malicious, or manifestly unfair. Other instances, other than people who are clearly notable, are not relevant; it doesn't matter whether we have articles or not, promotional or critical, so it doesn't matter if the subject has the power to delete. I realize that sentence is hard to understand. Basically it means that except for the famous or maligned, it doesn't matter whether there is an article or not or what its content is.
That certainly accords with my long-held view, that the whole business of making inclusionist-deletionist a two-party system breaks down to the extent that it involves long discussions on points of principle when the particular case makes only the most marginal difference. (This, naturally, is an argument that is like to offend both sides.) In starker terms, if we concede, now or later, that we don't have an unlimited supply of editor time, then it would be better if it were spent in more productive ways.
But in any case the overarching argument on how worthwhile it is to work on a given area, such as BLP, doesn't have traction, given that editors will self-assign as usual. At the "indifference point" we should use PROD-like deletion, and expanding its scope would seem to be the answer. Perhaps relaxing the rule that PROD nominations can only be used once in the lifetime of an article, for BLPs, offers a way forward.
Charles
On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 10:18 PM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
It would be better to have a rule to never take the views of the subject in consideration about whether we should have an article, unless an exception can be made according to other Wikipedia rules, in particular, Do No Harm. People have the right to a fair article, but not to a favorable one.
David, a major problem with BLPs is that marginally notable people sometimes find it quite creepy to be at the centre of apparently obsessive attention from people they don't know, who in addition may be editing anonymously (and therefore may be people they *do* know!).
A lot of people who commented on the recent case of the radio presenter missed this point. They focused on whether the article was in good shape, and that the presenter wouldn't explain exactly what was wrong with it.
But what was wrong with it was its existence *and* its continued editing. If a journalist writes about you, you're going to have that person in your life for a few hours or days (unless you're involved in something protracted or high-profile). But on Wikipedia, there could be obsessive tweaking for years, accompanied by talk-page discussion about "should we, shouldn't we, add a date of birth," and "are we sure the date is correct," and "maybe we could try to obtain it through the Freedom of Information Act." It's especially odd to continue to do this once the subject has asked you to stop.
I can understand that it would feel creepy to be exposed to this year after year, if you're not used to it, especially when there's no editor-in-chief or publisher you can appeal to. Some people won't mind, and some will hate it. It's unkind of us to point to one of those emotional reactions and say "that's an irrational response, so we're going to ignore you."
Sarah
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 10:18 PM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
It would be better to have a rule to never take the views of the subject in consideration about whether we should have an article, unless an exception can be made according to other Wikipedia rules, in particular, Do No Harm. People have the right to a fair article, but not to a favorable one.
David, a major problem with BLPs is that marginally notable people sometimes find it quite creepy to be at the centre of apparently obsessive attention from people they don't know, who in addition may be editing anonymously (and therefore may be people they *do* know!).
A lot of people who commented on the recent case of the radio presenter missed this point. They focused on whether the article was in good shape, and that the presenter wouldn't explain exactly what was wrong with it.
But what was wrong with it was its existence *and* its continued editing. If a journalist writes about you, you're going to have that person in your life for a few hours or days (unless you're involved in something protracted or high-profile). But on Wikipedia, there could be obsessive tweaking for years, accompanied by talk-page discussion about "should we, shouldn't we, add a date of birth," and "are we sure the date is correct," and "maybe we could try to obtain it through the Freedom of Information Act." It's especially odd to continue to do this once the subject has asked you to stop.
I can understand that it would feel creepy to be exposed to this year after year, if you're not used to it, especially when there's no editor-in-chief or publisher you can appeal to. Some people won't mind, and some will hate it. It's unkind of us to point to one of those emotional reactions and say "that's an irrational response, so we're going to ignore you."
Sarah
This is a legitimate concern, but not unique to Wikipedia. I have seen people have similar reactions to ongoing local gossip column or industry coverage (DJ, Radio personality, local politicians, etc) in local newspapers.
There's an organization and editor to complain to in those cases, but ultimately unless the coverage is libelous it's really hard to get it to stop, and making an effort often intensifies the (non-libelous) total coverage of the subject.
The local activist papers seem to do an event like this to someone about once an issue. And keep following up on a few people on a regular basis, who to me often just don't rise to the level of ongoing coverage or notability, but the papers have their own viewpoint and agenda...
We have entrance criteria for notability and quality criteria for content and neutrality. If our problem here in this area is proportional to and hopefully less than that of the other low-end media problems that people face, I think we're doing ok. We can't solve this societal problem. Privacy's not an absolute right. There is no perfect balance point here.
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 3:26 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 10:18 PM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
It would be better to have a rule to never take the views of the subject in consideration about whether we should have an article, unless an exception can be made according to other Wikipedia rules, in particular, Do No Harm. People have the right to a fair article, but not to a favorable one.
David, a major problem with BLPs is that marginally notable people sometimes find it quite creepy to be at the centre of apparently obsessive attention from people they don't know, who in addition may be editing anonymously (and therefore may be people they *do* know!).
This is a legitimate concern, but not unique to Wikipedia. I have seen people have similar reactions to ongoing local gossip column or industry coverage (DJ, Radio personality, local politicians, etc) in local newspapers.
There's an organization and editor to complain to in those cases, but ultimately unless the coverage is libelous it's really hard to get it to stop, and making an effort often intensifies the (non-libelous) total coverage of the subject.
With almost all news organizations, if you wrote to the editor and told him several of his reporters had been discussing his date of birth in public for two years -- some of them using pseudonyms -- and that it was creeping him out, the editor would (at the very least) tell them to stop or justify it.
The scary thing about Wikipedia, from the point of view of a BLP subject, is that no one is in charge, and no one is being paid, and that means no one is worried about losing her job, so there is less (or no) restraint.
But when a BLP subject gets scared, and admits it has been affecting his health, we call him an idiot on the talk page and tell him he has to interact with us even more to correct any falsehoods. But he doesn't want to interact with us *at all*.
The problem lies with us, in that we feel we have the right to make people enter into these relationships with us.
Sarah
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 3:47 PM, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 3:26 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Sarah slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 10:18 PM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
It would be better to have a rule to never take the views of the subject in consideration about whether we should have an article, unless an exception can be made according to other Wikipedia rules, in particular, Do No Harm. People have the right to a fair article, but not to a favorable one.
David, a major problem with BLPs is that marginally notable people sometimes find it quite creepy to be at the centre of apparently obsessive attention from people they don't know, who in addition may be editing anonymously (and therefore may be people they *do* know!).
This is a legitimate concern, but not unique to Wikipedia. I have seen people have similar reactions to ongoing local gossip column or industry coverage (DJ, Radio personality, local politicians, etc) in local newspapers.
There's an organization and editor to complain to in those cases, but ultimately unless the coverage is libelous it's really hard to get it to stop, and making an effort often intensifies the (non-libelous) total coverage of the subject.
With almost all news organizations, if you wrote to the editor and told him several of his reporters had been discussing his date of birth in public for two years -- some of them using pseudonyms -- and that it was creeping him out, the editor would (at the very least) tell them to stop or justify it.
The scary thing about Wikipedia, from the point of view of a BLP subject, is that no one is in charge, and no one is being paid, and that means no one is worried about losing her job, so there is less (or no) restraint.
But when a BLP subject gets scared, and admits it has been affecting his health, we call him an idiot on the talk page and tell him he has to interact with us even more to correct any falsehoods. But he doesn't want to interact with us *at all*.
Ok, but ...
The problem lies with us, in that we feel we have the right to make people enter into these relationships with us.
Sarah
Again, privacy isn't an absolute right.
The WMF exists to be a vague version of "the editor" and legal and/or PR and/or OTRS people can look in on and intervene in situations which are bizarre or abusive.
The particular case here where the local radio personality objected so much, we're reading too much in to. They had an idiosyncratic reaction and did a bunch of actions that made the situation worse and called more attention to themselves. Their press campaign did not help.
There seems to be an argument here that the projects and/or Foundation should extend "Do no harm" to "Avoid any emotional distress". Taken literally, we can't possibly do anything at all, as anything we do (including characterizing bedrock deposits under continental plates) can cause emotional distress. Even if only applied to BLPs, I'm sure that our accurate and neutral coverage of controversial public figures sometimes causes emotional distress, because I know that accurate and neutral press coverage does and we're exhibiting similar total societal impact to press organizations now.
I understand your point. But there's a difference between "Please act in a way that doesn't antagonize sensitive people and is respectful of their feelings" and "Remove BLPs on request".
The key problem here - IMHO - is not-sensitive editors interacting with sensitive BLP subjects.
If you feel that we need to destroy the encyclopedia to fix that, I disagree. I disagree on principle, and in practice - I'll fork the project over it if it comes to that, creating a biography pedia if that subject can no longer be handled in an acceptably robust manner within Wikipedia.
It can only be fixed at a human level. It will only be fixed as well as our volunteers perform, which will include outliers where the editors go make things far worse than they have to before anyone in a position of community influence becomes aware of it, and rarely beyond any hope of salvaging the subject's opinion of WP and consent to being included therein. BLP's "Do no harm" is not a suicide pact for our core project goal. We accept that the value and significance of the Encyclopedia outweighs the rare occasions where something like that happens.
Or we don't, in which case either you or I will leave the project, with a split.
On 4/17/12, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
The key problem here - IMHO - is not-sensitive editors interacting with sensitive BLP subjects.
That is not always the case.
What would *you* do if you cleaned up and expanded an article on a BLP you had never heard of before (to 'do the right thing'), and did the best job you could, but the subject of the article turned up on the talk page of the article and objected to the rewrite and said they didn't want an article on them (I'm talking in general here, not about specific cases)?
To make it even harder, they are being reasonable about it, rather than abusive, and you feel bad about how things turned out. What then? You feel an obligation to keep an eye on an article that *you* rewrote, but you know the subject objects to it. You are not getting paid for this (you are 'only' a volunteer), yet you have found yourself caught in this rather horrible situation that you would never have found yourself in if you had been employed by a published scholarly encyclopedia to write an article.
The conclusion I'm coming to is (as I've said, I've only seriously edited 4-5 BLPs ever): only edit BLPs where there are sufficient sources to write a proper article. Editing of borderline notable BLPs is a thankless task that rewards no-one. Not the readers (they don't get a proper article, only a stub), not the subjects (they mostly don't want such articles or want to have inappropriate control), and not the editors (they usually don't have the sources to write a proper article).
That is largely why I've left my proposed rewrite on the radio presenter on the talk page. I can't in good conscience put that in as the actual article if the subject doesn't want an article at all. There are far better things to do with my time than edit borderline notable BLPs, which will all likely get deleted at some future point anyway. Having huge numbers of BLPs is not a sustainable practice on Wikipedia.
One more point. There was a Facebook thread and radio comments mentioned at some point. I'm not on Facebook and I don't listen to the radio. The question is, should I make myself aware of what is being said in those media before editing such articles or their talk pages, or not? If there is a need to follow 'responses' in other media, that is not sustainable either.
Carcharoth
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
On 4/17/12, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
The key problem here - IMHO - is not-sensitive editors interacting with sensitive BLP subjects.
That is not always the case.
What would *you* do if you cleaned up and expanded an article on a BLP you had never heard of before (to 'do the right thing'), and did the best job you could, but the subject of the article turned up on the talk page of the article and objected to the rewrite and said they didn't want an article on them (I'm talking in general here, not about specific cases)?
To make it even harder, they are being reasonable about it, rather than abusive, and you feel bad about how things turned out. What then? You feel an obligation to keep an eye on an article that *you* rewrote, but you know the subject objects to it. You are not getting paid for this (you are 'only' a volunteer), yet you have found yourself caught in this rather horrible situation that you would never have found yourself in if you had been employed by a published scholarly encyclopedia to write an article.
Why would you not find yourself in a similar situation if employed by a published scholarly encyclopedia and were told "This guy is just notable enough, write a brief bio of him for the next version"?
In the WP case - if they're being reasonable, and object to the rewrite, it's usually either because they have info or points not previously in evidence (in which case, yay, we have more information) or don't understand Wikipedia policy or editorial standards (yay, we have a newcomer who's being reasonable, we can talk to them and educate them, and maybe rope them into contributing). They key is to talk to them. Reasonably.
Under existing BLP and notability policy, we have criteria for article existence/non-existence. If the subject makes or can be helped to articulate a case under that policy that they shouldn't have an article, then the reasonable thing to do is to run it up the AFD flagpole and see if others agree. If they object but can't make a case under the policy, then it's a case of trying to make sure they understand Wikipedia's goals and policies and standards, even if they end up disagreeing with some of them. Again, if they're starting reasonable, they generally listen and engage.
I have never had a conversation along these lines - OTRS or normal on-wiki - that went terribly badly if it started out with a fundamentally reasonable and constructively communicating subject. I don't know how many I dealt with, but it's more than 10.
Far more were of the "No, no, it is true that they convicted me for that but it was a lie! And that other warrant too! You bastards can't post that stuff about me, someone might read it and stop taking my financial advice!"...
What is wrong about this situation currently with the radio personality is that it appears to be the once-every-few-years serious outlier. Unlike the Sigenthaler thing which was a totally innocent article subject and resulted in the BLP policy, this current one is probably not something we can fix with rules that are compliant with our other core goals.
Some cases just make lousy precedent. Lawyers and judges are acutely aware of that. I understand that it blew up enough to gather a lot of internal attention, and am not unsympathetic to the individual's complaints and discomfort. But we can't rework carefully balanced policies over something so muddy ugly as this particular case.
There's a fundamental difference between "This was fucked up" and "We need to change our core values to avoid this happening again".
-george
On 4/17/12, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Why would you not find yourself in a similar situation if employed by a published scholarly encyclopedia and were told "This guy is just notable enough, write a brief bio of him for the next version"?
The difference is, there is (usually) an intermediary between the article author and the article subject, such as an editorial board or editor. On Wikipedia, the contact is more direct, and that isn't good, IMO. If you wanted to complain to a newspaper about an article, would you feel more comfortable talking to the journalist who wrote the article, or to his or her boss? There is probably a case to be made for article subjects who want to raise objections to be directed *away* from article talk pages, and to be told to go to OTRS first. Maybe they are told that, I'm not sure where the documentation is. But direct interaction between the subject of an article and the authors of an article just doesn't sit right with me.
Possibly you have to have actually had an article written about you to understand that. That won't happen to me any time soon, but the people to talk to are those with articles who object in principle. I'm surprised no survey has actually been done along those lines yet.
Carcharoth
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 7:24 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Under existing BLP and notability policy, we have criteria for article existence/non-existence. If the subject makes or can be helped to articulate a case under that policy that they shouldn't have an article, then the reasonable thing to do is to run it up the AFD flagpole and see if others agree. If they object but can't make a case under the policy, then it's a case of trying to make sure they understand Wikipedia's goals and policies and standards, even if they end up disagreeing with some of them. ...
George, the point is some people don't want to have a relationship with us, and I don't think we should force them.
Please imagine how you would feel if Facebook opened an account under your real name, against your wishes, then added to the page whatever factoid it could find about you in local papers and records, and even wanted to track down your birth certificate and use Freedom of Information against you. Then when you explained it was making you ill, Facebook staff appeared on the page, called you an idiot in public, and said your complaints had succeeded only in drawing more attention to you.
That's basically what we're doing to people, and as with all things reactions differ. Some are flattered, some don't mind, and some get upset. It's not for us to say which reaction is correct, and that the upset people are being irrational.
Sarah
On Mon, 16 Apr 2012, George Herbert wrote:
The particular case here where the local radio personality objected so much, we're reading too much in to. They had an idiosyncratic reaction and did a bunch of actions that made the situation worse and called more attention to themselves. Their press campaign did not help.
BLP subjects are not necessarily familiar with the ins and outs of Wikipedia and may not know how to best act so as to minimize their Wikipedia exposure. They should not be penalized for failure to do so.
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 5:18 AM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for picking the topic up again, David.
It would be better to have a rule to never take the views of the
subject in consideration about whether we should have an article, unless an exception can be made according to other Wikipedia rules, in particular, Do No Harm. People have the right to a fair article, but not to a favorable one.
I wish Do no harm were a Wikipedia rule. But the only essay I am aware of that formalises it has it marked as a rejected principle in its introduction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HARM
Under the present system, we do need to have some provision for the type of exception you mention. It's really firefighting though, rather than addressing the underlying cause.
I agree that the ratio of editors to articles is much too low. What we
need is not fewer bios, but more editors. Encouraging new people to
work on BLPs is the solution.
The problem is not the ratio between editors and biographies, but the ratio of editors editing within policy vs editors who come only to write a hatchet job or an infomercial. This is something that can be addressed by Pending Changes.
Let all those who only edit an article to defame or advertise, to write hatchet jobs or infomercials, make their suggestions.
And let an editor who understands what a coatrack is, and who is committed to core policy, decide what the public should see when they navigate to the page.
The right to edit BLPs, and approve pending changes, should be a distinction that people are proud of, just like they are proud of rollback or adminship. And like rollback, it should be a privilege they will lose if they abuse it.
The really hard calls on how much negative material to include in a BLP should be made by teams with a diverse composition. A whole new culture needs to be built around BLP editing.
Andreas
On 18 April 2012 06:22, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 5:18 AM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
The problem is not the ratio between editors and biographies, but the ratio of editors editing within policy vs editors who come only to write a hatchet job or an infomercial. This is something that can be addressed by Pending Changes.
Let all those who only edit an article to defame or advertise, to write hatchet jobs or infomercials, make their suggestions.
And let an editor who understands what a coatrack is, and who is committed to core policy, decide what the public should see when they navigate to the page.
The right to edit BLPs, and approve pending changes, should be a distinction that people are proud of, just like they are proud of rollback or adminship. And like rollback, it should be a privilege they will lose if they abuse it.
The really hard calls on how much negative material to include in a BLP should be made by teams with a diverse composition. A whole new culture needs to be built around BLP editing.
Andreas, I generally agree with you on matters relating to BLPs. I don't, however, understand why you think Pending Changes will have any effect whatsoever on improving BLP articles. Bluntly put, the policy that is currently being discussed on the current RFC[1] does *not* authorize reviewers to shape the article (in fact, it doesn't really give any instructions to reviewers), and it permits any administrator to grant or withdraw reviewer status on a whim; there's no requirement or expectation that the status is granted or withdrawn in relation to actual editing. During the trial, we had a rather significant number of experienced editors refuse to accept reviewer status because they do not want to have any permissions that can be withdrawn by one single administrator.
Please go back and read the proposed Pending Changes policy in the RFC, and tell me that you really and truly believe that it will have the effect you desire. It is essentially the same policy that was in effect during the trial, and there was never a determination of whether it meant "reject only vandalism" or "reject anything unsourced" or "reject anything you do not personally think will improve the article." There are problems with all of these interpretations of the policy, just as there were considerable problems with them during the trial. It just seems that nobody cares to actually mine the data from the trial itself to figure out whether or not Pending Changes does what some people want it to do. Of course, it's quite possible that the proposed policy is so vague specifically so that people can read into it what they want, and use it in ways that aren't supported by the majority of the community.
Risker/Anne
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2...
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 3:44 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 18 April 2012 06:22, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 5:18 AM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com
wrote:
<snip>
The problem is not the ratio between editors and biographies, but the
ratio
of editors editing within policy vs editors who come only to write a hatchet job or an infomercial. This is something that can be addressed by Pending Changes.
Let all those who only edit an article to defame or advertise, to write hatchet jobs or infomercials, make their suggestions.
And let an editor who understands what a coatrack is, and who is
committed
to core policy, decide what the public should see when they navigate to
the
page.
The right to edit BLPs, and approve pending changes, should be a distinction that people are proud of, just like they are proud of
rollback
or adminship. And like rollback, it should be a privilege they will lose
if
they abuse it.
The really hard calls on how much negative material to include in a BLP should be made by teams with a diverse composition. A whole new culture needs to be built around BLP editing.
Andreas, I generally agree with you on matters relating to BLPs. I don't, however, understand why you think Pending Changes will have any effect whatsoever on improving BLP articles. Bluntly put, the policy that is currently being discussed on the current RFC[1] does *not* authorize reviewers to shape the article (in fact, it doesn't really give any instructions to reviewers), and it permits any administrator to grant or withdraw reviewer status on a whim; there's no requirement or expectation that the status is granted or withdrawn in relation to actual editing. During the trial, we had a rather significant number of experienced editors refuse to accept reviewer status because they do not want to have any permissions that can be withdrawn by one single administrator.
Please go back and read the proposed Pending Changes policy in the RFC, and tell me that you really and truly believe that it will have the effect you desire. It is essentially the same policy that was in effect during the trial, and there was never a determination of whether it meant "reject only vandalism" or "reject anything unsourced" or "reject anything you do not personally think will improve the article." There are problems with all of these interpretations of the policy, just as there were considerable problems with them during the trial. It just seems that nobody cares to actually mine the data from the trial itself to figure out whether or not Pending Changes does what some people want it to do. Of course, it's quite possible that the proposed policy is so vague specifically so that people can read into it what they want, and use it in ways that aren't supported by the majority of the community.
Risker/Anne
[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2...
Hi Anne. I did read the proposed policy, and I agree it's not brilliant. The reason I support the current proposal is simply because it's the only proposal on the table, and to my mind having even some minimal support for Pending Changes established is better than nothing.
German Wikipedia has had a similar system of Pending Changes for years – with the rather large difference that it is applied to *all* articles by default – and I believe it does make a difference.
In part, the difference is a psychological one. Vandal fighting and approving/rejecting changes foster and attract very different psychologies, and create a different working climate. Reverting a vandal edit is a "dramatic" event, because the edit is live, and may already be read by hundreds of people; reverting it goes along with feelings of having been invaded, of "defending the project", being a "hero", and so forth. It's like the company troubleshooter who secretly *hopes* for trouble, so they can glory in being a troubleshooter. People wedded to their troubleshooter role are psychologically conflicted about systemic changes that would make their role obsolete.
Approving or rejecting proposed changes, on the other hand, is a calmer and more reasoned act; one that can be taken time over. It's more akin to what editing, in the traditional sense of the word, is about.
I'd like to see Pending Changes applied preemptively, at least for all minor biographies (i.e. those watched by less than a given number of editors). And yes, there should be a process for withdrawing the reviewer flag from an editor other than one admin deciding that it should be withdrawn. But those are things that I hope can come over time.
How would you approach the issue?
Andreas
On 18 April 2012 12:41, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 3:44 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 18 April 2012 06:22, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 5:18 AM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com
wrote:
<snip>
The problem is not the ratio between editors and biographies, but the
ratio
of editors editing within policy vs editors who come only to write a hatchet job or an infomercial. This is something that can be addressed
by
Pending Changes.
Let all those who only edit an article to defame or advertise, to write hatchet jobs or infomercials, make their suggestions.
And let an editor who understands what a coatrack is, and who is
committed
to core policy, decide what the public should see when they navigate to
the
page.
The right to edit BLPs, and approve pending changes, should be a distinction that people are proud of, just like they are proud of
rollback
or adminship. And like rollback, it should be a privilege they will
lose
if
they abuse it.
The really hard calls on how much negative material to include in a BLP should be made by teams with a diverse composition. A whole new culture needs to be built around BLP editing.
Andreas, I generally agree with you on matters relating to BLPs. I
don't,
however, understand why you think Pending Changes will have any effect whatsoever on improving BLP articles. Bluntly put, the policy that is currently being discussed on the current RFC[1] does *not* authorize reviewers to shape the article (in fact, it doesn't really give any instructions to reviewers), and it permits any administrator to grant or withdraw reviewer status on a whim; there's no requirement or expectation that the status is granted or withdrawn in relation to actual editing. During the trial, we had a rather significant number of experienced
editors
refuse to accept reviewer status because they do not want to have any permissions that can be withdrawn by one single administrator.
Please go back and read the proposed Pending Changes policy in the RFC,
and
tell me that you really and truly believe that it will have the effect
you
desire. It is essentially the same policy that was in effect during the trial, and there was never a determination of whether it meant "reject
only
vandalism" or "reject anything unsourced" or "reject anything you do not personally think will improve the article." There are problems with all
of
these interpretations of the policy, just as there were considerable problems with them during the trial. It just seems that nobody cares to actually mine the data from the trial itself to figure out whether or not Pending Changes does what some people want it to do. Of course, it's
quite
possible that the proposed policy is so vague specifically so that people can read into it what they want, and use it in ways that aren't supported by the majority of the community.
Risker/Anne
[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2...
Hi Anne. I did read the proposed policy, and I agree it's not brilliant. The reason I support the current proposal is simply because it's the only proposal on the table, and to my mind having even some minimal support for Pending Changes established is better than nothing.
German Wikipedia has had a similar system of Pending Changes for years – with the rather large difference that it is applied to *all* articles by default – and I believe it does make a difference.
In part, the difference is a psychological one. Vandal fighting and approving/rejecting changes foster and attract very different psychologies, and create a different working climate. Reverting a vandal edit is a "dramatic" event, because the edit is live, and may already be read by hundreds of people; reverting it goes along with feelings of having been invaded, of "defending the project", being a "hero", and so forth. It's like the company troubleshooter who secretly *hopes* for trouble, so they can glory in being a troubleshooter. People wedded to their troubleshooter role are psychologically conflicted about systemic changes that would make their role obsolete.
Approving or rejecting proposed changes, on the other hand, is a calmer and more reasoned act; one that can be taken time over. It's more akin to what editing, in the traditional sense of the word, is about.
I'd like to see Pending Changes applied preemptively, at least for all minor biographies (i.e. those watched by less than a given number of editors). And yes, there should be a process for withdrawing the reviewer flag from an editor other than one admin deciding that it should be withdrawn. But those are things that I hope can come over time.
How would you approach the issue?
Having been very involved in the trial, I would not re-enable the use of Pending Changes until significant changes to the proposed policy are made. Most of the problems that were encountered in the trial are left completely unaddressed. There should be a prohibition on it being used for articles larger than 55K - after that point, too many people crashed when trying to review.
There should be a prohibition on its use for articles that are moving rapidly; contrary to what some thought, pending changes was not really effective for current events articles, because the proposed edits were being overwritten before anyone even reviewed them; and because there is no way to review a single pending change at a time (instead of ALL pending changes), it is inevitable that either bad edits will be accepted or good edits rejected.
I'd keep pending changes off of biographical articles that have a history of attracting vandalism or excessive vitriol or fandom. Using pending changes for these articles effectively enshrines the otherwise-never-existing vandalism into the history of the article. We saw this in quite a few highly visible biographies.
Everyone needs to be clear what exactly the role of the reviewer is; this created a considerable amount of strife during the trial. I have been given various interpretations of the manner in which flagged revisions is used on German Wikipedia, so do not want to characterize their policies and practices; however, in the absence of good quality, confirmed information on their processes, it's not appropriate to say "let's do it like they do".
Until it's clear what the role of the reviewer is, editors have no way to know whether or not they are performing in the manner that the community expects. Further, there is no guarantee that reviewer permissions won't be removed for reasons that have nothing to do with the act of reviewing.
The proposed policy essentially says " you can use this instead of semi-protection", but it does not change the criteria for protection in any way. Therefore, the articles you propose to be covered by pending changes aren't eligible. What if you think something should be under PC, and another admin comes along and says "hold on, doesn't meet the policy, off it comes"? Right now, decisions about protections are rarely the subject of inter-admin disagreement. Is that going to change? If so, who wins?
The RFC started from the wrong place. It should have been focused on what kind of PC policy we would want to have if we wanted to have one. I do see potential uses for pending changes, but I do not support the policy that is being put forward.
Risker/Anne
The pending changes stuff should probably be restarted in a new thread (or the subject line changed, whichever is best). I've never been clear, though, how 'recent changes' works, let alone pending changes. Take a recent edit I reverted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Madeleine_Astor&diff=prev&...
Some would revert or undo that without a second thought. I thought for a bit longer and sort of realised what was meant by the edit, but still couldn't be bothered to engage with the (IP) editor who made that edit, so reverted it with a half-explanation. Others would do different things. Some would see potential there for explaining to an IP editor how to edit, other would hit rollback. If it was a named account, and not an IP editor, I vaguely remember there are some welcome templates that can be used.
So my question is: how would an edit like that have been handled under pending changes? Most likely rejected due to being mis-spelt and no source provided, but where is the line drawn?
Carcharoth
Risker,
This is a rather belated response to some points you raised earlier about pending changes.
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 5:47 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Having been very involved in the trial, I would not re-enable the use of Pending Changes until significant changes to the proposed policy are made. Most of the problems that were encountered in the trial are left completely unaddressed. There should be a prohibition on it being used for articles larger than 55K - after that point, too many people crashed when trying to review.
That's never happened to me in de:WP, so I think it's a software problem that is fixable (and seems to have been fixed long ago in de:WP, if they ever had it).
There should be a prohibition on its use for articles that are moving rapidly; contrary to what some thought, pending changes was not really effective for current events articles, because the proposed edits were being overwritten before anyone even reviewed them; and because there is no way to review a single pending change at a time (instead of ALL pending changes), it is inevitable that either bad edits will be accepted or good edits rejected.
It could be a problem for very fast-moving articles - like an edit a minute, in response to some news event. But I know that the Germans manage, and I have never seen it raised as a problem there. The worst thing that could happen is that IPs make changes which never see the light of day, whereas in en:WP they would have been visible to the public briefly before being overwritten. In either case the solution is to slow down.
I haven't found reviewing several unsighted edits a huge problem in de:WP – yes, it can be a pain if the 1st, 3rd and 5th edits were good, and the 2nd and 4th weren't, but that situation is relatively rare. On the few occasions where it has happened to me, I opened a second window with the last sighted version and manually transferred the good changes. It's doable.
I'd keep pending changes off of biographical articles that have a history of attracting vandalism or excessive vitriol or fandom. Using pending changes for these articles effectively enshrines the otherwise-never-existing vandalism into the history of the article. We saw this in quite a few highly visible biographies.
It's perfectly possible to have semi-protection in addition to pending changes. The Germans have pending changes as default on all articles, but still use semi-protection or full protection alongside whenever there is IP vandalism, or an edit war.
Everyone needs to be clear what exactly the role of the reviewer is; this created a considerable amount of strife during the trial. I have been given various interpretations of the manner in which flagged revisions is used on German Wikipedia, so do not want to characterize their policies and practices; however, in the absence of good quality, confirmed information on their processes, it's not appropriate to say "let's do it like they do".
The German Wikipedia has passive and active reviewers. The main rules given at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sichten are as follows:
Passive reviewers autoreview their own edits, but can't review others'. Passive reviewing rights are automatically given to users who have been registered for at least 30 days and have made at least 150 article edits (or 50 article edits subsequently approved by a reviewer).
Active reviewer status (i.e. the right to approve others' edits) is automatically conferred on users who have been registered for 60 days and have made 300 article edits (or 200 article edits subsequently approved by a reviewer).
There are some additional details (no blocks, use of edit summaries for at least, work spread out over a number of different articles, etc.), but these are secondary.
The system works and keeps out a lot of nonsense. The only thing I would change is that I would set a higher standard for users wanting to approve BLP changes.
Cheers, Andreas
Until it's clear what the role of the reviewer is, editors have no way to know whether or not they are performing in the manner that the community expects. Further, there is no guarantee that reviewer permissions won't be removed for reasons that have nothing to do with the act of reviewing.
The proposed policy essentially says " you can use this instead of semi-protection", but it does not change the criteria for protection in any way. Therefore, the articles you propose to be covered by pending changes aren't eligible. What if you think something should be under PC, and another admin comes along and says "hold on, doesn't meet the policy, off it comes"? Right now, decisions about protections are rarely the subject of inter-admin disagreement. Is that going to change? If so, who wins?
The RFC started from the wrong place. It should have been focused on what kind of PC policy we would want to have if we wanted to have one. I do see potential uses for pending changes, but I do not support the policy that is being put forward. https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
But what is the relative rate of new edits between the de and en WPs?
On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Risker,
This is a rather belated response to some points you raised earlier about pending changes.
On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 5:47 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Having been very involved in the trial, I would not re-enable the use of Pending Changes until significant changes to the proposed policy are made. Most of the problems that were encountered in the trial are left completely unaddressed. There should be a prohibition on it being used for articles larger than 55K - after that point, too many people crashed when trying to review.
That's never happened to me in de:WP, so I think it's a software problem that is fixable (and seems to have been fixed long ago in de:WP, if they ever had it).
There should be a prohibition on its use for articles that are moving rapidly; contrary to what some thought, pending changes was not really effective for current events articles, because the proposed edits were being overwritten before anyone even reviewed them; and because there is no way to review a single pending change at a time (instead of ALL pending changes), it is inevitable that either bad edits will be accepted or good edits rejected.
It could be a problem for very fast-moving articles - like an edit a minute, in response to some news event. But I know that the Germans manage, and I have never seen it raised as a problem there. The worst thing that could happen is that IPs make changes which never see the light of day, whereas in en:WP they would have been visible to the public briefly before being overwritten. In either case the solution is to slow down.
I haven't found reviewing several unsighted edits a huge problem in de:WP – yes, it can be a pain if the 1st, 3rd and 5th edits were good, and the 2nd and 4th weren't, but that situation is relatively rare. On the few occasions where it has happened to me, I opened a second window with the last sighted version and manually transferred the good changes. It's doable.
I'd keep pending changes off of biographical articles that have a history of attracting vandalism or excessive vitriol or fandom. Using pending changes for these articles effectively enshrines the otherwise-never-existing vandalism into the history of the article. We saw this in quite a few highly visible biographies.
It's perfectly possible to have semi-protection in addition to pending changes. The Germans have pending changes as default on all articles, but still use semi-protection or full protection alongside whenever there is IP vandalism, or an edit war.
Everyone needs to be clear what exactly the role of the reviewer is; this created a considerable amount of strife during the trial. I have been given various interpretations of the manner in which flagged revisions is used on German Wikipedia, so do not want to characterize their policies and practices; however, in the absence of good quality, confirmed information on their processes, it's not appropriate to say "let's do it like they do".
The German Wikipedia has passive and active reviewers. The main rules given at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sichten are as follows:
Passive reviewers autoreview their own edits, but can't review others'. Passive reviewing rights are automatically given to users who have been registered for at least 30 days and have made at least 150 article edits (or 50 article edits subsequently approved by a reviewer).
Active reviewer status (i.e. the right to approve others' edits) is automatically conferred on users who have been registered for 60 days and have made 300 article edits (or 200 article edits subsequently approved by a reviewer).
There are some additional details (no blocks, use of edit summaries for at least, work spread out over a number of different articles, etc.), but these are secondary.
The system works and keeps out a lot of nonsense. The only thing I would change is that I would set a higher standard for users wanting to approve BLP changes.
Cheers, Andreas
Until it's clear what the role of the reviewer is, editors have no way to know whether or not they are performing in the manner that the community expects. Further, there is no guarantee that reviewer permissions won't be removed for reasons that have nothing to do with the act of reviewing.
The proposed policy essentially says " you can use this instead of semi-protection", but it does not change the criteria for protection in any way. Therefore, the articles you propose to be covered by pending changes aren't eligible. What if you think something should be under PC, and another admin comes along and says "hold on, doesn't meet the policy, off it comes"? Right now, decisions about protections are rarely the subject of inter-admin disagreement. Is that going to change? If so, who wins?
The RFC started from the wrong place. It should have been focused on what kind of PC policy we would want to have if we wanted to have one. I do see potential uses for pending changes, but I do not support the policy that is being put forward. https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 1:09 AM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
But what is the relative rate of new edits between the de and en WPs?
I've had a look at some stats. See
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaDE.htm http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm
According to these tables, March 2012 saw
745k edits in de:WP, with 1,094 editors making more than 100 edits, 6,860 making more than 5 edits, 850 new editors, 121,993 Wikipedians in total.
3.5M edits in en:WP, with 3,424 editors making more than 100 edits, 34,386 making more than 5 edits, 7007 new editors, 766,011 Wikipedians in total.
So en:WP had 4.7 times the number of edits, 3.2 times the number of 100+ editors, 5.0 times the number of 5+ editors, 8.2 times the number of new editors. 6.3 times the number of Wikipedians in total.
Note:
Flagged revisions significantly reduce the incentive to vandalise or make nonsense edits, as they are not visible to the public.
Flagged revisions also reduce the incentive to make productive edits.
English Wikipedia sees a lot more bot edits. (This includes Cluebot vandal reverts which in de:WP would simply be rejected edits, with the rejection not counting as a separate edit. If every rejection of vandalism in de:WP were counted as an edit, the German edit count would be somewhat higher.)
en:WP has proportionally more new editors than de:WP.
On the other hand: In de:WP, 0.9% of all Wikipedians made more than 100 edits in March. In en:WP, 0.45% of all Wikipedians made more than 100 edits in March.
This seems to indicate
- faster pick-up of new editors in en:WP
combined with
- faster burn-out of established editors in en:WP.
Editor retention, in the sense of the proportion of all editors who stayed on to make at least 100 edits in March 2012, is twice as high in de:WP as in en:WP. (Both projects started in 2001.)
It's also interesting that the size of the core editor group (100+ edits a month) has basically remained constant in de:WP, at around 1,000, since October 2006.
In en:WP, editors with 100+ edits per month briefly surpassed 5,000 in early 2007, and are now down to below 3,500.
Number of articles: 1.4M in de:WP, 4.0M in en:WP (ratio 1/2.86). en:WP has slightly more core editors per article than de:WP.
Andreas