I must be strange - perhaps friends and family have been right about this, all along. I actually turn with relief to adding articles to enWP, from all other related activities. I find a good bit of gnoming relaxing. I love to add redirects.
The "low-hanging fruit" argument deserves further analysis. The number of missing topics is just huge. There are new current events every day. My interest is in quite other areas, some of which I find not exactly untouched but in need of attention at the most basic level (Irish bishops, anyone?). There is a rather different point, which is that the 'media' model, very obvious in the blogosphere, is that people assume that talking about what everyone else is talking about is how the Internet works. In some sense WP contradicts that, by being both in advance and behind the main conversations. We have some antiquarian stuff, and some science and technical topics ahead of mainstream media interest. It doesn't really follow that, from the taking in of each other's washing that goes on in the media, that this is our main job.
There is still such a vast collection of information in a typical academic library that we don't cover. I can't imagine ever running out of things to write.
Charles
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On 29/08/2007, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
There is still such a vast collection of information in a typical academic library that we don't cover. I can't imagine ever running out of things to write.
Presumably by "a lack of low-hanging fruit" is meant "a lack of fruit that actively jumps into one's mouth."
The media, particularly the geek web media sphere, does inform new articles - anything covered in Slashdot is going to be well-covered in Wikipedia in short order. So for those complaining that we're out of low-hanging fruit, we need other media feeds. Or something.
- d.
On 29/08/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/08/2007, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
There is still such a vast collection of information in a typical
academic library that we don't cover. I can't imagine ever running out of things to write.
Presumably by "a lack of low-hanging fruit" is meant "a lack of fruit that actively jumps into one's mouth."
The media, particularly the geek web media sphere, does inform new articles - anything covered in Slashdot is going to be well-covered in Wikipedia in short order. So for those complaining that we're out of low-hanging fruit, we need other media feeds. Or something.
- d.
As for REDIRECTS - what is the current policy? take two of my google searches yesterday as examples* j s m ward * http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&oi=spell&... - the first wikipedia page is miles away John Sebastian Marlow Ward
;and kryolite (my alternative? spelling of Cryolite) http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=kryolite&meta= If one hears a word on television or radio its not always obvious how it is spelled
i would never suggest that every permutation of an articles name should be a redirect, but i wouldn't consider writing one now that everybody has TW. I just wouldn't be bothered with arguing over a PROD on a redirect.
On 8/29/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/08/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/08/2007, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
There is still such a vast collection of information in a typical
academic library that we don't cover. I can't imagine ever running out
of
things to write.
Presumably by "a lack of low-hanging fruit" is meant "a lack of fruit that actively jumps into one's mouth."
The media, particularly the geek web media sphere, does inform new articles - anything covered in Slashdot is going to be well-covered in Wikipedia in short order. So for those complaining that we're out of low-hanging fruit, we need other media feeds. Or something.
- d.
As for REDIRECTS - what is the current policy? take two of my google searches yesterday as examples* j s m ward *
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&oi=spell&...
the first wikipedia page is miles away John Sebastian Marlow Ward
;and kryolite (my alternative? spelling of Cryolite) http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=kryolite&meta= If one hears a word on television or radio its not always obvious how it is spelled
i would never suggest that every permutation of an articles name should be a redirect, but i wouldn't consider writing one now that everybody has TW. I just wouldn't be bothered with arguing over a PROD on a redirect.
Good point. I've stumbled on many useful redirects deleted for no apparent reason other than someone thought they were a waste of server resources, which is really ridiculous IMO. (I believe a developer once pointed out that an edit which skips a redirect causes more strain on the server than people following that redirect.)
Johnleemk
On 29/08/2007, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
As for REDIRECTS - what is the current policy? take two of my google searches yesterday as examples* j s m ward *
I hardly create an article without creating a pile of redirects for it.
I usually look up something on Wikipedia by typing "wp [subject]" into the Firefox address bar. If that doesn't take me to the page I'd expect, I do a search for the right page and create a redirect.
We should be loaded with redirects in order to make search better.
- d.
On 8/29/07, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
The "low-hanging fruit" argument deserves further analysis.
It's a lack of low-hanging apples. There's still plenty of low-hanging lapsi, or low-hanging cupuaçu.
Alternatively, it's a lack of low-hanging fruit that we can harvest by whacking the tree with a stick hoping for it to fall into the basket. There are still plenty of fruit that can easily end up in the basket if we pick them up and give them a quick dust off.
The "low-hanging fruit" argument deserves further analysis.
It's a lack of low-hanging apples. There's still plenty of low-hanging lapsi, or low-hanging cupuaçu.
Alternatively, it's a lack of low-hanging fruit that we can harvest by whacking the tree with a stick hoping for it to fall into the basket. There are still plenty of fruit that can easily end up in the basket if we pick them up and give them a quick dust off.
I would go with: "There's a lack of low hanging fruit at the edge of the orchard. You need to head in a bit deeper to find it, but it is still just as low."
charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com schreef:
There is still such a vast collection of information in a typical academic library that we don't cover. I can't imagine ever running out of things to write.
If anyone argues that Wikipedia is complete, point them at [[WP:MEA]]. The Missing Articles project has been set up to collects lists of topics that are covered in other encyclopedias (and similar works).
I think WP contains articles on the majority of subjects in general English-language encyclopedias, but compared to more specialized works there are still loads of unwritten articles. There's even a list of more than 13,000 topics in mathematics that have still to be written, even though that is a field in which Wikipedia is said to be strong (I think)...
Eugene