Hello,
An overriding concern in the community, as regards who should be able to edit in Wikipedia, appears to me to be the avoidance of elitism. I strongly agree.
The strong concern I have with editing in Wikipedia is the accountability of the editor. If a person joins a community they are accountable to that community as well as to anyone that community effects. And, simply because a person is a volunteer¹ on a project does not mean they should be held to any lesser standard than one who is not.
I believe anyone who wishes to make edits to Wikipedia should have a single, individual, registered User Name, User Page and a Talk Page. With this, anytime a person makes an edit, creates a change, in the encyclopedia, their User Name is recorded with that edit. Accountability. Trackability.
Presenting to the confidentiality concerns: There should be no requirement as to content on the User Pages they can be blank if desired. What matters is the accountability & trackability of that editor.
Marc Riddell
On 12/28/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote: [snip]
I believe anyone who wishes to make edits to Wikipedia should have a single, individual, registered User Name, User Page and a Talk Page. With this, anytime a person makes an edit, creates a change, in the encyclopedia, their User Name is recorded with that edit. Accountability. Trackability.
[snip]
The overwhelming majority of the edits are very minor.
Do we really need accountability for spelling corrections? Does having a userpage (especially a blank one) really make anyone accountable?
If we make people who really don't want accounts get accounts, they will just make a new one every time they edit. Perhaps they will install a browser extension that automates this process. Will communication really be improved?
Of course, we could go further.. mail a copy of your government issued ID to the foundation before you can edit.. Then we might have some accountability. But would that really help? Would it be worth the costs?
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 12/28/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote: [snip]
I believe anyone who wishes to make edits to Wikipedia should have a single, individual, registered User Name, User Page and a Talk Page. With this, anytime a person makes an edit, creates a change, in the encyclopedia, their User Name is recorded with that edit. Accountability. Trackability.
[snip]
Of course, we could go further.. mail a copy of your government issued ID to the foundation before you can edit.
I know your suggestion isn't intended to be taken seriously, but *even that* wouldn't work. You're forgetting we don't all live in the same country; not everyone has one of these. In fact, given that users in certain countries are actually breaking the law by accessing Wikipedia, I'd keep the word "government" out of things altogether.
-Gurch
On 12/28/06, Gurch matthew.britton@btinternet.com wrote:
I know your suggestion isn't intended to be taken seriously, but *even that* wouldn't work. You're forgetting we don't all live in the same country; not everyone has one of these. In fact, given that users in certain countries are actually breaking the law by accessing Wikipedia, I'd keep the word "government" out of things altogether.
Yes, it was intended to make you want to vomit. Thank you for understanding. :)
Marc Riddell wrote:
I believe anyone who wishes to make edits to Wikipedia should have a single, individual, registered User Name, User Page and a Talk Page.
Quite apart from the issue of anonymous contributors, your demand introduces additional problems.
I operate two "bot" accounts; [[User:GurchBot]] and [[User:GurchBot 2]]. So I'm already in violation of all the above things, I have three of everything (four, actually, as I have another account for testing blocks and the like). Both these bot accounts are used for high-speed maintenance work and so require a bot flag, which can only be set per-account; separate accounts are the only way to achieve this.
So your demands would not only mean the end of anonymous editing (and a sharp decline in the amount of information added to Wikipedia) but also a complete rewrite of the bot policy and major changes to the way that the MediaWiki software works. And I haven't even touched on username changes, legitimate uses for alternate accounts, and a whole lot of other stuff. Your suggestion simply isn't workable.
-Gurch
From: Gurch matthew.britton@btinternet.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:37:14 +0000 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User Pages & Editing in Wikipedia
Marc Riddell wrote:
I believe anyone who wishes to make edits to Wikipedia should have a single, individual, registered User Name, User Page and a Talk Page.
Quite apart from the issue of anonymous contributors, your demand introduces additional problems.
I operate two "bot" accounts; [[User:GurchBot]] and [[User:GurchBot 2]]. So I'm already in violation of all the above things, I have three of everything (four, actually, as I have another account for testing blocks and the like). Both these bot accounts are used for high-speed maintenance work and so require a bot flag, which can only be set per-account; separate accounts are the only way to achieve this.
So your demands would not only mean the end of anonymous editing (and a sharp decline in the amount of information added to Wikipedia) but also a complete rewrite of the bot policy and major changes to the way that the MediaWiki software works. And I haven't even touched on username changes, legitimate uses for alternate accounts, and a whole lot of other stuff. Your suggestion simply isn't workable.
-Gurch
OK - I'm learning. There is very much of the technical aspects of Wikipedia I know nothing about. It may seem like grasping, but it's really trying to wrestle with, what I see is a large problem. But, I believe, with all of the human, intelligent resources within the Wikipedia community, a solution can be found. I'm just not willing at this point to leave it at "there's nothing that can be done".
Marc
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On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
OK - I'm learning. There is very much of the technical aspects of Wikipedia I know nothing about. It may seem like grasping, but it's really trying to wrestle with, what I see is a large problem.
When you started this thread, I assumed you were an old Wikipedia hand who knew his stuff. That's probably a compliment ;-)
But, I believe, with all of the human, intelligent resources within the Wikipedia community, a solution can be found. I'm just not willing at this point to leave it at "there's nothing that can be done".
Mmm. I think that you may be asking the wrong question: that is, you're making the implicit assumption that a user page can be trusted to ascertain whether a contributor to a page knows their stuff.
In practice, I don't think that's the case. On Wikipedia, the contributors are listed in the history, and someone I don't know other than a two-page detailed userpage is not necessarily a better writer than an anonymous IP that puts in well-written statements of fact with good checkable references.
When a reader views a Wikipedia page, they need to apply critical thought to it, like they do to any web page. We can't take that requirement away from the reader (and become a "trusted" source). But with references, we can *enable* them to apply critical thought to Wikipedia.
So it's all about the contributions themselves and the source material that backs the contributions up. The contributors themselves are not a focus at all. That's "no ownership of pages."
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
OK - I'm learning. There is very much of the technical aspects of Wikipedia I know nothing about. It may seem like grasping, but it's really trying to wrestle with, what I see is a large problem.
When you started this thread, I assumed you were an old Wikipedia hand who knew his stuff. That's probably a compliment ;-)
But, I believe, with all of the human, intelligent resources within the Wikipedia community, a solution can be found. I'm just not willing at this point to leave it at "there's nothing that can be done".
Mmm. I think that you may be asking the wrong question: that is, you're making the implicit assumption that a user page can be trusted to ascertain whether a contributor to a page knows their stuff.
In practice, I don't think that's the case. On Wikipedia, the contributors are listed in the history, and someone I don't know other than a two-page detailed userpage is not necessarily a better writer than an anonymous IP that puts in well-written statements of fact with good checkable references.
When a reader views a Wikipedia page, they need to apply critical thought to it, like they do to any web page. We can't take that requirement away from the reader (and become a "trusted" source). But with references, we can *enable* them to apply critical thought to Wikipedia.
So it's all about the contributions themselves and the source material that backs the contributions up. The contributors themselves are not a focus at all. That's "no ownership of pages."
- d.
David raises a good point. Don't judge Wikipedia articles by the quality of their contributors, but by the quality of the article - and the sources in particular. Never trust an unreferenced article. An article that provides a good number reliable, verifiable sources and is well-written should be considered in the same light whether it's written by anonymous users or long-time contributors. (Virtually all our articles are a mixture of both).
-Gurch
On 12/28/06, Gurch matthew.britton@btinternet.com wrote:
David raises a good point. Don't judge Wikipedia articles by the quality of their contributors, but by the quality of the article - and the sources in particular. Never trust an unreferenced article. An article that provides a good number reliable, verifiable sources and is well-written should be considered in the same light whether it's written by anonymous users or long-time contributors. (Virtually all our articles are a mixture of both).
That an article provides quality looking sources is not a good metric for article quality.
Unless the information is disputed or sounds far fetched, we make little effort to ensure that the material in the article can actually be found in the sources, even with inline references and web-accessible sources. ... and far less is checked for offline resources.
It wasn't clear to me if you were saying that people need to go as far as checking the sources themselves if accuracy is important. If you were, I apologise for misunderstanding you.
What are you basing your 'virtually all' claim on?
Last I checked, a large portion of our articles were not formally sourced at all. So I don't see how virtually all could have quality that comes from a mixture of good contributors and well documented quality sources.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 12/28/06, Gurch matthew.britton@btinternet.com wrote:
David raises a good point. Don't judge Wikipedia articles by the quality of their contributors, but by the quality of the article - and the sources in particular. Never trust an unreferenced article. An article that provides a good number reliable, verifiable sources and is well-written should be considered in the same light whether it's written by anonymous users or long-time contributors. (Virtually all our articles are a mixture of both).
That an article provides quality looking sources is not a good metric for article quality.
Indeed it is not. I said judge by the quality of the *sources*, not the quality of the "References" section. Though even that can tell you something, particularly when there isn't one at all.
Unless the information is disputed or sounds far fetched, we make little effort to ensure that the material in the article can actually be found in the sources, even with inline references and web-accessible sources. ... and far less is checked for offline resources.
It wasn't clear to me if you were saying that people need to go as far as checking the sources themselves if accuracy is important. If you were, I apologise for misunderstanding you.
Yes, that's what I was saying. Because material in a Wikipedia article can come from literally anyone, anywhere, the only way to be certain that anything an article says is correct is to look at the original source. (And then decide if you trust the source itself, of course). If there are no sources, or no source for a particular claim you're interested in, the best you can do is assume it's "probably correct".
What are you basing your 'virtually all' claim on?
Personal experience.
Last I checked, a large portion of our articles were not formally sourced at all. So I don't see how virtually all could have quality that comes from a mixture of good contributors and well documented quality sources.
I didn't say that; I said that virtually all our good articles have been put together by a mixture of anonymous users and long-time contributors. In fact, the same is true for most of our mediocre articles and a good many bad articles, too.
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 22:28:26 +0000 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User Pages & Editing in Wikipedia
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
OK - I'm learning. There is very much of the technical aspects of Wikipedia I know nothing about. It may seem like grasping, but it's really trying to wrestle with, what I see is a large problem.
When you started this thread, I assumed you were an old Wikipedia hand who knew his stuff. That's probably a compliment ;-)
The material stuff in Wikipedia I can handle. It's the bots & blips and all the behind-the-scenes computer stuff that makes my eyes cross and brings a buzz to my brain that even Mary Jane can't match :-).
But, I believe, with all of the human, intelligent resources within the Wikipedia community, a solution can be found. I'm just not willing at this point to leave it at "there's nothing that can be done".
Mmm. I think that you may be asking the wrong question: that is, you're making the implicit assumption that a user page can be trusted to ascertain whether a contributor to a page knows their stuff.
In practice, I don't think that's the case. On Wikipedia, the contributors are listed in the history, and someone I don't know other than a two-page detailed userpage is not necessarily a better writer than an anonymous IP that puts in well-written statements of fact with good checkable references.
When a reader views a Wikipedia page, they need to apply critical thought to it, like they do to any web page. We can't take that requirement away from the reader (and become a "trusted" source). But with references, we can *enable* them to apply critical thought to Wikipedia.
So it's all about the contributions themselves and the source material that backs the contributions up. The contributors themselves are not a focus at all. That's "no ownership of pages."
- d.
Sources can be checked. What I'm presenting to are the totally mindless, malicious vandal edits by totally anonymous fools who have complete access to the encyclopedia. Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe a named, accountable User Page would go a long way to ridding Wikipedia of them.
Marc
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On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Sources can be checked. What I'm presenting to are the totally mindless, malicious vandal edits by totally anonymous fools who have complete access to the encyclopedia. Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe a named, accountable User Page would go a long way to ridding Wikipedia of them.
Our big problem is not random hit-and-run anonymous vandalism; it's hard-working and malicious vandals who view trashing Wikipedia as a challenge. Technical barriers to entry will discourage sincere new contributors but not stop the problem children for a moment.
- d.
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:37:07 +0000 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User Pages & Editing in Wikipedia
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Sources can be checked. What I'm presenting to are the totally mindless, malicious vandal edits by totally anonymous fools who have complete access to the encyclopedia. Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe a named, accountable User Page would go a long way to ridding Wikipedia of them.
Our big problem is not random hit-and-run anonymous vandalism; it's hard-working and malicious vandals who view trashing Wikipedia as a challenge. Technical barriers to entry will discourage sincere new contributors but not stop the problem children for a moment.
- d.
David,
Thanks. Still learning. Still frustrated.
Marc
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Marc Riddell wrote:
Sources can be checked. What I'm presenting to are the totally mindless, malicious vandal edits by totally anonymous fools who have complete access to the encyclopedia. Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe a named, accountable User Page would go a long way to ridding Wikipedia of them.
Yes, you are being naive. :-) Have you been back to look at the user login creation page? Did you see anything there to keep you from creating ten different user accounts, and pretending to be different people on each of them? Rumor has it that even the God-King has a few extra, so that he can move among his subjects incognito. :-)
In fact, we do now require logins to upload files, and take a look at commons; every day there are a dozen logins created, each uploading a few copyvios (OK, sometimes legit images), and then never seen again. Pretty much zero accountability there.
Vandalism by anons is a nuisance, but it's so easily and quickly countered that it's just not a major issue for maintenance.
Stan
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:59:06 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User Pages & Editing in Wikipedia
Marc Riddell wrote:
Sources can be checked. What I'm presenting to are the totally mindless, malicious vandal edits by totally anonymous fools who have complete access to the encyclopedia. Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe a named, accountable User Page would go a long way to ridding Wikipedia of them.
Yes, you are being naive. :-) Have you been back to look at the user login creation page? Did you see anything there to keep you from creating ten different user accounts, and pretending to be different people on each of them? Rumor has it that even the God-King has a few extra, so that he can move among his subjects incognito. :-)
In fact, we do now require logins to upload files, and take a look at commons; every day there are a dozen logins created, each uploading a few copyvios (OK, sometimes legit images), and then never seen again. Pretty much zero accountability there.
Vandalism by anons is a nuisance, but it's so easily and quickly countered that it's just not a major issue for maintenance.
Stan
Thanks, Stan.
My reaction was & is a visceral one. The fact is real freedom is untidy - and does require maintenance from time to time.
Marc
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Marc Riddell stated for the record:
OK - I'm learning. There is very much of the technical aspects of Wikipedia I know nothing about. It may seem like grasping, but it's really trying to wrestle with, what I see is a large problem. But, I believe, with all of the human, intelligent resources within the Wikipedia community, a solution can be found. I'm just not willing at this point to leave it at "there's nothing that can be done".
Marc
Any chance you could leave it at "we don't think the current situation is a problem, and we don't want to change it"?
- -- Sean Barrett | Young lady, in this house we obey the sean@epoptic.com | laws of thermodynamics! --Homer Simpson
From: Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com Organization: Boskonia Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:22:31 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User Pages & Editing in Wikipedia
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Marc Riddell stated for the record:
OK - I'm learning. There is very much of the technical aspects of Wikipedia I know nothing about. It may seem like grasping, but it's really trying to wrestle with, what I see is a large problem. But, I believe, with all of the human, intelligent resources within the Wikipedia community, a solution can be found. I'm just not willing at this point to leave it at "there's nothing that can be done".
Marc
Any chance you could leave it at "we don't think the current situation is a problem, and we don't want to change it"?
Who is we?
M
Sean Barrett | Young lady, in this house we obey the sean@epoptic.com | laws of thermodynamics! --Homer Simpson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
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