On 16 Sep 2006 at 20:32, "Mathias Schindler" mathias.schindler@gmail.com wrote:
What bothers me most is that Larry's fifth proposal for an encyclopedia comes when plan 3 and 4 ("Encyclopedia of Earth" and the "Digital Universe Encyclopedia") have not surfaced yet. Larry might or might not use the argument that he does not bear responsibility in having the EoE miss about three announced dates to be released. During the talk, he did not mention those projects a single time (only after I specifically asked him about this).
That guy does seem to be creating a lot of "vaporware". He seems to be of the school of thought that holds that the way to launch a project is to first get a lot of "buzz" going about how innovative it's going to be, and afterward start thinking about actually launching it someday. In contrast, Wikipedia got started by actually getting started... the hype and chitchat came later.
I am very much reminded of a folklore tale from my native Finland. It is one of a series in a rich tradition of stories about a village of idiots. Not village idiots, but a village of idiots. The name of the village is "Hölmölä" meaning literally "Dufus[locative]". The series of vignettes concerns the life experiences of this village, the canonical tale being of a man who built a house, and forgot to make windows into it. His solution was to periodically come out of his house with a sack, open it, to let daylight in, close the sack, and quickly run back into his house.
Now maybe I am missing something...
Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.
On 9/16/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
On 16 Sep 2006 at 20:32, "Mathias Schindler" mathias.schindler@gmail.com wrote:
What bothers me most is that Larry's fifth proposal for an encyclopedia comes when plan 3 and 4 ("Encyclopedia of Earth" and the "Digital Universe Encyclopedia") have not surfaced yet. Larry might or might not use the argument that he does not bear responsibility in having the EoE miss about three announced dates to be released. During the talk, he did not mention those projects a single time (only after I specifically asked him about this).
That guy does seem to be creating a lot of "vaporware". He seems to be of the school of thought that holds that the way to launch a project is to first get a lot of "buzz" going about how innovative it's going to be, and afterward start thinking about actually launching it someday. In contrast, Wikipedia got started by actually getting started... the hype and chitchat came later.
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Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.
If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying.
We try, as a community, to be welcoming and respectful of experts. We have good people in the community who try to help experts deal with the trolls, vandals, and general nonsense that is likely to come up from time to time. But we can also all easily admit that sometimes it does not go perfectly, and that genuine experts end up leaving rather than wasting time arguing with idiots.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.
If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying.
That's what I initially thought, but as Sangers clarified his ideas in his responses to Slashdot comments, it appears that he *does* plan to have most users and article writers be non-experts. He proposes that experts should have an "editorship" type role, to "gently guide" the work of non-experts. It's unclear what exactly this will involve, but it doesn't seem like it will be the place for experts who want to avoid interacting with the general public---the only advantage is that in those interactions they may be given some official levers to use (but still be expected to use them "gently").
-Mark
--- Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
have most users and article writers be non-experts. [Sanger] proposes that experts should have an "editorship" type role, to "gently guide" the work of non-experts. It's unclear what exactly this will involve, but it doesn't seem like it will be the place for experts who want to avoid interacting with the general public---the only advantage is that in those interactions they may be given some official levers to use (but still be expected to use them "gently").
We already plan to give reviewership roles to certain users who know about certain subjects and can thus tag certain article versions as reviewed. Larry's plan seems to require the use of real names and declarations of credentials for an analogous 'editorship' role.
Not much more seems to be different. We could simply give reviewers the option of verifying their real names and credentials if that aspect of Larry's project seems to work.
I only see benefits to Wikipedia by Larry's experiment; we can copy the improvements to articles and any process improvements.
-- mav
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On 9/17/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.
If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying.
We try, as a community, to be welcoming and respectful of experts. We have good people in the community who try to help experts deal with the trolls, vandals, and general nonsense that is likely to come up from time to time. But we can also all easily admit that sometimes it does not go perfectly, and that genuine experts end up leaving rather than wasting time arguing with idiots.
Yes, this is unfortunatly very true.
That is why I think we should look at this as an opportunity, since Sanger is going to use an open license (I'm assuming, since he is going to import from wikipedia, the GFDL forces him to) this could be a great source for wikipedia articles. The experts are left in peace to develop their articles, and the wikipedians will fight the battles over our content.
If he really does deliver on what he says he will, I see no reason to consider Citizendium the competition, we should consider them partners!
--Oskar
On 9/17/06, Oskar Sigvardsson
That is why I think we should look at this as an opportunity, since Sanger is going to use an open license (I'm assuming, since he is going to import from wikipedia, the GFDL forces him to) this could be a great source for wikipedia articles. The experts are left in peace to develop their articles, and the wikipedians will fight the battles over our content.
Or instead, we could try to keep up with growth by implementing some more advanced soft controls of our own. The idea of depending on others to develop better content and then hoping they provide their content in an exportable format is... not a good one.
Their process almost reads like a copy of some of own ideas over the years, some of which Ive abandoned simply because 1) we know in fact that most of Wikipedia is not written by the "core" (thanks Aaronsw ), and 2) If it aint broke dont fix it. And nobody really knows how Wikipedia really works anyway except to say that the more structure the less attracted energy, and the more freedom the more trust and participation. Thats not to say there arent specific little things that arent broken and other things which could be improved.
Of course, like any upstart like Citizendium is just trying to find some kind of "expert-editor" niche which Wikipedia doesnt cover. It doesnt matter what project it is, its always a good idea to look for holes in the coverage spectrum. Who knows? People might like them more just because they use a more easy on the eyes color scheme as a default option.
-sv
On 18/09/06, stvrtg stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
This jumped out at me:
And nobody really knows how Wikipedia really works anyway
- an important point we often forget.
- d.
stvrtg wrote:
Or instead, we could try to keep up with growth by implementing some more advanced soft controls of our own. The idea of depending on others to develop better content and then hoping they provide their content in an exportable format is... not a good one.
To be honest, if (BIG IF) Citizendium is going to work and produces higher quality stuff at a sufficient fast rate, it will only need a study or two showing that Citizendium is higher quality/more reliable than Wikipedia to flip everything around. If Wikipedia has to rely on Citizendium for better quality GFDL texts than that they can produce themselves, it effectively proves that Wikipedia cannot do what it wants with its current editing paradigm.
Citizendium has one big advantage, they start from scratch with editorial control in place, and will get a different community, while if Wikipedia would like to implement something like that, it has a community that will revolt against that and has to find ways to overcome that.
Kim
On 17/09/06, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
If he really does deliver on what he says he will, I see no reason to consider Citizendium the competition, we should consider them partners!
Hell yeah. More open content is good for everyone. And it establishes open content as a standard paradigm, much as open source has been established to be workable by demonstrably working.
- d.
On 17/09/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying. We try, as a community, to be welcoming and respectful of experts. We have good people in the community who try to help experts deal with the trolls, vandals, and general nonsense that is likely to come up from time to time. But we can also all easily admit that sometimes it does not go perfectly, and that genuine experts end up leaving rather than wasting time arguing with idiots.
Yeah. On Wikipedia, dealing with people you consider to be noisy useless idiots is not optional. You can't refuse to suffer fools. If Larry can get a live project going that doesn't do that, I think it'll lure a lot of contributors - some from Wikipedia, but also many who won't go near Wikipedia because there's no cure for stupid. At least with "expert" qualifications the idiots will be expert idiots, and any good academic has way too much experience dealing with those.
- d.
On 9/18/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 17/09/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying. We try, as a community, to be welcoming and respectful of experts. We have good people in the community who try to help experts deal with the trolls, vandals, and general nonsense that is likely to come up from time to time. But we can also all easily admit that sometimes it does not go perfectly, and that genuine experts end up leaving rather than wasting time arguing with idiots.
Yeah. On Wikipedia, dealing with people you consider to be noisy useless idiots is not optional. You can't refuse to suffer fools. If Larry can get a live project going that doesn't do that, I think it'll lure a lot of contributors - some from Wikipedia, but also many who won't go near Wikipedia because there's no cure for stupid. At least with "expert" qualifications the idiots will be expert idiots, and any good academic has way too much experience dealing with those.
This is a good articulation for why one should not summarily dismiss this project as "yet another bad creation."
The same way Netnanny makes the raw Internet safe for kids, Citizendium could be making the raw Wikipedia safe for academics. :) OTOH, anyone who's used parental filters knows exactly how good, or not good, they are.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
David Gerard wrote:
Yeah. On Wikipedia, dealing with people you consider to be noisy useless idiots is not optional. You can't refuse to suffer fools. If Larry can get a live project going that doesn't do that, I think it'll lure a lot of contributors - some from Wikipedia, but also many who won't go near Wikipedia because there's no cure for stupid. At least with "expert" qualifications the idiots will be expert idiots, and any good academic has way too much experience dealing with those.
I think this may actually be a strength of Wikipedia---expert idiots, in my experience, are the most likely to be offended that they aren't being given proper deference as experts, and so avoid Wikipedia. (Of course, not all---or even most---experts who avoid Wikipedia are idiots, but the credential-waving type do consistently avoid it.)
What's more, expert idiots are the hardest to deal with. Non-expert idiots usually know they're outmatched when someone who is familiar with the relevant literature shows up with citations, so can usually be chased off, or forcibly chased off if necessary. Pretty much the only place this doesn't happen is in areas where multiple fields are laying claim, in which case it's disagreement over the definition of "expert" that's the problem in the first place (and Citizendium has no magic solution to resolving that one).
If Citizendium on the other hand encourages the credentialist idiots to show up, then that's a whole new level of problems. As you point out, anyone in academia has to deal with those sort on a regular basis, but that's unfortunate, unavoidable, and my job---I'm not going to put up with that crap in a volunteer job if I have an alternate way of accomplishing my volunteer goals!
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
I think this may actually be a strength of Wikipedia---expert idiots, in my experience, are the most likely to be offended that they aren't being given proper deference as experts, and so avoid Wikipedia. (Of course, not all---or even most---experts who avoid Wikipedia are idiots, but the credential-waving type do consistently avoid it.)
I should add that I don't disagree it's a problem that many of the non-idiot sort of experts also avoid Wikipedia. I think the strong and still quite recent shift towards verifiability will go some way towards addressing that problem---experts have an inherent advantage on the new playing field, because they can pull up citations much more easily than an uninformed bullshitter can. It doesn't solve all problems, but it's a step in the right direction.
Judicious organization in Wikiprojects might help also. Many experts are willing to get right down into the dirty work of editing the encyclopedia and interacting on talk pages, but some who don't want to get into that might be willing to offer indirect guidance to participants in various Wikiprojects about what they think should be done, and let others take care of the implementation.
-Mark
On 18/09/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I think this may actually be a strength of Wikipedia---expert idiots, in my experience, are the most likely to be offended that they aren't being given proper deference as experts, and so avoid Wikipedia. (Of course, not all---or even most---experts who avoid Wikipedia are idiots, but the credential-waving type do consistently avoid it.) What's more, expert idiots are the hardest to deal with.
shhhh! you'll give the game away!
Non-expert idiots usually know they're outmatched when someone who is familiar with the relevant literature shows up with citations, so can usually be chased off, or forcibly chased off if necessary. Pretty much the only place this doesn't happen is in areas where multiple fields are laying claim, in which case it's disagreement over the definition of "expert" that's the problem in the first place (and Citizendium has no magic solution to resolving that one).
There's pathological cases, like the WMC arbitration case, where a pile of faith-based science advocates tried to get a leading climate scientist voted off the wiki. Thankfully it didn't alienate WMC utterly from Wikipedia.
If Citizendium on the other hand encourages the credentialist idiots to show up, then that's a whole new level of problems. As you point out, anyone in academia has to deal with those sort on a regular basis, but that's unfortunate, unavoidable, and my job---I'm not going to put up with that crap in a volunteer job if I have an alternate way of accomplishing my volunteer goals!
*ahem* I hope Citizendium succeeds admirably.
- d.
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I don't wish Citizendium any ill (the more the merrier), but I think the whole reason that Wikipedia has so much more content than (for example) Encarta is that everyone is encouraged to contribute on the basis of the quality of their contributions rather than the quality of their 'credentials' (most of which are probably more than a decade old). In other words, people (including experts) who write quality stuff on Wikipedia are very welcome, while people who write rubbish are not.
Unless Citizendium is suggesting that it would seek out and welcome people who write rubbish just because they claim to be 'experts' (surely a recipe for disaster) I don't really see how it will attract anyone on the basis of its content (especially since any decent stuff that it produces will be re-merged into Wikipedia, perhaps even by a bot) - all it will do is attract people who want to give themselves a sense of importance by telling 'less expert' people what to do. An expert-focused wiki is a good idea, but since 'experts' are given more control than 'non-experts' then it seems likely that no 'non-experts' will be interested. At which point Citizendium basically becomes Nupedia without the peer review process.
Cynical
On 9/18/06, David Alexander Russell webmaster@davidarussell.co.uk wrote:
Unless Citizendium is suggesting that it would seek out and welcome people who write rubbish just because they claim to be 'experts' (surely a recipe for disaster) I don't really see how it will attract anyone on the basis of its content (especially since any decent stuff that it produces will be re-merged into Wikipedia, perhaps even by a bot) - all it will do is attract people who want to give themselves a sense of importance by telling 'less expert' people what to do. An expert-focused wiki is a good idea, but since 'experts' are given more control than 'non-experts' then it seems likely that no 'non-experts' will be interested. At which point Citizendium basically becomes Nupedia without the peer review process.
If the people who have written about the "expert problem" that Wikipedia has are correct, then no, there is real value to a place where there can be expert-driven work. While it is easy to write on subjects that no one else cares about, getting things done on topics where there is some amount of controversy requires considerable political skills. Granted, an expert-driven process does not eliminate the problem of politics, but it does reduce the need to deal with people peddling fringe theories.
Wikipedia has a persistent problem with fringe theories. If you ever edit any page related to evolution, there are persistent problems with people who repeat creationist arguments regarding evolution - argument which they have picked up from some web site or book, and they now push as gospel truth. It doesn't matter that the arguments have been {explained/refuted/are trivial} - you are dealing with someone who doesn't understand the scientific method or how science is done, so you have to start explaining from first principles why the issue they want to insert into the article is idiotic. And, you have to do so without calling the idea idiotic, or you will get people screaming at you for violating WP:BITE or WP:NPA.
Now, there are also problems with expert editors. There are real disputes about how some idea should be presented - some of them (like the Natural selection article) end up before the arbcomm as well. So, of course, expert-driven does not mean "free from conflict". But it does establish a set of ground rules for discussion. It still requires considerable political skills to get a stable version, but the range of possibilities is reduced. This might make for a considerably saner work environment.
The idea that such an environment is meaningless because the content can be ported back to Wikipedia isn't true. For one, it provides a work environment for people who don't want to deal with the stress of Wikipedia. It also creates a "stable version" against which the Wikipedia version will always be compared. Implemented properly, it can serve as a buffer against articles becoming degraded.
The idea that expert-driven process will result in experts "telling people what to do" seems like a rather pessimistic view of "experts". We have lots of experts on WP - some of them lack the ability to work with others, some of them grow disenchanted and leave the project - but lots of others stay and slog it out - and work quite well with others.
Ian
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Guettarda wrote:
On 9/18/06, David Alexander Russell webmaster@davidarussell.co.uk wrote:
The idea that such an environment is meaningless because the content can be ported back to Wikipedia isn't true. For one, it provides a work environment for people who don't want to deal with the stress of Wikipedia. It also creates a "stable version" against which the Wikipedia version will always be compared. Implemented properly, it can serve as a buffer against articles becoming degraded.
The idea that expert-driven process will result in experts "telling people what to do" seems like a rather pessimistic view of "experts". We have lots of experts on WP - some of them lack the ability to work with others, some of them grow disenchanted and leave the project - but lots of others stay and slog it out - and work quite well with others.
Ian
My problem with Citizendium is not any personality issues with experts, but more that it explicitly states that 'experts' will be given more control over the project than ordinary editors, therefore people are given control based on their credentials rather than their ability to write a good article.
Kim van der Linde wrote:
Interesting idea. Suppose that some evolutionary biology experts write the citizendium entry on say evolution. I am pretty sure, it will be substantially different from our version (which has substantial sections just to deal with the continued stream of creationist POV-pushers). I can see how a bot driven replacement of the content is just going to result in either revert wars with the bot, or if that is blocked, editors that are going to leave the article alone (open for anyone to edit). But suppose, it gets accepted as a proper version. At wikipedia, everybody can edit it, so it is free game again for regular editors as well as POV-pushers. The latter have to be kept in check, either by editors reverting, or by full protecting the article. The latter is more likely, because as soon as citizendium updates their page, it gets replaced at Wikipedia by the bot, taking away any incentive to improve the content. So, as this is taking away the incentive for Wikipedia editors to improve the article, I suspect that there will be never a bot that is going to do this. Consequently, the articles at both sides will remain different, and than quality differences start to play a role. As soon as citizendium is perceived as qualitatively better and more stable, people will start looking there and at wikipedia second.
Kim
Sorry, I didn't mean that the Citizendium article would automatically overwrite the Wikipedia version, more that any improvements to the Citizendium version could be incorporated into Wikipedia. You're right though - it's probably not something a bot could do reliably, when I think on it a bit more.
I don't know if people will prefer the Citizendium version though - if people want there are plenty of academic websites already. The whole reason people USE Wikipedia is its up-to-date coverage on a stupendous range of topics - sure, Citizendium will have a complete 'fork copy' of Wikipedia to begin with, but only the articles that its experts are interested in will ever get updated - that is the essential problem with a project that aims at giving control to a handful of experts to the exclusion of everyone else. You might get a reasonably up-to-date article on evolution or philosophy, but if you want to find out about something less expert-attractive then you need Wikipedia.
That means that Wikipedia will still be people's first port of call - even though some articles on Citizendium /might/ be better (not guaranteed), there is a very good chance that you will find what you're looking for.
David Alexander Russell wrote:
I don't know if people will prefer the Citizendium version though - if people want there are plenty of academic websites already.
Encyclopaedia's with clear navigation, crosslinking etc? No, not really.
The whole reason people USE Wikipedia is its up-to-date coverage on a stupendous range of topics
And why would Citizendium not be like that?
- sure, Citizendium will have a complete 'fork copy' of Wikipedia to
begin with, but only the articles that its experts are interested in will ever get updated -
That is a risk. If I had my say, it would not be a fork in the way Larry describes, but that pages get copied and improved, and if the page is not available at Citizendium, a link to Wikipedia is provided. That will be a good incentive for everybody to make those basic pages as well. But do not worry, if I start with the evolutionary biology section, I will start with the basic pages.
that is the essential problem with a project that aims at giving control to a handful of experts to the exclusion of everyone else.
Maybe the control of the content is there, but just imagine a group of authors working together with some experts to make a truly good article, after which it gets approved and instead that you have to continually monitor it for idiots who have vandalized it, or added some nonsense, you can just start working on the next cool article.
You might get a reasonably up-to-date article on evolution or philosophy, but if you want to find out about something less expert-attractive then you need Wikipedia.
Indeed, I personally do not see the need for all the fancruft etc. to be at a Citizendium.
That means that Wikipedia will still be people's first port of call - even though some articles on Citizendium /might/ be better (not guaranteed), there is a very good chance that you will find what you're looking for.
Could be. It could also just work the other way round. And if the articles at Citizendium are not better than at Wikipedia, it will be gone within no time. There is no need for a project of equal quality, there is a need for a project of higher quality.
Kim
David Alexander Russell wrote:
(especially since any decent stuff that it produces will be re-merged into Wikipedia, perhaps even by a bot)
Interesting idea. Suppose that some evolutionary biology experts write the citizendium entry on say evolution. I am pretty sure, it will be substantially different from our version (which has substantial sections just to deal with the continued stream of creationist POV-pushers). I can see how a bot driven replacement of the content is just going to result in either revert wars with the bot, or if that is blocked, editors that are going to leave the article alone (open for anyone to edit). But suppose, it gets accepted as a proper version. At wikipedia, everybody can edit it, so it is free game again for regular editors as well as POV-pushers. The latter have to be kept in check, either by editors reverting, or by full protecting the article. The latter is more likely, because as soon as citizendium updates their page, it gets replaced at Wikipedia by the bot, taking away any incentive to improve the content. So, as this is taking away the incentive for Wikipedia editors to improve the article, I suspect that there will be never a bot that is going to do this. Consequently, the articles at both sides will remain different, and than quality differences start to play a role. As soon as citizendium is perceived as qualitatively better and more stable, people will start looking there and at wikipedia second.
Kim