A fire hydrant which appeared in the background of a picture of me published in the local weekly newspaper, which is a published, print source and arguably a reliable source.
Before we put too much energy into hairsplitting as to whether this fire hydrant is verifiable and therefore encyclopedic, click the "random page" article and look at the article we already _have_.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fath_Jang_Mir_Osman_Ali_Khan_Asif_Jah_VII --a biography with NO references at all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renishaw_Hall --OK assuming we accept the official website and a "gardenvisit" website as reliable sources, which I do
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arde%C5%9Fen --A substub with NO references at all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaf_Skarsg%C3%A5rd --OK assuming we accept imdb as a reliable source, which I do
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm --a long, well-written article about a scientific subject that has _no_ explicit sources for any items in it. Could subtle vandalism be detected in this article by anybody but the contributors of the information? There are nine books under "suggested reading" and four "see also" web references which probably could source most of the information, but there's no way to locate which is the source, for, say, the biology section, which is probably somewhat controversial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory --a long article about an MMORGP with no explicit references for any particular facts in it, but a slew of external links to official websites and fansites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essequibo_Islands-West_Demerara --A geography article with NO references at all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_A._Evans --A biography article with a single book listed as reference, but apparently one would need to skim through the whole book to find the sources for any of the facts in the article.
...and on and on it goes.
Probably less than 5% of Wikipedia's content actually meets [[WP:V]], [[WP:CITE]], and [[WP:RS]]. P
robably much less than half of Wikipedia's content meets it even by the most charitable interpretation, in which one a) assumes that external links to websites run by organizations that are not disinterested in their subject matter are reliable sources (I'm thinking of things like websites about historic-house museums and the like, which are probably mostly sorta-kinda-OK but probably are inclined to present the "authorized-biography" view of things), and b) assumes that most of the facts in the article could be found in the externally linked websites.
Spot-checking, by the way, shows that that is often NOT the case. Articles of that kind often start out as, well, paraphrases of external website content, then gradually acquire an accumulation of interesting things that, I believe, people think they know about the topic and add to it, without bothering to add any supporting references.
On 4/26/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
A fire hydrant which appeared in the background of a picture of me published in the local weekly newspaper, which is a published, print source and arguably a reliable source.
Before we put too much energy into hairsplitting as to whether this fire hydrant is verifiable and therefore encyclopedic, click the "random page" article and look at the article we already _have_.
I'd imagine as long as there are people putting their energy into removing verifiable and encyclopedic content from Wikipedia there will also be people putting their energy into keeping it in there. Nothing you say is going to change that. The only thing that's going to stop the waste of energy is for true consensus to be reached.
Anthony
On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:11:55 -0400, you wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory --a long article about an MMORGP with no explicit references for any particular facts in it, but a slew of external links to official websites and fansites
Sometimes I think I'm in the wrong project. That article is well over *three times* the size of the one on Robert Hooke, and then there's a listcruft of monsters as well. Guy (JzG)
On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:11:55 -0400, Guy wrote:
DPB Smith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory --a long article about an MMORGP with no explicit references for any particular facts in it, but a slew of external links to official websites and fansites
Sometimes I think I'm in the wrong project. That article is well over *three times* the size of the one on Robert Hooke, and then there's a listcruft of monsters as well.
As long as your instinct is to see what you can do to improve the Hooke article, rather than castrate the MMPORG one, you're in the right project :)
On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:27:24 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
As long as your instinct is to see what you can do to improve the Hooke article, rather than castrate the MMPORG one, you're in the right project :)
It is just so tempting to add all five volumes of Gunther into the Hooke article :-) Guy (JzG)
It is just so tempting to add all five volumes of Gunther into the Hooke article :-) Guy (JzG)
I don't know much about the publishing history of that work (or indeed the work itself til about five minutes ago) but you could be sitting on a small fortune there: http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/cum/212364.shtml .
Also Gunther Sr died in 1940, so not long til public domain ... you'd better get scanning :)
On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 07:05:03 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
I don't know much about the publishing history of that work (or indeed the work itself til about five minutes ago) but you could be sitting on a small fortune there: http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/cum/212364.shtml .
My father is very keen on Hooke, and the five volumes I have (which were bought for him as a birthday present by my mum. They were previously owned by Margaret 'Espinasse, who wrote an authoritative biography of Hooke also cited as a source in the article.
We paid, I think, £300 around 1985, but we don't have the other 11 volumes, and they are not a matched set. Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 07:05:03 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
I don't know much about the publishing history of that work (or indeed the work itself til about five minutes ago) but you could be sitting on a small fortune there: http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/cum/212364.shtml .
My father is very keen on Hooke, and the five volumes I have (which were bought for him as a birthday present by my mum. They were previously owned by Margaret 'Espinasse, who wrote an authoritative biography of Hooke also cited as a source in the article.
We paid, I think, £300 around 1985, but we don't have the other 11 volumes, and they are not a matched set.
Some individual volumes are available through abebooks.com
Ec
On 4/26/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:11:55 -0400, you wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory --a long article about an MMORGP with no explicit references for any particular facts in it, but a slew of external links to official websites and fansites
Sometimes I think I'm in the wrong project. That article is well over *three times* the size of the one on Robert Hooke, and then there's a listcruft of monsters as well.
That shouldn't come as a surprise. MMORPGs are known for their addiction potential. Players spend hundreds of hours in these games. They form emotional attachments with the game and the players. Writing about the game allows them to re-experience some of the positive emotions they associate with it. The same goes for movies, fictional realms, and so forth.
The real problem is not that we have an extremely detailed article about MapleStory. In fact, that is a good thing. Who will describe the cultural artifacts of the early 21st century in detail, if not us? Academia can never catch up with the pace of development of these games. Incidentally, I was recently trying to learn more about the MMORPG phenomenon, and guess what my best source of information was? Wikipedia, of course.
The problem I have seen, aside from the fact that many of these articles about games and movies are written by teenagers and read accordingly, is that they often focus entirely on the content of a game, movie, etc. The parts which are emotional are described in detail. However, little attention is given to aspects such as history, production, commercial success, critical reception. That is true for the MapleStory article as well. It is full of screenshots and details about gameplay. However, there is virtually no history or additional information to put the game into context.
Getting back on topic, perhaps one thing that would help is a "School of Wikipedia" where new contributors can find mentors for different aspects of editing, with rewards on completion of different courses (the final exercise being to get an article to featured status). Has such a thing already been tried? It seems one of the things that has really worked well is the "barn star" reward model. Perhaps we could also learn a lesson or two from MMORPGs, as long as it happens within a very limited context such as such a School of Wikipedia.
Erik
On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 15:30:06 +0200, you wrote:
The problem I have seen, aside from the fact that many of these articles about games and movies are written by teenagers and read accordingly, is that they often focus entirely on the content of a game, movie, etc. The parts which are emotional are described in detail. However, little attention is given to aspects such as history, production, commercial success, critical reception. That is true for the MapleStory article as well. It is full of screenshots and details about gameplay. However, there is virtually no history or additional information to put the game into context.
Absolutely. Many of them verge on howto or FAQ articles. Guy (JzG)
I ran into this problem with [[BatMUD]]. Anything I write is from personal experience or is drawn from material written by group which controls the game. This makes it impossible to resolve content conflicts as each party has a perfect reason for deleting the content of the other. Original research or autobiographical writing. So the article does not contain the sharp criticisms it might, nor does it fully satisfy those who would promote the site. I gave up struggling over this due to my position as an arbitrator. Not seemly to get into a dirty edit war when I'm in the wrong from edit one even if the other party is too.
Fred
On Apr 26, 2006, at 7:30 AM, Erik Moeller wrote:
The real problem is not that we have an extremely detailed article about MapleStory. In fact, that is a good thing. Who will describe the cultural artifacts of the early 21st century in detail, if not us? Academia can never catch up with the pace of development of these games. Incidentally, I was recently trying to learn more about the MMORPG phenomenon, and guess what my best source of information was? Wikipedia, of course.
Erik Moeller wrote:
That shouldn't come as a surprise. MMORPGs are known for their addiction potential. Players spend hundreds of hours in these games. They form emotional attachments with the game and the players.
Sounds vaguely familiar. Let's see...
* Avatars (user names) ... check * Thousands of players online at any time ... check * Highly addictive ... check * Players can engage in alliances (user page templates) ... check * Extreme players can become super-players (admins) ... check * Trolls ... check * (Edit) wars ... check
Wikipedia - largest MMORPG *ever*!
Magnus
On 4/26/06, Magnus Manske magnus.manske@web.de wrote: ...
Sounds vaguely familiar. Let's see...
- Avatars (user names) ... check
- Thousands of players online at any time ... check
- Highly addictive ... check
- Players can engage in alliances (user page templates) ... check
- Extreme players can become super-players (admins) ... check
- Trolls ... check
- (Edit) wars ... check
Wikipedia - largest MMORPG *ever*!
Magnus
Nah... I prefer the analogy of CCGs. One's deck corresponds to one's watchlist. Every turn (or "day"), one goes through one's deck, drawing certain edits. Careful strategic choice of edits allows one to accumulate edits (one can choose to use one's limited time/number of edit selections to revert vandalism, getting a moderate number of riskfree additions to one's edit counts, or one can choose to revert or add text, possibly starting a battle with the other player- a risky ploy, but with the chance of reaping many additions to one's edit count).
Once the draw phase is over, one then lays out one's policy cards (each of which costs a certain number of edit points), and finally one summons one's "monsters"- or editors, I should say. IE, one could start with a lowly cheap anon editor, upgrading to a new registered user. With the passage of three or four turns (or "days"), one's registered editor evolves into a regular user. Regular users' stats can be boosted.
If a player invests some policy cards and a healthy number of edit points into a particular editor, he can activate the RFA policy card, and flip some coins. If successful, the editor then becomes a dreaded Administrator, with devastating powers of deletion and stasis-inducing.
When the attack phase comes, such an editor will be a powerful asset for a player (but expensive!). Of course, one can shun the-few,-the-proud,-the-expensive strategy, and go for more of a Zergling rush attack, or a "sock puppet strategy".
Of course, there is more to it than just editors and policy cards. One has field bonuses, like Wikiprojects (ex: if a player has the Star Wars Wikiproject on the field, and the current battle is over a Star Wars-related article, the player's editors could get defense bonuses or special summons), or magic cards like semi-protection (stops lower-level editors cold). And what would a CCG be without special cards, such as (with apologies to Yu-Gi-Oh) "Limb of Wales"- assemble all the pieces on the field, and you summon the God-King himself?
Victory of course comes when certain conditions relating to the articles are met, or you destroy all the "tolerance points" of the other player with your editors and the other person is indef banned.
~maru
On 26/04/06, Magnus Manske magnus.manske@web.de wrote:
Wikipedia - largest MMORPG *ever*!
50,000 active editors? That's tiny by MMORPG standards.
Steve
Magnus Manske wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
That shouldn't come as a surprise. MMORPGs are known for their addiction potential. Players spend hundreds of hours in these games. They form emotional attachments with the game and the players.
Sounds vaguely familiar. Let's see...
- Avatars (user names) ... check
- Thousands of players online at any time ... check
- Highly addictive ... check
- Players can engage in alliances (user page templates) ... check
- Extreme players can become super-players (admins) ... check
- Trolls ... check
- (Edit) wars ... check
Wikipedia - largest MMORPG *ever*!
See also: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_is_an_MMORPG
On 4/26/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
Probably less than 5% of Wikipedia's content actually meets [[WP:V]], [[WP:CITE]], and [[WP:RS]].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carnildo/The_100 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carnildo/The_100_Biography
It's not that bad. Based on my "random article" surveys, approximately one article in six has some form of referencing (counting cited books, inline links, etc., but not anything in an "external links" section), and about one article in ten has a formal "references" section.
Probably much less than half of Wikipedia's content meets it even by the most charitable interpretation, in which one a) assumes that external links to websites run by organizations that are not disinterested in their subject matter are reliable sources (I'm thinking of things like websites about historic-house museums and the like, which are probably mostly sorta-kinda-OK but probably are inclined to present the "authorized-biography" view of things), and b) assumes that most of the facts in the article could be found in the externally linked websites.
Under that criteria, about four articles in ten are sourced.
-- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]
On 26/04/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
Probably less than 5% of Wikipedia's content actually meets [[WP:V]], [[WP:CITE]], and [[WP:RS]]. P
That's a pessimistic view, but even still, it gives us more than 50,000 verifiable articles. Definitely in the same league as Britannica.
Steve