--- Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:
I have a feeling that the ICRA vocabulary may be copyrighted by ICRA, so we would not be able to use it without their permission. However, if a similar label scheme were to be adopted, it must be copyright free, non-subjective, and capable of being used in an NPOV manner without endless labelling and re-labelling revert wars. Even the ICRA labels (which represent a good attempt at a reasoned scheme) still have some subjective aspects to them.
-- Neil
How can anything labeled "offensive" be NPOV? We have seen in the recent war that many, many people considered the autofellatio image offensive, while many, many others considered it non-offensive.
RickK
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Rick wrote:
--- Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:
I have a feeling that the ICRA vocabulary may be copyrighted by ICRA, so we would not be able to use it without their permission. However, if a similar label scheme were to be adopted, it must be copyright free, non-subjective, and capable of being used in an NPOV manner without endless labelling and re-labelling revert wars. Even the ICRA labels (which represent a good attempt at a reasoned scheme) still have some subjective aspects to them.
-- Neil
How can anything labeled "offensive" be NPOV? We have seen in the recent war that many, many people considered the autofellatio image offensive, while many, many others considered it non-offensive.
RickK
You missed the point of my comments; "offensive" is clearly a subjective judgement. Regarding the image in question, literal descriptions such as "nude photograph", "photograph of human genitalia" (and similar) are less subjective, and more likely to be useful. Just to repeat, for clarity: I'm _against_ using the ICRA tags, since they seem to be both still somewhat subjective (and hence incompatible with NPOV), as well as in my opinion almost certainly (IANAL, TINLA) legally incompatible with an open-access, GFDL-licensed wiki.
-- Neil
Neil Harris wrote:
I'm _against_ using the ICRA tags, since they seem to be both still somewhat subjective (and hence incompatible with NPOV), as well as in my opinion almost certainly (IANAL, TINLA) legally incompatible with an open-access, GFDL-licensed wiki.
I suppose Wikipedia is big enough to come up with our own tags. In the first place, our needs for 1.0 are much bigger than child/sensitivity protection, which is what the ICRA addresses. In the second place, we shouldn't be surprised if whatever standard we develop (with our incredible community focus power) becomes adopted widely. ICRA may be a nice example in certain ways, but we needn't be shy about going in our own direction.
Tom
On Apr 7, 2005 5:40 PM, Tom Haws hawstom@sprintmail.com wrote:
Neil Harris wrote:
I'm _against_ using the ICRA tags, since they seem to be both still somewhat subjective (and hence incompatible with NPOV), as well as in my opinion almost certainly (IANAL, TINLA) legally incompatible with an open-access, GFDL-licensed wiki.
I suppose Wikipedia is big enough to come up with our own tags. In the first place, our needs for 1.0 are much bigger than child/sensitivity protection, which is what the ICRA addresses. In the second place, we shouldn't be surprised if whatever standard we develop (with our incredible community focus power) becomes adopted widely. ICRA may be a nice example in certain ways, but we needn't be shy about going in our own direction.
Tom
Not responding directly to Tom, though his mention of 1.0 brought this to mind.
This and other similar conversations leads me to be a bit pessimistic about the printed 1.0 project. I believe that it is a given that 1.0 cannot contain every article in Wikipedia -- perhaps not even every article that meets some necessarily subjective criteria for quality. There's just too much to print in a single volume, and I don't foresee our first non-topical print edition being a multi-volume work.
How will the community go about deciding what should be in 1.0? If Autofellatio meets some subjective criteria for quality, will it be included? What about all of the pages of Pokemon characters? The articles about every small town in the state of Michigan (to pick a state name at random)?
Will there not need to be some sense of "appropriateness" used to determine the actual content? Is [[Autofellatio]] appropriate? How about [[Mewtwo]]? [[Shoreham, Michigan]]?
Anyone care to define an NPOV way to decide this?
-- Rich Holton
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton
Richard Holton (richholton@gmail.com) [050408 09:15]:
This and other similar conversations leads me to be a bit pessimistic about the printed 1.0 project. I believe that it is a given that 1.0 cannot contain every article in Wikipedia -- perhaps not even every article that meets some necessarily subjective criteria for quality. There's just too much to print in a single volume, and I don't foresee our first non-topical print edition being a multi-volume work. How will the community go about deciding what should be in 1.0? If Autofellatio meets some subjective criteria for quality, will it be included? What about all of the pages of Pokemon characters? The articles about every small town in the state of Michigan (to pick a state name at random)? Will there not need to be some sense of "appropriateness" used to determine the actual content? Is [[Autofellatio]] appropriate? How about [[Mewtwo]]? [[Shoreham, Michigan]]? Anyone care to define an NPOV way to decide this?
I must admit that in my own 1.0 plan, this bit is the second step in "1. Rate articles. 2. ????? 3. Profit!"
Whatever happens, it'll be a horrible shitfight trying to cut the majestic sprawl of en: Wikipedia down to a single concise volume. Say, fifty thousand articles. WHICH FIFTY THOUSAND?
1. Whole areas will be cut out. 2. Areas we're particularly good in will get cut *way* back. 3. Endless, fractious and bloody wars over what gets in and what doesn't.
Is there a way around this which doesn't require someone making the decision and choosing between pissing off half the community and pissing off half the community?
- d.
On Apr 8, 2005 1:13 AM, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Is there a way around this which doesn't require someone making the decision and choosing between pissing off half the community and pissing off half the community?
One could argue that making this, or any "version" is a distraction we, the wikipedia community, rightly should devolve to others.
Armed with a suitable tool for managing lists of versions (which, incidentally, I'd argue shouldn't be part of the database, but another program and datastore altogether) anyone can come up with an subcyclopedia (a subset of wikipedia) tailored to their target audience. So people can come up with a "world places encyclopedia", a "basic knowledge encyclopedia", a "southern baptist convention encyclopedia", whatever. As these groups have a more specific model of their target audience and the purpose of their subcyclopedia, they can pick articles that suit that.
So really I'm arguing that Wikipedia should be a supplier only of raw material, not of finished product. It will undoubtedly be orbited by related satellite wikireaders, subcyclopedias, and ambitious superprojects, but a generic "Wikipedia 1.0" seems to me to be a lot of work to produce a jack-of-all-trades product that meets no-one's needs terribly well.
John Fader wrote:
a generic "Wikipedia 1.0" seems to me to be a lot of work to produce a jack-of-all-trades product that meets no-one's needs terribly well.
I agree with this. And with the sentiment of not wanting to participate in selecting for a paper encyclopedia.
I think the subject of this thread is a pretty good scope for all we should be worrying about.
1. Reliable: We should be finding a way to start identifying trusted/stable/best versions of articles to display to those who ask to please not see the bleeding edge.
2. Selectable: We should be developing a vocabulary/method for enhancing selectability of our content.
3. Content: Lets encourage adding, not subtracting content.
Tom
On Fri, 8 Apr 2005, David Gerard wrote:
Whatever happens, it'll be a horrible shitfight trying to cut the majestic sprawl of en: Wikipedia down to a single concise volume. Say, fifty thousand articles. WHICH FIFTY THOUSAND?
- Whole areas will be cut out.
- Areas we're particularly good in will get cut *way* back.
- Endless, fractious and bloody wars over what gets in and what doesn't.
Is there a way around this which doesn't require someone making the decision and choosing between pissing off half the community and pissing off half the community?
Would a first step be to include every article listed at [[WP:FAC]]? As that list currently stands, we have 1% of that 50,000 selected, & unless we figure out a way to select the other 99% within a few years, we may end up finding that we have 50,000 Featured Articles & render the question of how to select moot.
I believe it's possible we could have that many featured articles in that short of time. As a whole, EN has settled into a doubling period of about 15 months, despite hardware problems, software constraints, & the behavior of people; unless checked by a lack of submissions & reviewers, there's no reason why our body of Featured Articles couldn't settle into its own doubling period too.
And if it does happen, then at least few folks in the community will decide it's not worth throwing a fit over & can talk about how the Wiki Way has once again solved our problem. But if you want a shitstorm, you can settle for half of the commentators arguing that Libertarianism proved itself thru the Bazaar, pace Eric Raymond, & the other half arguing that true Cyber-Anarchism proved itself thru Pure Communism.
Me? I'll be happy if I can get one freaking article accepted as FAC, whether it makes it into print or not.
Geoff
Geoff Burling wrote:
On Fri, 8 Apr 2005, David Gerard wrote:
Whatever happens, it'll be a horrible shitfight trying to cut the majestic sprawl of en: Wikipedia down to a single concise volume. Say, fifty thousand articles. WHICH FIFTY THOUSAND?
- Whole areas will be cut out.
- Areas we're particularly good in will get cut *way* back.
- Endless, fractious and bloody wars over what gets in and what doesn't.
Is there a way around this which doesn't require someone making the decision and choosing between pissing off half the community and pissing off half the community?
Would a first step be to include every article listed at [[WP:FAC]]? As that list currently stands, we have 1% of that 50,000 selected, & unless we figure out a way to select the other 99% within a few years, we may end up finding that we have 50,000 Featured Articles & render the question of how to select moot.
I believe it's possible we could have that many featured articles in that short of time. As a whole, EN has settled into a doubling period of about 15 months, despite hardware problems, software constraints, & the behavior of people; unless checked by a lack of submissions & reviewers, there's no reason why our body of Featured Articles couldn't settle into its own doubling period too.
And if it does happen, then at least few folks in the community will decide it's not worth throwing a fit over & can talk about how the Wiki Way has once again solved our problem. But if you want a shitstorm, you can settle for half of the commentators arguing that Libertarianism proved itself thru the Bazaar, pace Eric Raymond, & the other half arguing that true Cyber-Anarchism proved itself thru Pure Communism.
Me? I'll be happy if I can get one freaking article accepted as FAC, whether it makes it into print or not.
I think it's important to remember that we are talking about a first edition. That does not need to have everything, or even to cover all subjects. Many topics can be expanded in future editions. The first edition should emphasize those areas where we have the best representation, and where there are fewest holes that need to be filled. Having something in your hand that you can build on will be a great encouragement for everybody. As things stand on this topic I think there are too many people sitting around dreaming of perfection. Perfectionism is also a big problem in the education of gifted children.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
<snip>
I think it's important to remember that we are talking about a first edition. That does not need to have everything, or even to cover all subjects. Many topics can be expanded in future editions. The first edition should emphasize those areas where we have the best representation, and where there are fewest holes that need to be filled.
<snip>
What should future editions be numbered? What will the final edition be? Wikipedia version e?
Alphax wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
<snip>
I think it's important to remember that we are talking about a first edition. That does not need to have everything, or even to cover all subjects. Many topics can be expanded in future editions. The first edition should emphasize those areas where we have the best representation, and where there are fewest holes that need to be filled.
<snip>
What should future editions be numbered? What will the final edition be? Wikipedia version e?
Huh? I said nothing about numbering them. . I used "first edition" in a purely descriptive manner.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Alphax wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
<snip>
I think it's important to remember that we are talking about a first edition. That does not need to have everything, or even to cover all subjects. Many topics can be expanded in future editions. The first edition should emphasize those areas where we have the best representation, and where there are fewest holes that need to be filled.
<snip>
What should future editions be numbered? What will the final edition be? Wikipedia version e?
Huh? I said nothing about numbering them. . I used "first edition" in a purely descriptive manner.
Ec
Well, there's a lot of consensus towards a Wikipedia 1.0, so I was wondering how many editions there would be.
Alphax wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Alphax wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
I think it's important to remember that we are talking about a first edition. That does not need to have everything, or even to cover all subjects. Many topics can be expanded in future editions. The first edition should emphasize those areas where we have the best representation, and where there are fewest holes that need to be filled.
<snip>
What should future editions be numbered? What will the final edition be? Wikipedia version e?
Huh? I said nothing about numbering them. . I used "first edition" in a purely descriptive manner.
Ec
Well, there's a lot of consensus towards a Wikipedia 1.0, so I was wondering how many editions there would be.
That number would likely be open ended. with each edition being better than its predecessor. Errors could be fixed, subject areas expanded, and especially current events could be added in. I tend to prefer shorter press runs to avoid having a lot of out-of-date inventory on hand.
Ec
On Sat, 9 Apr 2005, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I think it's important to remember that we are talking about a first edition. That does not need to have everything, or even to cover all subjects. Many topics can be expanded in future editions. The first edition should emphasize those areas where we have the best representation, and where there are fewest holes that need to be filled. Having something in your hand that you can build on will be a great encouragement for everybody. As things stand on this topic I think there are too many people sitting around dreaming of perfection. Perfectionism is also a big problem in the education of gifted children.
The point of my suggestion was to find somewhere to begin in accepting Wikipedia material for the 1.0 version. If accepted, then the catagories of material for the English Wikipedia 1.0 would be:
1. Featured Articles 2. All other criteria
If a consensus refuses to emerge on what point #2 should cover -- in part or in whole -- then when the number of articles under point #1 reach 50,000 the discussion is over, & we go with what we have.
Even if that includes articles like [[Fuck]] and [[autofellatio]]. (Which would put pressure on the committee to come up with a definition of what falls under #2 -- & that would be a good thing.)
Geoff