On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:04 PM, wiki doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
But..... where we are in competition with others is for the time of the undergraduate/graduate who sits down to squander some time on the internet. He's got any number of choices - what we draw him to Wikipedia and make him stick around? I wonder that the downturn in Wikipedia contributions is due largely to their being more "grown up" social networking phenomena than there were in 2004. Now, it is tempting to say that the fact that the "myspacers" have buggered off is not bad thing - but I wonder how many intelligent, educated people are now squandering time on Facebook who once might have been Wikipedia contributors?
I've had similar thoughts, but more general, thinking that the internet in general has more potential for people to "waste their time" than ever before. How many scientific theorems and great books and works of art are going to be left undone because people are wasting their time on Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and the like (and all the other websites and other online distractions out there)? You would *hope* that the truly exceptional in each generation avoid such traps and fulfil their potential, harnessing the power of the internet rather than being sucked into a churning maw, but you never know. And yes, I do think being a Wikipedia editor is more productive than using Facebook and Twitter. :-)
Carcharoth
On 21 December 2010 23:55, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:04 PM, wiki doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
But..... where we are in competition with others is for the time of the undergraduate/graduate who sits down to squander some time on the internet.
I've had similar thoughts, but more general, thinking that the internet in general has more potential for people to "waste their time" than ever before. How many scientific theorems and great books
I was chatting with User:Ciphergoth the other week about getting people involved in stuff. He occasionally asks people "if you see a typo in Wikipedia, do you fix it?" And people *just don't do that*. This is something that needs remedying.
- d.
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 3:58 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21 December 2010 23:55, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:04 PM, wiki doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
But..... where we are in competition with others is for the time of the undergraduate/graduate who sits down to squander some time on the internet.
I've had similar thoughts, but more general, thinking that the internet in general has more potential for people to "waste their time" than ever before. How many scientific theorems and great books
I was chatting with User:Ciphergoth the other week about getting people involved in stuff. He occasionally asks people "if you see a typo in Wikipedia, do you fix it?" And people *just don't do that*. This is something that needs remedying.
A) Yes, people should feel free to just fix it; not enough do.
B) Many studies indicate that our core contributors are large chunks of the total content add process, and we need to not lose track of that, while simultaneously encouraging anons to just fix typos and the like.
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:58 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I was chatting with User:Ciphergoth the other week about getting people involved in stuff. He occasionally asks people "if you see a typo in Wikipedia, do you fix it?" And people *just don't do that*. This is something that needs remedying.
Actually, I often see things that need fixing, but I'm in "look up" mode and using Wikipedia as a starting point for finding some information I'm after, and often don't have the time to even make a note to come back to the article later. If I see things that need fixing when I'm in "Wikipedian" mode, I do fix things then (but even then, there is a trade-off between temp fix now, or detailed fix that will take more time). It comes back to that trade-off in time spent doing other things.
Has anyone ever suggested a way for people to highlight a mistake and click to bring it to someone else's attention? But without logging any IP address. I suppose that sort of system would get overwhelmed by trolls very quickly. Maybe an off-wiki system to allow people using Wikipedia to generate a note for themselves on corrections to make later on?
I'm also convinced that the generation that has grown up able to correct things on wikis or editable bulletin boards after they've posted them, are more prone to posting typos in the less flexible media, such as e-mail and non-editable bulletin boards. The number of times I've clicked "send" and spotted a typo and cursed my inability to make an instant edit to correct it!
Carcharoth
On 22 December 2010 00:17, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Actually, I often see things that need fixing, but I'm in "look up" mode and using Wikipedia as a starting point for finding some information I'm after, and often don't have the time to even make a note to come back to the article later. If I see things that need fixing when I'm in "Wikipedian" mode, I do fix things then (but even then, there is a trade-off between temp fix now, or detailed fix that will take more time). It comes back to that trade-off in time spent doing other things.
Hm. I often hit "edit" on a section just to fix a typo I've spotted in passing. Resisting the time-sucking qualities is, of course, a problem. But when I'm reading other wikis I'll also happily hit edit to fix a typo (if they allow IP editing).
- d.
On 22 December 2010 07:27, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 22 December 2010 00:17, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Actually, I often see things that need fixing, but I'm in "look up" mode and using Wikipedia as a starting point for finding some information I'm after, and often don't have the time to even make a note to come back to the article later. If I see things that need fixing when I'm in "Wikipedian" mode, I do fix things then (but even then, there is a trade-off between temp fix now, or detailed fix that will take more time). It comes back to that trade-off in time spent doing other things.
Hm. I often hit "edit" on a section just to fix a typo I've spotted in passing. Resisting the time-sucking qualities is, of course, a problem. But when I'm reading other wikis I'll also happily hit edit to fix a typo (if they allow IP editing).
- d.
I do think there are fewer opportunities for such "easy" edits on Wikipedia now. Typos seem to be far less common thanks to semi-automated tools such as AWB, and most articles are generally more mature. Plus the wikicode of articles grows ever more intimidating.
Has anyone analysed if the number of new contributors has risen since the Usability Project improvements? Obviously that was one of the major aims.
Pete / the wub
The single best way to improve usability of Wikipedia would be to scale back the use of jargon.
if you look at early discussions in those days they were usually held in plain English, with very little jargon. I've tried to keep up that style, but it is now quite rare.
I don't see why this should be. Our policies have perfectly good English language names, "Neutral point of view", "What Wikipedia is Not", "Verifiability", and so on. There's absolutely no need to replace these English phrases with gobbledygook.
We have no strictures against this exclusive practice, mainly because it was seen as obviously undesirable in the early days. But communities inevitably acquire exclusive practices as they develop--it's seen as one way to identify yourself to other people as a member of the "in" group. And so now when I discuss matters on Wikipedia talk pages even I, an editor since 2004, find myself shuddering inwardly at the impact of all the alphabet soup. If the damage this practice does to the openness of the community were more widely recognised it would be possible for us to agree to scale it back, but it just isn't on the map.
in all conscience I cannot see anything wrong with our user interface. It's exemplary, and its having changed so little in all this time is good evidence of that. If we were to try to emulate monstrosities like the ever-changing Facebook it would be a step backwards from our unflinching commitment to a good, clean, simple interface.
On jargon, I still think "Neutral point of view" was a terrible name that confused neutrality with lack of bias. You cannot sum up a policy like NPOV in a single phrase, so in that case, I think NPOV is better than saying "neutral" something. Sometimes a Wikipedia "term of art" can be misleading and the abbreviation is *less* misleading.
On interfaces, I think the main improvements will probably be in the realm of templates and how references are added. At least that is what I am hoping for. Talking of other interface things, what do people think of LiquidThreads, which looks like it is in use on some wikis now, from what I can see.
Carcharoth
On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 10:55 AM, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
The single best way to improve usability of Wikipedia would be to scale back the use of jargon.
if you look at early discussions in those days they were usually held in plain English, with very little jargon. I've tried to keep up that style, but it is now quite rare.
I don't see why this should be. Our policies have perfectly good English language names, "Neutral point of view", "What Wikipedia is Not", "Verifiability", and so on. There's absolutely no need to replace these English phrases with gobbledygook.
We have no strictures against this exclusive practice, mainly because it was seen as obviously undesirable in the early days. But communities inevitably acquire exclusive practices as they develop--it's seen as one way to identify yourself to other people as a member of the "in" group. And so now when I discuss matters on Wikipedia talk pages even I, an editor since 2004, find myself shuddering inwardly at the impact of all the alphabet soup. If the damage this practice does to the openness of the community were more widely recognised it would be possible for us to agree to scale it back, but it just isn't on the map.
in all conscience I cannot see anything wrong with our user interface. It's exemplary, and its having changed so little in all this time is good evidence of that. If we were to try to emulate monstrosities like the ever-changing Facebook it would be a step backwards from our unflinching commitment to a good, clean, simple interface.
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On 12/22/10 3:49 AM, Carcharoth wrote:
On jargon, I still think "Neutral point of view" was a terrible name that confused neutrality with lack of bias. You cannot sum up a policy like NPOV in a single phrase,
That last fact is precisely why it was such a good choice.
Ec
I see where you're coming from Tony, but ultimately, you can't herd cats. A campaign against jargon is only going to make minimal headway.
The are some structural things that Wikipedia needs to do: 1) WYSIWYG would be fantastic, but I've no idea what that would meet in practice.
Sticking to the achievable:
2) That need for posts to be signed with ~~~~ is counterintuitive. If I create an account on any other site, a sig in a discussion is unnecessary. I assume liquid threads would rid us of this? Is there another way?
3) The growing use of protection on high profile articles needs more discussion. There used to be a principle that the more an article was visible the less we should protect it. (After all people are told "anyone can edit" and high profile articles are watched enough to revert quickly.) We now seem to have reversed this - with the attitude that the article is now fairly good, and most IP edits are unhelpful. But the outsider comes in by experimentation. Actually, I'm a supporter of more liberal semi-protection (particularly on BLPS) but I'd use it on marginal articles where incoming edits are under-scrutinised - not one those where it is a hassle to vandal-fighters, but we always catch them.
4) Perhaps we need more integration with other social network and internet platforms. I mean, Amazon has seen the potential for someone reading a Wikipedia article to buy a book - but the reverse is true. Please buying books on Italian History are precisely the people we need to help us with articles on Italian history. Facebookers with an interest in Pokemon are precisely the people who can (and have the time to) help improve out deficiency in Pokemon articles...(ok, maybe not, but you get the point!)
5) I see the growing use of {{talkback}} templates. Personally, I hate them. However, the assumption that everyone masters watchlists and knows how to find discussions - and sees replies people make to them in any one of 27 noticeboards, talk pages etc is also counter intuitive. Could we develop software that flagged a user when someone replies to their post, wherever the reply might be? So if I post anywhere and someone posts indented below, I get some form of automatic notification? I don't know how it would work - but Facebook's beauty is that wherever I comment, or wherever someone comments about me, I get notified - that tends to keep me interested in continuing the discussions rather than drifting off. Watchlists were great in 2002, but they are part of an increasingly tired looking infrastructure.
Just some thoughts. I suspect to solve these problems would need some serious investment - but I just see Wikipedia slowly becoming dated. (Of course those who grew up on it will say it is "fine" - but then that's the way with everything.)
Scott
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway Sent: 22 December 2010 10:55 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Eschatology and Wikipedia
The single best way to improve usability of Wikipedia would be to scale back the use of jargon.
if you look at early discussions in those days they were usually held in plain English, with very little jargon. I've tried to keep up that style, but it is now quite rare.
I don't see why this should be. Our policies have perfectly good English language names, "Neutral point of view", "What Wikipedia is Not", "Verifiability", and so on. There's absolutely no need to replace these English phrases with gobbledygook.
We have no strictures against this exclusive practice, mainly because it was seen as obviously undesirable in the early days. But communities inevitably acquire exclusive practices as they develop--it's seen as one way to identify yourself to other people as a member of the "in" group. And so now when I discuss matters on Wikipedia talk pages even I, an editor since 2004, find myself shuddering inwardly at the impact of all the alphabet soup. If the damage this practice does to the openness of the community were more widely recognised it would be possible for us to agree to scale it back, but it just isn't on the map.
in all conscience I cannot see anything wrong with our user interface. It's exemplary, and its having changed so little in all this time is good evidence of that. If we were to try to emulate monstrosities like the ever-changing Facebook it would be a step backwards from our unflinching commitment to a good, clean, simple interface.
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On 12/22/10 2:55 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:
The single best way to improve usability of Wikipedia would be to scale back the use of jargon.
if you look at early discussions in those days they were usually held in plain English, with very little jargon. I've tried to keep up that style, but it is now quite rare.
I don't see why this should be. Our policies have perfectly good English language names, "Neutral point of view", "What Wikipedia is Not", "Verifiability", and so on. There's absolutely no need to replace these English phrases with gobbledygook.
We have no strictures against this exclusive practice, mainly because it was seen as obviously undesirable in the early days. But communities inevitably acquire exclusive practices as they develop--it's seen as one way to identify yourself to other people as a member of the "in" group. And so now when I discuss matters on Wikipedia talk pages even I, an editor since 2004, find myself shuddering inwardly at the impact of all the alphabet soup. If the damage this practice does to the openness of the community were more widely recognised it would be possible for us to agree to scale it back, but it just isn't on the map.
Jargon and alphabet soup has always been undesirable. A more plausible explanation for its absence in the early days is that most of it didn't yet exist. Those addicted to jargon are just plain lazy, just like those who find it easier to delete something instead of improving it.
Ec
On 22 December 2010 09:53, Peter Coombe thewub.wiki@googlemail.com wrote:
I do think there are fewer opportunities for such "easy" edits on Wikipedia now. Typos seem to be far less common thanks to semi-automated tools such as AWB, and most articles are generally more mature.
I had an interesting discussion a year or two ago with someone about the absence of redlinks in "high-quality" articles - in the past few years, there's been a definite trend to arguing that redlinks are detrimental to a finished article, and should be removed even when an article is pretty much guaranteed to be created eventually. Net result, of course, is that the article is more polished-looking - to us, at least, even if not to a reader unclear on the red/blue distinction - but has marginally less reminders of its editability.
I suspect this is part of a similar trend!
It reminds me of the spirit of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Always_leave_something_undone
"Whenever you write a page, never finish it. Always leave something obvious to do: an uncompleted sentence, a question in the text (with a not-too-obscure answer someone can supply), wikied links that are of interest, requests for help from specific other Wikipedians, the beginning of a provocative argument that someone simply must fill in, etc. The purpose of this rule is to encourage others to keep working on the wiki."
On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 11:02 PM, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Always_leave_something_undone
"Whenever you write a page, never finish it. Always leave something obvious to do: an uncompleted sentence, a question in the text (with a not-too-obscure answer someone can supply), wikied links that are of interest, requests for help from specific other Wikipedians, the beginning of a provocative argument that someone simply must fill in, etc. The purpose of this rule is to encourage others to keep working on the wiki."
I tend to try and not leave the public-facing page incomplete, but sometimes that is inevitable (not enough sources or an incomplete list), but put requests for help and suggestions for further editing on the talk page. A plea to future readers and Wikipedians that pass by. Though, sadly, I get the impression not many people actually read the talk page notes I leave behind, and they end up being more notes for myself to refer back to months or years later.
Carcharoth
On 12/22/10 11:36 PM, Carcharoth wrote:
I tend to try and not leave the public-facing page incomplete, but sometimes that is inevitable (not enough sources or an incomplete list), but put requests for help and suggestions for further editing on the talk page. A plea to future readers and Wikipedians that pass by. Though, sadly, I get the impression not many people actually read the talk page notes I leave behind, and they end up being more notes for myself to refer back to months or years later.
True enough about the prognosis for talk page notes. A discrete help marker on the public page would still be worthwhile. It could perhaps link directly to an explanation of the problem. An ordinary reader is unlikely to view the talk page otherwise. An effective way to lose volunteers is to leave them sitting around with nothing to do. If you want help from new blood make it obvious where the help is needed, and abandon this notion of polished articles written to impossible standards.
Ec
On 12/22/10 3:02 PM, Andrew Gray wrote:
I had an interesting discussion a year or two ago with someone about the absence of redlinks in "high-quality" articles - in the past few years, there's been a definite trend to arguing that redlinks are detrimental to a finished article, and should be removed even when an article is pretty much guaranteed to be created eventually. Net result, of course, is that the article is more polished-looking - to us, at least, even if not to a reader unclear on the red/blue distinction - but has marginally less reminders of its editability.
The polished look is a mere superficiality. We should be doing more to encourage editors to wikify articles by creating links to what might be wanted. The red links let it be known that there is still work to be done, and that alone may draw new editors. I find that if I make edits somewhere it is just as easy to create links at the same time.
I suspect this is part of a similar trend!
It reminds me of the spirit of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Always_leave_something_undone
"Whenever you write a page, never finish it. Always leave something obvious to do: an uncompleted sentence, a question in the text (with a not-too-obscure answer someone can supply), wikied links that are of interest, requests for help from specific other Wikipedians, the beginning of a provocative argument that someone simply must fill in, etc. The purpose of this rule is to encourage others to keep working on the wiki."
This too continues to be an important principle, but I would not take it to the extent of compulsory stupidity, Still there is no shame in letting it be obvious that more work and help is needed on an article by someone who has better access to the needed information.
Ec
On 12/22/10 1:53 AM, Peter Coombe wrote:
I do think there are fewer opportunities for such "easy" edits on Wikipedia now. Typos seem to be far less common thanks to semi-automated tools such as AWB, and most articles are generally more mature. Plus the wikicode of articles grows ever more intimidating.
You can still find them by reading. The tools may very well catch non-words or common misuses, but will it catch a plurals when there should be a singular, or wrong verb tenses? Excessive wikicode for templates or in-line references is a problem for simple edits. If one sees an error in the normal text, it can be a chore to find it again in edit mode when it is buried in the code.
Ec
On 12/21/10 4:17 PM, Carcharoth wrote:
Has anyone ever suggested a way for people to highlight a mistake and click to bring it to someone else's attention? But without logging any IP address. I suppose that sort of system would get overwhelmed by trolls very quickly. Maybe an off-wiki system to allow people using Wikipedia to generate a note for themselves on corrections to make later on?
That seems more complex than fixing a simple typo. If I can go in and make a simple spelling correction it's done very quickly. On the other hand if I need to explain what needs fixing and where it is in a site it's just not worth my while.
Ec
On 12/21/10 4:17 PM, Carcharoth wrote:
Has anyone ever suggested a way for people to highlight a mistake and click to bring it to someone else's attention? But without logging any IP address. I suppose that sort of system would get overwhelmed by trolls very quickly. Maybe an off-wiki system to allow people using Wikipedia to generate a note for themselves on corrections to make later on?
That seems more complex than fixing a simple typo. If I can go in and make a simple spelling correction it's done very quickly. On the other hand if I need to explain what needs fixing and where it is in a site it's just not worth my while.
Ec
This would be a generic equivalent of the Fix family of templates based on Template:Fix
I hate this coding but selecting the text which needs attention and hitting enter could create a popup where the problem could be explained or at least noted, if the person did not want to spend time on it. Selection from a checklist would put tags like "spelling" "verification needed" "Source?" in at the end of the highlighted text. We have a wide variety of such template, although I would be at a loss to remember them all or use them without a crutch like the popup I suggest. A new editor, could never, of course. These templates are simple but there are lots of them, often duplicating each other.
Fred Bauder
On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 3:17 AM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Has anyone ever suggested a way for people to highlight a mistake and click to bring it to someone else's attention? But without logging any IP address. I suppose that sort of system would get overwhelmed by trolls very quickly. Maybe an off-wiki system to allow people using Wikipedia to generate a note for themselves on corrections to make later on?
I believe there was a mistake report script in some Wikipedias (Spanish, Russian, Polish).
--vvv
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 3:55 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:04 PM, wiki doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
But..... where we are in competition with others is for the time of the undergraduate/graduate who sits down to squander some time on the internet. He's got any number of choices - what we draw him to Wikipedia and make him stick around? I wonder that the downturn in Wikipedia contributions is due largely to their being more "grown up" social networking phenomena than there were in 2004. Now, it is tempting to say that the fact that the "myspacers" have buggered off is not bad thing - but I wonder how many intelligent, educated people are now squandering time on Facebook who once might have been Wikipedia contributors?
I've had similar thoughts, but more general, thinking that the internet in general has more potential for people to "waste their time" than ever before. How many scientific theorems and great books and works of art are going to be left undone because people are wasting their time on Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and the like (and all the other websites and other online distractions out there)? You would *hope* that the truly exceptional in each generation avoid such traps and fulfil their potential, harnessing the power of the internet rather than being sucked into a churning maw, but you never know. And yes, I do think being a Wikipedia editor is more productive than using Facebook and Twitter. :-)
My god, this is getting serious.
Maybe we should ban cafes.
And bars.
And these movie theater things...
And what's this all about with this Television thing, now, it's clearly just wrongheaded...
Actual work, and the average portion of actual work that people do on a volunteer basis, isn't changing much. How people socialize is, but people are social animals. We do that. We're wired to do it. We're supposed to do it. Anyone who thinks that 14 hour workdays 7 days a week is preferable to the usual 8x5 is welcome to their obsession, but will stand alone. The work product of normal humans that don't socialize enough drops off, according to numerous professional studies over many decades. There's a reason most workweeks are targeted at 40 hrs. That's the maximum you can get out of average "information workers" before they drop overall output.
We get a slice. It's not an insignificant slice. We can do better with utilizing it, but we're doing pretty damn well all things considered.
I think viewing competition from the standpoint of "competition for people's time" can be very useful. There has been some data that's pointed to how Internet users as a whole have been shifting their time towards social networks (namely Facebook) and gaming at the expense of other sites/activities [1]. A few months ago, I ran some quick numbers using ComScore data to show how the allocation of user's time online is shifting. I posted the information on my talk page on meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Howief
The ComScore numbers (read [2] for a overview of the benefits and limitations of their data) show that time on Facebook has increased by 48% in the past year while overall time spent online has increased only 5.6%. Many other sites within the top 10 are either flat or declining with respect to user time. This data is far from telling us anything conclusive about impact on editing. For starters, it's a measurement of internet users as a whole which, for Wikipedia data, comprises mostly readers while we're probably more interested in editors/potential editors. But I do think the data points toward the direction of further exploration than away from it.
Quantifying the effect of "competition for people's time" is going to be difficult, but if anyone wants to help in that effort, please drop a note on my talk page.
Howie
[1] http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/what-americans-do-online-s... [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stu/comScore_data_on_Wikimedia#Discussio...
On 12/21/10 3:55 PM, Carcharoth wrote:
On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 11:04 PM, wikidoc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com wrote:
But..... where we are in competition with others is for the time of the undergraduate/graduate who sits down to squander some time on the internet. He's got any number of choices - what we draw him to Wikipedia and make him stick around? I wonder that the downturn in Wikipedia contributions is due largely to their being more "grown up" social networking phenomena than there were in 2004. Now, it is tempting to say that the fact that the "myspacers" have buggered off is not bad thing - but I wonder how many intelligent, educated people are now squandering time on Facebook who once might have been Wikipedia contributors?
I've had similar thoughts, but more general, thinking that the internet in general has more potential for people to "waste their time" than ever before. How many scientific theorems and great books and works of art are going to be left undone because people are wasting their time on Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and the like (and all the other websites and other online distractions out there)? You would *hope* that the truly exceptional in each generation avoid such traps and fulfil their potential, harnessing the power of the internet rather than being sucked into a churning maw, but you never know. And yes, I do think being a Wikipedia editor is more productive than using Facebook and Twitter. :-)
Carcharoth
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On 21/12/2010, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I've had similar thoughts, but more general, thinking that the internet in general has more potential for people to "waste their time" than ever before. How many scientific theorems and great books and works of art are going to be left undone because people are wasting their time on Wikipedia
I argue precisely the opposite. How many scientific theorems and great books and works of art are going to happen that wouldn't otherwise because we open source lots of information from closed source articles?
A lot of the articles are based on summarising information culled from paid-for sources. These sources are not generally available to people outside certain closed groups of people, at least, not without paying money, and except for recent works, who ever does that?
Carcharoth
On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 12:58 AM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/12/2010, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
I've had similar thoughts, but more general, thinking that the internet in general has more potential for people to "waste their time" than ever before. How many scientific theorems and great books and works of art are going to be left undone because people are wasting their time on Wikipedia
I argue precisely the opposite. How many scientific theorems and great books and works of art are going to happen that wouldn't otherwise because we open source lots of information from closed source articles?
A lot of the articles are based on summarising information culled from paid-for sources. These sources are not generally available to people outside certain closed groups of people, at least, not without paying money, and except for recent works, who ever does that?
Agreed. But I would still urge students (later years of secondary school and at university) to not let Wikipedia and other user-edited sites overwhelm them. They should get the balance right between the various aspects of the information resources available to them, and engage in a mix of contributing, learning, and creating.
Carcharoth