From: Delirium delirium@hackish.org Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Loosing more of our best contributors Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 04:37:10 -0400
To add additional perspective, he's also single-handedly written some of our best, in-depth wiki articles, as well as forged consensus on some difficult topics, such as [[Anti-Zionism]]. Much of his frustration seems to stem from the fact that, even after such difficult consensus is forged, the wiki method means that any random POV pusher can come in and mangle the article, which has happened on [[Anti-Zionism]] on numerous occasions. Unless a group of knowledgeable people are willing to waste their time baby-sitting an article, which usually amounts to revert-wars (since rarely are the additions even remotely helpful), the articles go rapidly downhill, wasting the effort of the people who painstakingly put together a quality article on a contentious subject.
I'd have to say I agree with that criticism. I've wasted some time myself on some of these contentious subjects, only to come back a few months later and find an abysmally horrid article in its place. Now I could start over again and try to hammer that article back into a reasonable state, or I could just revert to my 3-month-old version, or I could give up and say, "fine, the crappy article can stay". And, increasingly, a lot of people are taking the third option.
Exactly. As my watchilist grows I find myself spending no time actually creating content, and all my time monitoring existing articles with painfully reached NPOV, as each new POV warrior discovers Wikipedia and decides to add a few "relevant" comments promoting his/her POV, which in turn prompts other to insert their own POV, etc. Or, as I've more recently been experiencing, the replace the article entirely with their own POV version. In the latter case, if they don't ultimately get their way, they often create new articles with their own POV under similar titles, or highly POV titles, as a back-door to getting their way. If these articles are eventually discovered, they are often listed for VfD or re-direct, a process which usually takes further weeks of negotiation. In the end, we're either left with wikijunk, or a mass of overlapping articles, or (in the best case) the POV warriors eventually abandon their quest, having wasted many person-days of individual editors times which could have been far more profitably spent creating new content.
Jay.
_________________________________________________________________ Take charge with a pop-up guard built on patented Microsoft® SmartScreen Technology http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI... Start enjoying all the benefits of MSN® Premium right now and get the first two months FREE*.
Jay jg wrote
In the end, we're either left with wikijunk, or a mass of overlapping articles, or (in the best
case)
the POV warriors eventually abandon their quest, having wasted many person-days of individual editors times which could have been far more profitably spent creating new content.
Well, these outcomes are different in nature.
I think it is common ground that edit wars create poor articles; so, yes, edit warriors do leave wikijunk. Experienced editors are capable of dealing with this.
'A mass of overlapping articles' is indeed a probable consequence of two or more sides to an argument backing up their cases: this is intrisically a Good Thing, in that one can get behind strongly-held beliefs to some of the grounds. A case I was looking at today is [[loop quantum gravity]]; where WP is getting the benefit of some expert contributions, though not in the most finished or useable form. The merge options are a little tricky here (and are surely more so in other cases); but typicallly are mostly about skill as an editor.
Finally, time consumption. Undeniable that responsible Wikipedians watching contentious areas do have to put in the hours. Perhaps creating new content would get more recognition. It is, though, rapid to revert; the bias is in favour of sustaining the status quo if that's the object.
By the way, it seems a fairly good rule of thumb that when Robert complains to this list, he has some other quarrel on his agenda; and no change with this one.
Charles
JAY JG wrote:
Exactly. As my watchilist grows I find myself spending no time actually creating content, and all my time monitoring existing articles with painfully reached NPOV, as each new POV warrior discovers Wikipedia and decides to add a few "relevant" comments promoting his/her POV, which in turn prompts other to insert their own POV, etc. Or, as I've more recently been experiencing, the replace the article entirely with their own POV version. In the latter case, if they don't ultimately get their way, they often create new articles with their own POV under similar titles, or highly POV titles, as a back-door to getting their way. If these articles are eventually discovered, they are often listed for VfD or re-direct, a process which usually takes further weeks of negotiation. In the end, we're either left with wikijunk, or a mass of overlapping articles, or (in the best case) the POV warriors eventually abandon their quest, having wasted many person-days of individual editors times which could have been far more profitably spent creating new content.
Jay.
If the authors are having to create new articles to add their POV, then may I suggest that they are not getting a fair hearing on Wikipedia?
TBSDY
In some cases that is true, in others they are simply overwhelmed by righteous indignation at their nonsense. It isn't just that they want their POV, they want all other POV's out of there.
Fred
From: "csherlock@ljh.com.au" csherlock@ljh.com.au Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 12:32:36 +1000 To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Loosing more of our best contributors
If the authors are having to create new articles to add their POV, then may I suggest that they are not getting a fair hearing on Wikipedia?