From: Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com
If we have three "levels" of Wikipedia, we can have a whole lot more middle ground for the deletionists and inclusionists to meet on.
If they want to meet.
Users browsing the encyclopedia can set a default level of viewing on arrival, but bottom level articles are, by default, not included.
Ideological pure-Wiki advocates might suggest that by putting these article on the bottom level you were preventing people from seeing them and improving them.
-- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith@verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
On 10/2/05, Daniel P. B. Smith dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote:
From: Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com
If we have three "levels" of Wikipedia, we can have a whole lot more middle ground for the deletionists and inclusionists to meet on.
If they want to meet.
The thing is, eventually there's going to be no choice. I'm surprised the system lasted this long.
Users browsing the encyclopedia can set a default level of viewing on
arrival, but bottom level articles are, by default, not included.
Ideological pure-Wiki advocates might suggest that by putting these article on the bottom level you were preventing people from seeing them and improving them.
It's unclear what it means for bottom level articles to be "not included". Not included in search and in random page are obvious*, but there would almost certainly be a link there for anyone who typed in the exact term. We already have a link that says "View X deleted editshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Brian_Torby?" For bottom level articles, you'd actually be able to view those edits by clicking on that link (the text of which would probably be rephrased).
In that sense "deletion wars" would become a thing of the past, because simply editing a bottom level page would not in itself promote the page. There would thus be no more need for the kludge of creating a blank page and protecting it. I suppose this depends in part on whether or not promotion/demotion would be an admin task, though. If it were kept simple, for instance a "{{non-notable}}" link at the top of the page, then there might be some revert warring involved.
I can only see two real arguments against it. The first can be fixed, the second can't. The first argument is that it's complicated. This is especially true if more than three levels are implemented, and personally I'd argue for two. The second argument is that it doesn't wipe "bad content/crap/cruft/whatever" off the face of the earth.
* Actually, I just checked, and even deleted articles are already included in search.
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/2/05, Daniel P. B. Smith dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote:
Users browsing the encyclopedia can set a default level of viewing on
arrival, but bottom level articles are, by default, not included.
Ideological pure-Wiki advocates might suggest that by putting these article on the bottom level you were preventing people from seeing them and improving them.
It's unclear what it means for bottom level articles to be "not included". Not included in search and in random page are obvious*, but there would almost certainly be a link there for anyone who typed in the exact term. We already have a link that says "View X deleted editshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Brian_Torby?" For bottom level articles, you'd actually be able to view those edits by clicking on that link (the text of which would probably be rephrased).
Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives. That carries no deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
In that sense "deletion wars" would become a thing of the past, because simply editing a bottom level page would not in itself promote the page. There would thus be no more need for the kludge of creating a blank page and protecting it. I suppose this depends in part on whether or not promotion/demotion would be an admin task, though. If it were kept simple, for instance a "{{non-notable}}" link at the top of the page, then there might be some revert warring involved.
Believing that we can completely eliminate deletion wars is like believing in the tooth fairy.
I can only see two real arguments against it. The first can be fixed, the second can't. The first argument is that it's complicated. This is especially true if more than three levels are implemented, and personally I'd argue for two. The second argument is that it doesn't wipe "bad content/crap/cruft/whatever" off the face of the earth.
It shouldn't be complicated if it piggybacks on the evaluation scheme, Working those results into the deletion criteria, Having an article drop below a pre-determined level would open up a deletion discussion. On a scale from zero to ten, the original author should be presumed to have rated his own article with a ten no matter what it says. It's all downhill from there. :-)
- Actually, I just checked, and even deleted articles are already included
in search.
This is a bigger problem that has effects on more than just the deletion process. It only adds to the need for a more sophisticated search process, a request that our developpers are certainly aware of.
I often search single words in Wiktionary, but the problem could be bigger in a much larger project such as en:Wikipedia. The results give me not only deleted articles but deleted versions of articles that still exist. I can't imagine that coming up with all this makes life any easier on the servers. For single word searches I can have 500 hits when in reality only 50 of them still contain the word. Those 50 are scattered throughout the entire list rather than featured at the top of the list. Such an exaggerated historical search may be useful for some people but they should need to check a box before they get it.
Ec
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Ray Saintonge wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/2/05, Daniel P. B. Smith dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote:
Users browsing the encyclopedia can set a default level of viewing on
arrival, but bottom level articles are, by default, not included.
Ideological pure-Wiki advocates might suggest that by putting these article on the bottom level you were preventing people from seeing them and improving them.
It's unclear what it means for bottom level articles to be "not included". Not included in search and in random page are obvious*, but there would almost certainly be a link there for anyone who typed in the exact term. We already have a link that says "View X deleted editshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/Brian_Torby?" For bottom level articles, you'd actually be able to view those edits by clicking on that link (the text of which would probably be rephrased).
Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives. That carries no deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
Good idea.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 10/3/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
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Ray Saintonge wrote:
Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives. That carries no deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
Good idea.
I also think this is a good idea.
I previously didn't like the idea of public article rating schemes, but I was wrong to express my opposition before waiting to see what would develop. This could be a very good use indeed.
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
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Michael Turley wrote:
On 10/3/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives. That carries no deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
Good idea.
I also think this is a good idea.
I previously didn't like the idea of public article rating schemes, but I was wrong to express my opposition before waiting to see what would develop. This could be a very good use indeed.
Do you think that articles which fall below a certain threshhold (eg. - -100) should be deleted, or just hidden? Or should the current article rating be displayed in big red numbers at the top of the article?
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 10/3/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
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Michael Turley wrote:
I previously didn't like the idea of public article rating schemes, but I was wrong to express my opposition before waiting to see what would develop. This could be a very good use indeed.
Do you think that articles which fall below a certain threshhold (eg.
- -100) should be deleted, or just hidden? Or should the current article
rating be displayed in big red numbers at the top of the article?
Deletion should never be an automatic process. I've seen far too many articles "saved" while on AfD to support that.
Further, it is the existence of "poor quality" or nonexistent articles that gets us new editors. If all of the articles we allow the public to view are near perfect, few will join.
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
Michael Turley wrote:
On 10/3/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Michael Turley wrote:
I previously didn't like the idea of public article rating schemes, but I was wrong to express my opposition before waiting to see what would develop. This could be a very good use indeed.
Do you think that articles which fall below a certain threshhold (eg.
- -100) should be deleted, or just hidden? Or should the current article
rating be displayed in big red numbers at the top of the article?
Deletion should never be an automatic process. I've seen far too many articles "saved" while on AfD to support that.
That impatient drive for automation and decisions that require minimal thoughtful effort is a big part of the social problem around deletion. Before I trust an editor I look to see the work that he is doing. Deletions and proposed deletions are a subset of one's edits. If that subset takes up too big a proportion of his edits I become suspicious. So I look at his deletion practices to see how he exercises judgement. I've lurked at numerous VFD/AFD entries and done nothing, mostly because the subject matter was only marginal to my interests. But my observations would certainly note the reccurrence of certain editors' names, and my trust would be affected accordingly.
The problem with automated process is that they do not require the intervention of a brain. It is conceivable that some deletions could be done automatically, but we are nowhere near having criteria to which we could all agree. I don't mind at all if the process is a little slow.
I like the big red number, but I would be satisfied if only the lower numbers were red. Articles rated in the top and bottom 20% will always get attention, either because they are so bad or because the rating is too good to be true. Rating the first entry in an article at a mandatory 10 will have the effect of drawing eyes to that article.
Further, it is the existence of "poor quality" or nonexistent articles that gets us new editors. If all of the articles we allow the public to view are near perfect, few will join.
There's ironic truth to that. Few people edit Britannica because it's so perfect. :-) A very poorly rated article will also get attention, preferably from people who understand what it means to improve something rather than those who want to prevent improvement.
Ec
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Ray Saintonge wrote:
Michael Turley wrote:
On 10/3/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Michael Turley wrote:
I previously didn't like the idea of public article rating schemes, but I was wrong to express my opposition before waiting to see what would develop. This could be a very good use indeed.
Do you think that articles which fall below a certain threshhold (eg.
- -100) should be deleted, or just hidden? Or should the current article
rating be displayed in big red numbers at the top of the article?
Deletion should never be an automatic process. I've seen far too many articles "saved" while on AfD to support that.
That impatient drive for automation and decisions that require minimal thoughtful effort is a big part of the social problem around deletion. Before I trust an editor I look to see the work that he is doing. Deletions and proposed deletions are a subset of one's edits. If that subset takes up too big a proportion of his edits I become suspicious. So I look at his deletion practices to see how he exercises judgement. I've lurked at numerous VFD/AFD entries and done nothing, mostly because the subject matter was only marginal to my interests. But my observations would certainly note the reccurrence of certain editors' names, and my trust would be affected accordingly.
Same here. Hence I was a bit dubious at suggesting auto-deletion...
The problem with automated process is that they do not require the intervention of a brain. It is conceivable that some deletions could be done automatically, but we are nowhere near having criteria to which we could all agree. I don't mind at all if the process is a little slow.
Often when I come across untagged CSDs I'll tag them and move on, waiting for an admin to come and delete or list on AfD...
I like the big red number, but I would be satisfied if only the lower numbers were red. Articles rated in the top and bottom 20% will always get attention, either because they are so bad or because the rating is too good to be true. Rating the first entry in an article at a mandatory 10 will have the effect of drawing eyes to that article.
Well, it depends how the article validation system works. If we use a system like Slashdot's karma system... :)
Further, it is the existence of "poor quality" or nonexistent articles that gets us new editors. If all of the articles we allow the public to view are near perfect, few will join.
There's ironic truth to that. Few people edit Britannica because it's so perfect. :-) A very poorly rated article will also get attention, preferably from people who understand what it means to improve something rather than those who want to prevent improvement.
I have to agree with this; sometimes it's just too damned hard to change something.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
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Alphax wrote:
Often when I come across untagged CSDs I'll tag them and move on, waiting for an admin to come and delete or list on AfD...
You an't an admin? Why? - -- Phroziac | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xC2AF5417 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/anya2 | / \
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Phroziac wrote:
Alphax wrote:
Often when I come across untagged CSDs I'll tag them and move on, waiting for an admin to come and delete or list on AfD...
You an't an admin? Why?
Because non-admins can deny being members of the cabal ;)
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
Alphax wrote:
Phroziac wrote:
Alphax wrote:
Often when I come across untagged CSDs I'll tag them and move on, waiting for an admin to come and delete or list on AfD...
You an't an admin? Why?
Because non-admins can deny being members of the cabal ;)
As another long time non-admin (at least in Wikipedia) I can never be accused of abusing my admin powers.
Ec
I just did a very informal poll among friends I have who do not edit Wikipedia, but who read it, on the matter of when an article should be deleted.
I did not express my own opinion to any of them and solicit agreement. So the fact that they are my friends so, naturally, they agree with me doesn't play into this. On the other hand, the possibility that I am naturally prone to talking to people who basically agree with me, even on issues we haven't discussed, might.
In any case - no one I talked to mentioned notability as a reason to delete. All of them, upon being specifically asked about notability, generally took a "whatever" approach to it, with several specifically saying, "No, if the article isn't lies, it should definitely be included no matter how trivial the topic." Other views included "If the topic is mentioned in another article, and that mention wasn't created specifically to make an excuse to have an article, it should be included" (The closest thing to a deletionist position I got) and "If someone cares enough to create it, it should probably not be deleted, even though that someone might be being an idiot."
Which doesn't prove anything, I'll be the first to admit. But I think this is an important thing we haven't been asking - what do readers think. Most of the people expressing their opinions on this inclusion/ exclusion debate are editors. Most of us, in fact, are very jaded editors. And we are an incredible minority among the people who load en.wikipedia.org every day. And we should bear that in mind - because after a bit of talking to readers, I think people really do want us to try to be a place where you can find any piece of knowledge or fact. To a degree, actually, that's even beyond what I think is important to achieve (Although I still would rather leave in garage bands than exclude notable but obscure topics, and I still don't care enough to delete garage bands myself).
-Snowspinner
Philip Sandifer wrote:
Which doesn't prove anything, I'll be the first to admit. But I think this is an important thing we haven't been asking - what do readers think.
It's an interesting point-counterpoint issue, because although Wikipedia is about providing what the readers want, many readers aren't at all concerned with the overall health of the project-- they are only concerned with whether it helps with their homework, or Livejournal debate or whatever.
I think most deletionists who are upset about people writing articles about themselves get upset because after putting in all this work to improve the project, someone coming in and writing an article about his band is seen as an appropriation of the work of others. Wikipedia is popular because of the work people put in to improve it, and that means that anyone using it to do self-promotion is to be (rightfully) shunned. Yes, the information about your garage band might be true, but that doesn't mean it's okay for you to use Wikipedia as your own personal vehicle to superstardom. We only want contributions from people who want to improve the encyclopedia; not people who want to use it to advance their own interests.
Now, the average reader doesn't care about this problem because they are only interested in th quality of the articles they are actually searching for. Does that mean notability has nothing to do with quality? No, I don't think so. But it doesn't mean it does, either.
- Ryan
On 10/3/05, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
Philip Sandifer wrote:
Which doesn't prove anything, I'll be the first to admit. But I think this is an important thing we haven't been asking - what do readers think.
It's an interesting point-counterpoint issue, because although Wikipedia is about providing what the readers want, many readers aren't at all concerned with the overall health of the project-- they are only concerned with whether it helps with their homework, or Livejournal debate or whatever.
I think most deletionists who are upset about people writing articles about themselves get upset because after putting in all this work to improve the project, someone coming in and writing an article about his band is seen as an appropriation of the work of others. Wikipedia is popular because of the work people put in to improve it, and that means that anyone using it to do self-promotion is to be (rightfully) shunned. Yes, the information about your garage band might be true, but that doesn't mean it's okay for you to use Wikipedia as your own personal vehicle to superstardom. We only want contributions from people who want to improve the encyclopedia; not people who want to use it to advance their own interests.
I'm not sure I agree with the statement that anyone using Wikipedia for self-promotion should be shunned, but besides that I don't think that's the reason most of this information gets added. If I didn't know it would be deleted, I would have added information to Wikipedia about many of my favorite indie bands. I wouldn't do this to promote them, but I'd do it for the same reason I add information about anything else - I think it's information that someone else might be interested in. I really don't see how it promotes the band to write an article on [[Willy on Wheels Garage Band]] anyway. No one is going to come across that article unless they search for "Willy on Wheels Garage Band". Perhaps this is even more clear with regard to the articles that I'd write about more often if I knew that they wouldn't be deleted - software programs. I'd love it if Wikipedia had an article on every single P2P software program out there: big or small, good or bad, open source or proprietary. I'm not doing it because I want to promote the software. In fact, I think it's as important to have an NPOV article about software that sucks so that I can read it and know not to bother downloading the crap. Maybe that stuff doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Maybe I should argue for freshwikimeat.com http://freshwikimeat.com. But it has nothing to do with self-promotion or any other type of promotion.
Now, the average reader doesn't care about this problem because they are
only interested in th quality of the articles they are actually searching for. Does that mean notability has nothing to do with quality? No, I don't think so. But it doesn't mean it does, either.
- Ryan
On 10/22/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with the statement that anyone using Wikipedia for self-promotion should be shunned, but besides that I don't think that's the reason most of this information gets added. If I didn't know it would be deleted, I would have added information to Wikipedia about many of my favorite indie bands. I wouldn't do this to promote them, but I'd do it for the same reason I add information about anything else - I think it's information that someone else might be interested in. I really don't see how it promotes the band to write an article on [[Willy on Wheels Garage Band]] anyway. No one is going to come across that article unless they search for "Willy on Wheels Garage Band". Perhaps this is even more clear with regard to the articles that I'd write about more often if I knew that they wouldn't be deleted - software programs. I'd love it if Wikipedia had an article on every single P2P software program out there: big or small, good or bad, open source or proprietary. I'm not doing it because I want to promote the software. In fact, I think it's as important to have an NPOV article about software that sucks so that I can read it and know not to bother downloading the crap. Maybe that stuff doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Maybe I should argue for freshwikimeat.com http://freshwikimeat.com. But it has nothing to do with self-promotion or any other type of promotion.
Now, the average reader doesn't care about this problem because they are
only interested in th quality of the articles they are actually searching for. Does that mean notability has nothing to do with quality? No, I don't think so. But it doesn't mean it does, either.
- Ryan
It may not be effective promotion, but it's about the intent, not the effect. Besides, any such article about a regular unremarkable band is eating server resources. One wouldn't be a problem, but if you allow one why not the other and soon we've got a whole bunch of them. Keeping such bands would set a bad precedent.
--Mgm
On 10/22/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/22/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with the statement that anyone using Wikipedia for self-promotion should be shunned, but besides that I don't think that's
the
reason most of this information gets added. If I didn't know it would be deleted, I would have added information to Wikipedia about many of my favorite indie bands. I wouldn't do this to promote them, but I'd do it
for
the same reason I add information about anything else - I think it's information that someone else might be interested in. I really don't see how it promotes the band to write an article on
[[Willy
on Wheels Garage Band]] anyway. No one is going to come across that
article
unless they search for "Willy on Wheels Garage Band". Perhaps this is even more clear with regard to the articles that I'd
write
about more often if I knew that they wouldn't be deleted - software programs. I'd love it if Wikipedia had an article on every single P2P software program out there: big or small, good or bad, open source or proprietary. I'm not doing it because I want to promote the software. In fact, I think it's as important to have an NPOV article about software
that
sucks so that I can read it and know not to bother downloading the crap. Maybe that stuff doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Maybe I should argue
for
freshwikimeat.com http://freshwikimeat.com http://freshwikimeat.com.
But it has nothing to do with
self-promotion or any other type of promotion.
Now, the average reader doesn't care about this problem because they are
only interested in th quality of the articles they are actually searching for. Does that mean notability has nothing to do with
quality?
No, I don't think so. But it doesn't mean it does, either.
- Ryan
It may not be effective promotion, but it's about the intent, not the effect. Besides, any such article about a regular unremarkable band is eating server resources. One wouldn't be a problem, but if you allow one why not the other and soon we've got a whole bunch of them. Keeping such bands would set a bad precedent.
--Mgm
I think you're wrong about the intent of most contributors, though. And if keeping one article on an unremarkable band would set a precedent, and bring more articles on bands, I see that as a good precedent, not a bad one.
One wouldn't be a problem, and neither would ten thousand. We've got thousands of articles on unremarkable cities, and I don't see a problem with that either. Anthony
On 10/22/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
I think you're wrong about the intent of most contributors, though. And if keeping one article on an unremarkable band would set a precedent, and bring more articles on bands, I see that as a good precedent, not a bad one.
One wouldn't be a problem, and neither would ten thousand. We've got thousands of articles on unremarkable cities, and I don't see a problem with that either. Anthony
Even crap need mentaining we just don't have the rescources to mentian a million articles millionth rate bands.
-- geni
On 10/22/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/22/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
I think you're wrong about the intent of most contributors, though. And
if
keeping one article on an unremarkable band would set a precedent, and
bring
more articles on bands, I see that as a good precedent, not a bad one.
One wouldn't be a problem, and neither would ten thousand. We've got thousands of articles on unremarkable cities, and I don't see a problem
with
that either. Anthony
Even crap need mentaining we just don't have the rescources to mentian a million articles millionth rate bands.
-- geni
Who's going to create these million articles on garage bands? With 100,000 new garage band fans creating them we'll have no problem maintaining a million articles on garage bands. I think realistically it'll be at least a couple orders of magnitude smaller in both figures, but as long as we don't allow automated creation of these articles the resources to maintain the articles will scale right along with the creation of them. Anthony
On 10/23/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
Who's going to create these million articles on garage bands? With 100,000 new garage band fans creating them we'll have no problem maintaining a million articles on garage bands. I think realistically it'll be at least a couple orders of magnitude smaller in both figures, but as long as we don't allow automated creation of these articles the resources to maintain the articles will scale right along with the creation of them. Anthony
You assume that the people who create these articles: a)stick around b)know all the wikimarkup and stuff
-- geni
On 10/22/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/23/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
Who's going to create these million articles on garage bands? With
100,000
new garage band fans creating them we'll have no problem maintaining a million articles on garage bands. I think realistically it'll be at
least a
couple orders of magnitude smaller in both figures, but as long as we
don't
allow automated creation of these articles the resources to maintain the articles will scale right along with the creation of them. Anthony
You assume that the people who create these articles: a)stick around b)know all the wikimarkup and stuff
-- geni
I assume that a good portion of them will, yes. I think this is what happens when you treat contributors with gratitude and a helping hand rather than accusing them of self-promotion and deleting their contributions.
I make the assumption that most contributors, even those that happen to be interested in garage bands, are acting in good faith. I make the assumption that if you give people the tools and the freedom to create good articles they're going to do so. Maybe you think that's a crazy idea, but if so I find it hard to understand why you believe in the crazy idea of building a website that anyone can edit.
Anthony
From: Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org
I make the assumption that most contributors, even those that happen to be interested in garage bands, are acting in good faith. I make the assumption that if you give people the tools and the freedom to create good articles they're going to do so. Maybe you think that's a crazy idea, but if so I find it hard to understand why you believe in the crazy idea of building a website that anyone can edit.
Actually, we're trying to build an *encyclopedia* that anyone can edit; it astonishes me that people keep forgetting this.
Jay.
JAY JG wrote:
Actually, we're trying to build an *encyclopedia* that anyone can edit; it astonishes me that people keep forgetting this.
If I'm not talking out of turn, that may be the heart of the problem. An encyclopedia is, by definition, an overview of reliable, verifiable information that can be of use in doing groundwork for research on a topic. the fatc that anyone can edit any article, or create an article, means that the purpose of the exercise was already defeated at the beginning.
Wikipedia is many things, many of them good, but by definition it *cannot* be a true encyclopedia.
On 10/22/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
From: Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org
I make the assumption that most contributors, even those that happen to
be
interested in garage bands, are acting in good faith. I make the
assumption
that if you give people the tools and the freedom to create good articles they're going to do so. Maybe you think that's a crazy idea, but if so I find it hard to understand why you believe in the crazy idea of building
a
website that anyone can edit.
Actually, we're trying to build an *encyclopedia* that anyone can edit; it astonishes me that people keep forgetting this.
Jay.
Are you saying that Wikipedia isn't a website? I'm fully aware that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but that doesn't change the fact that it's also a wiki, which is a website that anyone can edit.
We can argue about whether or not Wikipedia would have succeeded had it not been a website if you want, but the comment I was making was that the crazy idea - of a website that anyone could edit - actually worked.
Anthony
On 10/22/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/22/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
From: Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org
I make the assumption that most contributors, even those that happen to
be
interested in garage bands, are acting in good faith. I make the
assumption
that if you give people the tools and the freedom to create good articles they're going to do so. Maybe you think that's a crazy idea, but if so I find it hard to understand why you believe in the crazy idea of building
a
website that anyone can edit.
Actually, we're trying to build an *encyclopedia* that anyone can edit; it astonishes me that people keep forgetting this.
Jay.
Are you saying that Wikipedia isn't a website? I'm fully aware that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but that doesn't change the fact that it's also a wiki, which is a website that anyone can edit.
We can argue about whether or not Wikipedia would have succeeded had it not been a website if you want, but the comment I was making was that the crazy idea - of a website that anyone could edit - actually worked.
Anthony
"Wikipedia is an encyclopedia." --Jimbo Wales
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Anthony,
Most of the users who edit musical articles do so on established acts. Further, assuming that we had these fans, there is little verifiable material available to base articles on.
Generally, garage bands and other unsigned acts:
- have no band website or page on a record company website; - have no articles on Allmusic.com http://Allmusic.com or other online musical reference materials; - attract little if any interest from the music media such as Rolling Stone, NME, MTV or Billboard; - attract little if any interest from general media such as radio, newspapers etc; and - musical acts generally have to be well-known to feature in books.
By the time, most acts have verifiable material available about them, they tend to meet our musical guidelines outlined on WP:MUSIC. Most of the articles on garage bands and other unknown acts are prepared by band members or others with close links to the band/act and are unverifiable.
Regards
Keith
On 10/23/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
On 10/22/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/23/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
Who's going to create these million articles on garage bands? With
100,000
new garage band fans creating them we'll have no problem maintaining a million articles on garage bands. I think realistically it'll be at
least a
couple orders of magnitude smaller in both figures, but as long as we
don't
allow automated creation of these articles the resources to maintain
the
articles will scale right along with the creation of them. Anthony
You assume that the people who create these articles: a)stick around b)know all the wikimarkup and stuff
-- geni
I assume that a good portion of them will, yes. I think this is what happens when you treat contributors with gratitude and a helping hand rather than accusing them of self-promotion and deleting their contributions.
I make the assumption that most contributors, even those that happen to be interested in garage bands, are acting in good faith. I make the assumption that if you give people the tools and the freedom to create good articles they're going to do so. Maybe you think that's a crazy idea, but if so I find it hard to understand why you believe in the crazy idea of building a website that anyone can edit.
Anthony _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 10/23/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
I assume that a good portion of them will, yes. I think this is what happens when you treat contributors with gratitude and a helping hand rather than accusing them of self-promotion and deleting their contributions.
What makes you think they even notice?
I make the assumption that most contributors, even those that happen to be interested in garage bands, are acting in good faith. I make the assumption that if you give people the tools and the freedom to create good articles they're going to do so. Maybe you think that's a crazy idea, but if so I find it hard to understand why you believe in the crazy idea of building a website that anyone can edit.
Anthony
I don't make assumptions.
-- geni
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/22/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/22/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
I think you're wrong about the intent of most contributors, though. And
if
keeping one article on an unremarkable band would set a precedent, and
bring
more articles on bands, I see that as a good precedent, not a bad one.
One wouldn't be a problem, and neither would ten thousand. We've got thousands of articles on unremarkable cities, and I don't see a problem
with
that either. Anthony
Even crap need mentaining we just don't have the rescources to mentian a million articles millionth rate bands.
-- geni
Who's going to create these million articles on garage bands? With 100,000 new garage band fans creating them we'll have no problem maintaining a million articles on garage bands. I think realistically it'll be at least a couple orders of magnitude smaller in both figures, but as long as we don't allow automated creation of these articles the resources to maintain the articles will scale right along with the creation of them.
We will have eternal POV, verifiablity and credibility problems.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 10/22/05, Anthony DiPierro wikispam@inbox.org wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with the statement that anyone using Wikipedia for self-promotion should be shunned, but besides that I don't think that's the reason most of this information gets added. If I didn't know it would be deleted, I would have added information to Wikipedia about many of my favorite indie bands. I wouldn't do this to promote them, but I'd do it for the same reason I add information about anything else - I think it's information that someone else might be interested in. I really don't see how it promotes the band to write an article on [[Willy on Wheels Garage Band]] anyway. No one is going to come across that article unless they search for "Willy on Wheels Garage Band". Perhaps this is even more clear with regard to the articles that I'd write about more often if I knew that they wouldn't be deleted - software programs. I'd love it if Wikipedia had an article on every single P2P software program out there: big or small, good or bad, open source or proprietary. I'm not doing it because I want to promote the software. In fact, I think it's as important to have an NPOV article about software that sucks so that I can read it and know not to bother downloading the crap. Maybe that stuff doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Maybe I should argue for freshwikimeat.com http://freshwikimeat.com. But it has nothing to do with self-promotion or any other type of promotion.
It may not be effective promotion, but it's about the intent, not the effect. Besides, any such article about a regular unremarkable band is eating server resources. One wouldn't be a problem, but if you allow one why not the other and soon we've got a whole bunch of them. Keeping such bands would set a bad precedent.
The server space argument is not convincing when you consider that probably far more server space is used trying to get rid of one than in maintaining a useless stub in an out-of-the-way corner. In large computer programmes, I'm sure that many random code bits are kept because it is not a cost effective way of employing developer time to be hunting them all down.
Ec
Ec
On 10/3/05, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I just did a very informal poll among friends I have who do not edit Wikipedia, but who read it, on the matter of when an article should be deleted.
I did not express my own opinion to any of them and solicit agreement. So the fact that they are my friends so, naturally, they agree with me doesn't play into this. On the other hand, the possibility that I am naturally prone to talking to people who basically agree with me, even on issues we haven't discussed, might.
It would help to know how large your sample size of friends was and what sort of stuff they commonly look up.
I come across misplaced questions on a daily basis. Wikipedia questions on the reference desk and reference questions on the help desk, which shows that despite having glaringly obvious instructions on a page, readers often don't have the sense to read it.
And then it's the readers who set their first steps into editing by including garage bands, website and personal vanity. They wouldn't have any objection to such stuff being included.
Trusting them on what to include would be madness.
--Mgm
Philip Sandifer wrote:
I just did a very informal poll among friends I have who do not edit Wikipedia, but who read it, on the matter of when an article should be deleted.
I did not express my own opinion to any of them and solicit agreement. So the fact that they are my friends so, naturally, they agree with me doesn't play into this. On the other hand, the possibility that I am naturally prone to talking to people who basically agree with me, even on issues we haven't discussed, might.
In any case - no one I talked to mentioned notability as a reason to delete. All of them, upon being specifically asked about notability, generally took a "whatever" approach to it, with several specifically saying, "No, if the article isn't lies, it should definitely be included no matter how trivial the topic." Other views included "If the topic is mentioned in another article, and that mention wasn't created specifically to make an excuse to have an article, it should be included" (The closest thing to a deletionist position I got) and "If someone cares enough to create it, it should probably not be deleted, even though that someone might be being an idiot."
Which doesn't prove anything, I'll be the first to admit. But I think this is an important thing we haven't been asking - what do readers think. Most of the people expressing their opinions on this inclusion/ exclusion debate are editors. Most of us, in fact, are very jaded editors. And we are an incredible minority among the people who load en.wikipedia.org every day. And we should bear that in mind - because after a bit of talking to readers, I think people really do want us to try to be a place where you can find any piece of knowledge or fact. To a degree, actually, that's even beyond what I think is important to achieve (Although I still would rather leave in garage bands than exclude notable but obscure topics, and I still don't care enough to delete garage bands myself).
These are excellent observations. My son's Social Studies teacher is an info geek who is familiar with Wikipedia. I should ask him if he would be willing to run a survey of his class asking: "What belongs in an encyclopedia?" and "What should not be in an encyclopedia?" Perhaps even adding a series of yes-or-no questions about subjects that have been particularly contentious.
Ec
On Oct 4, 2005, at 4:32 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
These are excellent observations. My son's Social Studies teacher is an info geek who is familiar with Wikipedia. I should ask him if he would be willing to run a survey of his class asking: "What belongs in an encyclopedia?" and "What should not be in an encyclopedia?"
I think it would be important to specify "Wikipedia" not "an encyclopedia," so as to avoid treating Wikipedia like paper.
-Snowspinner
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Snowspinner wrote:
On Oct 4, 2005, at 4:32 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
These are excellent observations. My son's Social Studies teacher is an info geek who is familiar with Wikipedia. I should ask him if he would be willing to run a survey of his class asking: "What belongs in an encyclopedia?" and "What should not be in an encyclopedia?"
I think it would be important to specify "Wikipedia" not "an encyclopedia," so as to avoid treating Wikipedia like paper.
I don't think we should unduly bias the test group; say "an encyclopedia with no space limitations". They may /already/ think that Wikipedia is something /other/ than an Encyclopedia.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
I don't think we should unduly bias the test group; say "an encyclopedia with no space limitations". They may /already/ think that Wikipedia is something /other/ than an Encyclopedia.
I'd be interested in hearing the answer from all the people contributing to this discussion.
Personally I think the only restriction is we should limit ourselves to articles on things (including concepts) other than words. The rest is just really realistic limitations on how to accomplish that. NPOV and verifiability are necessary because we're a wiki, and "no bots" is necessary because we generally need to be able to organize the information as we add it.
Other than that, I don't think there's anything we can't handle. I'd like to see us add the name, address, telephone number, and social security number of every person in the US, for instance.
Anthony
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Other than that, I don't think there's anything we can't handle. I'd like to see us add the name, address, telephone number, and social security number of every person in the US, for instance.
That is a gross invasion of privacy and probably illegal.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 10/4/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Other than that, I don't think there's anything we can't handle. I'd
like to
see us add the name, address, telephone number, and social security
number
of every person in the US, for instance.
That is a gross invasion of privacy and probably illegal.
Not if the information is verifiable, it isn't.
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/4/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Other than that, I don't think there's anything we can't handle. I'd like to
see us add the name, address, telephone number, and social security number
of every person in the US, for instance.
That is a gross invasion of privacy and probably illegal.
Not if the information is verifiable, it isn't.
A lot of the address and phone number material is available through on-line phone books.
Social Security Numbers are available for deceased persons through the Social Security Death Index.
Ec
On Tue, 2005-10-04 at 09:52 -0400, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Other than that, I don't think there's anything we can't handle. I'd like to see us add the name, address, telephone number, and social security number of every person in the US, for instance.
I presume you mean everyone in the world, not the US.
Personally even if this was accepted, you would want a bot to do it (and update it). If I now added my phone number it would be afd pretty quickly.
Justinc
That's what a phonebook is mostly for. Also, yes, the world, not the US. But how can such a thing be verifiable. Phone numbers and addresses change like the plague.
With the kinks ironed out it may be a Wikimedia project, but it's certainly not encyclopedic material.
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
That's what a phonebook is mostly for. Also, yes, the world, not the US. But how can such a thing be verifiable. Phone numbers and addresses change like the plague.
With the kinks ironed out it may be a Wikimedia project, but it's certainly not encyclopedic material.
It's not policy that will keep material like this out of Wikipedia, but the incredible boredom of the task. If somebody wants to start it, that's fine but I doubt that they will be at it after a month. Six months later it can probably be deleted as an abandoned experiment.
Ec
On 10/4/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
That's what a phonebook is mostly for. Also, yes, the world, not the US. But how can such a thing be verifiable. Phone numbers and addresses change like the plague.
Where can I download a free phonebook on the web? How can a phone number be verifiable? Add a date.
With the kinks ironed out it may be a Wikimedia project, but it's
certainly not encyclopedic material.
That's certainly arguable, and in most cases probably true.
Justin Cormack wrote:
On Tue, 2005-10-04 at 09:52 -0400, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Other than that, I don't think there's anything we can't handle. I'd like to see us add the name, address, telephone number, and social security number of every person in the US, for instance.
I presume you mean everyone in the world, not the US.
I don't think that the situation is yet so bad that the US is demanding that everyone in the world have a Social Security Number. This would require numbers longer than the present nine digits. A ten digit number may be too metric to be acceptable by the general population of the United States. :-)
Ec
On 10/4/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 4, 2005, at 4:32 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
These are excellent observations. My son's Social Studies teacher is an info geek who is familiar with Wikipedia. I should ask him if he would be willing to run a survey of his class asking: "What belongs in an encyclopedia?" and "What should not be in an encyclopedia?"
I think it would be important to specify "Wikipedia" not "an encyclopedia," so as to avoid treating Wikipedia like paper.
-Snowspinner _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I was thinking the same thing. It might be interesting to hear what school children have as a conception of what an encyclopedia is, but I don't think it's very useful in determining what Wikipedia should or shouldn't include.
Personally I do believe that Wikipedia needs to stay focussed on being an encyclopedia, and not something else, but that's an issue of form more than an issue of inclusion/exclusion. It's also not a very good argument for outright deletion, as even if one can come up with facts which have no place in an encyclopedia I feel they still should one day be handled by one of the Wikimedia projects. One of the problems there is that a Wikimedia project can't be started unless there is consensus that the information doesn't belong in Wikipedia, and a higher standard of what constitutes consensus is generally used. Personally I'd be content if the foundation simply started a sister project for everything which doesn't belong in one of the other projects, and transwikied all the non-speedy (and non-copyvio) deletions there.
Barring that, I'd be content if Wikipedia just gave me access to the deleted files table, or mailed me a copy of everything that went through VFD, or something similar.
Anthony
Snowspinner wrote:
On Oct 4, 2005, at 4:32 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
These are excellent observations. My son's Social Studies teacher is an info geek who is familiar with Wikipedia. I should ask him if he would be willing to run a survey of his class asking: "What belongs in an encyclopedia?" and "What should not be in an encyclopedia?"
I think it would be important to specify "Wikipedia" not "an encyclopedia," so as to avoid treating Wikipedia like paper.
That approach is understandable, but I would not want to prejudice the question to depend on whether or not they are familiar with Wikipedia.
My 15 year old son avoids admitting that he ever uses Wikipedia. To do so would involve admitting that he listens to his dad's suggestions. :-)
Ec
Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives. That carries no deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
I thought the long proposed article evaluation scheme worked on a single edition of an article. Either way, it seems like it'd be horribly abused. Wikipedia is not Slashdot. The day we incorporate meta-moderation into Mediawiki the project is doomed :).
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Why not have these levels set by the long proposed article evaluation scheme, based on th numbers which that process gives. That carries no deletion implication, but it warns the user that if he views articles below a certain threshold he may just be viewing a lot of garbage.
I thought the long proposed article evaluation scheme worked on a single edition of an article. Either way, it seems like it'd be horribly abused. Wikipedia is not Slashdot. The day we incorporate meta-moderation into Mediawiki the project is doomed :).
Any system can be abused, but then I've never had anything to do with Slashdot.. It can probably be made to work with any article. Would the result be any worse than unending arguments with notabilists.
It does look as though the perpetual debate has more to do with "notabilists" vs. "verifiabilists" than deletionists vs. inclusionists. At least that seems to be the dominant subset of the debate.
Ec
On 10/3/05, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
- Actually, I just checked, and even deleted articles are already included
in search.
This is a bigger problem that has effects on more than just the deletion process. It only adds to the need for a more sophisticated search process, a request that our developpers are certainly aware of.
I often search single words in Wiktionary, but the problem could be bigger in a much larger project such as en:Wikipedia. The results give me not only deleted articles but deleted versions of articles that still exist. I can't imagine that coming up with all this makes life any easier on the servers. For single word searches I can have 500 hits when in reality only 50 of them still contain the word. Those 50 are scattered throughout the entire list rather than featured at the top of the list. Such an exaggerated historical search may be useful for some people but they should need to check a box before they get it.
What's happening is that an old index is being searched, not the current article content (which would take longer/bring down the servers more often). Therefore, if an article is still in that index, then it would be found by a search, even if it has already been deleted
ABCD