Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.
As an expert who has left Wikipedia more or less, I can give you an answer: 1. I would write there for Citizendium, not for Wikipedia. 2. Content from there included in Wikipedia will deteriorate at Wikipedia over time, there is will remain sound. 3. Content there, if the right editing paradigm is chosen, will continue to improve, which would either require Wikipedia to repeatedly insert the newest version, of basically fall behind.
Your response is based on the premise that Wikipedia will keep the lead, and that forks are just to feed stuff to Wikipedia. Maybe, but my prediction will be that some smarter hybrid between general community involvement and experts guarding quality will in the end replace Wikipedia. It is just a matter of time. Whether Citizendium will be that alternative, I do not yet know. What I do know is that experts have in general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that is not going to change.
Kim
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
What I do know is that experts have in general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that is not going to change.
There are areas of Wikipedia where that generality is not true at all, and experts are quite actively involved and not being rejected or driven away at all.
I keep wondering what's different about those, compared to the areas where they are being pushed out, and thinking if there's some way to change that. I haven't figured it out yet.
George Herbert wrote:
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
What I do know is that experts have in general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that is not going to change.
There are areas of Wikipedia where that generality is not true at all, and experts are quite actively involved and not being rejected or driven away at all.
I keep wondering what's different about those, compared to the areas where they are being pushed out, and thinking if there's some way to change that. I haven't figured it out yet.
Well, maybe you are active in area's were this is less of a problem. What causes it? In general, the impossibility to keep things at a high level quality due to edit wars, POV-pushers, drive-by-editing, good intended insertion of non-obvious nonsense, and the basic idea of consensus, which often leads to the most watered down version that is acceptable to all involved but does not necessarily reflect the current state of the knowledge in for example science. Finally, Wikipedia articles often reflect what is available at the internet (aka that what is easily verifiable), but fails to incorporate important work that is not directly available to editors, while experts would have access to those sources.
As long as Wikipedia has no way to protect the quality of the content in a better way, content will deteriorate asymptotically to the level of understanding of the the average vandalism fighter unless excperts themselves babysit those articles. The higher the quality, especially articles about complex subjects written by experts, the more problematic it will be to maintain the quality as most vandalism fighters don't have the insight to actually judge whether a this-is-obviously-not-vandalism change is actually an improvement or not, or worse, whether the insertion of nonsense or just plain incorrect information.
But this is inherently Wikipedia, and it will not change.
Kim
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
What I do know is that experts have in general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that is not going to change.
There are areas of Wikipedia where that generality is not true at all, and experts are quite actively involved and not being rejected or driven away at all.
I keep wondering what's different about those, compared to the areas where they are being pushed out, and thinking if there's some way to change that. I haven't figured it out yet.
Well, maybe you are active in area's were this is less of a problem.
Exactly, though I also participate in some problem areas.
What I don't understand, and am still looking for, is a root cause for why some areas with equally popular and controversial topics have contentious article editing, and some don't.
The best I can figure is that some sets of people just play better together in online text-based interaction than other sets, and who shows up interested in a particular WP article is random luck of the draw. That's a terribly unsatisfying answer, though, because it offers no evident solution other than trying to convince people to behave better.
What causes it? In general, the impossibility to keep things at a high level quality due to edit wars, POV-pushers, drive-by-editing, good intended insertion of non-obvious nonsense, and the basic idea of consensus, which often leads to the most watered down version that is acceptable to all involved but does not necessarily reflect the current state of the knowledge in for example science.
Well, to some degree, there are legitimate reasons for using consensus: even within experts in the field, there often is not yet full agreement on the validity of newly developing science or technology. Science textbooks seem to either end up with a one-sided opinion, or have a consensus group rank and represent alternative theories which haven't yet proven themselves in a particular area.
Wikipedia suffers some from the consensus group including non-experts who really don't understand the topic (ranging from don't understand it at all but think they do, to don't understand aspects of the emerging research though they otherwise have a clue, with many shades between). But I don't feel laying blame on the concept of consensus is fair - even a paid, expert written and reviewed encyclopedia suffers from having to make this choice between consensus (sometimes wishy-washy) and sometimes one-sided viewpoint articles.
A really good writer can take a dynamic disagreement about the various contending ideas and both give all sides a fair treatment and bring the debate and issues to life in an accessable manner. The problem here is that the set of really good popular science/tech/etc writers is not the same as the set of topic experts, and that a lot of really good writers seem to despair at some of Wikipedia's process results.
Finally, Wikipedia articles often reflect what is available at the internet (aka that what is easily verifiable), but fails to incorporate important work that is not directly available to editors, while experts would have access to those sources.
As long as Wikipedia has no way to protect the quality of the content in a better way, content will deteriorate asymptotically to the level of understanding of the the average vandalism fighter unless excperts themselves babysit those articles. The higher the quality, especially articles about complex subjects written by experts, the more problematic it will be to maintain the quality as most vandalism fighters don't have the insight to actually judge whether a this-is-obviously-not-vandalism change is actually an improvement or not, or worse, whether the insertion of nonsense or just plain incorrect information.
But this is inherently Wikipedia, and it will not change.
I've got slightly over a thousand en.WP pages on my watchlist, about 500 articles worth. Even accounting for overlap, there are plenty enough active wikipedians on en to watch the important pages.
George Herbert wrote:
Well, to some degree, there are legitimate reasons for using consensus: even within experts in the field, there often is not yet full agreement on the validity of newly developing science or technology.
Science works on arguments. Not by popular vote (Intelligent design and creations would be true in that case!). It is not consensus what is important, but the description of all relevant point-of-views based on their relative scientific importance based on scientific sources. To much is based on popular POV-sources, or pieced together quote mining.
I've got slightly over a thousand en.WP pages on my watchlist, about 500 articles worth. Even accounting for overlap, there are plenty enough active wikipedians on en to watch the important pages.
I had about +2000 articles. In my field of expertise, I have waited how long it took on some high profile watched-by-many articles before someone would correct some clear incorrect information, inserted by a drive-by-editor. After a month, I changed it, as nobody did it. Now I do not have those articles on my watchlist anymore (remove all items works wonderful), if any of that gets reinserted again, it is very likely to remain incorrect at Wikipedia for a long time.
Kim
On 9/17/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
Science works on arguments. Not by popular vote (Intelligent design and creations would be true in that case!).
The history of science suggests otherwise (from what I've seen I can't help wondering if Feyerabend had a point).
geni wrote:
On 9/17/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
Science works on arguments. Not by popular vote (Intelligent design and creations would be true in that case!).
The history of science suggests otherwise (from what I've seen I can't help wondering if Feyerabend had a point).
Science determined by popular vote?
Or do you mean that scientists are human and resist changes like most people and that paradigm shifts take time to filter through?
Kim
On 9/17/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
geni wrote: Science determined by popular vote?
A popular vote of of scientists would not be the worst description of what goes on. Although of course the actual process is ar more complex.
Or do you mean that scientists are human and resist changes like most people and that paradigm shifts take time to filter through?
Kim
I never really liked the paradigm shifts model becuase it lacked falsifiability (and yes I'm aware of the irony of that statement).
On 9/17/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/17/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
geni wrote: Science determined by popular vote?
A popular vote of of scientists would not be the worst description of what goes on. Although of course the actual process is ar more complex.
Also varying wildly from scientific discipline to discipline, and beyond that from subspecialty to subspecialty. There are small fields of science where there are no more than a handful of practitioners, and those with thousands.
Some of the ones I am more familiar with, including planetary science, are particularly consensus-driven. Partly that is because experiments (space missions to planets, with particular instruments) take years at best and often decades to deliver results.
Physics has wandered off into an interesting consensus experiment, looking for theories to solve the grand unification and related problems, and so far finding little which is formally testable in many of the fields under analysis.
Math seems different, but I only watch from a distance.
Or do you mean that scientists are human and resist changes like most people and that paradigm shifts take time to filter through?
Kim
I never really liked the paradigm shifts model becuase it lacked falsifiability (and yes I'm aware of the irony of that statement).
Hah. Nice.
On 9/17/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/17/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/17/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
geni wrote: Science determined by popular vote?
A popular vote of of scientists would not be the worst description of what goes on. Although of course the actual process is ar more complex.
Also varying wildly from scientific discipline to discipline, and beyond that from subspecialty to subspecialty. There are small fields of science where there are no more than a handful of practitioners, and those with thousands.
This rather describes wikipedia although hopefully people will spend less time worrying about the philosophy of the wikipedia method (hmm "what is this thing called wikipedia editing" doesn't quite have the same ring).
On Sep 17, 2006, at 12:15 AM, geni wrote:
A popular vote of of scientists would not be the worst description of what goes on. Although of course the actual process is ar more complex.
I just see a massive amount of wishful thinking and naivete in the proposals @ citizendium.org and mailing list... As if expert editors do not have POVs to push, or that politics will not enter such a system, or that expert editors with Phd's will be any better at text- based social interactions and collaborative editing than mere mortals.
-- Jossi
Friday, September 22, 2006, 6:02:25 PM, Jossi wrote:
JF> I just see a massive amount of wishful thinking and naivete in the JF> proposals @ citizendium.org and mailing list... As if expert editors JF> do not have POVs to push, or that politics will not enter such a JF> system, or that expert editors with Phd's will be any better at text- JF> based social interactions and collaborative editing than mere mortals.
Indeed, experts push POVs just like non-experts. Like the saying goes: "For each expert, there is an equal and opposite expert".
Also, experts are human too, and they may be wrong sometimes. The experts which always have the "last word" are going to annoy many contributors.
Jossi Fresco wrote:
On Sep 17, 2006, at 12:15 AM, geni wrote:
A popular vote of of scientists would not be the worst description of what goes on. Although of course the actual process is ar more complex.
I just see a massive amount of wishful thinking and naivete in the proposals @ citizendium.org and mailing list... As if expert editors do not have POVs to push, or that politics will not enter such a system, or that expert editors with Phd's will be any better at text- based social interactions and collaborative editing than mere mortals.
Don't worry, Larry has different ideas than what you fear.
Kim
Don't worry, Larry has different ideas than what you fear.
Kim
Larry may have good intentions and a vision for a better pedia... but I am following the discussions at Citizendium-I and all I can see is an extraordinary amount of wishful thinking from participants, a similar amount of naivete, and a basic misunderstanding of how on- line collaboration works and what skills are needed to make it work. I also observe a huge disparity on the expectations.
The attempt to "fix Wikipedia" by forking a new wiki with a new process that "encourages experts" may be a good idea or a bad one, but we will know if it works or not when it happens. Let's see in three months time...
-- Jossi
On 9/22/06, jf_wikipedia@mac.com jf_wikipedia@mac.com wrote:
Larry may have good intentions and a vision for a better pedia... but I am following the discussions at Citizendium-I and all I can see is an extraordinary amount of wishful thinking from participants, a similar amount of naivete, and a basic misunderstanding of how on- line collaboration works and what skills are needed to make it work. I also observe a huge disparity on the expectations.
The attempt to "fix Wikipedia" by forking a new wiki with a new process that "encourages experts" may be a good idea or a bad one, but we will know if it works or not when it happens. Let's see in three months time...
Looking at the responses here and elsewhere, it seems that a lot of Wikipedians following this WANT Citizendium to work, but doubt that it will.
DP
On Fri, Sep 22, 2006 at 01:54:22PM -0400, Death Phoenix wrote:
On 9/22/06, jf_wikipedia@mac.com jf_wikipedia@mac.com wrote:
Larry may have good intentions and a vision for a better pedia... but I am following the discussions at Citizendium-I and all I can see is an extraordinary amount of wishful thinking from participants, a similar amount of naivete, and a basic misunderstanding of how on- line collaboration works and what skills are needed to make it work. I also observe a huge disparity on the expectations.
The attempt to "fix Wikipedia" by forking a new wiki with a new process that "encourages experts" may be a good idea or a bad one, but we will know if it works or not when it happens. Let's see in three months time...
Looking at the responses here and elsewhere, it seems that a lot of Wikipedians following this WANT Citizendium to work, but doubt that it will.
I have missed this earlier as (1) I am in England, not my home in Australia, and (2) I have been doing the expert bit at a Conference in Oxford. I ought to be one of the people Larry wants, as I have been an academic for over 40 years and my D. Phil was awarded in 1964. I should be a grumpy old man saying "These young chaps do not respect my expertise", but I am not. In many areas particularly in science, Wikipedia is developing a fruitfull collaboration between experts and non-experts that is making a better encyclopedia. In some areas the non-experts have too much say. In some areas the experts have too much say. An example of the latter seems to me to me some physics articles which are way to technical for an encyclopedia or at least miss the less technical introductions. Examples of the former are mostly not in science. I am not going to move to Citizendium as I do not think it is the way to go. Getting a good balance on WP between experts and non-experts is the way to go, but it does involve social skills and some experts (and some young non-experts!) do not always have them.
Experts can push their POV. I am appalled about the number of reviews on science that merely review the work of the authors's research group and do not give a balanced view of the field. This tendency has been increasing in the last 20 years. WP can do better. I doubt Citizendium will but I'll keep an eye on some of the articles I have contributed to.
Brian [Bduke]
DP
Kim van der Linde wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
Well, to some degree, there are legitimate reasons for using consensus: even within experts in the field, there often is not yet full agreement on the validity of newly developing science or technology.
Science works on arguments. Not by popular vote (Intelligent design and creations would be true in that case!). It is not consensus what is important, but the description of all relevant point-of-views based on their relative scientific importance based on scientific sources. To much is based on popular POV-sources, or pieced together quote mining.
No, I can say quite confidently, as a scientist active in academic publishing, that when reviewing a field (which is what encyclopedia articles are), science works on consensus, unless you are specifically writing a "critical review" unapologetically from a particular point of view. If you're claiming to be writing a review article that fairly represents the current state of the string-theory debate, for example, you must write a consensus article that represents all major camps. If you write an article representing your view of the "truth", then it isn't a review article representing an accurate consensus about the current state of the debate, so must be labelled as something else.
The only difference from your creationism/intelligent-design example is that review articles generally review controversies *within* a specific field rather than across or outside of them. Encyclopedia articles, of course, must take a broader view, and review the general state of debate among society at large---including between scientific fields, between scientific and humanities fields, and between academics and non-academics. The point is not to get at "truth", but to present a fair summary of the current state of the debate.
If anything, highly focused specialists are a major enemy of that endeavor, because many tend to see their view as the "right" view and hamper writing broad summaries---for example, a statistician who thinks all artificial intelligence is either statistics, badly done statistics, or crap.
I have my own opinions on many areas I'm an expert in, but I hardly object that Wikipedia doesn't document the truth as I see it, since that isn't its job.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
No, I can say quite confidently, as a scientist active in academic publishing, that when reviewing a field (which is what encyclopedia articles are), science works on consensus, unless you are specifically writing a "critical review" unapologetically from a particular point of view.
Maybe that your field of expertise works by consensus, mine does not (and honestly, students who think that science works by consensus need to retake philosophy-of-science 101). Consensus is not the same as agreement, and if a topic is really well explored, there might be general agreement among scientists on that topic.
Kim
Kim van der Linde wrote:
Delirium wrote:
No, I can say quite confidently, as a scientist active in academic publishing, that when reviewing a field (which is what encyclopedia articles are), science works on consensus, unless you are specifically writing a "critical review" unapologetically from a particular point of view.
Maybe that your field of expertise works by consensus, mine does not (and honestly, students who think that science works by consensus need to retake philosophy-of-science 101). Consensus is not the same as agreement, and if a topic is really well explored, there might be general agreement among scientists on that topic.
I'm discussing specifically the issue of writing review articles, not of doing original research, since that's the closest to what we we're doing. If you're writing a review article about a field that is currently in flux and not agreed upon, and you claim it to be an attempt at a fair summary of the current debate (not a "critical review"), isn't consensus what you're going for, and what journal editors will require? A paper like that will typically get farmed out to several reviewers from multiple viewpoints, and you'll have to revise it until you reach a... consensus... between the author and the reviewers that the paper represents a fair summary of the current state of the debate. If your initial review gives short shrift to one of the major camps, for example, you're going to have to revise that part until the reviewer from that camp is satisfied that you're at least summarizing his views accurately. That's basically what we're doing here, isn't it?
-Mark
On 9/17/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
Maybe that your field of expertise works by consensus, mine does not (and honestly, students who think that science works by consensus need to retake philosophy-of-science 101).
All fields work by consensus. Grant committees, journal editors and reviewers, PhD committees, all of these act via consensus.
The individual findings of research are at one level not subject to consensus (the experiment either shows X or does not show X), and at another are (others in the field agree that the experiment was good, valid, properly designed, and does show X).
It's not just a matter of doing an experiment and gathering data. It's also a matter of convincing others that your results are correct. Individual facts are not "known" to a field until multiple researchers believe that the result is credible. There have been plenty of fringe results which were ultimately unrepeatable, and have not been adopted as consensus truth by a scientific field.
Certain subjects are less prone to this, in that the discovery process is pretty self-documenting for those practicing in them, math in particular. But even some proofs are disputed over time...
While not formally part of the "scientific method", these are important parts of the scientific process. The process assumes fallability of individual researchers and results, and demands a higher standard.
George Herbert wrote:
All fields work by consensus. Grant committees, journal editors and reviewers, PhD committees, all of these act via consensus.
Well, either Wikipedia or you are wrong. Make your choice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus#Examples_of_non-consensus
Kim
Kim van der Linde wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
All fields work by consensus. Grant committees, journal editors and reviewers, PhD committees, all of these act via consensus.
Well, either Wikipedia or you are wrong. Make your choice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus#Examples_of_non-consensus
The peer review article points out that this varies by journal and field. In computer science, for example, the process typically *is* consensus driven: Reviewers write reviews; authors can write short rebuttals; and the reviewers then discuss among themselves to reach a decision.
In other fields the final decision is made solely by the editor, so it's more of a degenerate case of consensus-of-one.
-Mark
On 9/16/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
What I do know is that experts have in general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that is not going to change.
There are areas of Wikipedia where that generality is not true at all, and experts are quite actively involved and not being rejected or driven away at all.
I keep wondering what's different about those, compared to the areas where they are being pushed out, and thinking if there's some way to change that. I haven't figured it out yet.
-- -george william herbert
Short answer: the subject area should be obscure, or exceptionally ferocious.
Longer answer: there's an interesting *BSD phrase about "painting a dog shed", which pithily expresses the idea that if the masses can understand an idea/article/piece-of-software, they'll expect their ideas on it to be heard seriously. Of course, on Wikipedia, to be heard one must edit... link: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#BIKESHED-PAIN...
Clearly, what we need to do is set up a bot to run all Wikipedia through a 1337 filter, or a pretentious Latinizing academic filter. Ideally, the average reader will be able to read a lengthy 20 page article on Britney Spears and have absolutely no idea what they just read.
--Gwern
On 17 Sep 2006, at 04:01, George Herbert wrote:
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
What I do know is that experts have in general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that is not going to change.
There are areas of Wikipedia where that generality is not true at all, and experts are quite actively involved and not being rejected or driven away at all.
I keep wondering what's different about those, compared to the areas where they are being pushed out, and thinking if there's some way to change that. I haven't figured it out yet.
The experts I've seen being "driven away" leave because they are used to and expect respect but instead get treated as if they were arrogant know-it-alls.
I find this is less of an issue on the Mathematical articles because it is hard to bluff and so easy for a layman editor to tell when someone is an expert.
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
As an expert who has left Wikipedia more or less, I can give you an answer:
- I would write there for Citizendium, not for Wikipedia.
And judging from the current success of Sanger's past endeavours (I'm thinking of Digital Universe here), you would be wasting your time. Remember, "the good is the enemy of the best", or better yet, "worse is better".
- Content from there included in Wikipedia will deteriorate at
Wikipedia over time, there is will remain sound.
'Soundness' can be read as 'static', and the value of staticness can be overrated. Cyclopaedia is static, yet not useful.
- Content there, if the right editing paradigm is chosen, will continue
to improve, which would either require Wikipedia to repeatedly insert the newest version, of basically fall behind.
If anything, the flow would be the other way. By definition, Sanger's various projects must expect to draw upon a smaller stock of possible editors. Without even considering first mover, network, or winner-take-all effects, we should expect Citizenpedia to be borrowing content from Wikipedia, not the other way around.
.........
Kim
--Gwern
gwern branwen wrote:
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
As an expert who has left Wikipedia more or less, I can give you an answer:
- I would write there for Citizendium, not for Wikipedia.
And judging from the current success of Sanger's past endeavours (I'm thinking of Digital Universe here), you would be wasting your time. Remember, "the good is the enemy of the best", or better yet, "worse is better".
Maybe it does not work, maybe it does, I will see. If it does, it has the potential to become a much better source for reliable information than Wikipedia.
- Content from there included in Wikipedia will deteriorate at
Wikipedia over time, there is will remain sound.
'Soundness' can be read as 'static', and the value of staticness can be overrated. Cyclopaedia is static, yet not useful.
Well, that is your interpretation of sound, not mine. Sound content is dynamic. If I want static content, I go for a paper encyclopaedia. And dynamic high quality content on Wikipedia deteriorates all the time unless experts babysit the complex articles. Nice dynamic, sure......
- Content there, if the right editing paradigm is chosen, will continue
to improve, which would either require Wikipedia to repeatedly insert the newest version, of basically fall behind.
If anything, the flow would be the other way. By definition, Sanger's various projects must expect to draw upon a smaller stock of possible editors. Without even considering first mover, network, or winner-take-all effects, we should expect Citizenpedia to be borrowing content from Wikipedia, not the other way around.
Initially, yes. But that will change as soon as there is a sound community of editors at Citizendium. The pool of editors might be smaller, but the vandal fighting also, which results in a lesser need for editors to babysit the many articles. It probably will also contain less pseudo-notable stuff, like all pokemon characters and such for which Wikipedia is and will remain a perfect place. And by the sound of colleagues around me, they might be way more willing to help out with less open-to-all-editing initiatives.
Besides that, the contributors have more time to spend on actual content due to less vandal fighting. Finally, at current, the stream of information is from Britannica to Wikipedia, not the other way round.
Kim
On 9/17/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
gwern branwen wrote:
......
'Soundness' can be read as 'static', and the value of staticness can be overrated. Cyclopaedia is static, yet not useful.
Well, that is your interpretation of sound, not mine. Sound content is dynamic. If I want static content, I go for a paper encyclopaedia. And dynamic high quality content on Wikipedia deteriorates all the time unless experts babysit the complex articles. Nice dynamic, sure......
I agree with you that the *prose* in our best articles tends to deteriorate over time - that's been proven time and again here on this list with regard to FAs, anyway - but I don't think the basic information does: I've watched about 2000 articles for the best part of 3 years now, and the articles which have deteriorated generally should never have been there in the first place.
- Content there, if the right editing paradigm is chosen, will continue
to improve, which would either require Wikipedia to repeatedly insert the newest version, of basically fall behind.
If anything, the flow would be the other way. By definition, Sanger's various projects must expect to draw upon a smaller stock of possible editors. Without even considering first mover, network, or winner-take-all effects, we should expect Citizenpedia to be borrowing content from Wikipedia, not the other way around.
Initially, yes. But that will change as soon as there is a sound community of editors at Citizendium. The pool of editors might be smaller, but the vandal fighting also, which results in a lesser need for editors to babysit the many articles. It probably will also contain less pseudo-notable stuff, like all pokemon characters and such for which Wikipedia is and will remain a perfect place. And by the sound of colleagues around me, they might be way more willing to help out with less open-to-all-editing initiatives.
I think you're overestimating how much of a brake vandalism is. Semiprotection, more admins, the vandalism bots have all greatly reduced the time I need to spend reverting stuff on my watchlist. It's purely anecdotal, but in my experience vandalism has remained constant or gone down even as there are ever more articles and Wikipedians. (Am I alone in thinking this? Has anyone else gotten this impression?)
Besides that, the contributors have more time to spend on actual content due to less vandal fighting. Finally, at current, the stream of information is from Britannica to Wikipedia, not the other way round.
What sort of argument is that? Of course it is one way, that's part and parcel of Wikipedia being open and EB being closed; not to mention they wouldn't be caught dead borrowing anything from us because of their pride.
Kim
--Gwern
gwern branwen wrote:
I agree with you that the *prose* in our best articles tends to deteriorate over time but I don't think the basic information does
Well, maybe, but based on my own experiences, content is also deteriorating, and I have several cases in which I am pretty sure that if I had left Wikipedia and not corrected it , it would have been still wrong. Actually, I tried it out with three errors, after waiting a month, I gave up and corrected it.
Kim
On 17 Sep 2006, at 04:30, gwern branwen wrote:
On 9/16/06, Kim van der Linde kim@kimvdlinde.com wrote:
As an expert who has left Wikipedia more or less, I can give you an answer:
- I would write there for Citizendium, not for Wikipedia.
And judging from the current success of Sanger's past endeavours (I'm thinking of Digital Universe here), you would be wasting your time. Remember, "the good is the enemy of the best", or better yet, "worse is better".
The expression I heard was "the better is the enemy of the good". In this case, the "better" solution Citizendium may never appear, whereas the "good" solution of Wikipedia is flourishing.
Kim van der Linde wrote:
What I do know is that experts have in general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that is not going to change.
That's not my experience---hundreds, if not thousands, of Wikipedians are experts in a variety of fields. I'm a PhD student in one field, and will presumably still be a Wikipedian when I have my PhD (and am already an expert in some sub-areas). I know professors, graduate students, lawyers, game developers, engineers, and a variety of other professionals and experts who edit Wikipedia. In fact I'm often surprised by how often I recognize the names of Wikipedians from elsewhere.
-Mark
On 9/17/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Kim van der Linde wrote:
What I do know is that experts have in general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that is not going to change.
That's not my experience---hundreds, if not thousands, of Wikipedians are experts in a variety of fields. I'm a PhD student in one field, and will presumably still be a Wikipedian when I have my PhD (and am already an expert in some sub-areas). I know professors, graduate students, lawyers, game developers, engineers, and a variety of other professionals and experts who edit Wikipedia. In fact I'm often surprised by how often I recognize the names of Wikipedians from elsewhere.
-Mark
I concur with Mark here. Like most of the "expert rebellion," Kim is an editor in one of the few areas (evolution) where even clear argument and reliable sources deteriorate quickly, because so many people feel they have more/better knowledge about it than they do AND place a lot of metaphyiscal weight on that knowledge. The situation is similar in philosophy, the subject area of much of the expert rebellion.
Many, many more expert editors do stick around, and their numbers are growing. They tend to be exopedians, so we don't notice them much unless they're in our neck of the 'pedia.
-Sage (User:Ragesoss)