This encyclopedia has been rated as C-Class on the project's quality scale.
This encyclopedia has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status:
1. Referencing and citation: criterion not met (many common articles are not adequately referenced) 2. Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met (currently 3.5 million of an estimated 4.4 million articles) 3. Structure: criterion met (seems to be reasonably well structured) 4. Grammar and style: criterion met (mostly good enough, but would not please a purist) 5. Supporting materials: criterion met (multiple wikis surround and support it)
I therefore award the Wikipedia class C:
The Wikipedia is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The Wikipedia should have references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup.
The Wikipedia is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research.
Useful to a casual reader, but would not overall provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study. Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and address cleanup issues.
{{sofixit}} :)
On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 10:16 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:
This encyclopedia has been rated as C-Class on the project's quality scale.
This encyclopedia has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status:
- Referencing and citation: criterion not met (many common
articles are not adequately referenced) 2. Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met (currently 3.5 million of an estimated 4.4 million articles) 3. Structure: criterion met (seems to be reasonably well structured) 4. Grammar and style: criterion met (mostly good enough, but would not please a purist) 5. Supporting materials: criterion met (multiple wikis surround and support it)
I therefore award the Wikipedia class C:
The Wikipedia is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The Wikipedia should have references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup.
The Wikipedia is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research.
Useful to a casual reader, but would not overall provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study. Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and address cleanup issues.
-- -Ian Woollard
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On 14/02/2011, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
{{sofixit}} :)
fixin' the Wikipedia - brb
On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 8:16 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:
I therefore award the Wikipedia class C:
Considering that 55% of articles are stubs and 21% are start awarding Wikipedia a C overall is quite generous.
I say it's start class at best.
On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 10:23 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 8:16 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:
I therefore award the Wikipedia class C:
Considering that 55% of articles are stubs and 21% are start awarding Wikipedia a C overall is quite generous.
-- Brian Mingus Graduate student Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab University of Colorado at Boulder _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 14/02/2011, Brian J Mingus brian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
Considering that 55% of articles are stubs and 21% are start awarding Wikipedia a C overall is quite generous.
I think you can't take the simple percentages of articles, a lot of the most important and well visited articles are pretty well sorted, whereas the stubs are mostly articles few people go to.
I would think that percentages of FA/GA/A/B/C/Start/Stub with respect to page hits would be much more illuminating.
-- Brian Mingus Graduate student Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab University of Colorado at Boulder
On 14/02/2011 03:35, Ian Woollard wrote:
I think you can't take the simple percentages of articles, a lot of the most important and well visited articles are pretty well sorted, whereas the stubs are mostly articles few people go to.
While this discussion is worth having, I wish to record a view, now long held, by means of a metaphor. Wikipedia is an omelette, not scrambled eggs. Because of the intrinsic use of of hypertext, taking WP to be (in the large) a collection of articles is always a distortion. If the "few people" who go to a stub are just those who would refer to a corresponding footnote in a book, the system as a whole is functioning as it should.
Charles
I think Charles is right about this. There is a common conception, or misconception, that stubship or start-class-ship is just a way station on the way to articlehood. But some articles are probably destined to remain short, or at least, can remain short without their shortness reflecting poorly on the project. I don't know if there are any statistics, but I am sure that the Britannica (for example) has at least as many one- or two- or three-paragraph articles as lengthier ones.
It may be that the wording of the stub template fosters this reading. "This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it." Often, of course, but perhaps not always.
Newyorkbrad
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:23 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 14/02/2011 03:35, Ian Woollard wrote:
I think you can't take the simple percentages of articles, a lot of the most important and well visited articles are pretty well sorted, whereas the stubs are mostly articles few people go to.
While this discussion is worth having, I wish to record a view, now long held, by means of a metaphor. Wikipedia is an omelette, not scrambled eggs. Because of the intrinsic use of of hypertext, taking WP to be (in the large) a collection of articles is always a distortion. If the "few people" who go to a stub are just those who would refer to a corresponding footnote in a book, the system as a whole is functioning as it should.
Charles
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I think not. There's a difference between a stub (which may not have many or even any references at all) and a very short article. Something can be a valid C-class, and still only be 2 or 3 paragraphs.
On 14/02/2011, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
I think Charles is right about this. There is a common conception, or misconception, that stubship or start-class-ship is just a way station on the way to articlehood. But some articles are probably destined to remain short, or at least, can remain short without their shortness reflecting poorly on the project. I don't know if there are any statistics, but I am sure that the Britannica (for example) has at least as many one- or two- or three-paragraph articles as lengthier ones.
It may be that the wording of the stub template fosters this reading. "This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it." Often, of course, but perhaps not always.
Newyorkbrad
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:23 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 14/02/2011 03:35, Ian Woollard wrote:
I think you can't take the simple percentages of articles, a lot of the most important and well visited articles are pretty well sorted, whereas the stubs are mostly articles few people go to.
While this discussion is worth having, I wish to record a view, now long held, by means of a metaphor. Wikipedia is an omelette, not scrambled eggs. Because of the intrinsic use of of hypertext, taking WP to be (in the large) a collection of articles is always a distortion. If the "few people" who go to a stub are just those who would refer to a corresponding footnote in a book, the system as a whole is functioning as it should.
Charles
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True, but how well is the distinction understood by people who apply the templates or rate the articles?
Newyorkbrad
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:
I think not. There's a difference between a stub (which may not have many or even any references at all) and a very short article. Something can be a valid C-class, and still only be 2 or 3 paragraphs.
On 14/02/2011, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
I think Charles is right about this. There is a common conception, or misconception, that stubship or start-class-ship is just a way station on the way to articlehood. But some articles are probably destined to
remain
short, or at least, can remain short without their shortness reflecting poorly on the project. I don't know if there are
any
statistics, but I am sure that the Britannica (for example) has at least
as
many one- or two- or three-paragraph articles as lengthier ones.
It may be that the wording of the stub template fosters this reading.
"This
article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it." Often, of course, but perhaps not always.
Newyorkbrad
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:23 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 14/02/2011 03:35, Ian Woollard wrote:
I think you can't take the simple percentages of articles, a lot of the most important and well visited articles are pretty well sorted, whereas the stubs are mostly articles few people go to.
While this discussion is worth having, I wish to record a view, now long held, by means of a metaphor. Wikipedia is an omelette, not scrambled eggs. Because of the intrinsic use of of hypertext, taking WP to be (in the large) a collection of articles is always a distortion. If the "few people" who go to a stub are just those who would refer to a corresponding footnote in a book, the system as a whole is functioning as it should.
Charles
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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-- -Ian Woollard
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On 14/02/2011, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
True, but how well is the distinction understood by people who apply the templates or rate the articles?
I'm certain that the rating system is imperfectly applied.
It is to be hoped and likely that over time both the ratings and the way that they are applied will improve.
Newyorkbrad
It would be nice if the consistency of the ratings were to improve over time whilst the criteria remained the same, if that were to happen we would be able to use this to monitor improvement over time. But standards inflation has the better of us, that's why at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_review we can't simply revert to the version that originally passed FA. The current version of an old FA may well be better than when the article passed FA, but still not meet current FA standards.
It would be great to have an accurate measure of the change in quality of the pedia. But the ratings won't give us that.
WereSpielChequers
On 14 February 2011 17:04, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
On 14/02/2011, Newyorkbrad newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
True, but how well is the distinction understood by people who apply the templates or rate the articles?
I'm certain that the rating system is imperfectly applied.
It is to be hoped and likely that over time both the ratings and the way that they are applied will improve.
Newyorkbrad
-- -Ian Woollard
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Can we at least agree it's High-importance?
Newyorkbrad
On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 10:16 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:
This encyclopedia has been rated as C-Class on the project's quality scale.
This encyclopedia has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status:
- Referencing and citation: criterion not met (many common
articles are not adequately referenced) 2. Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met (currently 3.5 million of an estimated 4.4 million articles) 3. Structure: criterion met (seems to be reasonably well structured) 4. Grammar and style: criterion met (mostly good enough, but would not please a purist) 5. Supporting materials: criterion met (multiple wikis surround and support it)
I therefore award the Wikipedia class C:
The Wikipedia is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The Wikipedia should have references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup.
The Wikipedia is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research.
Useful to a casual reader, but would not overall provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study. Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and address cleanup issues.
-- -Ian Woollard
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 3:16 AM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
I therefore award the Wikipedia class C:
I award it an F minus, based on using it to do some research today on the topic of the Nebra sky disc (i.e. as a starting point to looking elsewhere, but I was hoping that the Wikipedia article would be a good starting point):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disk
Different bits of text within the article contradict each other, there is a struck-out bit (using <del></del> tags) down in the references section, and when you look in the article history, you find lots of recent changes in January 2011. From what I can tell, someone in January 2011 has made lots of changes.
These are the changes since 4 December 2010:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nebra_sky_disk&diff=413679667&...
Some of the removal edits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nebra_sky_disk&diff=prev&o... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nebra_sky_disk&diff=410525404&... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nebra_sky_disk&diff=411978495&... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nebra_sky_disk&diff=413984194&...
Essentially, the article is a mess, so I gave up and went elsewhere to look for information on this object.
And back on Wikipedia, I've asked some other editors to have a look at the article.
I'm tempted to ask whether the "system" worked here or not. I understand that there is always a chance that you come across an article in a poor state during editing, but quite why there wasn't a proper reaction here, I don't know.
Carcharoth
On 15 February 2011 01:17, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 3:16 AM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
I therefore award the Wikipedia class C:
I award it an F minus, based on using it to do some research today on the topic of the Nebra sky disc (i.e. as a starting point to looking elsewhere, but I was hoping that the Wikipedia article would be a good starting point):
I'm not sure that judging a project with 3 million articles based on a sample of just one article a great idea.
I'm tempted to ask whether the "system" worked here or not. I understand that there is always a chance that you come across an article in a poor state during editing, but quite why there wasn't a proper reaction here, I don't know.
I'd say it's hit the wall of text problem beyond a certain size unless there is an individual really prepared to look after the article there is a tendency towards messiness.
On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 3:03 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure that judging a project with 3 million articles based on a sample of just one article a great idea.
That was tongue-in-cheek, but a reminder to be wary of the state of an article. I wonder whether the recent editing history should be more visible to readers, or at least an indication of when the article was last edited? The "This page was last modified on 15 February 2011 at 01:35." is right at the bottom of the page - arguably (like on other sites) it should be up at the top.
I'm tempted to ask whether the "system" worked here or not. I understand that there is always a chance that you come across an article in a poor state during editing, but quite why there wasn't a proper reaction here, I don't know.
I'd say it's hit the wall of text problem beyond a certain size unless there is an individual really prepared to look after the article there is a tendency towards messiness.
I've just discovered a talk page section where the editors discussed things. I missed it because it was stuck at the top of the talk page, rather than the bottom of the talk page (a common misplacement done by editors not familar with talk page conventions). So the system was working here. It was just that the discussion was slightly hidden away. And the talk page is almost as confusing as the article. I wonder if there is a tool that shows when reading an article if there has been recent talk page activity? I know you can just click the talk page tab, but some of this information should be visible immediately, and not just a few clicks away.
Carcharoth