Currently several tasks in Wikipedia require editor's to make a guess about the trustworthyness of other editors.
Right now it's all informal. Is the editor: * a friend? * trusted by a friend? * distrusted by a friend? * logged in? * a sysop? * a user with more than N article namespace edits? * on the ArbCom? * a longtime editor?
Does she have: * a lot of thank you notes, barnstars, etc on her user page? * a history of conflicts, blocks, bans, RFCs etc? * a history of conflict with a friend?
It takes time to evaluate all this so mostly a through evaluation is done only for a handful of other editors one interacts with.
But imagine that you had an assistant who could do this for you and come up with a number and insert that number whenever you see a signature or browse RC, RFA, RFC and all others?
Just like it's impossible to spend minutes evaluating each seller on eBay.
The big challenge is to come up with a system that doesn't bog down the servers and cannot be easily gamed. It doesn't need to be perfect the first time, just better than nothing. Slashdot's rating system for example evolved for several years.
BTW users of Cryptoderk's Vandalfighter app already use a crude version of this when they add users to their temorary or permanent whitelists / blacklists. Its immensely useful for RC patrol.
-- nyenyec
On 1/4/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/4/06, Nyenyec N nyenyec@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure if there is an easy solution. Maybe an eBay rating / Slashdot karma like system is the way to go.
Possibly a trust metric. I seem to recall that Slashdot's system lets you see friends, freaks, friends of friends, friends of freaks, etc, but I'm not sure that this sort of thing helps. In Slashdot's case I think the tinkering with Karma and the like developed into an arms race, and in any case Slashcode is more user-tunable; reading at level 3 I never see any nonsense, but you can't operate a decision-making process in that way. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 1/4/06, Nyenyec N nyenyec@gmail.com wrote:
Currently several tasks in Wikipedia require editor's to make a guess about the trustworthyness of other editors.
Trying to quantify this for purposes other than whether we trust their vandalism identification abilities for the purpose of RC patrol really isn't a good idea. I wasn't seriously suggesting a trust metric when I raised the term, I was just doing blue sky.
Some people are good at working human stuff out. Jayjg seems to have a knack for identifying socks. Snowspinner seeme to be good at being one step ahead of whoever is after him this time. I could list many more people with particular skills and weaknesses.
You can't quantify this stuff, and the minute you did, the system would suffer multiple breaks.
All I'm saying is that a number can help you. It won't replace human communication of course.
It helps eBay users, it helps Slashdot users. If I had the option to see such a number I would keep it turned on.
-- nyenyec
On 1/4/06, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/4/06, Nyenyec N nyenyec@gmail.com wrote:
Currently several tasks in Wikipedia require editor's to make a guess about the trustworthyness of other editors.
Trying to quantify this for purposes other than whether we trust their vandalism identification abilities for the purpose of RC patrol really isn't a good idea. I wasn't seriously suggesting a trust metric when I raised the term, I was just doing blue sky.
Some people are good at working human stuff out. Jayjg seems to have a knack for identifying socks. Snowspinner seeme to be good at being one step ahead of whoever is after him this time. I could list many more people with particular skills and weaknesses.
You can't quantify this stuff, and the minute you did, the system would suffer multiple breaks. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
It takes time to evaluate all this so mostly a through evaluation is done only for a handful of other editors one interacts with.
But imagine that you had an assistant who could do this for you and come up with a number and insert that number whenever you see a signature or browse RC, RFA, RFC and all others?
Just like it's impossible to spend minutes evaluating each seller on eBay.
The big challenge is to come up with a system that doesn't bog down the servers and cannot be easily gamed. It doesn't need to be perfect the first time, just better than nothing. Slashdot's rating system for example evolved for several years.
I totally agree with the need for this. It's not about replacing human judgment, it's about giving tools to improve human judgment. For any proposal to work though, I think we need a way of indicating that an edit was "bad" in some sense. In eBay parlance, it would be like negative feedback. But at least with that, you could start to count the number of good/bad edits for a user. It would be incredibly handy to know that a given user was +11,000 (56% good) (in other words, a very active but controversial user - probably a pain in the arse), as compared to +300 (99% good) - new, but doing a great job.
Any system can be gamed - you just have to make it not worth anyone's time. Google pagerank can be gamed, but it takes a lot of effort and is very difficult to do cheaply.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote: <snip>
Any system can be gamed - you just have to make it not worth anyone's time. Google pagerank can be gamed, but it takes a lot of effort and is very difficult to do cheaply.
Nah, you just write to every website that you come across "would you like to exchange links with us?"
I totally agree with the need for this. It's not about replacing human judgment, it's about giving tools to improve human judgment. For any proposal to work though, I think we need a way of indicating that an edit was "bad" in some sense. In eBay parlance, it would be like negative feedback. But at least with that, you could start to count the number of good/bad edits for a user. It would be incredibly handy to know that a given user was +11,000 (56% good) (in other words, a very active but controversial user - probably a pain in the arse), as compared to +300 (99% good) - new, but doing a great job.
Any system can be gamed - you just have to make it not worth anyone's time. Google pagerank can be gamed, but it takes a lot of effort and is very difficult to do cheaply.
Steve
I also very much like this proposal. If nothing else it would clarify me for who I am, and give certain people alot less room to insult and stigmatise others based on tarbaby terms like "troll".
Sam Spade
Sam Spade wrote:
I totally agree with the need for this. It's not about replacing human judgment, it's about giving tools to improve human judgment. For any proposal to work though, I think we need a way of indicating that an edit was "bad" in some sense. In eBay parlance, it would be like negative feedback. But at least with that, you could start to count the number of good/bad edits for a user. It would be incredibly handy to know that a given user was +11,000 (56% good) (in other words, a very active but controversial user - probably a pain in the arse), as compared to +300 (99% good) - new, but doing a great job.
Any system can be gamed - you just have to make it not worth anyone's time. Google pagerank can be gamed, but it takes a lot of effort and is very difficult to do cheaply.
Steve
I also very much like this proposal. If nothing else it would clarify me for who I am, and give certain people alot less room to insult and stigmatise others based on tarbaby terms like "troll".
Sam Spade
Damnit, can you PLEASE stop replying to MY messages, including what SOMEONE ELSE wrote, and not quoting it properly?
I don't know what your talking about, but if you explain it more clearly, and in a more polite tone, I may be of some assistance.
Sam Spade
On 1/7/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Sam Spade wrote:
I totally agree with the need for this. It's not about replacing human judgment, it's about giving tools to improve human judgment. For any proposal to work though, I think we need a way of indicating that an edit was "bad" in some sense. In eBay parlance, it would be like negative feedback. But at least with that, you could start to count the number of good/bad edits for a user. It would be incredibly handy to know that a given user was +11,000 (56% good) (in other words, a very active but controversial user - probably a pain in the arse), as compared to +300 (99% good) - new, but doing a great job.
Any system can be gamed - you just have to make it not worth anyone's time. Google pagerank can be gamed, but it takes a lot of effort and is very difficult to do cheaply.
Steve
I also very much like this proposal. If nothing else it would clarify me for who I am, and give certain people alot less room to insult and stigmatise others based on tarbaby terms like "troll".
Sam Spade
Damnit, can you PLEASE stop replying to MY messages, including what SOMEONE ELSE wrote, and not quoting it properly?
-- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP
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Sam Spade wrote:
I don't know what your talking about, but if you explain it more clearly, and in a more polite tone, I may be of some assistance.
I've sent a screnshot off-list. Hopefully it will explain how things look from my point of view.
Alphax (I double checked) wrote:
Damnit, can you PLEASE stop replying to MY messages, including what SOMEONE ELSE wrote, and not quoting it properly?
If that's directed at me...well, guilty as charged. On mailing lists like this I tend to reply to an idea, rather than to a person. I'm not really looking for the person who wrote the original message to reply. If it's important to you that I don't misattribute your ideas, let me know and I'll try harder.
Steve