-------------- Original message --------------
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php
I don't agree with much of this critique, and I certainly do not share the attitude that Wikipedia is better than Britannica merely because it is free. It is my intention that we aim at Britannica-or-better quality, period, free or non-free. We should strive to be the best.
But the two examples he puts forward are, quite frankly, a horrific embarassment. [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] are nearly unreadable crap.
Why? What can we do about it?
--Jimbo
I haven't looked at the criticism or the articles, but your comment about readability, reminds me of several other articles. However, I think you may be emphasizing the wrong standard of quality. Instead of the type of quality you can only get with a uniform editoral staff, I think instead you should emphasize value and information. Even an poorly written article can be more valuable than an encyclopedia Brittanica article. The article may have useful links to other information, it may be a crystalization of a controversy or conflict, i.e., in some kind of compromise state. There is information there. Also, don't underestimate the value of the talk page, there are arguments, POVs and other information there that increase the total value.
I would not hesitate to send students to wikipedia for this reason, I would have them also take advantage of the talk page, etc. They are more likely to get all POVs on wikipedia. They should also learn to view information with a healthy dose of skepticism, and to verify information themselves. Wikipedia's state of flux, conflict and poor readability, will all be heathy reminders of this, while Britannica may lull the student into an uncritical trust. -- Silverback
actionforum@comcast.net wrote:
I haven't looked at the criticism or the articles, but your comment about readability, reminds me of several other articles. However, I think you may be emphasizing the wrong standard of quality. Instead of the type of quality you can only get with a uniform editoral staff, I think instead you should emphasize value and information. Even an poorly written article can be more valuable than an encyclopedia Brittanica article.
Yes, but it should be both. We should have quality information, well presented.
I would not hesitate to send students to wikipedia for this reason, I would have them also take advantage of the talk page, etc. They are more likely to get all POVs on wikipedia. They should also learn to view information with a healthy dose of skepticism, and to verify information themselves. Wikipedia's state of flux, conflict and poor readability, will all be heathy reminders of this, while Britannica may lull the student into an uncritical trust.
Indeed, and don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of Wikipedia. :-)
But it's really not joyful to see bad writing in two very prominent articles.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
But it's really not joyful to see bad writing in two very prominent articles.
Just as a reminder, there *is* a validation/rating/whatever-you-call-it system sitting in MediaWiki for month, waiting to be tested.
Emphasis on /waiting/.
Magnus
On Friday, October 7, 2005, at 12:35 AM, Magnus Manske wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
But it's really not joyful to see bad writing in two very prominent articles.
Just as a reminder, there *is* a validation/rating/whatever-you-call-it system sitting in MediaWiki for month, waiting to be tested.
Emphasis on /waiting/.
Would be better to actually clean it up, eh?
Anyway, I cleaned up the Bill Gates article a bit - let me know you think :).
Thanks, Ryan
[[User:RN]] at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RN Ryan Norton at wxforum: http://wxforum.org
On 10/7/05, Ryan Norton wxprojects@comcast.net wrote:
Anyway, I cleaned up the Bill Gates article a bit - let me know you think :).
This doesn't belong in the opener:
"Bill Gates is often characterized as the quintessential example of a super-intelligent nerd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd with immense power. This has in turn led to pop culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_culturestereotypes of Gates as a tyrant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrant or evil geniushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_geniuscommanding power over an all-powerful empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire of technology and programming. Several films and television shows have portrayed either the real Bill Gates or a fictionalized version of him, often according to these cliches."
It gives far, far too much weight to a superficial caricature that sometimes appears in yellow rags. The body of the article also reminds me in places of a Citizen Kane-style caricature--I almost expect it to come complete with sentences like "So onward marches the progress of the planet's greatest plutocrat!"
The article downplays some of the major facts of Gates' career. IBM and MSDOS are not mentioned. The word "antitrust" is not present in the article. There is no mention of the fact that Gates founded Corbis, now owner of the largest digital image collection in the world. It's still crap.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 10/7/05, Ryan Norton wxprojects@comcast.net wrote:
Anyway, I cleaned up the Bill Gates article a bit - let me know you think :).
<snip>
It gives far, far too much weight to a superficial caricature that sometimes appears in yellow rags. The body of the article also reminds me in places of a Citizen Kane-style caricature--I almost expect it to come complete with sentences like "So onward marches the progress of the planet's greatest plutocrat!"
The article downplays some of the major facts of Gates' career. IBM and MSDOS are not mentioned. The word "antitrust" is not present in the article. There is no mention of the fact that Gates founded Corbis, now owner of the largest digital image collection in the world. It's still crap.
Time to say what should have been said to Nicholas Carr in the first place:
{{sofixit}}
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 10/7/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
It's still crap.
Time to say what should have been said to Nicholas Carr in the first place:
{{sofixit}}
That's one possible way to react. Another way would be to consult Encarta's entry on the same subject.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 10/7/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
It's still crap.
Time to say what should have been said to Nicholas Carr in the first place:
{{sofixit}}
That's one possible way to react. Another way would be to consult Encarta's entry on the same subject.
I doubt they even have one.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 10/7/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 10/7/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
{{sofixit}}
That's one possible way to react. Another way would be to consult Encarta's entry on the same subject.
I doubt they even have one.
Where do you think I got the information that was omitted from the Wikipedia article?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 10/7/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 10/7/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
{{sofixit}}
That's one possible way to react. Another way would be to consult Encarta's entry on the same subject.
I doubt they even have one.
Where do you think I got the information that was omitted from the Wikipedia article?
What? You looked at Encarta? Traitor! :P
- -- Andrew Cranwell StudIEAust | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_articles_all_languages_should...
I created the above page for this specific purpose - en: has all these articles (or something like them), but very few are up to featured quality.
One problem I see with the FA process is that a lot of the articles are incredibly esoteric. If you're a specialist in a field, you're highly motivated to write a REALLY GOOD article about something you know well. There seems to be less motivation to get the *really general* articles up to featured status. God help the person who tries to get [[Earth]] past the present FAC process and keep it under 200KB.
- d.
You should see what we've done with [[Human]]. It will be ready for the FAC process soon enough.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 7 Oct 2005, at 12:25, Jack Lynch wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:List_of_articles_all_languages_should_have
I created the above page for this specific purpose - en: has all these articles (or something like them), but very few are up to featured quality.
One problem I see with the FA process is that a lot of the articles are incredibly esoteric. If you're a specialist in a field, you're highly motivated to write a REALLY GOOD article about something you know well. There seems to be less motivation to get the *really general* articles up to featured status. God help the person who tries to get [[Earth]] past the present FAC process and keep it under 200KB.
But who looks up "Earth" in an encyclopaedia? I would expect more people to read [[Brutalist architecture]] than [[Architecture]], although might use the general article as a navigation aid, just because the big things are too general. The list of articles all languages should have is a bit mixed on this - it doesnt have [[Art]], or even [[Novel]] (a rather good article based on a quick skim). Mind you it doesnt have [[Agriculture]], only the most important invention the history of the human race (which needs work).
Justinc
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Justin Cormack stated for the record:
On 7 Oct 2005, at 12:25, Jack Lynch wrote:
There seems to be less motivation to get the *really general* articles up to featured status. God help the person who tries to get [[Earth]] past the present FAC process and keep it under 200KB.
But who looks up "Earth" in an encyclopaedia?
My seven-year-old daughter. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for everyone, not just geeks who are looking for hyper-specialized trivia.
I would expect more people to read [[Brutalist architecture]] than
[[Architecture]]....
You have surprising expectations.
- -- Sean Barrett | Never stand next to anyone throwing sean@epoptic.com | shit at an armed man. --Larry Niven
On 10/7/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
But who looks up "Earth" in an encyclopaedia?
My seven-year-old daughter. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for everyone, not just geeks who are looking for hyper-specialized trivia.
I would expect more people to read [[Brutalist architecture]] than
[[Architecture]]....
You have surprising expectations.
I echo this. I've got a two year old daughter. One of the reasons I'm so active in Wikipedia is that I want her to have a good reference source for when we start teaching her. She's already reading a little, so it won't be too long before she starts visiting Wikipedia (under careful supervision, mind you) and not log after that before she starts editing. (I'm not letting her serve on ArbCom until she's 25, though.)
Kelly
Kelly
On Oct 7, 2005, at 12:25 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:
I echo this. I've got a two year old daughter. One of the reasons I'm so active in Wikipedia is that I want her to have a good reference source for when we start teaching her. She's already reading a little, so it won't be too long before she starts visiting Wikipedia (under careful supervision, mind you) and not log after that before she starts editing. (I'm not letting her serve on ArbCom until she's 25, though.)
You're letting her date before she serves on the arbcom? Such permissiveness in parents these days.
-Snowspinner
On 10/7/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 7, 2005, at 12:25 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:
I echo this. I've got a two year old daughter. One of the reasons I'm so active in Wikipedia is that I want her to have a good reference source for when we start teaching her. She's already reading a little, so it won't be too long before she starts visiting Wikipedia (under careful supervision, mind you) and not log after that before she starts editing. (I'm not letting her serve on ArbCom until she's 25, though.)
You're letting her date before she serves on the arbcom? Such permissiveness in parents these days.
-Snowspinner
Uh, she's not allowed to date until she's 30.
Kelly
On 10/7/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/7/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 7, 2005, at 12:25 PM, Kelly Martin wrote:
I echo this. I've got a two year old daughter.
(...)
(I'm not letting her serve on ArbCom until she's 25, though.)
You're letting her date before she serves on the arbcom? Such permissiveness in parents these days.
Uh, she's not allowed to date until she's 30.
Why the difference? Both seem to be equally dangerous to one's sanity! Besides, you know what happens when you forbid these things too long -- do you think you'll hear about her sockpuppet arbitrator account or her elopement in Vegas first? :-)
-Kat [[User:Mindspillage]]
-- "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." --Douglas Adams
On Fri, 2005-10-07 at 11:25 -0500, Kelly Martin wrote:
On 10/7/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
But who looks up "Earth" in an encyclopaedia?
My seven-year-old daughter. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for everyone, not just geeks who are looking for hyper-specialized trivia.
I would expect more people to read [[Brutalist architecture]] than
[[Architecture]]....
You have surprising expectations.
I echo this. I've got a two year old daughter. One of the reasons I'm so active in Wikipedia is that I want her to have a good reference source for when we start teaching her. She's already reading a little, so it won't be too long before she starts visiting Wikipedia (under careful supervision, mind you) and not log after that before she starts editing. (I'm not letting her serve on ArbCom until she's 25, though.)
Maybe I do have surprising expectations, but I do think that even 7 year olds are more interested in "Puppy" rather than "Dog" say. Big articles are just stopping off points for whatever you are really trying to find, the article about the particularly cute kind of puppy that just ran past.
Justinc
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Justin Cormack stated for the record:
Maybe I do have surprising expectations, but I do think that even 7 year olds are more interested in "Puppy" rather than "Dog" say. Big articles are just stopping off points for whatever you are really trying to find, the article about the particularly cute kind of puppy that just ran past.
The seven-year-olds you are thinking about are not like my seven-year-old or any of her classmates. Perhaps my daughter goes to a lax school, but the reports she's assigned to write are on big subjects, like "one of the planets" or "an Arctic animal" (actual examples).
- -- Sean Barrett | Never stand next to anyone throwing sean@epoptic.com | shit at an armed man. --Larry Niven
On Fri, 2005-10-07 at 09:58 -0700, Sean Barrett wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Justin Cormack stated for the record:
Maybe I do have surprising expectations, but I do think that even 7 year olds are more interested in "Puppy" rather than "Dog" say. Big articles are just stopping off points for whatever you are really trying to find, the article about the particularly cute kind of puppy that just ran past.
The seven-year-olds you are thinking about are not like my seven-year-old or any of her classmates. Perhaps my daughter goes to a lax school, but the reports she's assigned to write are on big subjects, like "one of the planets" or "an Arctic animal" (actual examples).
I seem to remember from being that age that they dont care what you write about. We were told that for "What I did in my holidays" you were allowed to make entirely fictional accounts.
But typing "Planet" or "Arctic animal" into wikipedia gets you somewhere (the second gives a search that gets a few animals at the top), and the first suggests the cunning plan of writing about planets outside the solar system to confuse your teacher, so you go to either [[Arctic Fox]] or [[Extrasolar planet]], and write your article from their, supporting my view that its not the big articles that matter.
On 10/7/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
Maybe I do have surprising expectations, but I do think that even 7 year olds are more interested in "Puppy" rather than "Dog" say. Big articles are just stopping off points for whatever you are really trying to find, the article about the particularly cute kind of puppy that just ran past.
I disagree on this, and I wonder why so many people state it: a good encyclopedic article on a broad subject I am only casually acquainted with is very useful, and in fact Wikipedia is often the first place I'll turn. There are plenty of basic subjects for which I do not know most of the information contained in a decent encyclopedia article; I'd imagine this is true of most people. (Granted, I didn't go to a particularly good school, but even so!)
But even if it is only a stopping-off point -- how will readers find the niche subject they really want to find if the main article does not lead them there by framing it with appropriate context and general information to let them know which subtopic they are looking for? If [[dog]] were so lacking as not to say that a young dog is a puppy and that the breed that ran by was probably a retriever, it wouldn't be much to step off from.
Not to mention that more people will be stepping off from them than will ever see or want to see [[Criticism of wicker in advanced quantum basket-weaving]].
(I say this knowing full well that my own area of interest, [[music]], is a mess, and one I have barely touched: it's a daunting task...)
-Kat [[User:Mindspillage]]
-- "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." --Douglas Adams
On 7 Oct 2005, at 22:25, Kat Walsh wrote:
I disagree on this, and I wonder why so many people state it: a good encyclopedic article on a broad subject I am only casually acquainted with is very useful, and in fact Wikipedia is often the first place I'll turn. There are plenty of basic subjects for which I do not know most of the information contained in a decent encyclopedia article; I'd imagine this is true of most people. (Granted, I didn't go to a particularly good school, but even so!)
But even if it is only a stopping-off point -- how will readers find the niche subject they really want to find if the main article does not lead them there by framing it with appropriate context and general information to let them know which subtopic they are looking for? If [[dog]] were so lacking as not to say that a young dog is a puppy and that the breed that ran by was probably a retriever, it wouldn't be much to step off from.
I think there are a lot of usage patterns. Looking at a few kind of obvious gateways, they have a tendency to degenerate into lists (eg [[Beer]] that was demoted from FA, [[Architecture]] is terrible, written like a bad essay with a ==Conclusion== section). In fact the architecture Portal is better, much better (the main problem is the pointltess list of other portals which just wastes space). Maybe these shouldnt be turned into FAs at all, just something more portal like. Brittanica used to have Micropaedia and Macropaedia in the later print volumes to organise on different levels.
Justinc
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Kat Walsh stated for the record:
On 10/7/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
Maybe I do have surprising expectations, but I do think that even 7 year olds are more interested in "Puppy" rather than "Dog" say. Big articles are just stopping off points for whatever you are really trying to find, the article about the particularly cute kind of puppy that just ran past.
I disagree on this, and I wonder why so many people state it: a good encyclopedic article on a broad subject I am only casually acquainted with is very useful, and in fact Wikipedia is often the first place I'll turn.
It is often stated because it is far easier to write a specialized article than a general one, primarily because the specialized article can make assumptions about a reader's knowledge that a general one cannot. Personally, I find it much more enjoyable to dig into old Soviet naval records and write about incidents involving their warships than fix the mess that is [[Submarine]] (and we should be ashamed that it was a featured article; it is a mess with numerous factual errors). Trying to clearly explain what is wrong with the statement 'Submarines designed for the purpose of attacking merchant ships or other warships are known as "fast attacks", "hunter-killers", "fast boats", or "fleet submarines"' (hint: three very different types of boats are listed) -- and then preserve that explanation against the hordes of editors whose knowledge of submarines consists of having seen ''Crimson Tide'' three times -- is exhausting and ultimately futile. The mediocre always win, simply by force of numbers. It's much more fun to dig into what exactly happened to [[Soviet submarine S-117]] -- the only people who dare to disagree with you are knowledgeable enough to make the disagreement fun!
Nonetheless, we need a good article on [[submarine]]s, and when the existing article's corruption once again becomes intolerable, I will once again push it back toward correctness and readability, so that it can start down its slide again. The worst thing we could do is decide that we don't need to work on the general articles because we think no one will ever want to learn about [[submarine]]s -- that they'll only use it as an index pointing to [[MARF reactor]].
</rant>
- -- Sean Barrett | Never stand next to anyone throwing sean@epoptic.com | shit at an armed man. --Larry Niven
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 10/7/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
But who looks up "Earth" in an encyclopaedia?
My seven-year-old daughter. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for everyone, not just geeks who are looking for hyper-specialized trivia.
I would expect more people to read [[Brutalist architecture]] than
[[Architecture]]....
You have surprising expectations.
I echo this. I've got a two year old daughter. One of the reasons I'm so active in Wikipedia is that I want her to have a good reference source for when we start teaching her. She's already reading a little, so it won't be too long before she starts visiting Wikipedia (under careful supervision, mind you) and not log after that before she starts editing. (I'm not letting her serve on ArbCom until she's 25, though.)
She should be ready by her third birthday. :-)
What interests a three-year old? As adults we may like other material. Let's hope that the kind of material that may interest her has not been deleted as non-notable.
Ec
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Ray Saintonge stated for the record:
What interests a three-year old? As adults we may like other material. Let's hope that the kind of material that may interest her has not been deleted as non-notable.
Abandon that hope, all ye who edit here. [[Wikipedia:WikiPogrom_Purge_All_Interestingcruft]] has a lot of momentum.
- -- Sean Barrett | Never stand next to anyone throwing sean@epoptic.com | shit at an armed man. --Larry Niven
On 10/7/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
I would expect more people to read [[Brutalist architecture]] than
[[Architecture]]....
You have surprising expectations.
No, it's just that there are a number of ways of using Wikipedia. Some people use it like an a general reference, while many others use it for information about very specific topics.
I'd likely never read an article on [[Physics]] -- I have a feeling I already know what it says. But I would definitely read up on [[General Relativity]] or [[Quantum electrodynamics]] when my desire for that knowledge comes up.
It's just a different way of approaching things, that's all, but I think they are both perfectly valid modes of using the encyclopedia. I think, however, that we should concentrate on getting those "general" articles up to par before worrying about the more specific ones. Nobody will ever write an article saying, "Ha ha, Wikipedia's article on [[Stratovolcano]] is really incomplete!" because a large percentage of the audience isn't going to know what a Stratovolcano is anyway. But if we screw up on articles like [[Volcano]] -- something everybody feels they know something about -- then we're a prime target. (If one is worried about being a prime target, of course. I'm actually not that concerned about it.)
FF
On 07/10/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
You should see what we've done with [[Human]]. It will be ready for the FAC process soon enough.
It is possibly unfortunate that I went to look at that page and found someone had edited in a *waving* animation of the Pioneer plaque... ;-)
(yes, I fixed it. First article I ever edited, that one. Correction's still there)
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
On Fri, 7 Oct 2005, Magnus Manske wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
But it's really not joyful to see bad writing in two very prominent articles.
Just as a reminder, there *is* a validation/rating/whatever-you-call-it system sitting in MediaWiki for month, waiting to be tested.
I'm attaching this to Magnus' email not so much as a response, but to throw out an idea for allowing us to put this into testing, & hopefully production.
As I understand, the issue why this feature has not been enabled on Wikipedia is because of the load it would put on the servers: keeping track of another mesh of tables with the validation values for every revision of articles would bring the system to its knees.
What about only allowing users to rate *ONE* version of an article at a time. If someone makes changes to an article, & you think it decreases the quality, you can keep your rating on the older version; if it improves the article, you move your rating to the lastest version. And users can monitor all of this by using their watchlist function.
The one drawback I see with this (besides that it might not solve the problem with the processors) is that contributors can only watch so many articles, due to our own grey processor limits: while I've heard of folks having thousands of articles on their watchlists, I suspect more people are like me, with less than 200 articles watchlisted. So if the practical limit is that users can only rate 400 articles (to pick a number) at a time, & we have 400-600 active users rating articles, then there will be between 160,000 - 240,000 ratings. While that may look like enough to cover a good chunk of Wikipedia's 750,000+ articles, we need a minimum of ratings on each article to really make this system work: if we need a minimum of 5 ratings (again, to pick a number), we will have only 32,000 - 48,000 articles with ratings.
But we'd have 5% - 7% of our articles with some kind of rating, which is more than the approximately 0.15% of articles we've labelled FA, & it would allow us to at least start on this problem.
Geoff
On 10/8/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
On Fri, 7 Oct 2005, Magnus Manske wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
But it's really not joyful to see bad writing in two very prominent articles.
Just as a reminder, there *is* a validation/rating/whatever-you-call-it system sitting in MediaWiki for month, waiting to be tested.
I'm attaching this to Magnus' email not so much as a response, but to throw out an idea for allowing us to put this into testing, & hopefully production.
As I understand, the issue why this feature has not been enabled on Wikipedia is because of the load it would put on the servers: keeping track of another mesh of tables with the validation values for every revision of articles would bring the system to its knees.
Perhaps someone could explain to me, from the point of view of a developer, why it would affect wikipedia *at all* if there was a javascript function to send an encrypted response carrying a user's rating of an article to a *separate* server.
The rating function would not have to operate in real time. With good design, it wouldn't ever even have to be synchronized. As long as the article name, wikipedia language, and datestamp for the rating were recorded, the two servers could be on different continents.