On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:

And why haven't they taken those who generalise broadly from a single example with them?

Are you denying the general decline in editors, even as Internet usage continues to increase?

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 8:47 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:

The number of editors is fairly static, although there were about 25% more people volunteering in 2006 when there were lots of new things to write about.

Staticness is a serious problem: the world is not staying still. We can't keep up with a growing world with a editor base that is static in absolute terms. Productivity improvements like anti-obvious-vandalism bots offer limited gains which can keep our heads over the rising water, temporarily, but they don't change the bigger picture.

As I demonstrated earlier with my external link experiment, editors are not keeping up with even the clearest, best intentioned, highest quality suggestions. How can you hope that this means that more sophisticated and difficult tasks like anti-troll, vandalism, hoax, etc. are still being performed to past standards?

Incidentally, I have been finishing an experiment involving the removal of 100 random external links by an IP; I haven't analyzed it yet, so I don't know the outcome, but this gives us an opportunity!

Would anyone in this thread (especially the ones convinced Wikipedia's editing community is in fine shape) care to predict what percentage or percentage range they expect will have been reverted?

Or what percentage/percentage range they would regard as an acceptable failure-to-revert rate?

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 10:49 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:

First shouldn't we guess as to what percentage of the links were actually good in the first place?

I must say, I didn't expect to see someone rationalizing the results even *before* they happened.

But no, you don't need to guess: you edit Wikipedia, you already know what external links usually look like, and how many are bad on average. (From actually doing the deletions, my own appraisal is that <10% were at all questionable, and I felt pretty bad deleting most of them.)

If you don't, you can go click on Special:Random 10 times and ask yourself, 'would I delete the last link in the External links section?' If you think 2 links are rotten, then perhaps you should be predicting that - since everything is well, and any result is acceptable, and the status quo is perfect - only 80% of the edits will be reverted.

I look forward to your percentages.

On 17 May 2012 03:58, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:

But no, you don't need to guess: you edit Wikipedia, you already know what external links usually look like, and how many are bad on average. (From actually doing the deletions, my own appraisal is that <10% were at all questionable, and I felt pretty bad deleting most of them.)

Ignoring the ethics of vandalising Wikipedia in the first place, if you'd have picked something other than external links, that might, or might not have been a good test.

Last time I checked (which admittedly was a while ago) Wikipedia had a noticeboard whose entire purpose, was essentially to delete as many external links as possible, they'd even added a policy that said they could do that in every single case unless you could get a majority in a poll to keep individual links; oh and in practice they pretty much !vote-stuffed those polls too by announcing the polls on the noticeboard, so the chances of a clear majority was low. Oh, and there was a bunch of shady anonymous IPs involved as well that swing around after the fact to edit war them away anyway if an external link they didn't favor gets through all that.

Basically, external links are one of the most hated parts of Wikipedia, and if hardly any of them got fixed it wouldn't surprise me, and wouldn't prove anything very much.

But nevertheless, thanks for admitting to vandalising Wikipedia 100 times. If you supply your Wikipedia account details we can arrange for it to be blocked.

--

gwern

On 17 May 2012 12:54, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:

Hi, unless I read this wrong you are admitting to 100 random vandalisms of Wikipedia? If so please stop your experiment now and revert any vandalisms not yet spotted.

Indeed. Then read WP:POINT.

Anthony wrote:

Oh c'mon, even the updated terms of use allow for limited vulnerability testing which is not *unduly* disruptive.

Firstly, that text pertains to "probing, scanning, or testing the vulnerability of any of our technical systems or networks". It has nothing to do with article content.

Secondly, if we *were* to condone such experiments, they shouldn't be devised and implemented unilaterally. As discussed in this thread, it isn't clear that Gwern's parameters are likely to yield useful information, so this might amount to nothing more than random vandalism. Imagine if hundreds or thousands of editors took it upon themselves to conduct such "experiments" without consulting the community or the WMF.

As Gwern (User:Gwern) continues to edit the English Wikipedia (today concluding a different "experiment") and appears to have stopped participating in this discussion (thereby ignoring questions about the acknowledged vandalism), I agree that the account and associated IP addresses should be blocked until such time as a promise to cease the disruption and evidence that the damage has been repaired are forthcoming.

David Levy

Gwern Branwen wrote:

There's nothing to answer;

Yes, there is. Your methodology has been challenged, and you've yet to identify the compromised articles, indicate that you've stopped performing such edits or confirm that the damage has been repaired.

You've admitted to committing widespread vandalism, and you now appear to be boasting of the accomplishment and mocking the community's response. Why shouldn't you be blocked to prevent further disruption? (To be clear, this isn't a rhetorical question.)

David Levy

Michel Vuijlsteke wrote:

Because sometimes it's a good thing to ignore all rules to make a point?

Where is the evidence that this "experiment" is valid and will yield useful results? (Thus far, the only justification cited is the pleasure that Gwern takes in mocking the community's reaction.)

Again, imagine if hundreds or thousands of users took it upon themselves to conduct such "experiments" without consulting the community or the WMF and confirming their methodologies' soundness.

David Levy

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 2:57 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

On 20 May 2012 22:32, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:

...

There's nothing to answer; and I've been copying the most informative or hilarious quotes for posterity, such as an active administrator in good standing wondering if it might actually increase article quality and not constitute vandalism at all! The whole thing was worth it just for that quote; I could not have made up a better example of the sickness.

So, your attempt to prove that no-one cares about external links that aren't references showed that ... no-one cares about external links that aren't references.

That aren't references, that aren't official, that aren't template-generated, and that aren't the only external link on the page,

What I'm feeling about this *feels* just like hindsight bias, but I vaguely recall saying something just like that.

Certainly makes sense.

What doesn't make much sense is the simultaneous belief that 1) no one cares; and 2) it is vandalism that absolutely *must be stopped* lest Kant roll over in his grave.

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 8:15 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:

...

So, you are not removing random links at all.

...

.< I should just link XKCD here, but I'll forebear. I am reminded of an anecdote describing a court case involving the draft back in Vietnam, where the plaintiff's lawyer argued that the little cage and balls method was not random and was unfair because the balls on top were much more likely to be selected. The judge asked, "Unfair to *whom*?" Indeed.

---

From the beginning you seem to be under the mistaken impression that I

am trying to defend Wikipedia or defend the current Wikipedia processes or something. I am not. I find your experiment interesting. I think it would be more interesting if your selection of links were truly random, though.

I don't think you should describe your experiment as "removal of 100 random external links by an IP", because your selection was not at all random. I don't say this because I am trying to prove something about the results. I say it because it is a flaw in your methodology.

And I'd note that my methodology, while being quite as random as most methods, carries the usual advantages of determinism: anyone will be able to check whether I did in fact remove only last links which are not official or template-generated in External Link sections, and that I did not simply cherrypick the links that I thought were worst and so least likely to be restored.

How could we do that? You could have just cherrypicked the worst links that were last links which are not official or template-generated in External Link sections. I'm not saying I think you did that. But you certainly could have.

Anyway, the main thing I'd like to say about all of this is simply that your selection is not random. Your sample is biased. Biased in which direction, I don't know. Biased intentionally, I doubt. But your sample is biased.

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 5:32 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:

...

How could we do that?  You could have just cherrypicked the worst links that were last links which are not official or template-generated in External Link sections.  I'm not saying I think you did that.  But you certainly could have.

Cherrypicking even under this strategy would force me to do both >2x as much work and engage in conscious deception.

Yes. I'm not saying I think you did that. It never crossed my mind that you might have intentionally tried to bias the sample, until you said "anyone will be able to check whether I did". We can't check. We simply have to trust you that you picked the links in the way that you claim to have picked the links.

In any case, it really doesn't matter, because your sample *was* biased, regardless of your intention.

...

Anyway, the main thing I'd like to say about all of this is simply that your selection is not random.  Your sample is biased.  Biased in which direction, I don't know.  Biased intentionally, I doubt.  But your sample is biased.

Sheesh. Every sample is biased in many ways - but random samples are biased in unpredictable ways, which is why randomizing was such a big innovation when Fisher and his contemporaries introduced it. What's next, PRNGs are unacceptable for any kind of study because you can predict each output if you know the seed and run the PRNG appropriately?

You should read more about sampling bias. Or talk to someone who has.

PRNGs are acceptable, though you do have to be careful to avoid publication bias.

If you took a list of all external links, and then used a PRNG to pick 100 numbers between 1 and N (the number of links), and then removed those external links, then you would have a random sample. The fact that you can predict each output if you know the seed and run the PRNG appropriately would only come into play if you ran the test several times, with different seeds, and selected one of the runs.

By picking articles first, then picking links, you introduce bias. You are biasing your links toward those which are in articles with fewer links. These are probably less likely to be noticed when removed, because articles with lots of links are more likely to be on watchlists, and tend to have more objective criteria. By limiting yourself to links in the External Links section, you introduce bias. These links tend to be the least useful, as they are essentially miscellanea. By limiting yourself to links which are not official, you introduce bias. This one is pretty obvious, I think, and it is one introduction of bias which I think you did intentionally. The removal of official links is quite clearly more likely to be reverted. By limiting yourself to links in articles with more than one external link, and only to links which are not template-generated, you introduce bias. You pretty much admit this, and admit that the bias was intentional ("avoids issues where pages might have 5 or 10 'official' external links to various versions or localizations, all of which an editor could confidently and blindly revert the removal of; template-generated links also carry imprimaturs of authority").

All of this is fine, by the way, depending on what your intention was to show. If it was to show that a certain type of external link can be removed without likely being reverted, then your methodology is fine. But then you shouldn't advertise your experiment as "the removal of 100 random external links", because that is not what you did.

Gwern Branwen wrote:

Anthony's complaint there is more one complaining about what he thinks is a misleading summary.

It's been asserted that your experiment's parameters were poorly selected (and therefore won't yield useful data). I'm not expressing agreement or disagreement with this claim. I'm saying that either the Wikipedia editing community or the WMF should have been invited to evaluate your general plan beforehand.

I don't regard it as a mistake, and so no consultation would have been useful: if I were to do it again, I would do it the same way

Yes, you've made it abundantly clear that you don't value outside input. That's the problem.

I don't care about how well official links are defended,

Maybe the community cares.

because they tend to be the most useless external links around and also are the most permitted by EL.

You're acknowledging that you based your experiment's parameters on your personal biases. Perhaps the community would have preferred that a different set of criteria be applied. You don't care. You decided, without consultation, to proceed on *your* terms.

This, of course, is an issue because your experiment entailed deliberately compromising articles' integrity. *That's* why the rest of us have a say in the matter.

David Levy

Anthony wrote:

...

...

What established framework are you talking about, here?

...

I'm referring to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (and more importantly, the underlying principles).

An editor, acting in good faith, might believe that creating pages for dictionary definitions or dessert recipes improves the encyclopedia. Does this mean that we're required to refrain from intervening? Of course not.

Of course not. You should revert the editor's changes.

Exactly.

You stated that "trusting people to act in good faith in the way that they feel is in the long-term best interest of creating an encyclopedia is what Wikipedia is all about". My point is that additional criteria are routinely applied. Someone's good-faith belief that a particular act "is in the long-term best interest of creating an encyclopedia" doesn't automatically justify (let alone mandate) its acceptance by the community.

It wasn't vandalism. The vandalism policy is clear about this. It is not vandalism, but it is prohibited: "What is not vandalism" "Editing tests by experimenting users: Users sometimes edit pages as an experiment. Such edits, while prohibited, are treated differently from vandalism. "

That section pertains to newcomers testing the act of editing itself. Here's the rest of its text:

"These users should be warned using the uw-test series of user warning templates, or by a talk page message including, if appropriate, a welcome and referral to the Wikipedia sandbox, where they can continue to make test edits without being unintentionally disruptive. Registered users can also create their own sandboxes as a user subpage. If a user has made a test edit and then reverted it, consider placing the message {{uw-selfrevert}}, on their talk page."

...

You weren't aware that we generally frown upon edits intended to reduce articles' quality?

I believe the intent was to improve articles' quality.

I don't doubt that Gwern aspires to ultimately improve Wikipedia, but the individual edits are intended to compromise the articles' integrity.

I note that we *generally* frown upon such edits in acknowledgement that the experiment might be justifiable. But Gwern isn't entitled to unilaterally determine this. The Wikipedia editing community should have received an opportunity to evaluate whether the potential long-term benefit outweighed the short-term harm.

The data may still be useful.

Agreed. I don't assert that the experiment is invalid. I note that *others* do.

Such objections should have been solicited and addressed beforehand, not disregarded or summarily dismissed while the experiment was in progress.

...

Maybe the community cares.

Then the community can come up with its own experiment. Or, they can if you'll let them.

If the community devises a consensus-backed experiment, of course I'll "let them".

His experiment's parameters was based on his beliefs. This is how experimentation is supposed to work. You don't set up an experiment to determine something you don't care about.

But if others don't find a pursuit worthwhile, they aren't required to cooperate (particularly when an experiment is designed to cause short-term harm).

Gwern seeks to gather information of interest to him/her. If it doesn't interest the community (on the basis that its narrow scope greatly limits its value), the disruption to 100 articles is unjustified.

And even if the community agrees that the data *will* be useful, it might disagree that the end justifies the means.

Gwern doesn't care.

David Levy

Anthony wrote:

You certainly should revert Gwern's changes.  There's no dispute about that.

Indeed, but that's a different context; we were discussing the appropriateness of Gwern's experiment and ones like it.

...

...

The data may still be useful.

...

Agreed.  I don't assert that the experiment is invalid.  I note that *others* do.

Which others?

Ian Woollard, Carcharoth and David Gerard have questioned the experiment's value.

My point, of course, doesn't relate to those comments in particular. As I said, criticism should have been solicited and addressed beforehand.

What's a "consensus-backed experiment"?

An experiment whose validity and appropriateness have been affirmed by the community.

David Levy

Anthony wrote:

So we need to weigh the harm vs. the benefits, right?

Right.

I don't know whether this experiment's benefits will outweigh its harm. I only know that the community had no opportunity to discuss the matter (including possible improvements) and arrive at a determination.

Presumably, we all agree that the harm caused by the temporary removal of 100 external links is relatively minor. But if the resultant data collection lacks substantial value, this relatively minor harm is unjustified. And if other users engage in similar experimentation, it will multiply.

...

...

What's a "consensus-backed experiment"?

...

An experiment whose validity and appropriateness have been affirmed by the community.

I'm not letting you out that easy. What does it mean to "have been affirmed by the community"?

I'm not trying to dodge your question. I honestly don't understand what's unclear.

I'm referring to a hypothetical scenario in which the Wikipedia editing community has evaluated a proposed experiment's basic parameters (with enough details withheld to prevent impacting the results) and reached consensus [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus] that the plan is sensible and should be implemented (either with or without modification).

David Levy

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 6:09 PM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:

Yes, there is. Your methodology has been challenged

I don't recall any challenges, just people expressing their contempt for external links, which is not a methodological challenge.

Or did you mean the issue about editing logged in versus logged out as an anon? Obviously I did all my editing as an anon: if even an anonymous IP can get away this kind of blatant vandalism just by invoking the name WP:EL, then that's a lower bound on how much an editor can get away with.

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:

Removing 100 random external links?  For a few weeks?  Then adding back the ones that deserve to be added back?

I think it's less questionable to just re-add all the links, no questions asked about 'deserving'.

Anthony wrote:

Being devised and implemented unilaterally is the only way to get accurate results.

There's no harm in discussing the methodology (but not the specific targets or IP addresses), thereby confirming its validity and ensuring that the effort isn't needlessly duplicated by multiple editors across countless articles.

If general knowledge of the experiment were likely to impact its results, Gwern's public acknowledgment would have had that effect anyway.

Removing 100 random external links?  For a few weeks?  Then adding back the ones that deserve to be added back?

Where and when did Gwern specify a time frame and indicate that the appropriate links would be restored?

Okay, I'm imagining it....  Sounds like something that would improve the encyclopedia.

Again, what if hundreds or thousands of users, whose methodologies are undiscussed and potentially flawed, were to take it upon themselves to conduct such "experiments" without consultation or approval? That's the hypothetical scenario to which I referred.

[rolls eyes]

That's unconstructive.

David Levy

Gwern Branwen wrote:

I don't recall any challenges, just people expressing their contempt for external links, which is not a methodological challenge.

It's been asserted (not by me) that you selected an element poorly representative of Wikipedia's content as a whole.

Alright, fine, I will copy in my current writeup minus the list of targets and the yet to be conducted analysis.

Thank you. That's helpful, but the idea should have been proposed and discussed in advance. As WereSpielChequers requested several days ago, please cease any ongoing vandalism and undo whatever hasn't already been reverted. Then seek consensus for this experiment or approval from the WMF.

It's unfortunate that I am such a prominent figure and powerful thought-leader that hundreds and thousands of Wikipedians have even a tiny chance of mimicking my actions; but that's a risk you just have to take when you are as world-renowned as I am.

I meant that there would be nothing to stop multiple editors, whose methodologies are unknown and unproven, from *unknowingly* duplicating each other's efforts.

David Levy

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 7:54 PM, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:

The procedure: remove random links and record whether they are restored to obtain a restoration rate.

• To avoid issues with selecting links, I will remove only the final

external link on pages selected by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random#External_links which have at least 2 external links in an 'External links' section, and where the final external link is neither an 'official' link nor template-generated.

So, you are not removing random links at all.

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 8:11 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 7:47 PM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:

...

Anthony wrote:

...

Okay, I'm imagining it....  Sounds like something that would improve the encyclopedia.

Again, what if hundreds or thousands of users, whose methodologies are undiscussed and potentially flawed, were to take it upon themselves to conduct such "experiments" without consultation or approval?  That's the hypothetical scenario to which I referred.

Yes, I know.

Thousands of users all taking in upon themselves to act in in good faith, without discussion and in ways which are potentially flawed, to try to improve an encyclopedia in the way they see best. We should come up with a catchy name for that. Maybe something based on a Hawaiian word.

Anthony wrote:

...

...

Removing 100 random external links? For a few weeks? Then adding back the ones that deserve to be added back?

...

Where and when did Gwern specify a time frame and indicate that the appropriate links would be restored?

If this is done, then does it cease to be vandalism?

No.

Where did you ask Gwern about this?

My above question was a sincere response to your mention of specific details, not a rhetorical complaint (though I do believe that it was incumbent upon Gwern to volunteer such information to the community or the WMF for review *before* engaging in mass vandalism).

...

...

...

As discussed in this thread, it isn't clear that Gwern's parameters are likely to yield useful information, so this might amount to nothing more than random vandalism. Imagine if hundreds or thousands of editors took it upon themselves to conduct such "experiments" without consulting the community or the WMF.

...

...

Removing 100 random external links? For a few weeks? Then adding back the ones that deserve to be added back? Okay, I'm imagining it.... Sounds like something that would improve the encyclopedia.

...

Again, what if hundreds or thousands of users, whose methodologies are undiscussed and potentially flawed, were to take it upon themselves to conduct such "experiments" without consultation or approval? That's the hypothetical scenario to which I referred.

Yes, I know.

And you believe that this would improve the encyclopedia? (Please keep in mind that knowledge of a time frame and commitment to restore the links "that deserve to be added back" aren't actually included in the scenario; we would know little or nothing about the hypothetical users' plans.)

Thousands of users all taking in upon themselves to act in in good faith, without discussion and in ways which are potentially flawed, to try to improve an encyclopedia in the way they see best. We should come up with a catchy name for that. Maybe something based on a Hawaiian word.

good faith != prudence way they see best != best way wiki != anarchy

An editor, acting in good faith, might believe that inserting original research and edit-warring to keep it in place improves the encyclopedia. That doesn't mean that we're obligated to condone such behavior, let alone without discussion.

What doesn't make much sense is the simultaneous belief that 1) no one cares;

People obviously care about vandalism. This simply isn't a glaring type, nor does it affect an element of the utmost importance.

and 2) it is vandalism that absolutely *must be stopped* lest Kant roll over in his grave.

Our default position is to condemn vandalism and seek to counter it. The onus is on Gwern to establish that a special exception should be made.

David Levy

Anthony wrote:

I believe I answered this above.  Trusting people to act in good faith in the way that they feel is in the long-term best interest of creating an encyclopedia is what Wikipedia is all about.

I answered *that* by pointing out that we don't indiscriminately permit good-faith editors to do whatever "they feel is in the long-term best interest of creating an encyclopedia". When they operate outside the established framework (without consensus that an exception is warranted), we intervene.

There is a difference between not-condoning the behavior, and calling it vandalism.

_Gwern_ has called it "vandalism" continually (both in this discussion and on Jimbo's talk page) and even mocked a user for suggesting otherwise.

Do I think Gwern made mistakes in his experiment? Absolutely.

And those mistakes could have been prevented via consultation with the Wikipedia editing community.

There's also a difference between temporarily removing 100 external links, and edit-warring over the insertion of original research. Gwern wasn't edit-warring at all.  What he did was much less disruptive.

Agreed. I haven't equated the two.

It isn't vandalism.

Then why does Gwern keep referring to it as such?

He wasn't doing it for the purpose of hurting the encyclopedia.

Agreed. But "vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia." The experiment is based entirely upon compromising the integrity of Wikipedia and observing editors' reactions (or lack thereof). That Gwern presumably perceives some long-term benefit has no bearing on the immediate effect.

Of course, Gwern openly acknowledges that he/she committed "blatant vandalism", so you needn't dispute this on his/her behalf.

...

Our default position is to condemn vandalism and seek to counter it. The onus is on Gwern to establish that a special exception should be made.

It isn't vandalism.

Setting aside the issue of terminology (addressed above), our default position is to condemn the type of edit that Gwern performed and seek to counter it. The onus is on Gwern to establish that a special exception should be made.

Assume good faith.

At no point have I accused Gwern of acting in bad faith. I merely believe that he/she has behaved inappropriately.

David Levy

Anthony wrote:

What established framework are you talking about, here?

I'm referring to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (and more importantly, the underlying principles).

An editor, acting in good faith, might believe that creating pages for dictionary definitions or dessert recipes improves the encyclopedia. Does this mean that we're required to refrain from intervening? Of course not.

IAR is one of our most important policies, but it isn't a license to dismiss others' concerns. Perhaps a one-off exception to our vandalism policy *would* improve the encyclopedia, but it isn't Gwern's place to unilaterally determine this and disregard requests to seek consensus.

...

_Gwern_ has called it "vandalism" continually (both in this discussion and on Jimbo's talk page) and even mocked a user for suggesting otherwise.

When, in this discussion (I haven't read the talk page), did he do that? I just did a search for "vandalism" in this thread, and I don't see it.

From this discussion:

"There's nothing to answer; and I've been copying the most informative or hilarious quotes for posterity, such as an active administrator in good standing wondering if it might actually increase article quality and not constitute vandalism at all! The whole thing was worth it just for that quote; I could not have made up a better example of the sickness."

"Obviously I did all my editing as an anon: if even an anonymous IP can get away this kind of blatant vandalism just by invoking the name WP:EL, then that's a lower bound on how much an editor can get away with."

From Jimbo's talk page:

"If you read the methodology I posted or even just noticed how I keep using the past tense, you'd know that the vandalism stopped weeks ago."

As I said before, the experiment wouldn't have been at all accurate if he had consulted beforehand. People would have been on the lookout for the removal of external links by IP addresses.

Gwern provided more information than necessary to convey the experiment's essence. I believe that it would have been fairly easy to omit enough details to avoid impacting the community's scrutiny of the changes, particularly given Wikipedia's quantity of articles and edits.

If not, another option was to consult the WMF. (I've noted this several times.)

...

Setting aside the issue of terminology (addressed above), our default position is to condemn the type of edit that Gwern performed and seek to counter it. The onus is on Gwern to establish that a special exception should be made.

If you say so. I'm not familiar with that part of the official handbook.

You weren't aware that we generally frown upon edits intended to reduce articles' quality?

...

...

Assume good faith.

...

At no point have I accused Gwern of acting in bad faith.

You accused Gwern, several times, of vandalism.

I "accused" Gwern of engaging in an act that he/she has repeatedly acknowledged committing?

Good faith edits are not vandalism.

Again, we define vandalism as "any addition, removal, or change of content in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia." Gwern's experiment is based upon compromising the integrity of Wikipedia and observing editors' reactions (or lack thereof). "Vandalism" refers to the immediate harmful act, regardless of any long-term benefits that someone believes will arise from it.

And again, we're quibbling over terminology. You may have interpreted my use of the word "vandalism" as an accusation of a bad-faith motive on Gwern's part, but I've explained that it isn't one.

David Levy

On 5/17/12, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:

Incidentally, I have been finishing an experiment involving the removal of 100 random external links by an IP; I haven't analyzed it yet, so I don't know the outcome, but this gives us an opportunity!

I carried out another experiment (though I didn't realise it was one until now, and it is not a breaching one as yours seems it might be - your wording above is unclear).

About six months ago now, I stumbled on an article that wasn't in great shape, added some text over a series of edits, and increased the number of links in the 'external links' section from 5 to 22. Now, admittedly I wasn't editing as an IP (I always edit logged in) and I added the external links in such a way as to make clear why they were useful, but still, I didn't arouse some huge storm of editors demanding that I reduce the number of external links (they are all still there). The number of external links will reduce as the article is expanded, but if you format external links and arrange them logically, they can function as a holding place for sources to be used later to write/expand the article.

Maybe that means that the question of external links is more one of quality, and your analysis is oversimplistic? I submit that well-formatted and well-chosen external links tend to stick, while drive-by additions (or removals) don't. Which is not entirely surprising.

Carcharoth

PS. We have gone way off-topic.

On 17 May 2012 17:32, Durova nadezhda.durova@gmail.com wrote:

That conclusion would be far more convincing if you weren't who you are.

That's [[ad hominem]] against Carcharoth, and you really need either to withdraw it, or back it up. The former option is much preferable.

Charles

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 9:38 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:

On 17 May 2012 17:32, Durova nadezhda.durova@gmail.com wrote:

...

That conclusion would be far more convincing if you weren't who you are.

That's [[ad hominem]] against Carcharoth, and you really need either to withdraw it, or back it up. The former option is much preferable.

Charles

That reaction certainly comes as a surprise. Why would you construe an attack or a fallacy?

In any meaningful experiment the researcher attempts to reduce the variables to a single factor. Surely you'll agree that an established registered editor's contributions might encounter a different degree of scrutiny from an unregistered IP's edits. Carcharoth himself concedes the possibility. What need could there be to apologize for agreeing?

Thank you for the clarification.

Charles

He raises an interesting possibility. What would really be a better test

of the idea would be to edit unlogged from a wi-fi hotspot and add around 2 dozen external links each to several articles as he describes along with a general improvement and expansion. If no difficulties arise after 10 or more articles then providing a good context for links might really be an ideal solution.

Recent changes patrol tends to be fast moving and because of that it incorporates a trust factor: the basic things to check for is whether a link is relevant, informative, and useful. Most patrollers frown on deliberate efforts to exploit external links and send traffic to particular websites; also in the view of some patrollers the external links section doesn't exist to replicate the top results of major search engines.

That last point might be debatable, yet most of us appreciate it when someone who knows a subject provides a referral to a useful but non-optimized site. Carcharoth has basically explained usefulness for the new page patroller. That makes the patroller's task easier. The question is whether that explanation alone makes a difference: Carcharoth is a model wikicitizen so a patroller could conclude that his choices are trustworthy for any number of other reasons.

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 2:21 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 1:47 AM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:

...

There's no great drop in the number of editors:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ENglish_Wikipedia_active_users_%28Sep...

See

http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm

Editors making 100+ edits a month in English Wikipedia were at 5,000+ in early 2007, and are now down to less than 3,500.

German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish core editor numbers are stable, on the other hand:

http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaDE.htm http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaFR.htm http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaES.htm http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaPT.htm http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaPL.htm

Russian is booming:

http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaRU.htm

Japanese (another project with a strong popular culture bias) is declining too:

http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaJA.htm

Another interesting variable is editor retention, measured as the percentage of all Wikipedians who still make 100 or more edits a month:

0.45% in English WP 0.59% in Japanese WP 0.73% in Spanish WP 0.90% in German WP* 0.99% in Polish WP* 1.01% in French WP 1.49% in Russian WP*

• The German, Polish and Russian Wikipedias have flagged revisions. (I am

currently looking at this data to see if there is a correlation between flagged revisions and editor retention.)

Andreas

I forgot to add the editor retention figure in Portuguese WP: it's 0.62%, based on the latest reported month (April 2012).

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 3:02 AM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:

On 17 May 2012 02:21, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:

...

Editors making 100+ edits a month in English Wikipedia were at 5,000+ in early 2007, and are now down to less than 3,500.

Sounds about right.

...

German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish core editor numbers are stable, on the other hand:

It's a bit like mining coal.

If you've only got a few miners, then as you ramp up the miners, the coal output will grow, and then level off and shipped coal will be a flat line, because there's plenty of coal for each miner. That's what's happening in the other Wikipedia's. The haven't got enough contributors to mine all the information out and put it in Wikipedia; the number of new articles will be flat.

If you've got a lot of miners, then the amount of coal shipped will climb up to a peak, as you get the easiest coal out, and then it gets more difficult to mine more and the mining will fall again. That's what's happened on the English Wikipedia, with a much bigger number of English speakers and editors we've been able to create most of the encyclopedic articles we need and polish them up fairly well.

So the fact that the English Wikipedia's growth is falling is a result of wild success, not failure. There's only really a finite number of general ideas out there that humans have come up with, and you can only put them in Wikipedia once.

I think that analysis is optimistic, for several reasons. Editor numbers started falling when en:WP had well under 2 million articles. The number of articles has more than doubled in the five years since then. Editor numbers in the Japanese Wikipedia, meanwhile, are following a similar pattern of decline, even though that project is still well below 1 million articles. This suggests that there can be other reasons than "running out of stuff to write about" for a decline in editor numbers. Lastly, it is not as though there is little work to do in the English Wikipedia. There are backlogs in multiple areas; including over 600 pending submissions at Articles for creation.

Given that en:WP now has 4 million articles, a healthy core editor base is essential to ensure maintenance. A declining core editor base combined with a rising number of articles is not a good development.

Andreas

On 16 May 2012 19:41, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:

...

And why haven't they taken those who generalise broadly from a single example with them?

Are you denying the general decline in editors, even as Internet usage continues to increase?

Are you perpetrating a "straw man" fallacy? I'll happily assert that I find fewer hoax articles than I used to (in fact none I think for a couple of years). One crafted to get past New Pages Patrol doesn't mean much.

Charles

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:

On Wednesday, 16 May 2012 at 16:49, Gwern Branwen wrote:

...

Indeed. Why *are* the skeptical geeks now on Reddit and not Wikipedia?

26 minutes? I'm trying to imagine how much the angry inclusionists would be soiling my talk page with accusations of BITEyness if I had IAR deleted this page after just 26 minutes. ;-)

The question also presumes that Wikipedians are not also Redditors.

I think this is important. The more and more I look at Reddit the more I realize that not only are they "very similar" to Wikipedians they ARE Wikipedians. In fact recently I've started wondering if a Reddit post may be an easier way to reach Wikipedians then a watchlist post or central notice ;)

-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/

---

WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

James Alexander @Jamesofur Jamesofur@gmail.com jalexander@wikimedia.org

Some time ago {{fact}} I had real trouble getting an admin to delete a blatant hoax.

Alan

On 17/05/2012 12:09 p.m., WereSpielChequers wrote:

If you spot something is a blatant hoax and delete it after 26 seconds I think you'll find that even the most ardent inclusionists are as intolerant of hoaxes as we are of attack pages.

WSC

On 16 May 2012 19:38, Tom Morristom@tommorris.org wrote:

...

On Wednesday, 16 May 2012 at 16:49, Gwern Branwen wrote:

...

Indeed. Why *are* the skeptical geeks now on Reddit and not Wikipedia?

26 minutes? I'm trying to imagine how much the angry inclusionists would be soiling my talk page with accusations of BITEyness if I had IAR deleted this page after just 26 minutes. ;-)

The question also presumes that Wikipedians are not also Redditors.

-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/