While it's hysterically funny, and they deserved what they got for not reading what they copied, don't laugh too much.
As Wikipedia has become successful, the percentage of people who understand _anything_ about Wikipedia is declining.
_We need to educate them._ Somehow.
It would be interesting to have a poll of the people who used Wikipedia in the last week and see how many of them even noticed the the caption "edit this page" or the slogan "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." I'd bet that _the majority have not_.
Impossible, you say? Heck, everyone knows about Wikipedia, Colbert jokes about it, nobody would get the joke. Well, not everybody watches Colbert.
I suspect that at this point in time the vast majority of Wikipedia accesses are via Google. People just type something they want to know, Wikipedia comes up as one of the top links, they click it, they read the article. Many of them _may not even notice that it's in something called Wikipedia_ In some vague way an aura of authority is cast over the article simply by being endorsed, as it were, by Google. People don't consciously think "it must be true or it wouldn't be a high-ranking Google result." The authority is enhanced by Wikipedia's professional-looking appearance.
People don't _seriously link_ about Wikipedia's reliability any more than they think about the reliability of their newspaper. Either they blindly think it must be true because "they" said so, and because "they" are a source other people use. Or, alternatively, perhaps they blindly think their newspaper is a cesspool of political bias and/or that Wikipedia is unreliable, not because they've looked into how their newspaper or Wikipedia work, but because someone they trust told them so.
But the people who believe Wikipedia is unreliable don't use Wikipedia. The problem is with the people who do use Wikipedia.
The percentage of Wikipedia users who say "That sounds odd. Let me check this History just to make sure this isn't a bit of vandalism that hasn't been fixed yet" is probably negligible. (The percentage who even know what the History tab does is probably minuscule).
On 13/03/07, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
While it's hysterically funny, and they deserved what they got for not reading what they copied, don't laugh too much. As Wikipedia has become successful, the percentage of people who understand _anything_ about Wikipedia is declining. _We need to educate them._ Somehow.
Every press call I get (typically one or two a day), I say "check the history" - one day it will leak into the public consciousness!
It would be interesting to have a poll of the people who used Wikipedia in the last week and see how many of them even noticed the the caption "edit this page" or the slogan "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." I'd bet that _the majority have not_. Impossible, you say? Heck, everyone knows about Wikipedia, Colbert jokes about it, nobody would get the joke. Well, not everybody watches Colbert.
We're top-10. Wikipedia is *mainstream*.
All we can do is hammer home the simple soundbites at every opportunity.
Every editor is a public relations spokesperson for Wikipedia. We're top-10 presumably because we're useful to people. So tell the truth, tell people things that will make it more useful to them.
Google. People don't consciously think "it must be true or it wouldn't be a high-ranking Google result." The authority is enhanced by Wikipedia's professional-looking appearance.
This is something people have complained of over the past few years - that we look too good for readers who aren't thinking.
The percentage of Wikipedia users who say "That sounds odd. Let me check this History just to make sure this isn't a bit of vandalism that hasn't been fixed yet" is probably negligible. (The percentage who even know what the History tab does is probably minuscule).
You're quite correct. There was one minor press kerfuffle a few weeks ago where some wag had sent several UK newspapers a link to a history version of [[Cheryl Cole]] saying her husband was gay. It took a moment on the first call to work out that was actually a history link and they were the victims of a prankster.
"If you see something really surprising, you should click the 'history' tab at the top of the page. It might be rubbish someone just added."
- d.
On 13/03/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
This is something people have complained of over the past few years - that we look too good for readers who aren't thinking.
(...)
You're quite correct. There was one minor press kerfuffle a few weeks ago where some wag had sent several UK newspapers a link to a history version of [[Cheryl Cole]] saying her husband was gay. It took a moment on the first call to work out that was actually a history link and they were the victims of a prankster.
I wonder sometimes if we ought to mark non-live and non-article pages somehow visually, to flag up that they're not quite right. I'm not sure how - a red bar at the top under the pagename?
This is an archived draft of the article {{PAGENAME}}. It may contain inaccuracies or errors not present in the [[{{PAGENAME}}|current version]].
{{PAGENAME}} is in the [[Wikipedia:User pages|personal workspace]] of a [[Wikipedia:Editors|Wikipedia user]]. It is not an encyclopedia article.
(You'd be *amazed* what people find through google... and what people leave lying dormant in userspace...)
I wonder sometimes if we ought to mark non-live and non-article pages somehow visually, to flag up that they're not quite right. I'm not sure how - a red bar at the top under the pagename?
We do something similar when your try and edit an old version, it would make sense to do with same when viewing one. A simple change to [[MediaWiki:Revision-info]] making it bright red and putting a box round it would probably do the trick.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I wonder sometimes if we ought to mark non-live and non-article pages somehow visually, to flag up that they're not quite right. I'm not sure how - a red bar at the top under the pagename?
We do something similar when your try and edit an old version, it would make sense to do with same when viewing one. A simple change to [[MediaWiki:Revision-info]] making it bright red and putting a box round it would probably do the trick.
When we finally have stable versions perhaps they could be similarly marked in green.
For now, simply highlighting the old version may not do the trick. If the vandalized page is the most recent it's the good version that will be marked in red.
Ec
On 13/03/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
I wonder sometimes if we ought to mark non-live and non-article pages somehow visually, to flag up that they're not quite right. I'm not sure how - a red bar at the top under the pagename?
This is an archived draft of the article {{PAGENAME}}. It may contain inaccuracies or errors not present in the [[{{PAGENAME}}|current version]].
This is now pretty much live, except it's still appearing small and grey. Comments appreciated...
On 15/03/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/03/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
I wonder sometimes if we ought to mark non-live and non-article pages somehow visually, to flag up that they're not quite right. I'm not sure how - a red bar at the top under the pagename?
This is an archived draft of the article {{PAGENAME}}. It may contain inaccuracies or errors not present in the [[{{PAGENAME}}|current version]].
This is now pretty much live, except it's still appearing small and grey. Comments appreciated...
...at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Viewing_...
On 3/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Every press call I get (typically one or two a day), I say "check the history" - one day it will leak into the public consciousness!
That history tab is 53 pixels by 18. How on Earth can they miss it???
Steve
On 3/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"If you see something really surprising, you should click the 'history' tab at the top of the page. It might be rubbish someone just added."
Wouldn't it be great if text that had just been added turned up red with a squiggly line underneath it instead? Instead of trying to train the entire universe, why not just fix the software?
Steve
On 13/03/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"If you see something really surprising, you should click the 'history' tab at the top of the page. It might be rubbish someone just added."
Wouldn't it be great if text that had just been added turned up red with a squiggly line underneath it instead? Instead of trying to train the entire universe, why not just fix the software?
Great idea, go write it! :-D
- d.
On 3/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Great idea, go write it! :-D
Yeah, tell me about it. I hate not knowing how to program in any of these modern, useful, newfandangled languages.
Steve
On 3/13/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
"If you see something really surprising, you should click the 'history' tab at the top of the page. It might be rubbish someone just added."
Wouldn't it be great if text that had just been added turned up red with a squiggly line underneath it instead? Instead of trying to train the entire universe, why not just fix the software?
And then a clippy can appear on the right hand side and say "This is an archived copy of the article {{PAGENAME}}. Would you like to * look at another random version * find another article * view the latest copy * report it to the cops"
More seriously, I like the idea of making the header of an archived version more pronounced, and adding a header to all user subpages. In-place difference marking would be very handy too, but at the same time it does require a significant enhancement.
-- John
On 3/13/07, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
People don't _seriously link_ about Wikipedia's reliability any more than they think about the reliability of their newspaper.
At least with the newspaper, there's no chance that, depending when you choose to open it, you will see "BLOW ME" in big red letters instead of the story you were expecting to read.
On 3/13/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/13/07, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
People don't _seriously link_ about Wikipedia's reliability any more than they think about the reliability of their newspaper.
At least with the newspaper, there's no chance that, depending when you choose to open it, you will see "BLOW ME" in big red letters instead of the story you were expecting to read.
You've never read the local free paper in Rockingham, I'll bet.
Some good suggestions so far in the discussion, but I can't say that I like the idea of new text being wigglelined. It might be something perfectly fine, in fact it probably is, but it's going to look like a spelling or grammer error to the casual reader.
I'd like to suggest something which I think should work. Whenever an administrator edits an article, that version automatically becomes the "stable" version that an unregistered reader will see. And it won't have "edit" links all over it. Sure, it might have mistakes and it might have POV, but the odds are that if an admin has had even a glance at it, it's probably good.
Readers who have accounts, and are presumably wikisavvy, will see what we have now: the latest version, able to be edited. Readers without accounts will have an extra button they have to press before they get to the actual current version that they can edit.
We can make it so that the version a casual reader sees is likely to be a good one, and they can cut and paste it into their grade school homework or professional journalistic article as they please. But they can also get into the "work in progress" version just by clicking an extra button and Wikipedia remains the encyclopaedia anyone may edit.
On 13/03/07, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
I'd like to suggest something which I think should work. Whenever an administrator edits an article, that version automatically becomes the "stable" version that an unregistered reader will see. And it won't have "edit" links all over it. Sure, it might have mistakes and it might have POV, but the odds are that if an admin has had even a glance at it, it's probably good.
A 'stable versions' feature is at last being written. w00t!
- d.
On 3/14/07, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Some good suggestions so far in the discussion, but I can't say that I like the idea of new text being wigglelined. It might be something perfectly fine, in fact it probably is, but it's going to look like a spelling or grammer error to the casual reader.
Yeah, "wigglelining" may not be the way to go. How about a yellow star placed next to the paragraph, perhaps with the word "new!" or "fresh!" or something.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 3/14/07, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Some good suggestions so far in the discussion, but I can't say that I like the idea of new text being wigglelined. It might be something perfectly fine, in fact it probably is, but it's going to look like a spelling or grammer error to the casual reader.
Yeah, "wigglelining" may not be the way to go. How about a yellow star placed next to the paragraph, perhaps with the word "new!" or "fresh!" or something.
Steve
Or possibly a sidebar stripe in the margin?
The idea of the paragraph as the semantic unit for changes is excellent.
We'd also need to do something to show the removal of paragraphs.
-- Neil
On 3/15/07, Neil Harris usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:
Or possibly a sidebar stripe in the margin?
The idea of the paragraph as the semantic unit for changes is excellent.
It's tidy, yes. And yeah, the idea of just alerting the reader to read this paragraph with a bigger grain of salt than normal is appealing.
We'd also need to do something to show the removal of paragraphs.
Yep.
Want to send a proposal to wikitech? I suspect there will be some possibly unsurmountable implementation hurdles (like to do with caching), but it doesn't hurt to suggest it.
Steve
Skyring wrote:
I'd like to suggest something which I think should work. Whenever an administrator edits an article, that version automatically becomes the "stable" version that an unregistered reader will see. And it won't have "edit" links all over it. Sure, it might have mistakes and it might have POV, but the odds are that if an admin has had even a glance at it, it's probably good.
I find this attempt to give admins even more power objectionable. There are plenty of us who have been around for a long time without having become admins. Many operate in limited non-controversial areas. The result would be a huge number of articles that will need to be edited by admins; these articles previously managed quite well without involvement of admins.
Ec
On 3/15/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Skyring wrote:
I'd like to suggest something which I think should work. Whenever an administrator edits an article, that version automatically becomes the "stable" version that an unregistered reader will see. And it won't have "edit" links all over it. Sure, it might have mistakes and it might have POV, but the odds are that if an admin has had even a glance at it, it's probably good.
I find this attempt to give admins even more power objectionable. There are plenty of us who have been around for a long time without having become admins. Many operate in limited non-controversial areas. The result would be a huge number of articles that will need to be edited by admins; these articles previously managed quite well without involvement of admins.
Isn't it neat watching how bureaucracies form drip by drip through the accumulation of a thousand authoritarian impulses?
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:49:21 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I find this attempt to give admins even more power objectionable. There are plenty of us who have been around for a long time without having become admins. Many operate in limited non-controversial areas. The result would be a huge number of articles that will need to be edited by admins; these articles previously managed quite well without involvement of admins.
I agree. As an idea, giving content powers to admins sucks badly. I hardly get to write any content these days, for which I can only blame myself, and I am certainly no more authoritative an editor (often much less authoritative) than anyone else.
The alternative, though, is to start going down the route of editcountitis or verifiable expertise, neither of which is particularly attractive either. Or featured article style reviews (bring shrubberies) or the ludicrous pretence which is the Good Article system. All suck.
I suspect this is why stable versions has not happened yet...
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
The alternative, though, is to start going down the route of editcountitis or verifiable expertise, neither of which is particularly attractive either.
How about making the "approval" trigger simply be an edit by a user who's been registered for more than four days? If it's good enough for preventing vandalism on semiprotected pages I imagine it's probably good enough to limit the vandalism elsewhere.
On 3/16/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Skyring wrote:
I'd like to suggest something which I think should work. Whenever an administrator edits an article, that version automatically becomes the "stable" version that an unregistered reader will see. And it won't have "edit" links all over it. Sure, it might have mistakes and it might have POV, but the odds are that if an admin has had even a glance at it, it's probably good.
I find this attempt to give admins even more power objectionable. There are plenty of us who have been around for a long time without having become admins. Many operate in limited non-controversial areas. The result would be a huge number of articles that will need to be edited by admins; these articles previously managed quite well without involvement of admins.
Well, I'm not an admin, but what I'm looking for is a simple and reasonably effective way to say "this article's OK for now" that doesn't tie up a lot of computer resources or demand ribbons of red tape. The computer could merely look up the editor's admin flag and set the version's stable flag. No detailed examination of the article is required - just the need for an admin to make an edit. Of course you might then set people up for grief if they don't notice some subtle error buried in a slab of text.
Maybe instead of giving admins alone the power to confer "stableness", there should be another class of Wikipedian,people who aren't necessarily admins, but are steady, reasonable sort of folk. We could call them "stablehands".
On 15/03/07, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe instead of giving admins alone the power to confer "stableness", there should be another class of Wikipedian,people who aren't necessarily admins, but are steady, reasonable sort of folk. We could call them "stablehands".
Implying that they spend most of their time shovelling manure?
On 3/16/07, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
On 15/03/07, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe instead of giving admins alone the power to confer "stableness",
there
should be another class of Wikipedian,people who aren't necessarily
admins,
but are steady, reasonable sort of folk. We could call them
"stablehands".
Implying that they spend most of their time shovelling manure?
No. I just like playing with words. Perhaps our minds run on different tracks.
On 3/15/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Skyring wrote:
I'd like to suggest something which I think should work. Whenever an administrator edits an article, that version automatically becomes the "stable" version that an unregistered reader will see. And it won't have "edit" links all over it. Sure, it might have mistakes and it might have POV, but the odds are that if an admin has had even a glance at it, it's probably good.
I find this attempt to give admins even more power objectionable. There are plenty of us who have been around for a long time without having become admins. Many operate in limited non-controversial areas. The result would be a huge number of articles that will need to be edited by admins; these articles previously managed quite well without involvement of admins.
Ec
If a POV warrior wants to they can turn anything into a controversy, but I do agree in part. Stable versions won't scale if they rely purely on admins. Perhaps we can give the privilege to more people and find a way to undo stable versions approved by a user that later turns out to be blocked or otherwise sanctioned for problems so they can be re-checked by someone else.
Mgm