From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net The Cunctator wrote:
In all seriousness, I think the policy should be that any special knowledge needed to understand the article should be included somewhere in Wikipedia. For example, the above knowledge is included at [[key signature]] and at [[E-flat major]].
Thus if the example article read
"The [[key (music)|key]] of the score is [[E-flat major]]<ref> [link to score]</ref>..."
Any person with the knowledge contained at those links would be able to understand the reference.
That's perfectly sensible. Instead some people are intent on reinventing the wheels that they are already spinning too fast to see.
The essence of the matter is that a reader be able to verify that there is a source that confirms the statement.
Nit-picks/genuine questions (my musical literacy is almost nil): what is "the" key of a piece of music which modulates into many different keys and has different key signatures marked within the score? Is it a general rule or custom or convention that the first key signature which appears in the score is "the" key signature?
Nit-pick number two: how do you tell by looking at the music whether it is in C Major or A Minor? That is, can you always unequivocally tell the key of a piece of music by glancing at it, or is judgement sometimes involved?
On 12/22/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
Nit-picks/genuine questions (my musical literacy is almost nil): what is "the" key of a piece of music which modulates into many different keys and has different key signatures marked within the score? Is it a general rule or custom or convention that the first key signature which appears in the score is "the" key signature?
I think convention is that the first key signature is "the" one. But for certain styles, it's certainly possible to have an introduction in a different key...it would be very simplistic to imply that any lay person could successfully determine the key of any piece by following rules listed in Wikipedia.
Nit-pick number two: how do you tell by looking at the music whether it is in C Major or A Minor? That is, can you always unequivocally tell the key of a piece of music by glancing at it, or is judgement sometimes involved?
To a musical expert, it's usually pretty clear, but there are exceptions. And don't forget atonal music which is usually written without a specific key signature (ie, superficially like C major and I minor). And some music actually does have a "key" but was originally published with no key, using accidentals instead. You would be wrong to describe such a piece as being in C major...
So, this was a bad example, but that's probably all.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 12/22/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
Nit-pick number two: how do you tell by looking at the music whether it is in C Major or A Minor? That is, can you always unequivocally tell the key of a piece of music by glancing at it, or is judgement sometimes involved?
To a musical expert, it's usually pretty clear, but there are exceptions. And don't forget atonal music which is usually written without a specific key signature (ie, superficially like C major and I minor). And some music actually does have a "key" but was originally published with no key, using accidentals instead. You would be wrong to describe such a piece as being in C major...
I think the question had more to do with verifying a claim that a particular musical work is in C major. It would seem a waste of time if every time the description of a piece of music included its key there would need to be a source to establish that as true.
If someone claims that a piece of music is in C major I have to accept that without the need to go through a mini-course on music theory.
Ec
On 12/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I think the question had more to do with verifying a claim that a particular musical work is in C major. It would seem a waste of time if every time the description of a piece of music included its key there would need to be a source to establish that as true.
If someone claims that a piece of music is in C major I have to accept that without the need to go through a mini-course on music theory.
Which "someone" do you mean - a Wikipedian? The hard-line view of OR which has dominated most of this discussion seems to indicate that a source is needed for *everything*. IMHO, totally unworkable, and not even desirable. We serve our readers, and ourselves, better by simply referring to the work as being in C, then if we feel the need, adding a footnote like "No sharps or flats are indicated in the key signature, and the final cadence is C major" or whatever.
Steve
On 12/26/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I think the question had more to do with verifying a claim that a particular musical work is in C major. It would seem a waste of time if every time the description of a piece of music included its key there would need to be a source to establish that as true.
If someone claims that a piece of music is in C major I have to accept that without the need to go through a mini-course on music theory.
Which "someone" do you mean - a Wikipedian? The hard-line view of OR which has dominated most of this discussion seems to indicate that a source is needed for *everything*. IMHO, totally unworkable, and not even desirable.
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
Jay.
On 12/27/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
That's not quite what WP:V says (unfortunately):
1. Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources. 2. Editors adding new material should cite a reliable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor. 3. The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it.
Point 2 is pretty bad - it turns WP:V into a process, rather than a state. Were a particularly pedantic editor to show up, an article would basically have to cite a source for all "material".
Steve
So after much mucking about...
Is there any agreement for there being a manner in which to demonstrate to the community's consensus satisfaction that a claimed source has been added fraudulently and either does not really exist or does not really say what the citation claims it does?
What I seem to have been seeing here is that there's an unreasonable tendency to assume that a citation is legitimate. I would prefer if there were a healthy degree of skepticism associated with citations - any citation that does not contain enough information for a reasonable researcher to locate the original source, or at least verify the existence of the original source, should be challengable in a reasonable manner.
George Herbert wrote:
Is there any agreement for there being a manner in which to demonstrate to the community's consensus satisfaction that a claimed source has been added fraudulently and either does not really exist or does not really say what the citation claims it does?
No. The burden of proving that a source has been fraudulently added is on the person making the claim of fraud. Whether a source that is not directly quoted says what is claimed is often a matter of interpretation.
What I seem to have been seeing here is that there's an unreasonable tendency to assume that a citation is legitimate.
Why is that unreasonable? Such a presumption (rather than assumption) is consistent with assuming good faith on the part of the writer.
I would prefer if there were a healthy degree of skepticism associated with citations - any citation that does not contain enough information for a reasonable researcher to locate the original source, or at least verify the existence of the original source, should be challengable in a reasonable manner.
If you doubt the citation you can always check it out. There should undoubtedly be standards for what a citation includes. In the unusual circumstances where you think you have a bogus citation you should start by asking the contributor about it.
Ec
On 12/28/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
Is there any agreement for there being a manner in which to demonstrate
to
the community's consensus satisfaction that a claimed source has been
added
fraudulently and either does not really exist or does not really say what the citation claims it does?
No. The burden of proving that a source has been fraudulently added is on the person making the claim of fraud. Whether a source that is not directly quoted says what is claimed is often a matter of interpretation.
What I seem to have been seeing here is that there's an unreasonable tendency to assume that a citation is legitimate.
Why is that unreasonable? Such a presumption (rather than assumption) is consistent with assuming good faith on the part of the writer.
We consistently see situations where obviously, someone involved in a dispute is not acting in good faith.
The ability of subtle vandals to, for example, edit "apparently reasonably" includes putting fake sources in, or making claims regarding sources which are difficult to verify (find a book in Library of Congress or Amazon, but which you can't locate in any convenient normal library catalogs, and then claim that it says so-and-so; simply fabricate a book name/ISBN).
It's easy to defend the first - someone can find a reference to the existence of the book with a little effort, but is unlikely to be able to find any copies to see what's really in it.
It's a little harder to defend the second if we have reasonable standards, such as "A reliable book source has to have some sort of verifyable bibliographic entry SOMEWHERE". If the burden of proof is on the disprover, however, it's nearly impossible to ever meet that burden.
I would prefer if there
were a healthy degree of skepticism associated with citations - any
citation
that does not contain enough information for a reasonable researcher to locate the original source, or at least verify the existence of the
original
source, should be challengable in a reasonable manner.
If you doubt the citation you can always check it out. There should undoubtedly be standards for what a citation includes. In the unusual circumstances where you think you have a bogus citation you should start by asking the contributor about it.
Right, so I see citation X, saying so-and-so, and the contributor says "Oh, well, that's what it says." I can't find any evidence that the reference book actually even exists. "Please tell me where to find a copy of the book", I ask the contributor, who then either says nothing in return, or claims it's in the University of So-and-So library, where the University of So-and-So has plans to put its catalog online sometime in 2011 due to budget shortages.
George Herbert wrote:
On 12/28/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
Is there any agreement for there being a manner in which to demonstrate to
the community's consensus satisfaction that a claimed source has been added
fraudulently and either does not really exist or does not really say what the citation claims it does?
No. The burden of proving that a source has been fraudulently added is on the person making the claim of fraud. Whether a source that is not directly quoted says what is claimed is often a matter of interpretation.
What I seem to have been seeing here is that there's an unreasonable tendency to assume that a citation is legitimate.
Why is that unreasonable? Such a presumption (rather than assumption) is consistent with assuming good faith on the part of the writer.
We consistently see situations where obviously, someone involved in a dispute is not acting in good faith.
What makes them obvious?
The ability of subtle vandals to, for example, edit "apparently reasonably" includes putting fake sources in, or making claims regarding sources which are difficult to verify (find a book in Library of Congress or Amazon, but which you can't locate in any convenient normal library catalogs, and then claim that it says so-and-so; simply fabricate a book name/ISBN).
Fake sources and ones that are difficult to track down are two different things. Finding the book in the Library of Congress catalog or on Amazon sounds like good enough proof that the book exists. Abebooks would also be a good source. How much more convenient would you want it? No bibliography for a written book mormally lists the libraries containing those books. Why should we pose such an extraordinary demand? I have a copy of Jeremy Collier's "Historical Dictionary" printed in 1701, and I would be quite willing to cite in the right circumstances. I would have no obligation to track down other copies.
It's easy to defend the first - someone can find a reference to the existence of the book with a little effort, but is unlikely to be able to find any copies to see what's really in it.
If you have satisfied yourself that the book exists there must be some hint of where the book is located. If it's not convenient for you, but is nevertheless important because of strong suspicions that the entry is fraudulent get somebody else to check it out.
It's a little harder to defend the second if we have reasonable standards, such as "A reliable book source has to have some sort of verifyable bibliographic entry SOMEWHERE". If the burden of proof is on the disprover, however, it's nearly impossible to ever meet that burden.
The first burden of proof that the information in an article is accurate is indeed with the persdon submitting the material; there is no obligation to disprove there. That burden of proof is shifted when there is a positive claim of fraud; such a claim introduces a dimension beyond merely disproving the claims made by the writer.
I would prefer if there
were a healthy degree of skepticism associated with citations - any citation
that does not contain enough information for a reasonable researcher to locate the original source, or at least verify the existence of the original
source, should be challengable in a reasonable manner.
If you doubt the citation you can always check it out. There should undoubtedly be standards for what a citation includes. In the unusual circumstances where you think you have a bogus citation you should start by asking the contributor about it.
Right, so I see citation X, saying so-and-so, and the contributor says "Oh, well, that's what it says." I can't find any evidence that the reference book actually even exists. "Please tell me where to find a copy of the book", I ask the contributor, who then either says nothing in return, or claims it's in the University of So-and-So library, where the University of So-and-So has plans to put its catalog online sometime in 2011 due to budget shortages.
I too would be suspicious of an apparently evasive answer. If the library does not have an online catalog it shoudl still have a card catalog, or a catalog on microfiche which you can look up.when you go there.
Ec
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 12/27/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
That's not quite what WP:V says (unfortunately):
- Articles should contain only material that has been published by
reliable sources. 2. Editors adding new material should cite a reliable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor. 3. The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it.
Point 2 is pretty bad - it turns WP:V into a process, rather than a state. Were a particularly pedantic editor to show up, an article would basically have to cite a source for all "material".
Removal by any editor is paticularly harsh. There is no obligation that the deleting editor have any clue about what he's doing. We've been known to have a few like that.
Ec
On 12/26/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
Jay.
And it goes above and beyond just WP. Citations of claims, inferences/conclusions/derived statements, and non-obvious factual statements (that is, not common knowledge [taking the arbitrary nature of "common knowledge" into consideration, of course]) are simply an academic "must" if you aim to be taken seriously. That's how I interpret relevant Wikipedia policies, and how I apply them.
--Ryan
On 12/26/06, Ryan Wetherell renardius@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
Jay.
And it goes above and beyond just WP. Citations of claims, inferences/conclusions/derived statements, and non-obvious factual statements (that is, not common knowledge [taking the arbitrary nature of "common knowledge" into consideration, of course]) are simply an academic "must" if you aim to be taken seriously. That's how I interpret relevant Wikipedia policies, and how I apply them.
That's the point; if Wikipedia is going to become a source of knowledge that is taken seriously, instead of being continually derided, its standards are going to be have to be high, rather than "it's ridiculous that I should have to cite all of my claims".
You have to cite all your claims in school, so why not Wikipedia?
On 12/27/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, Ryan Wetherell renardius@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
Jay.
And it goes above and beyond just WP. Citations of claims, inferences/conclusions/derived statements, and non-obvious factual statements (that is, not common knowledge [taking the arbitrary nature of "common knowledge" into consideration, of course]) are simply an academic "must" if you aim to be taken seriously. That's how I interpret relevant Wikipedia policies, and how I apply them.
That's the point; if Wikipedia is going to become a source of knowledge that is taken seriously, instead of being continually derided, its standards are going to be have to be high, rather than "it's ridiculous that I should have to cite all of my claims". _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
From: jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 11:20:07 -0500 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
On 12/26/06, Ryan Wetherell renardius@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
Jay.
And it goes above and beyond just WP. Citations of claims, inferences/conclusions/derived statements, and non-obvious factual statements (that is, not common knowledge [taking the arbitrary nature of "common knowledge" into consideration, of course]) are simply an academic "must" if you aim to be taken seriously. That's how I interpret relevant Wikipedia policies, and how I apply them.
That's the point; if Wikipedia is going to become a source of knowledge that is taken seriously, instead of being continually derided, its standards are going to be have to be high, rather than "it's ridiculous that I should have to cite all of my claims".]
Hello,
I would like to jump in here for a moment.
I have been editing in Wikipedia for nearly a year now, and have been encouraging my colleagues (IÂŒm a Clinical Psychologist) to do the same. The one overriding criticism I have heard regarding the encyclopedia is that anyone can edit it. For a clinician, student or any professional researcher this can (and is) quite a deterrent to taking the substance of the material found in Wikipedia seriously. With the existence of anonymous editors adding supposedly substantive content, it is impossible to verify and, if wanted, to challenge this material with the person that entered it.
There seems to be a great concern about having verifiable material Œsources¹ in Wikipedia that can be checked; why not place at least as much importance on the Œsources¹ (the editors) of the very material that is included? We want to be able to check the reliability of the substance of the text, but seem to place little importance on being able to check on who entered it in the first place.
If I want to question the substance of an Article in Wikipedia, I should be able to go to an editor¹s personal information page and get a sense that they have the expertise to be editing the material, and a page where I can contact them with questions. Every, reputable reference work has this.
Marc Riddell
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Marc Riddell wrote:
If I want to question the substance of an Article in Wikipedia, I should be able to go to an editor¹s personal information page and get a sense that they have the expertise to be editing the material, and a page where I can contact them with questions. Every, reputable reference work has this.
Every registered user has a page where they can be contacted with questions. Mine, for example, can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gurch . Users are also permitted to set up personal information pages, though these have a wide variety of uses; mine is more a collection of navigational links for my own use than information about me. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gurch . Anonymous users can be contacted with questions in the same way, but since many of them share IP addresses and/or change IP addresses frequently, and having added information may not even check the site again for months, they may never see your question.
If you want to question the substance of a particular article, though, it's best to use the article's discussion page rather than any particular user's discussion page. The part of the article that you wish to comment on may have been put together by dozens of different users, and singling out one isn't always the best way to get feedback.
-Gurch
From: Gurch matthew.britton@btinternet.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:31:30 +0000 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
If I want to question the substance of an Article in Wikipedia, I should be able to go to an editor¹s personal information page and get a sense that they have the expertise to be editing the material, and a page where I can contact them with questions. Every, reputable reference work has this.
Every registered user has a page where they can be contacted with questions. Mine, for example, can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gurch . Users are also permitted to set up personal information pages, though these have a wide variety of uses; mine is more a collection of navigational links for my own use than information about me. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gurch . Anonymous users can be contacted with questions in the same way, but since many of them share IP addresses and/or change IP addresses frequently, and having added information may not even check the site again for months, they may never see your question.
If you want to question the substance of a particular article, though, it's best to use the article's discussion page rather than any particular user's discussion page. The part of the article that you wish to comment on may have been put together by dozens of different users, and singling out one isn't always the best way to get feedback.
-Gurch
Gurch,
You are presenting to 'registered users'. How do you deal with a person who edits and has no User Page, or one who has one but it is blank?
Marc
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
You are presenting to 'registered users'. How do you deal with a person who edits and has no User Page, or one who has one but it is blank?
If an anon user has added some information without stating a source, and they don't respond on the IP address's talk page, you should probably remove the information (or try and find a source for it yourself somewhere).
Marc Riddell wrote:
There seems to be a great concern about having verifiable material Œsources¹ in Wikipedia that can be checked; why not place at least as much importance on the Œsources¹ (the editors) of the very material that is included? We want to be able to check the reliability of the substance of the text, but seem to place little importance on being able to check on who entered it in the first place.
If the material is taken from an authoritative published source, why does it matter who typed it in? Is "the leaves are 20-30 cm long" more correct if it's personally typed in by the professional botanist, than by the high-school student who works from the botanist's book and lists it as a source?
If I want to question the substance of an Article in Wikipedia, I should be able to go to an editor¹s personal information page and get a sense that they have the expertise to be editing the material, and a page where I can contact them with questions. Every, reputable reference work has this.
"Get a sense"? So what you're saying is you want WP's reputation to hang on *your* intuition-based assessment of the editors' personal details? I'm an expert in some areas that I edit and an amateur in others, and as an expert it's hugely tempting to write into articles "this is true because *I* said so". But then how does someone else check that? I don't want to be answering the phone all day, and when I die, or more likely sooner, completely forget why I made the statement, what then? The whole approach of relying on "who you know" is really sloppy scholarship that's unfortunately common today, and I hope that WP will eventually come to be seen as exemplifying a stricter standard based on publications rather than personalities.
Stan
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 10:12:06 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
There seems to be a great concern about having verifiable material ‘sources1 in Wikipedia that can be checked; why not place at least as much importance on the ‘sources1 (the editors) of the very material that is included? We want to be able to check the reliability of the substance of the text, but seem to place little importance on being able to check on who entered it in the first place.
If the material is taken from an authoritative published source, why does it matter who typed it in? Is "the leaves are 20-30 cm long" more correct if it's personally typed in by the professional botanist, than by the high-school student who works from the botanist's book and lists it as a source?
If I want to question the substance of an Article in Wikipedia, I should be able to go to an editor1s personal information page and get a sense that they have the expertise to be editing the material, and a page where I can contact them with questions. Every, reputable reference work has this.
"Get a sense"? So what you're saying is you want WP's reputation to hang on *your* intuition-based assessment of the editors' personal details? I'm an expert in some areas that I edit and an amateur in others, and as an expert it's hugely tempting to write into articles "this is true because *I* said so". But then how does someone else check that? I don't want to be answering the phone all day, and when I die, or more likely sooner, completely forget why I made the statement, what then? The whole approach of relying on "who you know" is really sloppy scholarship that's unfortunately common today, and I hope that WP will eventually come to be seen as exemplifying a stricter standard based on publications rather than personalities.
Stan
Stan.
I also 'get a sense' ;-) that you may be taking 'sense' a bit too literally. :-)
Quite seriously, though, I believe one of the persistent flaws in Wikipedia that is preventing it from having a wider, more professional acceptance is its policy 'anyone can edit'.
I get a great deal of satisfaction from contributing to Wikipedia. It is what's right that makes us good; but it is what's still wrong that keeps us from being great.
Regards,
Marc
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Marc Riddell wrote:
Quite seriously, though, I believe one of the persistent flaws in Wikipedia that is preventing it from having a wider, more professional acceptance is its policy 'anyone can edit'.
Have you thought through what you would change it to, and what would be the consequences? If only a chosen list of experts can edit article X, what do you do about spelling errors (many experts being atrocious spellers), and bad links to articles outside the experts' area? Do spelling fixes have to wait for the experts to approve them? How long would one have to wait, if the experts were all "too busy"? Would you let experts edit articles outside of their areas, even in areas where they might know less than a college student? What is an "expert", and an "area", anyway? There have been no lack of proposals since WP's creation, but so far no scheme has convinced very many people that it would be an improvement.
I get a great deal of satisfaction from contributing to Wikipedia. It is what's right that makes us good; but it is what's still wrong that keeps us from being great.
I believe one of the secret strengths of WP is that it doesn't actually need every expert to participate. Empirically, many experts that have worked here awhile tend to take on "editor-in-chief" roles in their respective areas, not necessarily writing every word, but organizing, setting standards, and cleaning up after the amateur hordes; 99% of the amateur editors are happy and even eager to get expert guidance, and as they learn, they contribute with more expertise themselves.
Since WP is now the largest single body of knowledge ever created, perhaps this is as good it gets for a project of this magnitude - nothing comparable to serve as a yardstick.
Stan
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 11:18:36 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
Quite seriously, though, I believe one of the persistent flaws in Wikipedia that is preventing it from having a wider, more professional acceptance is its policy 'anyone can edit'.
Have you thought through what you would change it to, and what would be the consequences? If only a chosen list of experts can edit article X, what do you do about spelling errors (many experts being atrocious spellers), and bad links to articles outside the experts' area? Do spelling fixes have to wait for the experts to approve them? How long would one have to wait, if the experts were all "too busy"? Would you let experts edit articles outside of their areas, even in areas where they might know less than a college student? What is an "expert", and an "area", anyway? There have been no lack of proposals since WP's creation, but so far no scheme has convinced very many people that it would be an improvement.
I did not mean to suggest that only 'experts' should be able to edit in WP. My suggestion is that those who are able to edit provide some clue as to their background and areas of interest that could lead a reasonable (yes. I used the word) person to accept what they have edited as credible.
Marc
I get a great deal of satisfaction from contributing to Wikipedia. It is what's right that makes us good; but it is what's still wrong that keeps us from being great.
I believe one of the secret strengths of WP is that it doesn't actually need every expert to participate. Empirically, many experts that have worked here awhile tend to take on "editor-in-chief" roles in their respective areas, not necessarily writing every word, but organizing, setting standards, and cleaning up after the amateur hordes; 99% of the amateur editors are happy and even eager to get expert guidance, and as they learn, they contribute with more expertise themselves.
Since WP is now the largest single body of knowledge ever created, perhaps this is as good it gets for a project of this magnitude - nothing comparable to serve as a yardstick.
Stan
Again, the word 'expert' is your - not mine.
Marc
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Marc Riddell wrote:
I did not mean to suggest that only 'experts' should be able to edit in WP. My suggestion is that those who are able to edit provide some clue as to their background and areas of interest that could lead a reasonable (yes. I used the word) person to accept what they have edited as credible.
OK then, this suggestion is only meaningful if you're talking about a "may edit" bit, presumably set by admins upon receipt of - what? Does a college sophomore have to send in physical proof of their major? Are college freshmen never allowed to edit anything except Pokemon? :-) I have no formal credentials in naval history, but my personal library is larger and deeper than that of the local university, so I likely have more and better citeable sources than a random nonspecialist history professor at that university. On the other hand, maybe I have all these books, but don't understand them, or as more commonly happens (to other people :-) ), I've developed bizarre theories. What about professors who develop bizarre theories that they can't get published, so they try to push them into WP? Are they credible editors? Their background will likely look pretty good.
In practice, what's more important to know is whether editors have enough sense to know whether they are relying on sources they have, or are adding material with no solid basis in fact. It's a behavioral thing that no credential or bio bit helps me with, only past experience on WP.
Stan
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:18:04 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
I did not mean to suggest that only 'experts' should be able to edit in WP. My suggestion is that those who are able to edit provide some clue as to their background and areas of interest that could lead a reasonable (yes. I used the word) person to accept what they have edited as credible.
OK then, this suggestion is only meaningful if you're talking about a "may edit" bit, presumably set by admins upon receipt of - what? Does a college sophomore have to send in physical proof of their major? Are college freshmen never allowed to edit anything except Pokemon? :-) I have no formal credentials in naval history, but my personal library is larger and deeper than that of the local university, so I likely have more and better citeable sources than a random nonspecialist history professor at that university. On the other hand, maybe I have all these books, but don't understand them, or as more commonly happens (to other people :-) ), I've developed bizarre theories. What about professors who develop bizarre theories that they can't get published, so they try to push them into WP? Are they credible editors? Their background will likely look pretty good.
In practice, what's more important to know is whether editors have enough sense to know whether they are relying on sources they have, or are adding material with no solid basis in fact. It's a behavioral thing that no credential or bio bit helps me with, only past experience on WP.
Stan
Stan,
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become: I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about that editor - it really is that simple!
Marc
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Marc Riddell wrote:
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become: I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about that editor - it really is that simple!
Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.
Stan
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:54:50 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become: I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about that editor - it really is that simple!
Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.
Stan
Stan,
I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
Marc
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Marc Riddell wrote:
I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
In that case, I say again: This will never happen. Why should I be required to give my life story to anyone with an Internet connection just so I can contribute? I'm not even going to get into the problems some users have had with regard to personal information being leaked against their wishes.
-Gurch
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Marc Riddell stated for the record:
I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
Marc
Let me see if I understand you. You wonder about what is written in an article, so you review the editor's talk page to see what he has written about his qualifications to write what he wrote.
Are you proposing that someone /check up on/ what we claim about ourselves?
- -- Sean Barrett | Portions of this message were sean@epoptic.com | composed using a computer.
From: Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com Organization: Boskonia Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 14:28:47 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Marc Riddell stated for the record:
I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
Marc
Let me see if I understand you. You wonder about what is written in an article, so you review the editor's talk page to see what he has written about his qualifications to write what he wrote.
Are you proposing that someone /check up on/ what we claim about ourselves?
Sean,
No! You are taking it a step too far. I am simply interested in knowing something about the person that entered information into an Article I am trying to gain information about.
Marc
Sean Barrett | Portions of this message were sean@epoptic.com | composed using a computer. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iD8DBQFFkvOf/SVOiq2uhHMRAgYmAKDwZ5RQ7PWeRmpu+3dkwZrARpH2/QCeJWb4 EE1oHCkmrvjgXnjiid29SdY= =+dJB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Marc Riddell wrote:
Marc
Let me see if I understand you. You wonder about what is written in an article, so you review the editor's talk page to see what he has written about his qualifications to write what he wrote.
Are you proposing that someone /check up on/ what we claim about ourselves?
Sean,
No! You are taking it a step too far. I am simply interested in knowing something about the person that entered information into an Article I am trying to gain information about.
Marc
Ah, yes, that as well. If there *was* a rule stipulating that all editors provide personal information, the vast majority would simply lie. Including me. That's if I ever joined such a project in the first place, which is unlikely.
-Gurch
Marc Riddell wrote:
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:54:50 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become: I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about that editor - it really is that simple!
Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.
Stan
Stan,
I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
OK then, you want to "insist" that they supply information about themselves - that means you're talking policy that we enforce, not just a guideline or a general recommendation. How much information? Can a person be banned because of a user page that doesn't list every degree earned? If not, then how do you enforce your insistence that they share their personal details? What if the information is not true? How is anybody going to tell anyway? There are a lot of "John Smith"s in the world - you'd need a government ID to reliably determine which ones actually graduated from MIT in 1982, and I don't think the Foundation really wants to be in the business of user authentication, not least because many countries have strict privacy laws that would require a major rewrite of the wiki software in order to meet the legal requirements.
WP oldtimers really have thought all this through already.
Stan
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:46:56 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:54:50 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become: I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about that editor - it really is that simple!
Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.
Stan
Stan,
I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage" should become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
OK then, you want to "insist" that they supply information about themselves - that means you're talking policy that we enforce, not just a guideline or a general recommendation. How much information? Can a person be banned because of a user page that doesn't list every degree earned? If not, then how do you enforce your insistence that they share their personal details? What if the information is not true? How is anybody going to tell anyway? There are a lot of "John Smith"s in the world - you'd need a government ID to reliably determine which ones actually graduated from MIT in 1982, and I don't think the Foundation really wants to be in the business of user authentication, not least because many countries have strict privacy laws that would require a major rewrite of the wiki software in order to meet the legal requirements.
WP oldtimers really have thought all this through already.
Stan
Stan,
Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
Marc
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 12/27/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:46:56 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:54:50 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has
become:
I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to
an
Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History
Page and
see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue.
Then, if
I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something
about
that editor - it really is that simple!
Well, if you just want a "it would be nice if", we already encourage people to create accounts and to tell us a little about themselves. So now I don't know why you're even bringing this up.
Stan
Stan,
I didn't & don't use the phrase "it would be nice if". "Encourage"
should
become "insist" - that's why I brought it up.
OK then, you want to "insist" that they supply information about themselves - that means you're talking policy that we enforce, not just a guideline or a general recommendation. How much information? Can a person be banned because of a user page that doesn't list every degree earned? If not, then how do you enforce your insistence that they share their personal details? What if the information is not true? How is anybody going to tell anyway? There are a lot of "John Smith"s in the world - you'd need a government ID to reliably determine which ones actually graduated from MIT in 1982, and I don't think the Foundation really wants to be in the business of user authentication, not least because many countries have strict privacy laws that would require a major rewrite of the wiki software in order to meet the legal
requirements.
WP oldtimers really have thought all this through already.
Stan
Stan,
Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
Marc
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I am not totally content, personally, but I see this as a question of the type of organization we want to be.
Sure, in an ideal world, everyone's real name, and verifyable credentials, are hanging out there for review and confirmation.
But it wouldn't be Wikipedia if we forced people to do that, and wouldn't have nearly as much content.
Nupedia and Citizendum are experiments with other tradeoff optimizations along these lines. Nupedia pretty much failed, in the sense of delivering enough content to be useful. Citizendum is an open question. Wikipedia has grown like mad because it chose to be very open; the question of where truly optimial "grown like mad" versus "somewhat better content" tradeoffs leave us is not answered yet.
All of these are volunteer organizations. Everyone brings to a volunteer organization who and what they are, and the time that they can contribute. How many people you will get to volunteer depends on the nature of the restrictions and percieved benefits.
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
I am, actually. Mostly they're a very good indicator of what someone is like *and* how seriously to take their contributions. Red-link user page is one step above anonymous. Etc.
I could do with a few zillion less userboxes, but even those are helpful, e.g. someone with 200 userboxes is probably a step or two below anonymous.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
I am, actually. Mostly they're a very good indicator of what someone is like *and* how seriously to take their contributions. Red-link user page is one step above anonymous. Etc.
I could do with a few zillion less userboxes, but even those are helpful, e.g. someone with 200 userboxes is probably a step or two below anonymous.
I agree. How something is said on a user page can be more important than what is said. A handful of user boxes that don't require scrolling to see them all can have a much higher impact.
A study of the psychology of user pages could be fascinating.
Ec
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 11:21:31 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
David Gerard wrote:
On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
I am, actually. Mostly they're a very good indicator of what someone is like *and* how seriously to take their contributions. Red-link user page is one step above anonymous. Etc.
I could do with a few zillion less userboxes, but even those are helpful, e.g. someone with 200 userboxes is probably a step or two below anonymous.
I agree. How something is said on a user page can be more important than what is said. A handful of user boxes that don't require scrolling to see them all can have a much higher impact.
A study of the psychology of user pages could be fascinating.
Ec
Ec,
Don't tempt me. :-)
Marc Riddell
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 29/12/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
A study of the psychology of user pages could be fascinating.
I dare you to write one for Uncyclopedia ;-p
- d.
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Marc Riddell stated for the record:
Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
Marc
Absolutely yes. /I/ get to decide how much to reveal about myself. If I were required to provide /any/ personal information, I would have never have seriously considered joining.
I judge articles by their citations, not by unverifiable claims of expertise made by the editors.
- -- Sean Barrett | Portions of this message were sean@epoptic.com | composed using a computer.
Marc Riddell wrote:
Stan,
Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
Well sure. You were the one that was complaining. :-) To be less flip and deftly tie back to original topic, our basic structure is built around the idea that the identity of editors doesn't matter, because all we're doing is copying facts and theories from authoritative sources. A team of high-schoolers working together should eventually produce the same featured article that a Nobelist could. We still like to have experts, because the expert could likely write the FA in one sitting before breakfast, where for the high-schoolers it would be months of hard work to get to the same place, but that's just a matter of efficiency.
I learn what I really need to know about an editor by reviewing contribution history and a sampling of diffs. A fertile field for psychologists in fact, I hypothesize that much about an editor's personality could be learned from analysis of the edit pattern.
Stan
From: Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 22:07:21 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
Stan,
Every single thing you've said here is a reason not to act. Are you content with the way things are now as pertains to User Pages?
Well sure. You were the one that was complaining. :-) To be less flip and deftly tie back to original topic, our basic structure is built around the idea that the identity of editors doesn't matter, because all we're doing is copying facts and theories from authoritative sources. A team of high-schoolers working together should eventually produce the same featured article that a Nobelist could. We still like to have experts, because the expert could likely write the FA in one sitting before breakfast, where for the high-schoolers it would be months of hard work to get to the same place, but that's just a matter of efficiency.
I learn what I really need to know about an editor by reviewing contribution history and a sampling of diffs. A fertile field for psychologists in fact, I hypothesize that much about an editor's personality could be learned from analysis of the edit pattern.
Stan
As from their posts! :-)
Since starting this free for all, I have learned a great deal about the concerns people have regarding, most especially, confidentiality in creating User Pages - and much more.
This is the first 'conversation page' (or whatever its called) I have participated in online, so I'm not familiar with the protocols involved. I would really like to bring it back to my original concerns, review all that's been said, collect my thoughts and start a new conversation focusing on a proposal I have. Is that the right way to go, or do I merely add my thoughts to this stream?
Need your input.
Marc
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On 28/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
This is the first 'conversation page' (or whatever its called) I have participated in online, so I'm not familiar with the protocols involved.
This is your first mailing list?
*hands you helmet, ducks for cover*
I would really like to bring it back to my original concerns, review all that's been said, collect my thoughts and start a new conversation focusing on a proposal I have. Is that the right way to go, or do I merely add my thoughts to this stream?
Summarising and starting a new conversational thread would be productive and sensible :-)
OTOH, as well as all its other functions, wikien-l is actually the official sewer of English Wikipedia. So anything that isn't really stupid is probably a tremendous net plus.
- d.
Marc Riddell wrote:
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become: I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about that editor - it really is that simple!
Er... am I missing something here? You *can* do the first part of that; and if the user chooses to provide personal information, you can also do the second. However, no matter how much you may wish to know such information, you cannot, and Wikipedia cannot, force every editor to provide a full biography and list of qualifications. Disclosure of such information is not required to contribute and never will be.
-Gurch
From: Gurch matthew.britton@btinternet.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 22:15:53 +0000 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become: I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about that editor - it really is that simple!
Er... am I missing something here? You *can* do the first part of that; and if the user chooses to provide personal information, you can also do the second. However, no matter how much you may wish to know such information, you cannot, and Wikipedia cannot, force every editor to provide a full biography and list of qualifications. Disclosure of such information is not required to contribute and never will be.
-Gurch
Gurch,
I "can" do that if the person has, in fact, created a User Page. As for the extent of the information, that should, of course, be left entirely to the discretion of the User - just something other than (quoting one I came across) "There, I created one, are you happy!?
Marc
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Marc Riddell wrote:
Gurch,
I "can" do that if the person has, in fact, created a User Page. As for the extent of the information, that should, of course, be left entirely to the discretion of the User - just something other than (quoting one I came across) "There, I created one, are you happy!?
Marc
If the extent of the information provided really is "entirely at the user's discretion", then they should be able to opt to provide no information at all. This is the current situation.
To require anything else would present a barrier to contribution. This is a bad thing; Wikipedia has always tried to keep such barriers as unintrusive as possible. This is the whole reason why we allow anonymous and pseudonymous edits, and request no personal information from anybody -- because doing so would vastly reduce the number of contributions made and so the size and quality of the enyclopedia. I am certain that if such a barrier had been in place from day one Wikipedia would be nothing compared to what it is now; it may even have been abandoned altogether.
-Gurch
On 27/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become: I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about that editor - it really is that simple!
If their userpage is a red link or they're anon, that tells you something about them too ;-) As it is, IPs don't get no respect. Which is unfortunate, but statistically justifiable.
That said, people *still* don't believe that "edit this page" means them too. I try to encourage people to edit, saying we are very pleased to have just anyone fix typos, etc., without having to create yet another web page login to remember.
- d.
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 23:02:16 +0000 To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
On 27/12/06, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Back to some basics of my argument, or proposal, or whatever it has become: I am not talking about 'experts'. If I see an edit has been made to an Article in WP I would like to be able go to that Article's History Page and see the 'source' (person) of that edit, with a User Name in Blue. Then, if I choose, I can go to that corresponding User Page and learn something about that editor - it really is that simple!
If their userpage is a red link or they're anon, that tells you something about them too ;-) As it is, IPs don't get no respect. Which is unfortunate, but statistically justifiable.
That said, people *still* don't believe that "edit this page" means them too. I try to encourage people to edit, saying we are very pleased to have just anyone fix typos, etc., without having to create yet another web page login to remember.
- d.
David,
I, too, have encouraged persons to contribute to Wikipedia; and I will continue to do so. I also encourage them to formally join the Community by creating a User Page and introducing themselves. Nothing invasive; simply their interests. Anything that says to the reader they are thinking and sentient.
I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism. My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And, ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
Thanks,
Marc
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Marc Riddell wrote:
I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism. My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And, ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time ago. If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very well.. Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.
Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the 60s was not an easy task. Principles served on a plate of squalor can be very unappetizing. It's amazing how over the long run the establishment absorbs it all.
Ec
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 00:13:08 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism. My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And, ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time ago. If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very well.. Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.
Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the 60s was not an easy task. Principles served on a plate of squalor can be very unappetizing. It's amazing how over the long run the establishment absorbs it all.
Ec
Mario Savio and I were close friends - and, emotionally, still are. He was frustrated every moment that I knew him - it was his fuel. But, he was never, never, discouraged.
Wikipedia, itself, is the protest.
Marc
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Marc Riddell wrote:
From: Ray Saintonge
Marc Riddell wrote:
I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism. My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And, ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time ago. If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very well.. Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.
Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the 60s was not an easy task. Principles served on a plate of squalor can be very unappetizing. It's amazing how over the long run the establishment absorbs it all.
Mario Savio and I were close friends - and, emotionally, still are. He was frustrated every moment that I knew him - it was his fuel. But, he was never, never, discouraged.
No offense intended. As a person who is Savio's junior by only two months, that seems close enough to make us contemporaries. The general points in his famous speech did resonate well-beyond UC Berkeley. If I try to reflect on those times now all I get is questions.
Wikipedia, itself, is the protest.
Hmmm! While many valuable contributors could be seen as natural protesters, I wouldn't call the project itself a protest. I hope you are not judging things on the basis of the vandals and other objectionable sorts, because I certainly don't see them as forming the mainstream of what is happening. They certainly know how to make themselves very visible and annoying, but one would not judge a society by the antics of its mischievous kids.
What to me takes it beyond protest is that we do have many who are trying to make positive contributions without generating a lot of noise. Maybe, unlike the 1960s, some of us have given up the hope that existing institutions, like the universities, could be reformed, and are setting the groundwork for new institutions. The Rochdale College experiment may have been premature. It perhaps tried too much to play in the backyard of corporate structures. We sometimes give too much credit to those of our colleagues whose marvellous intentions are not matched by realistic evaluations of the opponent.
Ec
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:37:32 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
From: Ray Saintonge
Marc Riddell wrote:
I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism. My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And, ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time ago. If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very well.. Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.
Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the 60s was not an easy task. Principles served on a plate of squalor can be very unappetizing. It's amazing how over the long run the establishment absorbs it all.
Mario Savio and I were close friends - and, emotionally, still are. He was frustrated every moment that I knew him - it was his fuel. But, he was never, never, discouraged.
No offense intended. As a person who is Savio's junior by only two months, that seems close enough to make us contemporaries. The general points in his famous speech did resonate well-beyond UC Berkeley. If I try to reflect on those times now all I get is questions.
Wikipedia, itself, is the protest.
Hmmm! While many valuable contributors could be seen as natural protesters, I wouldn't call the project itself a protest. I hope you are not judging things on the basis of the vandals and other objectionable sorts, because I certainly don't see them as forming the mainstream of what is happening. They certainly know how to make themselves very visible and annoying, but one would not judge a society by the antics of its mischievous kids.
What to me takes it beyond protest is that we do have many who are trying to make positive contributions without generating a lot of noise. Maybe, unlike the 1960s, some of us have given up the hope that existing institutions, like the universities, could be reformed, and are setting the groundwork for new institutions. The Rochdale College experiment may have been premature. It perhaps tried too much to play in the backyard of corporate structures. We sometimes give too much credit to those of our colleagues whose marvellous intentions are not matched by realistic evaluations of the opponent.
Ec
The analogy I was making in stating that Wikipedia is the protest was in reference to my previous statement that some parameters must be set to achieve a goal; that a protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. All of this had to do with placing some restrictions on User identification. I had & have left the issue of vandals behind some time ago.
Marc
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From: Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:16:52 -0500 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:37:32 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
From: Ray Saintonge
Marc Riddell wrote:
I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism. My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And, ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time ago. If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very well.. Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.
Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the 60s was not an easy task. Principles served on a plate of squalor can be very unappetizing. It's amazing how over the long run the establishment absorbs it all.
Mario Savio and I were close friends - and, emotionally, still are. He was frustrated every moment that I knew him - it was his fuel. But, he was never, never, discouraged.
No offense intended. As a person who is Savio's junior by only two months, that seems close enough to make us contemporaries. The general points in his famous speech did resonate well-beyond UC Berkeley. If I try to reflect on those times now all I get is questions.
Are you still asking them?
M
Wikipedia, itself, is the protest.
Hmmm! While many valuable contributors could be seen as natural protesters, I wouldn't call the project itself a protest. I hope you are not judging things on the basis of the vandals and other objectionable sorts, because I certainly don't see them as forming the mainstream of what is happening. They certainly know how to make themselves very visible and annoying, but one would not judge a society by the antics of its mischievous kids.
What to me takes it beyond protest is that we do have many who are trying to make positive contributions without generating a lot of noise. Maybe, unlike the 1960s, some of us have given up the hope that existing institutions, like the universities, could be reformed, and are setting the groundwork for new institutions. The Rochdale College experiment may have been premature. It perhaps tried too much to play in the backyard of corporate structures. We sometimes give too much credit to those of our colleagues whose marvellous intentions are not matched by realistic evaluations of the opponent.
Ec
The analogy I was making in stating that Wikipedia is the protest was in reference to my previous statement that some parameters must be set to achieve a goal; that a protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. All of this had to do with placing some restrictions on User identification. I had & have left the issue of vandals behind some time ago.
Marc
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Marc Riddell wrote:
I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend weeding out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, vandalism. My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. A protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And, ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins.
It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time ago. If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very well.. Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.
Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the 60s was not an easy task. Principles served on a plate of squalor can be very unappetizing. It's amazing how over the long run the establishment absorbs it all.
Mario Savio and I were close friends - and, emotionally, still are. He was frustrated every moment that I knew him - it was his fuel. But, he was never, never, discouraged.
No offense intended. As a person who is Savio's junior by only two months, that seems close enough to make us contemporaries. The general points in his famous speech did resonate well-beyond UC Berkeley. If I try to reflect on those times now all I get is questions.
Are you still asking them?
M
I had to reflect on that. Sometimes these short sharp questions are more effective that way than the self-justifying diatribes intended to lead people to the answer that the questioner wants to hear. I even had to dismiss the notion that it was a trick question from a professional.
My reflective answer is, "Yes." When you factor out the effects of technological advance the world hasn't changed a hell of a lot. A strictly logical analysis doesn't add a hell of a lot of hope. But as Camus concluded, one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
There is a demanding kind of happiness that derives from remaining true to what one believes.
Ec
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 13:45:31 -0800 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The boundaries of OR (contd)
Marc Riddell wrote:
> I admit I am also frustrated by the countless hours editors spend > weeding > out countless incidents of nonsensical, and at times malicious, > vandalism. > My background is sixties Berkeley - I am the antithesis of autocratic > bullshit. Yet, I believe, some parameters must be set to achieve a goal. > A > protest without some order is merely chaos - and achieves nothing. And, > ultimately, what or who you are protesting wins. > > It seems like Mario Savio became discouraged and frustrated a long time ago. If a vandal's goal is to sow chaos he is accomplishing that very well.. Surely some vandals may be performing an act of protest, but I don't think that that tranche provides the really tenacious vandals who just get a thrill out of competing in a cat and mouse game.
Sticking to principles consistent with what the new left wanted in the 60s was not an easy task. Principles served on a plate of squalor can be very unappetizing. It's amazing how over the long run the establishment absorbs it all.
Mario Savio and I were close friends - and, emotionally, still are. He was frustrated every moment that I knew him - it was his fuel. But, he was never, never, discouraged.
No offense intended. As a person who is Savio's junior by only two months, that seems close enough to make us contemporaries. The general points in his famous speech did resonate well-beyond UC Berkeley. If I try to reflect on those times now all I get is questions.
Are you still asking them?
M
I had to reflect on that. Sometimes these short sharp questions are more effective that way than the self-justifying diatribes intended to lead people to the answer that the questioner wants to hear. I even had to dismiss the notion that it was a trick question from a professional.
My reflective answer is, "Yes." When you factor out the effects of technological advance the world hasn't changed a hell of a lot. A strictly logical analysis doesn't add a hell of a lot of hope. But as Camus concluded, one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
There is a demanding kind of happiness that derives from remaining true to what one believes.
Ec
Ec,
I agree. The human being hasn't changed much, only the complexity of what they have to cope with to survive - much less thrive.
Beliefs are a result of learning and, in a way, are like clothing: they protect us from the elements, and may need to be altered as we grow. But, in the end, it is we, the wearer who needs to be happy and comfortable in them.
Marc
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Marc Riddell wrote:
I did not mean to suggest that only 'experts' should be able to edit in WP.
My suggestion is that those who are able to edit provide some clue as to their background and areas of interest that could lead a reasonable (yes. I used the word) person to accept what they have edited as credible.
WP is about the information; not about the people who write it. In the ideal, when all the editing is done it should not matter who wrote it, or who edited it. I would be concerned if anyone developed the reputation that he could not be criticized.
Ec
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Marc Riddell stated for the record:
Quite seriously, though, I believe one of the persistent flaws in Wikipedia that is preventing it from having a wider, more professional acceptance is its policy 'anyone can edit'.
I get a great deal of satisfaction from contributing to Wikipedia. It is what's right that makes us good; but it is what's still wrong that keeps us from being great.
Regards,
Marc
A free encyclopedia that only credentialled experts could edit was tried: [[Nupedia]]. "Before it ceased operating, Nupedia produced 24 articles that completed its review process (three articles also existed in two versions of different lengths), and 74 more articles were in progress."
[[Wikipedia]], in contrast, is a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. "Wikipedia has more than six million articles in many languages, including more than 1.5 million articles in the English-language version and more than half a million in the German-language version."
I find the contrast between those results hard to reconcile with the idea that something is keeping us from being great.
I recommend judging the articles you read by the sources the cite. Judging them by who their (often dozens of) editors were seems to me to be a mistake. The policy [[WP:OR]] explains this point in more detail.
- -- Sean Barrett | Portions of this message were sean@epoptic.com | composed using a computer.
Sean Barrett wrote:
A free encyclopedia that only credentialled experts could edit was tried: [[Nupedia]]. "Before it ceased operating, Nupedia produced 24 articles that completed its review process (three articles also existed in two versions of different lengths), and 74 more articles were in progress."
To be fair, those articles were pretty good - featured-article quality. Used to run across them in WP from time to time. Might be interesting to find them and review edit histories, see if they've gotten better or worse.
One of the things that's not much noticed about traditional "expert-written" encyclopedias that they are also highly uneven in quality. The really good entries are surrounded by a dozen hack jobs that never get improved from one edition to the next. Compare the more-obscure entries of modern EB to 1911 EB, in many cases the text has only seen light editing in nearly a century...
Stan
On 27/12/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Marc Riddell stated for the record:
Quite seriously, though, I believe one of the persistent flaws in Wikipedia that is preventing it from having a wider, more professional acceptance is its policy 'anyone can edit'.
A free encyclopedia that only credentialled experts could edit was tried: [[Nupedia]]. "Before it ceased operating, Nupedia produced 24 articles that completed its review process (three articles also existed in two versions of different lengths), and 74 more articles were in progress."
It will be interesting to see what [[Citizendium]] produces. They have a small but enthusiastic community of editors - and experts - and comparing the best of Wikipedia to the best of Citizendium will in my opinion be a valid comparison.
There's got to be more than one way to do this - even "within" wikipedia.org, the different language Wikipedias have very different community rules and feels to them.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
It will be interesting to see what [[Citizendium]] produces. They have a small but enthusiastic community of editors - and experts - and comparing the best of Wikipedia to the best of Citizendium will in my opinion be a valid comparison.
IMHO those dudes are heading straight for political infighting on a scale that WP has never seen. Academics can be some of the lowest and dirtiest politickers around - one of the reasons I got out of it in fact. Ironically, WP could get some new contributors that way - when the "authors" with shorter CVs get stepped on by the "editors" with longer, uh, CVs, irrespective of technical merit, WP is going to start looking pretty appealing. Not to mention that CZ is basing their material on WP articles, so if you want to get something into CZ, writing it into an unforked WP article will be the easiest route.
Stan
Though I've heard of experts being scared away by an "insular community."
On 12/27/06, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
It will be interesting to see what [[Citizendium]] produces. They have a small but enthusiastic community of editors - and experts - and comparing the best of Wikipedia to the best of Citizendium will in my opinion be a valid comparison.
IMHO those dudes are heading straight for political infighting on a scale that WP has never seen. Academics can be some of the lowest and dirtiest politickers around - one of the reasons I got out of it in fact. Ironically, WP could get some new contributors that way - when the "authors" with shorter CVs get stepped on by the "editors" with longer, uh, CVs, irrespective of technical merit, WP is going to start looking pretty appealing. Not to mention that CZ is basing their material on WP articles, so if you want to get something into CZ, writing it into an unforked WP article will be the easiest route.
Stan
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jayjg wrote:
On 12/26/06, Ryan Wetherell renardius@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/26/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
And it goes above and beyond just WP. Citations of claims, inferences/conclusions/derived statements, and non-obvious factual statements (that is, not common knowledge [taking the arbitrary nature of "common knowledge" into consideration, of course]) are simply an academic "must" if you aim to be taken seriously. That's how I interpret relevant Wikipedia policies, and how I apply them.
That's the point; if Wikipedia is going to become a source of knowledge that is taken seriously, instead of being continually derided, its standards are going to be have to be high, rather than "it's ridiculous that I should have to cite all of my claims".
I have no argument with high standards, or relaxing those standards when something is undisputed. Maybe what we should strive for is the standard that would be required in a good academic paper. We can easily agree that going too much below that standard will have a serious effect on credibility, but we also have to recognize that there can be consequences to going too far over.
Then too standards can vary according to the subject matter. They absolutely need to be more severe in political areas where disputes are commonplace, or biograohies where there is a risk of libel. We also need to acknowledge that the broad ideas that are true for the wider article that includes our subject is also true for our target article, unless it is concerned with a specified variation from that generality.
Your example quote suggests a certain defensiveness on the part of that editor. Its general nature would leave me suspicious. Success in dealing with him may not be is having '''all''' his claims referenced, but in getting him to understand that some important ones need to be substantiated. Being willing to show some spirit of compromise with them will do a great deal more for turning them into good future editors than punitive processes when they don't follow our "rules" to the letter.
Ec
Maybe what we should strive for is the standard that would be required in a good academic paper.
A good academic paper assumes quite a lot of prior knowledge. Wikipedia is intended for the layman, so we can't do that.
In an academic paper all statements of fact will be either referenced to another source or justified with logical reasoning/experimental evidence. We can only use the first of those, as we do not allow original research.
Those two differences mean that comparing Wikipedia to an academic paper is of only limited use.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Maybe what we should strive for is the standard that would be required in a good academic paper.
A good academic paper assumes quite a lot of prior knowledge. Wikipedia is intended for the layman, so we can't do that.
Not to mention a good academic paper has less stringent "reliable" standards than a Wikipedia entry. But we don't want to go there.
-Jeff
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:59:41 -0500, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Not to mention a good academic paper has less stringent "reliable" standards than a Wikipedia entry.
No, I don't think it does - or if it does it's not relevant. We will allow sources of varying degrees of reliability as long as overall there are one or two really solid sources for the core premise of the article (because, unlike academic papers, we don't allow original research). But as long as the subject itself is fundamentally supported by good, credible sources, it's not necessary to cite Britannica for every trivial fact.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 15:59:41 -0500, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Not to mention a good academic paper has less stringent "reliable" standards than a Wikipedia entry.
No, I don't think it does
At least in my experience it does. Of course, YMMV, bt I wrote plenty of history papers that did quite well with "lower" standards than we allow.
- or if it does it's not relevant.
I think it's relevant. We're putting otrselves ahead of academia and eliminating otherwise reliable sourcing as a result.
-Jeff
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:16:09 -0500, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Not to mention a good academic paper has less stringent "reliable" standards than a Wikipedia entry.
No, I don't think it does
At least in my experience it does. Of course, YMMV, bt I wrote plenty of history papers that did quite well with "lower" standards than we allow.
Like I said, an academic paper positively encourages original research, Wikipedia outright bans it. So it's not surprising we require sources which have passed the threshold of publication. But I don't think our standards are higher than for academic articles (as in: articles in the academic journals), they are just somewhat different. Actually getting a paper published in the academic press is non-trivial, after all, and we should certainly not confuse that with the standards required of undergraduate papers, which are of course a lot lower.
- or if it does it's not relevant.
I think it's relevant. We're putting otrselves ahead of academia and eliminating otherwise reliable sourcing as a result.
No, we're eliminating original research, which is positively encouraged in academia. Indeed, you'd be unlikely to get an academic article published without at least some novel synthesis (although WP articles are comparable with review articles, and in both cases the threshold for sources is much the same).
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
Jeff Raymond wrote:
Not to mention a good academic paper has less stringent "reliable" standards than a Wikipedia entry.
No, I don't think it does - or if it does it's not relevant. We will allow sources of varying degrees of reliability as long as overall there are one or two really solid sources for the core premise of the article (because, unlike academic papers, we don't allow original research). But as long as the subject itself is fundamentally supported by good, credible sources, it's not necessary to cite Britannica for every trivial fact.
Where I have difficulty is in finding that this view still rests on a number of highly subjective notions: "reliability", "really solid", "good, credible", "trivial". ven leaving aside "original research" and how we view that there is still a wide gap in how we understand these subjective terms. If I use the academic paper as a reference point it's considerably more than what we might find in popular publications, and noticeably less than what is wanted by those who view each article as an isolated whole that strives for independence from the rest of the encyclopedia.
Ec
On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 10:18:56 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
No, I don't think it does - or if it does it's not relevant. We will allow sources of varying degrees of reliability as long as overall there are one or two really solid sources for the core premise of the article (because, unlike academic papers, we don't allow original research). But as long as the subject itself is fundamentally supported by good, credible sources, it's not necessary to cite Britannica for every trivial fact.
Where I have difficulty is in finding that this view still rests on a number of highly subjective notions: "reliability", "really solid", "good, credible", "trivial". ven leaving aside "original research" and how we view that there is still a wide gap in how we understand these subjective terms. If I use the academic paper as a reference point it's considerably more than what we might find in popular publications, and noticeably less than what is wanted by those who view each article as an isolated whole that strives for independence from the rest of the encyclopedia.
I'd say that the subjectivity was largely illusory. There would, I think, be little dissent form the view that Nature is a solid reliable source, and equally little dissent from the idea that a political extremist's blog is a bad source on which to base an article.
Nor would there be much dissent form the notion that contentious ideas require robust secondary sources and attribution to known authorities, whereas small and uncontentious ideas can often be sourced from primary sources. Compare and contrast: X is a blonde; X is a *natural* blonde.
Everything must be stated form the neutral point of view. If there are no secondary sources, how can we check that? So it's fair to require that we can verify the overall article from reputable sources, and equally fair that minor elements within that article might be sourced from the International Journal of Everybody Knows That. Which is, of course, not infallible, so is open to challenge.
Guy (JzG)
jayjg wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
The problem with that, of course, is that, given sufficient time and sufficiently many people, _anything_ can and will be disputed, including the color of the sky on a clear day.
Or, let me quote the start of an actual argument from [[Talk:Elision]]:
"Oh, I deliberately used my version of showing speech because I dispute the IPA's. I deny the existence of the schwa, I object to r/R sounds as being difthongs, I refute its status of r and R as consonants but as vowels, I object to its fictive prescription of whether whichever words are aspirated or unaspirated, I object to its using lone or blended glyfs for clusters as careless overlooking of the intention of the key as showing a one-to-one relationship between sound and glyf, and as no part of speech was given to the words in my list. Do you wish to obscure my work from accuracy?"
On 12/27/06, Ilmari Karonen nospam@vyznev.net wrote:
jayjg wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
The problem with that, of course, is that, given sufficient time and sufficiently many people, _anything_ can and will be disputed, including the color of the sky on a clear day.
Or, let me quote the start of an actual argument from [[Talk:Elision]]:
"Oh, I deliberately used my version of showing speech because I dispute the IPA's. I deny the existence of the schwa, I object to r/R sounds as being difthongs, I refute its status of r and R as consonants but as vowels, I object to its fictive prescription of whether whichever words are aspirated or unaspirated, I object to its using lone or blended glyfs for clusters as careless overlooking of the intention of the key as showing a one-to-one relationship between sound and glyf, and as no part of speech was given to the words in my list. Do you wish to obscure my work from accuracy?"
-- Ilmari Karonen
Right, we can all come up with some extreme example of an absolute madman editing some page. At some point common sense has to prevail, if not the "extreme minority" provisions of [[WP:NPOV]]. But, to get back to the original point, there's no way that a claim that something is "legal consensus" based on a search of some database you've done can ever be considered a "simple fact", or even something that has been "reliably cited". Quote a legal expert or legal tome making that claim.
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
Right, we can all come up with some extreme example of an absolute madman editing some page. At some point common sense has to prevail, if not the "extreme minority" provisions of [[WP:NPOV]]. But, to get back to the original point, there's no way that a claim that something is "legal consensus" based on a search of some database you've done can ever be considered a "simple fact", or even something that has been "reliably cited". Quote a legal expert or legal tome making that claim.
Yes, I agree this discussion has diverged quite a bit from the original topic. Certainly *I* never tried to make the claim that "I could not find a contrary opinion in a legal database" could reasonably be taken to imply a "legal consensus" without engaging in original research.
My point earlier in this thread was that, in my view, not all databases are equal, and that specifically, at least for some libraries, the claim that "no book with this ISBN is listed in the catalog" is not only in itself a meaningful and verifiable fact, but in *some* cases *might* even be taken as reasonable evidence that the book is not, at least officially[1], to be found at the library in question.
In the particular message you replied to, my point was simply that any policy that assumes that "no reasonable person will" can only work in the long run if there is some way to deal with the eventual appearance of an unreasonable person.
([1] It is, of course, possible that the book is, in fact, to be found in the shelves because someone put it there while nobody was looking; this may seem unlikely, but stranger things have happened, such as people sneaking paintings into a museum. Whether that really counts as it being part of the library's collection, at least until it is discovered, is of course debatable, as is the (more common) case of whether a book that has been stolen from the library should be counted. In any case, phrasing the citation such that it only makes claims about the official catalog should render such concerns irrelevant.)
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
jayjg wrote:
No, a source is only required for anything that is disputed. That's pretty fundamental, WP:V. Quite workable and highly desirable.
The problem with that, of course, is that, given sufficient time and sufficiently many people, _anything_ can and will be disputed, including the color of the sky on a clear day.
Or, let me quote the start of an actual argument from [[Talk:Elision]]:
"Oh, I deliberately used my version of showing speech because I dispute the IPA's. I deny the existence of the schwa, I object to r/R sounds as being difthongs, I refute its status of r and R as consonants but as vowels, I object to its fictive prescription of whether whichever words are aspirated or unaspirated, I object to its using lone or blended glyfs for clusters as careless overlooking of the intention of the key as showing a one-to-one relationship between sound and glyf, and as no part of speech was given to the words in my list. Do you wish to obscure my work from accuracy?"
My first observations are the ten uses in one short paragraph of the words "I" or "my", and the eccentric spellings "difthongs" and "glyf". If I were to read nothing else about the subject, I would at least be prepared for an idiosyncratic and personal treatment. These are far stronger indicators of original research than a complete lack of references.
Ec
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 12/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I think the question had more to do with verifying a claim that a particular musical work is in C major. It would seem a waste of time if every time the description of a piece of music included its key there would need to be a source to establish that as true.
If someone claims that a piece of music is in C major I have to accept that without the need to go through a mini-course on music theory.
Which "someone" do you mean - a Wikipedian? The hard-line view of OR which has dominated most of this discussion seems to indicate that a source is needed for *everything*. IMHO, totally unworkable, and not even desirable. We serve our readers, and ourselves, better by simply referring to the work as being in C, then if we feel the need, adding a footnote like "No sharps or flats are indicated in the key signature, and the final cadence is C major" or whatever.
The "someone" would be the editor, but then I'm not a hardliner. :-)
IIRC "cadence" or "beat" has more to do with the time signature than the musical key. ;-)
The problem with something like "No sharps or flats are indicated in the key signature" is that it looks so brutally amateurish. It may help those who know absolutely nothing about music, and still don't know what sharps and flats are for. To those with a more sophisticated understanding of music it will be silly, and will convince them that we don't know what we are talking about. The latter wouldn't expect us to know music theory, but they could still rely on us for biographies of composers, and other less theooretical articles. We still need to maintain articles on the basic concepts of music, and discrete linkages to these articles are superior to awkward attempts to describe musical keys.
Ec