In a message dated 5/24/2008 2:00:31 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, refero.relata@gmail.com writes:
Absolutely not. It is shared - and WP:CITE and WP:V are policy, not WP:MEWRITEPRETTY.>>
------------------------------------------ Not... relevant.
Copyeditors are not citing nor verifying. They are re-writing *previously cited and verified* details for consistency, flow, grammar and style.
IF the original writers couldn't be bothered to do it properly, that is not the burden of the copyeditors to fix. It's the burden of the writers to come back, and *properly* present the source material so it doesn't need to be fixed any more.
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On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 2:41 AM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 5/24/2008 2:00:31 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, refero.relata@gmail.com writes:
Absolutely not. It is shared - and WP:CITE and WP:V are policy, not WP:MEWRITEPRETTY.>>
Not... relevant.
Copyeditors are not citing nor verifying. They are re-writing *previously cited and verified* details for consistency, flow, grammar and style.
IF the original writers couldn't be bothered to do it properly, that is not the burden of the copyeditors to fix. It's the burden of the writers to come back, and *properly* present the source material so it doesn't need to be fixed any more.
Sorry, this is getting ridiculous. As several people have said "properly" is subjective - and as I say above (irrelevant!?) - we don't enjoin people to write "properly" in the manner you suggest in the first place...
My whole point is "re-writing" is quite capable of changing emphasis, wording, tone and context in such a manner that WP:V is relevant. These are familiar issues, for example, to anyone who's ever had to copy-edit translations.
And above all, we do not want to place the burden on writers to come back and check every contribution they've made...
RR
Relata Refero wrote:
My whole point is "re-writing" is quite capable of changing emphasis, wording, tone and context in such a manner that WP:V is relevant. These are familiar issues, for example, to anyone who's ever had to copy-edit translations.
And above all, we do not want to place the burden on writers to come back and check every contribution they've made...
Indeed in my "day job" as a computer science academic, this sort of concern is making copyediting fall out of favor quite rapidly. It's mostly been phased out for unrelated reasons (cutting expenses), but the few journals that still insist on doing extensive editing for style (like anything the IEEE runs) annoy many authors, as we have to keep re-reading our own drafts to figure out what they screwed up this time. It can even end up in comical exchanges of drafts where the author will change something back to what they actually meant to say, the copyeditor will change it back to conform to "house style", the author will revert the change in the next exchange, etc.
Now of course there are some benefits---such journals have more consistent formatting and style, fewer grammatical errors, somewhat more flowing prose, don't infuriatingly use a reference as a noun ("As [1] showed, ..."), and impeccably uniform citation typesetting. But the authorial burden and the chances of a technical error creeping in, or just a statement or implication that the author didn't intend, are also higher than in the becoming-standard "the author just gives us a PDF and we do a quick read-through for obvious problems" approach.
Which doesn't mean we shouldn't edit Wikipedia articles for style, but it is tricky to do well. We at least don't have one of the problems, which is the risk that copyediting can change the original author's voice and end up attributing to them a sentence they would never have written, since our articles aren't bylined. But there can certainly be drift between the text and the references. In general I think there needs to be a more integrated approach than a classical hard distinction between the subject-matter expert and the copyeditor---in many cases there's no hard boundary between improving the treatment of the subject (what to discuss in what order, what to emphasize, what connections to make), which is a subject-matter issue, and improving the overall readability and flow of the article, which is a copyediting issue.
-Mark
2008/5/26 Delirium delirium@hackish.org:
Indeed in my "day job" as a computer science academic, this sort of concern is making copyediting fall out of favor quite rapidly. It's mostly been phased out for unrelated reasons (cutting expenses), but the few journals that still insist on doing extensive editing for style (like anything the IEEE runs) annoy many authors, as we have to keep re-reading our own drafts to figure out what they screwed up this time. It can even end up in comical exchanges of drafts where the author will change something back to what they actually meant to say, the copyeditor will change it back to conform to "house style", the author will revert the change in the next exchange, etc.
God help us if anyone ever attempts complete codification of copyediting for non-crappy writing style. There's a certain hubris that seems to affect Wikipedia editors: that sufficient instruction creep can abstract away the need for any judgement whatsoever.
- d.
On 26/05/2008, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Indeed in my "day job" as a computer science academic, this sort of concern is making copyediting fall out of favor quite rapidly. It's mostly been phased out for unrelated reasons (cutting expenses), but the few journals that still insist on doing extensive editing for style (like anything the IEEE runs) annoy many authors, as we have to keep re-reading our own drafts to figure out what they screwed up this time. It can even end up in comical exchanges of drafts where the author will change something back to what they actually meant to say, the copyeditor will change it back to conform to "house style", the author will revert the change in the next exchange, etc.
Speaking as someone who does do a fair amount of copy-editing, I have to say that there is a qualitative difference between editing a decently written article with a primary editor and good referencing, and the overwhelming majority of articles that are poorly referenced hodge-podges of whatever information different drive-by editors happened to insert. I tend to work on the decent articles at the invitation of the primary editor, and when doing so will read whatever online references are available and will ask a lot of questions (talk page or FAC/GA/peer review page) to help the editor clarify what was meant. Even in relatively well-written articles, I have found many instances where the reference sources don't match up with the material in the article that they are intended to provide references for. In "average" articles, usually a third of the references fail to match the statement they're being used to reference. I've also seen some relatively worrisome "ownership" of poorly sourced, ungrammatical articles that are written so poorly as to be confusing, contradictory, or nearly unreadable - to the point where correction of a typo or spelling error leads to instant reversion or an inquiry on a talk page leads to beratement of the questioner. So - is the problem the copy editor not understanding, or is the problem the quality of the work in the first place?
Risker
I've got a degree in technical communication, and I used to make stylistic edits all the time -- go through articles and totally rewrite them for directness and clarity. But stylistic edits don't stick; it's like footprints in beach sand. A good implementation of stable versions could help this.
On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/05/2008, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Indeed in my "day job" as a computer science academic, this sort of concern is making copyediting fall out of favor quite rapidly. It's mostly been phased out for unrelated reasons (cutting expenses), but the few journals that still insist on doing extensive editing for style (like anything the IEEE runs) annoy many authors, as we have to keep re-reading our own drafts to figure out what they screwed up this time. It can even end up in comical exchanges of drafts where the author will change something back to what they actually meant to say, the copyeditor will change it back to conform to "house style", the author will revert the change in the next exchange, etc.
Speaking as someone who does do a fair amount of copy-editing, I have to say that there is a qualitative difference between editing a decently written article with a primary editor and good referencing, and the overwhelming majority of articles that are poorly referenced hodge-podges of whatever information different drive-by editors happened to insert. I tend to work on the decent articles at the invitation of the primary editor, and when doing so will read whatever online references are available and will ask a lot of questions (talk page or FAC/GA/peer review page) to help the editor clarify what was meant. Even in relatively well-written articles, I have found many instances where the reference sources don't match up with the material in the article that they are intended to provide references for. In "average" articles, usually a third of the references fail to match the statement they're being used to reference. I've also seen some relatively worrisome "ownership" of poorly sourced, ungrammatical articles that are written so poorly as to be confusing, contradictory, or nearly unreadable - to the point where correction of a typo or spelling error leads to instant reversion or an inquiry on a talk page leads to beratement of the questioner. So - is the problem the copy editor not understanding, or is the problem the quality of the work in the first place?
Risker _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
2008/5/27 Ben Yates ben.louis.yates@gmail.com:
I've got a degree in technical communication, and I used to make stylistic edits all the time -- go through articles and totally rewrite them for directness and clarity. But stylistic edits don't stick; it's like footprints in beach sand. A good implementation of stable versions could help this.
Not remotely because stable versions is not meant to stop people adding new information to articles. Of course it will but there is no need to encourage that.
WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 5/24/2008 2:00:31 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, refero.relata@gmail.com writes:
Absolutely not. It is shared - and WP:CITE and WP:V are policy, not WP:MEWRITEPRETTY.>>
Not... relevant.
Copyeditors are not citing nor verifying. They are re-writing *previously cited and verified* details for consistency, flow, grammar and style.
IF the original writers couldn't be bothered to do it properly, that is not the burden of the copyeditors to fix. It's the burden of the writers to come back, and *properly* present the source material so it doesn't need to be fixed any more.
So then whose responsibility is it to check whether what the writer says is consistent with the source? I'm not even suggesting that the writer acted improperly, just that he misread his source. The writer can't check himself, because he's likely to make the same mistake. You have absolved the copyeditor from any responsibility in this. Who's left?
Ec
At 09:07 PM 5/24/2008, Ray Saintonge wrote:
WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
IF the original writers couldn't be bothered to do it properly,
that is not
the burden of the copyeditors to fix. It's the burden of the
writers to come
back, and *properly* present the source material so it doesn't need to be fixed any more.
So then whose responsibility is it to check whether what the writer says is consistent with the source? I'm not even suggesting that the writer acted improperly, just that he misread his source. The writer can't check himself, because he's likely to make the same mistake. You have absolved the copyeditor from any responsibility in this. Who's left?
It's nobody's responsibility and it is everyone's. If we have flagged revisions, verification is part of the task of the user with flag privileges. But if we are keeping anything like the present process, it is nobody's specific responsibility to actually do it. That, indeed, is part of the problem. In our distaste for bureaucracy, we have rigorously avoided specific responsibilities. Some kind of (voluntary) assignment of articles for review might become part of the process. One thing that really does not work at present: people check sources. It was fine. Then someone comes along later and checks the same source. It's still fine. And many editors can waste time this way, until and unless there is an easy way to leave a mark that you checked it, you are now taking additional responsibility for its accuracy. That's what I meant by suggesting a Sources page. All it would take, for each source covered, is "Validated ~~~~".