Pete Bartlett wrote:
Fair use quote follows:
"Empire: I looked you up on Wikipedia... McKellan: I don't understand Wikipedia. I've looked myself up on it and it's thoroughly objectionable. It's just taken, as the basis of my career, an article that was written about five years ago, and why someone doesn't correct it.. is that how it's done? Empire: Pretty much. If you want to change something, you can go on and correct it yourself. McKellan: Oh... I suppose if you wanted to know someone's dates, or where they were born, it would be quite useful."
What I don't understand is when people look themselves up and see erroneous information, they don't just go and fix it. It's as if they have something to prove by saying "Wikipedia sucks" instead of contributing to the effort and making Wikipedia better.
--Zsinj
On Apr 22, 2006, at 2:07 PM, Will (Zsinj) Bumgarner wrote:
Pete Bartlett wrote:
Fair use quote follows:
"Empire: I looked you up on Wikipedia... McKellan: I don't understand Wikipedia. I've looked myself up on it and it's thoroughly objectionable. It's just taken, as the basis of my career, an article that was written about five years ago, and why someone doesn't correct it.. is that how it's done? Empire: Pretty much. If you want to change something, you can go on and correct it yourself. McKellan: Oh... I suppose if you wanted to know someone's dates, or where they were born, it would be quite useful."
What I don't understand is when people look themselves up and see erroneous information, they don't just go and fix it. It's as if they have something to prove by saying "Wikipedia sucks" instead of contributing to the effort and making Wikipedia better.
It is not your responsibility to avoid having shitty things said about you on a major website.
-Phil
On 22/04/06, Will (Zsinj) Bumgarner wbzsinj@gmail.com wrote:
What I don't understand is when people look themselves up and see erroneous information, they don't just go and fix it. It's as if they have something to prove by saying "Wikipedia sucks" instead of contributing to the effort and making Wikipedia better.
I've made this remark before, but anyway: Imagine you're a newbie to Wikipedia. You end up there from google, clicking straight to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_mckellan . Now, tell me, what can you see on the screen, as you read the article, tells you that you could *right this instant* edit the article to fix any changes?
There is not the slightest indication. Only the bold text "edit this page" in very small print up the top, in the sort of tab that most people will filter out mentally. Even the tagline "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit" got edited in favour of stripping this simple fact out.
Most people have a vague idea that random internet people write Wikipedia. Fewer would realise that they can, without any registration at all, edit the page they're seeing, and get an instant result, right now.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
I've made this remark before, but anyway: Imagine you're a newbie to Wikipedia. You end up there from google, clicking straight to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_mckellan . Now, tell me, what can you see on the screen, as you read the article, tells you that you could *right this instant* edit the article to fix any changes?
Well, without trying to undermine your general point, I have to note that the [edit] links at the top of each section are a pretty good hint.
Mind you, the prominence of the "sign in / create account" link at the top of the page may be contributing to the assumption that, just as on many other sites, one must go through a registration process before being allowed to edit. Maybe we should add the text "(optional)" to that link?
I'm not quite certain. If I recall, is there not a rule that restricts from a notable person from making edits to thier own page...?
"Will (Zsinj) Bumgarner" wbzsinj@gmail.com wrote: Pete Bartlett wrote:
Fair use quote follows:
"Empire: I looked you up on Wikipedia... McKellan: I don't understand Wikipedia. I've looked myself up on it and it's thoroughly objectionable. It's just taken, as the basis of my career, an article that was written about five years ago, and why someone doesn't correct it.. is that how it's done? Empire: Pretty much. If you want to change something, you can go on and correct it yourself. McKellan: Oh... I suppose if you wanted to know someone's dates, or where they were born, it would be quite useful."
What I don't understand is when people look themselves up and see erroneous information, they don't just go and fix it. It's as if they have something to prove by saying "Wikipedia sucks" instead of contributing to the effort and making Wikipedia better.
--Zsinj _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 4/22/06, Zero megamanzero521@yahoo.com wrote:
I'm not quite certain. If I recall, is there not a rule that restricts from a notable person from making edits to thier own page...?
Guideline, pretty sure.
~maru
On 22/04/06, maru dubshinki marudubshinki@gmail.com wrote:
Guideline, pretty sure.
Yep, [[WP:AUTO]]. IMHO we'd be better off with a strict "don't edit your own article" policy, telling people to suggest changes on the talk page. One reason is that by editing the page directly, you reduce the ability of other people to shape your text for NPOV without offending you. For example, you add the sentence "Joe Bloggs's latest film enjoyed considerable success in Asia and Australia". A separate author might simple have written "Joe Bloggs' latest film was released in Asia and Australia", but they wouldn't necessarily want to start a discussion over it...
Basically, any time you edit your article directly, your feelings risk being hurt, and that's going to affect the way other users behave. By keeping you out of the article altogether, the normal wikipedia processes can function better, while you provide input from the sidelines.
Steve
On 4/22/06, Will (Zsinj) Bumgarner wbzsinj@gmail.com wrote:
What I don't understand is when people look themselves up and see erroneous information, they don't just go and fix it. It's as if they have something to prove by saying "Wikipedia sucks" instead of contributing to the effort and making Wikipedia better.
--Zsinj _______________________________________________
Well, in this particular case I would say that Sir Ian is kind of busy with paying work. He's not in the line of work that gives him the time to hang around Wikipedia. Sure, a blog can be done, but writing articles even the ones about yourself requires looking up sources and pushing off POV pushers and fans.
As for unbalanced: I still have no idea what people's fascination is with celeb's sexuality. Anything more than a line unbalances an article. Say what their sexuality is if relevant, put in a source and go on. We don't need entire sections on the subject unless the subject himself has frequently discussed it.
Mgm
On 22/04/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
As for unbalanced: I still have no idea what people's fascination is with celeb's sexuality. Anything more than a line unbalances an article. Say what their sexuality is if relevant, put in a source and go on. We don't need entire sections on the subject unless the subject himself has frequently discussed it.
I agree. I have my own ideas why such paragraphs get written but I'll keep them to myself. In general, unless you can honestly start the paragraph with "X's sexuality has been fiercely debated", then anything beyond "According to some biographers, X was gay" is probably too much.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 22/04/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
As for unbalanced: I still have no idea what people's fascination is with celeb's sexuality. Anything more than a line unbalances an article. Say what their sexuality is if relevant, put in a source and go on. We don't need entire sections on the subject unless the subject himself has frequently discussed it.
I agree. I have my own ideas why such paragraphs get written but I'll keep them to myself. In general, unless you can honestly start the paragraph with "X's sexuality has been fiercely debated",
"...in some bar somewhere after six beers."
Sorry, couldn't resist. :) In general I pretty much agree with you on this.
----- Original Message ---- From: Steve Bennett
On 22/04/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
As for unbalanced: I still have no idea what people's fascination is with celeb's sexuality. Anything more than a line unbalances an article. Say what their sexuality is if relevant, put in a source and go on. We don't need entire sections on the subject unless the subject himself has frequently discussed it.
I agree. I have my own ideas why such paragraphs get written but I'll keep them to myself. In general, unless you can honestly start the paragraph with "X's sexuality has been fiercely debated", then anything beyond "According to some biographers, X was gay" is probably too much.
Steve
I fear you are barking up Tom Cruise's tree rather than Sir Ian McKellan's! The latter has been a high-profile campaigner for gay rights - he was a co-founder of Stonewall for instance. So some talk of that in his article is right and proper.
Having said that, up until about a month ago the article came almost exclusively from an interview in a gay magazine, so the whole feel of the article came through a "pink filter" that was misleading in a general encyclopedia. On top of that it was way out of date. That is my guess for what he was finding objectionable.
Having said *that*, I now realise the article has already been getting improvements over the last few weeks, presumably since the Empire interview was done.
Pete
On 22/04/06, Pete Bartlett pcb21@yahoo.com wrote:
I fear you are barking up Tom Cruise's tree rather than Sir Ian McKellan's! The latter has been a high-profile campaigner
Guilty as charged.
Steve