This article by Evgeny Morozov, nominally a review of Andrew Lih's book "The Wikipedia Revolution", is worth reading:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR34.6/morozov.php
-Sage
Why do Wikipedians spend countless hours improving the site, often doing mundane, repetitive tasks they would never do for money? * * *Simple. If I got paid, I'd quit. *
Sage Ross wrote:
This article by Evgeny Morozov, nominally a review of Andrew Lih's book "The Wikipedia Revolution", is worth reading:
Rumours much exaggerated. What it says in the penultimate para is false: "It needs a major upgrade". WP actually needs numerous minor upgrades. The trouble is that Lih's approach is rather from the fluffy end, anyway. Anyone who engages with the more scholarly end would say: "I can see that a huge amount of work still needs to go into improving the content; but on the other hand, as a first draft and technical approach to an Internet encyclopedia, this site has much more going for it than the more acrid debates would indicate".
Charles
2009/11/5 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
Rumours much exaggerated. What it says in the penultimate para is false: "It needs a major upgrade". WP actually needs numerous minor upgrades. The trouble is that Lih's approach is rather from the fluffy end, anyway. Anyone who engages with the more scholarly end would say: "I can see that a huge amount of work still needs to go into improving the content; but on the other hand, as a first draft and technical approach to an Internet encyclopedia, this site has much more going for it than the more acrid debates would indicate".
The history of the success of Wikipedia: [[Worse is better]].
- d.
It really is interesting how few people not involved in Wikipedia get the dynamic.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 5:55 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/11/5 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
Rumours much exaggerated. What it says in the penultimate para is false: "It needs a major upgrade". WP actually needs numerous minor upgrades. The trouble is that Lih's approach is rather from the fluffy end, anyway. Anyone who engages with the more scholarly end would say: "I can see that a huge amount of work still needs to go into improving the content; but on the other hand, as a first draft and technical approach to an Internet encyclopedia, this site has much more going for it than the more acrid debates would indicate".
The history of the success of Wikipedia: [[Worse is better]].
- d.
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On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Sage Ross ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
This article by Evgeny Morozov, nominally a review of Andrew Lih's book "The Wikipedia Revolution", is worth reading:
Although I kept wanting to scream "citation needed" at him. "There is something unappealing", to use his words, about someone who apparently doesn't know all that much about Wikipedia reviewing and dismissing a book about it, then proceeding to pontificate, with no evidence to back it up, about its failings.
Steve
Well, two things people can do is improve [[Evgeny Morozov]] and [[Claude Chabrol]].
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 6:17 AM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.comragesoss%2Bwikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
This article by Evgeny Morozov, nominally a review of Andrew Lih's book "The Wikipedia Revolution", is worth reading:
Although I kept wanting to scream "citation needed" at him. "There is something unappealing", to use his words, about someone who apparently doesn't know all that much about Wikipedia reviewing and dismissing a book about it, then proceeding to pontificate, with no evidence to back it up, about its failings.
Steve
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The Cunctator wrote:
Well, two things people can do is improve [[Evgeny Morozov]] and [[Claude Chabrol]].
Or send a {{sofixit}} to the author of the review.
I think what annoys me about Wikipedia critics is that they hold the very solution to all their criticisms in their power. Get in and change it.
To be honest the problem of rulecruft and an oppressive bureaucracy is not something that {{sofixit}} works well for.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 7:03 AM, Surreptitiousness < surreptitious.wikipedian@googlemail.com> wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
Well, two things people can do is improve [[Evgeny Morozov]] and [[Claude Chabrol]].
Or send a {{sofixit}} to the author of the review.
I think what annoys me about Wikipedia critics is that they hold the very solution to all their criticisms in their power. Get in and change it.
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The Cunctator wrote:
To be honest the problem of rulecruft and an oppressive bureaucracy is not something that {{sofixit}} works well for.
It does in the sense that if you engage with the community, become a part of it, you can hope to change it.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 7:03 AM, Surreptitiousness < surreptitious.wikipedian@googlemail.com> wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
Well, two things people can do is improve [[Evgeny Morozov]] and [[Claude Chabrol]].
Or send a {{sofixit}} to the author of the review.
I think what annoys me about Wikipedia critics is that they hold the very solution to all their criticisms in their power. Get in and change it.
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but that kind of change requires long, tedious engagement with the lessons of history pointing toward failure. A little different from fleshing out the Claude Chabrol entry.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 7:54 AM, Surreptitiousness < surreptitious.wikipedian@googlemail.com> wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
To be honest the problem of rulecruft and an oppressive bureaucracy is
not
something that {{sofixit}} works well for.
It does in the sense that if you engage with the community, become a part of it, you can hope to change it.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 7:03 AM, Surreptitiousness < surreptitious.wikipedian@googlemail.com> wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
Well, two things people can do is improve [[Evgeny Morozov]] and
[[Claude
Chabrol]].
Or send a {{sofixit}} to the author of the review.
I think what annoys me about Wikipedia critics is that they hold the very solution to all their criticisms in their power. Get in and change
it.
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The Cunctator wrote:
but that kind of change requires long, tedious engagement with the lessons of history pointing toward failure. A little different from fleshing out the Claude Chabrol entry.
Okay. I'm unsure why the sofixit couldn't have applied to the complainant fleshing out the Claude Chabrol entry in the first place. I still can't quite understand how difficult it is to understand that if there is a problem on Wikipedia, it can be fixed by the person who spots it, but perhaps on that we differ.
On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 11:48 PM, Surreptitiousness
Okay. I'm unsure why the sofixit couldn't have applied to the complainant fleshing out the Claude Chabrol entry in the first place.
Because he's not a complainant. Because he's a commentator. Because it's just one example amongst millions. Because it's an example of a bigger problem, it's not the problem itself. Because fixing it doesn't really fix anything.
Steve Bennett wrote:
On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 11:48 PM, Surreptitiousness
Okay. I'm unsure why the sofixit couldn't have applied to the complainant fleshing out the Claude Chabrol entry in the first place.
Because he's not a complainant. Because he's a commentator. Because it's just one example amongst millions. Because it's an example of a bigger problem, it's not the problem itself. Because fixing it doesn't really fix anything.
I really don't get this at all. If everyone took that approach, there would be no Wikipedia. This isn't about fixing everything, since you can't actually fix everything. See the laws of physics. This is about fixing something, and you can't fix something without actually fixing it. Hence, sofixit. Great, it's one problem amongst millions. But given there are millions of people, these problems are not insurmountable. Describing the problems as insurmountable is actually another problem, and one that needs to be challenged. Sure, there are huge arguments against fixing it, but they are just arguments. There's no real reason not to actually fix it rather than comment on it or complain about it, depending upon your point of view. Sorry, but maybe I'm too much of a doer today, but I really don't see why this is hard. Unless people are starting to believe the hype? Come on people, don't believe the hype. We're an encyclopedia project written by encyclopedia nerds that has huge flaws yet works regardless and that has become rather popular in spite of it all. If we start taking it all too seriously... delusions of grandeur? I'm still amazed at the responses I get from people when they moan about Wikipedia and I tell them to just edit it. Because, obviously, as this thread is demonstrating, much to my dismay and lack of comprehension, apparently it isn't really that simple. Except, whisper it, it is.
On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 1:22 AM, Surreptitiousness surreptitious.wikipedian@googlemail.com wrote:
I really don't get this at all. If everyone took that approach, there would be no Wikipedia.
Almost everyone *does* take this approach. Do you have any idea what fraction of the world's population contributes to Wikipedia? It's negligeable. Don't be offended that some internet blowhard is not helping our mission. Neither is your mother.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 1:22 AM, Surreptitiousness surreptitious.wikipedian@googlemail.com wrote:
I really don't get this at all. If everyone took that approach, there would be no Wikipedia.
Almost everyone *does* take this approach. Do you have any idea what fraction of the world's population contributes to Wikipedia? It's negligeable. Don't be offended that some internet blowhard is not helping our mission. Neither is your mother.
You have my mother mistaken for someone else's then. I'm not offended in any way that someone has chosen to criticise. What I am astounded at is the abject negativity which greets the idea that people should have a go at fixing problems. We're supposed to be the people trying to get others to engage with the project. If even we, when discussing the idea, are abjectly negative, don't you think that's discouraging rather than encouraging? Don't you think that's going to convey entirely the wrong idea? Are you challenging the meme or reinforcing it? Are you part of the problem or part of the solution? As to the idea that I have no idea what fraction of the world's population contributes to Wikipedia, can I point you to the portions of my message you snipped, since given that statement it is entirely possible you may not have read them. As I said, most of the people I know can't get their head around editing Wikipedia. My response is gentle encouragement or comedic rebuttal. "Ah, go on, you know you want to" or "I bet you do edit it really though". Some you win, some you lose. Some people eventually come back to you with some story or another, but you can show them where they go wong, and what matters and what doesn't. The idea from where I sit is empowerment.
On Thu, 5 Nov 2009, Surreptitiousness wrote:
Well, two things people can do is improve [[Evgeny Morozov]] and [[Claude Chabrol]].
Or send a {{sofixit}} to the author of the review.
I think what annoys me about Wikipedia critics is that they hold the very solution to all their criticisms in their power. Get in and change it.
Perhaps I should write an essay SODONTFIXIT about why "so fix it" is a bad idea. For one thing, most people pointing to errors don't claim that Wikipedia is bad because it contains one particular error. Rather, they claim that that error is representative of other errors (which they may not even be able to find, let alone fix). Sometimes, they may even be using the error to point to a systematic problem; obviously fixing the single error won't fix the systematic problem.
It also leads to some problems we're already familiar with with BLPs, such as having to constantly watch the article for the rest of your life to make sure the fix stays.
Also, learning how to edit articles without being reverted can take an incredible amount of time and bureaucracy-navigating if the user is unlucky enough to have picked articles that people are watching. (Can you describe the conflict of interest rules without looking them up? What about notability? And how can a new person defend against rules lawyers anyway?)
Ken Arromdee wrote:
Perhaps I should write an essay SODONTFIXIT about why "so fix it" is a bad idea. For one thing, most people pointing to errors don't claim that Wikipedia is bad because it contains one particular error. Rather, they claim that that error is representative of other errors (which they may not even be able to find, let alone fix). Sometimes, they may even be using the error to point to a systematic problem; obviously fixing the single error won't fix the systematic problem.
It also leads to some problems we're already familiar with with BLPs, such as having to constantly watch the article for the rest of your life to make sure the fix stays.
Also, learning how to edit articles without being reverted can take an incredible amount of time and bureaucracy-navigating if the user is unlucky enough to have picked articles that people are watching. (Can you describe the conflict of interest rules without looking them up? What about notability? And how can a new person defend against rules lawyers anyway?)
Looks to me like you might have the wrong end of the stick somewhere. Although I'm baffled as to how you fix a systemic problem without tackling it head on. But then perhaps I see the value in a "lead by example and encouragement" approach and you don't. Regardless of whether an error is just an error or also a representation of something, it still needs fixing. So fix it. There's an argument that deliberately leaving an error so that you can make waves about it is disruptive to the encyclopedia. Sometimes I think it has legs. I also hadn't realised the idea of BLP was to constantly watch the article to make sure the "fix" stays. I always thought that a fix was more like a hack, and eventually someone would come up with a better hack. So I don't watch BLP's like a hawk. I instead do the best I can, relying on the fact that if everyone does the best they can, it will all work out. I kind of think of Wikipedia as like an internal combustion engine. When it starts over-heating we try air-cooling, until we work out water-cooling works better, and so on and so forth. And I hadn't realised Wikipedia was a game where we need to work out how to avoid being reverted. Being reverted is an important pasrt of teh system. It makes it clear that you haven't got consensus, so you'd better work to get a consensus. As to reading the rules, don't worry, you don't have to. Even when confronted with a rules lawyer. The fastest way to beat a rules lawyer is to point out their mistake, check with a couple of other people and carry on as normal. When you argue with a rules lawyer, you legitimise their behaviour. That's why we get so many kicking about, because they are encouraged by the response they get. Or I may be wrong. Who knows. Time will tell.
On Fri, 6 Nov 2009, Surreptitiousness wrote:
Regardless of whether an error is just an error or also a representation of something, it still needs fixing. So fix it.
But since the complaint isn't just "Wikipedia has one error", fixing the error doesn't actually resolve the complaint. it only resolves the most visible sign of the complaint, without resolving the underlying problem that's really what's being complained about.
I also hadn't realised the idea of BLP was to constantly watch the article to make sure the "fix" stays.
It's not the idea of BLP, it's a problem related to BLP. If you tell someone with a bad BLP to fix the article themselves, they have to watch it for the rest of their life to make sure it stays fixed. That's one reason why the answer to a BLP problem is *not* "fix it yourself".
The fastest way to beat a rules lawyer is to point out their mistake, check with a couple of other people and carry on as normal.
An outside who just tries to correct an error in a Wikipedia article and runs into a rules lawyer is not going to know enough to be able to point out their mistake. Despite claims otherwise, Wikipedia is a bureaucracy. Beating the rules lawyer is *hard*. It takes *experience*. You can't just casually do it.
Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Fri, 6 Nov 2009, Surreptitiousness wrote:
Regardless of whether an error is just an error or also a representation of something, it still needs fixing. So fix it.
But since the complaint isn't just "Wikipedia has one error", fixing the error doesn't actually resolve the complaint. it only resolves the most visible sign of the complaint, without resolving the underlying problem that's really what's being complained about.
I had thought the argument had moved on and I was responding to a point you had made, but if you want to drag it back to the initial subject, I'll just trot out the old maxim about how Rome wasn't built in a day. You can't build a brick wall in one go, you start with one brick and a bit of muck. Unless you're worried about footings, of course... So, how do you fix the underlying problems? You roll your sleeves up and fix them. Sofixit. The underlying problem is actually that Wikipedia suffers from some sort of bias towards pop culture. Now where I sit, the people who make this complaint are the sort of people who could actually correct that bias, so I'm always thinking to myself, "sofixit". But that's me.
I also hadn't realised the idea of BLP was to constantly watch the article to make sure the "fix" stays.
It's not the idea of BLP, it's a problem related to BLP. If you tell someone with a bad BLP to fix the article themselves, they have to watch it for the rest of their life to make sure it stays fixed. That's one reason why the answer to a BLP problem is *not* "fix it yourself".
Bloody hell. I'll have to re-read BLP, I hadn't realised we had editors glued to the screen being drip-fed so they could constantly refresh their watchlist. I seriously doubt that the point or even a symptom of BLP is that someone has to watch a page until they die. I think there's a problem here though, since I've already stated I don't believe articles are ever fixed, and you do.
The fastest way to beat a rules lawyer is to point out their mistake, check with a couple of other people and carry on as normal.
An outside who just tries to correct an error in a Wikipedia article and runs into a rules lawyer is not going to know enough to be able to point out their mistake. Despite claims otherwise, Wikipedia is a bureaucracy. Beating the rules lawyer is *hard*. It takes *experience*. You can't just casually do it.
That's why you should always help out where you can by pointing out to people they shouldn't bite newcomers. But heck, I managed to outwit rules lawyers in my first week. It can be done. I used to create stubs without permission! Imagine that! Mind, it might not be a bad idea to hardcode IAR onto every page, to undercut the idea that rules lawyers actually have a point.
Surreptitiousness wrote:
So, how do you fix the underlying problems? You roll your sleeves up and fix them. Sofixit. The underlying problem is actually that Wikipedia suffers from some sort of bias towards pop culture. Now where I sit, the people who make this complaint are the sort of people who could actually correct that bias, so I'm always thinking to myself, "sofixit". But that's me.
"Sofixit" is a good enough baseline for encouraging participation. It happens that when COI is involved it may not be the best advice (you are advised, I suppose, to remove only defamatory statements about your own biography, and leave things that you'd prefer not to be there or are somewhat inaccurate, participating on the talk page and/or using an OTRS complaint to draw attention). I think it is worthy saying this: people who object only to weaknesses in WP that have a direct personal impact on themselves are not really the ideal recruits: they are natural users of OTRS, not natural encyclopedists. Since many readers of WP fall somewhere between classic Wikipedians, and people having a particular beef where they are in some way vested, "sofixit" still has a definite role to play. I wonder how best to put "sofixit thoughtfully" which is what we really require.
Charles
On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Surreptitiousness wrote:
So, how do you fix the underlying problems? You roll your sleeves up and fix them. Sofixit. The underlying problem is actually that Wikipedia suffers from some sort of bias towards pop culture. Now where I sit, the people who make this complaint are the sort of people who could actually correct that bias, so I'm always thinking to myself, "sofixit". But that's me.
"Sofixit" is a good enough baseline for encouraging participation. It happens that when COI is involved it may not be the best advice (you are advised, I suppose, to remove only defamatory statements about your own biography, and leave things that you'd prefer not to be there or are somewhat inaccurate, participating on the talk page and/or using an OTRS complaint to draw attention). I think it is worthy saying this: people who object only to weaknesses in WP that have a direct personal impact on themselves are not really the ideal recruits: they are natural users of OTRS, not natural encyclopedists. Since many readers of WP fall somewhere between classic Wikipedians, and people having a particular beef where they are in some way vested, "sofixit" still has a definite role to play. I wonder how best to put "sofixit thoughtfully" which is what we really require.
It's a good suggestion, and the point about those making complaints not being ideal recruits is a good one, as is the frequent element of a vested interest in the article. What makes *me* queasy is the feeling that sometimes those pseudonymous Wikipedia editors who are otherwise standard Wikipedians, edit heavily in one area without disclosing their real-world involvement. The only way to discern that is to assess the sources someone is using. If they are using sources from one side of a debate only, they either hold strong views on the subject, or are promoting one side of the argument. You absolutely have to engage with all views to have any hope of writing anything approaching a good article.
Carcharoth
On Fri, 6 Nov 2009, Surreptitiousness wrote:
But since the complaint isn't just "Wikipedia has one error", fixing the error doesn't actually resolve the complaint. it only resolves the most visible sign of the complaint, without resolving the underlying problem that's really what's being complained about.
I had thought the argument had moved on and I was responding to a point you had made, but if you want to drag it back to the initial subject, I'll just trot out the old maxim about how Rome wasn't built in a day. You can't build a brick wall in one go, you start with one brick and a bit of muck. Unless you're worried about footings, of course... So, how do you fix the underlying problems? You roll your sleeves up and fix them. Sofixit.
If the problem is that you have a leak which is causing the floorboards to rot, you cannot solve the problem just by replacing a floorboard. In fact, you can't solve the problem by getting a lot of people together and replacing a lot of flooorboards.
Telling someone to just fix it tells them to fix the symptoms of a problem. It rarely fixes the actual problem. And hoping that many people, all fixing one mistake each, will fix the problem together isn't going to work; the problem is not just that we have a lot of mistakes, it's that the mistakes have an underlying cause. Fixing the mistakes doesn't fix the underlying cause.
And the complainer can't fix the underlying cause. That's for us to do, and we need to listen when someone complains, not tell him to just fix it.
Ken Arromdee wrote:
Telling someone to just fix it tells them to fix the symptoms of a problem. It rarely fixes the actual problem. And hoping that many people, all fixing one mistake each, will fix the problem together isn't going to work; the problem is not just that we have a lot of mistakes, it's that the mistakes have an underlying cause. Fixing the mistakes doesn't fix the underlying cause.
And the complainer can't fix the underlying cause. That's for us to do, and we need to listen when someone complains, not tell him to just fix it.
Interesting to compare this with something else Morozov has apparently argued (http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/tag/evgeny-morozov/) "The Internet can actually inhibit rather than empower civil society". Those unreliable folk on Wikipedia define civil society as follows: "Civil society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political system) and commercial institutions of the market." Sounds a bit to me as if "sofixit" is a snappy way of defining participation from the side of civil society, without the guns or cash to fix underlying causes. Sure, patching up a given Wikipedia article is just a form of do-gooding, not changing the reasons it was flawed (ignorance or bias being a couple that might be involved).
Since Wikipedia in fact contradicts Morozov's thesis, perhaps it is not so surprising he advances the criticisms he does.
Charkes
On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
patching up a given Wikipedia article is just a form of do-gooding,
Oh, sorry. Perhaps we should all go back to punching kittens in the face.
Bod Notbod wrote:
On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
patching up a given Wikipedia article is just a form of do-gooding,
Oh, sorry. Perhaps we should all go back to punching kittens in the face.
Or quoting completely out of context - same thing really.
Charles
Or pick a stub from a blue link on this list and expand it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Carcharoth/AMNH_Bulletin_author_list
Dunno quite why I did that list, but I was curious as to how many Wikipedia articles there would be for the people listed at the author list for that journal (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History). Turns out the answer is "quite a lot". I'm impressed, actually.
Some of the names are eye-catching as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Porter_Felt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashford_Dean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outram_Bangs
I would say to people wanting to help improve articles, is to find something you are interested in, and start from there. There's no shortage of things to do.
Carcharoth
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 11:20 AM, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Well, two things people can do is improve [[Evgeny Morozov]] and [[Claude Chabrol]].
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 6:17 AM, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.comragesoss%2Bwikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
This article by Evgeny Morozov, nominally a review of Andrew Lih's book "The Wikipedia Revolution", is worth reading:
Although I kept wanting to scream "citation needed" at him. "There is something unappealing", to use his words, about someone who apparently doesn't know all that much about Wikipedia reviewing and dismissing a book about it, then proceeding to pontificate, with no evidence to back it up, about its failings.
Steve
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This article by Evgeny Morozov, nominally a review of Andrew Lih's book "The Wikipedia Revolution", is worth reading:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR34.6/morozov.php
-Sage
Lots of interesting observations, but made by someone who is not that familiar with how Wikipedia works. Lih's book is good, but sometimes it's like he wasn't there; and, of course, he wasn't, at least not when certain decisions were made. If his book were a Wikipedia article, most of it would be edited out because there often is no reliable source other than his own observations and opinions.
The title of this thread is totally weird. Why would two summaries of Wikipedia's history and problems by two individuals, one of whom is an outside observer, and one a less than omniscient inside observer, result in such a question? We answer the question everyday, by continuing to create and edit new articles and tending to administrative tasks.
Fred
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 8:29 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
The title of this thread is totally weird. Why would two summaries of Wikipedia's history and problems by two individuals, one of whom is an outside observer, and one a less than omniscient inside observer, result in such a question? We answer the question everyday, by continuing to
My bad. The title of the thread was the title of Morozov's blog post point out the review: http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/04/is_wikipedia_dying
which I confused with the title of the review itself.
-Sage
Fred Bauder wrote:
The title of this thread is totally weird.
"Is MySpace dying?" seems to be a standard occurrence of this eye-catching meme. As in also Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft. The top Google hit for "Is Apple dying?" is an amusing query from 2002 (rant about no floppy drivers for the iMac).
Charlews
On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.comragesoss%2Bwikipedia@gmail.com
wrote:
This article by Evgeny Morozov, nominally a review of Andrew Lih's book "The Wikipedia Revolution", is worth reading:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR34.6/morozov.php
-Sage
I've long puzzled over why journalists constantly post editorials criticizing Wikipedia and proclaiming that it will never take off. I thought that eventually we'd win them over.
Then I realized why this will never happen.
News media is a business. We are a threat to their model. Therefore, it's important to them to convince their readers that Wikipedia is unreliable, whether it is or not. They will never stop criticizing and attacking us as long as we undermine their bottom line.
As such I have no interest in news print or journalist opinions of Wikipedia. Their paychecks depend on our failure. Pay them no heed.
- causa sui
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
This article by Evgeny Morozov, nominally a review of Andrew Lih's book "The Wikipedia Revolution", is worth reading:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR34.6/morozov.php
-Sage
I've long puzzled over why journalists constantly post editorials criticizing Wikipedia and proclaiming that it will never take off. I thought that eventually we'd win them over.
Then I realized why this will never happen.
News media is a business. We are a threat to their model. Therefore, it's important to them to convince their readers that Wikipedia is unreliable, whether it is or not. They will never stop criticizing and attacking us as long as we undermine their bottom line.
As such I have no interest in news print or journalist opinions of Wikipedia. Their paychecks depend on our failure. Pay them no heed.
- causa sui
I'm not sure about that; journalists are no more a monolith than are Wikipedians. I think its just human nature; I don't have the citations handy, but quite a few studies have shown that we focus much more intently on the negative elements of anything than we do their positive counterparts, regardless of relative weight.
Just as much, we can't refuse to acknowledge the fact that Wikipedia does have its problems - journalists may miss the scope, and some lose the plot entirely, but by and large the issues they identify are real: we do place a high bar on new contributions, we do have a problem with battlefield editing, we are vulnerable to interest groups and individuals and companies can be harmed by inaccurate information about them that we host. The only problem we are currently addressing in any coordinated way is usability - on the other problems, progress proceeds at geologic speed. This is a function of leadership - the Foundation has it, and the projects do not.
Nathan
Yep, pretty soon the only free repository of facts from care bears to benzene will probably become obsolete. In the future people just won't need information as much as now. This decline will happen because, of course, people aren't paying attention to the sort of topics they *ought* to be paying attention to... If only someone was in charge...
I don't even think the bureaucracy is that bad honestly, but it's encouraging that people do.
Wikipedia will surely change, as all things do, but the repository will remain in some form, probably for a *very* long time.
On Thursday 05 Nov 2009 21:06:08 Ryan Delaney wrote:
On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.comragesoss%2Bwikipedia@gmail.com
wrote:
This article by Evgeny Morozov, nominally a review of Andrew Lih's book "The Wikipedia Revolution", is worth reading:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR34.6/morozov.php
-Sage
I've long puzzled over why journalists constantly post editorials criticizing Wikipedia and proclaiming that it will never take off. I thought that eventually we'd win them over.
Then I realized why this will never happen.
News media is a business. We are a threat to their model. Therefore, it's important to them to convince their readers that Wikipedia is unreliable, whether it is or not. They will never stop criticizing and attacking us as long as we undermine their bottom line.
As such I have no interest in news print or journalist opinions of Wikipedia. Their paychecks depend on our failure. Pay them no heed.
Wow! This is what I call a "conspiracy theory", where people claim that another entity has an interest to do something out of his implicit nature so they do it on purpose. However, I wouldn't put a lot of faith in it.
First of all, if someone criticises the wikipedia (and it doesn't matter whether they are the president of the United States, or someone who wrote a blog comment that few people have read), what he said may be factual, partly true, or completely false, and we need to determine whether it is the case according to logic and evidence. Immediately dismissing something someone said based on its origin is an ad hominem fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Secondly, it is the job of media reporters and journalists (as well as less official forms of civil reporters such as bloggers) to point that something is wrong in the Wikipedia or wherever (e.g: the government, a school, a crime being committed somewhere, etc.). If something bad happens in something that interests me or affects me, I'd like to know about it.
I am a Wikipedia contributor, but I also wrote a parodical (and naturally critical) piece about the wikipedia here:
http://www.shlomifish.org/humour/bits/How-many-Wikipedia-Editors/
And I've seen other bloggers and/or Wikipedia contributors being critical of the wikipedia inside or outside it.
So I think a journalist who reports something wrong with the Wikipedia is: 1. Doing their job. 2. May not act out of fear for their livelihood. This is as long as what they said has some merit - if it's just FUD / dis-information / twisted facts etc. we should provide a rational response to the contrary and dismiss it as a falsehood.
I don't think the Wikipeders should fear criticism from journalists or anyone. It's a bit far-fetched to believe that it will convince anyone to stop using the Wikipedia, which is a bit hard to miss given that Google and other search engines tend to favour it in most common searches and from what are usually good reasons. We should still be self-critical and try to improve the Wikipedia and the way it is managed as best as we can, but we shouldn't make a fuss over some petty, external, negative, criticism (whether by the mainstream media or by a fool-on-the-hill blogger) against the Wikimedia projects because such criticism is very unlikely to do a lot of damage. The Wikipedias and open-content and/or collaborative sites in general face much graver problems, both external and internal.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shlomif )