I think this problem has been thoroughly discussed on the article's talk page, and the evidence clearly shows that this variable drastically cuts down on the number of random vandalisms. Please leave your complaints on the talk page rather than fishing for support on the mailing list. Oh, and I am that idiot. :)
brian0918
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Is this still a wiki, or do we have a policy of hindering edits on certain articles?
The George W. Bush article is rather large, about 95 kilobytes, but fortunately like most of our larger articles it's divided into many smaller sections which can be edited individually.
Except they can't. Someone has *deliberately* inserted a "noeditsection" directive into this article, and all suggestions that this hinders editing are resisted, on the grounds that, as well as hindering legitimate edits, it hinders vandalism.
I'm in a bit of a spitting fury over this. It seems to be the silliest situation. If I want to correct a spelling error, I should not be hindered in doing so by the action of some well-meaning idiot.
On 12/15/05, Brian brian0918@gmail.com wrote:
I think this problem has been thoroughly discussed on the article's talk page, and the evidence clearly shows that this variable drastically cuts down on the number of random vandalisms.
And, no doubt, the number of edits!
Please leave your complaints on the talk page rather than fishing for support on the mailing list.
I'll do both. This is ludicrous. It's a wiki.
Oh, and I am that idiot. :)
Quite.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 12/15/05, Brian brian0918@gmail.com wrote:
I think this problem has been thoroughly discussed on the article's talk page, and the evidence clearly shows that this variable drastically cuts down on the number of random vandalisms.
And, no doubt, the number of edits!
Consider it necessary semi-protection. Unless you plan on watching that article for vandalism, which, without that NOEDITSECTION, happens once every 2-5 minutes, please do not complain so vehemently. This appears to be the best option until next month when some big changes occur. If you want, you can use a browser that allows you to search in edit boxes, such as Internet Explorer. But, the reality is, the majority of the George W. Bush article is alright and in need of little editing. The other option, which will happen if you remove the NOEDITSECTION, is to once again protect the page, so that only admins can edit it. This is a much freer option.
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 12/15/05, Brian brian0918@gmail.com wrote:
I think this problem has been thoroughly discussed on the article's talk page, and the evidence clearly shows that this variable drastically cuts down on the number of random vandalisms.
And, no doubt, the number of edits!
At last check, the article had been edited 25889 times - it is, quite possibly, the most edited article on Wikipedia.
Jay.
On 12/15/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
At last check, the article had been edited 25889 times - it is, quite possibly, the most edited article on Wikipedia.
Yes, the article has been edited approximately 5,000 times since late October. The difference now is that if you want to edit a single section of the article you have to load the whole thing. I'm asked to believe that this deters vandalism. I don't. but I am very aware of the difficulty of editing the piece. This in itself is tantamount to an act of vandalism, and profoundly anti-wiki.
The article is being treated as if it were a finished work. It isn't. I've edited that article when vandalism was something that happened almost constantly, and it had very little effect on the process of editing because editing doesn't require a whole article to be free of vandalism at all times (a pipe dream with the Bush article) but only that it should be stable while one is editing it--which is easy enough to assure.
If Wikipedia continues to be fetishized as a finished work, it can only damage the activity of producing an encyclopedia.
Also, there is now a Firefox extension allowing you to search in edit boxes!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tools/Browser_Integration#Search_with...
Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 12/15/05, Brian brian0918@gmail.com wrote:
I think this problem has been thoroughly discussed on the article's talk page, and the evidence clearly shows that this variable drastically cuts down on the number of random vandalisms.
And, no doubt, the number of edits!
Please leave your complaints on the talk page rather than fishing for support on the mailing list.
I'll do both. This is ludicrous. It's a wiki.
Oh, and I am that idiot. :)
Quite.
I'll do both. This is ludicrous. It's a wiki.
I believe you may be incorrect on this point. WP is a project to develop an encyclopaedia. It looks a lot like a wiki, but I don't know if you can say "its a wiki" to prove a point. c2.com is a wiki. WP is an encyclopaedia and does whatever quality control is necessary.
Steve
On 12/25/05, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
WP is an encyclopaedia and does whatever quality control is necessary.
I think I can go along with that. What upset me at the time was that the editor experience of legitimate editors of that article was being very seriously degraded for no apparent good reason. Vandalism continued to rise. It has fallen since, though I'm not convinced that the rise and fall can be attributed to the application and removal of the NOEDITSECTION directive (which has been absent from the article now for four or five days). Rather, I think that the NOEDITSECTION was an imposition that disproportionately hit legitimate editors of the article, while delivering no measurable reduction of vandalism in the face of a sustained campaign of vandalism by a particular person or group--the kind of campaign that I know from experience can be ignored, because it has little of no effect on the ability of good faith editors to continue their work.
That the article sufffered its worst week of vandalism during the period of the NOEDITSECTION is a correlation where I truly believe it would be inappropriate at this stage to make a definitive assignment of which was cause and which was effect. However I still see absolutely no coherent elucidation of a mechanism by which this directive could be expected to reduce vandalism in the first place--so it's failure was hugely unsurprising.
I've more to say but I'll put it into a more general post which will go to a number of mailing lists.
On 12/25/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
now for four or five days). Rather, I think that the NOEDITSECTION was an imposition that disproportionately hit legitimate editors of the article, while delivering no measurable reduction of vandalism in the face of a sustained campaign of vandalism by a particular person or group--the kind of campaign that I know from experience can be ignored, because it has little of no effect on the ability of good faith editors to continue their work.
That's a nice change - most of the complaints at GWB seem to be the opposite: people complaining that a small number of legitimate editors were being blocked along with the vast numbers of vandals, and they thought *that* was unfair :)
Steve
On 12/25/05, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
That's a nice change - most of the complaints at GWB seem to be the opposite: people complaining that a small number of legitimate editors were being blocked along with the vast numbers of vandals, and they thought *that* was unfair :)
It's a high profile article and naturally attracts a lot of first time edits, many of which are of the "hey, can I really call Dubya a poopyhead?" type. In addition there was a single person or organized group deliberately taunting and goading the anti-vandalism people. Neither of the two classes of vandalism constitutes much of a problem for legitimate editors, but the anti-vandalism measures on the other hand were a serious problem. The NOEDITSECTION is gone now and I think it's unlikely to be tried again. A semi-protection policy is in place and, if it's successful in deterring vandals, perhaps that can be removed too.