From: "Charles Matthews" charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Loosing more of our best contributors Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 16:00:51 +0100 Jay jg wrote
In the end, we're either left with wikijunk, or a mass of overlapping articles, or (in the best
case)
the POV warriors eventually abandon their quest, having wasted many person-days of individual editors times which could have been far more profitably spent creating new content.
Well, these outcomes are different in nature.
I think it is common ground that edit wars create poor articles; so, yes, edit warriors do leave wikijunk. Experienced editors are capable of dealing with this.
I think a number of experienced editors here are telling you the exact opposite; that they "deal with it" by giving up.
'A mass of overlapping articles' is indeed a probable consequence of two or more sides to an argument backing up their cases: this is intrisically a Good Thing, in that one can get behind strongly-held beliefs to some of the grounds. A case I was looking at today is [[loop quantum gravity]]; where WP is getting the benefit of some expert contributions, though not in the most finished or useable form. The merge options are a little tricky here (and are surely more so in other cases); but typicallly are mostly about skill as an editor.
It is intrinsically a Bad Thing if it persists; we get to the state where Wikipedia cannot be trusted because it simultaneously (and often vociferously) asserts all sorts of contradictory things, and no-one actually knows where to look for information, because the articles (as stated) all overlap. It also makes the maintenance effort grow exponentially.
Finally, time consumption. Undeniable that responsible Wikipedians watching contentious areas do have to put in the hours. Perhaps creating new content would get more recognition. It is, though, rapid to revert; the bias is in favour of sustaining the status quo if that's the object.
Hmm. I've personally been criticized quite strongly and regularly for reverting to the status quo; maybe the bias in your mind is not that of others.
By the way, it seems a fairly good rule of thumb that when Robert complains to this list, he has some other quarrel on his agenda; and no change with this one.
True enough, but regardless of the source, it does touch on a broader problem.
Jay.
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"JAY JG" .
I think a number of experienced editors here are telling you the exact opposite; that they "deal with it" by giving up.
Yes, but it only takes one who does take an interest. There is always plenty to do and edit on WP - let's not assume that that's a _failure_ of the project.
'A mass of overlapping articles' is indeed a probable consequence of two
or
more sides to an argument backing up their cases: this is intrisically a Good Thing, in that one can get behind strongly-held beliefs to some of
the
grounds. A case I was looking at today is [[loop quantum gravity]]; where WP is getting the benefit of some expert contributions, though not in the
most
finished or useable form. The merge options are a little tricky here
(and
are surely more so in other cases); but typicallly are mostly about skill as an editor.
It is intrinsically a Bad Thing if it persists; we get to the state where Wikipedia cannot be trusted because it simultaneously (and often vociferously) asserts all sorts of contradictory things, and no-one
actually
knows where to look for information, because the articles (as stated) all overlap. It also makes the maintenance effort grow exponentially.
OK, it can get to be a muddle. I don't spend much time on this kind of contention myself. I _have_ spent a great deal of time on listing and categorising areas, and that tends towards reducing duplication and improving navigation.
Finally, time consumption. Undeniable that responsible Wikipedians watching contentious areas do have to put in the hours. Perhaps creating new content would get more recognition. It is, though, rapid to revert; the bias is
in
favour of sustaining the status quo if that's the object.
Hmm. I've personally been criticized quite strongly and regularly for reverting to the status quo; maybe the bias in your mind is not that of others.
Well, sometimes it's the right thing to do. Not always.
Charles
There are lots of good points in this thread, both for and against edit wars (generally speaking), but unfortunatly this is a spin off of something as open as wikipedia. It seems to be mainly humanities subjects that have this problem, in the analogy of 'one persons terrorist is another persons freedomfighter'.
Wikipedia is a great resourse for science and technical materials because most of this information is 'fact'. There is no doubting the Cosine rule for example (there probrably is in advanced mathematics, but generally), but an article on a religion will always incure differences of opinion or sabotage. This has been true throughout history and I feel the only way to prevent it on wikipedia would to either ban the topic or to freeze a version of it (which defeats the whole point of wikipedia).
As a step forward it may be interesting to create an 'edit relevance' limit which can be set by a moderator. It would cut out a lot of random things like 'I like pizza' from articles and may help. Another idea may be incurring some sort of time limit - If an article has been stable for a long time and then edited, the edit is reviewed by a moderator as to see if it was worth it. These are just ideas, feel free for C&C.
Just my thoughts.
Regards,
On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 17:00:15 +0100, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
"JAY JG" .
I think a number of experienced editors here are telling you the exact opposite; that they "deal with it" by giving up.
Yes, but it only takes one who does take an interest. There is always plenty to do and edit on WP - let's not assume that that's a _failure_ of the project.
'A mass of overlapping articles' is indeed a probable consequence of two
or
more sides to an argument backing up their cases: this is intrisically a Good Thing, in that one can get behind strongly-held beliefs to some of
the
grounds. A case I was looking at today is [[loop quantum gravity]]; where WP is getting the benefit of some expert contributions, though not in the
most
finished or useable form. The merge options are a little tricky here
(and
are surely more so in other cases); but typicallly are mostly about skill as an editor.
It is intrinsically a Bad Thing if it persists; we get to the state where Wikipedia cannot be trusted because it simultaneously (and often vociferously) asserts all sorts of contradictory things, and no-one
actually
knows where to look for information, because the articles (as stated) all overlap. It also makes the maintenance effort grow exponentially.
OK, it can get to be a muddle. I don't spend much time on this kind of contention myself. I _have_ spent a great deal of time on listing and categorising areas, and that tends towards reducing duplication and improving navigation.
Finally, time consumption. Undeniable that responsible Wikipedians watching contentious areas do have to put in the hours. Perhaps creating new content would get more recognition. It is, though, rapid to revert; the bias is
in
favour of sustaining the status quo if that's the object.
Hmm. I've personally been criticized quite strongly and regularly for reverting to the status quo; maybe the bias in your mind is not that of others.
Well, sometimes it's the right thing to do. Not always.
Charles
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Matthew Larsen wrote:
There are lots of good points in this thread, both for and against edit wars (generally speaking), but unfortunatly this is a spin off of something as open as wikipedia. It seems to be mainly humanities subjects that have this problem, in the analogy of 'one persons terrorist is another persons freedomfighter'.
Have a look at the history of [[Linux]] some time.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
Matthew Larsen wrote:
There are lots of good points in this thread, both for and against edit wars (generally speaking), but unfortunatly this is a spin off of something as open as wikipedia. It seems to be mainly humanities subjects that have this problem, in the analogy of 'one persons terrorist is another persons freedomfighter'.
Have a look at the history of [[Linux]] some time.
- d.
I have. It's not pretty. This does not mean that it can't be fixed.
TBSDY