Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 1/5/06, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
While I'm generally in favor of broad latitude for user behavior, there are some people who are simply net negatives, and it is in our interest to get them to go away. I've come to steer away from most of that kind of debating, because the encyclopedia benefits more from me applying myself in areas where I have specialized skills, knowledge, and reference sources. But sooner or later we're going to have to develop better ways to filter out the unhelpful.
Stan
You could always turn Wikipedia into an exclusive club that people can only get into if they can prove themselves worthy.
Hardly what he's suggesting. Filtering out the unhelpful means removing people from the "club" after they've proven themselves unworthy, not requiring them to prove worthiness before getting in at all. We already do the former, but optimizing the filtering process is a bit challenging.
For similar reasons, we constantly struggle with the filtering process currently known as "Articles for deletion". Since this one deals with people even more directly, it should not be surprising that a happy medium is difficult to find.
--Michael Snow
On 1/5/06, Michael Snow wikipedia@earthlink.net wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 1/5/06, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
While I'm generally in favor of broad latitude for user behavior, there are some people who are simply net negatives, and it is in our interest to get them to go away. I've come to steer away from most of that kind of debating, because the encyclopedia benefits more from me applying myself in areas where I have specialized skills, knowledge, and reference sources. But sooner or later we're going to have to develop better ways to filter out the unhelpful.
Stan
You could always turn Wikipedia into an exclusive club that people can only get into if they can prove themselves worthy.
Hardly what he's suggesting. Filtering out the unhelpful means removing people from the "club" after they've proven themselves unworthy, not requiring them to prove worthiness before getting in at all. We already do the former, but optimizing the filtering process is a bit challenging.
Eh, I never said he was suggesting anything, I was the one suggesting that the process be taken to it's logical conclusion. If you're gonna do it, do it right.
If you're gonna filter out the unhelpful(*), you might as well establish a process by which people gain membership. Sure, there has to be a provisional membership too, but after someone has been around for a while you can decide whether or not they're worthy of full membership. The only reason I see *not* to do that is that Wikipedia was supposed to be an encyclopedia that anyone could edit. But once you've removed that, you might as well implement the same processes that have been established by almost all the other exclusive clubs.
Frankly, I don't think it's such a bad idea, if you could somehow pull the wool over the eyes of the editors who would strongly oppose it.
(*) And the implication was that this doesn't just mean people who are *intentionally* unhelpful, as Stan was also talking about those "who are simply not smart enough to be of any help" in the previous paragraph.
For similar reasons, we constantly struggle with the filtering process currently known as "Articles for deletion". Since this one deals with people even more directly, it should not be surprising that a happy medium is difficult to find.
--Michael Snow
Keeping an article out of Wikipedia is completely different from keeping a group of people out.
Anthony