From: Jtkiefer jtkiefer@wordzen.net
The Guardian has a story entitled "Can you trust Wikipedia?" in which various specialists rate Wikipedia articles in their field of knowledge: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1599116,00.html
As I also posted in another thread roughly on this topic, although we should be concerned whether or not Wikipedia is trustworthy we shouldn't get ourselves too concerned about the register's "articles" about Wikipedia since every single article is clearly biased against wikipedia beyond factuality so the register slamming us with criticism is just business as usual.
No, but we _should_ be concerned about the _Guardian's_ articles about Wikipedia.
Because the Register isn't trustworthy, but the Guardian is.
On a trustworthiness scale of 0 to 10, I'd pesonally score the Register as 3, the Guardian as 9.5.
And Slashdot as 2, Drudge as 4, and Wikipedia as, um, about a 7?
-- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith@verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
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Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
From: Jtkiefer jtkiefer@wordzen.net
The Guardian has a story entitled "Can you trust Wikipedia?" in which various specialists rate Wikipedia articles in their field of knowledge: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1599116,00.html
As I also posted in another thread roughly on this topic, although we should be concerned whether or not Wikipedia is trustworthy we shouldn't get ourselves too concerned about the register's "articles" about Wikipedia since every single article is clearly biased against wikipedia beyond factuality so the register slamming us with criticism is just business as usual.
No, but we _should_ be concerned about the _Guardian's_ articles about Wikipedia.
Because the Register isn't trustworthy, but the Guardian is.
On a trustworthiness scale of 0 to 10, I'd pesonally score the Register as 3, the Guardian as 9.5.
And Slashdot as 2, Drudge as 4, and Wikipedia as, um, about a 7?
I'd actually give Wikipedia an 8-8.5 on trustworthiness. Writing quality is another thing entirely.
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I'd actually give Wikipedia an 8-8.5 on trustworthiness. Writing quality is another thing entirely.
Lets not delude ourselves. We have a long way to go. I was just looking at some old EB articles the other day; Guerrilla [warfare], written by .......... T. E. Lawrence. And Space-time, written by .......... Albert Einstein.
EB has literally tens of thousands of superb, first rate articles written by the world's leading experts and polished by an editorial staff. Yet we enjoy make fun of a handful of embarrassing errors or shortcomings that have.
Conversely, Wikipedia has literally thens of thousands of piles of festering crap, a huge amount of unverified, uncited information and only a handful of first rate articles. We've been the media's little darling for a long time, not because we are great, but because Wikipedia works _at all_. The media honeymoon won't last forever.
Article validation might help some, but we also need a check valve to keep the good stuff and reject the bad. Experts and great writers aren't going to stick around and watch their work perpetually degraded.
Lest I sound too harsh, remember that the OED, also written with the help of volunteers, took over fifty years to fully publish.
Puddl Duk wrote
We've been the media's little
darling for a long time, not because we are great, but because Wikipedia works _at all_. The media honeymoon won't last forever.
Yes, they could build us up just to knock us down, in classic style. But at least everyone would know about WP.
Lest I sound too harsh, remember that the OED, also written with the
help of volunteers, took over fifty years to fully publish.
Yes, but the bulk of the slips (submissions) came in during five years. About where we are now?
Charles
But as for the lady who gave the zero, we need to find her e-mail address so we can ask her what should be added to the Haute Coutre article.
On 10/28/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Puddl Duk wrote
We've been the media's little
darling for a long time, not because we are great, but because Wikipedia works _at all_. The media honeymoon won't last forever.
Yes, they could build us up just to knock us down, in classic style. But at least everyone would know about WP.
Lest I sound too harsh, remember that the OED, also written with the
help of volunteers, took over fifty years to fully publish.
Yes, but the bulk of the slips (submissions) came in during five years. About where we are now?
Charles
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Lest I sound too harsh, remember that the OED, also written with the
help of volunteers, took over fifty years to fully publish.
Yes, but the bulk of the slips (submissions) came in during five years. About where we are now?
Charles
Well, I hope it doesn't take another 45 years to sift through and organise all our submissions :)
But we are going to have to adapt or we'll be relpaced. Early in the project any information coming in was good (a poorly written article being better than no article, usually). As articles mature there will be a point where they stop improving, on average, by random edits. I'm not a fan of page freezing, I'd prefer some kind or released vs working version, plus a mechanism for rev rolling (only for 'released' articles). Or any other check-valve that obstructs the random degeneration while still allowing constant improvement.
On 10/29/05, Puddl Duk puddlduk@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I hope it doesn't take another 45 years to sift through and organise all our submissions :)
But we are going to have to adapt or we'll be relpaced. Early in the project any information coming in was good (a poorly written article being better than no article, usually). As articles mature there will be a point where they stop improving, on average, by random edits. I'm not a fan of page freezing, I'd prefer some kind or released vs working version, plus a mechanism for rev rolling (only for 'released' articles). Or any other check-valve that obstructs the random degeneration while still allowing constant improvement.
I'm not a fan of random degeneration, but I also don't subscribe to the view that this is what is occuring. I think that just as people know good writing when they see it, you and I will know a good edit on articles on our watchlist.
I think the real effort should be spent on making the watchlist feature better. -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
Puddl Duk wrote
Well, I hope it doesn't take another 45 years to sift through and
organise all our submissions :)
It might take a generation before WP's impact can properly be assessed.
But we are going to have to adapt or we'll be relpaced.
There are simple scenarios in which WP is replaced within 6 months. Some billionaire throws $100 million at cloning the content and putting 50 developers on a crash project to upgrade (streaming video, segmentation of pages, parental filtering, automatic inference to a stable page version, pro major topic editors, all the gimmicks you'd come up with). We all go there to edit. But that's a huge win as long as it's still GDFL, and run by the community. (Well, the management side miight be pants, in which case we all come back to WP.)
'Being replaced' is kind of a tribute, not a worry.
Charles
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charles matthews wrote:
Puddl Duk wrote
Well, I hope it doesn't take another 45 years to sift through and
organise all our submissions :)
It might take a generation before WP's impact can properly be assessed.
But we are going to have to adapt or we'll be relpaced.
There are simple scenarios in which WP is replaced within 6 months. Some billionaire throws $100 million at cloning the content and putting 50 developers on a crash project to upgrade (streaming video, segmentation of pages, parental filtering, automatic inference to a stable page version, pro major topic editors, all the gimmicks you'd come up with). We all go there to edit. But that's a huge win as long as it's still GDFL, and run by the community. (Well, the management side miight be pants, in which case we all come back to WP.)
You forget that Mediawiki is GPL, so unless they changed the wiki software being used - and the current content has been designed by its contributors to work with Mediawiki - we would also get all those upgrades back.
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Puddl Duk wrote:
Lets not delude ourselves. We have a long way to go. I was just looking at some old EB articles the other day; Guerrilla [warfare], written by .......... T. E. Lawrence. And Space-time, written by .......... Albert Einstein.
EB has literally tens of thousands of superb, first rate articles written by the world's leading experts and polished by an editorial staff. Yet we enjoy make fun of a handful of embarrassing errors or shortcomings that have.
I'd say even the "good" Britannica articles are, with a very few exceptions, quite bad when it comes to having a neutral point of view. 1911 EB in particular does not even pretend to be neutral, and makes quite unsupported judgments with astonishing frequency, claiming e.g. that a particular philosophical viewpoint is "wrong" (even if it's widely accepted), or that a particular author's work is "overrated", and so on.
The current edition is certainly much better than 1911, but it still leaves much to be desired.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Puddl Duk wrote:
Lets not delude ourselves. We have a long way to go. I was just looking at some old EB articles the other day; Guerrilla [warfare], written by .......... T. E. Lawrence. And Space-time, written by .......... Albert Einstein.
EB has literally tens of thousands of superb, first rate articles written by the world's leading experts and polished by an editorial staff. Yet we enjoy make fun of a handful of embarrassing errors or shortcomings that have.
I'd say even the "good" Britannica articles are, with a very few exceptions, quite bad when it comes to having a neutral point of view. 1911 EB in particular does not even pretend to be neutral, and makes quite unsupported judgments with astonishing frequency, claiming e.g. that a particular philosophical viewpoint is "wrong" (even if it's widely accepted), or that a particular author's work is "overrated", and so on.
The current edition is certainly much better than 1911, but it still leaves much to be desired.
NPOV as a policy is nearly unique to WP. 1911EB is unabashedly about describing the world from the British and Western POV - they wouldn't have dreamed of representing the then-burning South African situation as the Boers or Xhosa saw it, or the Opium Wars as they seemed to the Chinese.
We could probably do some interesting "marketing" of WP along these lines - highlight some balanced articles on topics for which the typical net or printed source only presents one of the sides. Partisans won't like those articles of course, but thoughtful people will find it mind-expanding to hear about more viewpoints than they can find in an Encarta or EB (does Encarta still describe Bill Gates as a "respectable businessman loved by all right-thinking people"? :-) ).
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
NPOV as a policy is nearly unique to WP. 1911EB is unabashedly about describing the world from the British and Western POV - they wouldn't have dreamed of representing the then-burning South African situation as the Boers or Xhosa saw it, or the Opium Wars as they seemed to the Chinese.
I mostly agree, although I think it may be going a bit too far to say that it's really our invention. As far as I can tell, most encyclopedias came around to that ideal before Wikipedia was founded. Whether or not they've achieved it successfully is quite another story---I think the Wikipedia process is much better at enforcing NPOV than the traditional encyclopedia-writing process. Since at least post-WW2, though, most encyclopedias would claim that their goal is unbiased presentation of information, not presentation of an Anglo-American or otherwise skewed viewpoint. In fact many have hired the equivalent of "diversity consultants" to make sure that their coverage of non-Western people is at the very least not offensive.
It's also typically the stated goal of textbooks, academic survey papers, and other such "overviews" to present a neutral view of a subject (again with mixed results). In a certain sense this may be even better than if we had completely invented NPOV---we're the realization of a goal nearly everyone else already agrees is the right one.
-Mark
--- Puddl Duk puddlduk@gmail.com wrote:
I'd actually give Wikipedia an 8-8.5 on
trustworthiness. Writing quality
is another thing entirely.
Lets not delude ourselves. We have a long way to go. I was just looking at some old EB articles the other day; Guerrilla [warfare], written by .......... T. E. Lawrence. And Space-time, written by .......... Albert Einstein.
EB has literally tens of thousands of superb, first rate articles written by the world's leading experts and polished by an editorial staff. Yet we enjoy make fun of a handful of embarrassing errors or shortcomings that have.
Conversely, Wikipedia has literally thens of thousands of piles of festering crap, a huge amount of unverified, uncited information and only a handful of first rate articles. We've been the media's little darling for a long time, not because we are great, but because Wikipedia works _at all_. The media honeymoon won't last forever.
Article validation might help some, but we also need a check valve to keep the good stuff and reject the bad. Experts and great writers aren't going to stick around and watch their work perpetually degraded.
Lest I sound too harsh, remember that the OED, also written with the help of volunteers, took over fifty years to fully publish.
One problem is that as Wikipedia gets bigger, the odds are that some articles will get substandard edits but no-one will notice, because the people who previously worked on the articles will be working on newer articles. I was off Wikipedia for a month and when I came back I noticed that a host of articles I had keeping an eye on because they were in my area of expertise had had some appalling edits done. Most of the people who had brought the articles up to a very high standard had either left Wikipedia (some driven away from the frustration of trying to maintain quality, or because they had other commitments elsewhere), were working elsewhere on Wikipedia, or were simply fed up constantly proofing edits in those articles.
We need to be able to in effect save articles that achieve a high encyclopædic quality as a form of permanent template, with subsequent edits perhaps being worked on and discussed elsewhere before inclusion. Otherwise the danger is that articles, having climbed to high quality will slip down to drivel. I noticed that a couple slipped from an A standard to D through a series of poor edits that weren't noticed by people who knew the facts on the topic. Articles that were better than equivalent articles in Brittanica, etc suddenly were reduced through a handful of edits to third rate high school essay standard.
The real danger is that the bigger Wikipedia gets the more poor edits will slip through. In terms of quality we may go backward rather than forward. This is likely to become a bigger problem, and Wikipedia's credibility may well rest on how we deal with it.
Thom Cadden
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On 10/30/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
One problem is that as Wikipedia gets bigger, the odds are that some articles will get substandard edits but no-one will notice, because the people who previously worked on the articles will be working on newer articles. I was off Wikipedia for a month and when I came back I noticed that a host of articles I had keeping an eye on because they were in my area of expertise had had some appalling edits done. Most of the people who had brought the articles up to a very high standard had either left Wikipedia (some driven away from the frustration of trying to maintain quality, or because they had other commitments elsewhere), were working elsewhere on Wikipedia, or were simply fed up constantly proofing edits in those articles.
We need to be able to in effect save articles that achieve a high encyclopædic quality as a form of permanent template, with subsequent edits perhaps being worked on and discussed elsewhere before inclusion. Otherwise the danger is that articles, having climbed to high quality will slip down to drivel. I noticed that a couple slipped from an A standard to D through a series of poor edits that weren't noticed by people who knew the facts on the topic. Articles that were better than equivalent articles in Brittanica, etc suddenly were reduced through a handful of edits to third rate high school essay standard.
The real danger is that the bigger Wikipedia gets the more poor edits will slip through. In terms of quality we may go backward rather than forward. This is likely to become a bigger problem, and Wikipedia's credibility may well rest on how we deal with it.
Thom Cadden
Please name a few of these articles in serious decay. I am very interested in seeing several examples of this. So far, all I've seen is vague affirmations that this indeed is happening. I don't doubt that it has happened, but I'd like to have a look to better understand the trouble.
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
Please name a few of these articles in serious decay. I am very interested in seeing several examples of this. So far, all I've seen is vague affirmations that this indeed is happening. I don't doubt that it has happened, but I'd like to have a look to better understand the trouble.
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
[[Gas turbine]]. The article was mostly written in the first sixty-five edits (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gas_turbine&oldid=6665037) . The following ~eighty edits have contained a handful of improvements, but for the most part they are spam, vandalism and reverts. The article hasn't deteriorated that much because a few editors periodically clean up the spam and revert vandalism.
Don't get me wrong - I don't consider my writing in this article very good, and I'm often amazed that an article I worked on can be made much, much worse! But I'm tired of spending time removing spam and repairing the whole article and associated links from anon edits that originate from a turbine manufacturer's ip address (for example).
I won't work to improve this article anymore, its a waste of effort. I just move on to things that don't require constant babysitting. Haven't had the heart to take it off my watchlist though.
That is a very sad situation, and unfortunately not uncommon. While we have a policy of "anyone can edit" I don't think things will change much, unless we have a "stable version" or similar idea.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Puddl Duk" puddlduk@gmail.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 6:12 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Slipping quality as Wikipedia gets bigger (formerlyCan you trust Wikipedia?)
Please name a few of these articles in serious decay. I am very interested in seeing several examples of this. So far, all I've seen is vague affirmations that this indeed is happening. I don't doubt that it has happened, but I'd like to have a look to better understand the trouble.
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
[[Gas turbine]]. The article was mostly written in the first sixty-five edits (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gas_turbine&oldid=6665037) . The following ~eighty edits have contained a handful of improvements, but for the most part they are spam, vandalism and reverts. The article hasn't deteriorated that much because a few editors periodically clean up the spam and revert vandalism.
Don't get me wrong - I don't consider my writing in this article very good, and I'm often amazed that an article I worked on can be made much, much worse! But I'm tired of spending time removing spam and repairing the whole article and associated links from anon edits that originate from a turbine manufacturer's ip address (for example).
I won't work to improve this article anymore, its a waste of effort. I just move on to things that don't require constant babysitting. Haven't had the heart to take it off my watchlist though. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
The "version rating" feature that's been put in Wikimedia software but not yet optimized to the point where it can be used in a production Wikipedia would be ideal for reducing backsliding without limiting the ability to edit or otherwise making things difficult. I've been looking forward to this feature for quite some time myself. If the problem is simply one of not having developers with the right combination of free time, interest, and skills to complete this feature, might it perhaps be a reasonable idea to spend some of the money raised in the fund drives to provide a reward to get it done? Spending money to improve the software's scalability could be worth it for the reduced cost of hardware upgrades and the reduced "cost" in terms of the volunteer effort of editors keeping articles clean.
Bryan Derksen wrote:
The "version rating" feature that's been put in Wikimedia software but not yet optimized to the point where it can be used in a production Wikipedia would be ideal for reducing backsliding without limiting the ability to edit or otherwise making things difficult. I've been looking forward to this feature for quite some time myself. If the problem is simply one of not having developers with the right combination of free time, interest, and skills to complete this feature, might it perhaps be a reasonable idea to spend some of the money raised in the fund drives to provide a reward to get it done? Spending money to improve the software's scalability could be worth it for the reduced cost of hardware upgrades and the reduced "cost" in terms of the volunteer effort of editors keeping articles clean.
Well, as the author of said feature, I've been asking for a long time what's the holdup. I'm fairly certain it is, at the very least, ready for the planned test phase. I keep asking people what should be fixed, but so far (that is, in the last few month) noone could tell me the reason it remains turned off.
If parts of it are broken or not up to MediaWiki standard or Evil(tm) in some other important way, please, PLEASE tell me so I can fix it.
Should I backport it from CVS HEAD to some other branch? Which one? Anything!
So far, I've been mostly ignored.
Magnus
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Magnus Manske wrote:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
The "version rating" feature that's been put in Wikimedia software but not yet optimized to the point where it can be used in a production Wikipedia would be ideal for reducing backsliding without limiting the ability to edit or otherwise making things difficult. I've been looking forward to this feature for quite some time myself. If the problem is simply one of not having developers with the right combination of free time, interest, and skills to complete this feature, might it perhaps be a reasonable idea to spend some of the money raised in the fund drives to provide a reward to get it done? Spending money to improve the software's scalability could be worth it for the reduced cost of hardware upgrades and the reduced "cost" in terms of the volunteer effort of editors keeping articles clean.
Well, as the author of said feature, I've been asking for a long time what's the holdup. I'm fairly certain it is, at the very least, ready for the planned test phase. I keep asking people what should be fixed, but so far (that is, in the last few month) noone could tell me the reason it remains turned off.
If it's safe to turn on, turn it on!
If parts of it are broken or not up to MediaWiki standard or Evil(tm) in some other important way, please, PLEASE tell me so I can fix it.
I guess we will find that out when we turn it on... turn it on!
Should I backport it from CVS HEAD to some other branch? Which one? Anything!
Turn it into an extension in case it doesn't work?
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On 10/30/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
...I was off Wikipedia for a month and when I came back I noticed that a host of articles I had keeping an eye on because they were in my area of expertise had had some appalling edits done.
I rarely edit in my area of expertise for just this reason, too disturbing.
... the people who had brought the articles up to a very high standard had either left Wikipedia (some driven away from the frustration of trying to maintain quality, or because they had other commitments elsewhere), were working elsewhere on Wikipedia, or were simply fed up constantly proofing edits in those articles...
We should be doing everything we can to encourage people who create high quality work. These people often aren't the kind who come to Wikipedia for interaction and socializing. They often contrast to the large numbers in our community who *do* interact a lot.
Case in point, DrBob is a good editor. He's an expert on optics, writes well, makes great illustrations and has been a contributer for over FOUR years. He has about 2000 edits, actually more - some were lost in software changes long ago. He takes an occasional wikibreak of several months every year.
His admin nomination is being torpedoed because he "doesn't interact enough", despite the fact that he has been a volunteer on the wikipedia reference desks for over two years. Not only does he occasionally seek out interaction, but he is good at it.
This is the most idiotic no vote I've ever seen at RFA. Ability and desire to interact a lot will certainly help in some areas of wikipedia, administrator or not, but not the main administrative duties- vandalism revert, speedy deletes, copyvio cleanup and IP blocking. Remeber, this is not a person with no interaction, quite the opposite; this is an editor who seeks interaction from time in the communites public forms.
Admin's are NOT mediators, or mothers, or babysitters. The vast majority of their work doesn't require much interaction. If a guy has chosen not to interact on the the talk pages of politically charged middleast related articles in the last four years (where special interaction skills might help) then giving him admin power is not likely to change this.
Furthermore, we need a diverse goup of adminstrators and users alike. Requiring a ton of interaction for administratorship will cut out, in one fell swoop, all the quiet, hard working people who are here to write an encyclopedia, silently toiling behind the scenes. I think people like these are currently some of the very best admins. And I sometimes think that reserves silence and wisdome go hand in hand.
On 11/2/05, Puddl Duk puddlduk@gmail.com wrote:
Case in point, DrBob is a good editor. <snip> His admin nomination is being torpedoed because he "doesn't interact enough", despite the fact that he has been a volunteer on the wikipedia reference desks for over two years. Not only does he occasionally seek out interaction, but he is good at it.
This is the most idiotic no vote I've ever seen at RFA.
(cut lots of stuff I agree with for the sake of brevity).
That's saying a lot, given that I recently went through RFA to vote (having not done so for some time) and was appalled at the idiocy being practiced and petty objections being expressed.
It's especially distubing since being treated like that has driven off many good contributors in the past.
-Matt (User:Morven)
Matt Brown wrote:
On 11/2/05, Puddl Duk puddlduk@gmail.com wrote:
Case in point, DrBob is a good editor. <snip> His admin nomination is being torpedoed because he "doesn't interact enough", despite the fact that he has been a volunteer on the wikipedia reference desks for over two years. Not only does he occasionally seek out interaction, but he is good at it.
This is the most idiotic no vote I've ever seen at RFA.
(cut lots of stuff I agree with for the sake of brevity).
That's saying a lot, given that I recently went through RFA to vote (having not done so for some time) and was appalled at the idiocy being practiced and petty objections being expressed.
It's especially distubing since being treated like that has driven off many good contributors in the past.
-Matt (User:Morven)
I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.
- Jareth
I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.
- Jareth
Good admins are needed. Despite the 'hustings' atmosphere that prevails when elections happen.
Charles
On 11/3/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Good admins are needed. Despite the 'hustings' atmosphere that prevails when elections happen.
Charles
But what is a good admin? As an admin you are going to have people hate you. You are going to have situations where you are under pressure. If you can't handle that perhaps you are better off specaliseing in adding content.
-- geni
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of geni Sent: Friday, 4 November 2005 12:57 To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RFA idiocy (was Slipping quality as Wikipediagetsbigger (formerly Can you trust Wikipedia?))
On 11/3/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Good admins are needed. Despite the 'hustings' atmosphere that prevails when elections happen.
Charles
But what is a good admin? As an admin you are going to have people hate you. You are going to have situations where you are under pressure. If you can't handle that perhaps you are better off specaliseing in adding content.
A good admin is one who cleans up, enforces policy, and is fair and neutral in disputes. An excellent admin is one who can transcend policy to solve problems with his or her own individual genius. A bad admin is one who transcends policy with his or her own individual genius.
Peter (Skyring)
<snip>As an admin you are going to have people hate you. You are going to have situations where you are under pressure. <snip> -- geni _______________________________________________
Of course you are, but does that mean intentionally putting oneself in the line of fire? I think that the amount of work I do cleaning backlogs could also be helpful in the admin realm; its not about getting a rollback button -- I can do that anyways. I'm concerned though, should I go for adminship, the nit-picking (as I see it) that currently goes on would do a lot to sour me against the entire project; it can really take the wind out of your sails.
I work in a similar environment -- we don't have a manager, team members nominate themselves for tasks. If we had the same level of bickering going on we'd never get a thing done and we'd create a lot of mistrust. Its not quite the same in a large environment like Wikipedia, but its counterproductive none the less. There's a knack and a bit of tact necessary to deliver good constructive criticism and those skills are currently lacking as a whole in the RFA process.
--Jareth
On 11/4/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
Of course you are, but does that mean intentionally putting oneself in the line of fire? I think that the amount of work I do cleaning backlogs could also be helpful in the admin realm; its not about getting a rollback button -- I can do that anyways. I'm concerned though, should I go for adminship, the nit-picking (as I see it) that currently goes on would do a lot to sour me against the entire project; it can really take the wind out of your sails.
Welcome to the word of adminship. Lets look at the backlogs you could work on as an admin:
AFD; enough said IFD; less hecktic but since image deletions are not really revesible if you make a mistake you are in real trouble WP:CP Someone claiming to be the orginial author or to have permision comes and has a go at you Sorting out the copyright issues on images; See this mailing list a few days back Requested moves; Aparenty that consensus to move was't that solid after all.
I work in a similar environment -- we don't have a manager, team members nominate themselves for tasks. If we had the same level of bickering going on we'd never get a thing done and we'd create a lot of mistrust. Its not quite the same in a large environment like Wikipedia, but its counterproductive none the less. There's a knack and a bit of tact necessary to deliver good constructive criticism and those skills are currently lacking as a whole in the RFA process.
--Jareth
If you want to deal with people showing tact I sugest an ocupation that will make you more popular. PR man for the RIAA for example. Yes I tend to feel that the current RFA process has started setting standards way too high but at the same time there has to be a point where people are honest about how they feel. We can't talk in codes all the time.
-- geni
If you want to deal with people showing tact I sugest an ocupation that will make you more popular. PR man for the RIAA for example. Yes I tend to feel that the current RFA process has started setting standards way too high but at the same time there has to be a point where people are honest about how they feel. We can't talk in codes all the time.
-- geni
I want to read and write an encyclopedia in a professional atmosphere. The procedure for selecting representitives of the project should not allow children and their antics to become the basis of its decisions. Open votes are unproductive in this case.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 11/3/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
I want to read and write an encyclopedia in a professional atmosphere. The procedure for selecting representitives of the project should not allow children and their antics to become the basis of its decisions. Open votes are unproductive in this case.
Jack (Sam Spade)
Opposed to closed votes? Or another process? I think that RfA has kept a pretty high standard for admins, and this standard keeps us from having admin power wars. You don't see a clamor for multiple de-sysoppings, do you? I take that as a sign that RfA works. Also, if a child is able to show the community sufficient maturity and worth, why shouldn't s/he be an admin, or participate in the choosing process?
-- [[:en:User:Bratsche|Ben]] -- Bratsche-It means "viola!"
From: geni geniice@gmail.com
But what is a good admin? As an admin you are going to have people hate you.
I must be a *great* admin, then. ;-)
Jay.
But what is a good admin? As an admin you are going to have people hate you. You are going to have situations where you are under pressure. If you can't handle that perhaps you are better off specaliseing in adding content.
-- geni
There is no simple formula for what makes a good admin. Rather, it takes all types. Most are just long time trustworthy editors with a huge cumulative radar net. Others like to spend hours every day cleaning up AFD, IFD and copyvios. Some admins are good at interaction, or creating policy, and others might enjoy blocking vandals. And so on...
"Puddl Duk" wrote
There is no simple formula for what makes a good admin. Rather, it
takes all types.
True. I would say the point is this, though: the good admin, in saying 'I speak for the community' or 'I act for the community', carries conviction. Because that's backed up with enough experience and understanding of the actual requirements for the work that goes on, not just legal forms.
Charles
On 11/2/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.
- Jareth
Good descision. Incerdentaly if you want a rollback button without the hassel this may interest you:
http://sam.zoy.org/wikipedia/godmode-light.js
-- geni
On 11/2/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.
Exactly the result I feared, and I'm sure you're not the only one who's decided that. Heck, I might have decided not to go for adminship in the current climate.
-Matt (User:Morven)
On 11/2/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.
- Jareth
Some recent RFAs went quite smoothly (for example mine).
On 04/11/05, Wikiacc wikiacc@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/2/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.
- Jareth
Some recent RFAs went quite smoothly (for example mine).
I was quite surprised how smoothly mine went...
-- - Andrew Gray 666th admin on en.wiki. This may indicate something. andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
On 11/4/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/11/05, Wikiacc wikiacc@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/2/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.
- Jareth
Some recent RFAs went quite smoothly (for example mine).
I was quite surprised how smoothly mine went...
Mine went far better than I ever expected.
Kelly
Ok already, obviously the process works ''sometimes''. The problem is that it often does not work. We cannot continue to allow random people to harass and blackball qualified candidates. The process is unrewarding, and discourages contributions. Nuff said. ~~~~
On 11/4/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/4/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 04/11/05, Wikiacc wikiacc@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/2/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.
- Jareth
Some recent RFAs went quite smoothly (for example mine).
I was quite surprised how smoothly mine went...
Mine went far better than I ever expected.
Kelly _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Wikiacc wrote:
Some recent RFAs went quite smoothly (for example mine).
Thanks Wikiacc, it could be that I've just seen a few bad examples. That wouldn't be terribly surprising, since the ones that go well probably don't get much PR.
- Jareth
On 04/11/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
Thanks Wikiacc, it could be that I've just seen a few bad examples. That wouldn't be terribly surprising, since the ones that go well probably don't get much PR.
Yeah. There's ten to twenty at a time; if one is contentious, you remember that and not the nineteen others. Which suggests that even 5-10% of RFAs being messy is enough to make the process look a lot worse than it is...
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 04/11/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
Thanks Wikiacc, it could be that I've just seen a few bad examples. That wouldn't be terribly surprising, since the ones that go well probably don't get much PR.
Yeah. There's ten to twenty at a time; if one is contentious, you remember that and not the nineteen others. Which suggests that even 5-10% of RFAs being messy is enough to make the process look a lot worse than it is...
The number need not even be that high, and our critics often use the same comparisions with our articles to judge our overall quality (eg. Encarta implies that Wikipedia barely functions because of all the vandalism).
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
From: Wikiacc wikiacc@gmail.com
On 11/2/05, Michelle jareth@crimsonblade.net wrote:
I was seriously considering becoming an admin, but after a quick view of RFA, I decided it wasn't worth that.
- Jareth
Some recent RFAs went quite smoothly (for example mine).
From what I've seen on the RfA page, the majority of nominations go very
smoothly.
Jay.
On 10/28/05, Daniel P. B. Smith dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote:
On a trustworthiness scale of 0 to 10, I'd pesonally score the Register as 3, the Guardian as 9.5.
You relise that from now on if you ever try and edit anything political on wikipedia you will be accused of haveing a massive left wing bias?
-- geni