On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 11:54 PM Jens Best best.jens@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure where you get your impressions, Magnus. But when I discuss ideas for a better implementation of Wikidata into Wikipedia to improve automatisation of repetitive editing procedures, including the implementation of the possible use of structured data, I rarely hear "It Is Not Made Here" or "It's Bad Because Its New".
No, of course you don't hear that, because no one wants to sound like that. What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the respective Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or anecdotes don't count), which is the "Wikipedia is unreliable" Spiel we heard from Britannica or Brockhaus. I have a bot that can add and update lists on Wikis, and it is accused by some of "vandalism", even though it doesn't edit in the article namespace, and requires a user-made template to do edits in the first place. Those are the kind of strawman "arguments" made instead.
When it comes to analyse the problems with Wikidata it isn't only about possible early-lifecycle issues(which can be fix), but about the blind spot when it comes to develope working social processes which keep everybody (especially the editors) in the picture.
People can edit Wikipedia. People can edit Wikidata. With the same account. Erveryone can have as clear a picture as they want. Few do.
It strikes me that a similar thing was happening to Commons, in the same "communities". There is still a "don't move your pictures to Commons, they will be deleted!" meme floating around on German Wikipedia.
Community involvement (especially consultations) are often seem to be organized only out of necessity. They not in the middle of the decision-making process. Nobody said that doing things the way they are done in a crowdsourced, community-driven process are easy, but this is no excuse for any Foundation or other similiar entity to set up an intransparent, precendents creating process where community becomes accessories.
The whole way the Knowledge Engine process was implemented, the whole still intransparent incident of kicking a highly valued community-selected person out of the WMF board are clear signals that some people already decided about the future of Wikimedia and now staging a folksy broad consultation circus to create the impression of transparent community involvement. - Deciding about the color of the car if you would instead prefer to talk about the vehicle is the illusion of community-based decisionmaking.
Not sure what's with that "Knowledge Engine" phrase - looks to me it was used by the donating party, and made its way into a blog. Anyone know more details?
And communities don't start new things. Individuals, or small groups of them, do. I was on the GNU mailing list when, after the Nupedia launch, they were discussing the creation of a "free encyclopedia". Lots of high-flying plans, lots of talk. And if WIkipedia hadn't started, they would still be talking. IIRC they shut up pretty quickly after that. Sometimes, you just need to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. And if you wait around for permission of communities, the wall will crumble to dust before anything happens.
And we are NOT sidetracking to some WMF personell issues in a thread that has my name on it, please! ;-)
We need a lot of change in the social procedures at the level of really needed ground work which is important for changing the Wikiprojects to make them work for the future. To reflect and to work on the development of these social procedures would be the most precious work to be done by the Foundation. Instead the Foundation dreams of techbubble-driven, humanless wonderland full of free floading informations which magically forms into knowledge when it somehow hits a human being.
Still with the babbling about a "techbubble"? I thought we had moved past that nonsense.
I like the idea of Wikidata. I like the idea of combining Encylopedia with structured data to enable understanding and easy re-use at the reader-side of Wikiprojects. So many things are imaginable there when the culture of conveying the needed individual and social skills are done well. Tech is only tool to these processes. Tools are important, but not the purpose when it comes to disseminate knowledge.
I agree with this entire paragraph 100%. I would like to add, though, that sometimes, technology opens an unexpected door, even, and especially, when no one asked for it. Like Jimbo and Larry adding a wiki to the Nupedia site, just to see what would happen.
Cheers, Magnus
regards, Jens
2016-01-19 15:56 GMT+01:00 Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not quite
up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not Made Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit.
It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most
of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there
is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about
an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them
or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time.
We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If
we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle
new
software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality,
but
working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe