[Wikimedia-l] Re: Mopping with the tap open

-- Peter Pelberg (he/him) Lead Product Manager, Editing Team Wikimedia Foundation On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 7:48 AM Paulo Santos Perneta < paulosperneta@gmail.com> wrote: > For 10 years or more, already, reliable sources have been mandatory in > the Wikipedia in Portuguese, and any unsourced edit can and should be > reverted and the user warned. > Adding to that, since at least 2016, we use the abuse filters to block any > edition lacking sources. Newbies like the one described by Romaine would > receive a daunting red warning from the abuse filter system about the > necessity of adding reliable sources in order for their edit to be saved - > and the opportunity to go back and fix the problem. This has greatly > improved things there, in that subject. > > Back in 2009, about 1 month after joining Wikipedia I found myself in a > serious conflict with other, well established users, about a well sourced > edit I wanted to add, which was being reverted by the veteran users in > favour of unsourced (and false) information. At the time, I had to comply > and swallow it, as the newbie I was. One year later, now with a reputation, > I returned to the theme, reverted the whole thing and opened a public case > there about falsification of information by said veteran user(s) - and that > time it stood. This whole episode deeply marked me, and made absolutely > clear that in Wikipedia there can be no tolerance for whatever lacks proper > sources - something we actually often indulge in in paper encyclopedias, in > my own experience. I'm very glad that the era of rampant tolerance with > people adding unsourced content - something that was already against all > good practices back in 2001 - is now a distant, sad memory. The quality of > our Wikipedia skyrocketed since then, changing the paradigm from "Wikipedia > is not reliable" to "Wikipedia is actually quite reliable, so much that I > actually want to be there" all over the Lusophone world - and bringing new > problems of its own. But that's undoubtedly the way to go, and it's sad it > took so much time to actually implement what should have been there already > from day 1. > > Best, > Paulo > > > > > Romaine Wiki romaine.wiki@gmail.com escreveu (quarta, 6/03/2024 à(s) > 13:59): > >> In the past days, a new Wikipedia contributor edited Wikipedia and made a >> great contribution, except... This user added zero sources, and the article >> in what the edit was made was about a living person. So the verifiability >> is a problem and in conflict with the policy Biographies of living persons. >> This was just one example of thousands that have to be dealt with every day >> in Wikimedia. And every day the community tries to maintain the quality of >> Wikipedia and has to deal with this kind of edits. >> >> I asked myself the question: why did this new contributor not add any >> sources? >> >> I logged out, went to an article and clicked edit. Made some >> modifications (in the Visual Editor), and then clicked Publish changes. In >> the steps I took to edit the article, I got nowhere a message that >> Wikipedia wants to have sources for the information I added. Nowhere! >> >> I hope that every experienced user by now understands the importance of >> adding sources. But we cannot expect from new contributors to already know >> this. They need to be informed that adding sources is needed. They do not >> go first read the manual of Wikipedia with all the help and project pages, >> they just start editing right away. They think, link in many other >> platforms, that if they do something wrong, they get a message while >> editing/uploading/etc. >> >> For some strange reason, if you edit Wikipedia, you get no notification >> at all that you need to add sources, even while this is one of the most >> important pillars of Wikipedia. The result is that a lot of work of these >> new contributors gets lost, because the information is removed from the >> articles because of a lack of sources. If those new users would have got a >> message in the Visual Editor during the editing, a lot more contributions >> would be able to stay in Wikipedia, less new contributors would get >> demotivated, and it would reduce the workload of existing users who do the >> maintenance every day. >> >> As with the influx of edits without sources nothing is done, the Dutch >> expression "mopping with the tap open" (Dutch: dweilen met de kraan open) >> applies here. >> >> Romaine >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines >> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> Public archives at >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... >> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org