--- On Mon, 7/14/08, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
From: Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Another look a bot creation of articles To: birgitte_sb@yahoo.com, "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, July 14, 2008, 4:53 PM Birgitte SB wrote:
I think there was recently a thread about the press
about the
paper A Gene Wiki for Community Annotation of Gene
Function [1].
I was reading it today and found it interesting in
respect to
views generally expressed on this mailing list against
bot
created articles. Personally I can't see why this
sort of work
described here should be required to be done by hand
(as is the
case where some wikipedias don't allow this sort
of bot
creation). Especially when analysis found that after
the bot
created stubs for all genes in the authorative
database that
were missing from Wikipedia, "approximately 50%
of all edits to
gene pages were made on the newly created pages."
PLoS Biology is a recognized journal for biology research, but not for wiki research. Their statements about the usefulness in wikis of bot-generated stubs are not backed up by verifiable evidence.
For example, they don't define what a "stub" is, and how the usefulness varies with that definition. The stub shown as example in the article (fig. 1) is far longer and more well-written than what one usually has to confront when criticizing stub articles in Wikipedia.
Their statistic that 50% of edits landed in new articles doesn't indicate quality or usefulness. It only says that carpet bombing might sometimes hit a target.
Their work is interesting biology. But for wiki research, this paper is merely of anecdotal interest. Maybe they are writing a separate article focused on wikis? Are the authors coming to Wikimania?
I saw the paper more as part of the effort to attract more subject experts to expand on the stubs than as the final evaluation of the project. Which really plays on what I hoped was a different angle towards the discussion of bot creation. The difference between if someone uses a bot to create stubs from an easily accessible database that they have no longterm interest in, or if an organized group uses a bot to create stubs as part of long-term project that includes contiuned involvement in the articles. Maybe you see no difference there, I don't know since you didn't respond to the conclusion of my email. I think various Wikipedias might be better served regulating the use of bot creation to well planned projects rather than outlawing bot creation. I think this example is a good "best practice" as far as bot creation goes. But most of all I think that every Wikipedia should make their own decision as to what to allow without giving much credit opinions that use hostile terms like "carpet-bombing" or otherwise frame the discussion as battleground between different Wikipedia communities (see previous threads on the subject).
Birgitte SB