Ugh.I just edited the page and now it's not working. Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ref_supports2/Example
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:42 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Regarding "Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph." Check out the first paragraph and its references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_and_Albert_Museum_Spiral.
Hovering your mouse over each footnote marker (or, depending on your MediaWiki preferences, the dotted line under it) will tell you what each reference is supporting. The ideal solution would be highlighting the supported text on the page, rather than having it appear in a tool tip.
I wish the WMF would organise that - and organise it in a way that screen readers can read it.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:57 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at
the
end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references at the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are missing my point.
Many
editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences after
the
last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote marker supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as unsourced statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement numbers. So is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where my statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe I could find more instances where it is in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just
doesn't
matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care :-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor referencing. Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things). That is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you
only
counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a paragraph
if,
as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph
often
supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source in
the
body of an article, citations are not expected or required in
en.Wikipedia
article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating
Wikipedia's
lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is
worse".
You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true
but
still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding
references
is
difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is
easy
to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than
adding
them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media
viewer
and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an
essay
[1]
earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were
addressing
me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You
describe
a
formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable
sources.
Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each
sentence
contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences
with
the
number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the
references
per
statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the
RPS
ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their
associated
Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because
whole
paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker
appears
only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs,
not
references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is
low
(and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence.
This
reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the
number
of
references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains
constant,
thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it
should
be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put
them
in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and
others
that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata
sources.
If
that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not
more
difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to
add
book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a
random
Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata
is
referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have
learned
one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and
references in
particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I
say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK)
- Patience (it will get even better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels <
andreengels@gmail.com>
wrote:
> The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the
"it's
> new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd > exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is
behind
it,
> as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community
who
> had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual > editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I
had
to
> be, because I know you have done many good things. > > And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your
average
> Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software
engineering
> skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they
did,
> they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in
short
> term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about
that,
> it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably
cause
> disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports > etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them. > > I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of
working
> in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case.
People
> see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are
so
> large that they do not want the product at all *until they are > resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also > forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery
of
the
> issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my
opinion
is
> instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues
into
> resistance against the product as a whole. > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske > magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: > > 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:
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