_Red/The_World_Contest
because this is the one which starts in two weeks.
For the full disclosure, I have absolutely no relation to the contest and
will likely not participate.
First, this is an internal affair of the English Wikipedia. I am not sure
why it should be discussed on wikimedia-l.
Second, we have seen many writing contests and drives and personal
initiatives on Wikipedia. Some were successful, some were complete
disaster. Whether the contest/drive is successful depends on the
organizers, and, in particular, on whether the goals are set properly.
This one aims at 10K (not 100K) new articles in two months. This is
realistic and, even if some articles are substandard, will not disturb the
flow of Wikipedia. I recognize a lot of people who signed up as established
editors who certainly know how to source articles. The rules of the contest
establish 1K of pure prose (it indeed stated in one place 0.75K, which I
changed to align with what is written in the rules of the contest.) They
also specify that the articles must be properly sourced. A fully sourced 1K
prose is a solid stub, and I do not see how it could harm Wikipedia. The
organizer is Dr. Blofeld, who previously organized events of similar scope
which were successful. (I for example participated in the Arfica destubaton
last year and won a prize; I closely monitored the quality and I saw how
Dr. Blofeld handled the quality control, I have no issues with that).
To summarize, at this point I do not see any reasons for alarm.
I would like, however, to address two more points which were raised in
this topic. First, the monetary prizes. I personally oppose giving monetary
prizes for writing Wikipedia articles. When I participated in the Africa
destubaton I mentioned above, I made it very clear that I am not going to
accept a monetary prize. After I won the contest in the nomination of the
articles on Mozambique, I had an Amazon voucher sent to me, which I spent
to buy an article on the history of Mozambique. So I am definitely not a
fan of monetary prizes, on the other hand, this is not the first contest
which offers monetary prizes, the prizes are of a scope comparable to what
what offered at similar contests previously, and if the issue has to be
discussed, it has to be discussed in a broader scope, not in relation to
this particular contest.
Second, I am not sure how I should interpret the opinions that the
articles about women should be sourced worse than the articles about men,
but currently there is consensus on the English Wikipedia on how the
notability and verifiability policies should be implemented (I guess this
could be different in other projects). The community is currently not
accepting unsourced and poorly sourced articles, we have the trial running
for autoconfirmed article creation, and the queue of new page patrol, which
is now 13K articles, slowly goes down. (We actually struggled a lot to get
it going down, for several years). Any unsourced article about living
people gets PRODded within hours. No action which would attempt to revert
this trend is going to be accepted. It is not about woman vs man or Africa
vs Europe, it is about verifiability.
Having said this, if there is a competition suddenly up in the air, aimed
at 100K articles, poorly organized and with unrealistically weak
requirements, I would definitely call it a road to disaster. It is just
what I referenced is not this.
Cheers
Yaroslav
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 8:56 AM, Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com> wrote:
This has nothing to do with Gender,
The issue is the standards required and the aim of the event not the
subjects of the content....
The event set a minimum standard at 0.75k per article created, new
editors
going through articles for creation are required to have 1.5k of prose
which is twice the requirement for this competition.
I'll repeat we should not expect more from new editors than we do from
existing editors, regardless of the subject. With any competition we
should be expecting a higher amount than the minimum from existing
community members, mass creation of stubs is not the best way to address
to
encourage those editors to take an interest in developing subjects.
Any competition of this magnitude should also have the resources to
ensure
that in the process we dont do more damage
On 16 October 2017 at 13:57, Natacha Rault <n.rault(a)me.com> wrote:
Dear All,
I can only agree with GorillaWarfare. I am also tired of having to
proove
anything concernig gender has to be perfect, when
the whole principle
of
Wikipedia is that everything is always
perfectible.
I think we should assume good faith and avoid <sarcastic> comments.
Doing nothing about the gender gap would not bring a positive image of
our
movement. The gap is huge and we do need
quantity. Readers noticing
mistakes sometimes become contributors (dont we need new
contributors?).
Chosing such a tone “intentionally” (citing
Gnangarra) is something I
find
shocking. I think criticism is good to make
progress, one does not
need to
fuel resentmemt by making it <sarcastic>.
Kind regards,
Nattes à chat / Natacha
> Le 16 oct. 2017 à 05:51, GorillaWarfare <gorillawarfarewikipedia@
gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> Also, in case it's not clear from my forwarding of Emily's/Keilana's
> message, I endorse it completely and am glad she made her points.
>
> I agree fully with Keegan and Sydney. I don't think the concerns that
this
> will be overtaken by bots are well-founded; that was planned for in
the
> document outlining the competition, and
editors involved in this
project
> will be subject to all expectations of
normal editors (including not
> mass-producing poor-quality content).
>
> As for Keegan's original post, there is a major difference between
> describing an email as sexist versus labeling the sender as a
sexist. I
> believe Keegan meant the former, and I'm
not sure anything he's said
can
be
> described as an attack on the sender so much as a valid criticism of
poor
> wording.
>
> – Molly (GorillaWarfare)
>
> On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 11:44 PM, GorillaWarfare
<gorillawarfarewikipedia@
> gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Emily (User:Keilana) is having some trouble getting mails through to
this
>> list, so I'm forwarding this on her behalf in case it's an issue
with
her
>> email address.
>>
>> "This is some sexist bullshit. You really think we can't handle some
>> stubs? And do you really, really think that people won't try to AFD
>> everything that comes out of this contest as it is?
>>
>> I'm sick and tired of this idea that we have to hold shit about
women
to a
>> higher standard than literally anything else. The encyclopedia isn't
going
>> to break because, god forbid, some inexperienced newbies write a
bunch
of
>> stubs.
>>
>> And so what if people think we're paying lip service to women? It's
better
>> than being seen as being actively hostile to women, which, as I
shouldn't
>> have to remind you, is our reputation as it currently stands."
>>
>> – Molly (GorillaWarfare)
>>
>>> On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 8:16 PM, Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>
>>> No worries Keegan I read it as sarcastic, given the amount of
noise
on
>>> here
>>> I chose my tone intentionally to draw attention to the competition,
yes it
>>> looks like a wonderful idea until to look at the mechanics of
comeptition
>>> given it has a start time in 2 weeks, people are being encourage to
start
>>> now in sandboxes, its being advertised on banners yet it has very
obvious
>>> under lying issues
>>>
>>> - unrealistic targets
>>> - quantity not quality
>>> - an expectation that competitors are required to do half of
what
is
>>> expected from new editors , we
should hold ourselves and expect
of
>>> higher
>>> standards than that we expect from new comers
>>> - no methodology for notability. blp, copyright issues arent
weeded
out
>>> during the event or judging
>>> - judging is done by a bot just doing a count
>>>
>>> To win this event all you need is a list, a script, and reliable
internet
>>> connection, despite having so many signed up well experience good
editors
>>> on the list. <sarcasm> Sadly one person using a Wikidata script
to
>>> create
>>> articles could be the winner, just imagine the unimaginable
>>> frankenstienian horror that would create </sarcasm>
>>>
>>> Any competition that relies on numbers alone is fraught with
danger,
the
>>> big international events all succeed not because of numbers but
because
>>> of
>>> large teams(this run by one person alone) focused on quality with
the
>>> whole
>>> processes divided into manageable opt-in regional sections. All
the
>>> initiatives to focus on under
represented topics need to be
careful few
>>> thousands of poor quality stubs
about women is more harmful than
having
>>> nothing as people will perceive
Wikipedia to be paying lip service
to
>>> women.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 16 October 2017 at 07:18, Keegan Peterzell <
keegan.wiki(a)gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 5:22 PM, Gergő Tisza
<gtisza(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 10:42 AM, Keegan Peterzell <
>>>> keegan.wiki(a)gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> "The nerve of these women, to think that they can write
encyclopedia
>>>>>> articles on women who
must inherently be non-notable! There's
>>> nothing
>>>> to
>>>>>> write about here."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That's basically what your email says. No complaints when
the
>>> subject
>>>> is
>>>>>> anything else from you, when these thematic editing are held on
>>> other
>>>>>> subjects.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Please avoid personal attacks based on hidden motivations you
assume
>>>> other
>>>>> parties to have; it's contrary to the Wikimedia movement's
social
best
>>>>> practices [1] and bound to take discussions in unproductive
>>> directions.
>>>>> When criticizing what someone said, stick to what they actually
said.
>>>>> Especially so if your
accusation of bad faith would be
essentially
>>>>> content-free.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Todd, Gnangarra, Gergő,
>>>>
>>>> My intention, as I touched on earlier, was not to make a personal
attack
>>>> but to address the tone in which I perceived the email to be
written.
I
>>>> don't believe Gnangarra is actually sexist. I certainly stand by
my
>>>> position that the content of the
initial post is unhelpful
criticism
and
>>>> mostly hyperbole, but I'm more than willing to apologize if my
language
>>>> came across as a personal attack. I could have written it
differently.
>>> So,
>>>> sorry about that.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ~Keegan
>>>>
>>>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
>>>>
>>>> This is my personal email address. Everything sent from this email
>>> address
>>>> is in a personal capacity.
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> GN.
>>> Noongarpedia:
https://incubator.wikimedia.or g/wiki/Wp/nys/Main_Page
>>> WMAU:
http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra
>>> Photo Gallery:
http://gnangarra.redbubble.com
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
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