I just scanned an article: "Wikipedia is basically just another giant bureaucracy", http://www.sciencealert.com/wikipedia-is-basically-just-another-old-fashione...
and it is astonishing how bad it is.
I don't really quibble with the headline - it is a bureaucracy, but some of the content of the article is head-scratching.
For example, how many editors do you know who have achieved the rank of super-contributor?
Can one take an article seriously that blunders this badly?
Phil
On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 8:32 PM, Stephen Philbrick stephen.w.philbrick@gmail.com wrote:
and it is astonishing how bad it is.
If you're astonished, then I'm afraid you haven't read enough news articles about Wikipedia yet. :-(
P.S. MAYBE IT'S TIME WE REEVALUATED OUR STANCE ON ALLCAPS.
I'm honestly not sure what this thread is meant to achieve.
Might I suggest that if you object to the reporting you contact the author, rather than drag their work in a largely-unknown internal mailing list? It's likely to be more productive.
On Friday, 29 April 2016, Benjamin Lees emufarmers@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 8:32 PM, Stephen Philbrick <stephen.w.philbrick@gmail.com javascript:;> wrote:
and it is astonishing how bad it is.
If you're astonished, then I'm afraid you haven't read enough news articles about Wikipedia yet. :-(
P.S. MAYBE IT'S TIME WE REEVALUATED OUR STANCE ON ALLCAPS.
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The article cited is a tertiary source (like Wikipedia), and so is "as astonishingly bad"
The underlying research studies [ref#1], [ref#2] claim
"Researchers found that a relatively small number of editors have a major influence on the site."
"As editors interact with one another and their opinions shift, higher 'p' makes opinions move more quickly toward those expressed by Wikipedia."
"a persisting inequality of influence—with a small number of super-editors controlling the form of many articles. The model results imply that editing inequality is increasing with time, with fewer editors gaining an ever more dominant role."
So surely these claims are worthy of discussion on this list ? if anybody cares
Toby
[ref#1] http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/8 [ref#2] http://gizmodo.com/wikipedia-is-basically-a-corporate-bureaucracy-accordi-17...
On 4/30/16, Oliver Keyes ironholds@gmail.com wrote:
I'm honestly not sure what this thread is meant to achieve.
Might I suggest that if you object to the reporting you contact the author, rather than drag their work in a largely-unknown internal mailing list? It's likely to be more productive.
On Friday, 29 April 2016, Benjamin Lees emufarmers@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 8:32 PM, Stephen Philbrick <stephen.w.philbrick@gmail.com javascript:;> wrote:
and it is astonishing how bad it is.
If you're astonished, then I'm afraid you haven't read enough news articles about Wikipedia yet. :-(
P.S. MAYBE IT'S TIME WE REEVALUATED OUR STANCE ON ALLCAPS.
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We have mailing lists wikipedia-l and WikiEN-l for discussions about specifically Wikipedia or English Wikipedia respectively. On 30 Apr 2016 10:44, "Toby Dollmann" toby.dollmann@gmail.com wrote:
The article cited is a tertiary source (like Wikipedia), and so is "as astonishingly bad"
The underlying research studies [ref#1], [ref#2] claim
"Researchers found that a relatively small number of editors have a major influence on the site."
"As editors interact with one another and their opinions shift, higher 'p' makes opinions move more quickly toward those expressed by Wikipedia."
"a persisting inequality of influence—with a small number of super-editors controlling the form of many articles. The model results imply that editing inequality is increasing with time, with fewer editors gaining an ever more dominant role."
So surely these claims are worthy of discussion on this list ? if anybody cares
Toby
[ref#1] http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/8 [ref#2] http://gizmodo.com/wikipedia-is-basically-a-corporate-bureaucracy-accordi-17...
On 4/30/16, Oliver Keyes ironholds@gmail.com wrote:
I'm honestly not sure what this thread is meant to achieve.
Might I suggest that if you object to the reporting you contact the
author,
rather than drag their work in a largely-unknown internal mailing list? It's likely to be more productive.
On Friday, 29 April 2016, Benjamin Lees emufarmers@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 8:32 PM, Stephen Philbrick <stephen.w.philbrick@gmail.com javascript:;> wrote:
and it is astonishing how bad it is.
If you're astonished, then I'm afraid you haven't read enough news articles about Wikipedia yet. :-(
P.S. MAYBE IT'S TIME WE REEVALUATED OUR STANCE ON ALLCAPS.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe>
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Why is it that when we want to be critical of our internal movement collaborators this list is the primary vehicle for personal insult from micro-aggressions to outright hostility, but this discussion is off-topic?
On Apr 29, 2016 11:20 PM, "Keegan Peterzell" keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Why is it that when we want to be critical of our internal movement collaborators this list is the primary vehicle for personal insult from micro-aggressions to outright hostility,
{{cn}}
but this discussion is off-topic?
Agreed, the public triple smackdown, complete with condescending advice and unnecessary adjectives, was a bit over the top.
-Pete [[User:Pete Forsyth]]
I thought Stephen's original post to this list was fine, and his voice is not one that we hear very often.
Extended specific discussions about project policies or articles might be better on wikipedia-l or commons-l, but if we had a "rule" that you can never mention a specific topic on this list that could arguably be posted on another more relevant email list, there would not be much to discuss. The Science Alert post [1] may not be original, but perhaps some people had not thought about theories of self organizing systems applying to our projects, so worth taking a look at for that reason.
Links 1. http://www.sciencealert.com/wikipedia-is-basically-just-another-old-fashione...
Thanks, Fae
On 30 April 2016 at 07:19, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Why is it that when we want to be critical of our internal movement collaborators this list is the primary vehicle for personal insult from micro-aggressions to outright hostility, but this discussion is off-topic?
-- ~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. _______________________________________________ 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
Hoi, When you restrict or (mis)direct this conversation to a specialist mailing list, you fail to understand what this is all about. It is exactly much of the discussion that happens on this mailing list by the people who are most heard where it becomes plain that the publication has a point.
The question is very much are we willing to reflect on what we do and how we operate. Thanks, GerardM
On 30 April 2016 at 10:52, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
I thought Stephen's original post to this list was fine, and his voice is not one that we hear very often.
Extended specific discussions about project policies or articles might be better on wikipedia-l or commons-l, but if we had a "rule" that you can never mention a specific topic on this list that could arguably be posted on another more relevant email list, there would not be much to discuss. The Science Alert post [1] may not be original, but perhaps some people had not thought about theories of self organizing systems applying to our projects, so worth taking a look at for that reason.
Links
http://www.sciencealert.com/wikipedia-is-basically-just-another-old-fashione...
Thanks, Fae
On 30 April 2016 at 07:19, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Why is it that when we want to be critical of our internal movement collaborators this list is the primary vehicle for personal insult from micro-aggressions to outright hostility, but this discussion is
off-topic?
-- ~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. _______________________________________________ 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,
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-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae Personal and confidential, please do not circulate or re-quote.
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Is it just me that notices an irony when someone posts a message about Wikipedia being a bureaucracy, and there follows a discussion about whether the message was sent to the correct mailing list or not? ;)
Chris,
Yeah, all I meant with my email was 'discussing whether Wikipedia is a bureaucracy on *any* mailing list is likely to be further supporting evidence to the average journalist' and have, since waking up and scanning the new posts to the thread, reached pretty much the same state of...piqued humour? Let's go with that :p
On Saturday, 30 April 2016, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Is it just me that notices an irony when someone posts a message about Wikipedia being a bureaucracy, and there follows a discussion about whether the message was sent to the correct mailing list or not? ;) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe>
That piece is abysmally bad "science journalism" (I can't even write it without scare quotes, it is so bad). To hell with it. Ignore it.
The paper they are writing about (http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/8/2/14/html) is published in an MDPI open access journal; MDPI is borderline "predatory publisher". So not the most 'reliable source" as we say. I don't have much to say about it, other than a) that the authors would find it "surprising" that Wikipedia would have norms after 15 years and having achieved what we have achieved on so many FAs, is more of a commentary on them, than on the project; b) other than that and some other boners, their analysis was pretty good and matches my experience.
Here is the thing I want to elevate from this: I think that the WMF doesn't take into account enough when it does outreach and planning. The en-wiki project is mature; it has strong norms that govern content and behavior. While there is a boatload of weak article and even bad ones, there are a lot of very good articles that are actually difficult to improve; in other words, edits made by passers-by often make the very good articles worse, not better.
When I work with new users, one of the first things I explain to them is exactly this -- Wikipedia is a mature project, that is not at all a "Mad Max" world but rather we have something very close to a "rule of law" and very strong norms and traditions, all grounded in CONSENSUS, including community-wide consensus reached in the past -- the policies and guidelines. If they are willing to learn, lots of people are willing to help. But the #1 determiner of whether people stick around or leave, if how open they are to learning the culture and norms. WP is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", but editing is privilege, not a right, and people who make no effort to learn how things work and cause a big ruckus, end up leaving angry or getting blocked. This makes sense to most everybody I interact with (except the ones who are on their way to leaving angry to getting kicked out)
On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 8:32 PM, Stephen Philbrick < stephen.w.philbrick@gmail.com> wrote:
I just scanned an article: "Wikipedia is basically just another giant bureaucracy",
http://www.sciencealert.com/wikipedia-is-basically-just-another-old-fashione...
and it is astonishing how bad it is.
I don't really quibble with the headline - it is a bureaucracy, but some of the content of the article is head-scratching.
For example, how many editors do you know who have achieved the rank of super-contributor?
Can one take an article seriously that blunders this badly?
Phil _______________________________________________ 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
So many typos, sorry. ack.
On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 2:09 PM, jytdog jytdog@gmail.com wrote:
That piece is abysmally bad "science journalism" (I can't even write it without scare quotes, it is so bad). To hell with it. Ignore it.
The paper they are writing about ( http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/8/2/14/html) is published in an MDPI open access journal; MDPI is borderline "predatory publisher". So not the most 'reliable source" as we say. I don't have much to say about it, other than a) that the authors would find it "surprising" that Wikipedia would have norms after 15 years and having achieved what we have achieved on so many FAs, is more of a commentary on them, than on the project; b) other than that and some other boners, their analysis was pretty good and matches my experience.
Here is the thing I want to elevate from this: I think that the WMF doesn't take into account enough when it does outreach and planning. The en-wiki project is mature; it has strong norms that govern content and behavior. While there is a boatload of weak article and even bad ones, there are a lot of very good articles that are actually difficult to improve; in other words, edits made by passers-by often make the very good articles worse, not better.
When I work with new users, one of the first things I explain to them is exactly this -- Wikipedia is a mature project, that is not at all a "Mad Max" world but rather we have something very close to a "rule of law" and very strong norms and traditions, all grounded in CONSENSUS, including community-wide consensus reached in the past -- the policies and guidelines. If they are willing to learn, lots of people are willing to help. But the #1 determiner of whether people stick around or leave, if how open they are to learning the culture and norms. WP is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", but editing is privilege, not a right, and people who make no effort to learn how things work and cause a big ruckus, end up leaving angry or getting blocked. This makes sense to most everybody I interact with (except the ones who are on their way to leaving angry to getting kicked out)
On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 8:32 PM, Stephen Philbrick < stephen.w.philbrick@gmail.com> wrote:
I just scanned an article: "Wikipedia is basically just another giant bureaucracy",
http://www.sciencealert.com/wikipedia-is-basically-just-another-old-fashione...
and it is astonishing how bad it is.
I don't really quibble with the headline - it is a bureaucracy, but some of the content of the article is head-scratching.
For example, how many editors do you know who have achieved the rank of super-contributor?
Can one take an article seriously that blunders this badly?
Phil _______________________________________________ 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
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