Heather Ford, a former Wikimedia advisory board member and researcher/writer in South Africa has written an essay, "The Missing Wikipedians" about systematic bias on English Wikipedia (especially) against new users and topics pertinent to Africa and other diverse places/people.
As an example, she cites the English Wikipedia article [[Makmende]] and the deletion request made, biting the newbie.
http://hblog.org/2011/02/16/the-missing-wikipedians/
Please read and discuss. What might we do to help make Wikipedia a more welcoming place for newbies and for such diverse topics?
Cheers, Katie (@aude)
On 18 February 2011 23:24, aude aude.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Heather Ford, a former Wikimedia advisory board member and researcher/writer in South Africa has written an essay, "The Missing Wikipedians" about systematic bias on English Wikipedia (especially) against new users and topics pertinent to Africa and other diverse places/people.
As an example, she cites the English Wikipedia article [[Makmende]] and the deletion request made, biting the newbie.
http://hblog.org/2011/02/16/the-missing-wikipedians/
Please read and discuss.
Author appears to be living in 2006 (deletionists vs inclusionists) and apparently this represents a clash between the two groups:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Makmende
Where in practice it's a pretty standard if rather one sided AFD.
What might we do to help make Wikipedia a more welcoming place for newbies
Since they seem to be determined to read the listing on AFD process as deletion not much we can do. Some changes to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Article_for_deletion/dated
perhaps but keeping it within the current length could be tricky.
and for such diverse topics?
Drop a prompt to add sources into the article creation process and make adding sources easy.
On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 7:17 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 18 February 2011 23:24, aude aude.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Heather Ford, a former Wikimedia advisory board member and
researcher/writer
in South Africa has written an essay, "The Missing Wikipedians" about systematic bias on English Wikipedia (especially) against new users and topics pertinent to Africa and other diverse places/people.
As an example, she cites the English Wikipedia article [[Makmende]] and
the
deletion request made, biting the newbie.
http://hblog.org/2011/02/16/the-missing-wikipedians/
Please read and discuss.
Author appears to be living in 2006 (deletionists vs inclusionists) and apparently this represents a clash between the two groups:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Makmende
Where in practice it's a pretty standard if rather one sided AFD.
That was after the article was speedy deleted three times and the fourth time. They finally recreate the article with the edit summary "Introduction of this superhero character -- this is not vandalism"
Then, Ethan Zuckerman blogged about this and chimed in on the article's talk page, surely drawing attention and support in the AFD.
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/03/24/makmendes-so-huge-he-cant-fit-...
What might we do to help make Wikipedia a more welcoming place for newbies
Since they seem to be determined to read the listing on AFD process as deletion not much we can do. Some changes to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Article_for_deletion/dated
perhaps but keeping it within the current length could be tricky.
and for such diverse topics?
Drop a prompt to add sources into the article creation process and make adding sources easy.
Before speedy deleting, how about tagging the article for needing sources, leave the author a note on their talk page, and not be so quick to delete?
Cheers, Katie
-- geni
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 5:00 PM, aude aude.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 7:17 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 18 February 2011 23:24, aude aude.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Heather Ford, a former Wikimedia advisory board member and
researcher/writer
in South Africa has written an essay, "The Missing Wikipedians" about systematic bias on English Wikipedia (especially) against new users and topics pertinent to Africa and other diverse places/people.
As an example, she cites the English Wikipedia article [[Makmende]] and
the
deletion request made, biting the newbie.
http://hblog.org/2011/02/16/the-missing-wikipedians/
Please read and discuss.
Author appears to be living in 2006 (deletionists vs inclusionists) and apparently this represents a clash between the two groups:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Makmende
Where in practice it's a pretty standard if rather one sided AFD.
That was after the article was speedy deleted three times and the fourth time. They finally recreate the article with the edit summary "Introduction of this superhero character -- this is not vandalism"
Then, Ethan Zuckerman blogged about this and chimed in on the article's talk page, surely drawing attention and support in the AFD.
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/03/24/makmendes-so-huge-he-cant-fit-...
What might we do to help make Wikipedia a more welcoming place for newbies
Since they seem to be determined to read the listing on AFD process as deletion not much we can do. Some changes to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Article_for_deletion/dated
perhaps but keeping it within the current length could be tricky.
and for such diverse topics?
Drop a prompt to add sources into the article creation process and make adding sources easy.
Before speedy deleting, how about tagging the article for needing sources, leave the author a note on their talk page, and not be so quick to delete?
This is to some degree a question of balance in approach.
Every day, thousands of absolutely idiotic, non notable articles get started that really have no point or hope. Every day, new page patrollers find (most) of those, and they go "kerpoof". It would largely be a waste of time to prod them, mark them "citation needed" talk to the new user. The user never had any intention of contributing legitimately to an online information resource / encyclopedia, they're just trying to insult/promote/blab about their friend/school/work/favorite whatever.
We could emphasize a more positive engagement intended to get the message to these people about what an encyclopedia is, what Wikipedia is, and what contributions would be appropriate. But by and large these driveby contributions aren't intended to really stick. They're an advanced form of vandalism, and the perpetrators know it.
Every day, a few legitimate new articles (and every few days, one about something Really Important, but that has not yet arrived at worldwide consciousness) get swept up in that. And we lose valuable new information, contributors, etc.
If we just turn the knob too abruptly, it makes newpage patrollers' jobs too hard, and we start getting more "leakers" in the article-as-vandalism category. Which is bad enough when it's nonsense, but terrible when it's a BLP violation against some teacher, principal, junior high school student whose rival is now claiming falsely that they're gay and having sex with a teacher, etc.
This particular phenomenon appears to have hit an uncomfortable corner of our verifiable information space - where it becomes notable outside the western-oriented internet users usual comfortable horizon, and appears in ways we can look up primarily in blogs and so forth, which are generally not reliable sources.
We can turn that knob down some, but we've had plenty of vicious vandals do things with disinformation campaigns by creating multiple fake blogs and websites and then trying to get Wikipedia articles changed to libel someone or do horrible BLP violations and so forth. There are reasons why we have reliability filters on sources.
So - It's not just a matter of turning knobs. Our principles are colliding, in a way that squeezes new phenomena and users associated with them out of the encyclopedia.
It's not appropriate either to turn the knobs and just allow these things in blind to the side effects that will have. It's also not appropriate to ignore that those policies are making us insular. As with the women-in-Wikipedia problem, it's complicated.
On 18 February 2011 23:24, aude aude.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Heather Ford, a former Wikimedia advisory board member and researcher/writer in South Africa has written an essay, "The Missing Wikipedians" about systematic bias on English Wikipedia (especially) against new users and topics pertinent to Africa and other diverse places/people.
As an example, she cites the English Wikipedia article [[Makmende]] and the deletion request made, biting the newbie.
http://hblog.org/2011/02/16/the-missing-wikipedians/
Please read and discuss. What might we do to help make Wikipedia a more welcoming place for newbies and for such diverse topics?
Cheers, Katie (@aude) _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
There's some interesting points in that essay, and no one can deny that there are systemic biases in Wikipedia. But this particular example is portrayed absolutely incorrectly.
Deletion log for Makmende: * 00:37, 24 March 2010 Flyguy649 (talk | contribs) deleted “Makmende” ? (CSD G3: Pure Vandalism) * 22:53, 23 March 2010 Malik Shabazz (talk | contribs) deleted “Makmende” ? (G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement (CSDH)) * 18:30, 23 March 2010 JoJan (talk | contribs) deleted “Makmende” ? (G1: Patent nonsense, meaningless, or incomprehensible)
The entire content of the first version to be deleted? "Makmende. Kenyan Superhero. Spawned. Not born. Amphibious. Breaths underwater."
And the second was indeed a copyvio of the very page it linked as a reference (http://liwani.com/?p=167), which provides no clues as to the "memeness" and also looks rather spammy. The third was an exact recreation of the second. All of these deletions occurred before the Wall Street Journal blog post was made.
Soon after this Ethan Zuckerman finds the deleted page, deletion log and the WSJ entry. He posts to his own blog about it. [1] Just a few seconds after his post a new page is created, with significantly more context and a link to the WSJ entry. [2] This undergoes rapid improvement.
From the essay: Wikipedia editors claimed that the article needed to be deleted because there existed ‘no reliable sources, and no claims of notability’.
No. One editor did, taking a later version to AfD with this reasoning. [3] The decision was unanimously to keep, and the article underwent further improvement during the AfD. [4]
From the essay: The article was deleted once again, prompting Ethan Zuckerman to write a blog post...
Despite coming later in the essay, presumably this refers to the third deletion. As I've pointed out this was exactly the same as the second, and came before the WSJ post.
Honestly, I think this is an example of Wikipedia working pretty well. The only problem was perhaps a misleading third deletion summary.
Pete / the wub
[1] http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/03/24/makmendes-so-huge-he-cant-fit-... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Makmende&oldid=351782499 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Makmende [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Makmende&action=historysubmit&...
I have read this article this morning,
Well this is a similar problem I am having with adding details to, or new articles about Kosovo, even my attempts are getting deleted. Having problems even getting the Turkish, Bosnian or Albanian alternative names added without being deleted, even if sources, let alone a coverage of members of parliament (list of them deleted as not notable). Also local pop-stars who are not notable by English newspapers are deleted, even if they are well know and unavoidable.
If you have any interest in learning about a minor place, its politics, culture and so forth then you would want to keep these articles. My suggestion was to create a list of politicians, which if not notable themselves, as a total should be interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_politic... I based this upon the local election that recently took place, and this article was deleted. you can see my backup here, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mdupont/List_of_politicians_i...
Similar lists could be made of local items in other countries, at least they would not pollute the global name-space of articles, but an interested party would find time.
Anyway, I can give you more examples of similar problems if you are interested. Btw, we are working on raising funds to help promote editors to work on core articles on the sq.wikipedia, and that might be a good solution to get more people working on that, it is less disputed.
mike
On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 12:24 AM, aude aude.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Heather Ford, a former Wikimedia advisory board member and researcher/writer in South Africa has written an essay, "The Missing Wikipedians" about systematic bias on English Wikipedia (especially) against new users and topics pertinent to Africa and other diverse places/people.
As an example, she cites the English Wikipedia article [[Makmende]] and the deletion request made, biting the newbie.
http://hblog.org/2011/02/16/the-missing-wikipedians/
Please read and discuss. What might we do to help make Wikipedia a more welcoming place for newbies and for such diverse topics?
Cheers, Katie (@aude) _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org