While I generally agree with Birgitte, I have to take exception here. Porchesia appeared on one of our projects for ten months. It was caught quite by accident, when someone pointed it out to me. This raises an important issue, relevant to all major languages and projects--what are we doing to ensure the veracity of the information we provide. This is especially relevant, given the other discussion about spamming, which Brad raised. If we can have a fake island with 300,000 imaginary people get through for ten months, we can certainly have a fake company get through for 10 months. This company can even get people to read up on them and take their money. And if you look the company up, it is on Wikipedia, Answers, and any other mirror. This is a serious problem. Wikipedia provides credibility.
There are two problems with this. Both are, in my mind, serious ethical issues.
1. Given our size and reputation, we are in the process of transforming from a medium that reports fact to a medium that can, potentially, create fact. Colbert and the elephants is symptomatic of that (for people who don't know the reference, see Jimmy's opening remarks at Wikimania). In the particular case of Porchesia, someone has just argued on the mailing list that it should be kept because it is now an internet meme. The fact that it has been on Wikipedia for ten months ensures that (_http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html_ (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html) ). This is worrying. Are we now reporting on what we report? Where do we draw the line between reporting information and creating information? I believe that this issue is sufficiently serious to warrant discussion among all Wikimedia participants, not just the people on WP:EN.
2. The second issue is more sinister. Several months ago we received a call in the office from a major police agency. Someone created a false identity and used it to extract money from unsuspecting victims. When people questioned how important he was, they were told, "Just look me up on Wikipedia." Were the people who gave him money stupid? Yes. So are the people who answer tragic emails telling them that their long lost but fabulously wealthy relatives were killed in car crash in Togo. And yet, people continue to answer those emails. The article on EN was quietly deleted, the man was likely arrested, but the problem remains. Given our position and the respect we receive, Wikipedia in all languages is an open target for spammers and con artists. I believe that this is also an issue that should be addressed by the larger community, and not just limited to WP:EN.
There is a tension between accuracy and openness. Citizendium and Everything2 are two extreme answers to that tension. If, however, we are to maintain both, we must address the tension when it occurs. We must come up with creative solutions. And that is something that involves more than just the English Wikipedia.
Danny
WikiMedia isn't only WikiPedia. I'm on wikibreak in anothers wikis and now edit only in Wikisource. I can't find any problem with encyclopedic articles because my home wiki is intended to host only primary sources.
English Wikipedia have your on mailing list and wikipedia-l is intended to be a mailing list for global issues on Wikipedia projects. The question of credibility is relevant to all Wikimedia projects, but attempts in talk about encyclopedia credibility is not relevant to all Wikimedia projects.
[[:m:User:555]]
On 10/1/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
While I generally agree with Birgitte, I have to take exception here. Porchesia appeared on one of our projects for ten months. It was caught quite by accident, when someone pointed it out to me. This raises an important issue, relevant to all major languages and projects--what are we doing to ensure the veracity of the information we provide. This is especially relevant, given the other discussion about spamming, which Brad raised. If we can have a fake island with 300,000 imaginary people get through for ten months, we can certainly have a fake company get through for 10 months. This company can even get people to read up on them and take their money. And if you look the company up, it is on Wikipedia, Answers, and any other mirror. This is a serious problem. Wikipedia provides credibility.
There are two problems with this. Both are, in my mind, serious ethical issues.
- Given our size and reputation, we are in the process of
transforming from a medium that reports fact to a medium that can, potentially, create fact. Colbert and the elephants is symptomatic of that (for people who don't know the reference, see Jimmy's opening remarks at Wikimania). In the particular case of Porchesia, someone has just argued on the mailing list that it should be kept because it is now an internet meme. The fact that it has been on Wikipedia for ten months ensures that (_http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html_ (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html) ). This is worrying. Are we now reporting on what we report? Where do we draw the line between reporting information and creating information? I believe that this issue is sufficiently serious to warrant discussion among all Wikimedia participants, not just the people on WP:EN.
- The second issue is more sinister. Several months ago we received a
call in the office from a major police agency. Someone created a false identity and used it to extract money from unsuspecting victims. When people questioned how important he was, they were told, "Just look me up on Wikipedia." Were the people who gave him money stupid? Yes. So are the people who answer tragic emails telling them that their long lost but fabulously wealthy relatives were killed in car crash in Togo. And yet, people continue to answer those emails. The article on EN was quietly deleted, the man was likely arrested, but the problem remains. Given our position and the respect we receive, Wikipedia in all languages is an open target for spammers and con artists. I believe that this is also an issue that should be addressed by the larger community, and not just limited to WP:EN.
There is a tension between accuracy and openness. Citizendium and Everything2 are two extreme answers to that tension. If, however, we are to maintain both, we must address the tension when it occurs. We must come up with creative solutions. And that is something that involves more than just the English Wikipedia.
Danny _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 10/1/06, Luiz Augusto lugusto@gmail.com wrote:
WikiMedia isn't only WikiPedia. I'm on wikibreak in anothers wikis and now edit only in Wikisource. I can't find any problem with encyclopedic articles because my home wiki is intended to host only primary sources. English Wikipedia have your on mailing list and wikipedia-l is intended to be a mailing list for global issues on Wikipedia projects. The question of credibility is relevant to all Wikimedia projects, but attempts in talk about encyclopedia credibility is not relevant to all Wikimedia projects.
It's funny that you'd effectively accuse the person who is probably the #1 human contributor to enWiksource (Danny) of having project tunnel vision.
The fact of the matter is that the problems discussed in this thread are a real concern for all of our projects, including Wikisource.
Any solution which would help us keep imaginary islands out of Wikisource would also likely help us keep imaginary primary sources out of Wikisource.
Collectively we need to figure out how to work together better across the project and linguistic barriers that divide us. Simply putting our heads in the sand and pretending that the difficulties of openness are limited to enwiki is counterproductive.
--- Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/1/06, Luiz Augusto lugusto@gmail.com wrote:
WikiMedia isn't only WikiPedia. I'm on wikibreak
in anothers wikis and now
edit only in Wikisource. I can't find any problem
with encyclopedic articles
because my home wiki is intended to host only
primary sources.
English Wikipedia have your on mailing list and
wikipedia-l is intended to
be a mailing list for global issues on Wikipedia
projects. The
question of credibility is relevant to all Wikimedia projects, but
attempts in talk about
encyclopedia credibility is not relevant to all
Wikimedia projects.
It's funny that you'd effectively accuse the person who is probably the #1 human contributor to enWiksource (Danny) of having project tunnel vision.
Danny is a huge contributor at Wikisource. I don't see why a person stating they dislike something or the way something is handled should be taken as a knock on the person who brought it up. Danny bringing this sort of thing is up is not suddenly new or something particular to Danny. However the fact that something has been done in the past does not mean it can never be objected to now or in the future.
The fact of the matter is that the problems discussed in this thread are a real concern for all of our projects, including Wikisource.
Any solution which would help us keep imaginary islands out of Wikisource would also likely help us keep imaginary primary sources out of Wikisource.
Collectively we need to figure out how to work together better across the project and linguistic barriers that divide us. Simply putting our heads in the sand and pretending that the difficulties of openness are limited to enwiki is counterproductive.
I don't disagree with this but you are missing the point of the criticism. People from all sorts of projects come here when they have hit a brick wall When they have a problem or a question they *cannot* handle within their own community. When they can find no solution, no answer, on their own someone suggests asking foundation-l and they do. They often get very little help. They may get a large response, but generally very little help.
Now en.WP has an amazing amount of resources. REsources which are very focused on en.WP. To remind you of this I will quote what I was told by david gerard when pointing out the unbalenced amount of development resources at en.WP
"That is: if your project doesn't get its favourite bugs fixed, it's not favouritism to en:wp - it's your project not contributing to the development. These are volunteers, if you recall."
So en.WP has many, many of "their" volunteers. Manpower that is unbelievable to the wider Wikimedia community. But now, and this just not about Porchesia, when en.WP has a problem. When en.WP has this problem it is brought straight to this list to ask the attention and help of this wider Wikimedia community. Now any other project, tries their hardest to solve a problem themselves before coming here. But en.WP with their massive resources and manpower. en.WP skips the step of working on the problem within the project and comes straight here to use the resources of the wider Wikimedia community. And the wider Wikimedia community is supposed to work on this with the hope there might be some carryover to their own home project. Still when the home project has a problem, they are not given answers and solutions. I was told to "adjust my expectations to reality". Many others are told that they must figure it out "within the community". But no one except en.WP comes here until they exhausted the ability of thier home community. I am just asking that en.WP approach this list as every other project in the wider Wikimedia community does.
Birgitte SB
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On 02/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
So en.WP has many, many of "their" volunteers. Manpower that is unbelievable to the wider Wikimedia community. But now, and this just not about Porchesia, when en.WP has a problem. When en.WP has this problem it is brought straight to this list to ask the attention and help of this wider Wikimedia community. Now any other project, tries their hardest to solve a problem themselves before coming here. But en.WP with their massive resources and manpower. en.WP skips the step of working on the problem within the project and comes straight here to use the resources of the wider Wikimedia community. And the wider Wikimedia community is supposed to work on this with the hope there might be some carryover to their own home project. Still when the home project has a problem, they are not given answers and solutions. I was told to "adjust my expectations to reality". Many others are told that they must figure it out "within the community". But no one except en.WP comes here until they exhausted the ability of thier home community. I am just asking that en.WP approach this list as every other project in the wider Wikimedia community does.
You speak as if Danny's message going here was anything to do with some implied collective laziness on the part of en:wp as an amorphous mass, rather than entirely Danny's own personal decision. Me, I'm somewhat surprised he didn't send it to wikien-l at all.
- d.
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 02/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
So en.WP has many, many of "their" volunteers. Manpower that is unbelievable to the wider
Wikimedia
community. But now, and this just not about Porchesia, when en.WP has a problem. When en.WP
has
this problem it is brought straight to this list
to
ask the attention and help of this wider Wikimedia community. Now any other project, tries their
hardest
to solve a problem themselves before coming here.
But
en.WP with their massive resources and manpower. en.WP skips the step of working on the problem
within
the project and comes straight here to use the resources of the wider Wikimedia community. And
the
wider Wikimedia community is supposed to work on
this
with the hope there might be some carryover to
their
own home project. Still when the home project has
a
problem, they are not given answers and solutions.
I
was told to "adjust my expectations to reality".
Many
others are told that they must figure it out
"within
the community". But no one except en.WP comes
here
until they exhausted the ability of thier home community. I am just asking that en.WP approach
this
list as every other project in the wider Wikimedia community does.
You speak as if Danny's message going here was anything to do with some implied collective laziness on the part of en:wp as an amorphous mass, rather than entirely Danny's own personal decision. Me, I'm somewhat surprised he didn't send it to wikien-l at all.
- d.
I speak as if it is part of a pattern, this thread had been a prime example of the pattern when I first commented. I think this is sign of how much all the political stuff has consumed us, that so many people can only see this thread as an attack on Danny, instead of an honest disscussion on an issue. I don't know. I suppose all the board elections talk had me into believing many people were sincerely interested in en.WP dominance issues. I suppose that was really all just politics. I will say no more on this issue, and instead simply remain silent on threads I believe belong elsewere. I am truly sorry for causing all the drama here, I misread the situation.
Birgitte SB
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On 10/2/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I speak as if it is part of a pattern, this thread had been a prime example of the pattern when I first commented. I think this is sign of how much all the political stuff has consumed us, that so many people can only see this thread as an attack on Danny, instead of an honest disscussion on an issue. I don't know. I suppose all the board elections talk had me into believing many people were sincerely interested in en.WP dominance issues. I suppose that was really all just politics. I will say no more on this issue, and instead simply remain silent on threads I believe belong elsewere. I am truly sorry for causing all the drama here, I misread the situation.
What I see is a pattern of paranoia about enwiki dominance.
It' is insulting that you'd believe my interpretation of events was based on a misguided belief that there was any political assault on Danny. I said exactly what I meant: it's foolish for anyone to claim that the thread arose out of an over emphasis on enwiki because the person who started it is one of the top contributors on a non enwiki project.
In any case, I pointed out how I sincerely believe that this example is important for all our projects, although it happened to be one that happened on our largest project.
It seems to me that we can best address issues of "en.WP dominance" by communicating and being sensitive to and aware of the challenges that participants in each project face... I don't see how silencing discussion is going to further that goal.
In any case, I welcome you to configure your mail client to ignore my messages ... Although I have no intention of doing the same to you: I have a real interest in hearing about the problems you faced and the solutions you use to address them.
--- Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/2/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I speak as if it is part of a pattern, this thread
had
been a prime example of the pattern when I first commented. I think this is sign of how much all
the
political stuff has consumed us, that so many
people
can only see this thread as an attack on Danny, instead of an honest disscussion on an issue. I
don't
know. I suppose all the board elections talk had
me
into believing many people were sincerely
interested
in en.WP dominance issues. I suppose that was
really
all just politics. I will say no more on this
issue,
and instead simply remain silent on threads I
believe
belong elsewere. I am truly sorry for causing all
the
drama here, I misread the situation.
What I see is a pattern of paranoia about enwiki dominance.
It' is insulting that you'd believe my interpretation of events was based on a misguided belief that there was any political assault on Danny. I said exactly what I meant: it's foolish for anyone to claim that the thread arose out of an over emphasis on enwiki because the person who started it is one of the top contributors on a non enwiki project.
In any case, I pointed out how I sincerely believe that this example is important for all our projects, although it happened to be one that happened on our largest project.
It seems to me that we can best address issues of "en.WP dominance" by communicating and being sensitive to and aware of the challenges that participants in each project face... I don't see how silencing discussion is going to further that goal.
In any case, I welcome you to configure your mail client to ignore my messages ... Although I have no intention of doing the same to you: I have a real interest in hearing about the problems you faced and the solutions you use to address them. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I believe you must be badly misinterpreting me to think I would wish to ignore your messages. However I replied off-list as I don't think evryone else wants to read another long email from me.
Birgitte SB
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--- Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
In any case, I pointed out how I sincerely believe that this example is important for all our projects, although it happened to be one that happened on our largest project.
It seems to me that we can best address issues of "en.WP dominance" by communicating and being sensitive to and aware of the challenges that participants in each project face... I don't see
how
silencing discussion is going to further that goal.
I have been thinking about this alot today. I badly mishandled this disscussion. Although I cannot say that I believe I was wrong on any particular point, it was not handled well. The fact that you have misinterpted my intentions to such a degree proves this. I will try to atone for this by giving the disscussion I believe you would like to have another chance. So every one please add more information about the problems and soulutions as well as sharing your own expeirence in these things from your home project.
THE PROBLEM *Wiki's inherently lend themselves to vandalasim and a subset of this is hoaxs.
*On a open wiki there is little or no efferot to prevent such things, but rather many people working to fix these things afterwards.
*Once a hoax survives a week or so it will likely be around indefinately
SOULTION PATROLLERS
*People who care that the wiki does not fill up with hoaxes patrol recent changes and new pages with the goal to immediately remove such material. They use numerous tool to do this as efficiently as possible including bots, rss feeds, and software features like "patrolled edits" ( anyone know of other tools?)
**Pro: Problems are removed quickly
**Pro: With the right tools this can be amazingly efficient
**Con: Requires a large amount of manpower
**Con: Tools are not centrally distrubuted some require uncommon technical skills to use
**Con: On the rare occasion a problem is missed or fools the patrollers it is around indefinately
**Con: Depending on the which tools are used (and especially when using a combination of uncomplimetary tools) it is possible several people may patroll one "good" edit/article which is a waste of effort. This is because only "bad" pages are guranteed to be visibly marked.
SOLUTION VISiBLY APPROVED
This solution involves pages being examined more closely than is done by patrollers and being somehow marked as approved which may or may not involved limiting further edits.
**Pro: Pages being closely examined means no hoaxes will get "approved"
**Pro: Approval is very very slow process (when thinking of ALL pages)
**Pro: Since "good" pages are visibly marked there is no wasted effort
**Con: options which include limitations on future edits may prevent further improvents. (This can largly be addressed by the development of more subtle means of "limiting future edits")
**Con: Since "good" pages are visibly marked the "approvers" are in effect a more visible subset of the population than patrollers are (since anyone nominate a "bad" page for deletion). This can be a particular problem in wiki's where there is a large amount of distrust amoung the population.
SOULTION PERIODIC REVIEW
Periodic reveiw of all -pages. Either all at once or in a rotating basis (Jan #-C, Feb D-F, etc.)
**Pro: Every page is eventually review (Nothing slips through)
**Con: Very very labor intensive
**Con: Slow process. Hoaxes could exist for as longer as a year depending on how fast the rotations or how long periodic is.
**Con: Wasted of effort. "Good" pages that have bee previously review and have little or no changes recieves the same amount of attention as pages that are a high-risk to be a hoax.
**Con: Such a large task means that at some point pages will only recieve a cursoury review.
BIRGITTE SB EXPERIENCE
Ok I will now share my own experience with these methods at en.WS. Firrst I need to explain that we do not have the manpower to approach any of these solutions in a serious comprehensive manner. What I mean by that it is I believe there to be a vandalism and maybe even hoax on en.WS right now. There is not a directed effort to combat these thisngs at en.WS. I know several people, including myself, try to keep an eye on it, but I am sure you all can imagine the results "trying to keep and eye on it" brings.
*Patrolling en.WS has patrolled edits enabled. I am unsure if anyone besides my self makes use of this feature, although I suspect Zhalshadar does. There is no effort to patrol *every* edit. I particularly try to patrol the edits of IP's. If use Recents changes to hide all logged in users and to hide patrolled edits, and after marking a significant number of IP edits patroled I can manage to display a weeks worth. So I try to do this about once a week but I know there are gaps . . . I do not know if anyone makes a particular effort to patrol New Pages or New Users.
We also have pgkbot and an vandalism IRC channel. At many times there is someone keeping an eye on this channel but not at all times . . .
Many editors at en.WS (by which I mean 6-10) regularly make a cusoury checks of Recent Changes for anything suspicous looking whenever they are working on the site. Some of these people work on the site daily, others much less often.
Watchlists are barely useful for vandalism. There are too few people watching. However they are useful for the few vandal magnets we have. Like "Macbeth"
In all en.WS does not have the manpower availble to allow the "Patroller" solution to be effective.
*Visbly marked approved pages
Because en.WS cannot manage to patrol against vandalism, we rely on this method. All proofread pages may be nominated for protection under our text integrity policy. This is obviously successful, but has the downside of completely preventing future edits including interwiki links. This is not so bad as it seems because of two things. One Wikisource inherently deals with a large amount of static material, so there is littler that anyone would want to add to a proofread page. Two this paolicy was in force before the lang subdomiain split so people from other languages are usually aware in the event thaty want to add an interwiki and they know to just request it be added on the talk page. I imagine many people will be upset at the thought of a wiki protecting pages, but proofreading would be pointless without this or some other similar method (section protection requested nine months ago or the likely scenario that the community will agree to use stable versions). Please realize that proofreading far more labor intensive than even fact checking is at a WP project. No one really likes that pages are protected it is simply the lesser of two evils. The outstandingly strong support that was gathered for section protection is evidence that WS is simply making do until a more subtle method is developed. And that is out of our hands.
*Review of All Pages
en.WS has no intention of doing this periodically. However we effectively went throught this method when we adopted a header template to be placed on all pages. Over 20,000 pages have been "handled" with only the dregs of around 1,500 pages to be done. Of course many pages only got a cursory look, but we did take care of many problems with this method. Vandalism, hoaxs, as well as copyvios (which is a more significant problem a WS projects)
AS I said above I am sure that en.WS has existing vandalism right now. And it will sit there until someone finds it. Here I suppose my expectations are properly adjusted to reality. en.WS simply does not have the manpower to comprehensively deal with the vandalism it recieves. Currently I am happy to ensure to work of proofreaders is secure and the the rest of the site will eventually be taken care of. If one of our readers finds something we have missed I would hope they would alert of to it so we may fix it.
Birgitte SB
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On 10/3/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
BIRGITTE SB EXPERIENCE
Ok I will now share my own experience with these methods at en.WS. Firrst I need to explain that we do
just for information, a description of how nl.wp deals with anonymous edits is located at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/RC_patrol_on_nl.wikipedia
henna
The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed.
There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations on en:wp by people who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed it therefore didn't exist.
Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged with the WMF?
- d.
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed.
There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations on en:wp by people who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed it therefore didn't exist.
Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged with the WMF?
- d.
Obviously not (Copyright?). I think you are beind sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain. "How to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed" is only a the problem with the proposed solution of requiring sources. I think this is large enough problem that requiring sources should be thrown out of consideration for this particular problem.
Birgitte SB
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On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed. There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations on en:wp by people who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed it therefore didn't exist. Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged with the WMF?
Obviously not (Copyright?). I think you are beind sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.
It is somewhat reductio ad absurdum. But there are those on en: who seriously advocate that a reference can only be good if it's easy for a normal person (presumably in the US) to find.
"How to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed" is only a the problem with the proposed solution of requiring sources. I think this is large enough problem that requiring sources should be thrown out of consideration for this particular problem.
Coming up with a rigid rule that would catch this hoax without causing ridiculous quantities of collateral damage will not be easy. [[:en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is marked "guideline" but phrased didactically, so when applied robotically - and people do apply it robotically - is disastrous in practice, gutting articles and causing the sort of PR disasters over living bios it was written didactically so as to avert.
- d.
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed. There's enough trouble with stupid AFD
nominations
on en:wp by people who couldn't find the subject on Google and
presumed
it therefore didn't exist. Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is
lodged
with the WMF?
Obviously not (Copyright?). I think you are beind sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.
It is somewhat reductio ad absurdum. But there are those on en: who seriously advocate that a reference can only be good if it's easy for a normal person (presumably in the US) to find.
This is crazy, but I witnessed articles being damaged by having the easest source cited for every assertion. Even when this source does not exactly match. I believe part of this problem comes from FA. People seems to want to be able to bring an article up to FA without visiting a library. I would rather FA accept articles without being so heavily cited, if they will not make an effort judge the quality of the source. I think outside of controversial articles, no sources at all, is better than misrepresented or low quality sources.
"How to come up with a sources criterion that can't be
hoaxed"
is only a the problem with the proposed solution
of
requiring sources. I think this is large enough problem that requiring sources should be thrown
out of
consideration for this particular problem.
Coming up with a rigid rule that would catch this hoax without causing ridiculous quantities of collateral damage will not be easy. [[:en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is marked "guideline" but phrased didactically, so when applied robotically - and people do apply it robotically - is disastrous in practice, gutting articles and causing the sort of PR disasters over living bios it was written didactically so as to avert.
I think this is true of most rules and a good reason to *avoid* coming up with a rigid rule to catch hoaxes. They key is to find them quickly. I think en.WP generally does a good job of this. I imagine they patrol articles much more effectively than other communities. (Or else a ten-month old hoax would get a more matter-of-fact recation) I think the key is finding a way to identify "high-risk" articles. If we could manage to ggenerate a list of month-old articles sorted by least number of edits, and keep it low profile. It may be enought to do a second round of "patrols" off such a list. Although that doesn't help with any currently existing hoaxes.
Birgitte SB
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On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I think this is true of most rules and a good reason to *avoid* coming up with a rigid rule to catch hoaxes. They key is to find them quickly. I think en.WP generally does a good job of this. I imagine they patrol articles much more effectively than other communities. (Or else a ten-month old hoax would get a more matter-of-fact recation)
Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards - three months is the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.
I think the key is finding a way to identify "high-risk" articles. If we could manage to ggenerate a list of month-old articles sorted by least number of edits, and keep it low profile. It may be enought to do a second round of "patrols" off such a list. Although that doesn't help with any currently existing hoaxes.
Something like Special:Unwatchedpages on en.wp - visible to admins only? It's worth a try...
--- Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I think this is true of most rules and a good
reason
to *avoid* coming up with a rigid rule to catch hoaxes. They key is to find them quickly. I
think
en.WP generally does a good job of this. I
imagine
they patrol articles much more effectively than
other
communities. (Or else a ten-month old hoax would
get
a more matter-of-fact recation)
Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards
- three months is
the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.
I think the key is finding a way to identify "high-risk" articles.
If we
could manage to ggenerate a list of month-old
articles
sorted by least number of edits, and keep it low profile. It may be enought to do a second round
of
"patrols" off such a list. Although that doesn't
help
with any currently existing hoaxes.
Something like Special:Unwatchedpages on en.wp - visible to admins only? It's worth a try...
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages is. It might be unmanagable. I don't even know if my idea is technicly possible, but people do amazing things with the toolserver. Another idea is if a Lunar Changes list can be generated. Basically the same as Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most recent change was exactly one-month ago.
Birgitte SB
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On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages is. It might be unmanagable. I don't even know if my idea is technicly possible, but people do amazing things with the toolserver. Another idea is if a Lunar Changes list can be generated. Basically the same as Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most recent change was exactly one-month ago.
"at least one month since last change" would be a good one!
- d.
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages
is.
It might be unmanagable. I don't even know if my
idea
is technicly possible, but people do amazing
things
with the toolserver. Another idea is if a Lunar Changes list can be generated. Basically the same
as
Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most
recent
change was exactly one-month ago.
"at least one month since last change" would be a good one!
- d.
Such a list would great to go through and review to find any existing problems. Once this list has reviewed, however I think Lunar Changes (which would be a revolving door like RC) would be a good way to say on top of the issue.
I guess we are talking about to issues at once.
*How to find any hoaxes that are currently existing?
Complete review of existing high risk pages (david's static list) It is managable that people will push through a montrous list once but not continually.
*How to catch the inevitable future problems that slip through RC patrol?
Something like "Lunar changes" (which again may not be technically possible,) where you have a managble amount of article to continually check.
Birgitte SB
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On 03/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Well I don't know how big Special:Unwatched Pages is. It might be unmanagable. I don't even know if my idea is technicly possible, but people do amazing things with the toolserver. Another idea is if a Lunar Changes list can be generated. Basically the same as Recent Changes but it would be pages whose most recent change was exactly one-month ago.
"at least one month since last change" would be a good one!
Hum. This is a database-dump-solution, but...
Rank pages by "suspicion factors". Long time since last touched is one; no inbound links ditto. Marked as unsourced? Heavily edited by only one person? Heck, google the name and see if there's much response. All crude metrics, but put together they *might* be productive.
On 03/10/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Hum. This is a database-dump-solution, but... Rank pages by "suspicion factors". Long time since last touched is one; no inbound links ditto. Marked as unsourced? Heavily edited by only one person? Heck, google the name and see if there's much response. All crude metrics, but put together they *might* be productive.
:-D I like it! A simple matter of programming, of course ...
- d.
On 10/3/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards - three months is the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.
I've never seen any data that would support that... You know something I don't?
I've certainly done my share of removing year old intentionally bogus data from enwiki...
The fact is that once something has survived initial review on watchlists and recent changes, the chances of it being fixed stay fairly low. (this comment based on the curve of ages of deleted images, which have a spike around 7-10 days but assume a low and uniform deletion probability after that)
On 03/10/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/3/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Ten months is pretty extreme by en.wp hoax standards - three months is the usual top of the range before it gets caught by someone, IME.
I've never seen any data that would support that... You know something I don't?
I've certainly done my share of removing year old intentionally bogus data from enwiki...
Interesting. This is just my gut feeling based on the ones I've run across and the ones I've seen reported; I haven't pulled together any numbers.
The fact is that once something has survived initial review on watchlists and recent changes, the chances of it being fixed stay fairly low. (this comment based on the curve of ages of deleted images, which have a spike around 7-10 days but assume a low and uniform deletion probability after that)
Hum. Technical study suggestion: Is it possible to identify all VFD/AFD debates which include the word "hoax", and figure out the age-at-deletion of all articles correspondingly deleted?
On 10/3/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 03/10/06, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed. There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations on en:wp by people who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed it therefore didn't exist. Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged with the WMF?
Obviously not (Copyright?). I think you are beind sarcastic, but it is hard to be ceratain.
It is somewhat reductio ad absurdum. But there are those on en: who seriously advocate that a reference can only be good if it's easy for a normal person (presumably in the US) to find.
"How to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed" is only a the problem with the proposed solution of requiring sources. I think this is large enough problem that requiring sources should be thrown out of consideration for this particular problem.
Coming up with a rigid rule that would catch this hoax without causing ridiculous quantities of collateral damage will not be easy. [[:en:Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] is marked "guideline" but phrased didactically, so when applied robotically - and people do apply it robotically - is disastrous in practice, gutting articles and causing the sort of PR disasters over living bios it was written didactically so as to avert.
Requiring sources is only partly helpful, as well.
It takes near-zero effort to set up multiple apparently widely separated websites with coverage of a subject.
The amount of effort required to write up a faked book and self-publish it out via one of the print-on-demand publishers, and then get it into Amazon, isn't really all that much either.
Afraid that people will call you on that? How much effort does it take to make a fake page scan of a book claiming to have been printed prior to the advent of ISBN numbers? Oh, your library doesn't have a copy? Not suprising, only 5,000 copies were printed, ...
Intend to do it as an April 1 related event? You can probably get reliable news sources and personalities who are verifyably known to the world to assist, if you find the ones with senses of humor.
If we have, or ever have in the future, people who are seriously interested in hoaxing Wikipedia there is practically very little we can possibly do to prevent it. We can set a barrier for entry which is high enough to keep the amateurs and vandals deterred... and I like the ideas people are posting for additional review projects and hasn't-been-edited-for-a-month lists and such. I was thinking about this a couple of days ago; for example, on en.wikipedia we have around a thousand admins and active trustable editors. With a million articles, we could scan everything in a year, at a rate of 3 articles a person a day. A few minutes of fact checking (and, while you're there, putting in some references if it doesn't already have them, etc) each day would go a long ways towards helping catch low-effort hoaxes.
I had been thinking that we could create an automatic list, which people could then be randomly assigned articles out of to go check, and then confirm back that they'd checked it somehow (put a tag on the talk page?). Or break it down by topic, so people don't get article subjects they can't reasonably fact check other than via google.
David Gerard wrote:
The problem is how to come up with a sources criterion that can't be hoaxed.
There's enough trouble with stupid AFD nominations on en:wp by people who couldn't find the subject on Google and presumed it therefore didn't exist.
Will we forbid print sources unless a scan is lodged with the WMF?
Exactly, and it's pointless for some people to become so panicked over this. That will accomplish nothing.
Strangely, there is an advantage to having an article with no sources at all. Readers will be more inclined to doubt it, and question its accuracy. There is nothing easier than hoaxing the sources for a fact. An honest editor will find such tactics unthinkable, and will be quite rightly upset when he's questioned. A dishonest one (who is more than merely stupid) can feign any attribute of an honest editor.
Honest editors can still misunderstand their sources, or with a simple error that adds or omits the word "not" can get the subject completely wrong. Fact checking means hard work. It means more than berating those who have failed to provide detailed sources, and whining when honest editors bite back. In my dreams I imagine a Wikipedia where those who question the facts of others are also curious enough to seek out corroborating information.
Ec
On 10/1/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/1/06, Luiz Augusto lugusto@gmail.com wrote:
WikiMedia isn't only WikiPedia. I'm on wikibreak in anothers wikis and
now
edit only in Wikisource. I can't find any problem with encyclopedic
articles
because my home wiki is intended to host only primary sources. English Wikipedia have your on mailing list and wikipedia-l is intended
to
be a mailing list for global issues on Wikipedia projects. The question of credibility is relevant to all Wikimedia projects, but attempts in talk about encyclopedia credibility is not relevant to all Wikimedia projects.
It's funny that you'd effectively accuse the person who is probably the #1 human contributor to enWiksource (Danny) of having project tunnel vision.
I didn't accused, my reply is original placed at the top of message. This reply, in a small piece of your message, Gregory, is a vestige of a reply to your specific message.
This list have lots and lots and lots and lots of subjects not directly related to Foundation, but lots and lots and lots and lots of subjects related to English Wikipedia or Wikipedia in general. This is the point. If I need to read/write something related to a Wikipedia project, I do it in another mailing list.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 10/1/06, Luiz Augusto lugusto@gmail.com wrote:
WikiMedia isn't only WikiPedia. I'm on wikibreak in anothers wikis and now edit only in Wikisource. I can't find any problem with encyclopedic articles because my home wiki is intended to host only primary sources. English Wikipedia have your on mailing list and wikipedia-l is intended to be a mailing list for global issues on Wikipedia projects. The question of credibility is relevant to all Wikimedia projects, but attempts in talk about encyclopedia credibility is not relevant to all Wikimedia projects.
It's funny that you'd effectively accuse the person who is probably the #1 human contributor to enWiksource (Danny) of having project tunnel vision.
Get off it! I see no implicit accusation of anybody in Luiz's comments. There are valid arguments for and against, in deciding the list on which this thread belongs. For one person to disagree with another on this kind of thing does not imply accusation. Assume good faith.
The fact of the matter is that the problems discussed in this thread are a real concern for all of our projects, including Wikisource.
Any solution which would help us keep imaginary islands out of Wikisource would also likely help us keep imaginary primary sources out of Wikisource.
Sources of any kind, not just primary ones. Erik's "source" for [[Porchesia]] might have kept the island there even longer than no source at all. Too bad for our hoaxer that he didn't think of that.
Ec
On 10/1/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
While I generally agree with Birgitte, I have to take exception here. Porchesia appeared on one of our projects for ten months. It was caught quite by accident, when someone pointed it out to me. This raises an important issue, relevant to all major languages and projects--what are we doing to ensure the veracity of the information we provide. This is especially relevant, given the other discussion about spamming, which Brad raised. If we can have a fake island with 300,000 imaginary people get through for ten months, we can certainly have a fake company get through for 10 months. This company can even get people to read up on them and take their money. And if you look the company up, it is on Wikipedia, Answers, and any other mirror. This is a serious problem. Wikipedia provides credibility.
[snip]
Given our position and the respect we receive, Wikipedia in all languages is an open target for spammers and con artists. I believe that this is also an issue that should be addressed by the larger community, and not just limited to WP:EN.
The thing is, there is no larger community. The foundation consists essentially of the board, with a few hundred people giving advice and voting on a minority of the board membership. Management and membership of the foundation is almost completely separate from management and membership of en.wp or any of the other projects. The membership of the projects, it seems, wants to keep it this way. I get the sense that we don't, for the most part, want the foundation coming in and micromanaging things.
There is a tension between accuracy and openness.
Are you sure about this? I thought the whole point of Wikipedia was that accuracy and openness were *not* in conflict. I thought I remembered Jimmy Wales bragging about how Wikipedia kept getting more open - does that mean it was also getting less accurate?
If there really is a tension between accuracy and openness, then it's quite clear which side we want to be on. Openness, after all, is merely a means to an end. With that in mind, in what ways do you suggest making the Wikimedia projects less open?
Anthony
Please excuse me, Gerad, for paroding your response to my conncerns a few weeks ago below.
/parody
Most of the new page patrolers are volunteers. There is certainly too much work in the first place. It is a stellar performance what so few people do with so little investment.
Their first priority is to watch out for libel, combine this with the growth that we experience this is a big job. There are several big jobs that have been postponed time and again for many many months (OK I don't know en.WP well enough to know what these jobs are but surely these patrolers have to-do list they haven't been able to get to).
When you find yourself another editor to patrol new pages for you, it does not mean that they will catch everything; the only thing achieved is that you are closer to getting it all. This is not to say that the patrolling is busted, it is that your expectations are not compatible with reality.
/end parody
/sarcasm Perhaps you should just adjust your expectations to the reality of wiki and realize evetually this stuff will be found (or maybe it won't) But just be patient and realize people are doing their best and they will eventually get to the articles you are concerned with. /end sarcasm
I honestly don't know the answer to your problem Danny. I do wonder whether you tried addressing this on the wikipedia-l list and came here only after getting an unsatifactory respose there. But you should know better than to come to this list for *solutions*. And so should I for that matter.
But what I really want to say is this. I think these people in the larger Wikimedia community, whose help you want coming up with creative solutions. I think these people will be caring a great deal more to help you with en.WP's problem when they start recieving help with their own problems. Here is a very incompetet list of questions/problems which did not recieve the help looked for here.
*Wikibooks: How do develop policy to disallow "unethical manual" (i.e. How to commit a crime)
*Wikibooks: (and many others) Information on trademarks and how to correctly reprint Wikimedia material because of trademarks.
*Wikibooks: Is Wikimedia a publisher per the GFDL?
*ru.WP: What does the WMF require/recommend a bare minumum for Verifiability policy?
*general: when will we have new steward eletions?
*Wikiversity: NPOV & academic freedom for research
*hu.WP: The Foudation's position on non-free images
*nl.WP: MAny internal fights they seem to have problems handling
*general: Foundation position on logo derivatives
All these things and many more were brought up on this list by someone looking for help. No clear solutions was arrrived at on this list. I hope the problems were solved off-list in the original projects that asked them. There are more people at en.WP itself capable of solving "Porchesia" than there are on this list. You should be talking to the people who actually do new pages patrol and asking them what they need to do a better job.
Birgitte SB
--- daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
While I generally agree with Birgitte, I have to take exception here. Porchesia appeared on one of our projects for ten months. It was caught quite by accident, when someone pointed it out to me. This raises an important issue, relevant to all major languages and projects--what are we doing to ensure the veracity of the information we provide. This is especially relevant, given the other discussion about spamming, which Brad raised. If we can have a fake island with 300,000 imaginary people get through for ten months, we can certainly have a fake company get through for 10 months. This company can even get people to read up on them and take their money. And if you look the company up, it is on Wikipedia, Answers, and any other mirror. This is a serious problem. Wikipedia provides credibility.
There are two problems with this. Both are, in my mind, serious ethical issues.
- Given our size and reputation, we are in the
process of transforming from a medium that reports fact to a medium that can, potentially, create fact. Colbert and the elephants is symptomatic of that (for people who don't know the reference, see Jimmy's opening remarks at Wikimania). In the particular case of Porchesia, someone has just argued on the mailing list that it should be kept because it is now an internet meme. The fact that it has been on Wikipedia for ten months ensures that
(_http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html_
(http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-October/054735.html)
). This is worrying. Are we now reporting on what we report? Where do we draw the line between reporting information and creating information? I believe that this issue is sufficiently serious to warrant discussion among all Wikimedia participants, not just the people on WP:EN.
- The second issue is more sinister. Several months
ago we received a call in the office from a major police agency. Someone created a false identity and used it to extract money from unsuspecting victims. When people questioned how important he was, they were told, "Just look me up on Wikipedia." Were the people who gave him money stupid? Yes. So are the people who answer tragic emails telling them that their long lost but fabulously wealthy relatives were killed in car crash in Togo. And yet, people continue to answer those emails. The article on EN was quietly deleted, the man was likely arrested, but the problem remains. Given our position and the respect we receive, Wikipedia in all languages is an open target for spammers and con artists. I believe that this is also an issue that should be addressed by the larger community, and not just limited to WP:EN.
There is a tension between accuracy and openness. Citizendium and Everything2 are two extreme answers to that tension. If, however, we are to maintain both, we must address the tension when it occurs. We must come up with creative solutions. And that is something that involves more than just the English Wikipedia.
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On 10/1/06, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
There is a tension between accuracy and openness. Citizendium and Everything2 are two extreme answers to that tension. If, however, we are to maintain both, we must address the tension when it occurs. We must come up with creative solutions. And that is something that involves more than just the English Wikipedia.
I do agree. I think we have to come to a shared understanding (which includes our readers) that wikis are open workspaces, and we need to define clear processes by which content can gradually (!) reach the state of being a verified, reliable encyclopedia article, textbook, or whatever. Porchesia is merely a good, fairly value-neutral example of a general problem.
If the article about Porchesia had told me, as a reader, in no uncertain terms that the content has undergone no verification whatsoever and could be complete bollocks, whereas the article about, say, Albert Einstein, has undergone verification for sources, comprehensiveness, neutrality, and so on, then I would be much more comfortable with the current model. The fact is that, with the exception of a very small number of articles, we put rubbish on the same level as elaborate work that has continued for several months, and that is a disservice both to our readers and to our community.
Whether we are talking about companies or fictitious islands, I do not believe "block, nuke, and salt the Earth more aggressively!" is the answer. That's partially because blocking is a very, very flawed tool (it's very easy to circumvent), and "hard" security measures in a fundamentally open environment tend to only inspire people to find clever ways to circumvent them and to make themselves even more of a PITA than they already are. Of course we should block individuals where appropriate, but I'm not convinced that increasing the amount of blocking and nuking is going to help us much right now.
I do believe "identify, label and improve more systematically!" is the way to go. In this process, we need to not only have a "gold standard" of articles which we strive for, but should also make the entire process of article review more transparent and participatory. We may not have a "featured revision" for each article, but at least we should have a "best known available" one, and make it clear what exactly has and has not been done.
As is typical in such cases, the article on Porchesia was copyedited before it was discovered to be a hoax. That someone chose to copyedit it should not be held against them; it's perfectly fine that people work in the areas where they are strong. Some people love fixing typos or adding category metadata, no matter how many quality initiatives we launch. However, that it was _only_ copyedited and not fact-checked could have been made clear to the reader.
For some further thoughts on this, see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence/WikiQA
I believe that the problem of developing a collaborative, scalable, functional quality annotation model for wikis is as complex as all the work that we've done so far. Nor is this problem limited to certain areas, like companies or living people. It's just that inaccurate articles, vandalism and hoaxes hurt us more in some areas than in others.
This problem is not going to be solved by writing a couple of software features. It needs a long term, ongoing collaboration of interested developers and Wikimedians. And you are absolutely correct that this is not an en.wp issue, but a Foundation issue. I will have a discussion about this with members of the Technical Team once the very important and pressing need of single login is finally resolved.
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