Dear WikimediaUK, Cultural Partnerships & Foundation-l mailing lists,
On behalf of Wikimedia UK I am pleased to formally announce the second edition of the GLAM-WIKI conference - this time to be held in London at the British Museum on the 26th and 27th of November. The purpose of this conference is to bring the UK and European GLAM sector [gallery, library, archive & museum] into direct conversation with the Wikimedia community so we can build a better understanding of our common purpose - sharing culture - and how to assist each to best do that. After all, we are here for the same reason, for the same people, in the same medium so we might as well do it together :-)
As the British Museum will be generously hosting this event, and today marks the anniversary of the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone (hence today's Feature Article on the English Wikipedia), we thought it would be an auspicious time to declare that registration is now open. The registration price for Wikimedians is £20.
You can read all the details at: *http://glamwiki.org* http://glamwiki.org and the WM-UK blogpost just published: http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2010/09/announcing-registration-now-open-for-gl...
Wikimedia France will be hosting edition three of GLAM-WIKI one week later in December at the *Assemblée nationale* in Paris, and Wikimedia Australia hosted edition one last year at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, so we're in good company.
Keynote speakers at this conference will be:
- Author, activist, blogger and London local *Cory Doctorowhttp://craphound.com/ * - Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation *Sue Gardnerhttp://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner * - Director of the Columbia University copyright advisory office *Dr. Kenneth Crewshttp://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/about/director-and-staff/ *
And many other presenters besides! Some are already listed on the conference page and many more will be announced by @wikimediaUKhttp://twitter.com/wikimediauk
Wikimedians from the UK and further afield are invited to register for this conference. If you are in contact with professionals in the GLAM sector, please mention this event to them too. Moreover, if you would like to come and moderate a session please write to me directly with your proposed session.
If you have any questions you can write to me privately, leave them on the event's talkpage or reply on the mailing list.
Sincerely, Liam [[witty lama]]
Convener, GLAM-WIKI:UK & Wikipedian in Residence, British Museum wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
I have recently been reading the Ambassadors, by Henry James. Here is the version from 2005:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Ambassadors&oldid=32161591
Here is the current version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors
They are both very bad. So, two points. (1) Wikipedia was very bad in 2005. (2) It hasn't changed since 2005.
This raises a number of important questions.
I have recently been reading the Ambassadors, by Henry James. Here is the version from 2005:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Ambassadors&oldid=32161591
Here is the current version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors
They are both very bad. So, two points. (1) Wikipedia was very bad in 2005. (2) It hasn't changed since 2005.
This raises a number of important questions.
Aha.
Use [[Special:Random]] and check 1000 articles, not 1.
[[very bad]] - write the definition (here, not on Wikipedia :).
przykuta
On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 5:02 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
I have recently been reading the Ambassadors, by Henry James. Here is the version from 2005:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Ambassadors&oldid=32161591
Here is the current version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors
They are both very bad. So, two points. (1) Wikipedia was very bad in 2005. (2) It hasn't changed since 2005.
This raises a number of important questions.
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O
That was awkward!
Meant to be:
On a day in 2005, my hair was too long and not well kept.
On a day in 2010, it was again too long and not well kept.
Obviously in 5 years, nothing has changed.
~Nathan
I thought you were awarding the post a score of 0 :)
Ryan Kaldari
On 9/14/10 3:05 PM, Nathan wrote:
That was awkward!
Meant to be:
On a day in 2005, my hair was too long and not well kept.
On a day in 2010, it was again too long and not well kept.
Obviously in 5 years, nothing has changed.
~Nathan
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Ryan Kaldari wrote:
I thought you were awarding the post a score of 0 :)
It would be all too cheap a jibe to attribute to a self-proclaimed philosopher an ignorance of scientific method and assert that blind adoption of the continuity principle is contrary to that method; however, it is fair to say that his interests largely lie in medieval philosophy and may not reach as far as the works of Karl Popper, let alone the Renaissance.
So I will not level that accusation.
Obviously the original e-mail belonged on wiki-en-l and was off-topic for foundation-l. But I can't understand why so many different people think it is a good idea to respond to off-topic posts in kind. Please stop participating in the off-topic contests.
Birgitte SB
--- On Tue, 9/14/10, Phil Nash phnash@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
From: Phil Nash phnash@blueyonder.co.uk Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005? To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, September 14, 2010, 6:44 PM Ryan Kaldari wrote:
I thought you were awarding the post a score of 0 :)
It would be all too cheap a jibe to attribute to a self-proclaimed philosopher an ignorance of scientific method and assert that blind adoption of the continuity principle is contrary to that method; however, it is fair to say that his interests largely lie in medieval philosophy and may not reach as far as the works of Karl Popper, let alone the Renaissance.
So I will not level that accusation.
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Hey guys whats going on in this thread
2010/9/15 Phil Nash phnash@blueyonder.co.uk
Ryan Kaldari wrote:
I thought you were awarding the post a score of 0 :)
It would be all too cheap a jibe to attribute to a self-proclaimed philosopher an ignorance of scientific method and assert that blind adoption of the continuity principle is contrary to that method; however, it is fair to say that his interests largely lie in medieval philosophy and may not reach as far as the works of Karl Popper, let alone the Renaissance.
So I will not level that accusation.
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Putting this in context. If I were to donate, say £1,500 of gross income to WMF, it would be reasonable to ask what this money was for: how it was helping. The WMF goal is to "collect and developing educational content and to disseminate it effectively and globally". Wikipedia is the main engine of this project, and is the reason I imagine most people want to donate money. Would I donate such a sum of money if I thought that it was not actually helping develop educational content? Hence my question: has Wikipedia actually changed since 2005? Has any educational content been added (I am not including porn star bios as educational content, clearly).
I had three answers:
1. The first that this was seriously off-topic. I don't understand why not.
2. The second compared Wikipedia to going to the barbers, getting a nice trim, and then the hair getting all messy again. That is clearly not a reason for donating money, quite the reverse. How is the money actually going to help, if it all is going to be a mess again in 6 months? I appreciate a lot of it goes to support the servers and IT and things, but wouldn't it be more efficient simply to stop people editing, clear up some of the mess, and lock Wikipedia down? That would be much cheaper. And I would be willing to fund a clean-up effort.
3. I wasn't quite sure of Phil Nash's objection, I think he was trying to say that there is no evidence of Wikipedia failing to develop or grow. To that, I say that if I am going to donate money, I would like clear evidence that Wikipedia is progressing in the direction I would hope.
I would like to point out I do support a number of charities. I help the Warburg institute with its library acquisition fund. This makes hard-to-get books available to students. I don't support WMF, and I won't until there is clear evidence the money would be used for a good purpose. What do others think? Why do people donate to WMF?
Peter
How would locking Wikipedia down fulfill the mission to collect all the educational information known. Information changes constantly, new information becomes available constantly, and new material gets added to old articles constantly. I myself just added some new detail to an article within the past week.
-----Original Message----- From: Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, Sep 16, 2010 12:07 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Putting this in context. If I were to donate, say £1,500 of gross income to MF, it would be reasonable to ask what this money was for: how it was elping. The WMF goal is to "collect and developing educational content and o disseminate it effectively and globally". Wikipedia is the main engine f this project, and is the reason I imagine most people want to donate oney. Would I donate such a sum of money if I thought that it was not ctually helping develop educational content? Hence my question: has ikipedia actually changed since 2005? Has any educational content been dded (I am not including porn star bios as educational content, clearly). I had three answers: 1. The first that this was seriously off-topic. I don't understand why ot. 2. The second compared Wikipedia to going to the barbers, getting a nice rim, and then the hair getting all messy again. That is clearly not a eason for donating money, quite the reverse. How is the money actually oing to help, if it all is going to be a mess again in 6 months? I ppreciate a lot of it goes to support the servers and IT and things, but ouldn't it be more efficient simply to stop people editing, clear up some f the mess, and lock Wikipedia down? That would be much cheaper. And I ould be willing to fund a clean-up effort. 3. I wasn't quite sure of Phil Nash's objection, I think he was trying to ay that there is no evidence of Wikipedia failing to develop or grow. To hat, I say that if I am going to donate money, I would like clear evidence hat Wikipedia is progressing in the direction I would hope. I would like to point out I do support a number of charities. I help the arburg institute with its library acquisition fund. This makes hard-to-get ooks available to students. I don't support WMF, and I won't until there s clear evidence the money would be used for a good purpose. What do thers think? Why do people donate to WMF? Peter
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How would locking Wikipedia down fulfill the mission to collect all the educational information known.
Information changes constantly, new information becomes available constantly, and new material gets added to old articles constantly. I myself just added some new detail to an article within the past week.
That's just what I am disputing. Take the article on England's greatest philosopher
http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/06/william-of-ockham.html
It has actually shrunk since 2005. It contains hardly anything of William's thought, and most of it is plagiarised from other sources anyway. And there is very little new information coming out about Ockham. The Cambridge companion contains 16 pages about him. Or take the SEP, which is online http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/ and is the model of what an article should be. Wikipedia should avoid being as technical as the SEP, but there is a place for a well-written and accessible article about Ockham. Why isn't there one?
SEP is also accepting donations, why shouldn't I give money to that?
Anyone who is interested in supporting a specialist work should give money to that work. Wikipedia is a general work however. There are those who would rather support a general work, which has one set of rules, navigation and procedures across the project, rather than fifteen specialized works which all function differently from each other.
It's apples and mushrooms, you can't compare them sensibly.
-----Original Message----- From: Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, Sep 16, 2010 12:29 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
How would locking Wikipedia down fulfill the mission to collect all the
educational information known. nformation changes constantly, new information becomes available onstantly, and new material gets added to old articles constantly. myself just added some new detail to an article within the past week. That's just what I am disputing. Take the article on England's greatest hilosopher http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/06/william-of-ockham.html It has actually shrunk since 2005. It contains hardly anything of William's hought, and most of it is plagiarised from other sources anyway. And there s very little new information coming out about Ockham. The Cambridge ompanion contains 16 pages about him. Or take the SEP, which is online ttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/ and is the model of what an rticle should be. Wikipedia should avoid being as technical as the SEP, ut there is a place for a well-written and accessible article about Ockham. hy isn't there one? SEP is also accepting donations, why shouldn't I give money to that?
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Well, Peter, it all depends on what metrics you wish to use when deciding where to spend your money. In 2005, the English Wikipedia had less than half the number of articles it has now. Dozens of projects in existence today weren't even started in 2005; in some cases, they are the only online reference sources in existence for that language. Commons was a fledgling project, as was Wikisource (which also now has projects in many languages). Only a tiny number of articles were considered of high enough quality to be "featured" in 2005; that number has grown exponentially at the same time as quality standards for featured content has become more rigorous.
Can the content of all our projects be improved? Of course it can; even our highest quality content benefits from periodic review and improvement. I'd suggest, however, that the progress of only a handful of the 12 million articles and files across the WMF group is probably not the best way to assess the overall quality of the project. You are, as always, entitled to your own views on that perspective.
Risker/Anne
On 16 September 2010 15:29, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.comwrote:
How would locking Wikipedia down fulfill the mission to collect all the educational information known.
Information changes constantly, new information becomes available constantly, and new material gets added to old articles constantly. I myself just added some new detail to an article within the past week.
That's just what I am disputing. Take the article on England's greatest philosopher
http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/06/william-of-ockham.html
It has actually shrunk since 2005. It contains hardly anything of William's thought, and most of it is plagiarised from other sources anyway. And there is very little new information coming out about Ockham. The Cambridge companion contains 16 pages about him. Or take the SEP, which is online http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/ and is the model of what an article should be. Wikipedia should avoid being as technical as the SEP, but there is a place for a well-written and accessible article about Ockham. Why isn't there one?
SEP is also accepting donations, why shouldn't I give money to that?
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On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Putting this in context. If I were to donate, say £1,500 of gross income to WMF, it would be reasonable to ask what this money was for: how it was helping. The WMF goal is to "collect and developing educational content and to disseminate it effectively and globally". Wikipedia is the main engine of this project, and is the reason I imagine most people want to donate money. Would I donate such a sum of money if I thought that it was not actually helping develop educational content? Hence my question: has Wikipedia actually changed since 2005? Has any educational content been added (I am not including porn star bios as educational content, clearly).
I had three answers:
- The first that this was seriously off-topic. I don't understand why
not.
- The second compared Wikipedia to going to the barbers, getting a nice
trim, and then the hair getting all messy again. That is clearly not a reason for donating money, quite the reverse. How is the money actually going to help, if it all is going to be a mess again in 6 months? I appreciate a lot of it goes to support the servers and IT and things, but wouldn't it be more efficient simply to stop people editing, clear up some of the mess, and lock Wikipedia down? That would be much cheaper. And I would be willing to fund a clean-up effort.
- I wasn't quite sure of Phil Nash's objection, I think he was trying to
say that there is no evidence of Wikipedia failing to develop or grow. To that, I say that if I am going to donate money, I would like clear evidence that Wikipedia is progressing in the direction I would hope.
I would like to point out I do support a number of charities. I help the Warburg institute with its library acquisition fund. This makes hard-to-get books available to students. I don't support WMF, and I won't until there is clear evidence the money would be used for a good purpose. What do others think? Why do people donate to WMF?
Peter
Peter, a few points. You misunderstood my comment, but I'll let that go.
People who donate to Wikimedia do so for a number of reasons, chief among them (I suspect) is to support keeping the lights on. That is, the ongoing maintenance of the project in its current form. Most donors are probably aware that the content is generated by volunteers who will not receive donated funds. I'm not sure why you infer that donors are, or should be, expecting to see some content improvement as a result of their funding. A related point is that the Wikimedia projects are not just fancy concepts that might be useful someday down the road; they are highly useful right now, which is why they have been used by hundreds of millions of people.
Finally, cherry picking a few articles to determine if the English encyclopedia has improved in the last 5 years is not exactly an analytically robust method. I suspect any such method would find that there has been an enormous increase in both the volume and the quality of content since 2005.
You are, and have been, committed to several conclusions about Wikipedia - that the idea of an editable encyclopedia itself is fatally flawed, that it is unduly oriented to topics of interest to "the masses", and that the community and its bureaucracy are hopefully corrupt and ineffective. That, combined with an absolute disregard for community norms and rules, makes you both a steadfast and imperfect critic. So I don't imagine anyone expects you to donate or is surprised that you don't. Few banned editors do.
Nathan
I'm hoping I'm not understanding this criticism:
' that it is unduly oriented to topics of interest to the masses",'
Are you stating that Peter is stating that a general encyclopedia should not be oriented to topics of interest to the masses? Who exactly is the audience if not the masses?
-----Original Message----- From: Nathan nawrich@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, Sep 16, 2010 12:59 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com> wrote: Putting this in context. If I were to donate, say £1,500 of gross income to WMF, it would be reasonable to ask what this money was for: how it was helping. The WMF goal is to "collect and developing educational content and to disseminate it effectively and globally". Wikipedia is the main engine of this project, and is the reason I imagine most people want to donate money. Would I donate such a sum of money if I thought that it was not actually helping develop educational content? Hence my question: has Wikipedia actually changed since 2005? Has any educational content been added (I am not including porn star bios as educational content, clearly).
I had three answers:
1. The first that this was seriously off-topic. I don't understand why not.
2. The second compared Wikipedia to going to the barbers, getting a nice trim, and then the hair getting all messy again. That is clearly not a reason for donating money, quite the reverse. How is the money actually going to help, if it all is going to be a mess again in 6 months? I appreciate a lot of it goes to support the servers and IT and things, but wouldn't it be more efficient simply to stop people editing, clear up some of the mess, and lock Wikipedia down? That would be much cheaper. And I would be willing to fund a clean-up effort.
3. I wasn't quite sure of Phil Nash's objection, I think he was trying to say that there is no evidence of Wikipedia failing to develop or grow. To that, I say that if I am going to donate money, I would like clear evidence that Wikipedia is progressing in the direction I would hope.
I would like to point out I do support a number of charities. I help the Warburg institute with its library acquisition fund. This makes hard-to-get books available to students. I don't support WMF, and I won't until there is clear evidence the money would be used for a good purpose. What do others think? Why do people donate to WMF?
Peter
eter, a few points. You misunderstood my comment, but I'll let that go. People who donate to Wikimedia do so for a number of reasons, chief mong them (I suspect) is to support keeping the lights on. That is, he ongoing maintenance of the project in its current form. Most onors are probably aware that the content is generated by volunteers ho will not receive donated funds. I'm not sure why you infer that onors are, or should be, expecting to see some content improvement as result of their funding. A related point is that the Wikimedia rojects are not just fancy concepts that might be useful someday down he road; they are highly useful right now, which is why they have een used by hundreds of millions of people. Finally, cherry picking a few articles to determine if the English ncyclopedia has improved in the last 5 years is not exactly an nalytically robust method. I suspect any such method would find that here has been an enormous increase in both the volume and the quality f content since 2005. You are, and have been, committed to several conclusions about ikipedia - that the idea of an editable encyclopedia itself is atally flawed, that it is unduly oriented to topics of interest to the masses", and that the community and its bureaucracy are hopefully orrupt and ineffective. That, combined with an absolute disregard for ommunity norms and rules, makes you both a steadfast and imperfect ritic. So I don't imagine anyone expects you to donate or is urprised that you don't. Few banned editors do. Nathan _______________________________________________ oundation-l mailing list oundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org nsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Are you stating that Peter is stating that a general encyclopedia should not be oriented to topics of interest to the masses? Who exactly is the audience if not the masses?
I don't know what Nathan means here. I believe that an encyclopedia should be of popular interest, and be presented in a style that is appealing, even entertaining. However an encyclopedia should not be filled with trivia. Wikipedia, as we all know, is unduly biased to computer games, TV shows, pornography and much other material that is not educational or encyclopedic.
I dont understand how information about pornography, computer games, tv shows... is not educational. If I want to know whether Berle Ives was ever a guest star on Bewitched, why wouldn't we fulfill a request like that in project ?
-----Original Message----- From: Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, Sep 16, 2010 1:17 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Are you stating that Peter is stating that a general encyclopedia should
not be oriented to topics of interest to the masses? Who exactly is the audience if not the masses? I don't know what Nathan means here. I believe that an encyclopedia should e of popular interest, and be presented in a style that is appealing, even ntertaining. However an encyclopedia should not be filled with trivia. ikipedia, as we all know, is unduly biased to computer games, TV shows, ornography and much other material that is not educational or encyclopedic.
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Wjhonson" wjhonson@aol.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:34 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
I dont understand how information about pornography, computer games, tv shows... is not educational. If I want to know whether Berle Ives was ever a guest star on Bewitched, why wouldn't we fulfill a request like that in project ?
Then you are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'educational' I think.
Quote: "Then you are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'educational' I think. "
Perhaps the word you want is "academic". I'm sure a university might look down upon an encyclopedia of "Petticoat Junction" but that doesn't mean that Wikipedia should. That our work is "popular" and educational and not academic and yet has a large number, perhaps the majority, in academic articles, is why it appeals to the widest audience. That is a strength, not a weakness.
-----Original Message----- From: Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, Sep 16, 2010 1:41 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
----- Original Message ----- rom: "Wjhonson" wjhonson@aol.com o: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org ent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:34 PM ubject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
I dont understand how information about pornography, computer games, tv shows... is not educational. If I want to know whether Berle Ives was ever a guest star on Bewitched, why wouldn't we fulfill a request like that in project ? Then you are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'educational' I think.
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Wjhonson" wjhonson@aol.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:46 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Quote: "Then you are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'educational' I think. "
Perhaps the word you want is "academic".
No I meant 'educational'. I'm actually quite shocked by some of the things being said in this thread, and that the people who have said them are running Wikipedia. Does anyone else, apart from these two, have any views on what they have said? The WMF goal is about "collecting and developing educational content". Does that mean 'education' in the sense I have characterised it? I.e. bringing to the public subjects that are generally not ephemeral or trivial, and which are enduring and a monument to the human spirit, and generally noble and good, in a way that is interesting and accessible?
I would be interested in other people's views.
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Wjhonson" wjhonson@aol.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:46 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Quote: "Then you are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'educational' I think. "
Perhaps the word you want is "academic".
No I meant 'educational'. I'm actually quite shocked by some of the things being said in this thread, and that the people who have said them are running Wikipedia. Does anyone else, apart from these two, have any views on what they have said? The WMF goal is about "collecting and developing educational content". Does that mean 'education' in the sense I have characterised it? I.e. bringing to the public subjects that are generally not ephemeral or trivial, and which are enduring and a monument to the human spirit, and generally noble and good, in a way that is interesting and accessible?
I would be interested in other people's views.
I don't know about Will, but I don't think I have any particular influence or authority on Wikipedia. My schedule and interests have left me mostly an observer for the past six or ten months.
On 16 September 2010 21:53, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
No I meant 'educational'. I'm actually quite shocked by some of the things being said in this thread, and that the people who have said them are running Wikipedia. Does anyone else, apart from these two, have any views on what they have said? The WMF goal is about "collecting and developing educational content". Does that mean 'education' in the sense I have characterised it? I.e. bringing to the public subjects that are generally not ephemeral or trivial, and which are enduring and a monument to the human spirit, and generally noble and good, in a way that is interesting and accessible? I would be interested in other people's views.
Is it possible that, as a multiply sockpuppeting banned user, you just actually don't understand Wikipedia in any regard whatsoever?
- d.
Peter Damian wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Wjhonson" wjhonson@aol.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:46 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Quote: "Then you are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'educational' I think. "
Perhaps the word you want is "academic".
No I meant 'educational'. I'm actually quite shocked by some of the things being said in this thread, and that the people who have said them are running Wikipedia. Does anyone else, apart from these two, have any views on what they have said? The WMF goal is about "collecting and developing educational content". Does that mean 'education' in the sense I have characterised it? I.e. bringing to the public subjects that are generally not ephemeral or trivial, and which are enduring and a monument to the human spirit, and generally noble and good, in a way that is interesting and accessible?
I would be interested in other people's views.
You say you meant "educational", but it seems clear to me that your POV is that anything that is not "academic" is not "educational". Philosophy, your own subject, is not one to be approached lightly, yet which has been taught (at least in its principles) to primary school children in the UK in recent years; ideas of "right and wrong, fairness and justice", "why are we here and what do we do while we're here?" are always interesting concepts, whatever ones level of understanding, and while I don't see kids being taught the history of moral thought, or existentialism, it makes them think, which is what I believe education should be about.
Having said that, the idea of what constitutes "education" has changed somewhat majorly over that least 2000 years, and specifically the last 100 years in the UK, and whereas we no longer regard the ability to launch a spear into an enemy as a worthwhile talent to possess (and which can be taught), we now have systems that perform the same calculations, much faster, and with much more repeatability. We also have yet primitive AI systems that can achieve success rates approaching human capabilities, yet are mistrusted simply because in safety-critical or life-critical situations, they are perceived as inferior to human judgement- yet we see news reports of such failures by highly-qualified human professionals in those fields, and their consequences.
In the latter case, it's a matter of statistics, which brings me back to my original point in this thread- that taking an article at point A and later at point B in time, detecting "no improvement" (a surely subjective assessment) and thereby extrapolating to the whole of Wikipedia, cannot be sustained as a valid conclusion, as others have pointed out.
As for content generally, I have no objection to what you might call "popular culture", as long as it is treated properly; however, it's often written by editors who are unfamiliar with the difference between a blog and an encyclopedia and that is a challenge we face to educate those editors in reliable sourcing, encyclopedic tone, etc.
As for you, like "The Blues Brothers", you claim the moral high ground as if you were "on a mission from God", yet are not only banned from Wikipedia, but have expressed an intention to challenge from within, as a kind of breaching experiment, by complaining to our major donors that you have been prevented from adding "good content". In fact, you've tried this on several occasions, none of which have resulted in an perceived reduction on donations. That should tell you that apart from the various other banned malcontents who inhabit Wikipedia Review, you are alone, and very much so. I'd suggest you read C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures" essay; interpolate a third culture (say, pop music or reality tv) and extrapolate to how Wikipedia should be dealing philosophically and practically, with editors who, in good faith, want to add information of interest to themselves and their generation.
That's all, and "all the rest is silence".
Phil
I would appreciate it if people did not make reference to banned users unless it is relevant to the subject of this thread, which is about the nature of education, whether educational content is appropriate for Wikipedia, and whether encyclopedia is improving its coverage of educational content since 2005.
Regarding 'academic' and 'educational'. These are not the same. Friday's featured article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Today%27s_featured_article/September_... is about the Ormulum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormulum . This is a well-written article, which identifies the salient points and presents them clearly and in a way that interests the reader. It is not too long, and it covers a subject which is not trivial or ephemeral. But it is not academic. It is not written in an academic style, it does not present original research, and so on. It is a presentation of an academic subject intended to appeal to a mass audience.
Supporting my original claim, the article was mostly completed by 2005 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ormulum&oldid=29012831 . Note also that the two main authors of the article appear to have stopped contributing. If I were donating to Wikipedia, I would want to know why such talented editors were no longer contributing, and what efforts were being made to get them back. (Please note: I was not involved in writing this article).
With every kind wish,
Peter
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 1:54 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
I would appreciate it if people did not make reference to banned users
Is that because you're a banned user?
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 1:54 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Regarding 'academic' and 'educational'. These are not the same. Friday's featured article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Today%27s_featured_article/September_... is about the Ormulum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormulum . This is a well-written article, which identifies the salient points and presents them clearly and in a way that interests the reader. It is not too long, and it covers a subject which is not trivial or ephemeral. But it is not academic. It is not written in an academic style, it does not present original research, and so on. It is a presentation of an academic subject intended to appeal to a mass audience.
So you're arguing that this article is educational, but not academic, yet you acknowledge that subject itself is "academic." I think that is the sticking point; others see things that can be educational but not academic (neither an academic subject, nor in an academic style), but you appear to disagree. There is more to education than what is taught at Oxbridge.
As for progress since 2005 - unless I'm mistaken, all of your own work dates to after 2005. Would you not describe your own work as improving the encyclopedia from its 2005 state?
Nathan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan" nawrich@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 7:17 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
As for progress since 2005 - unless I'm mistaken, all of your own work dates to after 2005. Would you not describe your own work as improving the encyclopedia from its 2005 state?
Not at all. I began editing in 2003. William of Sherwood, which I wrote with Sara Uckelmann (a medieval specialist who no longer contributes http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_of_Sherwood&oldid=3315...
I rewrote the article Existence around then http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Existence&oldid=23936506 . You can see it now http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence with all those tags on that I didn't place there. The article is a mess, hacked around by a hundred different people. Zermelo set theory is another example
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zermelo_set_theory&diff=326066...
Note the edit by Randall Holmes -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Randall_Holmes
This was the period when a lot of serious and high-powered users were on the project and doing great stuff. Wikipedia started becoming really popular around then and the period 2005-7 saw some big changes. Vandalism started to rise a lot, and with it was the growth of the 'policeman' class of admin. This group generally didn't get on with the content creators and this period was mostly a war between the two groups. The content creators lost because they had no political power.
A serious study would be needed to confirm my observations, of course.
Kind regards,
Peter
To Notbod's long note.
To say Wikipedia's coverage is 'frighteningly large' is not the same as saying its coverage is 'even'.
On the list here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Core_topics_-_1,000 I have looked at Philosophy and nearly all the 11 articles there are horrifyingly bad. What sort of encyclopedia has no decent entry on Philosophy? Even the article [[Philosophy]] is a disaster. I have already noted the problem about [[Existence]]. On Religion, there is still no decent article on Theology. Science mathematics and technology are probably OK, as I have already noted (the problem is with the humanities). [[Logic]] is a disaster and I have long been planning (with Charles Stewart) a rewrite.
"There will always be more television programmes, long playing records, popular beat combos and innovative sex toys than there will be Einsteins, paradigm shifting scientific discoveries and philosophical enquiries." - of course but don't confuse that point with the question of which of these subjects should be included in an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia should have a bias towards what is enduring. What subjects will interest readers of the encyclopedia in 100 years time? I am not saying to ignore the trivial and ephemeral, but rather to give to emphasise what is truly enduring and notable from the POV of posterity.
But thanks at least for addressing the subject of this thread and not subjecting me to a tirade of abuse :)
Regards,
Peter
On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 3:59 AM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.comwrote:
To Notbod's long note.
To say Wikipedia's coverage is 'frighteningly large' is not the same as saying its coverage is 'even'.
On the list here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Core_topics_-_1,000 I have looked at Philosophy and nearly all the 11 articles there are horrifyingly bad. What sort of encyclopedia has no decent entry on Philosophy? Even the article [[Philosophy]] is a disaster. I have already noted the problem about [[Existence]]. On Religion, there is still no decent article on Theology. Science mathematics and technology are probably OK, as I have already noted (the problem is with the humanities). [[Logic]] is a disaster and I have long been planning (with Charles Stewart) a rewrite.
"There will always be more television programmes, long playing records, popular beat combos and innovative sex toys than there will be Einsteins, paradigm shifting scientific discoveries and philosophical enquiries." - of course but don't confuse that point with the question of which of these subjects should be included in an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia should have a bias towards what is enduring. What subjects will interest readers of the encyclopedia in 100 years time? I am not saying to ignore the trivial and ephemeral, but rather to give to emphasise what is truly enduring and notable from the POV of posterity.
But thanks at least for addressing the subject of this thread and not subjecting me to a tirade of abuse :)
Regards,
Peter
What would you suggest the Wikimedia Foundation do to address the coverage problem in the humanities? Employ academic experts to add content? Delete ephemera to improve the balance of topics?
----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan" nawrich@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 4:53 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
What would you suggest the Wikimedia Foundation do to address the coverage problem in the humanities? Employ academic experts to add content? Delete ephemera to improve the balance of topics?
There are always several steps to solving problems. The first is always to establish a consensus that there *is* a problem. Everyone, or at everyone who counts, needs to recognise that there is a serious problem and that it must be solved. Only until then can you progress to the next step, which is to consider methods of solving the problem.
Normally it is the first step that is the main difficulty. As it is in the present case: I don't see any consensus here (apart from a handful of other posts, such as Andreas above) that there is any problem.
On 18 September 2010 17:19, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Normally it is the first step that is the main difficulty. As it is in the present case: I don't see any consensus here (apart from a handful of other posts, such as Andreas above) that there is any problem.
You haven't demonstrated there is enough of a problem even to induce people here to jump into action, let alone the Foundation doing so. You've had several examples of the sort of quality survey that would demonstrate clearly not merely that there was a problem, but what its nature was and to what degree.
There are lots of people who complain about our humanities content, enough to say "perhaps there's a problem on the anecdotal evidence." The usual way to fix such systemic bias is to get people actually involved in writing in the areas in question. This is hard, but it's also the method that will actually work.
There are various methods to bootstrap such a process. e.g. What's the financial model for the SEP? It's under an all rights reserved licence, but it doesn't generate an income in any way I can see. If it were placed under a CC by-sa licence, that would not take away from the prestige of the SEP and would help get its content somewhere it was read.
e.g. A comparison would be the mathematics articles on en:wp. These were brought to higher quality by the goal of making a free content competitor to Wolfram Mathworld. They're not perfect, but they're really pretty good (if written at rather a high level). This was done by a group of mathematicians who bothered. So a start might be to get a group of philosophy experts and target the SEP.
- d.
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 5:46 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
You say
You haven't demonstrated there is enough of a problem even to induce people here to jump into action, let alone the Foundation doing so.
and then you say
There are lots of people who complain about our humanities content,
This seems contradictory. And in any case, the point you were replying to was that the main problem is recognising that there is a problem: your reply is symptomatic of that.
You've had several examples of the sort of quality survey that would demonstrate clearly not merely that there was a problem, but what its nature was and to what degree.
The best suggestion is to take a list of what any humanities scholar would regard as the most significant or important humanities articles. 100 of these, for example (and NOT using the Wikipedia importance-assessment method which is grossly flawed). We don't have to rely on subjective judgment. For philosophy, I could take the top 20 (by coverage) articles in a standard reference work (The Oxford Companion would be a start).
For assessment of quality there are various benchmarks that could be used, relying on standard reference works, for example, or other objective criteria. Andreas suggested one earlier: if standard reference works say that there are 3 components to a particular writer's work, does Wikipedia mention these? Does it assign due weight to these? And so on.
The usual way to fix such systemic bias is to get people actually involved in writing in the areas in question. This is hard, but it's also the method that will actually work.
How? Are you going to do this? How are you going to attract philosophers to Wikipedia? After 10 years, why hasn't the natural process of crowdsourcing already achieved this? In any case, the first step is to establish that there is a serious problem.
There are various methods to bootstrap such a process. e.g. What's the financial model for the SEP? It's under an all rights reserved licence, but it doesn't generate an income in any way I can see. If it were placed under a CC by-sa licence, that would not take away from the prestige of the SEP and would help get its content somewhere it was read.
The SEP, as I have already pointed out, is not a good model for a mass publication like Wikipedia. The style and approach required are quite different.
Peter
On 18 September 2010 18:05, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
You say
You haven't demonstrated there is enough of a problem even to induce people here to jump into action, let alone the Foundation doing so.
and then you say
There are lots of people who complain about our humanities content,
This seems contradictory.
Yes, that was unclear, sorry. You started trying to stir other people to action. I'm saying there may actually be a problem, but you haven't induced a convincing sense of urgency.
The usual way to fix such systemic bias is to get people actually involved in writing in the areas in question. This is hard, but it's also the method that will actually work.
How? Are you going to do this?
Nope. It would take a subject area expert who was good with Wikipedia to steer a project.
How are you going to attract philosophers to Wikipedia? After 10 years, why hasn't the natural process of crowdsourcing already achieved this? In any case, the first step is to establish that there is a serious problem.
You think so. Therefore you are stirred to action. I'm trying to post suggestions that would work.
There are various methods to bootstrap such a process. e.g. What's the financial model for the SEP? It's under an all rights reserved
The SEP, as I have already pointed out, is not a good model for a mass publication like Wikipedia. The style and approach required are quite different.
Yeah, the stye is completely different. But it would be a useful list of topics to make sure are covered. Same way the general encyclopedia was filled out, 2001-2005.
The key point is: if you want it to happen, you're going to need to make it happen yourself personally. Like most things worth doing. This means getting (a) good enough with Wikipedia editing that your changes tend to stick, which will lead to you being seen by the rest of the community as fitting in as a productive editor (b) recruiting others who would like decent quality articles in the topic area.
Note also that this is generic advice that applies to any topic area, and that pretty much this process is how WikiProjects work in practice. I'm not saying anything unusually difficult or weird here.
- d.
2010/9/18 Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 5:46 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
You say
You haven't demonstrated there is enough of a problem even to induce people here to jump into action, let alone the Foundation doing so.
and then you say
There are lots of people who complain about our humanities content,
This seems contradictory. And in any case, the point you were replying to was that the main problem is recognising that there is a problem: your reply is symptomatic of that.
You've had several examples of the sort of quality survey that would demonstrate clearly not merely that there was a problem, but what its nature was and to what degree.
The best suggestion is to take a list of what any humanities scholar would regard as the most significant or important humanities articles. 100 of these, for example (and NOT using the Wikipedia importance-assessment method which is grossly flawed). We don't have to rely on subjective judgment. For philosophy, I could take the top 20 (by coverage) articles in a standard reference work (The Oxford Companion would be a start).
For assessment of quality there are various benchmarks that could be used, relying on standard reference works, for example, or other objective criteria. Andreas suggested one earlier: if standard reference works say that there are 3 components to a particular writer's work, does Wikipedia mention these? Does it assign due weight to these? And so on.
The usual way to fix such systemic bias is to get people actually involved in writing in the areas in question. This is hard, but it's also the method that will actually work.
How? Are you going to do this? How are you going to attract philosophers to Wikipedia? After 10 years, why hasn't the natural process of crowdsourcing already achieved this? In any case, the first step is to establish that there is a serious problem.
The first (or the second) editor of Wikipedia was Larry Sanger, a philosopher. ; )
I think that the matter is really simple. Wikipedia is a special encyclopedia, it is written by volunteers. That volunteers are a subset of the world population who have Internet. Most of the knowledge of that population covers several topics with an high profile (general knowledge, science, tech, popular culture) but anothers with a medium or low quality (humanities, art, geoarticles of the third world, etc). The explanation is easy, 'advanced' Internet users who can waste their time and are skilled to 'edit a website' are those called geeks, most the time.
Doris Lessing article is acceptable, in quality and size. Most of the people only need a few pages of info about every topic. Those who need more pages must go to a library.
WMF have wasted many time and resources in creating a new interface, toolbar, usability improvements, etc. And not only in the Interwebs, also in the 'real life': Wikimanias, chapters, meet ups, GLAM, an other volunteers attracting events. Also, they are helping to the population in the south hemisphere to join us.
Also, Wikipedia was founded in 2001. I think that Wikipedians have done a great work in that years, this is a volunteer effort. Wikipedia is not finished, and probably, it will be never finished. In the future, perhaps a group of editors can create a wiki in Wikia about Doris Lessing. But that is very time consuming now.
Systemic bias is old, very old, you haven't discovered it. In the next decades, when computers and Internet will be almost 'ubiquous' that problem will be solved.
There are various methods to bootstrap such a process. e.g. What's the financial model for the SEP? It's under an all rights reserved licence, but it doesn't generate an income in any way I can see. If it were placed under a CC by-sa licence, that would not take away from the prestige of the SEP and would help get its content somewhere it was read.
The SEP, as I have already pointed out, is not a good model for a mass publication like Wikipedia. The style and approach required are quite different.
Peter
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello,
2010/9/18 Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan" nawrich@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 4:53 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
What would you suggest the Wikimedia Foundation do to address the coverage problem in the humanities? Employ academic experts to add content? Delete ephemera to improve the balance of topics?
There are always several steps to solving problems. The first is always to establish a consensus that there *is* a problem. Everyone, or at everyone who counts, needs to recognise that there is a serious problem and that it must be solved. Only until then can you progress to the next step, which is to consider methods of solving the problem.
I agree with that. The first step is to acknowkedge that there is a problem. But most people I have read about this topic even deny that. So we can't go further until this is accepted. BTW this is also the case on the French Wikipedia, so the issue is not restricted to the English Wikipedia.
Normally it is the first step that is the main difficulty. As it is in the present case: I don't see any consensus here (apart from a handful of other posts, such as Andreas above) that there is any problem.
Regards,
Yann
On 19 September 2010 09:52, Yann Forget yannfo@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with that. The first step is to acknowkedge that there is a problem. But most people I have read about this topic even deny that. So we can't go further until this is accepted. BTW this is also the case on the French Wikipedia, so the issue is not restricted to the English Wikipedia.
Let's assume there's a problem. What's your plan of action? How does it differ from the usual way of dealing with these issues (getting interested people together, setting up a wikiproject and getting to work)?
- d.
I agree with that. The first step is to acknowkedge
that there is a problem.
But most people I have read about this topic even deny
that.
So we can't go further until this is accepted. BTW this is also the case on the French Wikipedia, so
the issue is not
restricted to the English Wikipedia.
Let's assume there's a problem. What's your plan of action? How does it differ from the usual way of dealing with these issues (getting interested people together, setting up a wikiproject and getting to work)?
The problems in this area are
(1) demanding subject matter, requiring some familiarity with the topic area to be able to contribute effectively (2) the relative scarcity of editors who have prior knowledge in these areas.
So "throwing more editors at the Humanities problem" through a WikiProject may not work in this case. Getting students and academics involved might.
As reported in the press, there is an ongoing WikiProject to improve Wikipedia's Public Policy coverage, through collaboration with university professors and their students. It is funded by a $1.2 million Stanton Foundation grant.
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/05/11/wikipedia-heads-to-school/
The Foundation has said that it hopes this is only the first of many such collaborations with universities. Now, how do you go about setting a project like this in motion?
Did the Stanton Foundation offer a grant that was specifically designed to improve this topic area? Or did Wikimedia determine that this was a topic area that needed improvement? A mixture of both?
What kind of observations or data analyses did the Wikimedia and/or Stanton Foundation use to establish that there was a need in this particular topic area?
What kind of evidence is needed to establish that there is a similar need and public interest in another topic area?
A.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Andreas Kolbe" jayen466@yahoo.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2010 1:48 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
(1) demanding subject matter, requiring some familiarity with the topic area to be able to contribute effectively (2) the relative scarcity of editors who have prior knowledge in these areas.
So "throwing more editors at the Humanities problem" through a WikiProject may not work in this case. Getting students and academics involved might.
Agree with this. Let's throw in a further reason: there are positive *disincentives* to editing Wikipedia in this area. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Owl#Wikipedia.27s_accuracy_and_credib... I know the philosopher who wrote this: well-regarded in his area of expertise, and has made positive contributions to Wikipedia. Read the reasons he gives. He stopped contributing in 2006. Or this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mel_Etitis#My_attitudes_to_Wikipedia_.28an...
by another well-regarded philosopher, also an administrator. Stopped editing in 2007. Or this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nsalmon
Salmon is a highly respected philosopher, who edited under his own name. He left, saying "I would strongly urge you to leave the editing of articles concerning philosophy and/or philosophers to genuine experts. You simply lack the understanding and expertise required to assess whether an edit is a genuine improvement or an obvious and cowardly sniper attack (as with the insertion in question)." Note further down I tried to persuade him to stay (as I have done with a number of academic philosophers). I haven't succeeded with any of them. One of them was incredulous that I should want to persist with it. "Hello! I've just stumbled across the latest episode in your peculiar relationship with this Sisyphean project. I still don't understand why you bother. " http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Peter_Damian&diff=pr... . Or here "This article [analytic philosophy] is typical Wikipedia on philosophy -- an accumulation of wildly uneven contributions by diverse hands. (Interestingly, the quality generally goes south the farther the article progresses.)" http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Analytic_philosophy&diff=... . Or the person who emailed me last week saying " really need help to do a rewrite of [[X]], which is a terrible mess, and I posted on theWikiproject philosophy page knowing I'd almost certainly get no response. There are so few people with philosophy training on WP that we literally can't afford to lose a single one".
I could find plenty more like that. Summary: it is not a matter of "rounding up" potentially interested editors who have the necessary expertise. It's not that there is no incentive, it's that there is a strong disincentive. Note that most of the professional philosophers who have edited Wikipedia, stopped editing between 2005-7, which bears out the point I am making that something bad happened during that period. "My basic attitude remains unchanged, but as Wikipedia becomes more popular, more and more an more people are using it to advertise/puff themselves or their friends. There are therefore more genuinely unencyclopædic articles being added now" http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mel_Etitis&diff=prev&...
On 09/19/2010 06:48 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
the issue is not
restricted to the English Wikipedia.
Let's assume there's a problem. What's your plan of action? How does it differ from the usual way of dealing with these issues (getting interested people together, setting up a wikiproject and getting to work)?
The problems in this area are
(1) demanding subject matter, requiring some familiarity with the topic area to be able to contribute effectively (2) the relative scarcity of editors who have prior knowledge in these areas.
So "throwing more editors at the Humanities problem" through a WikiProject may not work in this case. Getting students and academics involved might.
As reported in the press, there is an ongoing WikiProject to improve Wikipedia's Public Policy coverage, through collaboration with university professors and their students. It is funded by a $1.2 million Stanton Foundation grant.
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/05/11/wikipedia-heads-to-school/
The Foundation has said that it hopes this is only the first of many such collaborations with universities. Now, how do you go about setting a project like this in motion?
I'm not entirely sure how accurate this is, so I'm just making a raw conjecture here that is completely unsupported by facts other than perhaps by general observations:
Is it possible that the problem with the humanities-related articles on Wikipedia has more to do with the lack of an existing culture of "copyleft" or public domain collaboration? It has taken literally decades of effort that go back even a couple of decades earlier of similar efforts to put together what is today the "open source movement" that has produced things like Linux, the GNU tools, and software like Apache. Wikipedia is a product of this environment too, where many of those who have participated in developing open source software don't hesitate to at least add a couple of paragraphs to Wikipedia.
I also don't see any sort of social stigma to having a very experienced and skilled rocket engineer write or correct a Wikipedia article about a particular model of a rocket. In fact that may be a resume enhancement if you can point to a Wikipedia article that you have written and brought to Featured Article status. Heck, most engineering managers would be impressed that you can write a coherent sentence in the first place, much less get it "published" even in a forum like Wikipedia.
Needless to say, articles like the Boeing CST-100 article is very much up to date and shows regular edits where the quality of the article is constantly improving. If you've never heard about this spacecraft, it would be a good one to read BTW. Not "Featured Article" quality, but an example of a new article where the collaborative nature of Wikipedia is its strength and where there isn't a lack of quality editors participating. The first edit on this article was just a year ago and for what is known is an exhaustive article on the topic.
When I see those involved with the Humanities, it is a very different environment. I merely mentioned to one historian that I was writing a Wikipedia article and wanted to ask him a relatively minor question that could easily be answered.... I was just trying to find the source for some information he wrote on a website to see if there might be some additional information I could use in a related Wikipedia article. Instead, he unleashed on me how I was wasting my time and how I should stay away from Wikipedia if I knew what was good for me. On top of that, he mentioned that as a professor he would automatically flunk a student out of his class (not just give an "F" on the assignment) if he found a student even consulting Wikipedia for an initial overview of a topic. There was that much hostility to the project.
BTW, I agree that Wikipedia shouldn't be cited as a source, but I don't think the Encyclopedia Britannica should be cited either. There has been plenty of ink spilled on tis topic that I need not go further. The use of Wikipedia to find good sources for a topic, however, should be something emphasized. Links to secondary and primary sources is something that ought to be a strength of Wikipedia.
The problem, to me, is even fostering a collaborative and copyleft meme among those who work in the humanities. This is the problem with humanities related articles on Wikipedia, where it is a symptom of a much larger cultural problem with this particular academic discipline rather than something specific to just Wikipedia. I don't think there is a "magic bullet" here but I do think it is something that needs attention.
This also would seem to me as something that will get corrected over time... as long as we are not talking a mere timespan of just five or six years but are looking forward in a generation or two. There is a generation growing up with Wikipedia, and when those kids get into college, start to study the humanities and see that Wikipedia is very weak on those topics but goes into incredible depth on topics like Palladium, they are going to start writing those other articles that is currently the complaint about this thread. I don't think it is something to necessarily blow millions of dollars upon, but it is something that should be raised or discussed in academic forums where appropriate. It also is a generational issue.
-- Robert Horning ____________________________________________________________ Refinance Now 3.7% FIXED $160,000 Mortgage for $547/mo. FREE. No Obligation. Get 4 Quotes! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL3241/4c969c472bda2c807d8st03vuc
On 20/09/2010 00:26, Robert S. Horning wrote:
On 09/19/2010 06:48 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
the issue is not
restricted to the English Wikipedia.
Let's assume there's a problem. What's your plan of action? How does it differ from the usual way of dealing with these issues (getting interested people together, setting up a wikiproject and getting to work)?
The problems in this area are
(1) demanding subject matter, requiring some familiarity with the topic area to be able to contribute effectively (2) the relative scarcity of editors who have prior knowledge in these areas.
So "throwing more editors at the Humanities problem" through a WikiProject may not work in this case. Getting students and academics involved might.
As reported in the press, there is an ongoing WikiProject to improve Wikipedia's Public Policy coverage, through collaboration with university professors and their students. It is funded by a $1.2 million Stanton Foundation grant.
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/05/11/wikipedia-heads-to-school/
The Foundation has said that it hopes this is only the first of many such collaborations with universities. Now, how do you go about setting a project like this in motion?
I'm not entirely sure how accurate this is, so I'm just making a raw conjecture here that is completely unsupported by facts other than perhaps by general observations:
Is it possible that the problem with the humanities-related articles on Wikipedia has more to do with the lack of an existing culture of "copyleft" or public domain collaboration? It has taken literally decades of effort that go back even a couple of decades earlier of similar efforts to put together what is today the "open source movement" that has produced things like Linux, the GNU tools, and software like Apache. Wikipedia is a product of this environment too, where many of those who have participated in developing open source software don't hesitate to at least add a couple of paragraphs to Wikipedia.
Linux, Apache, and the GNU Tools were the work of a handful of people. Others have come along and added a bit here or there or fixed something or other but I bet that if I were to look at the core source code for Emacs to day it wouldn't be that much different from when I worked on it 20 years ago.
Software changes either work or they don't and any change ought to be testable to demonstrate that it adds some new feature or fixes something broken. But there is a problem with software changes in that most changes tend to degrade the overall quality of the product in some way. Overtime, unless someone steps in and does a rewrite the code becomes a mess, and it happened one change at a time.
The same is true of wikipedia articles, edit by edit, they tend to degrade. There comes a point when they are 'done' and they knob polishers need to be told to bugger off and leave them alone.
On 09/19/2010 06:52 PM, wiki-list@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote:
On 20/09/2010 00:26, Robert S. Horning wrote:
I'm not entirely sure how accurate this is, so I'm just making a raw conjecture here that is completely unsupported by facts other than perhaps by general observations:
Is it possible that the problem with the humanities-related articles on Wikipedia has more to do with the lack of an existing culture of "copyleft" or public domain collaboration? It has taken literally decades of effort that go back even a couple of decades earlier of similar efforts to put together what is today the "open source movement" that has produced things like Linux, the GNU tools, and software like Apache. Wikipedia is a product of this environment too, where many of those who have participated in developing open source software don't hesitate to at least add a couple of paragraphs to Wikipedia.
Linux, Apache, and the GNU Tools were the work of a handful of people. Others have come along and added a bit here or there or fixed something or other but I bet that if I were to look at the core source code for Emacs to day it wouldn't be that much different from when I worked on it 20 years ago.
Software changes either work or they don't and any change ought to be testable to demonstrate that it adds some new feature or fixes something broken. But there is a problem with software changes in that most changes tend to degrade the overall quality of the product in some way. Overtime, unless someone steps in and does a rewrite the code becomes a mess, and it happened one change at a time.
The same is true of wikipedia articles, edit by edit, they tend to degrade. There comes a point when they are 'done' and they knob polishers need to be told to bugger off and leave them alone.
While I appreciate extending the analogy, you are missing my point here. Geeks have been used to the philosophy of collaboratively written documents (including software) for quite some time and this was ingrained into at least a significant sub-set of technologically minded people for quite some time. It is this culture of sharing with one another and having no stigma of sharing your work and letting potentially millions of others poke at your work, tweak it or even trash it.
It isn't just this software but the tens of thousands of other applications that have been built and shared with the world. Wikipedia was formed from this community where sharing this kind of information was even a second nature. Indeed it has been encouraged for people of a technical nature to share the information they know with one another.
What I'm trying to point out is that a similar sub-culture within the community that works on arts and literature is such a minority that you might as well not really pay attention to it. Certainly academia isn't embracing Wikipedia for multiple reasons. That may be part of it as those in an academic situation tend to be a minority in technical fields but tend to dominate those with studies in the humanities. They are also hesitant to work collaboratively and even when that happens it tends to be very small groups... not groups of dozens or hundreds involved. A paper on physics may have hundreds of co-authors, but a similar academic paper on Greek Mythology may only have a couple authors or a single author. This is a cultural difference that can't be understated.
I should also state here this is something that isn't just with Wikipedia but all of the Wikimedia projects to some extent or another. Wikibooks and Wikiversity are both tech-heavy for many of the same reasons, and this even creeps into some of the other Wikimedia projects too.
Promotion of Wikipedia can help, but it is a systemic issue and a generational one too. Throwing the doors open and a little bit of advertising isn't going to help here, other than as a very long terms strategy. I'm suggesting that it isn't something that is going to be solved overnight, but that I do think over time there will eventually be some strong contributors in these areas.... but it certainly will be slower in terms of pick-up from what has been the case for technology articles. The examples cited earlier I believe are being cherry picked and are not wholly representative of Wikipedia.
Efforts to recruit help to Wikipedia are useful, but at the same time we shouldn't be changing the nature of the project either to attract some of the curmudgeons. Essential aspects of Wikimedia projects such as the ability for "anybody" to edit, openness, and an egalitarian attitude toward fellow editors is something that shouldn't be forgotten.
-- Robert Horning ____________________________________________________________ Globe Life Insurance $1* Buys $50,000 Life Insurance. Adults or Children. No Medical Exam. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL3241/4c96d35cd15e0c882c1st03vuc
On 9/19/2010 8:21 PM, Robert S. Horning wrote:
On 09/19/2010 06:52 PM, wiki-list@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote:
On 20/09/2010 00:26, Robert S. Horning wrote:
I'm not entirely sure how accurate this is, so I'm just making a raw conjecture here that is completely unsupported by facts other than perhaps by general observations:
Is it possible that the problem with the humanities-related articles on Wikipedia has more to do with the lack of an existing culture of "copyleft" or public domain collaboration? It has taken literally decades of effort that go back even a couple of decades earlier of similar efforts to put together what is today the "open source movement" that has produced things like Linux, the GNU tools, and software like Apache. Wikipedia is a product of this environment too, where many of those who have participated in developing open source software don't hesitate to at least add a couple of paragraphs to Wikipedia.
Linux, Apache, and the GNU Tools were the work of a handful of people. Others have come along and added a bit here or there or fixed something or other but I bet that if I were to look at the core source code for Emacs to day it wouldn't be that much different from when I worked on it 20 years ago.
Software changes either work or they don't and any change ought to be testable to demonstrate that it adds some new feature or fixes something broken. But there is a problem with software changes in that most changes tend to degrade the overall quality of the product in some way. Overtime, unless someone steps in and does a rewrite the code becomes a mess, and it happened one change at a time.
The same is true of wikipedia articles, edit by edit, they tend to degrade. There comes a point when they are 'done' and they knob polishers need to be told to bugger off and leave them alone.
While I appreciate extending the analogy, you are missing my point here. Geeks have been used to the philosophy of collaboratively written documents (including software) for quite some time and this was ingrained into at least a significant sub-set of technologically minded people for quite some time. It is this culture of sharing with one another and having no stigma of sharing your work and letting potentially millions of others poke at your work, tweak it or even trash it.
It isn't just this software but the tens of thousands of other applications that have been built and shared with the world. Wikipedia was formed from this community where sharing this kind of information was even a second nature. Indeed it has been encouraged for people of a technical nature to share the information they know with one another.
What I'm trying to point out is that a similar sub-culture within the community that works on arts and literature is such a minority that you might as well not really pay attention to it. Certainly academia isn't embracing Wikipedia for multiple reasons. That may be part of it as those in an academic situation tend to be a minority in technical fields but tend to dominate those with studies in the humanities. They are also hesitant to work collaboratively and even when that happens it tends to be very small groups... not groups of dozens or hundreds involved. A paper on physics may have hundreds of co-authors, but a similar academic paper on Greek Mythology may only have a couple authors or a single author. This is a cultural difference that can't be understated.
I think you two may be talking about issues that overlap as much as they are distinct. Perhaps technically-minded people are more connected to the culture of sharing the way we do it. But I think the "it either works or it doesn't, and figuring out which is straightforward" notion of coders could also factor into the equation, as illustrated by your hypothetical physics and mythology papers. I would expect the more technical paper to be oriented more towards facts and scientific hypotheses, things that can be evaluated and proven to "work". Even though it may require highly specific expertise which not that many people beyond the paper authors possess, it can be approached in a similar fashion.
With mythology or other humanities subjects, the academic paper may rely on some facts or things that are very nearly facts, assumptions that have universal acceptance though they may not be provable in the usual scientific sense. But I would expect the paper to contain a great deal of analysis that consists primarily of opinion, conjecture, and speculation. Highly informed opinion, conjecture, and speculation, mind you, and worthy of respect according to the thoughtfulness and expertise of the authors. Yet it may have difficulty establishing much in the way of new facts, or even ideas that may eventually come to be assumed as facts.
There are some related consequences that have relevance for Wikipedia as well. One is that it may be harder to collaborate on works that appear to involve endorsing views of which you are unsure, hence fewer authors signing on to a paper and a greater tendency toward a "lone wolf" approach. I know that personally I feel some slight hesitation when I edit just a section of an article that I might be seen as responsible for endorsing the whole (not just that there's no undetected vandalism or errors, but that the article is well-informed and balanced overall). Another issue is that the humanities approach to analytical writing is harder to adapt to a neutral point of view, because that's not really what you're encouraged to strive for. When writing student papers, I recall on so many occasions hearing exhortations to make an argument, take a stand, reach a definite conclusion. With more and more expertise behind it, that may be great for stimulating academic debate or advancing particular ideas, but Wikipedia wants that only at a considerable distance.
These dynamics play out in concerns about article "ownership" manifested in one direction, or in what David Gerard likes to call Wikipedia's house style in the other direction. Another manifestation is that it's probably a bigger challenge for experts in the humanities, broadly speaking, to persuasively overcome objections from the uninformed. It's easier for someone to be obtuse and stubbornly fight ideas that are generally accepted, something that for scientific questions shows up primarily in the biggest-picture contexts where no one expert can demonstrate or defend every last conclusion, topics like evolution or global warming.
--Michael Snow
On 20 September 2010 05:25, Michael Snow wikipedia@frontier.com wrote:
These dynamics play out in concerns about article "ownership" manifested in one direction, or in what David Gerard likes to call Wikipedia's house style in the other direction.
Note that I'm not a fan of it. Rant:
http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2010/09/09/the-wrung-dry-corpses-of-words/
There are a lot more good-enough researchers and fact-checkers than decent writers who don't just bolt on another subclause. This appears to apply across languages.
- d.
On 20/09/2010 04:21, Robert S. Horning wrote:
On 09/19/2010 06:52 PM, wiki-list@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote:
On 20/09/2010 00:26, Robert S. Horning wrote:
I'm not entirely sure how accurate this is, so I'm just making a raw conjecture here that is completely unsupported by facts other than perhaps by general observations:
Is it possible that the problem with the humanities-related articles on Wikipedia has more to do with the lack of an existing culture of "copyleft" or public domain collaboration? It has taken literally decades of effort that go back even a couple of decades earlier of similar efforts to put together what is today the "open source movement" that has produced things like Linux, the GNU tools, and software like Apache. Wikipedia is a product of this environment too, where many of those who have participated in developing open source software don't hesitate to at least add a couple of paragraphs to Wikipedia.
Linux, Apache, and the GNU Tools were the work of a handful of people. Others have come along and added a bit here or there or fixed something or other but I bet that if I were to look at the core source code for Emacs to day it wouldn't be that much different from when I worked on it 20 years ago.
Software changes either work or they don't and any change ought to be testable to demonstrate that it adds some new feature or fixes something broken. But there is a problem with software changes in that most changes tend to degrade the overall quality of the product in some way. Overtime, unless someone steps in and does a rewrite the code becomes a mess, and it happened one change at a time.
The same is true of wikipedia articles, edit by edit, they tend to degrade. There comes a point when they are 'done' and they knob polishers need to be told to bugger off and leave them alone.
While I appreciate extending the analogy, you are missing my point here. Geeks have been used to the philosophy of collaboratively written documents (including software) for quite some time and this was ingrained into at least a significant sub-set of technologically minded people for quite some time. It is this culture of sharing with one another and having no stigma of sharing your work and letting potentially millions of others poke at your work, tweak it or even trash it.
What?????
The chances of you or I being able to just chance the core code of Linux is zip, nada, ain't' gonna happen matey. Before anything goes back its going to have to have passed a whole load of tests, and it will be reviewed by experts in the code/subject area. The Open source software that matters is tightly controlled.
It isn't just this software but the tens of thousands of other applications that have been built and shared with the world. Wikipedia was formed from this community where sharing this kind of information was even a second nature. Indeed it has been encouraged for people of a technical nature to share the information they know with one another.
What I'm trying to point out is that a similar sub-culture within the community that works on arts and literature is such a minority that you might as well not really pay attention to it. Certainly academia isn't embracing Wikipedia for multiple reasons. That may be part of it as those in an academic situation tend to be a minority in technical fields but tend to dominate those with studies in the humanities. They are also hesitant to work collaboratively and even when that happens it tends to be very small groups... not groups of dozens or hundreds involved. A paper on physics may have hundreds of co-authors, but a similar academic paper on Greek Mythology may only have a couple authors or a single author. This is a cultural difference that can't be understated.
When you have 100s of authors tweaking and adding stuff you tend to end up with at best a turgid mess. Which is why people are saying that the articles are worstening over time.
Gerard says that the mathematics were improved by a handful of people getting together and fixing the mess. Back in 2006/7 it was awful and the physics was even worse. If it ain't been locked down the janitors will degrade their work with minor tweaks soon as night follows day.
--- On Mon, 20/9/10, Robert S. Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
When I see those involved with the Humanities, it is a very different environment. I merely mentioned to one historian that I was writing a Wikipedia article and wanted to ask him a relatively minor question that could easily be answered.... I was just trying to find the source for some information he wrote on a website to see if there might be some additional information I could use in a related Wikipedia article. Instead, he unleashed on me how I was wasting my time and how I should stay away from Wikipedia if I knew what was good for me. On top of that, he mentioned that as a professor he would automatically flunk a student out of his class (not just give an "F" on the assignment) if he found a student even consulting Wikipedia for an initial overview of a topic. There was that much hostility to the project.
I had much the same experience when I contacted a sociologist, widely considered one of the world's top scholars in his field, for clarification of a passage in a book he had written. I mentioned it was for a Wikipedia article. In his reply, he said,
"... I do not permit any of my students to cite your encyclopedia as any kind of reliable source when they write papers for me. Wik. is too much a playground for social activists of whatever editorial bent wherein the lowest common denominator gets to negotiate reality for readers. No thanks."
His next e-mail was friendlier, but this is what Wikipedia is up against in terms of winning humanities scholars' goodwill ...
A.
Some excellent comments in the last few posts. To address a few.
1. On the idea that scholars in the humanities don't know how to work together: definitely not!! I myself am working on a collaborative project (a translation of Duns Scotus) with someone in the US. I have never met this person, but we have worked together by email for more than two years on a large project. I have never had any trouble working with him, apart occasional complaints about the speed of progress. We have met many substantive issues about which there is disagreement and potential conflict. In every case we have met this by reasoned argument, evidence, sourcing and so on. Occasionally we have had resort to third party views, but only when we agreed the problem was too difficult for us to resolve. And the third parties were taken from our small community of co-workers, which is evidence in itself that we are a community, used to working together. As further evidence, consider the great translation of St Thomas's Summa Theologiae into English in the 1930s. A huge undertaking, made by many translators working together in harmony. A sample here http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1001.htm . So, humanities scholars often work together, often in large groups.
2. More pertinent is Michael's comment "With mythology or other humanities subjects, the academic paper may rely on some facts or things that are very nearly facts, assumptions that have universal acceptance though they may not be provable in the usual scientific sense." Again, humanities scholars have worked out methods of dealing with the problem that 'facts' in the humanities aren't as clear-cutand decidable as facts in the hard sciences. Whereas any component mathematician knows what Cantor's or Goedel's proof is, to state the key ideas of Aristotle in a paragraph is much harder. But we have worked out ways of dealing with this, and that is part of every student's training. Indeed the idea of 'primary' vs 'secondary' source comes not from the hard sciences, but from the humanities (from textual criticism, I think, but I am not sure). As an example of this, consider the well-known distinction between Anglo-American 'analytic' philosophy and 'Continental' philosophy. This is profound, yet because we all have a common humanities background, we are able to work together on Wikipedia. There are about 4 academically trained editors working on Philosophy in Wikipedia, 2 from the Anglo background, 2 from the Continental. I have never known any disagreement among this group. The big disagreements come about in the edit wars between the academically trained philosophers and the untrained ones, for example the 'Objectivists' or disciples of Ayn Rand. These have had no formal training in the way of resolving disputes and the way of resolving difficult problems that is essential to academic training.
In summary, the problem is not that humanities scholars cannot work together. Many of them do, sometimes in large groups. And the problem is not that there is no method of working problems out. Such methods are integral to training in the humanities. (Indeed, that is the main component of such training - it's not the content of what you learn that is important, it is the well-defined methods of approaching problems). In my experience the problem of humanities in Wikipedia is that the methods and training of the 'experts' is so fundamentally different from that of 'Wikipedians' (who by and large have no training at all) that disputes nearly always turn ugly.
On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 8:02 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Some excellent comments in the last few posts.
I agree, it's been an interesting conversation.
Now... do we have a call to action?
One of the things I note with this mailing list is that we are good at pointing out problems and there's a lot of insight to be gained from reading the threads. I'm a better and more committed Wikipedian for being subscribed.
I wonder, though, whether we ought to push ourselves to try and come to resolutions towards the end of threads like these and my favoured way of doing that would be that we try to finish up with "I am going to do x, y and z."
For the most part I think that the response will be "er, I don't intend to do *anything*!"
And that's entirely reasonable. I imagine many of us have our own goals in place for years to come*. The majority of people have priorities that are different to those expressed in any one thread. It would be strange if every thread that began suddenly caused everyone to shift their focus.
So I guess the only reasonable way to institute this is for the person who started the thread to always come back at the end (say when nothing has been added for a week) with a post expressing a course of action. Not only would this give us more of a sense that our conversations are having a meaningful impact on the projects but, in expressing a next step, the original poster might get one or two others on board saying "I'll help with that."
And that conversation-closing post might just be "I've summarised this discussion on [wiki page]" with a link.
The great thing about conversations on wikis is that they can be discovered and revived in the future. That isn't going to happen on this mailing list, where conversations are ephemeral. Conversations may be *repeated* but that's not the same thing.
And an upside, if we place this sort of burden on anyone who starts a thread, might be that starting a thread becomes more of a thought out process; you start one knowing that you will experience some peer pressure to meaningfully conclude it. It would hopefully mean fewer threads and more concrete results.
* My preference is for proof-reading / copy editing and for every article I read I identify a further article to be read, and it is not uncommon for one article to show me tens more (via the templates at the bottom) candidates for a read. So, for some time, my work load (or play load, since I enjoy it) has been growing exponentially rather than decreasing.
Hello,
2010/9/17 Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Wjhonson" wjhonson@aol.com
Quote: "Then you are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'educational' I think. "
Perhaps the word you want is "academic".
No I meant 'educational'. I'm actually quite shocked by some of the things being said in this thread, and that the people who have said them are running Wikipedia. Does anyone else, apart from these two, have any views on what they have said? The WMF goal is about "collecting and developing educational content". Does that mean 'education' in the sense I have characterised it? I.e. bringing to the public subjects that are generally not ephemeral or trivial, and which are enduring and a monument to the human spirit, and generally noble and good, in a way that is interesting and accessible?
I agree that the core content of Wikipedia should be educational, not trivia.
I also agree that there is a strong unbalance against humanities, and social sciences, as you said "Linguistics, economics, sociology and philosophy". I would add pedagogy and psychology among the areas with the poorest quality.
I think that was OK in the beginning, and maybe still in 2005, and I have hoped it would correct itself over time, when the average contributor would shift away from geeks and free software activists (I am myself a geek and a free software/content activist, just to be clear). It worries me now than 10 years after the project started, we still have this strong unbalance. Of course, the quality of most articles has improved, but I would like to see some serious study about this unbalance, and what WMF intends to do to correct this.
I would be interested in other people's views.
Regards,
Yann
On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Yann Forget yannfo@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that the core content of Wikipedia should be educational, not trivia.
Well, here's our core content (5 thousand or so out of 3.x million):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Expanded
As it happens I've been proofreading articles of late; under nobody's say-so I've decided to work my through The Time 100:
http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/leaders/
I'm only through the first 12. I have to say, I've been delighted by what I've seen. 12 out of 3.x million isn't a much better sample than the two or three this thread has so far been offered. So all we can say at this point is that "one user thinks that nothing is better since 2005" whilst "another user thinks that what we have in 2010 is delightful".
Which brings us back the question: what is the quality of our content?
Well this list of the 1,000 most important articles as judged by [waves hand, but I think we'll grant that they think [[Biology]] more important than [[Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo]] ] doesn't give any figures but does show the quality rating for each article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Core_topics_-_1,000
Scanning with my eyes I see a lot of green, where green = B.
So there is your answer, probably. Wikipedia's grade is B.
What does B mean? Here we are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:B-criteria
Hey, that sounds pretty good!
So: In 2010 we can say "Wikipedia is pretty good".
Unfortunately this still leaves the question: was Wikipedia pretty good in 2005?
I find I feel absolutely no compulsion to attempt to answer this. But since it is a question of importance to Peter Damian he will of course present data of comparable complexity to mine after the weekend.
Deciding whether to give money to an educational charity that "has made 1,000 educational topics available for free which are pretty good" is a matter for one's own heart.
Of course, the quality of most articles has improved, but I would like to see some serious study about this unbalance [between triv and educational content], and what WMF intends to do to correct this.
Correction implies wrongness. There will always be more television programmes, long playing records, popular beat combos and innovative sex toys than there will be Einsteins, paradigm shifting scientific discoveries and philosophical enquiries. These are the degraded times in which we live. I suspect the popularity of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in his day was rightly castigated for being nothing more than a tawdry narrative of Miller's arses. Society really started to go downhill in the 14th century and absolutely nothing has improved since then.
But since we must live with the triv/education imbalance that Chaucer burdened us with, we can at least pray that the twelve year old who religiously edits [[Numb3rs]] (sic) now might be editing [[mathematical modelling]] in a decade's time; after all the second is wikilinked in the first. It's surely not too much to ask that someone clicks his mouse once each either side of puberty?
But I agree with Yann... we should remove our article on [[Crazy Frog]]. Isn't it horrifying to think how broad our coverage is? I can't tell you how angry I feel when someone tells me they know of Wikipedia. I'm glad at first, of course, but when they tell me they were searching Google for [[Hanson (band)]] and we were one of the top ten hits, I am repulsed. I am forced to think "Bleurgh! We don't want *that* *sort* *of* *person* here!"
And, no, I am not mollified when they say "I found out that one member had a [[pulmonary embolism]], I didn't know what that was, so I clicked. And there someone had spelt 'heart' as 'haert' so I changed it and from that point I got excited about Wikipedia."
This sort of story I find eminently vomit-inducing and I generally stalk their contributions waiting for them to do something else objectionable so that I can get the mods to ban them. Unfortunately he hasn't done anything that falls outside the guidelines yet, these last five years, but he will one day and I'll be there.
I estimate that about 70% of our content should be jettisoned. That 70% of material does absolutely nothing but pique people's prurient interest in Wikipedia, it brings undesirable people on board that then have the temerity to add sourced contributions to core articles, and I suspect these people then go off and tell other people about Wikipedia. I mean, who needs it?
User:Bodnotbod
Bod Notbod, when you say, "I see a lot of green", it's also worth looking at what B actually means. The article on Doris Lessing for example, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is B class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_lessing
It is woefully inadequate. It says there are three phases to her writing, communist, psychological, and sufic. Only the latter has any coverage at all, and it is generally the least highly regarded part of her output. Everything there is on superficial "controversies" (why did she write science fiction, is she a feminist).
Almost all the sources are newspaper articles; there is not a trace of the available peer-reviewed literature on her output.
It is much the same in the article on Selma Lagerlöf, another Nobel Prize winner, which is Start class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_Lagerl%C3%B6f
Again, no trace of the scholarly literature. The only biography listed in the bibliography is "Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II", which is sort of typical.
I think there *is* a problem with the humanities, as well as with the gender imbalance in Wikipedia.
It would be worthwhile to study the location of these deficiencies in more depth, and perhaps to establish links to universities, similar to the recently launched public policy initiative, to address the areas where Wikipedia's natural contributor base does most poorly.
--- On Sat, 18/9/10, Bod Notbod bodnotbod@gmail.com wrote:
From: Bod Notbod bodnotbod@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005? To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Saturday, 18 September, 2010, 1:04 On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Yann Forget yannfo@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that the core content of Wikipedia should be
educational, not trivia.
Well, here's our core content (5 thousand or so out of 3.x million):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Expanded
As it happens I've been proofreading articles of late; under nobody's say-so I've decided to work my through The Time 100:
http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/leaders/
I'm only through the first 12. I have to say, I've been delighted by what I've seen. 12 out of 3.x million isn't a much better sample than the two or three this thread has so far been offered. So all we can say at this point is that "one user thinks that nothing is better since 2005" whilst "another user thinks that what we have in 2010 is delightful".
Which brings us back the question: what is the quality of our content?
Well this list of the 1,000 most important articles as judged by [waves hand, but I think we'll grant that they think [[Biology]] more important than [[Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo]] ] doesn't give any figures but does show the quality rating for each article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Core_topics_-_1,000
Scanning with my eyes I see a lot of green, where green = B.
So there is your answer, probably. Wikipedia's grade is B.
What does B mean? Here we are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:B-criteria
Hey, that sounds pretty good!
So: In 2010 we can say "Wikipedia is pretty good".
Unfortunately this still leaves the question: was Wikipedia pretty good in 2005?
I find I feel absolutely no compulsion to attempt to answer this. But since it is a question of importance to Peter Damian he will of course present data of comparable complexity to mine after the weekend.
Deciding whether to give money to an educational charity that "has made 1,000 educational topics available for free which are pretty good" is a matter for one's own heart.
Of course, the quality of most articles has improved,
but I would like
to see some serious study about this unbalance
[between triv and educational content], and what WMF
intends to do to correct this.
Correction implies wrongness. There will always be more television programmes, long playing records, popular beat combos and innovative sex toys than there will be Einsteins, paradigm shifting scientific discoveries and philosophical enquiries. These are the degraded times in which we live. I suspect the popularity of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in his day was rightly castigated for being nothing more than a tawdry narrative of Miller's arses. Society really started to go downhill in the 14th century and absolutely nothing has improved since then.
But since we must live with the triv/education imbalance that Chaucer burdened us with, we can at least pray that the twelve year old who religiously edits [[Numb3rs]] (sic) now might be editing [[mathematical modelling]] in a decade's time; after all the second is wikilinked in the first. It's surely not too much to ask that someone clicks his mouse once each either side of puberty?
But I agree with Yann... we should remove our article on [[Crazy Frog]]. Isn't it horrifying to think how broad our coverage is? I can't tell you how angry I feel when someone tells me they know of Wikipedia. I'm glad at first, of course, but when they tell me they were searching Google for [[Hanson (band)]] and we were one of the top ten hits, I am repulsed. I am forced to think "Bleurgh! We don't want *that* *sort* *of* *person* here!"
And, no, I am not mollified when they say "I found out that one member had a [[pulmonary embolism]], I didn't know what that was, so I clicked. And there someone had spelt 'heart' as 'haert' so I changed it and from that point I got excited about Wikipedia."
This sort of story I find eminently vomit-inducing and I generally stalk their contributions waiting for them to do something else objectionable so that I can get the mods to ban them. Unfortunately he hasn't done anything that falls outside the guidelines yet, these last five years, but he will one day and I'll be there.
I estimate that about 70% of our content should be jettisoned. That 70% of material does absolutely nothing but pique people's prurient interest in Wikipedia, it brings undesirable people on board that then have the temerity to add sourced contributions to core articles, and I suspect these people then go off and tell other people about Wikipedia. I mean, who needs it?
User:Bodnotbod
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On 09/18/10 8:34 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
Bod Notbod, when you say, "I see a lot of green", it's also worth looking at what B actually means. The article on Doris Lessing for example, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is B class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_lessing
It is woefully inadequate. It says there are three phases to her writing, communist, psychological, and sufic. Only the latter has any coverage at all, and it is generally the least highly regarded part of her output. Everything there is on superficial "controversies" (why did she write science fiction, is she a feminist).
Almost all the sources are newspaper articles; there is not a trace of the available peer-reviewed literature on her output.
It is much the same in the article on Selma Lagerlöf, another Nobel Prize winner, which is Start class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_Lagerl%C3%B6f
Again, no trace of the scholarly literature. The only biography listed in the bibliography is "Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II", which is sort of typical.
I think there *is* a problem with the humanities, as well as with the gender imbalance in Wikipedia.
It would be worthwhile to study the location of these deficiencies in more depth, and perhaps to establish links to universities, similar to the recently launched public policy initiative, to address the areas where Wikipedia's natural contributor base does most poorly.
You are comparing two women writers so I don't see gender imbalance as a factor here. I have also little to no interest in the game of determining whether any article is start, B, or feature class. If you recognize the stated deficiencies applying "sofixit" could be more constructive than an in-depth analysis of the problems.
Mention of the one work in the Bibliography only begs the question of why it has never been merged with the other 8 works in the "works about" section. I agree that focusing on someone's sexual orientation is a matter of minor importance. I can only respons with "So what?" I also agree that there should be greater use of scholarly literature, especially for Lagerlöf because her prize was 90 years earlier; that simply gives that much more time for these works to have been written. Some may even be in the public domain.
Recentism may also be a factor in the analysis, as is the fact that only Lessing wrote in English. A first step may be to list all the works that can be found about these writers (useful or not), and use that as a stepping stone to improvement. It does not take academic qualifications to do that. It does take work.
Ray
----- Original Message ----- From: "Wjhonson" wjhonson@aol.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:34 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
I dont understand how information about pornography, computer games, tv shows... is not educational. If I want to know whether Berle Ives was ever a guest star on Bewitched, why wouldn't we fulfill a request like that in project ?
Perhaps this may help.
"The words 'cultivate' and 'civilize' are almost synonymous to the word 'educate'. That says it! Education is important as it teaches us the right behavior, the good manners thus making us civilized. It teaches us how to lead our lives. Education is the basis of culture and civilization. It is instrumental in the development of our values and virtues. Education cultivates us into mature individuals, individuals capable of planning for our futures and taking the right decisions. Education arms us with an insight to look at our lives and learn from every experience. The future of a nation is safe in the hands of educated individuals. Education is important for the economic growth of a nation. It fosters principles of equality and socialism. Education forms a support system for talents to excel in life. It is the backbone of society." http://www.buzzle.com/articles/why-is-education-so-important.html
Risker >>In 2005, the English Wikipedia had less than half the number of articles it has now.
Hs anyone made a serious study of what these articles actually contain?
Only a tiny number of articles were considered of high enough quality to be
"featured" in 2005; that number has grown exponentially at the same time as quality standards for featured content has become more rigorous.
I think the featured articles are generally of merit. I would never deny that.
Can the content of all our projects be improved? Of course it can; even our
highest quality content benefits from periodic review and improvement.
My point was rather that the content in certain areas is abysmal and easily improved. Linguistics, economics, sociology and of course philosophy are in a terrible state.
I'd suggest, however, that the progress of only a handful of the 12 million
articles and files across the WMF group is probably not the best way to assess the overall quality of the project.
Well featured articles are a handful of the 12 million articles aren't they? The only way to deal with this issue is methodically. Take any humanities subject, and compare the quality and proportionality of the treatment with any standard reference work on the same subject. My strong sense, in my own area of specialisation, is that Wikipedia is very poor.
Nathan >>You are, and have been, committed to several conclusions about Wikipedia - that the idea of an editable encyclopedia itself is fatally flawed, that it is unduly oriented to topics of interest to "the masses", and that the community and its bureaucracy are [sic] hopefully corrupt and ineffective.
I don't see an argument here. I don't think that Wikipedia is fatally flawed, by any means. I have pointed out areas of weakness. On the point about 'the masses', surely you agree there is a balance to strike between appealing to the popular, and 'education'. Education by definition is allowing people to acquire knowledge, stuff they wouldn't have got for themselves without help. I have been a teacher, and I am strongly committed to that ideal.
And there is strong evidence of corruption, but as I was banned for pointing that out, it is unfair of you to bring it up, I think.
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Risker >>In 2005, the English Wikipedia had less than half the number of articles it has now.
Hs anyone made a serious study of what these articles actually contain?
Only a tiny number of articles were considered of high enough quality to be
"featured" in 2005; that number has grown exponentially at the same time as quality standards for featured content has become more rigorous.
I think the featured articles are generally of merit. I would never deny that.
Can the content of all our projects be improved? Of course it can; even our
highest quality content benefits from periodic review and improvement.
My point was rather that the content in certain areas is abysmal and easily improved. Linguistics, economics, sociology and of course philosophy are in a terrible state.
I'd suggest, however, that the progress of only a handful of the 12 million
articles and files across the WMF group is probably not the best way to assess the overall quality of the project.
Well featured articles are a handful of the 12 million articles aren't they? The only way to deal with this issue is methodically. Take any humanities subject, and compare the quality and proportionality of the treatment with any standard reference work on the same subject. My strong sense, in my own area of specialisation, is that Wikipedia is very poor.
Nathan >>You are, and have been, committed to several conclusions about Wikipedia - that the idea of an editable encyclopedia itself is fatally flawed, that it is unduly oriented to topics of interest to "the masses", and that the community and its bureaucracy are [sic] hopefully corrupt and ineffective.
I don't see an argument here. I don't think that Wikipedia is fatally flawed, by any means. I have pointed out areas of weakness. On the point about 'the masses', surely you agree there is a balance to strike between appealing to the popular, and 'education'. Education by definition is allowing people to acquire knowledge, stuff they wouldn't have got for themselves without help. I have been a teacher, and I am strongly committed to that ideal.
And there is strong evidence of corruption, but as I was banned for pointing that out, it is unfair of you to bring it up, I think.
(Just to clarify, since my error above might distort the meaning - I intended to write "are hopelessly corrupt and ineffective", not "hopefully").
It's always been my impression that you fundamentally disagree with the idea of allowing a popular reference work to be written by anyone who wants to participate, advanced education or no. Perhaps this is because you view Wikipedia as an attempt at educating the public. I don't think this is the right way of looking at it. In my mind the purpose is to make as much information as possible available to as wide an audience as possible, which is in line with the normal purpose of a reference work - but not the same as developing a comprehensive text intended as a curriculum aid. Normal reference works discriminate against "frivolous" topics because they have space and financial limits. Wikipedia suffers from neither, so the intentional balancing you suggest is unnecessary.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan" nawrich@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:22 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
It's always been my impression that you fundamentally disagree with the idea of allowing a popular reference work to be written by anyone who wants to participate, advanced education or no. Perhaps this is because you view Wikipedia as an attempt at educating the public.
Then your impression was wrong. I think the system should make it easier for those with a knowledge of their subject to edit, that's all. I have always been excited by the way that a crowd of mostly amateurs can write perfectly good articles in a way that is accurate and interesting. There is much to praise in Wikipedia.
Can you give an example of what "appeal to the popular" means in the context of our project and how those "appeals" as you say are not educational? For example just today, at work, a question came up about exactly what a certain divorce proceeding said about a certain politician and why that ruined his chances of getting elected. I looked it up in Wikipedia and everyone thought I was very resourceful for being able to find the answer and now they know a lot more about sex clubs and ex-wives. Now that's popular, tabloid if you will, but it's also knowledge and it's in the project where it should be.
QUOTE I have pointed out areas of weakness. On the point bout 'the masses', surely you agree there is a balance to strike between ppealing to the popular, and 'education'. Education by definition is llowing people to acquire knowledge, stuff they wouldn't have got for hemselves without help. ENDQUOTE
-----Original Message----- From: Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, Sep 16, 2010 1:10 pm Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Risker >>In 2005, the English Wikipedia had less than half the number of rticles it has now. Hs anyone made a serious study of what these articles actually contain?
Only a tiny number of articles were considered of high enough quality to
be
featured" in 2005; that number has grown exponentially at the same time as uality standards for featured content has become more rigorous. I think the featured articles are generally of merit. I would never deny hat.
Can the content of all our projects be improved? Of course it can; even
our
ighest quality content benefits from periodic review and improvement. My point was rather that the content in certain areas is abysmal and easily mproved. Linguistics, economics, sociology and of course philosophy are in terrible state.
I'd suggest, however, that the progress of only a handful of the 12
million
rticles and files across the WMF group is probably not the best way to ssess the overall quality of the project. Well featured articles are a handful of the 12 million articles aren't they? he only way to deal with this issue is methodically. Take any humanities ubject, and compare the quality and proportionality of the treatment with ny standard reference work on the same subject. My strong sense, in my own rea of specialisation, is that Wikipedia is very poor. Nathan >>You are, and have been, committed to several conclusions about ikipedia - that the idea of an editable encyclopedia itself is atally flawed, that it is unduly oriented to topics of interest to the masses", and that the community and its bureaucracy are [sic] hopefully orrupt and ineffective. I don't see an argument here. I don't think that Wikipedia is fatally lawed, by any means. I have pointed out areas of weakness. On the point bout 'the masses', surely you agree there is a balance to strike between ppealing to the popular, and 'education'. Education by definition is llowing people to acquire knowledge, stuff they wouldn't have got for hemselves without help. I have been a teacher, and I am strongly committed o that ideal. And there is strong evidence of corruption, but as I was banned for pointing hat out, it is unfair of you to bring it up, I think.
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Wjhonson" wjhonson@aol.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:25 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Can you give an example of what "appeal to the popular" means in the
context of our project and how those "appeals" as you say are not educational? For example just today, at work, a question came up about exactly what a certain divorce proceeding said about a certain politician and why that ruined his chances of getting elected. I looked it up in Wikipedia and everyone thought I was very resourceful for being able to find the answer and now they know a lot more about sex clubs and ex-wives. Now that's popular, tabloid if you will, but it's also knowledge and it's in the project where it should be.
A good reference work should be 'accessible'. It shouldn't be written in a style of an academic work, i.e. dry, dusty, difficult to read. So it should 'appeal'.
On whether 'tabloid' material should be in an encyclopedia, well, so long as it is not absurdly biased towards the trivial. The whole point of education is to give something they wouldn't have easily got in a newspaper, say.
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 1:10 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
Risker >>In 2005, the English Wikipedia had less than half the number of articles it has now.
Hs anyone made a serious study of what these articles actually contain?
Yes. But not across "all articles". Anyone can pick and chose subsets or specific articles which aren't improving much if at all.
I have two responses:
1. SOFIXIT - if you have IDed problems, fix them, or flag them for more attention (this thread was a form of that, but not terribly efficient).
2. If your opinion is firmly and irrevocably set that there isn't a continual improvement over time on the average, vote with your feet and pocketbook and find projects that you think are improving over time.
My personal opinion is that, specific examples notwithstanding, there's a clear trend towards bigger better more accurate articles in nearly all topic areas.
Your mileage may vary. If you have something like a longer list of backsliding articles please make it available for others to review; if you have serious statistical evidence of a problem please post that.
Specific examples one at a time isn't in a project sense helpful. If there's a real problem it can be demonstrated with real evidence across sets of articles.
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 3:59 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
People who donate to Wikimedia do so for a number of reasons, chief among them (I suspect) is to support keeping the lights on. That is, the ongoing maintenance of the project in its current form. Most donors are probably aware that the content is generated by volunteers who will not receive donated funds. I'm not sure why you infer that donors are, or should be, expecting to see some content improvement as a result of their funding.
Because hosting the current content without any improvement could be done for a tiny fraction of the WMF budget.
Topic: Has Wikipedia changed since 2005? <snip a lot>
Nope, not a thing changed. We just got a few more entries, but we were successful in keeping exactly the same structures, prevent people from getting to know us, vandalism stayed at the same rate and therefore there was no need to change the software at all. There were barely improvements in quality, and everything is just as bad as in The Days. Just for the record: between 2001 and 2005 not much changed either.
I hope this answers your question, although somewhat sarcastically :)
Lodewijk
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