On Feb 15, 2010, at 10:46 PM, Domas Mituzas wrote: That's pretty snarky, Domas. There was a legitimate question there. Tyler, Wikipedia is a collaborative project. It's our belief (which has been proven) that the collective knowledge of the crowd is better than a traditional encyclopedia. Sure, there are vandals -but as they crop up, we'll keep batting them down. We're getting really good at it. :) Philippe

| -----Original Message----- | From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l- | bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jon Davis | Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 5:53 AM / | In the end, vandals get bored. It is thrilling to defile Wikipedia | once or twice, but when your changes are swiftly dealt with... it | loses its appeal. | There isn't much fun in writing graffiti that no one will see. Right. Particularly when given Wikipedia, as Polish, has included Flagged versions. Vandals practically left my observed sides alone. Janusz "Ency" Dorozynski

On Monday 15 Feb 2010 23:53:45 Tyler wrote: You may wish to read: http://www.madsgormlarsen.dk/2009/02/22/the-fear-of-user-generated-content/ In one of the open source conferences in Israel, the bureaucrat of the Hebrew wikipedia, came on stage and said "How can you trust an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit? How can you trust an encyclopaedia that no one can edit!!" and then he gave two examples of inaccuracies - one in a Hebrew printed encyclopaedia and the other in the online Britannica one, where the Hebrew word "Hanasi" (הנשיא) was translated into "The prince" instead of "The president" or "The leader". Vandalism is a problem, but there are many way to mitigate it. And by harnessing the efforts of a large number of Internet contributors, the Wikipedia became much more comprehensive than it was without user-generated- content. That's the point of wikipedia. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Understand what Open Source is - http://shlom.in/oss-fs Deletionists delete Wikipedia articles that they consider lame. Chuck Norris deletes deletionists whom he considers lame. Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .

Shlomi Fish wrote: I usually say: "I admit it is counter-intuitive, but practice has shown that it works."

Dear Tyler, the kids have got a point. This bothers a lot of people. But it is not so crucial. First of all, vandals are not a big problem for Wikipedia. The number of vandals is much lower then billion. Editors are very successful in a fight against them so far. Naturally appearing mistakes and biases are much worse. However, they appear in every encyclopedia. Only editors of Wikipedia can correct them really quickly. The success of Wikipedia is based on this possibility. It is also a reason why Wikipedia exists. Then, the Wikipedia does publish its sources. Everybody can check them. The kids in your school are advised to do it too. It would be great if they learn to do it with all information sources. It is also very important to mention that nobody who wants to do a _serious research_ should use encyclopedia. Therefore in cases when students in colleges and universities are told not to use Wikipedia in their works, Wikipedia is just an example of the encyclopedia which is most easily accessible. Of course, it is not correct when students and especially pupils are told they should never use Wikipedia. There are many occasions in life when usage of encyclopedia is completely right. And Wikipedia is a good encyclopedia. For example, there is no serious reason why pupils should not use the Wikipedia if they want to read about something they are interested in. (The pupils should not simply copy Wikipedia articles but this applies to any source.) There is no serious reason why journalists should not use it to explain some particular term. From these points of views, Wikipedia is a tertiary source like any other. And finally, nothing can stop you if you want to fork the Wikipedia and run a reviewed, closed and "trustful" encyclopedia. Do it! It will help to everybody, to Wikipedia itself as well. (You can even make some money!) Jiri

On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 9:53 PM, Tyler <programmer651(a)comcast.net> wrote: You've had some replies now, Tyler. I'm interested to know whether they have persuaded you or not? The majority of us on this list are pretty devoted to the project but most of us realise there's a vast population we need to convince regarding the value of Wikipedia. Have you tried looking at Wikipedia pages on subjects you're interested in and/or are knowledgeable about? What did you think of the articles? Did you at least value the list of references and external links you found?

On 02/16/2010 02:12 AM, Ziko van Dijk wrote: In a strange way, that pleases me; as Danny Hillis says, "What people mean by the word technology is the stuff that doesn't work yet." That people use Wikipedia regularly without caring about the the inner workings is a sign that we've done something right. Of course, it might be too right; maybe we'd like people to pay better attention to the quality of what they're reading. Interestingly, the people who make luggage X-ray machines have a similar problem: problems are rare enough that the operators get bored and stop looking. Their solution is something called Threat Image Projection: they randomly add pictures of bad things to images of real bags. When the operator notices something dangerous, they press the "threat" button. If they don't notice a projected threat, it's counted against them. That keeps the operators alert enough that they'll hopefully notice real threats. I'd love to find some way to usefully apply this approach to Wikipedia, but haven't come up with anything yet. Perhaps someone here will. William

On Feb 16, 2010, at 10:19 AM, Domas Mituzas wrote: Indeed, I remember some wonderful conversations, particularly one in which Domas and I attempted to drink all the beer in Argentina. At lunch. We were THIS close. It's because of that interaction and the solid base that it's built on that I felt comfortable telling Domas he was being snarky and, because of the smiley at the front of his reply to me, I know he was attempting to be humorous. For the record, no consultants were harmed in the making of my email. As for Tyler, I think it's important to remember that this is an outward facing list - emails may be read and responded to by people who have little to no knowledge of the Foundation and we have a responsibility - I think it's stronger than that - a moral imperative - to respond to good faith questions in a good-faith nature. That's where I think Domas slipped up. I also think he realizes it, and there's no need to expand on that. I'm going to hold you to that. Care to place a friendly wager? Polish beer? Philippe P.S. A lesson we've all learned once upon a time, usually the hard way. ____________________ Philippe Beaudette Facilitator, Strategy Project Wikimedia Foundation philippe(a)wikimedia.org Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

On 15 Feb 2010 at 16:53, Tyler wrote: Tyler, The full answer is probably awaiting you at university in the terms of a thesis. ;-) The abridged answer as I see it ... I can redirect your thinking to focus on the issue in another way. 1) For any encyclopaedia, it is not about who edits, it is the quality of the data. Hence it is not about trusting or not trusting Wikipedia, it is looking at the article of interest (at WP or elsewhere) and evaluating its use of sources, the primacy of the data utilised, the quality and breadth of data used, the independence of the sources. For biographical detail, what is the source of the detail of the birth, the marriage, the death. If it came from offical BMD sources, then it is official data, if it came from someone's scrapings on a toilet wall, it isn't. When put in that perspective, it looks bleeding obvious. Always remember the basic principle of "Garbage in; garbage out"[1] aka SISO. Is it perfect? No. It is continually improving, and all participants can provide the rigour. Let's look at some advantages and strengths? The broader Wikimedia community and the data that they bring. For instance, Wikisource is working on bringing public domain sources online. So Wikipedia has the ability to direclty link to the works of Isaac Newton, Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin etc., and editors can work on such projects simultaneously. With respect to vandalism? Yes, it is there, and the reality is that redirects some people's focus and efforts away from all the positive work. At the same time, it is a function of the battle on the web against some negative factors. We build better tools to address this. My perspective on this is that every journey has some difficulties, and if we do wish to just stay in an area of absolute security, we are not going to be out there to discover. Personally, I prefer discovery! Regards Andrew [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_In,_Garbage_Out